Schweizer is an excellent researcher and you can be certain he has done his homework. In SECRET EMPIRES he went after
the PLAGUE OF CORRUPTION on both sides of the political aisle, including Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife's ties to
the Chinese government.
In PROFILES IN CORRUPTION, Schweizer goes after the Biden 5, using extensive documentation to reveal the network of
corrupt tributaries which feed the Washington DC swamp. He also attacks Senator Elizabeth Warren's work on bankruptcy
laws, then advising the same corporate clients impacted by those laws. Also put under scrutiny is Senator Amy
Klobuchar's interesting habit of taking big money from donors, then introducing laws to benefit those same donors a few
days later.
Schweizer's writing reminds one of a fantastic criminal prosecutor, laying down a fast-paced and bullet-proof case for
crimes on a scale which will be shocking to the average man or woman who tries to live a moral life. The biggest
criminals are those who claim to be better than us.
All Americans should give thanks to Peter Schweizer for the type of journalism that used to be done by our TV and print
journalists before they were decimated by the internet.
>
~~Well,
well, well....the Abuse of Power runs deep...~~
HALL OF FAME
TOP
10 REVIEWER
4.0 out of 5 stars
~~Well,
well, well....the Abuse of Power runs deep...~~
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2020
Verified Purchase
Yesterday afternoon I spent an hour or so researching the bio of Peter Schweizer.
The blurb for this book doesn't mention much about him although it does mention several of his previous books ...which I
have not read. According to what I found, the author is the President of Government Accountability Institute (GAI). I
did a little more research on 'Clinton Cash:...." and checked several sources on the internet and this is what I
found...... 'Clinton Cash...." apparently had some factual errors in it that were corrected after publication. (7 or 8
passages) and it is also mentions that the Clinton Foundation admitted that it had made some mistakes and they had
implemented new rules... That is as far as I went
There is a certain amount of trust, I believe, when reading any book but especially now with books on politics being
published at an alarming rate it is even more important that we trust what is being written. I read with an open mind
and trust this author that the information presented is credible and well-researched.
Such an interesting topic for me...And, as my title suggests, the abuse of power does indeed run deep. The author has
presented 'corporate documents and legal findings from around the globe' (as stated in the description for the book).
In the book itself, eight politicians are discussed and in detail. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Bernie
Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Eric Garcetti and Sherrod Brown. I will admit that I was interested in Bernie
Sanders the most as I am from Vermont. And, with the race for the Democratic nomination in full swing, Elizabeth Warren,
and Joe Biden were next on my list.
According to the author this abuse of power comes in different forms. It may be that they use their positions to advance
their position; it may be that they use their positions to advance and enrich themselves, using public power for
personal gain and the use of the judicial system to right social wrongs. As one may envision, the more power one has,
the more abuse of power is possible. And, there are financial ties to special interest.
Am not going into detail about the eight mentioned in this book. I will admit that some were shocking revelations to me.
It is amazing what one will do when power is at your beck and call. This book should be on your 'read' list prior to
placing your vote in the upcoming Presidential election. The information presented in this one could very well change
your thought process. Personally, I do not hold the same ideas about most of these individuals as I did prior to reading
this one.
Lots of notes are in the text so one can go to the back of the book, if interested, to check the sources. I thought it
was a well researched book from the notes given.
For me, a most interesting read and am glad that I purchased it. The manners in which power has been abused was indeed
an eye opener (in some cases) for me. I think we all know that with the accumulation of power, there is the tendency to
abuse it. Doesn't make it right but...
Chock
FULL OF BOMBSHELLS You Won't Hear About Anywhere Else!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Chock
FULL OF BOMBSHELLS You Won't Hear About Anywhere Else!
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2020
Verified Purchase
I bought the book after I saw Schweizer on TV last night. But there is so much
more in this page turning book that I never thought possible. So you have the Biden five, Bernie Sanders and his wife's
relentless pursuit of capitalist gains, Kamala Harris who appears to be a very dirty cop, Elizabeth Warren and her three
layer cake of corruption, Amy Klobuchar and her low energy cronyism... ON AND ON AND ON!!
There just isn't enough time in a TV segment for Schweizer to lay out all the evidence he has uncovered of terrible
corruption among Americas progressive elite! You have to buy the book to believe it
>
Chock
FULL OF BOMBSHELLS You Won't Hear About Anywhere Else!
Barry E. Sheridan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exposing
the hypocrisy of those political figures who seek greater power.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 24, 2020
Verified Purchase
Any analysis of powerful figures that concludes they are not what they pretend to
be demands courage from the writer, such is the case here where Peter Schweizer assesses some of the leading progressive
political leaders in the US. All of those scrutinised in this thoroughly researched volume are either already standing,
or intend to stand, for the position of President of the United States. What is also quite clear is that none of them
are remotely worthy of that Office. In each case it is obvious that despite what they claim, all have used, or are using
their elected office to enrich themselves, their families and cronies. America does not need people like that running
the country, it needs individuals like Donald J Trump, or those like him. Having spectated from afar on events since Mr
Trump was elected, you can see, at least in part, why there is so much antipathy towards him, he is a danger to a
political class, many of whom are more intent on personal gain than they are serving the American people.
Joe
Biden & Kerry in the limelight & under the microscope
5.0 out of 5 stars
Joe
Biden & Kerry in the limelight & under the microscope
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2018
Verified Purchase
So disappointed to read about Joe Biden's ( previously always depicted as appealing
"average Joe" with lots of human compassion ) complicity via his son Hunter's mega global enrichment
And shame on Kerry! He had already married the Ketchup heiress & did NOT need to increase his greed via off spring
All so troubling!
I simply could NOT finish reading the book. The content is so devastating revealing the greed, the unbelievable abuse of
our trust in our elected officials & hard earned tax dollars.
We almost need a revolution to clean out the filth!
>
5.0 out of 5 stars
HUGELY
important book!
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2018
This was my most anticipated book of the year, so I bought the audio version at the
earliest possible moment and listened to it eagerly. It completely delivers on its promise, exposing potential new
political self-dealing scandals.
Previously, Schweizer's "Clinton Cash" book contributed to Hillary Clinton's election loss. This new book could be the
death knell for Joe Biden's presidential hopes, as it reveals how his son, Hunter Biden, benefited from the former Vice
President's dealings with foreign countries. Schweizer is evenhanded, though, targeting politicians from both parties.
Mitch McConnell could easily become the target of an ethics investigation based on this book's suggestion that McConnell
has taken official acts that benefit his Chinese in-laws financially.
The book reveals a kind of self-dealing that I had not considered before by suggesting that Obama (1) used regulations
in the education and energy sectors to depress the prices of certain stocks (e.g., the University of Phoenix and fossil
fuel companies), at which time friends of Barack, including George Soros, bought the stocks and then (2) eased pressure,
allowing the stocks to rebound and enriching anyone who invested at the stocks' low points.
For any reader who worries about the mainstream media's failure to investigate the financial dealings of Obama and other
politicians, this book is a partial remedy. Highly recommended!
>
5.0 out of 5 stars
Follow
the money!
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2018
Verified Purchase
I don't understand why none of the "offshore corruption" described in this book is
EVER covered in ANY news, and this includes some historical corruption and convictions mentioned in the book that I
somehow never heard about. The author is fair and covers corruption on both sides of the aisle. Before reading this
book, I couldn't understand why folks suspect President Trump of nefarious financial swindling, but now I do because it
seems to be EVERYWHERE in our government. President Trump didn't come in broke and steal money, and I don't suspect him,
but the author warns of booby traps he must avoid. By the way, Schweitzer's previous book, CLINTON CASH, opened my eyes
and I wish it was required reading.
Well, well – hello, Chrystia Freeland, I'd like you to meet Andrzej Duda, President
of Poland. What, your Grampy was a Nazi collaborator, too?? You're kidding me – why,
we're like brother and sister!!
"Polish President Andrzej Duda pursues a Russophobic policy and actively supports
Ukrainian nationalists, because one of his ancestors was a Nazi collaborator who served the
Nazi invaders and took part in the massacres on the territory of Belarus.
Ukrainian publicist Miroslava Berdnik, previously persecuted by the SBU, reported this
in her Telegram channel, the correspondent of PolitNavigator reports."
I agree. I roll my eyes every time. It goes to show how deeply embedded the false
narrative of NSDAP is. Many otherwise bright writers use this same example. Use the
Bolshevism of the USSR instead.
Invest time in viewing 'The Greatest Story NEVER Told' or 'EUROPA: The Last Battle.'
They're both long, but comprehensive.
Bolshevism may not a good comparison to the common perception of Nazism as Hitler won over
the loyalty of much of the German citizenry where Bolshevism was terror handed down to the
population by the tyrannical minority at the top.
How COVID-19 may help IMF to reshape global economy (Full show) 16 Oct, 2020 20:42 17
Follow RT on
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is offering loans to the world's poorest 81 countries
to help them rebuild their devastated economies, still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. But
accepting such loans paves the way for increased austerity, privatization, and greater income
inequality. RT America's Alex Mihailovich explains. Then former UK MP George Galloway joins RT
America's Faran Fronczak (in for Rick Sanchez) to weigh in. RT's Peter Oliver examines the
skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases across Europe and the reimposition of harsh restrictions
to stymie its spread. Legal and media analyst Lionel and civil rights attorney Robert Patillo
debate proposals aimed at mitigating the perceived influence of the Federalist Society in US
courts. RT America's Trinity Chavez reports on the recent flyby of Venus where the BepiColombo
probe captured amazing new images of the planet. Plus, RT America's Steve Christakos joins for
"Jock Talk."
This in reply to your #131 yesterday re JP Morgan, oligarch power and method used to create
Federal Reserve:
There is more. Banking has an odd and opaque history of global control of money/finance.
It was clear by ca. 1900 that the global keystone was control of USA banking...but how?,
because any USA legislation had to be signed-off by a President...the ONLY exception being
overriding a pres. veto. It could not be done in USA by pres. decree.
So the riddle is how could this rip-off be done in a freak nation that was an open society
of free public discourse full of very active politician? Even if Congress could be bribed and
otherwise cajoled to pass such legislation, how could any President be "arranged" to sign
it?
CLUE -- W. Wilson -- headmaster of Princeton University suddenly rose to Governor of New
Jersey , then suddenly ran for Pres of US. A most weird election resulted in WW becoming Pres
and in his first year signed the Fed Res Act. Boom! Done!
CLUE -- How did the bankers, Warburg et al, manage to put WW under their control? How did
they select WW and get hooks so deeply into headmaster WW and get him elected Pres.? What was
their secret?...and that could be kept secret? and never in writing.
The ANSWER might well be known only to surviving members of families of those involved in
WW's mysterious medical maladies. Though WW's doctors never disclosed publicly all his
medical data, related family members of consulted medical experts would likely have it as a
family secret...that WW had an "unspeakable" malady whose diagnosis was quietly handed down
to successive generations.
Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate
through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or
contractor.
First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an
era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in
highlighting the threat from Beijing.
They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and
defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop
Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand
to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.
It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money,
either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the
ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action,
and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the
chimpanzees believe.)
Not sure who this Andrei Martyanov is, but underlying all the comments is the proposition
that Putin-managed capitalism works great, will work great forever, will not have a crisis
ever and will make Russia totally independent in all ways. Stated so forthrightly, no doubt
it sounds too stupid to admit to. Nonetheless this is the claim. I say capitalist restoration
did not improve the Russian economy in the way implied by Martyanov. Putin is still a
Yeltsinite, even if he is sober enough to pass for competent.
I take the opposite view: Looking from today, Russia is lucky that the USSR collapsed in
1991. It shed its debt, its currency passed through hyperinflation, and their economy
collapsed and rebuilt. The US and most Western countries still have that coming for them, and
soon.
Plus beyond that the strict Communist/Marxist atheism over 70+ years lead to a rebirth of
Christian values in Russia, their biggest advantage in this cultural war. And they practice
science, not scientism.
Note: Russia and China are more capitalist than the US, for quite some time now. (12+
years)
@110 Abe as far as I understand it, the economic argument goes like this: take the number of
rubles generated/spent/whatever in Russian economic activity, then use the current conversion
rate to convert that into an "equivalent" amount of US dollars.
Then see what you can buy with that many US dollars.
If you went shopping in the USA, the answer would be that this many US dollars doesn't buy
you much, ergo, Russian economic activity is pathetically low.
An example: the Russian government might budget xxx (fill in the figure) rubles to buy new
T-90 tanks. In Washington they would convert that into US dollars, and then declare that this
is chicken-feed. Hardly enough to buy less than 10 Abrams tanks.
Only the Russians aren't buying Abrams tanks from the USA, and are not spending dollars.
They are buying T-90 tanks, and for the amount of rubles spent they'll get 50 tanks.
Every metric the US analyst are using tells them that the USA is vastly, vastly
outspending the Russians on military equipment, to the point where it is obvious that the
Russian military must be destitute and decrepit.
But if they every took the time to look they'll see 50 brand-spanking new T-90 main battle
tanks. Weapons that their assumptions say that the Russians can't afford, and would wonder
"Huh? Where'd they come from?"
@ Posted by: Andrei Martyanov | Oct 18 2020 4:11 utc | 96
I agree that comparing Russia's economy with the likes of Italy and Spain is ridiculous,
but it's not that simple. Capitalism is not what is appears to be.
If a (capitalist) nation wants to get something from another (capitalist) nation, it needs
to export something. There's no free lunch in international trade: if you want to import, you
have to export or issue sovereign debt bonds (treasury bonds).
In this scenario, either Russia produces everything it needs in its own territory or it
will have to export in order to import the technology it needs to do whatever it needs to do.
Remember: the Russian Federation is a capitalist nation-state, it has to follow the laws of
motion of capitalism, which take precedence over whatever Putin wants. To ignore that
economic laws exist is to deny any kind of theory of collapse; nation-states would then be
eternal, natural entities with no entropy.
Even if Russia produces everything it needs in its own territory, it is still capitalist.
It would need, in order to "substitute imports", to super-exploit its own labor force
(working class) in order to extract surpluses for its industrialization efforts. That's what
the USSR did during Stalin.
If Russia is doing the imports substitution in the classical way (the way Latin America
did during the liberal dictatorships of the 1950s-1980s), then it is trying to sell
commodities to industrialized countries in order to import technology and machinery necessary
to industrialize its own territory. That is probably the case here.
Assuming this more probable case, then I'm sorry to tell you it won't work. It may work in
the short or even medium term, but it will ultimately fail in the long term. The thing is
that, in a system of capitalist exchange between an agrarian and an industrial nation-state,
the industrial nation-state will always have the advantage (i.e. have a trade surplus).
That's because of Marx's labor theory of value: industrialized commodities ("manufactured
goods") have more intrinsic value than agrarian/raw material commodities - just think about
how many kilos of bananas Brazil would have to export to the USA in order to import one
single unit of an iPhone 12, to use an contemporary example. As a social result,
industrialized countries have a higher organic composition of capital (OCC) than agrarian
countries, as they need more value to just keep themselves afloat (as a metaphor: it's more
expensive to keep a big mansion than a little flat in a stationary state). Value (wealth)
then tends to flow from lower OCC to the higher OCC, this is the material base that divides
the First and Third World countries until today.
To make things even worse, raw materials/agricultural products have an inelastic demand,
which means their prices fall when production rises, and their prices rise when production
falls, relative to overall demand. You will pay whatever the water company will charge you
for the cubic meter of water - but you won't consume more or less water because of its price,
hence the term "inelastic": demand tends to be more or less constant on a macroeconomic
level. The same problem suffers the commodity exporter nations: there will come a stage where
their exports' overall value will collapse vis-a-vis the machinery and technology they need
to import.
As a result, the commodity exporter nations will have to get more debt overseas, by
issuing more T-bonds, just to keep the trade balance afloat. What was the quest for progress
becomes a vicious battle for mere survival. A debt crisis is brewed.
And that's exactly what happened to the Latin American countries in the 1980s-1990s: their
debt exploded and they were put to their knees by the USA (the country that issues the
universal fiat currency). The USA then charged their debt, which triggered a wave of
privatizations of everything those countries had built over decades. This is what will happen
to Russia if it falls for the lure of imports substitution.
That's why I urge the Russians to review their concepts and try to get back to the Soviet
times. It doesn't need to be exactly how it was before: you can make the due reforms and
adopt a more or less Chinese model of socialism. That's the only way out, if the Russian
people doesn't want to be enslaved by the liberals (capitalists).
@vk from what i'm reading (stephen cohen: soviet fates and lost alternatives) the chinese
adopted something like bukharin's nep policies, which stalin did his best to wipe out in the
ussr. i've got some problems with cohen's last book, "war with russia?" but he has a lot of
good information on the history of the ussr.
@ Posted by: pretzelattack | Oct 18 2020 15:14 utc | 118
On the surface, yes: the comparison between Reform and Opening Up and NEP are
irresistible. But it is not precise: the only merit it has is in the fact that it is fairer
than simply classifying Deng Xiaoping's reforms as neoliberalism (Trotskysts, Austrian
School) or capitalism (liberals).
The key here is the difference of the nature of the Chinese peasant class and the Russian
peasant class. The Chinese peasant class, besides suffering a lot (millions of dead by
famine) in the hands of a liberal government for decades (Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist
Government) (while the Russian equivalent - the "February Revolution" - only lasted a few
months, engulfed by their insistence on continuing with the meat-grinder of WWI), had a
different historical subtract.
Chinese late feudalism was much more developed, much more manufactured-centered than
Russian late feudalism. As a result, the Chinese peasant was much more proletarian-minded
than the feudal Russian peasant. Also, the Chinese didn't have the kulak problem (peasant
petite-bourgeoisie) - instead, they had regional warlords who self-destructed during the
chaotic republican period (1911-1949). When the warlords were gone, what was left was a much
more proletarian-minded, egalitarian-minded, small peasantry. This peasantry didn't bother to
migrate to the cities to work in the industry or to start their own factories in the
countryside itself. That's why Deng Xiaoping's Reform and Opening Up was successful - not
because of his genius, but because he was backed up by a capable people.
The Chinese peasantry, for example, didn't hoard or directed their grain surplus to
exports in order to starve the proletariat to death in the cities - they sold it to the
Chinese market. The Chinese peasantry also trusted their central government (CCP) and saw
itself as part of the project - in complete opposition to the feudal-minded Russian kulak,
who saw his piece of land as essentially an independent and self-sufficient
cell/ecosystem.
That's why the Reform and Opening Up was successful (it survives until the present times)
and the NEP soon failed - following the good harvest of 1924, came the awful harvest of 1926,
which triggered a shit show where the peasantry hoarded the grain and almost starved the USSR
to extinction, and which led to Stalin's ascension and the dekulakization process (forced
collectivization).
i should add that i know little about the actual history of communism, but capitalism is
revealing itself as a monstrous failure, and not all the propaganda in the world is
succeeding at covering that up.
I know how economic reasoning comes to that conclusion, but IRL comparing such different
countries only by GDP metric is insane and beyond stupid.
Eg. Russia has GDP similar to California!
Yes, in US centric GDP metrics that favors and cheats US itself (surprise!).
But. One of those countries sent man in space, produces everything, has vast resources and
is self sufficient nuclear superpower.
Other one cant even feed and provider water to its population without outside help.
GDP means nothing when sh*t hits the fan. What will "richer" country do if it goes to war
with "poorer"? Throw money at them while they launch nukes at it?
@ Posted by: pretzelattack | Oct 18 2020 16:11 utc | 122
There certainly are similarities between the NEP and the Reform and Opening Up. It's very
possible Deng Xiaoping took Lenin as inspiration.
Forgot to mention the Scissors Crisis, which erupted in 1923, and triggered the NEP. That
crisis is one more evidence that shows manufactured products are inherently more valuable
than raw materials/agrarian products.
Again, for products of Western "education" basic logic and ability for a basic
extrapolation seem beyond the grasp: there are no issues for Russia to produce anything,
other than time and some money. Country which produces best hi-tech weapons in the world,
dominates world's nuclear energy market (this is not your iPhone "hi tech") and has a full
enclosed cycle for aerospace industry, among many other things, will have little trouble in
substituting pretty much anything. I remember a bunch of morons, who pass for "analysts",
from either WSJ or WaPo declaring 6 years ago that sanctions will deny Russia access to
Western extraction technologies. Sure, for a country whose space program alone will crush
whole economies of UK or Germany should they ever try to recreate it, will have "problems"
producing compressor or drill equipment with the level of Russia's metallurgy and material
science. Generally speaking, West's present pathetic state is a direct result of utter
incompetence across the board in a number of key fields of human activity and your post, most
likely based on some BS by Western media, is a good demonstration of this state of the
affairs.
Per immigration policy, you can easily find a a truck load of resources, especially on the
web-sites of Russian diplomatic missions (Embassies, Consulates etc.), easily available. Per
cats--Russian love for cats is boundless and intense. You may say that Russia is a
cat-obsessed country;)
vk@120 posits a mystical cultural difference in Russian and Chinese peasants, which
unfortunately has pretty much the same content as the hypothesis of a racial difference. That
the morally superior race is supposed to be Chinese doesn't really help. As often, some
strange assertions of facts that aren't so accompany such bizarre thinking. The rich peasants
in China (what would be kulaks in Russian history,) were notorious for moneylending. As ever,
the inevitable arrears ended in the moneylender's family taking the land. Collectivization
came early in China, well along the way by 1956. And a key aspect of it was the struggle
against the Chinese equivalent of the kulak class. As for the insistence that private farming
is superior, the growth of inequality in land drove millions, a hundred million or more, into
the cities. Without residence permits this floating proletariat was effectively
superexploited by the new capitalist elements, as Deng meant them to do. Nor did the warlords
discredit themselves, not as a group. If anything the young warlord who forced Chiang to
reject active war against the Communists, in order to fight the Japanese invaders, was the
one who kept the GMD (KMT in Wade-Giles,) from discrediting itself. [Xian incident] And what
warlords had to do with the Chinese rich peasantry *after* the Revolution is a complete
mystery.
Socially, the deliberate uneven development promoted by Deng and his successors, is
eroding the social fabric of the larger countryside. This, in addition to the neocolonial
concessions, the growing links to the Chinese bourgeoisie of the diaspora suggest that as
Dengists may go even back/forward to a new form of warlordism. The thing about comparing
Bukharism/NEP to Dengism/the "Opening" is that Bukharin's program failed spectacularly. But
modern China is not next door to Nazi Germany. Even more to the point, Stalin's victory over
Hitler has provided a kind of moral shield for China, even under Deng, inspiring fear of
losing a general war. If Bukharin had beaten Stalin, we can be as sure as any hypothetical
can be, the USSR would have been defeated, not victorious. In modern China, the Bukharin won.
There is an excellent chance the national government of today's China will be defeated.
That article describes a 110 MW turbine that has now finally been put into production
(while Siemens, General Electric etc. produce utility-class gas turbines up to about 600 MW,
with far higher efficiency and most likely reliability). The article further describes 40 GW
of thermal electrical production to be "modernized" until 2031 (11 years from now), and
apparently a microscopic 2 GW of new capacity from "domestic and localized" 65 MW turbines to
be commissioned 2026-2028. (I don't understand Russian so I had to rely on Yandex's machine
translation.) That's admittedly some kind of progress, but is simply not going to cut it.
Nowhere close.
Imagine if China set the ambition to build its own semiconductors and its own turbofans
for its stealth fighters sometime around 2040. Imagine if China was still producing a third
of the amount of electricity of the United States instead of about double, etc., and
considered this to be adequate. It would be akin to abandoning its ambitions for
technological and industrial independence from the West, and that is exactly what Russia is
doing in the realm of gas turbines. There is apparently no capability and no seriousness
going into translating Russia's world-class research and science into actual large-scale,
modern industrial production, and everything points to this continuing, while you can blather
on all you want about people with "Western education" simply not getting anything.
That's admittedly some kind of progress, but is simply not going to cut it. Nowhere close.
That's admittedly you switching on "I am dense" mode and trying to up the ante with 600
MW, which are a unique product, while you somehow miss the point that 110 MWt MGT-110 of
fully Russian production has completed a full cycle of industrial tests and operations (an
equivalent of military IOC--Initial Operational Capability) and is in a serial production.
But instead of studying the issue (even if through Yandex translate) with Siemens which when
learning about MGT-110 offered Russia 100% localization with technology transfer, Russians
declined, you go into generalizations without having even minimal set of facts and
situational awareness. In fact 110 MWt turbines are most in demand product for a variety of
applications. Get acquainted with this.
I am not going to waste my time explaining to you (you will play dense again) what IOC
means and how it relates to serial production, I am sure you will find a bunch of unrealted
"argumentation".
Imagine if China
I don't need to imagine anything, as well as draw irrelevant parallels with China.
There is apparently no capability and no seriousness going into translating Russia's
world-class research and science into actual large-scale, modern industrial production, and
everything points to this continuing, while you can blather on all you want about people
with "Western education" simply not getting anything.
This is exactly what I am talking about. Hollow declarations by people who can not even
develop basic factual base.
It's great to see you here with your excellent facts and perspectives on Russia. I'm sorry
you have to deal with people whose minds are too small to grasp the immense scale of Russia -
scale in physical size, civilizational depth and importance to the balance of power in the
world.
Russia alone stopped the creeping gray hegemony from the west that had looked like it
would just ooze over the whole world and suffocate it in bullshit and tribute payments. And
then China joined in the fun. The world has a future now, when a decade ago this didn't seem
possible, at least from my view in the US. Geopolitically, Russia gave us this future, and
China has come to show us how much fun it's going to be.
@ Posted by: steven t johnson | Oct 18 2020 20:05 utc | 127
There's no mysticism here because we know how the kulaks emerged in Russia: they were the
result of the catastrophic capitalist reforms of the 1860s, which completely warped the old
feudal relations of the Russian Empire.
The reforms of the 1860s were catastrophic for two reasons:
1) it freed the peasants slowly. The State serfs - the last who gained their freedom -
were left with no land. A complex partition system of the land, based on each administrative
region, created a distorted division of land, where very few peasants got huge chunks of land
(the future kulaks) and most received almost nothing (as Lenin demonstrated, see his first
book of his Complete Works, below the rate of subsistence);
2) it tried to preserve the old feudal privileges and powers of the absolutist
monarchy.
As a result, the Russian Empire had a bizarre economic system, a mixed economy with the
worst of the two words: the inequality and absolute misery of capitalism and the backwardness
and lack of social mobility of feudalism.
But yes, you're right when you state Mao's era was not an economic failure. His early era
really saw an attempt by the CCP to make an alliance with the "national bourgeoisie", and
this alliance was indeed a failure. This certainly led to a more radical approach by the CCP,
still in the Mao era (collectivization). Life quality in China greatly increased after 1949,
until the recession of the Great Leap Forward (which was not a famine, but threw back some
socioeconomic indicators temporarily back to the WWII era). When the Great Leap Forward was
abandoned, China continued to improve afterwards.
All of this doesn't change the fact that China's "NEP" was a success, while the original
NEP wasn't. Of course, there are many factors that explain this, but it is wrong to call late
Qing China as even similar to the late Romanov Russia.
I'm not saying Stalin's reform were a failure. Without them, they wouldn't be able to
quickly import the Fordist (Taylorist) method they needed to industrialize. The USSR became a
superpower in just 19 years - a world record. The first Five-Year Plan was a huge morale
boost and success for the Soviet people - specially because it happened at the same time as
the capitalist meltdown of 1929.
--//--
@ Posted by: Eric | Oct 18 2020 20:53 utc | 128
The thing with semiconductors (and other very advanced technologies) is that it is an
industry that only makes sense for a given nation to dominate if they're going to mass
produce it. That usually means said production must be export oriented, which means competing
against already well-established competitors.
China doesn't want to drain the State's coffers to fund an industry that won't at least
pay for itself. It has to change the wheels with the car moving. That's why it is still
negotiating the Huawei contracts in the West first, why it still is trying to keep the
Taiwanese product flowing first, only to then gradually start the heavy investment needed to
dominate the semiconductor technology and production process.
They learned with the Soviets in this sense. When computers became a thing in the West,
the USSR immediately poured resources to build them. They were able to dominate the main
frame technology, and they were successfully implemented in their economy. Then came the
personal computers, and, this time, the Soviets weren't able to make it integrate in their
economy. The problem wasn't that the Soviets didn't know how to build a personal computer
(they did), but that every new technology is born for a reason, and only makes sense in a
given social context. You can't just blindly copy your enemy's technology and hope for the
best.
The world has a future now, when a decade ago this didn't seem possible, at least from my
view in the US. Geopolitically, Russia gave us this future, and China has come to show us
how much fun it's going to be. Many thanks to you and your people.
Thank you for your kind words. As my personal experience (my third book is coming out
soon)shows--explaining economic reality to people who have been "educated" (that is confused,
ripped off for huge tuition and given worthless piece of paper with MBA or some "economics"
Bachelor of "Science" on it) in Western pseudo-economic "theory" that this "global"
"rules-based order" is over, is pretty much an exercise in futility. And if a catastrophe of
Boeing is any indication (I will omit here NATO's military-industrial complex)--dividends,
stocks and "capitalization" is a figment of imagination of people who never left their office
and infantile state of development and swallowed BS economic narrative hook, line and sinker
without even trying to look out of the window. They still buy this BS of US having "largest
GDP in the world" (in reality it is much smaller than that of China), the
de-industrialization of the United States is catastrophic (they never bothered to look at
2018 Inter-agency Report to POTUS specifically about that)and its industrial base is
shrinking with a lighting speed, same goes to Germany which for now retains some residual
industrial capability and competences but:
This is before COVID-19, after it Germany's economy shrank worst among Western nations,
worse even than the US. It is a long story, but as Michael Hudson stated not for once in his
books and interviews, what is "taught" as economics in the West is basically a
pseudo-science. Well, it is. Or, as same Hudson stated earlier this year:"The gunboats don't
appear in your economics textbooks. I bet your price theory didn't have gun boats in them, or
the crime sector. And probably they didn't have debt in it either." And then they wonder in
Germany (or EU)how come that EU structures are filled with pedophiles, "Green" fanatics and
multiculturalists. Well, because Germany (and EU) are occupied territories who made their
choice. And this is just the start. What many do not understand here is that overwhelming
majority of Russians do not want to deal with Europe and calls for new Iron Curtain are
louder and louder and the process has started. Of course, there is a lot of both contempt and
schadenfreude on Russian part. As Napoleon stated, the nation which doesn't want to feed own
army, will feed someone else's. Very true. Modern West worked hard for it, let it "enjoy"
now.
It's good to see you commenting here as barflies seem more inclined to listen to you than
me. Did you watch Russian documentary on
The Wall , which I learned about from Lavrov's meeting with those doing business
within Russia on 5 Oct? I asked The Saker if his translation team would take on the task of
providing English subtitles or a voice over but never got a reply one way or the other. IMO,
for Russia to avoid the West's fate it must change its banking and financial system from the
private to the public realm as Hudson advocates most recently in this podcast . As for Mr.
Lavrov, he surprised the radio station interviewers by citing Semyon Slepakov's song "America
Doesn't Like Us," of which barfly Paco thankfully provided a translation of the
lyrics.С наилучшими
пожеланиями
крепкого
здоровья и
долгих лет
жизни!
I think you an Grieved misunderstand somewhat where I am coming from here. Michael Hudson
would be (and has been) the first to describe how Russia's elites (and to a large extent it
seems also the people) bought into a bogus neoliberal ideology teaching that somehow Russia
needs to earn the money it needs to build its own economy in the form of foreign currency
through export revenues. Apparently these economists and politicians in Russia never bothered
to look how Western economies actually operate (as opposed to what they preach to countries
they want to destroy), or for that matter how China has developed its economy (in all of
these countries, the necessary credit is created on a keyboard.) The export revenues that
Russia earns in the form of dollars and euros are sold to the central bank for the roubles
that Russia's government needs to function. Bizarrely, this creates just as much inflation as
it would if the central bank had just created the roubles without "backing" foreign currency.
In fact, there is more inflation created, because in times of high oil prices, corresponding
amounts of roubles are suddenly thrown into a domestic market that is underdeveloped, for
example in its infrastructure and its food processing. There are reasons why China can expand
its money supply by much greater proportions each year and still suffer far less inflation
than Russia.
Unlike China, Russia had already attained much of the technological expertise for the
equipment that it later decided it was unable to produce inside the country. A good example
of this are the turboexpanders whose design was perfected (though the basic idea was a bit
older) by Pyotr Kapisa in the 1930's in the USSR. This same technology went into the
turbopumps of the rocket engines in the Energia boosters. These engines are still to this
day, 30 years after the Soviet collapse, imported by the United States. As these rocket
engines including the turbopumps are still produced in Russia, the know-how to manufacture
was obviously not lost.
I read just the other day that as part of its import substitution program, Russia is
considering to produce the turboexpanders for processing natural gas (separating methane from
ethane) inside the country. Russia, with the world's largest natural gas reserves and
production, and as I described already possessing the expertise to produce the turboexpanders
needed for cryogenic separation, chose to hand over possibly billions of dollars to the West
to import this machinery over the years, only to be helpless when the West introduced
technological sanctions against its oil and gas sector. Very likely, in a couple of years we
will receive the announcement that the drive to produce them domestically has been abandoned,
after it was realized that their production will require new factories and new machinery,
which do not fall out of the sky in Russia as they apparently do in the West and in China.
Putin will announce that great business awaits whichever Western investor ready to provide
the funds. (Spoiler: They won't! The West is not very interested in investing into building
up Russia's industrial capabilities, preferring instead to loot its natural resources and to
suck out its skilled worked and scientists.)
While Russia sits and waits for higher oil prices or foreign dollar credit on the one
hand, and with unemployed skilled labor and rotting industrial infrastructure on the other
hand, China spends the equivalent of trillions of dollars (in yuan, obviously) into fixed
capital (not least infrastructure) each year. The funds for this are all created by
keystrokes by the PBOC and provide employment for the domestic workforce. You don't have to
ponder long on which model has been hugely successful, and which has been an unmitigated
disaster.
I can't find the exact figures right now, but Russia produces something like 300,000 STEM
graduates every year, more than the United States. (I may very well have read this originally
on your blog, by the way.) Many of them will still be forced to emigrate to find gainful
employment, even 20 years after the 1990's ended and Putin became President. These graduates
remain even in post-Soviet times of a very high quality, and undergraduate students in Russia
are trained at a higher level in mathematics and physics than in particular Americans are
even as post-graduates. By refusing to invest in its own scientific infrastructure and
industry the way China has done and does, Russia gives away all the education and training
that were provided to these students, especially to the same Western countries that are
seeking to destroy Russia. This is completely unforgivable.
I should add that I myself study physics in Germany. I have great appreciation for the
Russian methods of teaching mathematics and physics, as many do here. I have learned,
preferentially, mathematical analysis from Zorich, mechanics, electrodynamics etc. from
Landau-Lifschitz, much about Fourier series from Tolstov, and so on, and have very often been
awestruck and inspired in a mystical fashion by these works. I am not somehow unaware of the
unparalleled quality (in particular after the destruction of Germany in WWII) of the USSR's
and Russia's math/physics education or unfamiliar with the achievements of the USSR in
science and engineering. It's precisely because I am familar with them that it
frustrates me immensely how Russia's potential is needlessly wasted.
What many do not understand here is that overwhelming majority of Russians do not want to
deal with Europe and calls for new Iron Curtain are louder and louder and the process has
started. Of course, there is a lot of both contempt and schadenfreude on Russian part.
Andrei (132), do you have a link to an opinion poll that supports this? Thanks
in advance.
@ Digby | Oct 19 2020 0:28 utc | 136.. if you haven't already listened to the lavrov
interview that b linked to in his main post - it is a question and answer thing - you would
benefit from doing so and it would help answer you question some too.. see b's post at this
spot -"In a wide ranging interview with Russian radio stations" and hit that link
@ james (137)
Well, I looked into the interview. While it is informative in its own right (at some point it
briefly touches on Russo-Japanese relations), and some of the interviewers do show some
concerns, I'm still not sure how it helps answer my question (maybe I missed something?). My
initial impression was that Mr. Martyanov was referring to Russian civilians - not just radio
interviewers.
Thanks anyway for the heads up.
@ 138 digby... my impression was the radio interviewers questions were a reflection of the
general sentiment of the public.. i could be wrong, but it seems to me they have completely
given up on the west based on what they ask and say in their questions to lavrov...
on another note, you might enjoy engaging andrei more directly on his website which i will
share here...
The moment the New York Post reported on some of the sleazy, corrupt details contained on
Hunter Biden's hard drive, Twitter and Facebook, the social media giants most closely connected
to the way Americans exchange political information, went into overdrive to suppress the
information and protect Joe Biden. In the case of Facebook, though, perhaps one of those
protectors was, in fact, protecting herself.
The person currently in charge of Facebook's election integrity program is Anna Makanju .
That name probably doesn't mean a lot to you, but it should mean a lot – and in a
comforting way -- to Joe Biden.
Before ending up at Facebook, Makanju was a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic
Council. The Atlantic Council is an ostensibly non-partisan think tank that deals with
international affairs. In fact, it's a decidedly partisan organization.
In 2009, James L. Jones, the Atlantic Council's chairman left the organization to be
President Obama's National Security Advisor. Susan Rice, Richard Holbrooke, Eric Shinseki,
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Chuck Hagel, and Brent Scowcroft also were all affiliated with the Atlantic Council
before they ended up in the Obama administration.
The Atlantic Council has received massive amounts of foreign funding over the years. Here's
one that should interest everyone: Burisma Holdings donated $300,000
dollars to the Atlantic Council, over the course of three consecutive years, beginning in
2016. The information below may explain why it began paying that money to the Council.
Not only was the Atlantic Council sending people into the Obama-Biden administration, but it
was also serving as an outside advisor. And that gets us back to Anna Makanju, the person
heading Facebook's misleadingly titled "election integrity program."
Makanju also worked at the Atlantic Council. The following is the relevant part of Makanju's
professional bio from her page at the Atlantic Council
(emphasis mine):
Anna Makanju is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative.
She is a public policy and legal expert working at Facebook, where she leads efforts to
ensure election integrity on the platform. Previously, she was the special policy adviser for
Europe and Eurasia to former US Vice President Joe Biden , senior policy adviser to
Ambassador Samantha Power at the United States Mission to the United Nations, director for
Russia at the National Security Council, and the chief of staff for European and NATO Policy
in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She has also taught at the Woodrow Wilson School
at Princeton University and worked as a consultant to a leading company focused on space
technologies.
Makanju was a player in the faux Ukraine impeachment. Early in December 2019, when the
Democrats were gearing up for the impeachment, Glenn Kessler
mentioned her in an article assuring Washington Post readers that, contrary to the Trump
administration's claims, there was nothing corrupt about Biden's dealings with Ukraine. He made
the point then that Biden now raises as a defense: Biden didn't pressure Ukraine to fire
prosecutor Viktor Shokin to protect Burisma; he did it because Shokin wasn't doing his job when
it came to investigating corruption.
Kessler writes that, on the same day in February 2016 that then-Ukrainian President
Poroshenko announced that Shokin had offered his resignation, Biden spoke to both Poroshenko
and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The White House version is that Biden gave both men pep
talks about reforming the government and fighting corruption. And that's where Makanju comes
in:
Anna Makanju, Biden's senior policy adviser for Ukraine at the time, also listened to the
calls and said release of the transcripts would only strengthen Biden's case that he acted
properly. She helped Biden prepare for the conversations and said they operated at a high
level, with Biden using language such as Poroshenko's government being "nation builders for a
transformation of Ukraine."
A reference to a private company such as Burisma would be "too fine a level of
granularity" for a call between Biden and the president of another country, Makanju told The
Fact Checker. Instead, she said, the conversation focused on reforms demanded by the
International Monetary Fund, methods to tackle corruption and military assistance. An
investigation of "Burisma was just not significant enough" to mention, she said.
Let me remind you, in case you forgot, that Burisma started paying the Atlantic Council a
lot of money in 2016, right when Makanju was advising Biden regarding getting rid of
Shokin.
Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.
That's right folks, the Facebook executive currently blocking all of the negative evidence
of Hunter and Joe Biden's corrupt activity in Ukraine is the same person who was coordinating
the corrupt activity between the Biden family payoffs and Ukraine.
You just cannot make this stuff up folks.
The incestuous networking between Democrats in the White House, Congress, the Deep State,
the media, and Big Tech never ends. That's why the American people wanted and still want Trump,
the true outsider, to head the government. They know that Democrats have turned American
politics into one giant Augean Stable and that Trump is
the Hercules who (we hope) can clean it out.
"... Russia is militarily secure and the 'west' knows that. It is one reason for the anti-Russian frenzy. Russia does not need to bother with the unprecedented hostility coming from Brussels and Washington. It can ignore it while taking care of its interests. ..."
"... As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint? ..."
"... The nightmare scenario for the Anglo-Americans is a Germany-Russia-China triangle. If that happens it is game over! ..."
"... They don't want an actual war. They just ratchet up the tensions to keep Europe subdued and obedient and Russia off balance and thereby prevent any rapprochement between the two. ..."
"... The strong hatred and hostility coming from the US and the EU are due to the understanding that they don't have much time, and they must act now, or tomorrow it will be too late. ..."
"... Years ago Barack Obama gave speech to West Point graduates, proclaiming US moral and racial superiority (because they mix'n's*it) over whole world, Goebbels would be proud. Germany has long history of hating all those Slavs, and Israel... Lets not go there with how they threat those inferior brown people. ..."
"... Of course that end-point is money for military contractors and power for the FP elite in government and think-tanks which also means money. Yes, there are true-believers who see a mighty struggle between "good" (the USA) an "evil" (Russia/China) but they are incompetent. As for the American people they will believe whatever the NY Times says since they are militantly ignorant of history, geography, foreign affairs in general, and, above all, political science. ..."
"... The USA is lucky the USSR collapsed in 1991. If it managed to somehow survive for mere 17 years more, it would catch the 2008 capitalist meltdown ..."
"... It looks like the USA imported the Irish and imported their luck, too. ..."
"... This loathing was made blatantly manifest during WWII, of course, but it didn't die out because that generation and more likely their children remain with us. Ditto the generational Anglo-American hatred of Russians (yes, for the UK, and their haute bourgeoisie, it has deeper historical roots than the 20thC) and the USSR even more... ..."
"... "Maas added that Germany takes decisions related to its energy policy and energy supply 'here in Europe', saying that Berlin accepts ' the fact that the US had more than doubled its oil imports from Russia last year and is now the world's second largest importer of Russian heavy oil .'" [My Emphasis] ..."
"... The neocon/NATO aggressive expansionism has many purposes, but one is surely domestic repression: to gaslight and cause fear-the-foreign-bogeyman trauma among the American and British people as a whole and make most of them become docile and lose their critical thinking skills and their ability to analyze their own societies. ..."
"... One of the best ways to lobotomize the publics of the US and UK is to very gradually impose martial law in the name of protecting national security and ensuring peace and harmony at home. ..."
"... At the time, I thought it was just Trump and his followers freaking out, now I think it's the NatSec people, who have finally seen the truth of their situation. As one can see in the Atlantic Council piece B posted, they are still trying to keep the old narrative patched together too. ..."
"... As I've said numerous times -- Fuck the US Empire and it's minion bitches. Jesse Ventura commented this past week that EVERY US Incumbent politician should be voted out of office this election. 99% of them are scum. ..."
"... That was the whole point of the first Cold War. It is the whole point of creating a Cold War 2.0. Absolutely nothing has changed. ..."
"... If the Russian Federation really has an ongoing imports substitution program, then this explains everything. Germany is an exports-oriented economy. It wants to integrate with the Russian economy in the sense to keep it as an agrarian-extrativist economy to feed it with cheap commodities to feed their industry. Germany's ideal Russia is Brazil. ..."
"... A Russia that also exports high-value commodities (manufactured commodities) is a direct threat to Germany, as it competes with it directly in the international market. That's the reason Germany doesn't want the BRI to come to Europe, as Merkel once said: Europe must not become China's peninsula. China is Germany's main competitor, as it is also a big manufacturing exporter. ..."
"... Perhaps the US only has one script in the playbook: to balkanise, disrupt and foster 5th columns until their opponent becomes a dysfunctional or failed state. ..."
"... The US and EU attempts to break Russia's independent foreign policy are just stepping stones to the eventual goal of a breakup Russia itself, never forget Albright's comments in the 90s about how Siberia shouldn't belong to Russia alone. ..."
"... We may yet see a Cuban missile crisis scenario but it looks more likely to be caused by arms sales to Taiwan than conflict in the Caucasus. ..."
"... I also think its naive to see these as "fires burning at Russia's borders" instead of as deliberately set bear traps . Azerbaijan is in a strategic location between Russia and Iran and the conflict with Armenia comes just before Russia is about to sell advanced weapons to Iran. ..."
Over the last years the U.S. and its EU puppies have ratcheted up their pressure on Russia.
They seem to believe that they can compel Russia to follow their diktat. They can't. But the
illusion that Russia will finally snap, if only a few more sanctions ar applied or a few more
houses in Russia's neighborhood are set on fire, never goes away.
The fires burning at Russia's borders in the Caucasus are an add-on to the disorder and
conflict on its Western border in neighboring Belarus, where fuel is poured on daily by
pyromaniacs at the head of the European Union acting surely in concert with Washington.
Yesterday we learned of the decision of the European Council to impose sanctions on
President Lukashenko, a nearly unprecedented action when directed against the head of state
of a sovereign nation.
...
It is easy enough to see that the real intent of the sanctions is to put pressure on the
Kremlin, which is Lukashenko's guarantor in power, to compound the several other measures
being implemented simultaneously in the hope that Putin and his entourage will finally crack
and submit to American global hegemony as Europe did long ago.
...
The anti-Russia full tilt ahead policy outlined above is going on against a background of the
U.S. presidential electoral campaigns. The Democrats continue to try to depict Donald Trump
as "Putin's puppy," as if the President has been kindly to his fellow autocrat while in
office. Of course, under the dictates of the Democrat-controlled House and with the
complicity of the anti-Russian staff in the State Department, in the Pentagon, American
policy towards Russia over the entire period of Trump's presidency has been one of never
ending ratcheting up of military, informational, economic and other pressures in the hope
that Vladimir Putin or his entourage would crack. Were it not for the nerves of steel of Mr.
Putin and his close advisers , the irresponsible pressure policies outlined above could
result in aggressive behavior and risk taking by Russia that would make the Cuban missile
crisis look like child's play.
The U.S. arms industry lobby, in form of the Atlantic Council, confirms
the 'western' strategy Doctorow describes. It calls for 'ramping up on Russia' with even more
sanctions:
Key to raising the costs to Russia is a more proactive transatlantic strategy for sanctions
against the Russian economy and Putin's power base, together with other steps to reduce
Russian energy leverage and export revenue. A new NATO Russia policy should be pursued in
tandem with the European Union (EU), which sets European sanctions policy and faces the same
threats from Russian cyberattacks and disinformation. At a minimum, EU sanctions resulting
from hostilities in Ukraine should be extended, like the Crimea sanctions, for one year
rather than every six months. Better yet, allies and EU members should tighten sanctions
further and extend them on an indefinite basis until Russia ends its aggression and takes
concrete steps toward de-escalation.
It also wants Europe to pay for weapons in the Ukraine and Georgia:
A more dynamic NATO strategy for Russia should go hand in hand with a more proactive policy
toward Ukraine and Georgia in the framework of an enhanced Black Sea strategy. The goal
should be to boost both partners' deterrence capacity and reduce Moscow's ability to
undermine their sovereignty even as NATO membership remains on the back burner for the time
being.
As part of this expanded effort, European allies should do more to bolster Ukraine and
Georgia's ground, air, and naval capabilities, complementing the United States' and Canada's
efforts that began in 2014.
The purpose of the whole campaign against Russia, explains the Atlantic Council author, is
to subordinate it to U.S. demands:
Relations between the West and Moscow had begun to deteriorate even before Russia's watershed
invasion of Ukraine, driven principally by Moscow's fear of the encroachment of Western
values and their potential to undermine the Putin regime. With the possibility of a further
sixteen years of Putin's rule, most experts believe relations are likely to remain
confrontational for years to come. They argue that the best the United States and its allies
can do is manage this competition and discourage aggressive actions from Moscow. However, by
pushing back against Russia more forcefully in the near and medium term, allies are more
likely to eventually convince Moscow to return to compliance with the rules of the liberal
international order and to mutually beneficial cooperation as envisaged under the 1997
NATO-Russia Founding Act.
The 'rules of the liberal international order' are of course whatever the U.S. claims they
are. They may change at any moment and without notice to whatever new rules are the most
convenient for U.S. foreign policy.
But as Doctorow said above, Putin and his advisors stay calm and ignore such trash despite
all the hostility expressed against them.
One of Putin's close advisors is of course Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In a
wide
ranging interview with Russian radio stations he recently touched on many of the issues
Doctorow also mentions. With regards to U.S. strategy towards Russia Lavrov diagnoses
:
Sergey Lavrov : [...] You mentioned in one of your previous questions that no matter what we
do, the West will try to hobble and restrain us, and undermine our efforts in the economy,
politics, and technology. These are all elements of one approach.
Question : Their national security strategy states that they will do so.
Sergey Lavrov : Of course it does, but it is articulated in a way that decent people can
still let go unnoticed, but it is being implemented in a manner that is nothing short of
outrageous.
Question : You, too, can articulate things in a way that is different from what you would
really like to say, correct?
Sergey Lavrov : It's the other way round. I can use the language I'm not usually using to
get the point across. However, they clearly want to throw us off balance , and not only by
direct attacks on Russia in all possible and conceivable spheres by way of unscrupulous
competition, illegitimate sanctions and the like, but also by unbalancing the situation near
our borders, thus preventing us from focusing on creative activities. Nevertheless,
regardless of the human instincts and the temptations to respond in the same vein, I'm
convinced that we must abide by international law.
Russia does not accept the fidgety 'rules of the liberal international order'. Russia
sticks to the law which is, in my view, a much stronger position. Yes, international law often
gets broken. But as Lavrov
said elsewhere , one does not abandon traffic rules only because of road accidents.
Russia stays calm, no matter what outrageous nonsense the U.S. and EU come up with. It can
do that because it knows that it not only has moral superiority by sticking to the law but it
also has the capability to win a fight. At one point the interviewer even jokes
about that :
Question : As we say, if you don't listen to Lavrov, you will listen to [Defense Minister]
Shoigu.
Sergey Lavrov : I did see a T-shirt with that on it. Yes, it's about that.
Yes, it's about that. Russia is militarily secure and the 'west' knows that. It is one
reason for the anti-Russian frenzy. Russia does not need to bother with the unprecedented
hostility coming from Brussels and Washington. It can ignore it while taking care of its
interests.
As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?
Posted by b on October 17, 2020 at 16:31 UTC | Permalink
thanks b.... that lavrov interview that karlof1 linked to previously is
worth its weight in gold...
it gives a clear understanding of how russia sees what is
happening here on the world stage... as you note cheap talk from the atlantic council 'rules
of the liberal international order' is no substitute for 'international law' which is what
russia stands on.... as for the usa campaign to tar russia and claim trump is putins puppet..
apparently this stupidity really sells in the usa.. in fact, i have a close friend here in
canada from the usa with family in the usa has bought this hook, line and sinker as well..
and he is ordinarily a bright guy!
as for the endpoint - the usa and the people of the usa don't mind themselves about
endpoints... it is all about being in the moment, living a hollywood fantasy off the ongoing
party of wall st... the thought this circus will end, is not something many of them
contemplate.. that is what it looks like to me.. maga, lol...
Belarus - this is happenstance, not long term planning. Like Venezuela - indeed neither
original Presidential candidate nor his wife had a Wikipedia entry a week or so before being
announced as candidate (much like Guaido 2 weeks before Trump "made" him President.
Yes the Western media make the most of it, and yes there are many in place in and besides the
media whose job it is to maximise any noise. But little is happening in Belarus. Sanctioning
is all anyone can do now. (Sanctions = punishment therefore proof of guilt without trial or
evidence).
US pressure is based on the Dem vs Rep "I am tougher on Russia than you" game spurred on
by the MIC.
European pressure is based on the Euro Defence force concept and a low key but real desire to
rid itself of Nato. So again we have Nato saying "without US/us Europe would be soft on
Russia" and Europe saying we are tough on Russia whatever.
What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?
It is about driving a wedge between Europe and Russia. The nightmare scenario for the
Anglo-Americans is a Germany-Russia-China triangle. If that happens it is game
over!
They don't want an actual war. They just ratchet up the tensions to keep Europe subdued
and obedient and Russia off balance and thereby prevent any rapprochement between the
two.
Putin has repeatedly stated he wants a Lisbon to Vladivostok free trade area.
The Anglo-Americans will never permit that. That Europe is committed to a course that is
against their own best interest shows just how subservient they are to the
Anglo-Americans.
I think it was the first head of NATO that said the purpose of the organization is to
"keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the US in"
There is no endpoint. Those who argue for it, the Western think-tank industry and security
and intelligence industry, are recipients of huge sums of money. It is bread and butter for
large numbers of people. And the acceptance of the conclusions and advice of the immense
stacks of papers thus produced mean money towards the defense industry and the cyber warfare
industry. In the end, all this is driven by elites' fear of their own populations. Sowing FUD
(Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) makes these populations docile. Rinse and repeat.
>>As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is.
The reason was probably the new Russian Constitution, which is basically a declaration of
independence from the West. This has caused serious triggerings in western elites, although
their reaction took some time to crystalise due to the Covid Pandemic.
>>What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?
The endpoint is - EU and NATO move into Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Georgia, Belarus,
Armenia.
A puppet government of someone like Navalny is installed Russia. That government further
gives up Crimea, Kaliningrad and Northen Caucasus. In the long run, a soft partition of Russia into 3 parts follows (as per the Grand
Chessboard 1997).
The possibility for that happening is overall negative, as the West is on a long term
decline, that is, it will be weaker in 2030, and even weaker in 2040 or 2050.
OECD economies were 66 % of the world economy in 2010 but that share is estimated to drop
to 38 % of the world economy in 2050 (with further drops after that).
The strong hatred and hostility coming from the US and the EU are due to the understanding
that they don't have much time, and they must act now, or tomorrow it will be too
late.
Well, the hostility in "western" "elite" (rulers) towards Russia is on much more primal level
than money and power IMO. It is pure racial hatred combined with Übermensch God complex.
Main controllers in modern "west" are US, Israel and Germany.
Years ago Barack Obama gave speech to West Point graduates, proclaiming US moral and
racial superiority (because they mix'n's*it) over whole world, Goebbels would be proud.
Germany has long history of hating all those Slavs, and Israel... Lets not go there with how
they threat those inferior brown people.
"What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?"
Of course that end-point is money for military contractors and power for the FP elite in
government and think-tanks which also means money. Yes, there are true-believers who see a
mighty struggle between "good" (the USA) an "evil" (Russia/China) but they are incompetent.
As for the American people they will believe whatever the NY Times says since they are
militantly ignorant of history, geography, foreign affairs in general, and, above all,
political science.
The problem as I see it is Europe generally, and Germany in particular. Why do they follow
Washington diktats?
Well let's see, the USA is $30 trillion in debt and counting, faces an upcoming economic
depression to rival the 'great' one, with a citizenry on the brink of civil war and a
political system that makes a 'banana republic' look like ancient Greece. Desperate is as
desperate does.
As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?
For a very simple reason: there's no other option. Capitalism can only work in one way. There's a limit to how much capitalism can reform
within itself without self-destructing.
The West is also suffering from the "Whale in a Swimming Pool" dilemma: it has grown so
hegemonic, so big and so gloated that its strategic options have narrowed sharply. It has not
much more room for maneuver left, its bluffs become less and less effective. As a result, its
strategies have become increasingly linear, extremely predictable. The "whale in a pool
dilemma" is not a problem when your inner workings (domestic economy) is flourishing; but it
becomes one when the economy begins to stagnate and, ultimately, decline (albeit slowly).
On a side note, it's incredible how History is non-linear, full of surprises. The Russian
Federation is inferior to the Soviet Union in every aspect imaginable. Except for one factor:
it now has an ascendant China on its side in a time where the West is declining. (Historical)
context is everything.
The USA is lucky the USSR collapsed in 1991. If it managed to somehow survive for mere 17
years more, it would catch the 2008 capitalist meltdown and have an opportunity to gain the
upper hand over capitalism (plus have a strong China on its side). Socialism/communism
wouldn't have been demoralized the way it was in the 1990s, opening a huge flank for
revolutions in the Western Hemisphere (specially Latin America). NATO would be much weaker.
Since the USSR was closed to capitalism, the USA wouldn't be able to enforce as crippling
economic sanctions on China and the USSR. The USSR would be able to "reform and open up" in a
much safer environment (by copying China, instead of Yeltsin's neoliberalism), thus gaining
the opportunity to make a Perestroika that could actually work.
But it didn't happen. Well, what can I say? It looks like the USA imported the Irish and imported their luck,
too.
Abe @7 - I would agree and have raised somewhere (old age?) that part of what we are seeing
in this latest western-NATO cooked up charade re Navalny is, in part at least, a deep
historical supremacist loathing of the Slavs an in general and the Russians in particular by
the haute bourgeois Germans. This loathing was made blatantly manifest during WWII, of
course, but it didn't die out because that generation and more likely their children remain
with us. Ditto the generational Anglo-American hatred of Russians (yes, for the UK, and their
haute bourgeoisie, it has deeper historical roots than the 20thC) and the USSR even more...
The pressure on Russia is enormous and I would enlarge on the economic sanctions aspect
(siege warfare): Belarus, Armenia-Azerbaijan (Erdogan once again playing his role for the
US/NATO - in this business, Iran is also a target), Kyrgyzstan - all on or very close to
Russia's borders and thus dividing and draining (intention) Russia's focus and $$$$ (the
Brzezinski game) in order to open it up to the western corporate-capitalist bloodsuckers. And
I suspect that as the US (and UK) economies drain away, so these border country "revolts,"
"protests" etc. will grow...
Russia really needs to join with China in full comity. Bugger the west - they do not
respect the rights of either country to their own culture, societal structures, mores,
perspectives...nor apparently even those countries' rights to their own coastal waters, air
space...
One wonders how the USA would react to Chinese and/or Russian warships in the Gulf or
traversing (lengthwise) the Atlantic or Pacific????
"Maas added that Germany takes decisions related to its energy policy and energy supply 'here in Europe', saying
that Berlin accepts ' the fact that the US had more than doubled its oil imports from Russia last year and is now the
world's second largest importer of Russian heavy oil .'" [My Emphasis]
Now isn't that the interesting bit of news!! The greatest fracking nation on the planet needs to import heavy oil (likely
Iranian, unlikely Venezuelan) from its #1 adversary. As for the end game, I've written many times what I see as the goal and
don't see any need to add more.
"The Russians are coming' is a long standing fear built the American psyche almost from the
very start.
Russian colonization of the California Territory outnumbered the US population.
The Monroe Doctrine was all about that,not S.America at all. The Brits ruled S.America by
mercantile means until
WWI cut the sea lanes, then and only then did it fall into the sphere of Yankee control.
Then there is Alaska. The Sewards Folly documents are almost certainly fakes, the verified
Russian copy says a 100year LEASE,not a sale. The National Archives refuses examination by any
but its own experts. Unless they are forgeries and they know it there can be no real reason for
their stance.
There is much more background to the antipathy than many are aware.
@bjd (4) You nailed it, my friend. Cold wars are immensely profitable for certain sectors of
the economy and the parasites who run them. The supreme imperative is always to have
enemies--really big, bad, dangerous enemies--whether real or imagined. I will be voting for
Biden, but I don't have much hope for positive change in American foreign policy. Russia,
China, Iran, Venezuela, etc. will continue to be vilified as nations to be feared and hated.
The neocon/NATO aggressive expansionism has many purposes, but one is surely domestic
repression: to gaslight and cause fear-the-foreign-bogeyman trauma among the American and
British people as a whole and make most of them become docile and lose their critical
thinking skills and their ability to analyze their own societies.
One of the best ways to
lobotomize the publics of the US and UK is to very gradually impose martial law in the name
of protecting national security and ensuring peace and harmony at home.
After several color
revolutions succeeded, the Russiagate/Spygate op was carried out in the US, with British
assistance. This op has been largely successful, though there has been limited resistance
against its whole fake edifice as well as with the logic of Cold War2.0. Nevertheless,
Spygate has shocked many tens of millions of Dems into a stupor, while millions more are
dazed and manipulated by the Chinese bogeyman being manufactured by Trump. The most dangerous
result of the martial law lite mentality caused by Spygate and its MSM purveyors is the
growing support for censorship of free speech coming mostly from the Dems, such as Schiff and
Warner. The danger inherent in this trend became very clear when FaceBook and Twitter engaged
in massive and unprecedented arbitrary censorship of the New York Post and of various
Trump-related accounts. This is the kind of thing you do during Stage 1 of a coup. Surely it
was at least in part an experiment to see how various power points in the US would respond.
Even though Twitter ended the censorship later, it was probably a successful experiment
designed to gauge reactions and areas of resistance. In November, there could be further,
more serious experiments/ops. If so, the current expansionist movements being made and
planned by the US and NATO may well be integral parts of a new non-democratic model of
"American-style democracy" -- not constitution-based but "rules-based."
"As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?"
I think the answer is clear. The US economy is collapsing and likewise those wedded to the US
dollar system. The USA spent 90% more than it received last year.
They are desperate to have access to Russia's largely untapped resources and it doesn't want
any competition for its position as world hegemon. Thus Russia and China are in the
crosshairs.
Fortunately the corruption in the USA has resulted in a weaker military capability over time
and they are reduced to behaving in clandestine and terroristic ways to try and achieve this.
The turmoil enveloping the USA is scape goated on Trump and Covid19 but is ultimately due to
their faltering economy and a big helping of financial corruption. Talk about your chickens
coming home to roost
Sounds like thunder, all those chickens. I appeared to me that whomever is in charge here, they started pulling all the levers they
could lay a hand on a couple weeks back in terms of stirring up trouble. Throwing sand in the
eyes of ones enemy.
At the time, I thought it was just Trump and his followers freaking out, now I think it's
the NatSec people, who have finally seen the truth of their situation. As one can see in the
Atlantic Council piece B posted, they are still trying to keep the old narrative patched
together too.
Politfiction, or what could have happened if is an entertaining but futile exercise.
Everybody agrees, there was no need for the USSR to dissolve, it was like a big jackpot for
an amazed rival that rushed to declare himself the winner. The price has been high, on both
sides of the fence but of course with a lot more victims and destruction on the other side of
the fallen wall. Gorbachov a tragic figure and Yelstyn a sinister one, in spite of his being
a clown, a tragic one at that, bombing his parliament and laughing at the world together with
the degenerate Clinton, the 90's were somber indeed. The west paid its price, a self declared
victory that did not bring any benefit, the peace dividend never was, to the contrary,
military budgets never stopped growing year after year. The end of history was proclaimed, no
need to match or better the rival ideology, there is none, so proles you better stop
complaining, or else and that's where we are.
Just to repeat the obvious, for the US actually to go to war is out of the question these
days -- the US public would not tolerate the casualties. Therefore other methods have to be
found to achieve the same objectives -- the maintenance of an eternal enemy in 1984 style, to
keep up military budgets and world hegemony, neither of which are the elite ready to abandon.
Economic sanctions have been the weapon of choice in the age of Trump, but there isn't really
any other. Sometimes they are better aimed and sometimes not.
In any case I am not sure I agree that the EU is really submissive to the US in this
respect. They don't want to offend the US, and some leaders have genuinely swallowed the
Kool-Aid, but others haven't, and the continuation of Nordstream 2 is where they haven't.
Doctorow wrote "Of course, under the dictates of the Democrat-controlled House and with the
complicity of the anti-Russian staff in the State Department, in the Pentagon, American
policy towards Russia over the entire period of Trump's presidency..."
The Senate is more
important for foreign affairs and has been Republican for Trump's entire term. The House was
also Republican for half of Trump's term. Lastly the "staff" is not really able to run things
in the presence of a minimally competent administrator, at the head of the State Department,
acting under leadership of a competent, energetic president. There is no sign Doctorow is
particularly intelligent or insightful.
I have long ago lost track of where the bar's consensus on Turkey is, whether the failing
US means Erdogan must become the follower of the skilled, brave and indefatigable Putin...or
whether his sultanship is suicidally persisting in thinking Russia cannot actually deliver
anything his sultanship really needs and wants. At any rate it is entirely unclear what
"international law" Lavrov thinks supports Russia.
As to the China Russia "alliance," the difficulty is that Putin has so very little to
offer.
I can hazard a guess to answer your final question. I think corruption is probably the main
reason. Those involved in this are mostly interested in self-enrichment through the
gullibility of their societies. I don't think the stenographers and the hot-heads neo liberals
pushing for a show-down with Russia are intent on committing suicide by igniting a hot war
with Russia, but they hope that Moscow could be intimidated and surrender eventually. As you
rightly said, it is a pipe dream of course, but they get paid heavily for the hot air they
emit.
'As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?'
The endpoint is quite clear: 'Global Governance, by Global Institutions under control of
the 'Globalists' (i.e. the Davos crowd).' For this, the 'Globalists' must subdue Russia.
Russia is not only blocking the 'Globalist's' plans in its own right, but, since 2013, it
has been protecting other nations from falling prey to 'Globalist' colonization (Syria,
Eastern Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela, Libya, Belarus, etc.). And Russia is the lynch-pin to
enable the 'Globalists' to corner China.
In addition, together with China, Russia is offering the world an alternative to
'Globalism', a 'Multi-Polar World Order' that is much more attractive than becoming a
'Globalist' vassal.
For the 'Globalists' time has become critical. They are facing revolts in their home
countries (Trump, Brexit, Gilets-Jaunes, etc.). The main source of their geo-political power,
(since they can no longer challenge Russia and China militarily) the U.S. dollar, is on the
verge of collapse as the World's reserve currency. And the economic growth of China means
that China has become the most important trading partner for most of the World's nations.
The window of opportunity for the 'Globalists' to create their 'Global Governance' system
may have already closed. But, as usual, the losers of any war are usually the last to know.
The desperation with which the 'Globalists' are fighting their last battles, against Trump,
against Russia, against Brexit, is testimony to the fact that for the 'Globalists' losing
this war means their extinction as a ruling elite.
c'mon steve.... what is the usa offering
turkey here?? they could give a rats ass about turkey, or any other country in the middle
east, excluding their 24/7 darling israel... the usa presence on the world stage is meant to
sabotage any and all who don't bow down to the exceptional nations philosophy of 'might makes
right'... the obvious benefits of russia-china synergy are apparent to both countries and
they continue to capitalize on this, in spite of what you read in the usa msm.. russia as a
lot to offer china... the fact that the nation apparently masquerading as a gas station has
so much to offer is also the reason that all the pillage of the 90's hasn't turned out the
way the harvard boys had envisioned... that you can't see the vast wealth and value of russia
has nothing to do with the reality on the ground... keep the blinders on, lol...
The EU's attitude to the US is much like its attitude to Britain and Brexit. They don't want
to split with the US, because, after all, there might be war, and NATO would be needed, but
it's becoming increasingly less likely. In the same way, they would have preferred to stay in
good relations with Britain, until Britain insisted on a hostile Brexit. Basic interests come
first, and that will also be the case in the future with the US.
Russia and China are already de-facto alliance. Militarily they cooperate at every level
and will soon extend shared anti ballistic shield over China too. It is clear to any outside
enemy (except for most retarded ones) that nuclear attack on one will be treated as attack on
both of them. Not having formal alliance is somewhat an advantage (eg. limited attack on one
of them by enemy that can be easily handled will not complicate situation) as it controls
escalation. Lack of escalation control led to WW1 so...
Apart for military, Russia is one of rare fully self sufficient countries in the world.
Having vast natural resources and territory, knowledge and industrial capacity to built
EVERYTHING they need, they can afford to be sanctioned by whole world and close borders
completely if needed. Having 100% secure land borders with China and already huge (and
increasing) trade, including oil & gas, only make Russia's self sufficiency even more
stable. It also strategically benefits China, as its main weakness is lack of those same
resources Russia has in abundance and is willing to share.
So, if sh*t hits the fan, and Russia and China say f*ck it and close borders to rest of
the world (even though China trade profits wouldn't be happy), both countries form self
sufficient symbiosis that can carry on for centuries.
Which brings me to all those little fires US is starting in Russia's neighborhood. They
don't matter. Unlike USSR, Russia's mission is self preservation only, not changing whole
world into communist utopia (even though @VK here repeatedly fails to acknowledge it). And
survive it will. All it needs is to wait few generations.
Unlike Russia, collective west is going down the drain. Soon enough, all those Slav hating
in Bundestag, UK parlament and elsewhere will have more urgent problem of Islamic head
choppers that became majority in their countries, while US will have problem to recruit
enough men,women and "others" from pool of rainbow colored too-fat and unfit, godless faggot
from broken family snowflakes.
As China has been mentioned, I think it is worth saying that although I have full confidence
that Putin will maintain his usual good sense in international conflicts, I have more doubts
about the Chinese regime. I don't really understand their policy, which is becoming more
nationalistic and edgy. I don't see why. They have great economic success; they should be
more relaxed, but they aren't. The first signs came with their attitude towards the Muslims
in China. One, the concentration camps in Xinjiang - in that case the Uyghur jihadists in Syria
must have provoked anxiety in Beijing. But also increasing pressure on the Hui Muslims in
central China (who are native Han) to become more "national". Some years ago they weren't
bothered. Now they are.
This suggests that the question of Taiwan could blow up, apart from HongKong. They are
less tolerant in Beijing.
It is about driving a wedge between Europe and Russia. The nightmare scenario for the
Anglo-Americans is a Germany-Russia-China triangle. If that happens it is game
over!
It is a tired and false concept. There cannot be a "triangle" which includes Germany, due
to Germany's increasingly diminishing status. Moreover, Russians do not view Europe as a
viable part of Russia's future--the cultural gap is gigantic and continues to grow--the only
place of Europe in general, and Germany in particular, in Russian plans is that of a market
for Russia's hydrocarbons and other exports. A rather successful program of
export-substitution in Russia in the last 6 years dropped technological importance of Germany
for Russia dramatically. In some fields, such as high-power turbines made Germany irrelevant,
as Siemens learned the hard way recently.
"U.S. and its EU puppies have ratcheted up their pressure...
The 'rules of the liberal international order' are of course whatever the U.S. claims they
are. They may change at any moment and without notice to whatever new rules are the most
convenient for U.S. foreign policy."
Outstanding assessment and thank you for addressing it.
As I've said numerous times -- Fuck the US Empire and it's minion bitches. Jesse Ventura
commented this past week that EVERY US Incumbent politician should be voted out of office
this election. 99% of them are scum.
Every politician, corporate CEO Banker and Media whore, Judge, CIA filth should have a
pitchfork held to their throat and be tried for treason and war crimes. MIC/Pentagon should
be destroyed. Majority of Americans are propagandized dumbfucks. Sounds a bit like an
American Cultural Revolution is exactly the medicine.
There will come a day for reckoning and true justice, hopefully it is sooner than later.
There should be no mercy. For those committing their treasonous crimes, they know better but
have chosen poorly, they should be broken.
Russia, Putin and Lavrov have remained the adults in the room while the Empire Brats
tantrum themselves.
Anyone else notice that the Anti-Russia rhetoric increased after Snowden was trapped in
Russia?
I agree with Ike and others who think the US money situation is the problem. But I also
think that the underlying endpoint is hyperinflation, not just the loss of the dollars'
"reserve status." Hyperinflation is when so much "money" has been produced that it no longer
has any value and the Central Bank cannot control what comes next.
There is a point at which people want to get rid of dollars and panic buy or "invest" in
assets, or anything solid or simply anything (Gold, land etc. bread) At which time the money
they want to get rid of looses value continuously, as others don't want it either. A Rush for
the exits happens.
Who has the MOST money - the Rich and the sovereign Nations? (Althought the latter may
also be in the same situation as the US.) Russia has more or less got rid of all it's US
holdings. The Chinese must be alarmed by the thought of the Fed issuing ONLY new-digicoins,
and then the US simply refusing to pay debts to the Chinese at some future point. They might
want out now. Not so much dumping everything but a steady reduction of US denominated
"assets" or reserves.
Most of this becomes self-sustaining panic, as happened in the Weimar Rep. What can be
considered "assets" to grab? ie Russia, minerals and it's Gold, China and its Gold. Then the
choice might be to invest in the US military and use it while there is a residue of belief in
the Dollar.
The only thing about a panic exit is that it happens very quickly. About a month or two
between when the first bright sparks try to get out and when everyone else tries to grab part
of a rapidly restricted choice of things to buy with an unending pile of "empty" dollars.
Germany should've been conquered by the Soviet Union entirely as it was won with Soviet,
largely Russian, blood. Germany is increasingly irrelevant to Russia's needs now as Martyanov
points out above. Germany's existence today should be that of a Russian oblast, same with
Eastern Ukraine from Kharkiv to Mariupol and Belarus.
Ask yourself what Germany produces that Russia can't produce for itself with import
substitution schemes or similar schemes within a 10 year period. Russia's GDP by PPP is the
size of Germany's already and depending on how it deals with the impact of COVID, may
continue an upward year-on-year growth trend (People's Republic of China is the only major
economy forecast to expand in fiscal quarter this year). The fact of the matter is that
Russia's population is much larger, its industrial base, at least in heavy industry, is
nearly self sufficient (not much light industry to speak of) and Germany depends on Russian
oil and gas to keep its lights on. Russia can carry on without Germany just fine. There may
be a noticeable impact now if Russia were cornered into doing that, but it's nothing that
can't be overcome in short order.
Thank you, b, and before reading comments, I will give my take on your last question:
As this is so obvious one must ask what the real reason for the anti-Russian pressure
campaign is. What do those who argue for it foresee as its endpoint?
The whole 'rules based order' became very clear when the Trans Pacific Partnership, TPP,
was being debated,and what happened then is what many have noted, the 'rules' were all to
advantage the US. So, you might say that was the beginning of the end for the oligarchy. And
the partnership reformed after it had taken out that problem, to be fair to all participants.
All the oligarchy can do is keep on keeping on until it can't. This is really about survival
for that class of individuals who intend to keep on being in charge here in the US and
wherever its tentacles have reached. The only endpoint they see is their continuance. And I
suppose their fear is that it is simply not possible for that to be the case.
Hopefully there will just come a point where, as in Plato's Republic, the dialogue simply
moves on. There, it begins in the home of the ancient one, Cephalus, with a polite
discussion, and the old man says his piece, to which Socrates responds:
"What you say is very fine indeed, Cephalus...but as to this very thing, justice, shall
we so simply assert that it is the truth and giving back what a man has taken from another,
or is to do these very things sometimes just and sometimes unjust? Take this case as an
example of what I mean: everyone would surely say that if a man takes weapons from a friend
when the latter is of sound mind, and the friend demands them back when he is mad, one
shouldn't give back such things, and the man who gives them back would not be just, and
moreover, one should not be willing to tell someone in this state the whole truth."
"What you say is right," he said.
[Allan Bloom translation]
In the dialogue, the old man leaves to 'look after the sacrifices', handing down the
argument to his heir, Polymarchus. To me, Socrates has adroitly caused this to come about in
much the fashion that Lavrov answers his press questioners in the link b provides. That is,
he has done so with diplomacy, and a lesson to his younger companions which perhaps Cephalus
is no longer able to understand. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Yet in your disparaging comments of Europe and Germany in particular you proceed to show
how successful the Anglo-Americans have been in creating a wedge between Europe and Russia
actually validating my original point.
"Keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the US in"
That was the whole point of the first Cold War. It is the whole point of creating a Cold War 2.0. Absolutely nothing has changed.
By whom exactly? US & several euro puppets? Typical racist thinking that Europe and
its former colonies are somehow "the world" or "the international community".
Meanwhile opinion of Russia is positive in India (1,3 billion people, more than the whole
West combined) and China (1,4 billion, more than the whole West combined).
Those who don't spend for their own weapons, spend for their master's weapons (like
europuppets).
Btw your master (US) spends on weapons too. What are you going to do about it?
As was rightly pointed out in that discussion, British foreign policy towards Europe was
to ensure that no single power was to be allowed to achieve hegemony over Europe. The famous
"balance of power"
@ Posted by: Andrei Martyanov | Oct 17 2020 19:41 utc | 36
If the Russian Federation really has an ongoing imports substitution program, then this
explains everything. Germany is an exports-oriented economy. It wants to integrate with the Russian economy in
the sense to keep it as an agrarian-extrativist economy to feed it with cheap commodities to
feed their industry. Germany's ideal Russia is Brazil.
A Russia that also exports high-value commodities (manufactured commodities) is a direct
threat to Germany, as it competes with it directly in the international market. That's the
reason Germany doesn't want the BRI to come to Europe, as Merkel once said: Europe must not
become China's peninsula. China is Germany's main competitor, as it is also a big
manufacturing exporter.
Unlike China, Russia lacks the weight of population and reliance on the globalist capitalist
system to throw around, China will not shut itself up for Russia when it can trade with EU
& Turkey instead.
Russia is increasingly put into weak position, where Russian troops are sent to do the
dying, while the Chinese business whoop in afterwards to get all the juicy business deals. In
other words, Russia does the dying while China enriches itself.
Russia only hope is that it becomes friendly with the EU, otherwise, it is going to be
crushed between two superpowers, the EU and China.
I think the point of the sanctions and all the pressure on Russia is an appeal to Russian
elite, Just a reminder that they are isolated from the rest of the elite and hope that it
would help them throw Russian nationalists from power. I think this might succeed as Putin
did no really take on the new Russian capitalist class, and that will probably be his
undoing.
@vk 36 That's the reason Germany doesn't want the BRI to come to Europe
BRI in Europe - 16 countries:
Austria*, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine
* shaky
SCMP - Aug 17, 2020:
China's rail shipments to Europe set records as demand surges for Chinese goods amid
coronavirus
> July saw 1,232 cargo trains travel from Chinese cities to European destinations –
the most ever in a single month > Once regarded as merely ornamental, freight service along belt and road trade routes has
become increasingly important as exporters turn to railway transport. . .
here
Lavrov, Shoigu and Putin are calm, but the domestic economic situation is not.
While I have noted before that Russia is better positioned to survive low oil prices than
Saudi Arabia - it doesn't mean this is fun.
Couple that with COVID-19 economic losses, and stresses on the domestic Russian economy are
enormous.
Among other signs: after bouncing around in the 60s for some time, the ruble just hit 80 to
the USD. Anecdotally, I am hearing a lot of direct personal accounts of businesses not being
able to pay their people because their own customers aren't paying.
Russia has done relatively little extra to assist with COVID-19 related economic harms, so
this isn't great either.
@ laguerre -- The interview with Pepe Escobar deals with the whole range of issues in the
hybrid war against China, but the information you're looking for Regarding the suppression
and re-education of Muslim terrorists starts just past the 1-hour point.
the Chinese regime. I don't really understand their policy, which is becoming more
nationalistic and edgy.
No, it's become more multi-national and sensible. Take the BRI: Launched in 2013, it was
initially planned to revive ancient Silk Road trade routes between Eurasia and China, but the
scope of the BRI (Belt & Road Initiative) has since extended to cover 138 countries,
including 38 in sub-Saharan Africa and 18 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
they should be more relaxed
China has been an open target for the US, which doesn't even mention China any more (Pompeo)
but dumps on the "CCP" (Chinese Communist Party). China (like Russia) has not responded in
kind.
their attitude towards the Muslims in China
The US State Dept slash CIA has been fomenting terrorism in Xinjiang for years and China has
had to contend with it.
the question of Taiwan could blow up
Taiwan like some other places in the world, including Hong Kong, has been another place where
the US has fomented instability. This has increased recently with Taiwan "president" Tsai
declaring that Taiwan (January this year, BBC interview) is a separate country, which it
isn't. China is being pushed to do his Abe Lincoln thing and save the union.
They are less tolerant in Beijing
Chinese by nature are tolerant, and Beijing has been tolerant in the face of US naval fleets
and bomber visits in their near seas, plus political attacks, sanctions and tariffs.
66 watch what they do and have done and not what they.
Construction started four years ago on enlarging and modernization of the railway marshaling
yards in Duisburg.
The volume of Chinese freight trains arriving daily is already quite amazing and planned to
increase to one every hour next month 24/7.They are not returning empty. The oil and gas
pipeline corridors also had ten plus railway tracks built alongside .Germany is already at the
center of the BRI expansion into Germany and it started four years ago.
@ Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 17 2020 21:40 utc | 60
That's why Germany is not full anti-China.
--//--
@ Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 17 2020 22:12 utc | 66
Just because Germany doesn't want it, it doesn't mean it's not getting.
--//--
@ Posted by: c1ue | Oct 17 2020 22:18 utc | 67
I agree. Capitalism is a dead end for Russia. It's all about when Putin dies. After he dies, it will be a coin flip for Russia: it could
continue its course or it could get another Yeltsin.
Germany being against BRI is news to me. Any proof? And it is very unlikely that China will be able to fool the europeans lile the
american. The EU has regulations and aren't purely about profit.
Perhaps the US only has one script in the playbook: to balkanise, disrupt and foster 5th
columns until their opponent becomes a dysfunctional or failed state. Then send in the
acronyms (IMF etc), establish a provisional administration under trusted local elites but
commandeer resource-rich areas under direct provincial command. That's US imperialism and it
won't stop until they encounter opposition effective enough to resist it. That's why they'll
never forgive Putin for Syria. In the end they want to finish doing to Russia (by other
means...) what the Germans began in '41; and not just Russia, but anywhere their markets are
prevented from calling the shots.
thank you, @72. the chinese learned much from their century of humiliation & clearly one
of the important lessons was trade both ways, rather than take their silver, sell them tea,
silks & porcelain & need nothing they offered.
That's an excellent observation, and a concept I had not encountered before. Thank you.
How consciously China holds that narrative, if at all, I couldn't say.
But it's a great dynamic - kind of like keeping your enemies close. And if the German
increase in reciprocal railroad trade with China is as it was stated up-thread, it would seem
to be working.
@78, thank you, grieved...i've long admired you. in times such as these it can be a challenge
to keep sight of the positive but as china prospers & wishes her trading partners to as
well, & so long as russia continues to strive toward the high road rather than descend to
the barroom floor perhaps we can also learn to rise...i'm reminded of a sufi saying: 'rise in
love do not fall'. may we all.
Do they even think about an endpoint? Is it really on their radar?
Or is this all being done because they are spoilt, and are throwing a tantrum because they
aren't getting their way?
I assume that there are sober heads in the Pentagon that wargame possible "endpoints". If
not sober at the beginning then sober when the results play out to their bitter end.
Or... maybe not. Post-retirement board seats are at stake, dammit! Full steam ahead and
damn the torpedoes!
I'm truly astonished that you don't know the truth of Xinjaing - in sum, that the
concentration camps are a huge lie that can be revealed as such by any satellite, and that
China has developed a progressive and worthy solution to the foreign-provoked terrorism
within its border.
Fortunately, Qiao Collective, a great expert source on China, has recently compiled a
treasure trove of links to know the truth:
Based on a handful of think tank reports and witness testimonies, Western governments
have levied false allegations of genocide and slavery in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
A closer look makes clear that the politicization of China's anti-terrorism policies in
Xinjiang is another front of the U.S.-led hybrid war on China.
This resource compilation provides a starting point for critical inquiry into the
historical context and international response to China's policies in Xinjiang, providing a
counter-perspective to misinformation that abounds in mainstream coverage of the autonomous
region.
Posted by: Andrei Martyanov | Oct 17 2020 19:41 utc | 36
Andrei
A good justification on Russian German transitional relation, and we hope Russia is not
fooled again, by hopes. Those of us who hope for containing and reducing western dominance
over the world affairs, politics and economy, hope that Russians have learned from their
experience of the 90's joining G7, seat at NATO, joining western sanctions on smaller powers,
etc. all those efforts were the carrots thrown at Russia to tame the bear, one would think up
to Georgian war, it worked, that war perhaps woke the bear. Russians felt they are part of
Europe,part of western community of privileged nations (first world) but all that was a decoy
to move the NATO to Russian borders. I hope Russians once for all have learned, as long as
they have a big modern military and plenty of energy resources that is not under the western
(you read US) control they will never be accepted as a "western" country, Ironically, Russia
is the largest European country.
As a strategist you know better than most to circumvent western power and to bring back
the rule of international law, it would be impossible without having the Russian defensive
political and military power (as in Syria) on the side of resistance. We just hope you are
right Russia, will not be bought out again. IMO as you say, is just impossible for Germany,
or even France to decouple from the US grip on europe.
Seems to me its been terribly effective.
Russian economy pretty weak heavily reliant on raw materials, fracturing at the periphery.
China and Russia seem less than alies.
Seems US has Germany, France by the short hairs.
US had to bail them out in 2009.
Europe is having some problems with solvency and cohesion - whats a bureaucrat to do?
Its not really about the sovereigns, that's only for appearances.
@ 77
The Century of Humiliation from 1842 to 1949 and the contemporary discourse around it are a
driving narrative of contemporary Chinese history, foreign policy, and militarization of its
surrounding regions like the South China Sea. The expansion of the Chinese navy in numbers,
mission, and aggression is directly fueled by China's previous weakness and exploitation at
the hands of western nations. . . .
here
The US economy is definitely in trouble, but the US has spent roughly $2 trillion this year
to help its economy = a bit under 10% of 2019 GDP.
The difference is structural. The US economy is a service one - and lockdowns are literally
the best way to damage it.
The Russian economy is still heavily dependent on natural gas and oil sales. Despite the
initial devaluation, ongoing low oil prices plus increasing competition in natural gas (for
example, Azerbaijan is now selling natural gas to Italy) is hurting its economy.
Nor has Russia spent much to compensate for COVID-19 losses beyond its existing health and
social safety nets - the Russian plan was $73B / 5 trillion rubles = 4.3% of 2019 GDP.
I am anti-war and I am an anti-war crimes liberal (examples of war crimes: ethnic cleansing,
proof of genocide, torture, collective punishment via deprivation and occupation of
dispossessed land). Yet, I am also a non-interventionist except in extreme circumstances but
I am against regime change for the sake of neutralizing competing powers or converting them
religiously or politically.
All this implies exercising the highest integrity and blocking out all external influence
and pressure if one is a true liberal, and relying solely on conscience and wisdom.
Therefore, I don't like the term liberal sullied and usurped by fake liberals,
neoliberals and Zionist liberals, and I also take offense to the way liberal as a
general term is denigrated in this article.
Germany is an exports-oriented economy. It wants to integrate with the
Russian economy in the sense to keep it as an agrarian-extrativist economy to feed it with
cheap commodities to feed their industry. Germany's ideal Russia is Brazil.
True, it was about 10 years ago. Economic reality, of course, is such that Germany already
beat the record by consecutive 20 months of real economy shrinkage. In general, Germany's
energy policy is suicidal and Russia is increasingly independent from imports.
A lot to be
done in the future yet, of course, but as the whole comedy with high-power turbines and
Siemens demonstrated, Russia can do it on her own, plus General Electric is always there,
sanctions or no sanctions. It is a complicated matter, but it is Germany which increasingly
becomes irrelevant for Russia as an old image of technologically-advanced Germans getting
their hands on Russia's resources and ruling the world--this image is utterly obsolete,
completely false and doesn't correspond to the reality "on the ground".
It is really a simple
thing which many Westerners cannot wrap their brains around, that the country which has a
space program which operates ISS and second fully operational global satellite navigation
constellation, or which produces hypersonic weapons and whose shipbuilding dwarfs that of
Germany will have relatively little troubles in developing other crucial industries and
removing Western interests from those. Simple as that.
@90 Very true. Every time I read someone proclaiming that the Russian economy is no bigger
than Italy's, or Spain's, or ..... (fill in the blanks) I simply think to myself: "This word,
I do not think it means what you think it means".
Because it should be obvious to everyone that Italy can not produce all the things that
Russia produces.
Equally, Spain can not produce all the things that Russia produces.
So if someone has measured "economy" in such a way that the numbers for Russia are the
same as the number for Italy - or Spain - is simply admitting that their economic models are
flawed.
The US and EU attempts to break Russia's independent foreign policy are just stepping stones
to the eventual goal of a breakup Russia itself, never forget Albright's comments in the 90s
about how Siberia shouldn't belong to Russia alone.
Ultimately, though the US and EU nation
states are nothing more than tools of the globalist elite whose dream of a fully economically
integrated world where the power of labour is completely crushed by the power of capital to
move instantly across the planet is already falling apart. The economic elite have already
pillaged all of the minor nations in the world and the two grand prizes, Russia and China are
too powerful to attack directly now. unable to control their unbridled greed they've begone
the process of auto-self cannibalism, destroying their own states (or killing their hosts as
Michael Huddson would say) in order to completely centralize all capital within the 0.1%.
This will make them very rich, however hundreds of millions of Americans, Australians,
Canadians, Japanese and Europeans will be impoverished in order to do this. When this is
eventually realized by the majority of the people in these states, the economic elite will be
lucky if they "just" lose everything but their lives in mass nationalization campaigns. I see
very little evidence that the Russian or Chinese states would be willing to offer safe harbour for the criminal oligarchs of the West, like London has offered to criminal Oligarchs
fleeing justice in Russia
Before posting here monetarist propaganda BS form Western "economic" sources learn to
distinguish monetary expression of product and actual product in terms of quantity and
quality.
Just to demonstrate to you: for $100,000 in a desirable place in the US you will be
able to buy a roach-infested shack in a community known for meth-labs and high crime, for
exactly the same money in Russia you will buy a superb brand-new house in a desirable
location.
To demonstrate even more, for a price of a single Columbia-class SSBN ($8 billion+)
which does not exist other than on paper yet, Russia financed and produced her 8-hulls state
of the strategic missile submarines.
UK economy is dwarfed by Russia even in accordance by
IMF and World Bank, in fact, it is, once one excludes still relevant RR and few other
manufacturers, is down right third world economy. I am not going to post here all data from
IMF, but even this can explain why you posted a BS. Anyone "counting" real economic sector in
USD and Nominal GDP has to have head examined and is probably dumbed down through "economics"
programs in Western madrasas, aka universities.
In related news, learn what Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) is and check
energy consumption and production of Germany and Russia, just for shits and giggles.
And of course, Martyanov @96 is absolutely correct - the relative values of currencies are
proved to be nothing more than the entries of bookkeepers and bankers, all "sound and fury,
signifying nothing." What matters is what the home unit of currency will buy at home.
A better question is as Andrei suggests, what does it cost for Russia to produce something
that works, as opposed to what it costs the US to produce something that doesn't work because
of theft and cost inflation in the delivery chain?
The ultimate - MAD - question that the US should ask itself is this: How much does it
cost Russia to destroy the US, compared with the cost involved for the US to destroy
Russia?
~~
The cost of living is higher in the US. The cost of doing anything is higher. But none of
that means the quality of the result is greater - I certainly don't hear anyone lately saying
the living is good, compared to what people pay for it.
Were it not for the nerves of steel of Mr. Putin and his close advisers, the
irresponsible pressure policies outlined above could result in aggressive behavior and risk
taking by Russia that would make the Cuban missile crisis look like child's play.
We may yet see a Cuban missile crisis scenario but it looks more likely to be caused by arms
sales to Taiwan than conflict in the Caucasus.
I also think its naive to see these as "fires burning at Russia's borders" instead of as
deliberately set bear traps . Azerbaijan is in a strategic location between Russia and
Iran and the conflict with Armenia comes just before Russia is about to sell advanced weapons
to Iran.
Jacques Chirac President of France told Jr Bush if the United States finds WMDs in Iraq
you put them there. The CIA and MI6 knew Iraq had no WMDs because Tariq Aziz Saddam's long
time number 2 was a CIA asset. Back in the 1980s Aziz was a regular on the Washington
cocktail party circuit and a frequent guest on CNNs Crossfire with Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak
vs Tom Braden and Michael Kinsley. Finally Dick Armey Republican and House Majority leader
was going to vote against authorizing the war in the fall of 2002. Cheney goes up to Capitol
Hill pulls Armey into the Vice Presidents office in the Capitol and tells him that Iraq is
close to having suitcase nukes and has very close ties to Osama bin Laden. Both lies of
course.
On one occasion when Jr Bush was talking to Chirac he told him that the war on terror is
Biblical prophecy. Needless to say Chirac was stunned. Yes the Republican establishment lied
the country into one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our history. Almost as bad as
Woodrow Wilson taking us into World war 1 which led to the rise Bolshevik revolution and Nazi
Germany
Vietnam was bad for sure and had a much larger death count, but the region or the domino
theory never materialized. The Middle East has been in chaos ever since our invasion and
occupation of Iraq
Jacques Chirac President of France told Jr Bush if the United States finds WMDs in Iraq you
put them there. The CIA and MI6 knew Iraq had no WMDs because Tariq Aziz Saddam's long time
number 2 was a CIA asset. Back in the 1980s Aziz was a regular on the Washington cocktail party
circuit and a frequent guest on CNNs Crossfire with Pat Buchanan, Robert Novak vs Tom Braden
and Michael Kinsley. Finally Dick Armey Republican and House Majority leader was going to vote
against authorizing the war in the fall of 2002. Cheney goes up to Capitol Hill pulls Armey
into the Vice Presidents office in the Capitol and tells him that Iraq is close to having
suitcase nukes and has very close ties to Osama bin Laden. Both lies of course.
On one occasion when Jr Bush was talking to Chirac he told him that the war on terror is
Biblical prophecy. Needless to say Chirac was stunned. Yes the Republican establishment lied
the country into one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our history. Almost as bad as
Woodrow Wilson taking us into World war 1 which led to the rise Bolshevik revolution and Nazi
Germany
Vietnam was bad for sure and had a much larger death count, but the region or the
domino theory never materialized. The Middle East has been in chaos ever since our
invasion and occupation of Iraq
Britain created Saudi Arabia? They supported the westernized Hashemites rivals of the
Saud to the hilt. Just one of the many factual errors in a muddle-headed article that seems
to draw its inspiration from the reflexive anti-Americanism of the European loony left.
The Caucasus, like the former Yugoslavia, or India before partition, is made up of many
populations coexisting. When ethno- or religious nationalism rears its ugly head, violence
and ethnic cleansing inevitably ensue. The Armenians prevailed militarily due to
Azerbaijani incompetence, not because of any intrinsic moral righteousness, but the thing
about military gains is they can be reversed when the other side gets its act together,
specially if it enjoys an overwhelming advantage in population and resources.
Foreign powers like Russia, Turkey, Iran, France or Israel are pouring oil on the fires
of revanchism for political or mercantile reasons, instead of pushing both sides to
meaningful negotiations (let's not forget the Armenians are perfectly happy with the status
quo and have not exactly been eager to negotiate it away). The last thing the US should be
doing is taking sides, and since this is Russia's backyard there is not much we can do
other than pressuring Turkey to stop making things worse, but we all know how little real
sway we have with Erdögan.
The article seems to me to be disjointed and I have feeling the damage was done during
editing. There's no egregious mistake is saying the Brits created "Saudi" Arabia. That is a
historical fact and which family/tribe they supported is irrelevant in historical terms.
Your charge of "reflexive anti-Americanism of the European loony left." because of a few
inaccuracies in the article is way off the wall. The article is badly written but it is
informative.
Regarding your claim, "Foreign powers like Russia, Turkey, Iran, France or Israel are
pouring oil on the fires...", I agree with you with the exception of Iran's role in this
mess. The very first official announcement by the IRI, which I posted to another article on
the site, warned Turkey is pouring fuel to the file. There's no disagreement there. Iran
has no military personnel nor funding going to either country. Azerbaijan has about 700
Kilometers of common border with Iran, and Armenia shares about 32 Kilometers of borders
with Iran. Iran has a substantial, vibrant and patriotic Azari population. Many are in top
IRI leadership including Khamenei. Iran also has a very substantial and vibrant Armenian
population. Iran does recognize the Turk's genocide of its Armenian population. Iran is
connected to Armenia via oil and gas pipelines, as well as power grids. Iran is the most
important of energy supplier for Armenia.
A bit of recent history will shed some light on Iran's behavior and attitude towards
each country. While Armenia remained one of Iran's stalwart neighbors, Azerbaijan took the
path of endearing itself to the US and Israel axis of war mongering and destabilizing
policies. This put Azerbaijan on Iran's list of "unfriendly" governments, I'm not talking
about Azerbaijan's Shia population in this context. There's nothing for Iran in this war.
Therefore Iran's latest announcement is to end the war as soon as possible through
diplomatic means. The shells and missiles have started landing on Iranian soil but no
casualties fortunately.
The British had literally nothing to do with the creation of Saudi Arabia.
Abdulaziz Ibn Saud took back his family fief of Riyadh in 1901 from the rival al-Rashid of
Ha'il, then waged war over the other tribes of Arabia, enlisting a fanatical proto-ISIS
like militia called the Ikhwan to conquer in 1924 the British-supported Hejaz ruled by
Sharif Hussein of the Hashemite dynasty. He did not extend his conquests to Yemen, Oman,
Kuwait or Transjordan and Syria because that would have meant waging direct war on the
British and French empires, and in fact had to quell a rebellion of the Ikhwan who wanted
to do exactly that.
The Saudis draw great pride in being the one nation in the Middle East that was not
colonized by Western powers (mostly because it was worthless until the discovery of oil).
Just because William Shakespear or Gertrude Bell toured the region does not make the
al-Saud British puppets like the Hashemites were, whatever their many faults. While
Abdulaziz bided his time and tactically made treaties with the British like temporarily
accepting a protectorate status or agreeing to fight the al-Rashid (like he would do
otherwise, they being his family's hereditary enemies....), they never provided him with
any significant assistance, and in fact tried ineffectually to contain his rise.
I think if we remove "Saudi" from the discussion and just talk about "Arabia" our
difference of opinion will evaporate. The country is mistakenly, in my opinion, was named
"Saudi Arabia" for the Western colonizers' special interest. The rest of your argument
about who did what to whom in Arabia is inside baseball to me.
By the way, stay tuned. We many start hearing about the al-Rashid as soon as the "king"
passes and mBS tries be big cheese of Arabia.
Of course Iran would just like the conflict to go away; its leaving them with only bad
choices, whether that to be appearing to support Azerbaijan and alienating Armenia, with
whom they have an important relationship, or appearing to support Armenia and alienating
much of its local Azeri population. I think Iran publicly is walking a fine line and trying
to stress diplomacy to solve the conflict as much as possible, though its still hard for
them to extricate themselves from the politics of the situation.
Though, in that regard, its a bit wrong to compare the Azeri population in Iran to the
Armenian population; its completely different in scale and importance. Iran has some
concern that the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict, if handled wrongly, would become regional or
spill over into their borders, and they're less concerned about Armenia in that part.
Also wrong to not point out that Israel formed ties with Azerbaijan and Iran formed ties
with Armenia around the same time; these were complementary moves, and its just as possible
to explain Israel's ties with Azerbaijan as being as a result of Iran's ties with Armenia,
rather than just the reverse. Just as well, Israel at the time had friendly relations with
Turkey, which have since deteriorated. Its also true that the relationships are based on
reasons independent of those kind of geopolitical moves, and are largely based on
self-interest on both sides. Azerbaijan is also Israel's top oil supplier. Simply blaming
all this on the US and Israel, and making Iran's stance towards Azerbaijan as a result of
them being the victim of these types of deals, is a bit much.
I doesn't seem Iran can or even thinks about extricate herself from "the situation".
Iran is situated right there and whether things spill over to Iran or not will play a big
role in Iran's perception of the regional security.
No sure where I inferred any comparison between the Azari and the Armenian population of
Iran. They are BOTH Iranians. After the breakup of the USSR, the Azerbaijani dictator
Heydar Aliyev established relation with Israel and later the US, while refusing to join any
of the several post-Soviet economic arrangements. That was accompanied by Azerbaijan making
noises about "unification" of Azerbaijan. That pushed Iran to throw all its support behind
Armenia then. The situation has changed and IRI and Azerbaijan have normal relations.
Iran cannot simple afford to consider the Armenian Iranians less "important" than her
Azeri Iranians, if that's where you are going.
The author may have been a banker, but he clearly was neither an historian or diplomat.
He knows neither the details of what he writes, nor does he have a framework.
The decision to assign Karabakh to Azerbaijan was taken in 1921, not 1923 and was taken
by the Bolshevik Caucasus Bureau, not by Stalin. General clashes between Azerbaijanis and
Armenians took place in 1905, and the fighting for Karabakh proper erupted in 1918 with the
formation of independent Armenian and Azerbaijan republics. Both well before the Bolsheviks
or Stalin could do anything about Karabakh (although the Bolsheviks did join with the
Armenian Dashnaks in March 1918 to seize Baku and butcher Azerbaijanis in the process. Yes,
Azerbaijanis retaliated in September, but the Armenians did start it and got their hands
plenty bloody, outside Baku as well).
The author's contempt for Azerbaijanis comes through in his comment that the
Azerbaijanis have lost every time against the Armenians. He never reflects that the
possible reason might be that the Armenians have been both better organized and more
aggressive than the Azerbaijanis. He deliberately leaves out that Armenian expelled 800,000
Azerbaijanis from the territories surrounding Karabakh. He is stunning in his
disingenuousness and ignorance. As for his framework, he has none. Where does he get the
idea that Kosovo and Karabakh are interlinked and that they can be resolved through
tradeoffs? Does he imagine that Muslims are one people and constitute a single union?
Apparently.
An Arab world moving toward Pan-Arabism and socialism in 1924?!
As to the "Armenian settlement area" – the author might reflect on the Kurds'
claims to 90% of that same area, and the bloody history of Kurdish-Armenian relations. If
turning over old borders what do you do about Abkhazia, Circassia, and multiple places in
the Balkans from where Muslims were expelled. Bring Greeks back into Turkey, too, while we
are it? This article was not analysis, but uninformed blathering laced with ethnic
invective. The Armenians have suffered enough to deserve such shoddy argumentation. AmCon
should be ashamed to have run this.
Turkey regularly threatens Europe with opening the gates with their "refugees" as
leverage in negotiations. Erdogan travels to the heart of Europe to encourage the Turkish
diaspora to perpetuate their grudges on European soil and encourage them to flex their
political muscle to further an Islamist agenda. They slaughtered Armenians, Greeks, and
Syriac Christians- never acknowledging the crime or showing remorse. Now they seek to
finish what they started with the Armenian Genocide- and the world sits on its hands
claiming that both sides are equally responsible.
This is outrageous! Turkey has proved time and time again that it is the aggressor,
using threats to get what it wants, and does not behave as an ally. Turkey has
single-handily destabilized entire countries in its dream of Neo-Ottoman domination over
the region. Time to heavily militarize the Greek- Turkish frontier, kick Turkey out of
NATO, and put it on notice that it's adventurism in Libya, Syria, and Armenia will be met
overwhelming force. Feeble responses made by the West will only encourage the mad-dog
Erdogan.
Explains well why Biden spent the other day criticizing the President for not taking a
more active role in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Warmongers gonna warmonger. I assume
that's one of the main attractions for Biden's supporters - more dead women and children in
Asia. They spent eight years driving around with "Support America's Foreign Invasions"
yellow ribbon stickers on their SUVs under the last administration Biden was part of.
With not a new war for nearly four years, I can understand why the establishment and
Democrat voters are pissed. At least the fake "neoconservatives" are back in the party they
belong in.
War mongering is like Herpes. You can suppress it, but it's virus never goes away. Biden
has had it for years. He supported W's war of choice in Iraq, which led to the carnage of
thousands of American 20-somethings, thousands of mental illness sufferers and MILLIONS of
dead Iraqi people of ALL ages. He is an unrepentant old neo-con war criminal.
American diplomat George Messersmith found himself in an awkward situation while attending a
luncheon in Kiel, Germany in August of 1933.
As lunch came to a close, the attendees erupted into song with arms outstretched in the Nazi
salute.
First they belted out Germany's national anthem, followed by the anthem of the
Stormtroopers– the paramilitary "Brownshirts" who violently enforced Germany's new social
rules.
Messersmith was the US Consul-General overseeing America's diplomatic ties with Germany, so
he politely stood at attention. But he did not salute or sing along.
Germans were required by law to render the Nazi salute, especially during the anthem; Hitler
had been awarded supreme executive authority only a few months before, and he made the
mandatory salute law of the land.
Foreigners, however, were explicitly exempt from saluting or singing the anthem.
But that didn't help Messersmith.
Even though he was legally excused from making the Nazi salute, angry Brownshirts menacingly
glared at him for not participating in their rituals.
Messersmith later wrote in his memoirs that he felt threatened, as if the Brownshirts were
ready to attack him.
"I felt really quite fortunate that the incident took place within doors. . . For if it
had been in a street gathering, or in an outdoor demonstration, no questions would have been
asked as to who I was, and that I would have been mishandled is almost unquestionable."
Messersmith was one of the few US officials who grasped just how dangerous the Nazis were in
1933. Others had to witness it first hand before they understood.
A similar event unfolded when a US radio host and his family found themselves amidst an
impromptu Nazi parade in Berlin.
And in order to avoid Hailing Hitler, they turned their backs to the parade and gazed into a
store window.
But several Brownshirts quickly surrounded the family and demanded to know why they did not
salute.
The family explained that they were from the US and didn't know the customs in Germany. But
the Brownshirts didn't care. The family was assaulted as police officers watched and did
nothing to stop the violence.
News of these sorts of incidents quickly made their way overseas, and foreigners read the
about Americans traveling in Germany being savagely beaten or threatened for not engaging in
Nazi rituals.
But more surprising is that many foreigners actually sided with the Nazis.
Even the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany defended the Nazis and their Brownshirt
enforcers.
She said that news reports of these assaults and beatings were "exaggerated by bitter,
close-minded people" who ignored the "thrilling rebirth" Hitler had ushered in for Germany.
Of course, we know in retrospect that these early warning signs were not at all an
exaggeration. They were a small preview for what would come next.
Today we are obviously in a different time dealing with totally different circumstances.
But it would be foolish to ignore the early warning signs and pretend as if what's happening
now is not a preview for what could come next.
This is perhaps best illustrated by a CNN reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin back in August who
stood in front of burning cars and buildings, with a violent mob all around him, yet declared
the protests "fiery but mostly peaceful."
This willful ignorance of the undercurrent coursing its way through the Western world will
not save anyone from the destruction it brings.
For example, just this past Monday, "peaceful protesters" in Portland, Oregon celebrated
Columbus Day with an "Indigenous People's Day of Rage."
They weren't even pretending to be peaceful. They called it what it is: RAGE. That's
literally the name they gave to their own actions.
Hundreds of people dressed in all black, covered their faces, and armed themselves with
shields and nightsticks. They marched their way through the city, smashed windows, and forced
any witnesses to stop filming and delete photographs.
A man who filmed from his apartment's terrace had lasers shined in his eyes and was doused
in some sort of liquid.
The protesters tore down statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. They smashed the
windows of the Oregon Historical Society building, and unfurled a banner that said "stop
honoring racist colonizer murderers."
Police did not even attempt to intervene until the rioters had been on the streets for hours
and had already caused havoc and destruction.
(Ironically, much of the mainstream media still refuses to acknowledge that this group
'antifa'– the fascists who call themselves anti-fascists– even exists.)
It's obvious that a small, fringe, ideological minority has started to take control.
They have squashed civil discourse and free speech. Dissent is met with violence and
intimidation. And if you dare to speak out, you become a target.
That could mean being "cancelled" by the Twitter mob. Or being accosted in public and forced
to raise your fist. Several people have already been killed in protests across the nation.
This is far from the first time in history that a tiny fraction of the population has
resorted to violence and extremism to force their agenda on an entire nation.
But you don't have to watch helplessly as the born-again Brownshirts destroy everything you
have worked for.
The first step is to recognize that the radical movement will not simply go away on its own.
This has been growing for some time, and history tells us that it could become much
worse.
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Second, have a rock solid Plan B. This means deciding– in advance, when you're still
calm and rational– what steps to take in order to secure your family's safety, your
prosperity, and your freedom in a worst case scenario.
After all, you don't want to be thinking about your next move when some antifa thug
'peacefully' hurls a molotov cocktail through your window.
On another note We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the
next few years.
Islamist-Marxist MEK's history, including spying on Iran on behalf of Saddam Hussein when
he invaded Iran, destroying its western cities. After murdering Americans - but the Lobby
always gets what it wants, so MEK is now off the terrorist list and instead being funded by
the U.S., and housed in a training camp in Albania.
The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the
U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing U.S.
corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it turned its
guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and terrorist
operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the executions of
its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and ordinary
people.
It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam Hussein,
which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops for Iraq,
attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped Hussein put down
the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south after the Persian
Gulf War of 1990-91.
The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be
treason committed against their homeland.
So funny. I remember reading Gore Vidal's novel "Creation", which deals with the Persian
Empire, Zoroastrism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Socratic philosophy and morals.
The historical details in the book are relatively well researched, albeit one does get
some literary licence for building up characters and story lines, etc. Now the Persian
Imperial court is presented in the novel as being choke full of Greek Dissidents clamoring to
the King of Kings to attack and subdue Greece/Athens, or what not. Marathon, Salamina,
Thermopylae, Plateia follow... The Iranian "dissidents" should learn from their past...
The Athenian "wooden wall" (their ships) is Iran's missile force...
IF TRUE... a big if... this would be somewhat disturbing. One would hope that news outlets
in their never-ending search for "content" would vet the authors just a tad.
But still... the rationale for going to war (with Iran or anyone else) rises or falls on
its own merits. The arguments raised by these authors are of far more importance than whether
the authors are real or fake. Think of how often we have seen academic credentials or
military service exaggerated by AMERICAN academics and authors to goose their relevance. They
may fall to the wayside as proponents of one thing or another when exposed but their
arguments may still be true or false. Same goes for people who do NOT exaggerate their
credentials.
I would think it would be far more dangerous if Twitter and other outlets were allowing
our ADVERSARIES to create fake personalities promoting PEACE when in fact we need to take
action against them.
It time to make him accountable at the election box. Not that it matter much as Biden is yet another neocon and Zionist, but
stil...
American people are tied of sliding standard of living, permanent wars and jingoism. Trump might share Hillary fate in 2020,
because any illusion that he is for common fold, who voted for him in 2016 now disappeared. So he is not better then neocon Biden and Biden is new bastard. So why vote for the old bastard if we have new, who might be
slightly better in the long run
This is a very expensive foreign policy, that doesn't benefit the USA. It has potential to
raise the price of oil significantly.
Notable quotes:
"... Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. ..."
"... I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets. ..."
"... It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel. ..."
"... Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be. ..."
"... I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?' ..."
"... "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. " ..."
"... Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States. ..."
"... "Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before." ..."
The U.S. has imposed
new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:
[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country ,
this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry
biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties' access to the U.S. financial
sector if they engage with Iran's financial sector.
Since the idea was first floated publicly , many have argued that sanctioning Iran's
financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of
existing U.S. sanctions.
Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of
campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any
attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:
This idea appears to have first been introduced into public discourse in an
Aug. 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg urging
the Trump administration to "[b]uild an Iranian [s]anctions [w]all" to prevent any future
Biden administration from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the
nuclear accord between Iran and the world's major powers on which President Donald Trump
reneged in May 2018.
The new sanctions will stop all trade between the 'western' countries and Iran.
The Foreign Minister of Iran responded with defiance:
Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food
& medicine.
Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties.
But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers
-- who block our money -- WILL face justice.
In response Iran will continue its turn to the east. Russia, China and probably India will
keep payment channels with Iran open or will make barter deals.
The Europeans, who so far have not dared to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran, are likely to be
again shown as the feckless U.S. ass kissers they have always been. They will thereby lose out
in a market with 85 million people that has the resources to pay for their high value products.
If they stop trade of humanitarian goods with Iran they will also show that their much vaunted
'values' mean nothing.
The European Union claims that it wants to be an independent actor on the world stage. If
that is to be taken seriously this would be the moment to demonstrate it.
Posted by b on October 9, 2020 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink
Unconscionable but what is new with pompass and his ghouls; treasury dept responsible for
cranking up the sanctions program was formerly headed by a dual citizen woman who resigned
suddenly after being exposed as an Israeli citizen-not hard to understand that sentiment in
that dept has not changed.
The other aspect here is the FDD as key supporter of these severe sanctions; very virulent
anti-Iranian vipers nest of ziocons with money bags from zionist oligarch funders.
Ho-hum. As I wrote earlier, just the daily breaking of laws meaning business as usual. As
noted, Russia has really upped the diplomatic heat on EU and France/Germany in particular,
and that heat will be further merited if the response is as b predicts from their past,
deplorable, behavior.
Much talk/writing recently about our current crisis being similar in
many ways to those that led to WW1, but with the Outlaw US Empire taking Britain's role. I
expect Iran's Iraqi proxies to escalate their attacks aimed at driving out the occupiers.
IMO, we ought to contemplate the message within this Strategic Culture editorial when it comes to the hegemonic relationship between
the Outlaw US Empire and the EU/NATO and the aims of both. The EU decided not to continue
fighting against the completion of Nord Stream, but that IMO will be its last friendly act
until it severs its relations with the Outlaw US Empire. With the Wall moved to Russia's
Western borders, the Cold War will resume. That will also affect Iran.
thanks b... it is interesting what a pivotal role israel plays in all of this... and why
would there be concern that biden would be any different then trump in revoking the jcpoa? to
my way of thinking, it is just pouring more cement and sealing the fate of the usa either
way, as an empire in real decline and resorting to more of the same financial sanctions as a
possible precursor to war.. frankly i can't see a war with iran, as the usa would have to
contend with russia and china at this point... russia and china must surely know the game
plan is exactly the same for them here as well.. as for europe, canada, australia and the
other poodles - they are all hopeless on this front as i see it... lets all bow down to the
great zionist plan, lol...
Yeah but at least Trump didn't start any new wars. /s
The Eurotools in Brussels are absolutely disgusting. A weaker bunch of feckless,
milquetoast satraps is difficult to imagine. The EU perfectly embodies the 21st century
liberal ethic: spout virtue signaling nonsense about peace, freedom, human rights and the
"rules based international order" while licking the boots of Uncle Scam and the Ziofascists
and going along with their war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Russia and China need to step up their game and boldly circumvent the collective
punishment sanctions that are choking the life out of Iran, Syria and Venezuela. They still
let the rogue states of the west get away with far too much.
The Teheran men will not surrender to the yankee herds and hordes. And less so the
telavivian.
It s easy to see that in the medium run this cruelly extended crime plays in chinese, russian
and shia hands.
And they must start immediately a backlash handing hundreds of special forces and weapons
opver to the Houthi hands.
Of course there is a war on, and it has been gathering force for some time.
Iran is but one more skirmish or battle. However, Xi and Putin are using what I call the
"Papou yes". You must always say "yes" as this way you avoid direct conflict, but then you
go and do exactly what you were going to do in the first place . The person who does the
demanding - having had his/her demands "met" has nothing further to add and will go away. (I
have seen this effective technique in action).
At the moment it appears that the aim of the subversive (military/CIA/NGO) wings of the
Empire are to start as many conflicts as possible. To isolate and overextend Russia, leading
to it's collapse. (As they claim to have done before.)
The "Alternative axis" is just carrying on with it's own plan to overextend and eventually
let the US dissolve into its own morasss. The opposition are trying to follow their own plan
without giving an opening for the US/NATO to use its numerical military advantage, by not
taking the bait.
The ultimate battle is for financial control of the worlds currency, or in the case of the
US, to halt the loss of it's financial power. To avoid that The next step could be the
introduction of a Fed. owned controlled and issued "digi-dollar", When all outstanding
"dollar assets" are re-denominated into virtual misty-money which is created exclusively by
the Fed. Banks become unnecessary as the Fed becomes the only "lender" available, Congress
redundant, debts no longer matter and so on. Who cares about the reserves held by China and
overseas "investors" if their use or even existence can be dictated by the Fed?
They have already published a "trial balloon" about introducing a digi-dollar.
Iran? the US is throwing ALL its cards into what looks like it's final battle to preserve
the dollars supremacy. Why cut ALL the Iranian financial system out of their sphere of
influence? Because it (thinks) it can and by doing so cower the wavering into obeying.
Thanks 'b', very well timed. I was actually heading to the open thread with this article
until I saw your piece. This Asia Times
article focuses on three key points:
- Iran has replaced the dollar with the Yuan as its main foreign currency
"This may become the east wind for the renminbi (yuan) and provide a new oil currency option
for traders in oil-producing countries, including Iran," an editorial on qq.com said. "
- Several large banks in Iran are developing a gold encrypted digital currency called
PayMon and had issued more than 1,000 crypto-currency mining licenses, which could promote
the development of crude oil. Domestic traders use cryptocurrency to import goods and bypass
American banks.
- The Iranian-Swiss Joint Chamber of Commerce
"Switzerland had received a special exemption from US supervisory authorities to allow the
SHTA operations."
It remains to be seen how effective the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement actually is.
Some say it is nothing but a US propaganda stunt. Hopefully, that is not the case.
What does Iran need that they cannot get from China and Russia? The USA has cheap corn, and
the EU has... what, cheese? Other than that I don't see why Iran needs to trade with the
empire and its more servile vassals anyway.
Strange, that ther is a jewish or Israeki ´ animosity agains Iran (or agains tthe
Medtans -- as thy are all named in all Greek records(H, that theer is a jewish animosity
against, that ther is a jewish anikisit agains Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in
all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reported to have liberatet the
Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON
CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE
THE YEAR OF 1´2917! Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek
Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews
of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO"
-- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF
1´2917! ellenistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he
Jews of Babylon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON
CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE
THE YEAR OF 2017
Quite impressed with all the theories about Europe and its behavior. The answer is very
simple, Europe is occupied by a foreign power, it is a colony. And all the qualifiers are
quaint.
I disagree. What did the EU did on Iran, compared to Russia and China? It stopped most trade with Iran, including the purchase of iranian oil, and it stopped all
investment projects. INSTEX is a joke. Meanwhile Germany recently banned Hezbollah.
Yes, they did vote for the JCPOA in the UN. I look at actions rather than words though,
and EU has imposed de facto sanctions on Iran.
Moreover, German FM Maas told Israel recently that efforts are underway to keep the Iran
arms embargo. (He is also a big "Russia fan" - sarc off)
In other words, we "support" the JCPOA, but in practice with arms and trade embargoes on
Iran continuing.
Yeah right.
Posted by: powerandpeople | Oct 9 2020 20:15 utc | 24
No, its not so simple, unless you claim that european russophobia started with the US and
did not exist before it. Guy Mettan has a good book on it. It is a thousand years old issue,
involving Catholicism, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain, and others.
Yes, the US wants to divide the EU and Russia. But the EU itself is rotten from
within.
Politics are more important than the economy, German Chancellor Merkel said in relation to
Russia.
"Drang nach Osten" - "Drive to the East".
Germany dreams of capturing Eastern Europe and using is as some sort of colonised labor
pool similar to what Latin America is for the US.
And this is why the EU, without any prodding, eagerly took the lead in the attempt of
colour revolution in Belarus, where it played far bigger role than the US.
Signing and adhearing to the JCPOA turned Europe and Iran from opponents into partners.
This is a great diplomatic achievement. However, no part of the JCPOA made the two allies or
obliged the European side to wage an economic war with the USA on behalf of Iran. On the
contrary, the Iranians would be the first to say they are no friends of Europa. They have
been complaining about "Western meddling" in their region for years. (Note that they don`t
differentiate but always speak collectively of "the West").
So that`s their chance to show the world how much of a sovereign nation they are and that
they can handle their problems without the "meddling" of the "despicable" Europeans. There is
no obligation - neither legal nor moral - for Europe to take the side of Iran in the US-Iran
conflict.
And actually it is both sides - both Iran and the USA - who are unhappy with the current
European neutrality.
Thanks to MoA for being one of the only honest brokers of news on Iran in the English
language. As an American citizen living abroad (in EU) I have a more jaded and at the same
time worried feeling about this.
Along with all the other stuff, including the current threat to close the U.S. embassy in
the Iraqi "Green Zone" and the accompanying military maneuvers, which would spark war in the
region, I see this hardening and expansion of sanctions as yet the next clue that the U.S.
and Donald Trump's regime are looking toward re-election and a hot war with/on Iran. Rattling
the cage ever more and backing Iran into the corner with brutal, all-encompassing sanctions
is already an act of war, usually the first prior to bombs falling. I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons
development sites and other military and petro-state assets.
I hope I'm wrong but we've all seen this before and it never ends well. If the EU shows a
spine, or more likely Russia and/or China step in directly, perhaps the long desired
neocon/neolib/Zionist hot war against Iran can be avoided.
I think it is very important for the US to kill another 500,000 children via sanctions, in
order to demonstrate the importance of freedom and democracy and observing international law.
While reading this post I was thinking what MoA wrote in the last two paragraphs. And also
that Iran will just continue to turn to China, Russia, and others in the East.
It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are
fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel.
"Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that
causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the
past"
plus, as you point out elsewhere, there are longer histories at play: the Crusades against
the Slavs, the Moors and the Turks (and the Arabs, in fact), the invention of "western
civilization" in the 19th century (Arians vs Semites, Europe vs Asia, ecc) ...
plus, there is the persisting aspiration for world domination, partly frustrated by WW1
and the upheavals of the XXth century, which transformed the UK and the whole of Europe (with
Japan, Australia, etc) in a junior partner of the new US Empire
(that's the other lesson learned from WW2: no single european power could dominate the
continent and the world, but they could dominate as junior partners under the new young
leader of the wolf pack, the US)
plus, there are is a class war that can be better fought, by national oligarchies, within
globalist rethoric and rules
plus, there are the US deep state instruments of domination over european national
states
but Europeans (and Usaians) do understand the language of force, and they have - at the
moment - encountered a wall in their attempts at expansion, in Iran, China, Russia,
Venezuela, ecc; an alternative multipolar alliance is taking shape
so they might attempt to win a nuclear war by 20 million deaths to 2 (or 200 to 20, who
cares), but they might also decide to tune down their ambitions and return to reality;
maybe
@m (#35)
EU promised to uphold JCPOA. They can't because of the US and they are doing next to nothing
to change that. EU isn't neutral. They are stooges. Iran is right to complain about it, the
US isn't.
Trump is a man of peace, he hasn't started any new wars - whatever that means, lol.
As far as
I know economic blocade is tantamount to war. If he wins reelection expect renewed kinetic
attacks on venezuela and Iran. He's already lined up his zionist coalition with arabic
satraps to launch his Iran quagmire. Trump is a deal maker, he understands the economy and
will bring back manufacturing jobs to Murikkka, lol. I'm sure Boeing execs in deep trouble
would love to sell plane to the Iranians but Mr. MIGA just made that impossible. Nothing to
worry about, there's always the next socialist bailout for Boeing funded by taxpayers -
suckers as Trump would call them. So much for winning, can't fix deplorable and stupid...
Btw b, Trump's opposition to the Iran deal has nothing to do with money or the zionist
lobby. Stable genius opposed JCPOA in 2015 even before announcing his run for the presidency.
It's not about the mula but all about the mollah's, lol: The Donald in his own words at a tea
party event in 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8
Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 multiple US regimes in DC have been totally
successful in making majority Iranian people everywhere in the world, understand that the US
is their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come. At same time, these US regimes have
equally been as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between this two side's belief is, that, Iranian people by experiencing US
regime' conducts have come to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their
own regime' propaganda machinery. For this reason, just like the people to people relation
between the US and Russian people, Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US
and Iran in next few generations will not come to or even develop to anything substantial or
meaningful. One can see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably
all these countries relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions,
regardless of the maturity or termination of the revolution. As much as US loves color
revolutions, US hates real revolutions. The animosity no longer is just strategic it has
become people to people, and the reason and blame goes to Americans since they never were
ready to accept the revolutions that made nations self-servient to their interests. The
bottom line truth is the US / and her poodles in europe know, ever since the revolution Iran
no longer will be subservient to US interests.
This is leverage to bargain away the oil pipeline to germany. That is what is behind it. You
scratch my back, the US is saying to the EU, in particular, Germany....
It's an
Economy based on Plunder! , so that's why sanctions here, there and everywhere!! But the
real problem is we aren't participating in the Plunder!! Sometimes you gotta use extreme
sarcasm to explain the truth of a situation, and that's what Max and Stacey do in their show
at the link. 13 minutes of honest reporting about the fraudulent world in which we live. As
for Jerome Powell, current Fed Chair, he's complicit in the ongoing criminal activity just as
much as the high ranking politicos. Bastiat laid it out 180 years ago, but we're living what
he described now. And that's all part of what I wrote @40 above. The moral breakdown occurred
long ago but took time to perfect.
I think it is crazy that EU allows US to manage SWIFT to the point they invent new entities
to sidestep SWIFT and US sanctions (which are weak and ineffective, but that is the
trajectory of their weak attempts at independence). Force SWIFT to equally service all legal
transactions according to EU law, and let US cut itself off from all international financial
transfers if it doesn't like using EU's SWIFT. US corps won't allow that to happen, it's just
that EU refuses to call US bluff. Of course they are now praying for Biden presidency, but if
they can't assert themselves it is all ultimately the same thing.
These 'foreign policy experts' think the trade war with China has been a mistake. But they
think Trump is too soft on Russia and he hasn't been tough enough on NK, Iran and Venezuela.
It has become a standard trick for outgoing US administrations to saddle the incoming
administration with set in stone policies and judicial appointments.
"Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of
campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any
attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran."
Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump
administration.
The danger for the world is the Trump administration may go even further than additional
sanctions. So I refer to the previous post, US policy remains the same whatever bunch are the
frontmen.
When that attempt failed they worked on convincing the Sultan of Turkey to give them
someone else's homeland. The Zionist Zealot Mr Kalvariski became the administrator of the
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of establishing a jewish suprematist
ghetto. Following that flop the Zionists turned to the hapless British and were rewarded by
Balfour with his notorious British government double cross of the Arabs. Now it's the turn of
the US and assorted captive nations to uphold and support tyranny and Talmudic
violence.
I am SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that DaTrumpster understands DaDeepState better than any
of us armchair pundits. His patient - and yes, perhaps faulty strategy - he's still standing
after ALL DaCrap that's been thrown at him.
All the 'EXPURTS' - including MoA - can only see part of DaPicture at best.
I've been as hard on DaTrumpster as anyone on DaConservative side - but I am SLOWLY coming to
understand WTF just might be going on.
Point - don't be too sure of your immediate inclinations - we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
SWIFT is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor
does it manage client accounts. Behind most international money and security transfers is the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast
messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and
securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.
Paul wrote:
"Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump
administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be.
And hasn't it always been that way from one president to the the next? Was there ever one
that was less zionist than the predecessor? (Maybe they're all so close this is an impossible
question to answer, that too could be the case).
The sitting executive branch gives the favors right now and anyone incoming gives the
favors after they win and thus each election becomes a double windfall for the lobby
group?
A zionist double dip . Maybe most US voters could grasp it like that.
I can't back this up (much like my previous comment in this thread) but it's my
impression. It would probably take a lot of work to make sure it's right; one would have to
scrutinize so much over so many decades.
I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the
Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions
condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign
territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its
withdrawal?'
This could be a useful quote for todays world.
Later, in 1964, Eisenhower approved his hand picked emissary's US $150 million so called
Johnston Plan to steal the waters of the Jordan River and further marginalize the Palestine
Arabs and surrounding Arab states.
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US
can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon. Without the JCPOA and
inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities it will be impossible to prove or deny the
allegations. Thus giving either the US or Israel justification it wants to conduct military
strikes against Iran. The only things stopping this from happening is if the EU stays in the
JCPOA...
Exactly the aim. I said so in an earlier post. This is all part of the program to create a
false justification to conduct military strikes inside Iran. At this point, I'm really
surprised that the U.S. even tries to construct these narratives after Obama's Syria and
Libya operations didn't even really bother, save for a few probably fake "chemical weapons"
attack they alleged Assad committed. Libya I don't remember hearing anything. The embassy
maybe? After the Soleimani strike and the shootdown of the U.S. drone, not to mention the
alleged Iranian attacks on ARAMCO's oil facilities, I'm really quite surprised something more
serious (not to minimize the awful acts of war which the sanctions definitely are) hasn't
already happened. It will soon, especially if Trump gets re-elected. Wonder what all of his
"no new wars" supporters will say then?
Everybody reading knows what SWIFT is. That's a nice attempt to circumscribe the overall
sanctions regime and paint it as "no big deal."
Crush Limpbro - Checked out your site. You've got a long way to go before you can
criticize MoA. Hope that comment draws a few clicks to keep you going, but I would caution
other barflies to use a proxy; could be a honey trap to collect IP addresses.
This United States imposed and Zionist inspired siege on Iran and its people will only
further strengthen the political and economic bonds with Russia and China. Meanwhile, the US
collapses from its internal social limitations and its abandonment of public healthcare
responses to the Corvid 19 pandemic. Europe it close behind the US in this respect.
What exactly is this 'Justification'.. . 'to conduct military strikes against Iran' that
you refer to hasbara boy? Failure to obey foreign imposed zionist diktats?
Would this 'justification' apply to the bandit state if it refused to abide by the NNPT
for example?
No double standards pass the test here.
Yet another proof that "Western values" and their "rules based international order" mean
exactly nothing.
In the past, the West at least kept up some pretense that it was wrong to target unarmed
civilians (still, they flattened Driesden; Hiroshima; North Korea, Vietnam, Laos). Today,
they do not care to be seen openly, cruelly, brutally, sadistically killing civvies. These
American bastards say, "... it is not killing if the victims drop dead later, like, not right
now. " Or, "... it became necessary to destroy Iran in order to save Iran."
Iran is perfectly correct to call this a crime against humanity for the West to starve a
population of food and medicine. This will boomerang just as the opium-pushing in China will
boomerang on the West.
Meanwhile, just as those drug-pushing English bastards earned themselves lordships and
knighthoods; just as presidential bastards retire to their Martha Vineyard mansions; so the
current crop of bastards in American leadership will retire to yet more mansions, leaving the
next couple generations to meet Persian wrath. The American way is to "win" until they are
tired of winning, no?
But in truth, in objective reality, only those who have lost their human-ness are capable
of crimes against humanity.
The US is cruising for a bruising in the middle east fucking with Iran like this. Not that the US hasn't deserved a good knockout punch the past 19 years since invading and
destroying Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, etc. Regardless of their rhetoric, how the European rogues and rascals (France, Germany and the
UK) can sleep at night is beyond me.
Yes Psychochistorian @ 1, At the nation state level, EU support for blockade terror and
sanction torture (BT&ST), against reluctant nation states and non compliant individuals
within those nation states, logically suggests EU nation states are not independent sovereign
countries <=EU nation states exist in name only? Maybe its just like in the USA, these
private monopoly powered Oligarcks (PMPO), own everything (privately owned copyrights,
patents, and property) made possible by rules nation states turn into law. The citizens of
those privately owned EU nation states are victims <=in condition=exploitable. Maybe PMPOs
use nation states <=as profit support weapons, to be directed against <=any and all
<=competition, whereever and however <=competition appears.
The hidden suspects <=capital market linked crowds through out the world..
Media is 92% owned by six private individuals, of the seven typical nation state layers of
authority and power: 5 are private and two are public. Additionally, few in the international
organizations have allegiance to historic cultures of the nation state governed masses. It is
as if, the named nation states are <=threatened by knee breaking thugs, but maybe its not
threat, its actual PMPO ownership.
If one accepts PMPO <=to be in control of all of USA and all of allied nation state,
one can explain <=current BT&ST events. But private Oligarch scenarios <=raise
obvious questions, why have not the PMPO challenged East eliminated <=Israel, MSM
propaganda repeatedly blames or points to Israel <=to excuse the USA leaders for their
BT&ST policies. Seems the PMPO are <=using the nation states, they own <=to
eliminate non complying competition.
What is holding the East back? Russia and China each have sufficient oil, gas and
technology to keep things functional, so why has not the competition in the East taken Israel
out, if Israel is directing the USA to apply BT&ST against its competitors? Why is the
white House so sure, its BT&ST policies will not end up destroying Israel? Maybe because
Israel has no real interest <=in the BT&ST policy <=Israel is deceptions:fall guy?
The world needs to pin the tail on the party driving USA application of BT&ST because no
visible net gain to Governed Americans seems possible from BT&ST policies?
I think Passer @ 17 has hit the nail on its head. "The EU is trying to prop up the US
Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. "
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the
US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon.
So you put that forward as a justification for attacking Iran militarily, but that means
according to your logic you also have justification for attacking Israel or the US
militarily. The rules are the same for all, right?
Economic warfare is certainly effective. However, time is running out for these weapons as
America's lock on the world economy grows weaker. With a rapidly approaching expiry date, the
word out may be to use em or lose em.
In a zero-sum great game, it makes sense to deploy such weapons now insofar as an
opponent's loss is always a gain for oneself.
Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling
conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the
United States.
"Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do
something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done
before."
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is not
a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like
war to me.
Well for the first time in history Iran's symbolic "Red Flag" is still flying above the
popular Jamkaran Mosque Holy dome. Perhaps the USA and its running dogs body count has risen
in Iraq and Afghanistan? How would we know. These things are disguised from the fearless
press in those countries ;)
Perhaps the dead and mangled are many but we do know that the US chief killer in
Afghanistan was reduced to ashes immediately following General Shahid Qassem Suleimanis
murder by the USA whilst on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.
In respect of b's observation above, the illegal occupier of Palestine is more likely
tipping millions into the Harris Presidency as well as the possible Trump Presidency. I doubt
either Harris or the biden bait and switch stooge would restore the JCPOA. Besides they would
not be invited to sit at the table any time soon IMO. They would likely refuse to any
conditions of reversing the sanctions and then carry on about all that 'unreasonable demands
by a terrorist state' stuff etc etc.
No, Iran will be getting on with its future in a multilateral world where the United
Nations has been reduced to pile of chicken dung by the USA while most other nations go along
with global lunacy.
You know what's telling about the bootlickers who hem and haw about U.S. policy with the T
Administration, but never mention Trump as the real source of it even when profuse Zionist
shit spills from his mouth on Limbaugh's show proving he's a Ziofascist pig?
What's telling is that these usual suspects jumped all over ARI @64 for zeroing in on
Trump's precise intentions with Iran but they gave a pass to the real HASBARIST in the room,
Crush Limbraw @60, exposing himself, putting his HARD-ON FOR TRUMP on full display.
@60 we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
Speak for yourself- you Zionist MORON!
Ahhhhhh, you can always count on the DUPLICITY of MOA'S weathervane james and friends. Me,
I ain't here to win a popularity contest like weathervane; I'm here to kick ass when I
witness duplicity in action. My friend here is the truth that I'll defend to the grave.
********
Noooo, dum-dums Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his
Zionist Oligarchs and Russian squatters whom he pays homage to from time to time when he
visits Ziolandia thanking them for choosing the stolen West Bank over Russia.
Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice. That's Trump blowhard
driving the drumbeat.
Just rescue me from my self-destructive self for 4 more years, oh kings of Zion and
Wall Street, and I'll give you WAR!!! all in CAPS with three exclamation points. The GREATEST
war you've ever seen.
When I read the Great Reset article on the World Economic Forum website it seems to me that
the western Globalists, in concert align the US and EU. That accounts for the basic vassal
arrangements that predominate but allow for some nonalignments on certain issues.
That is precisely what the Belarusian authorities announced when Tikhanovskaya left Minsk,
that she was helped in her way out, but we know how the MSM acts, they stick to their own
script, just like a Hollywood movie.
The Belarusians must be watching with great attention what is happening in Kirguizia,
riots and complete chaos, and thinking how lucky they were to avoid the color rev that was in
the menu for them, which the same methods, discredit the oncoming election, claim fraud after
it, use similar symbols like the clenched fist and the heart, new flag, start transliterating
family and geographical names to a mythical and spoken by a very small minority language and
then nobody knows if to spell Tikhanovskaya, Tsikhanouskaya or like the politically incorrect
but street wise Luka called her, Guaidikha. And that is Kirguizia, how about a shooting war
in Armenia and Azerbaijan, all those conflicts were unimaginable when the USSR existed, but
the empire even on his way down is insatiable.
There is over a million jews of Russian origin living in Israel, 20% of the population,
with deep roots in Russia, language, culture and relatives. Do not let partisanship for the
Dems blind you, a true successful leader is someone that defends his country's interests
while at the same time tries to have good relations with everybody else, obviously that
balance is not easy to achieve in a world full of conflicting interests, but so far Putin
seems to be balancing his act while not loosing sight of the main thing, Russia.
Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist
Oligarchs
If Putin is so close to Zionists, then why does Russia block the Zionist regime-change in
Syria? Why has Russia denied Israel and USA entreaties to allow them to bomb Iran?
Not as strange as a mythological demigoddess that turned sailors into swain and that now
enjoys to plunge into the mud with her creatures. A bot, what an easy label, it has lost any
meaning.
special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.
Alaska yellow fin sole, not bad, from Bristol Bay, but the Melva -a tunafish species with
more oil in its meat- I cooked for lunch, just caught, has a lot more fish oil with its rich
contents of vitamin D, add sunny Mediterranean weather and that is my pill for today, trying
to keep the bug at bay.
Circe, why don't you do what your namesake would have done and whip yourself up some meds to
calm down? You're starting to lapse into excessive use of upper case, italics, exclamation
points, bolding, profanity, and of course, insults.
This may help. It looks like the orange man is in fact going down, so you will soon have
Joe and Kamal empowered to dismantle the evil Putin-Netanyahu-Trump axis, and put the US back
on the path to truth and justice.
The unilateral and illegal-under-JCPOA sanctions mean it's time for EU to either confront the
extraterritorial US policy it has clearly rejected in principle, or (more likely) acknowlege
that it remains in practice just a collection of 'client states'. A sad moment for me, but
useful for clarity.
Hard to understand but you guys are incapable of spelling the name of a once great US
city, San Francisco. I heard it has changed a lot, got to see long time ago, before the
digital craze.
This is a brief but subtle post by b, with quiet but telling headline. Perhaps, just
guessing, a new take on the post he was having difficulty with earlier? The question of the
EU is an interesting one - not to be considered as virulent as the former Soviet Union, but
somehow as tugged at by the components thereof...
Sanctions on Iran? We do know what Iran is capable of; surely we have not forgotten?
Indeed, by pressing these sanctions at this late date, the Trump administration surely has
not forgotten either the effect sanctions had on Russia. They were postive to that country's
independent survival, though the immediate effect was demonstrably harsh. So now, sanctions
on Iran? One doesn't have to be a world leader to suppose similar cause, similar effect.
Ah, Paco has a wonderful meal of a beneficial fish called the Melva! Bravo, Paco; all is
not lost! But you have hooked the sea-serpent as well -- take care! That one - carefully
remove the hook and set it free ;)
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Not very surprising to be honest, some people simply cannot go without regime change
to the point where they have to parade people about who weren't even born in Iran and who
have little to no support in the country as "dissidents" to try to guilt people into
supporting intervention. Of course with that comes slander against those who warn against
that, which unfortunately means TAC.
Trump ignored them??? Hardly. He hired John Bolton as his national security advisor,
and Rudy Giuliani is his personal attorney. Both of those guys are heavily tied to this
organization and advocate its line. And while he did stop short of actually invading
Iran, he was on the brink of doing so recently, talked out of it only at the last minute.
I'll give him credit for not going all the way with them, but he's given them far too
wide a berth and much too much influence in his foreign policy if you ask me.
He did not go all the way with them because he was told by the military and others,
who take their jobs and missions to server the American people seriously, that his
attacks on Iran - invasion was not "the table" at all - would face a humiliating defeat
at the same level of what happened to his efforts to extend the weapons sanctions at the
UNSC. Pompeo was sent home with his tail between his legs.
The idea that Trump would have invaded if allowed doesn't pass the smell test. He
spent much of the 2016 railing against regime change and foreign wars. His recent
instincts on this topic have been largely correct.
Trump did not want more war, and wanted to end the existing wars, that much is clear.
At the same time as he believes the Israeli line about Iran. But he did not want war with
Iran - he knows they would mine the Strait of Hormuz shut, and the U.S. economy would go
into a depression along with the world economy. No president would survive that.
But, he has had to appease top donor *Sheldon Adelson, in order to prevent a GOP
revolt in the Congress. The threat was always that they'd join the Democrats in
impeaching him, that Mike Pence would call for the same, and people would leave his
cabinet. So he caved by sanctioning Iran and destroying the lives of millions of people.
And he had to appease Israel by taking Syria's oil fields via the Marxist Kurd
mercenaries, and let them burn the wheat fields. But he did not start a war, and did not
want a war.
Lets be honest here. It isn't MEK disinformation tactics it is the tactics
of the US wrapped up and packaged as MEK. Just as Falon Gong is backed
by the CIA. MEK is a bunch of backwards ass hats with terrorist
tendencies. They are not some national level intelligence agency. This
is most likely crud made up by the US intelligence agencies sold as MEK
and pushed on the American people to convince them that Iran will be
dropping nuclear weapons on their house any minute now if they can stop
eating babies long enough, so they need to push their government to go
to WAR!!!!! with Iran and kill some Muslims. The gullibility of the
American people is why there will never be a time when they are not at
war.
Possibly, but the MEK does have an online presence and such. But of course, it is all
with Washington's money, and Washington's assistance.
For those who don't know: The MEK is a Marxist-Islamist group that initially supported
the Revolution, but turned against Ayatollah Khomeini as they didn't get to share power.
Because no one liked them. And Marxists were not allowed in revolutionary Iran - the MEK
was chased out along with the Soviet-installed communist party in northern Iran.
The MEK have been killing Iranian police, bureaucrats and local administrators.
This is their "revolution". They kill people mainly with bombs. The present Ayatollah's
left arm is withered after one of their bomb attacks.
The MEK have been killing Iranian physics professors and technicians. They kill
them with car bombs in traffic - a motorbike with two killers drive up to a car by a
traffic stop and attach a bomb with magnets. Of course, you can wonder where they got the
bombs, and money and transport. This is classic Mossad strategy. Likewise, dozens of
technicians and professors in Iraq have been murdered. Israel hopes for a
counter-reaction which the U.S. can exploit.
Rest assured, the political opposition in Iran hates the Marxist-Islamist MEK as much
as the government does. Which Washington and Israel don't acknowledge.
The MEK was housed by Saddam Hussein in an old military base. They had to leave Iraq
eventually after the overthrow of Hussein. The U.S. then shipped them to a brand new
training base in Albania. Crazy as it might seem. Albania's government is of course
as eager to be a paid Washington agent as the Kurds are.
Absurdly, this explicitly terrorist group has been taken off the terror list by
Washington. While Iran is called "terrorist" for helping Hezbollah, who formed to fight
back when Israel invaded Lebanon and massacred Shia villagers in the south with
artillery, because they lived close to the Palestinian refugee camps. And then kept
fighting when Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, Shia land, as a "buffer zone" for
many years.
The MEK killed thousands of people, including Americans. But the Lobby always gets
what it wants.
The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the
U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing
U.S. corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it
turned its guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and
terrorist operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the
executions of its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and
ordinary people.
It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam
Hussein, which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops
for Iraq, attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped
Hussein put down the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south
after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91.
The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be
treason committed against their homeland.
"As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty
like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them. ...This is not a matter of
foreign policy differences: if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran, the
MEK does not help make that case. Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this
dishonesty and still treat them like a legitimate opposition group should be considered
part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast
war."
If MEK does NOT help to make the case for regime change in Iran - & outside
sponsored regime change is not ethical - then it would be unethical not to support them,
in order to help prevent unethical regime change. Although that's probably not what
horrible Hillary had in mind when, as Sec. of State in 2012, she de-listed them from the
U.S. official list of terrorist organizations. But if anyone will lie "us" into a war
with Iran, it will be AIPAC & innumerable other dishonest zionist organizations
working on behalf of the Jewish terror state, & it's new Saudi terror state partner;
both of whom look with favor on MEK as a bit partner in their joint effort to take out
the government of Iran. MEK is pretty small potatoes compared to The Lobby, who are
waging another campaign not wholly different from the last time they pushed us into a
M.E. war to benefit lying israel.
People tell you - You are a conservative, so do I. I support XYZ thus you should also
support them.
Before the 2003 Iraqi War, Many then Bush administration officials and self-anointed
"conservative opinion leaders" went on TV to lie to people to support their war. Today,
we still suffer the consequence but they are preaching to us other wars.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
In no way should the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War be excused, nor
should "conservative opinion leaders" be let off the hook, but the Congress was
complicit, the Senate was complicit, the military was complicit, the intelligence
community was complicit, and the majority of the electorate was complicit. Nobody
cared whether the reason for the war was valid, people just wanted to vent their
frustrations against terrorists on an unrelated Arab country that the US had already used
as a whipping boy. What could happen?
Almost twenty years later and-- surprise! surprise!-- suddenly everyone recognizes the
war for the folly it was. Some people, like Dreher, seem to have genuinely changed their
stance based on what happened subsequently. But we'll all see what happens the next time
the war mongers-- from both sides of the aisle and from all over the country-- start
rattling their sabers.
Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than
fight for liberty or that (if they are willing to fight) will on risk OTHER PEOPLE's
(other American) lives, thus removing the need to ever put themselves at risk of learning
what actually goes in in the countries they are so sympathetic to.
The complete idiocy regarding Vietnam is the anti-war rhetoric surrounding. But has
laid the framework for installing fear into anyone who doesn't tow the ridiculousness of
what is argued by protesters -- which in every way has nearly every argument
backwards.
Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe
to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing
communist aggression and that is accurate.
The nation of Vietnam has rarely known peace and the lines during the conflict
generally mark the region that separated the country's territorial history. The South
Vietnamese sound reason to seek defend their territorial and political independence and
we had sound reason to defend the same.
It was during that era that the liberal foundations showed their true colors. And if
one doubt it --- just look at the anti-Vietnam advocates -- the managers of the Iraq and
Afghanistan missteps and p[perhaps even worse their willingness to destroy the lives of
anyone who challenged their rational based on the very case they made -- which was
unsupportable.
There are some issues which simply are not really issues,
1. the lives of black people in the country and how they were/are socialized and the
consequence
2.what the civil war was really about
3.Mexican invasion of US territory to retake territory they lost to band of squatters
(lousy immigration enforcement) a war that is now taking place via our failure to enforce
border protection.)
"Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very
safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact
appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate."
It's safe to say that BS like this is not hard to come by in the right wing nutjobs'
circles. No Vietnamese had/has ever attempted to attack, invade, kill and spray Agent
Orange anywhere in the US. So how come they became the aggressors?!
Viet Nam became truly independent AFTER expelling the American military.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee --
that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.
You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who
has delayed, denied, deceived the world." George W. Bush, September 17, 2002
Bless you for writing this but you are spitting into the wind. There are too many
people who want to believe this. The IRaq war analogy is apt. You have govt in exile
types like MEK (remember Chalabi) who have a vested interest in lying to us. You have the
hyper-pro Israel crowd and the newly accepted pro-Saudi crowd w/money to burn. I actually
expect and don't begrudge foreigners for trying to get the U.S. into their fights. I
resent the MSM that is simply in love with U.S. military conflicts who accuse people who
oppose them of being anti-American, conspiracy theorists.
The most laughable example was CNN accepting the notion that Iran has a massive cyber
presence in influencing our elections because our Intel Agencies told them so. Iran is
detested by the U.S. public as we steal civilian cargo from them that would make the
lives of people in other countries better. We sell the stolen goods for our benefit and
call them terrorists for their trouble. To suggest that they have sway over us is
laughable yet this passes for journalism.
Iran will be the next Iraq. If there is a God it will be the rock that breaks us. If
not then a crime of shocking proportions.
I largely agree but I think there's room for optimism, the US military particular the
army is largely a broken instrument, morale is not good except for the contractors,
General maintenance is down in favor of expensive toys that largely do not work. For all
of the bluster of this generation of sociopaths the military in general is a shadow of
itself not to mention we live in times of a rising China and the reemergence Russia,
neither of which would allow in on opposed attack on Iran.
How so? Our government seems to be providing the Saudi's with with as many bombs as
they need, Air Force retirees to fly in the backseatair of Saudi planes, we have slowed
down on the transfer of Thermo nuclear Technology as well as I assume the the delivery
systems for them true but that was likely just a temporary Flash of Conscience it'll
probably never happen again for that individual but if there something I'm missing please
do tell.
Look at it this way. Either the Saudi/UAE themselves have to deal militarily with
Iran, or the US. The US military-industrial complex is for selling weapons to these
client states whole-heartedly for obvious reasons. The Saudi/UAE has always expected and
often demanded the US is the one to "cut the snake's head" as "king" Abdullah of the
"Saudi" Arabia demanded frequently. These states know very well neither the "version" of
the weaponry they buy from the West is capable of performing in a real war with a
powerful enemy like Iran, nor are their personnel capable of operating them effectively.
So what they say to the US is, OK we'll buy your junk, but you need to do the job. In
other words, they want to fight Iran to the last AMERICAN soldier. The Pentagon wants
none of that. But happy to run the cash register. I hope I made my point clear.
MEK have no support in Iran. If a MEK member would walk down the street there the
people would tear them to shreds. When they started killing Iranians and cooperating with
Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war they committed political suicide.
You know, this really doesn't carry much weight. I am not going to dismiss the
complaints of a group because the majority don't support them. That is not a case for
regime change. I don't see a case for that as yet. But I don't buy this nonsense about
Iran land of peace ----
They were instrumental in destabilizing any peace in Iraq and remain so. Their Islamic
revolution has not passed and their ambitions are not as benign as as many including
Iranians like to pretend.
What does that have to do with anything that I said? If you want to come to power you
need the support of the people MEK don't have that so they will never gain power. Also
MEK are responsible for the revolution in the first place, they are the ones that carried
out bombing and assassinations even of Americans in Iran. They are the ones that attacked
the US embassy in Iran and held Americans hostage. There is a reason they were on the US
terror list until 2012. As far as Iran being the land of peace not sure where you got
that from, Iran has never claimed that and infact Iran will conduct foreign policy that
benefits its goals, which is true of any nation. You should try to stay on topic when you
reply to somebody though.
Yes, as you know the Iranians attacked, invaded and looted Iraq's oil and cultural
heritage. Had in not been for the US "rescue mission" Iranian would still be there. You
must be tone deaf.
Thump the conspiracy theories and emphasize the hard-line approach with no idea or
intent to actually go through with anything should he actually win. I see reference to
Q-anon and I immediately think Trumpian conspieracy.
Conservatives are easy to target, they are prepared to believe all sorts of nonsense.
Qanon aside they are prepared to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves and you can
lose weight on a vinegar and ice cream diet.
As opposed to the people who believe that a man can become a "real woman" just by
saying so, and nod approvingly when CNN shows the chyron "Mostly peaceful protests
continue" over footage of burning buildings.
Really, that's pretty damn funny like you retards don't believe in a bunch of
conspiracy nonsense and by the way don't put down Q is good fun to the geriatric
Community on the other hand you clowns are playing footsie with actual Nazis in Ukraine
while you accuse the right of being fascist that's beautiful congratulations it's going
to be great in a couple years when this country has seceded from each other and all of
you non-producers get to sort it out for yourselves, it's going to be magic.
Fake dissident groups. Wow! Not even the Chinese are this duplicitous. And people
whine and complain about Russian and Chinese 'infiltration' and 'meddling' ??
Which fale dissident groups? I missed that. I am not being sarcastic. I see people who
have been named as fake contributors all over the place. But I didn't see a reference to
a fake dissident group.
I'm still looking for the proof one way or the other of who the "good guys" are
here.
Fake this, fake that I can get from Trump every time he opens his mouth about "fake
news".
What I don't get from Trump (or from this article) is any references, documentation,
or solid proof of any kind other than accusations and counter-accusations -- one side I'm
supposed to believe because the author said so.
I'm not buying it without objective proof and trustworthy corroboration -- not just
more sock-puppets.
They are being dissed by many smart conservatives and others, because they have become
a tool of Saudi/Israel. They practically spearheaded killing Americans during the Shah,
and now they are enjoying American political and financial support. In that vein the
adage, my enemy's enemy is my friend, does not apply here. But if you are a money hungry
Giuliani, Kennedy, Bolton or Howard Dean being a gang of killers, Saddam Husein
mercenaries, and Saudi/Israeli agents don't matter.
"We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy
commentary.""
So one would hope, but foreign meddling is rife. At least the Washington Examiner
makes an effort, whereas the Washington Free Beacon functions almost openly as an Israeli
organ inside the United States.
Ehem...The Israelis have admitted they essentially founded, financed and thoroughly
and continuously infiltrated the Palestinian revolutionary group, HAMAS to counter the
PLO achieve the ongoing ethnic destruction of Palestinian land freedom and society...the
MEK and their front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran are comparable
Israeli emanations whose ultimate goal is the land grab from the Nile to the Euphrates
known as the Greater Israel project. This is Israeli history text book material, it is
not conjecture...Read what former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev,
former Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. had to say the New York
Times in that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a
"counterweight" to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation
Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as
"a creature of Israel.") "The Israeli government gave me a budget," the retired
brigadier
general confessed, "and the military government gives to the mosques." Moreover, "Hamas,
to my great regret, is Israel's creation," said Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious
affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades to the Wall Street Journal
in 2009. Deliberately planned, as far back as the mid-1980s, according to Cohen in an
official report to his superiors playing the divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories,
by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists, HAMAS was built up to
become an "existential threat" fake tool of nuclear mighty Israel. In his report Cohen
wrote, "I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before
this reality jumps in our face," he wrote. That was the point exactly, poor victimized
Israel "endowed with the right to defend itself". With Palestine now Kushnerized into
oblivion, Iran is next ...Go figure...
Hmmm
Means, motive, opportunity and who benefits spells out in no uncertain terms that the
entire create a justification and then go to war with Iran originates in Israel and is
being sold by the Zionists and Israel's literal army of jewish/Zionist/pro-Israel agents
masquerading as "lobbyists", "activists", "think tanks" "academics", the Media,
Hollywood, Congress, most of the White House Staff, etc., etc., here in the US. In other
words, by an Israeli controlled army in America made up of traitors, liars and
criminals.... A group who collectively ALWAYS put Israel Uber Alles.
Yes, it is time for EU countries to show their true colors which will be ass kissers for
empire, most likely.
Folks are saying Nord Stream II is being finished but will it ever go into use?
And of course this is not war because Trump hasn't started any wars, right?
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is
not a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like
war to me.
The next phase would appear to be Kyrgyzstan: from Belarus east to Sinkiang and Hong Kong the
subversion and the attempts at regime change are constant.
While Eurasia seeks to unite for peace and prosperity, the United States and its sleazy
satrapy is constantly trying to divide and weaken, to undermine and to intimidate. In doing
so it relies heavily on abusing the tattered lineaments of democracy- electioneering and
propagandising, the relics of a western culture which has become nothing more than a hollow
shell containing an increasingly totalitarian plutocracy.
All this simply moves Iran into closer confederation with Russia and China and strengthens
its resolve to send US middle eastern troops packing. Soon there will be a strong
Russia-China-Iran axis that is immune to all Western sanctions. Those countries who are part
of the BRI will get privileged economic treatment. The advantages will become increasingly
apparent and the economic disadvantages of staying allied with the US will become
increasingly apparent as well, particularly in light of the approaching collapse of the
dollar. As long as we manage to avoid a hot war the civilizational die is cast; the US has
chosen its destiny, in the dustbin of history, at least as a neoliberal oligarchy. When and
how it will reinvent itself is an open question, but it is not unreasonable to think it will
take decades. While Europe will eventually align with Eurasia, it will take another
generation of politicians before that happens.
If Iran isn't self-sufficient now, it will be by the time the US is finished with it. That
isn't a comfortable place to be but with key sector support from the Eastern bloc it's at
least as manageable as Cuba. The question is whether and how fast the Eastern bloc can
consolidate its resources by e.g. petrodollar replacement and better shared infrastructure.
The Eastern bloc isn't ideal, but when the West is apparently encouraging something like a
holocaust of suffering humanity, it's the only other game in town.
High time for both Russia and China and Iran/Cuba/Venezuela to really get together and start
speaking with one voice and show the despicable USA/West/NATO that they will stand together
and defend each other. Otherwise it's all over.
Specific steps to implement:
1. create and begin using an alternative to the SWIFT and invite anyone who is being
sanctioned by USA/West to join them
2. openly and officially declare that their currencies are backed by gold
3. openly and officially begin to speak against USA's actions around the world at the UN and
invite anyone who is being sanctioned by USA/West to join them
4. get together and openly declare to the world they stand as one and to invite
anyone else who is being harassed by USA/West/NATO to join them
5. immediately begin clean up of all the terrorists/CIA Operatives in in Central Asia
otherwise they will be in deep trouble
what are Putin and Xi doing?? Come on guys, wake up!
In March, Germany announced that the first transaction had been completed using Europe's
INSTEX system to skirt sanctions -- more than a year after the scheme had supposedly been put
in place.
I haven't seen anything further about it. Has it enabled any significant level of
trade?
Why would anyone need anything not Made in China? Plus China is the EU's second highest trade
partner (after US) so Iran could have access to some of that if for some reason they needed
an EU product. . . .Meanwhile Iran will be even more self-sufficient, as Russia has become
with EU sanctions. . . .The US has been trying self-imposed "sanctions" (China uncoupling) to
become more self-sufficient but it's not working.
EU continues its self-imposed slide into irrelevance. I suppose a servant's life is an easier
life: you don't have to think for yourself and just need to please master. But it can hardly
be a satisfactory experience, can it? Especially when the collar is held by such as Trump and
Pompass.
The winds of change are coming and they will be interesting. China's economy is already
greater than the US and that will expand many fold over the next few decades. The $ economy
will not survive this, especially not as the US has shown it will use its power corruptly.
The EU batter consider this; do they want to be part of the past or the future?
There is something much more significant happening with Europe, that is more than the Iran
issue.
The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to
free itself.
The EU has chosen the side of the US against the multipolar world. It will be trying to
prop up the Empire.
It is becoming increasingly hostile to any country that isn't a puppet to the US, like
itself, and is lashing out at those countries. Like a zombie, it wants to infect others with
its infection, and turn every other country into US puppets too. It thinks that this is
normal and it wants to spread that "normality" to the rest of the world too.
Many analysts are already mentioning that the EU is becoming increasingly hostile to
Russia.
Recently, serious statements came from Russian officials:
"Russia will not follow EU and US rules".
"There will be no more business as usual between Russia and France and Germany".
"France and Germany are now leading the anti-russian block within Europe".
"Russia will no longer be dependent on the EU".
"Europeans have delusions of grandeur".
These are all statements by Lavrov and Zacharova.
Recently, we have seen Germany and France banning Huawei, Europe together with US blocking
the OPCW investigation at the UN, and Germany leading the charge at the UN stage against
China. EU also took the lead in the colour revolution in Belarus.
There are two recent statesments by the french foreign minister and by the EU commision
chief:
"Europe needs to unite against Russia and Turkey".
Surveys also show rising levels of anti-chinese hatred in Europe, and not only in the
US.
What has happened is far more serious than the europeans being "feckless U.S. ass
kissers". It is worse than that.
The EU chose the side of the US against the multipolar world. It does not want to free
itself from the US. Actually it thinks that it is normal to be a puppet, that others should
be US puppets too, and that a joint EU-US Empire should be supported, so that some kind of
world wide liberal utopia can be build by it.
Europeans are psychologically damaged by WW2 and this is affecting their geopolitical
behavior, turning them into forever puppets of the US.
They can not free themselves because when they were free once, they "did very bad things".
Therefore they should always follow their "better" and "Big Daddy" US, who "freed them from
themselves" and "put them in the right way".
Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that
causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the
past", and thus support a transnational globalist western empire that is here "to bring
Utopia on Earth". For them Russia, China, Iran, India, Turkey etc. are just a bunch of
primitives that are tryng to turn back the clock.
And thus it will increasingly start to lash out at any country that isn't a US puppet as
those countries prevent the coming of Utopia.
Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It's called
collapse.
Social and economic decay is so glacial that only those few who remember an earlier
set-point are equipped to even notice the decline. That's the position we find ourselves in
today.
Many Americans will discount the systemic corruption that characterizes the American way of
life because they've known nothing but systemic corruption. They've habituated to it because
they have no memory of a time when looting wasn't legalized and maximizing self-enrichment by
any means available wasn't the unwritten law of the land.
If you don't yet see America as little more than an intertwined collection of skims, scams,
frauds, embezzlements, lies, gaming-the-system, obfuscation of risk and exploitation of the
masses by insiders, please read
How Corruption is Becoming America's Operating System . (nakedcapitalism.com, via Cheryl
A.)
Simply put, corruption is cost-free in America because most of it is legal. And whatever is
still illegal is never applied to the elites and insiders, except (as per Communist regime
corruption) for a rare show trial where an example is made of an egregious fall-guy (think
Bernie Madoff: whistleblowers' repeated attempts to expose the fraud to regulators were blown
off for years. It was only when Madoff ripped off wealthy and powerful insiders did he go
down.)
There are three primary sources for the complete systemic corruption of America. One is the
transition from civic responsibility for the social contract and the national interest to
winner-take-most legalized looting .
This transition is visible in the history of empires in the final stage of collapse. The
assumption underlying the social order slides from a shared duty to the nation and fellow
citizens to an obsession with evading civic duties: military service, taxes, and following the
rules are all avoided by insiders and elites, and this moral/social rot then corrupts the
entire social order as elites and insiders lean ever more heavily on the remaining productive
class to pay the taxes and provide the military muscle to defend their wealth.
That corruption is now everywhere in America is obvious to all but those adamantly blinded
by denial. The JP Morgans pay fines as a cost of doing corrupt business , while "public
servants" game the system to maximize their pensions with a variety of tricks: colluding to
boost the overtime of the retiring insider; finding a quack physican to sign off on a fake
"heart murmur" so the insider pays no taxes on their "disability" check, and so on in an
endless parade of lies, scams, skims and insider tricks .
The excuse is always the same: everybody does it. This is of course the collapse not just of
the social contract but of morality in general: anything goes and winners take most . Insiders
look the other way lest their own skims and scams be contested, and elites and insiders view
those who aren't skimming and scamming as chumps to be pitied.
The second dynamic is that financialization has completely corrupted the American economy,
and that corruption has now spread to the political and social orders. Once the financial
sector conquered the real economy, it began siphoning 95% of the economy's wealth to the top
.01% and their toadies, lackeys, apologists, enforcers and technocrats.
As they hollowed out the real economy, distorted incentives and made moral hazard the
guiding principle of the American way of life, the recipients of financialization's domination
gained the wealth to buy political power from the pathetically corruptible political class.
The corruption that we call financialization corrupted democracy and undermined the social
contract by eviscerating the value of labor and creating a pay-to-play political order that's a
mockery of democracy .
The third factor is the decay of America's institutions into fronts for personal gain .
While Higher Education insiders are masters of self-serving PR, the truth is they're not
concerned about their debt-serf "customers" (students) learning the essential skills needed in
the tumultuous decades ahead--they're worried that the revenues needed to pay their enormous
salaries and benefits might dry up.
"Education" is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and
insiders at the top.
The same is true of "healthcare." The concern of insiders isn't the declining health of
America's populace, it's the decline in revenues as fewer "customers" come in for the financial
scalping of emergency care.
"Healthcare" is nothing but a front for the corruption of self-enrichment by the elites and
insiders at the top.
Thanks to the Federal Reserve's endless free money for financiers and endless federal
borrow-and-blow deficits, the unstated belief is since there's endless "money", my petty frauds
and skims won't even dent the feeding trough --there's always another trillion or three to skim
and scam, and there will never be any limit to the feeding trough.
There is no limit until the system implodes. Then the collapse becomes limitless
Ironic, isn't it? The oh-so convenient belief that America's wealth and power are eternal
and godlike in their glory fosters the crass corruption that has weakened America to the point
of no return: systemic fragility and brittleness.
American Exceptionalism has been turned on its head: America is now as perniciously corrupt
as any developing-world nation we smugly felt so superior to, and with extremes of wealth and
income inequality that surpass even the most rapacious kleptocracies. This destabilizing
"exceptionalism" is now the defining characteristic of the American economy, society and
political order.
Systemic corruption and the implosion of the social contract have consequences: It's called
collapse, baby, and the rot is now too deep to reverse.
* * *
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One morning a couple of years ago I received an urgent email from a moderately prominent
libertarian figure strongly focused on antiwar issues. He warned me that our publication had
been branded a "White Supremacist website" by the Washington Post , and urged me to
immediately respond, perhaps by demanding a formal retraction or even taking legal action lest
we be destroyed by that totally unfair accusation.
When I looked into the matter, my own perspective was rather different. Apparently Max Boot,
one of the more agitated Jewish Neocons, had written
a column fiercely denouncing some recent criticism of pro-Israel policies that Philip
Giraldi had published in our webzine, and the "White Supremacist" slur was merely his crude
means of demonizing the author's views for those of his readers who might be less than
wholeheartedly enthusiastic about Benjamin Netanyahu and his policies.
After pointing this out to my correspondent, I also noted that a good 10% or more of our
writers were probably "White Nationalists," and perhaps a few of them might even arguably be
labeled "White Supremacists." So although Boot's description of our website was certainly
wrong, it was probably less wrong than the vast majority of his other writing, which was
typically focused on American military policy and the Middle East.
Our webzine is quite unusual in its willingness to feature a smattering of writers who
provide a White Nationalist perspective. Such individuals are almost totally excluded from
other online publications, except for those marginalized websites devoted to their ideas, which
often tend to focus on such topics and related issues to the near exclusion of anything else.
However, I believe that maintaining this sort of ideological quarantine or "ghettoization"
greatly diminishes the ability to understand many important aspects of our world.
And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay.
They'll be model liberators. And they'll take time to bring back Azerbaijani civilians
(refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that would become mixed as a result of
return."
Agreed, this is rubbish. "Mr. C" – assuming someone like this even exists, is either
terribly misinformed or an outright liar. Basically, if we follow Escobar's logic, Armenian's
are making a mistake by not agreeing to surrender their lives to the peace loving and rather
humanistic dictatorship of Azerbaijan. While he touches on some relevant points, overall,
Escobar has not done his homework and has come up with quite a bit of drivel.
Pepe, you didn't mention the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide, the Assyrian Genocide,
all perpetrated by Turkey.
Why not? Would the Azeris, all Turks, be different? You say the Azeris if they won, Turks,
would treat the Armenian population nicely. Huh?
I remember from Runciman's book on the First Crusade that the Turks had already taken over
much of Anatolia but he seems to mention Armenians at every turn (from memory -- don't have
the book handy).
My impression is that before the Genocide the Armenians were all over Anatolia. There was
a narrow coastal strip at the western end that was historically part of Greece, and many
different peoples of Asia Minor are mentioned in the NT, but they arguably were all
Armenians, making the Armenians the indigenous people of Anatolia.
How is it that Turkey was allowed to keep part of Europe after WWI when they were losers?
And did they keep faith? Is the current St Sophia turmoil the norm of Turkish good faith?
Time for all the Turks to get out of Anatolia, give it back to Armenia, and head for
Azerbigan.
@Yevardian having been disciplined for some years now is, once again, at the throat of
the west. Europe spent millions of lives and huge resources throwing the Moors out last time.
If they don't take a stand and support Armenia they may very well have to do it again. As far
as the mythical Mr C is concerned he comes across, to me, as yet another apologist for the
Religion of Peace. Obviously cucked NATO will not help Armenia, they have neither the
intestinal fortitude nor the will, so it will be left to Russia and the Visigrad nations, in
the mean time Turkey is attempting to take Greek territory, Syrian territory, Libyan
territory and anything else that it can get it's mitts on and the West does absolutely
nothing. This will not end well.
I think few Armenian civilians will take the chance but I very much doubt Azerbaijanis
will be "model liberators". The new Azerbaijani state was born from the Sumgait and Baku
pogroms. I also don't think they will delay in moving Azeris into areas formerly inhabited by
Armenians – their role model Erdoğan has been trying to change facts on the ground
by moving ethnic Turks into Kurdish areas in his own country.
@Ann Nonny Mouse endeavor, even if they were the majority, though most accounts say they
were 40%.
I would strongly urge the Armenians to get off their nationalist high horse and solve the
problem diplomatically and learn to live with their neighbors. Super nationalism is a
dangerous and fake mantra that usually leads to disaster. My understanding was that the
Azeris and Armenians always got along before this debacle. They should try to work out things
and get back to a their original multi-cultural paradigm, that is living side by side instead
of fighting and dying over territory and national flags. Live is short and when we pass to
the other side you dont carry your flag with you.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991: but that was not
recognized by the "international community"
Just to throw in quickly that if Kosovo is "recognized", then bleeding Karabakh should
also long since have been recognized. Especially since the Armenians have an actual holocaust
in their 20th century past.
So, seems like the way to get sympathy to rob territory is to make full use of any
"genocide" one had suffered as excuse . worked very well ( in fact, spectacularly well) so
faR with the Chosen ones .
Well i admittedly dont know enough about the situation to try to critique this piece as
some of the other comments on here But i am skeptical about Armenia and their stated intent.
If it is reallly about protecting an ethnic group – then why not offer them citizenship
to move into your territory??? That would lead me to believe it is more about land and
resources
Yeah i dont know the nitty gritty in this conflict – but i do agree Edrogan seems to
be biting off more than he can chew He has too many pots on the fire it seems. Kurds –
Qatar/Saudis – Libya – Syria – Greece – Cyprus – and now
this..?
Aside from refusing to participate against their Muslim cousins (Afghanistan, Libya),
Turkey is using NATO doctrine quite effectively. It is a useful bullet prove vest for
Erdogan. The Brussels morons will be sorry for not expelling Turkey from their military club
long time ago.
@Ann Nonny Mouse driven to the Syrian desert AFTER some of them had aligned with the
Russians who were about to invade eastern Anatolia in 1915. Similarly, most of Crimean Tatars
were expelled from Crimea AFTER some of them had aligned with the invading Germans in 1941.
As another comparison, American-Japanese living at the Pacific coast were banished to camps
in the interior AFTER the Japanese army had attacked Pearl Harbor and not before.
When a group of people kill or drive out another group it's usually not for the fun of it but
rather due to necessities of survival, whatever evil that might require at that particular
time depending on the particular circumstances.
It would be interesting to read a scholarly exposition on what the USSR and governments in
Eastern Europe proper did or did not do to educate people away from their ancient hatreds,
and why whatever they did do appears not to have been particularly successful. Or was it
mostly successful and the hatreds were much more intense before 1917?
The entire Jewish American lobby and Israel are on Azerbaijan's side and anti-Armenian,
just as when they were working with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide.
Israel has also sold billions of dollars of weapons to Azerbaijan which the latter is
using against Armenians. Israel gets oil from Azerbaijan
Of course, Azerbaijan and Turkey have imported jihadists from Syria and Libya to fight
Christian Armenians now.
Apparently, Pepe, you and the Jewish lobby, Israel, Turkey, and the jihadists are on the
same side.
Congratulations.
P.S. It would take a hundred pages to list all the factual errors you made. For example,
Armenians were still the clear majority in Artsakh/Karabagh in 1988 and 1991. Armenians there
had been grossly mistreated by Azerbaijan for decades.
The fighting occurred in the late 1980s only because Azerbaijan, backed by the Russian
military, killed and harrassed Armenians. The Azeris also committed massacres of Armenians
who were living in Baku and Sumgait in the late 1980s.
Stalin also placed Nakhichevan, an Armenian territory, inside Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan kicked out every Armenian from Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan was doing that to
Artsakh/Karabagh too.
No wonder Artsakh voted to be independent from Azerbaijan, something you don't want to
understand.
Better luck next time trying to fool readers, Pepe.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan,
Russia will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line.
Moscow has all it takes to put him in serious trouble – as in shutting off gas
supplies to Turkey.
Russia isn't going to shut off gas to Turkey. Russia never does that (shutting off gas).
It's a Western canard.
Russia could, however, impose a no-fly-zone over Georgia, effectively blocking resupply
and reinforcements to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is almost completely surrounded by Russian
allies and bases. They rely on Georgia for military transit.
Ignorant post. Armenian nationalist were active in Russia prior to ww1, then supported
Russian entrance into Turkish territory because they shared a religion. They stabbed the
ottomans , of which they were a big part, in the back. The young Turks , who were actually
donmeh jews, had them marched off to Syria and lebanon, etc, causing many deaths! The
Armenian is still causing trouble for the Turks. They sided with the mongols in their battles
against the Muslims, along wit the Georgians, repeatedly. More to a small story
What's going to happen to USA? The poverty and racial intolerance ,both seem to be
undermining the stability and the ideological integrity of the country . I see many states
emerging from the body of America.But the problems will not be resolved . It might just like
like Caucasian territory or Balkan .
1. BTC is described as 'bypassing Iran'. One could easily argue it also bypasses *Russia*
. Perhaps that's what made it necessary for Soros & others to peel Georgia off from
Russian control back in the day? Look how Russia responded by recapturing the Georgian
Military Highway (South Ossetia).
2. Look in general at how Russia is willing to give up huge areas of territory so long as
she keeps key strategic points of control: South Ossetia, Crimea, Transnistria, Abkhazia and
Armenia. Smell the coffee.
3. 2. 'Mr. C' is quick to mention Baku/Ankara joint exercises in August, but fails to
mention Kavkas 2020 exercises led by Russia. Uh duh.
4. 'Mr. C' seems to ignore the fact that Armenia couldn't have taken that territory in
first place, or kept it, w/out Russian assistance. And idea 'Russia can do nothing' is
absurd. As is the idea that Russia can't supply Armenia because there's no land connection.
Did the allies have any problem keeping West Berlin supplied by air? Of course not. All
nonsense.
5. The idea that there is a 'Russia/Turkey' strategic partnership is also silly. Where is
this partnership? Turkey buying S-400s? So what? Are they in partnership in Syria? In Libya?
No. So why would they be in N-K?
6. Weird. No mention of China and it's growing relationship with Turkey. This probably
tells you all you need to know about the author. Unless of course the author is just a fool,
which is also possible.
"Yet even before the collapse the Azerbaijani Army and Armenian independentists were
already at war (1988-1994), which yielded a grim balance of 30,000 dead and roughly a million
wounded."
This is a wounded-to-killed ratio of thirty-three to one. Doesn't make sense.
Were Russia to be as devious and underhanded as the puppet regime in the Di$trict of
Corruption, they would arrange for an overthrow of the present NATO/EU/U$ regime in Yerevan.
With those bastards out of the way and Armenia no longer playing double jeopardy, it might be
possible for a new Orthodox oriented Armenian government to come to some sort of arrangement
with Baku.
At the same time, perhaps Syrian spetsnaz units could practice some infiltration tactics
into Turkish semi-occupied "greater" Idlib and Ghurka style, behead a few Turkish officers
running the show there.
"Sultan" Erdogan is playing loose and wild with his shattering economy and massive
military. It is high time he was given a black-eye–one that would cause him to lose
face among his own countrymen.
This is my educated guess, the Anglo-Zionists led by Rothschild and Netanayahu destablize
the oil in the Middle East to keep their prices of oil in USD above 100 $/barrel
They have also blown up oil derricks in the North Sea, shut down Iranian and Iraq and
Syria oil production. The game is clear, low oil prices are being met with wiping out the
competition.
And causing hell in Iran and Venezueala. Back in 1954 Operation Ajax took out Mossadeq and
installed the Shah – puppet of big oil. Before it was BP it was the Persian Gulf Oil
Co. BP is owned mostly by the crown.
Trump's secretary of state was Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon just like GW Bush picked Condoleeza
Rice CEO Chevron to be his national security advisor.
The Israel angle is to get Iran and to goad Russia into war with the USA, the eventually
goal is that USA-Russia-China are reduced while Jews rule the world from Jerusalem.
How much you wanna bet Bibi Satanyahu has a hand in this war? And Evangelical Christians
will support Israel even if this war kills lots of Armenian Christians just like in
Syria.
Since this war in on Russia's doorstep Putin an Lavrov will try negotiations first then
what will they do next. Putin has vowed the war will never come to Russia which means Russia
will enter the theater on the anti-Zionist side.
Have you noticed every state within a few hundred miles of Israel is being torched and the
natives driven out?
Back again to Pepe Escobar's distortions of reality. Nagorno-Karabakh is an
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territory. In fact, no country in the world recognises it as an
"Independent" as Escobar likes to mislead us. Armenia should do the right thing and withdraw
its forces, including foreign militants from there. Like Israel, Armenia is playing the role
of a victim of a "holocaust".
Considering that the 2nd largest US/NWO Embassy in the World is in Armenia – a
country of 2.9 million people, and that the new President was put in power by the West
– the end game is to continue to surround Russia, screw up the New Silk Road, and be at
Iran's back door too. As said before , the domestic USA can totally look like the USSR in the
90s, but the NWO Foreign policy money is 100% – guaranteed. What do all those thousands
of workers in that huge Embassy compound do ?
Actually, once the Armenians were genocided , the Jewish bankers were the big shots left
in Turkey. H Morgenthau, our Turkish ambassador along with being jewish himself, wrote about
it in his reports. The Game hasn't changed much – it stays the same. Thanks.
About a third of Iran's population is Azeri. Should they develop interest in the conflict,
Iran may become involved. That would align Turkey and Iran vs Russia. That would be
something.
Damn right. We already have experience what happens when Turks get control of Christian
Armenians – systematic gang rapes and death marches are the rule of the day. Turks are
animals and letting them control any portion of Armenia is basically turning that place into
a concentration camp.
Fact: 1979 was the year that "big oil" LEGAL contracts were to expire and the "puppet"
Shah had threatened as early as 1973 (when he was instrumental in making OPEC a powerful
entity) that in 1979 Iran "would sell Iranian Oil to any buyer, at market prices".
Fact: Iran, in 1978 produced 6 million barrels per day. It has never been permitted to
reach those levels again.
Fact: Chinese, Indian, Syrian, Venezuelan, and God knows who else, all projects of the
Global Cabal have been getting Iranian Oil (under their engineered boxing of Iranian nation)
at levels that very likely are equal if not LOWER than the terms the Qajar idiots gave the
insatiablely greedy and slimey English.
And you did not mention that the only quarters of Smyrna/Izmir that were not torched in a
fire in 1922 were the Jewish and Turkish quarters – what a surprise! An antecedent to
9/11. Here is the Jewpedia hiding the real story – as usual.
The Armenian and Greek quarters were destroyed and the Jews got a monopoly on the
commerce. Done deal!
If the "colour revolution" assumptions were in force, there would be a host of
denunciations of Azerbaijan and Turkey (the latter perhaps the real prime mover in this) by
the USA and EU etc. There aren't. The USA and EU may even tacitly support the Azerbaijanis,
perhaps they hope the Russians and Iranians will become entangled in this affair and so
forth.
How about swapping Nagorno-Karabakh for North Cyprus. I am sure the Greeks would be very
happy to live with the Armenians. But the Sultan's dreams of owning the Eastern Mediterranean
would come to naught.
Stalin did nasty things like that to keep the republics feuding with each other rather
than pushing back against Moscow. The mixed-up borders of the 'stans, further east, are
testament to this. Fergana Valley?
Divide and rule. Still costing lives in pointless wars almost 100 years later.
At stake is the very existence of the Armenian people. Turkey is trying to finish what
remains of them after the genocide last century. Both Erdoghan and Aliev have stated, that
they want a "final solution" to the "Armenian problem".
Exactly. The history of Turkey since 1880-s is full of ethnic cleansings and genocides of
the non-muslim people such as Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
My thanks to Escobar for taking on a subject rather obviously not susceptible to 2,700
word essays, along with attention worthy links.
His biases are not my own but he's thoughtful and certainly doesn't hide them.
In this and so many other incidents we can see how thoroughly Trump has moved the American
ship of state despite the relentless efforts of foreign and domestic resistance to neutralize
America First and destroy him.
It's really quite something the way Obama's presidency in all its disastrous fullness has
been memory-holed. The defense of it being that it merely extended Bush's world-historical
incompetence and malefactions.
Could you have turned US unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact into a "moment" if you tried? I couldn't.
You will be way ahead of most everyone if you get your mind around that and the
geopolitical sad story that is CCP China winning the post-Cold War quarter-century hands
down.
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia – according to quite a few
analyses circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There's the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The Navalny
circus. The "threat" to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow's attention
towards the Caucasus . . .
I confess that I get no end of enjoyment over bellyaching on behalf of those powers the
Obama administration was turning the world over to. Nord Stream II was merely the down
payment on Russia's assistance/acquiescence in throwing the electron to Hillary, with the sky
the limit for China, Russia and Iran once Democrats and their foreign allies had neutralized
free and fair elections.
Now all of these powers must deal with a real POTUS who asks "What have you done for the
US lately?"
The USG and Russia have cooperated where geopolitical interests align. More will follow
once Trump takes the oath again. As I've explained previously, despite its high-risk position
in the Resistance matrix, Russia/Putin have (unsurprisingly, to me) acted skillfully and with
circumspection.
The same cannot be said for Iran. Nor China, particularly since the end of last year.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has raised a number of questions. In
particular, why Moscow is in no hurry to stand up for Armenia and why it does not sharply
criticize
Azerbaijan. The answer is that Moscow and Baku have very close relations, and not only
economic relations. So what is the value and irreplaceability of Azerbaijan for
Russia?
Border and population changes are in order. A quarter of N-K goes back to Azerbaijan and
the rest closer to Armenia proper plus the capital city goes to Armenia with a 50 mile wide
band connecting it with the rest of Armenia. The Azeris get the rest of their lands now
occupied by the Armenians. Will it happen? Probably not, just look at Kosovo..
There is a province between Ngorno Karabakh and Armenia proper of roughly of the same size
belonging to Azerbaijan, so why not just exchange it with each other to avoid further
conflict and bloodshed?
There is no guarantee that Turkey will not try to then eliminate whatever remains of
Armenia.
Remember, Turkey genocided Armenians and wiped out close to 80% of them in 1915 through
1922. Armenian populated areas stretched from what is now Armenia until the shores of Eastern
Mediterranean. The only thing that is left of it is Kessab in modern day Syria.
@Ghali nial borders are fake, false and fraudulent, whether in Asia or Africa. Over time,
justice will prevail and borders will reflect the ethno-national composition of its long-term
inhabitants.
That said, the current regime in Yerevan needs to be overthrown, as it was established in
conjunction with the interests of the Cabal/Nato and their various puppet regimes. Armenia is
the oldest Orthodox Christian nation in the world and was severely genocided by the Donmeh
covert Jewish Masons who called themselves the "Young Turks" who were led by Enver Pasha.
By the way, who are you, Ghali? Do you have a dog in the fight? Are you connected with an
intel agency?
Excellent article, normally I pass over Pepe for the naughty articles on Unz but I might
have to take another look.
My only critique is that the article feels pro-Azeri but that's balanced with an
informative description how this started in July, including an accurate appraisal of Turkish
behavior.
I'm not Azeri or Armenian so I didn't have a dog in this fight until I noticed Israel's
support for Azerbaijan. It's nothing personal, I have only one hate.
Jewish Bankers shifting profits to other Jewish bankers. Funding all sides and profiting
from the mass graves again. 5000 years and nothing has changed.
The Turks are the US Army in this – with their proxy armies sent to help the
Azerbaijanis, just like the US Army /Israelis and their proxies Isis, al Nusra, al Qaeda etc.
in Syria. The US and their 6000 employees at the Embassy, don't have to say anything –
they back both sides – just like the Zionists do – in the US political parties.
Things don't change , Tactics don't change. Thanks.
You are asking him if he has a dog in this fight? What about yourself? You very clearly
have a dog in this fight yourself, haven`t you?
Try to cut down on the hypocrasy, why don`t you, and at the same time maybe moderate your
"holier than thou" attitude.
"... "the EU and Russia find common cause to limit Azerbaijani gains (in large part because Erdogan is no one's favorite guy, not just because of this but because of the Eastern Med, Syria, Libya)." ..."
"... "Iran favors Armenia, which is counter-intuitive at first sight. So the Iranians may help the Russians out (funneling supplies), but on the other hand they have a good relationship with Turkey, especially in the oil and gas smuggling business. And if they get too overt in their support, Trump has a casus belli to get involved and the Europeans may not like to end up on the same side as the Russians and the Iranians. It just looks bad. And the Europeans hate to look bad." ..."
It's important to remember that there was no "Azerbaijan" nation-state until the early
1920s. Historically, Azerbaijan is a territory in northern Iran. Azeris are very well
integrated within the Islamic Republic. So the Republic of Azerbaijan actually borrowed its
name from their Iranian neighbors. In ancient history, the territory of the new 20
th century republic was known as Atropatene, and Aturpakatan before the advent of
Islam.
How the equation changed
Baku's main argument is that Armenia is blocking a contiguous Azerbaijani nation, as a look
in the map shows us that southwest Azerbaijan is de facto split all the way to the Iranian
border.
And that plunges us necessarily into deep background. To clarify matters, there could not be
a more reliable guide than a top Caucasus think tank expert who shared his analysis with me by
email, but is insistent on "no attribution". Let's call him Mr. C.
Mr. C notes that, "for decades, the equation remained the same and the variables in the
equation remained the same, more or less. This was the case notwithstanding the fact that
Armenia is an unstable democracy in transition and Azerbaijan had much more continuity at the
top."
We should all be aware that "Azerbaijan lost territory right at the beginning of the
restoration of its statehood, when it was basically a failed state run by armchair nationalist
amateurs [before Heydar Aliyev, Ilham's father, came to power]. And Armenia was a mess, too but
less so when you take into consideration that it had strong Russian support and Azerbaijan had
no one. Back in the day, Turkey was still a secular state with a military that looked West and
took its NATO membership seriously. Since then, Azerbaijan has built up its economy and
increased its population. So it kept getting stronger. But its military was still
underperforming."
That slowly started to change in 2020: "Basically, in the past few months you've seen
incremental increases in the intensity of near daily ceasefire violations (the near-daily
violations are nothing new: they've been going on for years). So this blew up in July and there
was a shooting war for a few days. Then everyone calmed down again."
All this time, something important was developing in the background: Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power in May 2018, and Aliyev started to talk: "The Azerbaijani
side thought this indicated Armenia was ready for compromise (this all started when Armenia had
a sort of revolution, with the new PM coming in with a popular mandate to clean house
domestically). For whatever reason, it ended up not happening."
What happened in fact was the July shooting war.
Don't forget Pipelineistan
Armenian PM Pashinyan could be described as a liberal globalist. The majority of his
political team is pro-NATO. Pashinyan went all guns blazing against former Armenian President
(1998- 2008) Robert Kocharian, who before that happened to be, crucially, the de facto
President of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Kocharian, who spent years in Russia and is close to President Putin, was charged with a
nebulous attempt at "overthrowing the constitutional order". Pashinyan tried to land him in
jail. But even more crucial is the fact that Pashinyan refused to follow a plan elaborated by
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to finally settle the Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh mess.
In the current fog of war, things are even messier. Mr. C stresses two points: "First,
Armenia asked for CSTO protection and got bitch slapped, hard and in public; second, Armenia
threatened to bomb the oil and gas pipelines in Azerbaijan (there are several, they all run
parallel, and they supply not just Georgia and Turkey but now the Balkans and Italy). With
regards to the latter, Azerbaijan basically said: if you do that, we'll bomb your nuclear
reactor."
The Pipelineistan angle is indeed crucial: for years I have followed on Asia Times
these myriad, interlocking oil and gas soap operas, especially the BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan),
conceived by Zbigniew Brzezinski to bypass Iran. I was even "arrested" by a BP 4X4 when I was
tracking the pipeline on a parallel side road out of the massive Sangachal terminal: that
proved British Petroleum was in practice the real boss, not the Azerbaijani government.
In sum, now we have reached the point where, according to Mr. C,
"Armenia's saber rattling got more aggressive." Reasons, on the Armenian side, seem to be
mostly domestic: terrible handling of Covid-19 (in contrast to Azerbaijan), and the dire state
of the economy. So, says Mr. C, we came to a toxic concourse of circumstances: Armenia
deflected from its problems by being tough on Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan just had had
enough.
It's always about Turkey
Anyway one looks at the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama, the key destabilizing factor is now
Turkey.
Mr. C notes how, "throughout the summer, the quality of the Turkish-Azerbaijani military
exercises increased (both prior to July events and subsequently). The Azerbaijani military got
a lot better. Also, since the fourth quarter of 2019 the President of Azerbaijan has been
getting rid of the (perceived) pro-Russian elements in positions of power." See, for instance,
here
.
There's no way to confirm it either with Moscow or Ankara, but Mr. C advances what President
Erdogan may have told the Russians: "We'll go into Armenia directly if a) Azerbaijan starts to
lose, b) Russia goes in or accepts CSTO to be invoked or something along those lines, or c)
Armenia goes after the pipelines. All are reasonable red lines for the Turks, especially when
you factor in the fact that they don't like the Armenians very much and that they consider the
Azerbaijanis brothers."
It's crucial to remember that in August, Baku and Ankara held two weeks of joint air and
land military exercises. Baku has bought advanced drones from both Turkey and Israel. There's
no smokin' gun, at least not yet, but Ankara may have hired up
to 4,000 Salafi-jihadis in Syria to fight -- wait for it -- in favor of Shi'ite-majority
Azerbaijan, proving once again that "jihadism" is all about making a quick buck.
The United Armenian Information Center, as well as the Kurdish Afrin Post, have stated that
Ankara opened two recruitment centers -- in Afrin schools -- for mercenaries. Apparently this
has been a quite popular move because Ankara slashed salaries for Syrian mercenaries shipped to
Libya.
There's an extra angle that is deeply worrying not only for Russia but also for Central
Asia. According to the former Foreign Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ambassador Extraordinary
Arman Melikyan, mercenaries using Azeri IDs issued in Baku may be able to infiltrate Dagestan
and Chechnya and, via the Caspian, reach Atyrau in Kazakhstan, from where they can easily reach
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
That's the ultimate nightmare of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) -- shared by
Russia, China and the Central Asian "stans": a jihadi land -- and (Caspian) sea -- bridge from
the Caucasus all the way to Central Asia, and even Xinjiang.
What's the point of this war?
So what happens next? A nearly insurmountable impasse, as Mr. C outlines it:
1. "The peace talks are going nowhere because Armenia is refusing to budge (to withdraw from
occupying Nagorno-Karabakh plus 7 surrounding regions in phases or all at once, with the usual
guarantees for civilians, even settlers -- note that when they went in in the early 1990s they
cleansed those lands of literally all Azerbaijanis, something like between 700,000 and 1
million people)."
2. Aliyev was under the impression that Pashinyan "was willing to compromise and began
preparing his people and then looked like someone with egg on his face when it didn't
happen."
3. "Turkey has made it crystal clear it will support Azerbaijan unconditionally, and has
matched those words with deeds."
4. "In such circumstances, Russia got outplayed -- in the sense that they had been able to
play off Armenia against Azerbaijan and vice versa, quite successfully, helping to mediate
talks that went nowhere, preserving the status quo that effectively favored Armenia."
And that brings us to the crucial question. What's the point of this war?
Mr. C: "It is either to conquer as much as possible before the "international community" [in
this case, the UNSC] calls for / demands a ceasefire or to do so as an impetus for re-starting
talks that actually lead to progress. In either scenario, Azerbaijan will end up with gains and
Armenia with losses. How much and under what circumstances (the status and question of
Nagorno-Karabakh is distinct from the status and question of the Armenian occupied territories
around Nagorno-Karabakh) is unknown: i.e. on the field of battle or the negotiating table or a
combo of both. However this turns out, at a minimum Azerbaijan will get to keep what it
liberated in battle. This will be the new starting point. And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do
no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay. They'll be model liberators. And they'll take time
to bring back Azerbaijani civilians (refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that
would become mixed as a result of return."
So what can Moscow do under these circumstances? Not much,
"except to go into Azerbaijan proper, which they won't do (there's no land border between
Russia and Armenia; so although Russia has a military base in Armenia with one or more thousand
troops, they can't just supply Armenia with guns and troops at will, given the geography)."
Crucially, Moscow privileges the strategic partnership with Armenia -- which is a member of
the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) -- while meticulously monitoring each and every NATO-member
Turkey's movement: after all, they are already in opposing sides in both Libya and Syria.
So, to put it mildly, Moscow is walking on a geopolitical razor's edge. Russia needs to
exercise restraint and invest in a carefully calibrated balancing act between Armenia and
Azerbaijan; must preserve the Russia-Turkey strategic partnership; and must be alert to all,
possible US Divide and Rule tactics.
Inside Erdogan's war
So in the end this would be yet another Erdogan war?
The inescapable Follow the Money analysis would tells us, yes. The Turkish economy is an
absolute mess, with high inflation and a depreciating currency. Baku has a wealth of oil-gas
funds that could become readily available -- adding to Ankara's dream of turning Turkey also
into an energy supplier.
Mr. C adds that anchoring Turkey in Azerbaijan would lead to "the creation of full-fledged
Turkish military bases and the inclusion of Azerbaijan in the Turkish orbit of influence (the
"two countries -- one nation" thesis, in which Turkey assumes supremacy) within the framework
of neo-Ottomanism and Turkey's leadership in the Turkic-speaking world."
Add to it the all-important NATO angle. Mr. C essentially sees it as Erdogan, enabled by
Washington, about to make a NATO push to the east while establishing that immensely dangerous
jihadi channel into Russia: "This is no local adventure by Erdogan. I understand that
Azerbaijan is largely Shi'ite Islam and that will complicate things but not render his
adventure impossible."
This totally ties in with a notorious RAND
report that explicitly details how "the United States could try to induce Armenia to break
with Russia" and "encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit."
It's beyond obvious that Moscow is observing all these variables with extreme care. That is
reflected, for instance, in how irrepressible Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,
earlier this week, has packaged a very serious diplomatic warning: "The downing of an Armenian
SU-25 by a Turkish F-16, as claimed by the Ministry of Defense in Armenia, seems to complicate
the situation, as Moscow, based on the Tashkent treaty, is obligated to offer military
assistance to Armenia".
It's no wonder both Baku and Yerevan got the message and are firmly denying anything
happened.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan, Russia
will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line. Moscow has all
it takes to put him in serious trouble -- as in shutting off gas supplies to Turkey. Moscow,
meanwhile, will keep helping Yerevan with intel and hardware -- flown in from Iran. Diplomacy
rules -- and the ultimate target is yet another ceasefire.
Pulling Russia back in
Mr. C advances the strong possibility -- and I have heard echoes from Brussels -- that
"the EU and Russia find common cause to limit Azerbaijani gains (in large part because
Erdogan is no one's favorite guy, not just because of this but because of the Eastern Med,
Syria, Libya)."
That brings to the forefront the renewed importance of the UNSC in imposing a ceasefire.
Washington's role at the moment is quite intriguing. Of course, Trump has more important things
to do at the moment. Moreover, the Armenian diaspora in the US swings drastically
pro-Democrat.
Then, to round it all up, there's the all-important Iran-Armenia relationship. Here
is a forceful attempt to put it in perspective.
As Mr. C stresses, "Iran favors Armenia, which is counter-intuitive at first sight. So
the Iranians may help the Russians out (funneling supplies), but on the other hand they have
a good relationship with Turkey, especially in the oil and gas smuggling business. And if
they get too overt in their support, Trump has a casus belli to get involved and the
Europeans may not like to end up on the same side as the Russians and the Iranians. It just
looks bad. And the Europeans hate to look bad."
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia -- according to quite a few analyses
circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There's the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The Navalny
circus. The "threat" to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow's attention
towards the Caucasus so there's more Turkish freedom of action in other theaters -- in the
Eastern Mediterranean versus Greece, in Syria, in Libya. Ankara -- foolishly -- is engaged in
simultaneous wars on several fronts, and with virtually no allies.
What this means is that even more than NATO, monopolizing Russia's attention in the Caucasus
most of all may be profitable for Erdogan himself. As Mr. C stresses, "in this situation, the
Nagorno-Karabakh leverage/'trump card' in the hands of Turkey would be useful for negotiations
with Russia."
And I suspect that Azerbaijan will do no harm to the Armenian civilians that stay.
They’ll be model liberators. And they’ll take time to bring back Azerbaijani
civilians (refugees/IDPs) to their homes, especially in areas that would become mixed as a
result of return.”
Agreed, this is rubbish. “Mr. C” – assuming someone like this even
exists, is either terribly misinformed or an outright liar. Basically, if we follow
Escobar’s logic, Armenian’s are making a mistake by not agreeing to surrender
their lives to the peace loving and rather humanistic dictatorship of Azerbaijan. While he
touches on some relevant points, overall, Escobar has not done his homework and has come up
with quite a bit of drivel.
Pepe, you didn’t mention the Armenian Genocide, the Greek Genocide, the Assyrian
Genocide, all perpetrated by Turkey.
Why not? Would the Azeris, all Turks, be different? You say the Azeris if they won, Turks,
would treat the Armenian population nicely. Huh?
I remember from Runciman’s book on the First Crusade that the Turks had already
taken over much of Anatolia but he seems to mention Armenians at every turn (from
memory—don’t have the book handy).
My impression is that before the Genocide the Armenians were all over Anatolia. There was
a narrow coastal strip at the western end that was historically part of Greece, and many
different peoples of Asia Minor are mentioned in the NT, but they arguably were all
Armenians, making the Armenians the indigenous people of Anatolia.
How is it that Turkey was allowed to keep part of Europe after WWI when they were losers?
And did they keep faith? Is the current St Sophia turmoil the norm of Turkish good faith?
Time for all the Turks to get out of Anatolia, give it back to Armenia, and head for
Azerbigan.
@Yevardian having been disciplined for some years now is, once again, at the throat of
the west. Europe spent millions of lives and huge resources throwing the Moors out last time.
If they don’t take a stand and support Armenia they may very well have to do it again.
As far as the mythical Mr C is concerned he comes across, to me, as yet another apologist for
the Religion of Peace. Obviously cucked NATO will not help Armenia, they have neither the
intestinal fortitude nor the will, so it will be left to Russia and the Visigrad nations, in
the mean time Turkey is attempting to take Greek territory, Syrian territory, Libyan
territory and anything else that it can get it’s mitts on and the West does absolutely
nothing. This will not end well.
I think few Armenian civilians will take the chance but I very much doubt Azerbaijanis
will be “model liberators”. The new Azerbaijani state was born from the Sumgait
and Baku pogroms. I also don’t think they will delay in moving Azeris into areas
formerly inhabited by Armenians – their role model Erdoğan has been trying to
change facts on the ground by moving ethnic Turks into Kurdish areas in his own country.
@Ann Nonny Mouse deavor, even if they were the majority, though most accounts say they
were 40%.
I would strongly urge the Armenians to get off their nationalist high horse and solve the
problem diplomatically and learn to live with their neighbors. Super nationalism is a
dangerous and fake mantra that usually leads to disaster. My understanding was that the
Azeris and Armenians always got along before this debacle. They should try to work out things
and get back to a their original multi-cultural paradigm, that is living side by side instead
of fighting and dying over territory and national flags. Live is short and when we pass to
the other side you dont carry your flag with you.
The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991: but that was not
recognized by the “international community”
Just to throw in quickly that if Kosovo is “recognized”, then bleeding
Karabakh should also long since have been recognized. Especially since the Armenians have an
actual holocaust in their 20th century past.
So, seems like the way to get sympathy to rob territory is to make full use of any
“genocide” one had suffered as excuse…. worked very well ( in fact,
spectacularly well) so faR with the Chosen ones….
Well i admittedly dont know enough about the situation to try to critique this piece as
some of the other comments on here… But i am skeptical about Armenia and their stated
intent. If it is reallly about protecting an ethnic group – then why not offer them
citizenship to move into your territory??? That would lead me to believe it is more about
land and resources…
Yeah i dont know the nitty gritty in this conflict – but i do agree Edrogan seems to
be biting off more than he can chew… He has too many pots on the fire it seems. Kurds
– Qatar/Saudis – Libya – Syria – Greece – Cyprus – and
now this..?
Aside from refusing to participate against their Muslim cousins (Afghanistan, Libya),
Turkey is using NATO doctrine quite effectively. It is a useful bullet prove vest for
Erdogan. The Brussels morons will be sorry for not expelling Turkey from their military club
long time ago.
@Ann Nonny Mouse iven to the Syrian desert AFTER some of them had aligned with the
Russians who were about to invade eastern Anatolia in 1915. Similarly, most of Crimean Tatars
were expelled from Crimea AFTER some of them had aligned with the invading Germans in 1941.
As another comparison, American-Japanese living at the Pacific coast were banished to camps
in the interior AFTER the Japanese army had attacked Pearl Harbor and not before.
When a group of people kill or drive out another group it’s usually not for the fun of
it but rather due to necessities of survival, whatever evil that might require at that
particular time depending on the particular circumstances.
It would be interesting to read a scholarly exposition on what the USSR and governments in
Eastern Europe proper did or did not do to educate people away from their ancient hatreds,
and why whatever they did do appears not to have been particularly successful. Or was it
mostly successful and the hatreds were much more intense before 1917?
The entire Jewish American lobby and Israel are on Azerbaijan’s side and
anti-Armenian, just as when they were working with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide.
Israel has also sold billions of dollars of weapons to Azerbaijan which the latter is
using against Armenians. Israel gets oil from Azerbaijan
Of course, Azerbaijan and Turkey have imported jihadists from Syria and Libya to fight
Christian Armenians now.
Apparently, Pepe, you and the Jewish lobby, Israel, Turkey, and the jihadists are on the
same side.
Congratulations.
P.S. It would take a hundred pages to list all the factual errors you made. For example,
Armenians were still the clear majority in Artsakh/Karabagh in 1988 and 1991. Armenians there
had been grossly mistreated by Azerbaijan for decades.
The fighting occurred in the late 1980s only because Azerbaijan, backed by the Russian
military, killed and harrassed Armenians. The Azeris also committed massacres of Armenians
who were living in Baku and Sumgait in the late 1980s.
Stalin also placed Nakhichevan, an Armenian territory, inside Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan kicked out every Armenian from Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan was doing that to
Artsakh/Karabagh too.
No wonder Artsakh voted to be independent from Azerbaijan, something you don’t want
to understand.
Better luck next time trying to fool readers, Pepe.
The key fact remains that as long as Armenia proper is not attacked by Azerbaijan,
Russia will not apply the CSTO treaty and step in. Erdogan knows this is his red line.
Moscow has all it takes to put him in serious trouble – as in shutting off gas
supplies to Turkey.
Russia isn’t going to shut off gas to Turkey. Russia never does that (shutting off
gas). It’s a Western canard.
Russia could, however, impose a no-fly-zone over Georgia, effectively blocking resupply
and reinforcements to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is almost completely surrounded by Russian
allies and bases. They rely on Georgia for military transit.
Ignorant post. Armenian nationalist were active in Russia prior to ww1, then supported
Russian entrance into Turkish territory because they shared a religion. They stabbed the
ottomans , of which they were a big part, in the back. The young Turks , who were actually
donmeh jews, had them marched off to Syria and lebanon, etc, causing many deaths! The
Armenian is still causing trouble for the Turks. They sided with the mongols in their battles
against the Muslims, along wit the Georgians, repeatedly. More to a small story
What’s going to happen to USA? The poverty and racial intolerance ,both seem to be
undermining the stability and the ideological integrity of the country . I see many states
emerging from the body of America.But the problems will not be resolved . It might just like
like Caucasian territory or Balkan .
1. BTC is described as ‘bypassing Iran’. One could easily argue it also
bypasses *Russia* . Perhaps that’s what made it necessary for Soros & others to
peel Georgia off from Russian control back in the day? Look how Russia responded by
recapturing the Georgian Military Highway (South Ossetia).
2. Look in general at how Russia is willing to give up huge areas of territory so long as
she keeps key strategic points of control: South Ossetia, Crimea, Transnistria, Abkhazia
and… Armenia. Smell the coffee.
3. 2. ‘Mr. C’ is quick to mention Baku/Ankara joint exercises in August, but
fails to mention Kavkas 2020 exercises led by Russia. Uh duh.
4. ‘Mr. C’ seems to ignore the fact that Armenia couldn’t have taken
that territory in first place, or kept it, w/out Russian assistance. And idea ‘Russia
can do nothing’ is absurd. As is the idea that Russia can’t supply Armenia
because there’s no land connection. Did the allies have any problem keeping West Berlin
supplied by air? Of course not. All nonsense.
5. The idea that there is a ‘Russia/Turkey’ strategic partnership is also
silly. Where is this partnership? Turkey buying S-400s? So what? Are they in partnership in
Syria? In Libya? No. So why would they be in N-K?
6. Weird. No mention of China and it’s growing relationship with Turkey. This
probably tells you all you need to know about the author. Unless of course the author is just
a fool, which is also possible.
“Yet even before the collapse the Azerbaijani Army and Armenian independentists were
already at war (1988-1994), which yielded a grim balance of 30,000 dead and roughly a million
wounded.”
This is a wounded-to-killed ratio of thirty-three to one. Doesn’t make sense.
Were Russia to be as devious and underhanded as the puppet regime in the Di$trict of
Corruption, they would arrange for an overthrow of the present NATO/EU/U$ regime in Yerevan.
With those bastards out of the way and Armenia no longer playing double jeopardy, it might be
possible for a new Orthodox oriented Armenian government to come to some sort of arrangement
with Baku.
At the same time, perhaps Syrian spetsnaz units could practice some infiltration tactics
into Turkish semi-occupied “greater” Idlib and Ghurka style, behead a few Turkish
officers running the show there.
“Sultan” Erdogan is playing loose and wild with his shattering economy and
massive military. It is high time he was given a black-eye–one that would cause him to
lose face among his own countrymen.
This is my educated guess, the Anglo-Zionists led by Rothschild and Netanayahu destablize
the oil in the Middle East to keep their prices of oil in USD above 100 $/barrel
They have also blown up oil derricks in the North Sea, shut down Iranian and Iraq and
Syria oil production. The game is clear, low oil prices are being met with wiping out the
competition.
And causing hell in Iran and Venezueala. Back in 1954 Operation Ajax took out Mossadeq and
installed the Shah – puppet of big oil. Before it was BP it was the Persian Gulf Oil
Co. BP is owned mostly by the crown.
Trump’s secretary of state was Rex Tillerson CEO Exxon just like GW Bush picked
Condoleeza Rice CEO Chevron to be his national security advisor.
The Israel angle is to get Iran and to goad Russia into war with the USA, the eventually
goal is that USA-Russia-China are reduced while Jews rule the world from Jerusalem.
How much you wanna bet Bibi Satanyahu has a hand in this war? And Evangelical Christians
will support Israel even if this war kills lots of Armenian Christians just like in
Syria.
Since this war in on Russia’s doorstep Putin an Lavrov will try negotiations first
then what will they do next. Putin has vowed the war will never come to Russia which means
Russia will enter the theater on the anti-Zionist side.
Have you noticed every state within a few hundred miles of Israel is being torched and the
natives driven out?
Back again to Pepe Escobar’s distortions of reality. Nagorno-Karabakh is an
Armenian-occupied Azerbaijani territory. In fact, no country in the world recognises it as an
“Independent” as Escobar likes to mislead us. Armenia should do the right thing
and withdraw its forces, including foreign militants from there. Like Israel, Armenia is
playing the role of a victim of a “holocaust”.
Considering that the 2nd largest US/NWO Embassy in the World is in Armenia – a
country of 2.9 million people, and that the new President was put in power by the West
– the end game is to continue to surround Russia, screw up the New Silk Road, and be at
Iran’s back door too. As said before , the domestic USA can totally look like the USSR
in the 90s, but the NWO Foreign policy money is 100% – guaranteed. What do all those
thousands of workers in that huge Embassy compound do ?
Actually, once the Armenians were genocided , the Jewish bankers were the big shots left
in Turkey. H Morgenthau, our Turkish ambassador along with being jewish himself, wrote about
it in his reports. The Game hasn’t changed much – it stays the same. Thanks.
About a third of Iran’s population is Azeri. Should they develop interest in the
conflict, Iran may become involved. That would align Turkey and Iran vs Russia. That would be
something.
Damn right. We already have experience what happens when Turks get control of Christian
Armenians – systematic gang rapes and death marches are the rule of the day. Turks are
animals and letting them control any portion of Armenia is basically turning that place into
a concentration camp.
Fact: 1979 was the year that “big oil” LEGAL contracts were to expire and the
“puppet” Shah had threatened as early as 1973 (when he was instrumental in making
OPEC a powerful entity) that in 1979 Iran “would sell Iranian Oil to any buyer, at
market prices”.
Fact: Iran, in 1978 produced 6 million barrels per day. It has never been permitted to
reach those levels again.
Fact: Chinese, Indian, Syrian, Venezuelan, and God knows who else, all projects of the
Global Cabal have been getting Iranian Oil (under their engineered boxing of Iranian nation)
at levels that very likely are equal if not LOWER than the terms the Qajar idiots gave the
insatiablely greedy and slimey English.
And you did not mention that the only quarters of Smyrna/Izmir that were not torched in a
fire in 1922 were the Jewish and Turkish quarters – what a surprise! An antecedent to
9/11. Here is the Jewpedia hiding the real story – as usual.
The Armenian and Greek quarters were destroyed and the Jews got a monopoly on the
commerce. Done deal!
If the “colour revolution” assumptions were in force, there would be a host of
denunciations of Azerbaijan and Turkey (the latter perhaps the real prime mover in this) by
the USA and EU etc. There aren’t. The USA and EU may even tacitly support the
Azerbaijanis, perhaps they hope the Russians and Iranians will become entangled in this
affair and so forth.
How about swapping Nagorno-Karabakh for North Cyprus. I am sure the Greeks would be very
happy to live with the Armenians. But the Sultan’s dreams of owning the Eastern
Mediterranean would come to naught.
Stalin did nasty things like that to keep the republics feuding with each other rather
than pushing back against Moscow. The mixed-up borders of the ‘stans, further east, are
testament to this. Fergana Valley?
Divide and rule. Still costing lives in pointless wars almost 100 years later.
At stake is the very existence of the Armenian people. Turkey is trying to finish what
remains of them after the genocide last century. Both Erdoghan and Aliev have stated, that
they want a “final solution” to the “Armenian problem”.
Exactly. The history of Turkey since 1880-s is full of ethnic cleansings and genocides of
the non-muslim people such as Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.
My thanks to Escobar for taking on a subject rather obviously not susceptible to 2,700
word essays, along with attention worthy links.
His biases are not my own but he’s thoughtful and certainly doesn’t hide
them.
In this and so many other incidents we can see how thoroughly Trump has moved the American
ship of state despite the relentless efforts of foreign and domestic resistance to neutralize
America First and destroy him.
It’s really quite something the way Obama’s presidency in all its disastrous
fullness has been memory-holed. The defense of it being that it merely extended Bush’s
world-historical incompetence and malefactions.
Could you have turned US unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
Warsaw Pact into a “moment” if you tried? I couldn’t.
You will be way ahead of most everyone if you get your mind around that and the
geopolitical sad story that is CCP China winning the post-Cold War quarter-century hands
down.
We inevitably come back to the point that the whole drama can be interpreted from the
perspective of a NATO geopolitical hit against Russia – according to quite a few
analyses circulating at the Duma.
Ukraine is an absolute black hole. There’s the Belarus impasse. Covid-19. The
Navalny circus. The “threat” to Nord Stream-2.
To pull Russia back into the Armenia-Azerbaijan drama means turning Moscow’s
attention towards the Caucasus . . .
I confess that I get no end of enjoyment over bellyaching on behalf of those powers the
Obama administration was turning the world over to. Nord Stream II was merely the down
payment on Russia’s assistance/acquiescence in throwing the electron to Hillary, with
the sky the limit for China, Russia and Iran once Democrats and their foreign allies had
neutralized free and fair elections.
Now all of these powers must deal with a real POTUS who asks “What have you done for
the US lately?”
The USG and Russia have cooperated where geopolitical interests align. More will follow
once Trump takes the oath again. As I’ve explained previously, despite its high-risk
position in the Resistance matrix, Russia/Putin have (unsurprisingly, to me) acted skillfully
and with circumspection.
The same cannot be said for Iran. Nor China, particularly since the end of last year.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh has raised a number of questions. In
particular, why Moscow is in no hurry to stand up for Armenia and why it does not sharply
criticize
Azerbaijan. The answer is that Moscow and Baku have very close relations, and not only
economic relations. So what is the value and irreplaceability of Azerbaijan for
Russia?
Border and population changes are in order. A quarter of N-K goes back to Azerbaijan and
the rest closer to Armenia proper plus the capital city goes to Armenia with a 50 mile wide
band connecting it with the rest of Armenia. The Azeris get the rest of their lands now
occupied by the Armenians. Will it happen? Probably not, just look at Kosovo..
There is a province between Ngorno Karabakh and Armenia proper of roughly of the same size
belonging to Azerbaijan, so why not just exchange it with each other to avoid further
conflict and bloodshed?
There is no guarantee that Turkey will not try to then eliminate whatever remains of
Armenia.
Remember, Turkey genocided Armenians and wiped out close to 80% of them in 1915 through
1922. Armenian populated areas stretched from what is now Armenia until the shores of Eastern
Mediterranean. The only thing that is left of it is Kessab in modern day Syria.
@Ghali e fake, false and fraudulent, whether in Asia or Africa. Over time, justice will
prevail and borders will reflect the ethno-national composition of its long-term inhabitants.
That said, the current regime in Yerevan needs to be overthrown, as it was established in
conjunction with the interests of the Cabal/Nato and their various puppet regimes. Armenia is
the oldest Orthodox Christian nation in the world and was severely genocided by the Donmeh
covert Jewish Masons who called themselves the “Young Turks” who were led by
Enver Pasha.
By the way, who are you, Ghali? Do you have a dog in the fight? Are you connected with an
intel agency?
Excellent article, normally I pass over Pepe for the naughty articles on Unz but I might
have to take another look.
My only critique is that the article feels pro-Azeri but that’s balanced with an
informative description how this started in July, including an accurate appraisal of Turkish
behavior.
I’m not Azeri or Armenian so I didn’t have a dog in this fight until I noticed
Israel’s support for Azerbaijan. It’s nothing personal, I have only one hate.
Jewish Bankers shifting profits to other Jewish bankers. Funding all sides and profiting
from the mass graves again. 5000 years and nothing has changed.
The Turks are the US Army in this – with their proxy armies sent to help the
Azerbaijanis, just like the US Army /Israelis and their proxies Isis, al Nusra, al Qaeda etc.
in Syria. The US and their 6000 employees at the Embassy, don’t have to say anything
– they back both sides – just like the Zionists do – in the US political
parties. Things don’t change , Tactics don’t change. Thanks.
You are asking him if he has a dog in this fight? What about yourself? You very clearly
have a dog in this fight yourself, haven`t you?
Try to cut down on the hypocrasy, why don`t you, and at the same time maybe moderate your
“holier than thou” attitude.
US regime in this last forty years since the Iranian revolution has been totally
successful making majority Iranian people anywhere in the world understand that the US is
their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come, in mean time, US regime has been equally
as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between the two sides belief is, Iranian people by experiencing US regime'
conducts came to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their own regime'
propaganda machinery. For this reason just like the people to people relation between the US
and Russian people Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US and Iran in next
few generations will not come or even develop to anything substantial or meaningful. One can
see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably all these countries
relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions, regardless of
maturity or termination of their revolution.
As much as US loves color revolutions, US hates real revolutions.
The highlands of Nagorno-Karabakh are ethnically Armenian. The light blue districts were
originally Azeri but have been ethically cleansed during the war in the early 1990s.
Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan by supplying it with Turkish drones and with 'moderate Syrian
rebel' mercenaries
from Syrian and Libya . All are flown in through Georgian air space. Other mercenaries seem
to come from
Afghanistan . Additional hardware comes by road also through
Georgia. Another supporter of the attacker is Israel. During the last week Azerbaijani military
transport aircraft have flown at least six times to Israel to then return with additional
Israeli suicide drones on board. These Harop drones have been widely used in attacks on
Armenian positions. An Israeli made LORA short range ballistic missile was used by Azerbaijan
to
attack a bridge that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Allegedly there are also
Turkish flown F-16 fighter planes in Azerbaijan.
Turkey seems to direct the drones and fighter planes in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh
through AWACS type air control planes that fly circles at the Turkish-Armenian border.
The attack plan Azerbaijan had in mind when it launched the war foresaw to take several
miles deep zones per day. It has not survived the first day of battle. Azerbaijan started the
attack without significant artillery preparation. The ground attack was only supported by drone
strikes on Armenian tanks, artillery and air defense positions. But the defensive lines held by
Armenian infantry were not damaged by the drones. The dug in Armenian infantry could use its
anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons to full extend. Azerbaijani tanks and infantry were
slaughtered when they tried to break into the lines. Both sides had significant casualties but
overall the frontlines did not move.
The war seems already to be at a stalemate. Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan can afford to use
air power and ballistic missiles purchased from Russia without Russian consent.
The drone attacks were for a while quite successful. A number of old air defense systems
were
destroyed before the Armenians became wiser with camouflaging them. The Azerbaijani's than
used a trick to unveil hidden air defense positions. Radio controlled Antonov
AN-2 airplanes, propeller driven relicts from the late 1940s, were sent over Armenian
positions. When the air defense then launched a missile against them a loitering suicide drone
was immediately dropped onto the firing position .
That seems to have worked for a day or two but by now such drone attacks have been become
rare. Dozens of drones were shut down before they could hit a target and Azerbaijan seems to be
running out of them. A bizarre music video the
Azerbaijanis posted showed four trucks each
carrying nine drones. It may have had several hundreds of those drones but likely less than one
thousand. Israel is currently under a strict pandemic lockdown. Resupply of drones will be an
issue. Azerbaijan has since brought up more heavy artillery but it seems to primarily use it to
hit towns and cities, not the front lines where it would be more useful.
It is not clear who is commanding the Azerbaijani troops. There days ago the Chief of the
General Staff of Azerbaijan was fired after he
complained about too much Turkish influence on the war. That has not helped. Two larger ground
attacks launched by Azerbaijan earlier today were also unsuccessful. The Armenians are
currently counter attacking.
In our last piece on the war we pointed
to U.S. plans to 'overextend Russia' by creating trouble in the Caucasus just as it is now
happening. Fort Russnotes
:
The current director of the CIA, Gina Haspel , was doing field assignments in Turkey in
the early stages of her career, she reportedly speaks Turkish, and she has history of
serving as a
station chief in Baku, Azerbaijan , in the late 1990s. It is, therefore, presumable that
she still has connections with the local government and business elites.
The current Chief of the MI6, Richard Moore , also has history of working in Turkey -- he
was performing tasks for the British intelligence there in the late 1980s and the early
1990s. Moore is fluent in Turkish and he also
served as the British Ambassador to Turkey from 2014 to 2017.
The intelligence chiefs of the two most powerful countries in the Anglosphere are
turkologists with connections in Turkey and Azerbaijan. It would be reasonable to assume that
a regional conflict of such magnitude happening now, on their watch, is far from being a mere
coincidence.
Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way
Airlines in more than 350
flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to 'Syrian rebels'.
Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad center for waging
its silent war against Iran.
I have never perceived it that way. While Armenia's current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
tried to get into business with 'western' powers and NATO there was no way he could
fundamentally change Armenia's foreign policy. A hundred years ago Turkey, with the second
biggest NATO army, had genocided Armenians. They have never forgotten that. The relation to
Azerbaijan were also certain to continue to be hostile. That will only change if the two
countries again come under some larger empire. Armenia depends on Russian arms support just as
much as Azerbaijan does. (Azerbaijan has more money and pays more for its Russian weapons which
allows Russia to subsidize the ones it sells to Armenia.)
After Nikol Pashinyan was installed and tried to turn 'west' Russia did the same as it did
in Belarus when President Lukashenko started to make deals with the 'west'. It set back and
waited until the 'west' betrayed its new partners. That has happened in Belarus a few weeks
ago. The U.S. launched a color revolution against Lukashenko and he had nowhere to turn to
but to Russia . Now Armenia is under attack by NATO supported forces and can not hope for
help from anywhere but Russia.
Iran likewise did not fear the new government in Yerevan. It was concerned over Pashinyan's
recent diplomatic exchanges with Israel which were at the initiative of the White House. But
that concern has now been lifted. To protest against Israel's recent sale of weapon to
Azerbaijan Armenia has called back its
ambassador from Israel just two weeks after it opened its embassy there.
Pashinyan will have to apologize in Moscow before Russia will come to his help. As Maxim
Suchkov relays :
This is interesting: Evgeniy "Putin's chef" Prigozhin gives short interview to state his
"personal opinion" on Nagorno-Karabakh. Some takeaways:
- Karabakh is Azerbaijan's territory
- Russia has no legal grounds to conduct military activity in Karabakh
- there are more American NGOs in Armenia than national military units
- PM Pashinyan is to blame
- until 2018 Russia was able to ensure ARM & AZ discuss conflict at the negotiation
table, then US brought Pashinyan to power in Yerevan and he feels he's a king & can't
talk to Aliyev
I wonder if Prigozhin's remarks suggest he'd be reluctant to deploy his Wagner guys to
Armenia, if needed or if he is asked to do so, or he's just indeed stating his own views or
it's a way to delicately allude to Pashinyan that Moscow not happy with him ... ?
Russia's (and Iran's) interest is to refreeze the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. But that
requires compliant people on both sides. It therefore does not mind that Azerbaijan currently
creates some pressure on Pashinyan. But it can not allow Azerbaijan to make a significant
victory. One of its main concern will be to get Turkey out of the game and that will require
support for Armenia. Iran has a quite similar strategy.
The U.S. will probably try to escalate the situation and to make it more complicate for Russia.
It is likely silently telling Turkey to increase its involvement in the war.
Russia will likely only intervene if either side makes some significant territorial gains.
Unless that happens it will likely allow the war to continue in the hope that
it will burn out :
The upcoming winter conditions, coupled with the harsh terrain, will limit large-scale
military operations. Also, the crippled economies of both Azerbaijan and Armenia will not
allow them to maintain a prolonged conventional military confrontation.
Posted by b on October 3, 2020 at 17:28 UTC |
Permalink
thanks b....informative... another proxy war is how this looks to me with all the usual
suspects involved... they couldn't get what they wanted in syria, so now onto this...
The war started the day after negotiations between Russia and Turkey over Syria and maybe
Libya also failed. Now the Azeri military complains about too much Turkish involvement which
can only mean one thing--complaining about taking orders from Turks. So this looks like a
Turkish aggression against Moscow? Meant to make a point about Syria? Libya?
In fact, most of your links are propaganda from both sides. We really have no idea what is
going on on the ground.
In fact, most of your links are propaganda from both sides. We really have no idea what is
going on on the ground.
Azerbaijan's position is justified, given that Armenia illegally occupies Azeri territory.
The failure here is on the OSCE group for not being able or willing to resolve the conflict.
Azerbaijan has a right to regain its territory by force, if necessary.
Russia may very well allow Azerbaijan to retake its territory, if it can, but draw a red
line as to entering Armenia proper. The Current Armenian government is hardly a friend of
Russia.
@ Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 18:17 utc | 4... do you feel the same way about crimea and
ukraine taking it back? curious... you live in turkey if i am not mistaken.. are you
turkish??
In a rare move, the Defense Ministry suspended the export license of an Israeli drone
manufacturer to Azerbaijan in light of claims that the company attempted to bomb the Armenian
military on the Azeris behalf during a demonstration of one of its "suicide" unmanned aerial
vehicles last month.
The two Israelis operating the two Orbiter 1K drones during the test refused to carry out the
attack, Two higher ranking members of the Aeronautics Defense Systems delegation in Baku
then attempted to carry out the Azerbaijani request , but, lacking the necessary
experience, ended up missing their targets.
Last year, Azerbaijan used another Israeli suicide drone, an Israeli Aerospace Industries
Harop-model, in an attack on a bus that killed seven Armenians.
Last year, the country's president, Ilham Aliyev, revealed Azerbaijan had purchased some $5
billion worth of weapons and defense systems from Israel.
My citizenship is the same as yours. No one recognizes Nagorno Karabagh independence, not
even Armenia.
Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical solution
to the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the Armenian/Iran border
of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern territory Nakhchivan, thus
Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides would be winners one
assumes.
Apparently, no one liked the idea despite its fairness. I assume the Azeris in NK would
have to be exchanged with the Armenians in the corridor in a population exchange for this to
be realized.
"The war started the day after negotiations between Russia and Turkey over Syria and maybe
Libya also failed"
More than a week before start of the war, everyone involved in the region politics knew the
war is imminent. Two days before the start of war Zarif rushed to Moscow.
This bastard of Prigozhin goes where the money flows.
And the money flows from Baku.
Do not give much credit to this thug.
Or perhaps Crimea belongs to Ukraine?
"Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical
solution to the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the
Armenian/Iran border of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern
territory Nakhchivan, thus Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides
would be winners one assumes.
Apparently, no one liked the idea despite its fairness. I assume the Azeris in NK would
have to be exchanged with the Armenians in the corridor in a population exchange for this to
be realized."
That reads like a reasonable solution. Too bad it wasn't embraced.
b "The highlands of Nagorno-Karabakh are ethnically Armenian."? Nagorno Kharbakh is
internationally recognized Azerbaijan territory
Pashinyan's placement in Armenia was meant to give an advantage to those that 'brung him'
Your claims to the otherwise are some kind of pretzel logic.
Georgia absolutely flat out denied any passage of 'rebels' through their territory. That
claim is utter unsubstantiated rubbish.
"have never perceived it that way. While Armenia's current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
tried to get into business with 'western' powers and NATO there was no way he could
fundamentally change Armenia's foreign policy"
Why because you say he couldn't? The one constant is change.
While it is not a solution as such, I fully agree with b's last point about Russia and Iran
preferring to 'refreeze' the game and remove Turkey from the board.
Since the kick off I have wondered to what extent this is an Azerbaijani initiative and to
what extent a Turkish one.
Either way, as I posted on the open thread, Lavrov and Cavusoglu agreed a couple of days
ago that a ceasefire was necessary and Russia reiterated its strong stance against the
presence of foreign militias in the conflict. Let's hope sober heads prevail. As Rouhani
stated very clearly, the region can not withstand another war.
Sorry, didn't really answer your question. Kosovo, N. Cyprus, Crimea (annexation) and NK
independence are all regarded as illegal accoding to international law, as far as, I know.
None have had a proper UN sponsored referendum.
Although Turkish N. Cyprus did vote to reunite with Greek S. Cyrprus in a UN referendum, but
the Greek Cypriots nixed it, and were immediately admitted to the EU as a prize for their
pigheadedness.
Is it any wonder that Turks don't trust the Christian West or East? Neither the Grek
Cypriots or the Armenians have any incentive nor desire to negotiate in good faith because
the US, Europe and Russia are unwilling to compel them to, but reward them instead with
territorial freezes that benefit them.
The ethnic Muslim Turks in both cases get screwed because of the racist propaganda
directed at them through the ages.
Wow, Blue Dotterel, the hatred for Armenians runs deep in you. Nakhichevan was handed over to
Azerbaijan by the Soviets even before Karabakh/Artsakh was. Then the ethnic cleansing of its
majority Armenian population and destruction of ancient Armenian monuments began so there
would be little trace of its pedigree. Armenia has been chipped away at and betrayed by their
so-called betters generation upon generation. They are not budging nor should they.
You can buy as many weapons as you want, if your soldiers don't know how to fight it's not
going to help. Whether you get 4000 Syrian rebels or 40,000 to Azerbaijan it still won't help
them. If Azerbaijan could take those lands they wound have done it without asking Russia's
permission. Even with advanced weapons they stand no chance. Armenians are using mostly
antiquated and cheap air defense tech to shoot down the most advanced and expensive drones in
the world. Thousands of their troops got slaughtered And hundreds of tanks destroyed so they
could get one village that no one needs ? Wow great results. If they continue with these
results for 2 more weeks they are going to need a brand new army. One thing Azeris have
difficulty understanding is that in real life Might makes Right. Armenians learned this
lesson back in 1914 when they got slaughtered and no one cared, not even the Christian west
or orthodox Russia. Azeris just need to learn to leave with defeat and shame. And Azeris
don't understand how bizarre and funny their army music videos look outside Azerbaijan. Same
thing with Armenian videos. Not sure why both sides think there is a need to glorify war
which creates grief and misery.
What makes you think I hate Armenians? I grew up with many Armenian friends and
acquaintences in my home country. Even in Turkey, I have worked with Armenians (Turkish
citizens, of course) and even had and Armenian (from Armenia) cleaning women for my flat.
I certainly do think Armenians have had poor to incompetent, even racist leaders. Sort of
like the US recently. Indeed, both countries have even had a similar Covid19
mismanagement.
No, I have no problem with Armenians, any more than I do with USAians or any other
peoples.
You state "the ethnic cleansing of its majority Armenian population" with out any context,
but you do realise that Armenians are quite capable of and certainly committted ethnic
cleansing themselves. From the Pepe Escobar article: https://thesaker.is/whats-at-stake-in-the-armenia-azerbaijan-chessboard/
"The peace talks are going nowhere because Armenia is refusing to budge (to withdraw from
occupying Nagorno-Karabakh plus 7 surrounding regions in phases or all at once, with the
usual guarantees for civilians, even settlers – note that when they went in in the
early 1990s they cleansed those lands of literally all Azerbaijanis, something like between
700,000 and 1 million people)."
So, fact, the Armenians ethnically cleansed some 700,000 to 1 million Azeris from the
Azeri lands they now occupy including NK.
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, is commonplace in war time,
and even in peace time.
To make countries eligible to become part of the NATO the west first they would need to be
cleansed going through a western inspired and planed color revolution. Russian resistance
formula to prevent these countries joining NATO is to make these countries an economic,
political and military basket case by making parts of these countries' territory contested,
and out of control of western recognized seating governments. Once countries territorial
integrity becomes challenged and out of control of western inspired governments, it becomes a
challenge to be absorbed by any for any alliances. Such a country is a failed country
dependent on western economic, political and military freebies. Likes of Ukraine, Georgia,
Azerbaijan etc. We shall see when, US/west feel, this will not work and will go nowhere, and
tries to climb down the unipolar peak. Both of these countries are dependent on Iran and
Russia.
Self-determination is considered a major principle of international law. This principle is
included in the UN's Charter (Chapter 1). Even if a group of people goes ahead with declaring
its independence and breaking away from a country it dislikes being part of, as in the case
of Crimea, without consulting with the UN in any way, the UN cannot object to this act. What
Crimea did, did not violate international law.
Had the Crimeans consulted with the UN, they very likely would have been advised to remain
part of Ukraine.
Self-determination does not require any support or sponsorship from the UN.
Good analysis by MOA, and I also hope the war burns out going nowhere.
As to those that say NK is Azeri territory: after the Armenians were genocided on the
street of Baku in the 1990's and Azeri's destroyed 5,000 Armenian monumemts would you just
'walk away' and not protect the people of NK? And after getting out followed by the Azeri's
butchering the Armenians of NG it will be ignored!
Why did the Turks bring all those jihadis to Azerbaijan to fight: they will run the
massacres in NK.
I am not disagreeing with the Crimean's decision, and indeed sympathize with it, but still
question whether it shouldn't be considered illegal. I mean, really, how does it differ from
Kosovo separating from Serbia, or the Turkish Cypriots from the Greeks. The UN does not
consider the Turkish Cypriots independent. Perhaps they need to be absorbed by Albania and
Turkey respectively to be considered "legal", just as Russia absorbed Crimea, although it is
not considered legal, either. So why hasn't Armenia annexed NK? Why hasn't the UN recognized
NK as a separate state?
Anyway, we are not discussing our preferences here. The Greek Cypriots rejected uniting
their country with the Turks under a UN referendum, but the Turks voted for a united country.
Why are the Turkish Cypriots not recognized as a country by the UN or anyone, but Turkey. Why
have they not been rewarded with EU membership as the Greeks were? Is it any surprise that
the Greeks won't negotiate in good faith with the Turks? Why should they? They get the
benefits. the Turks not.
As I noted in the last thread on this topic: the war serves to make the Azeris more dependent
on the West. 'Winning' the war is perhaps not the goal of those behind the conflict.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Oct 3 2020 20:33 utc | 25
So far the jihadis are hearsay, not fact nay more than the PKK are fact fighting with the
Armenians. It would not be surprizing in either case, but neither has been confirmed as fact,
but merely propaganda.
Again, it is not surprising that some people in the "Christian world attribute all the
massacres and destructions on the Muslims but ignor the massacres and ethnic cleansing
committed by the "Christian" side. This is is a tacit, perhaps subconscious racism that has
existed for hundreds of years. It is so difficult to be objective when you have been brought
up to dislike, perhaps even hate the other, isn't it?
@ Blue Dotterel ... thanks for your comments... you never said, but i take it you are of
turkish descent.. either way, i like the comments you make, even if i don't know enough to
agree or disagree with them.. there are usually 2 sides to every story, but we often don't
hear both sides stories..
"The Greek Cypriots rejected uniting their country"
As I understand it the war in Cyprus started when Greek Cypriots abolished the rules
stipulated by British colonizers meant to subjugate majority Greek population. Those rules
gave Turk Cypriots larger portion of the power then the Greek.
Voting for unification expecting to come back to the same discriminatory laws against Greek
Cypriots is non-option for the Greek Cypriots.
The other thing regarding proposition to Armenians to trade its own historical land for the
other part of its own land and call if fair is very biased by my opinion. It is almost the
same as proposition to Serbia to trade part of its land with current Serbian majority in the
Nato occupied part of the country (Kosovo and Metohia) for the other part of the Serbia
proper where some of the land has Albanian majority.
Proposal to trade a corridor to the Azerbaijans Nakhchivan for the corridor to Armenians
Nagorno Karabagh would be a fair proposal.
So in both cases/proposals (Cyprus and Armenia) on the surface seem fair but if someone
scratch the surface the situation appear to be far from the fair.
And in the both cases the presentation is biased for the Turkish side ... by accident.
Stupid people fighting stupid wars for stupid reasons. The peoples of the Caucasus need to
learn to live in peace with each other or the region will continue to be a backwater
exploited for great power geopolitical games.
Russia and Iran are correct to stay out of this and let the idiots kill each other. If
there was any significant security threat from the mob of unruly idiots running Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Armenia; the Russian and Iranians would roll over them all in 48 hours and
there is not a damn thing anyone outside the Caucasus could do about it.
Agreed, sorry Mr B, no malice intended, but your blog's credibility with unfamiliar
audiences could potentially be undermined with some occasionally 'liberal' use of the English
language.
Respect for using your foreign language skills of course, but perhaps a friendly proof
reader with native English skills could also be an idea..
No, I am of mixed European descent, both east and west. And yes, that is the problem; we
seldom do seek out both sides. When one looks at the Assange case, one sees the the problem
of our age (and many others) where the prosecution is allowed to present its case with all
prejudice, but the defense is repeatedly hampered by the supposedly impartial judge. And the
media, well what to the people get - propaganda, often through ommision in this case.
Similarly, peoples are judged by through the propaganda of a culture or society, usually
to benefit those with power. So people are taught to demonize or denigrate the other assuming
their own to have upstanding moral character or, if defeated in some way, victims needing
redress.
After the bombing of the Turkish consulate in Ottawa in the early 80s by an Armenian
terrorist group, ASALA, I made a point of educating myself on the so called genocide issue,
but had a hard time finding the Turkish point of view in Canada. As fortune would have it, I
found employment in Turkey, and eventually discovered what was difficult to find in Canada:
an alternative point of view concerning the issue and many others. Examining the writers'
treatment of facts and their academic backgrounds was certainly educational in many
cases.
Suffice it to say that on being able to actually see the "defense", I came to different
judgements from those I would be able to come to in my home country.
@ Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 21:23 utc | 36.. thank you for this as well.. i hear what you
are saying.. it is an ongoing battle to get all the information and nuances.. we probably
don't ever get all the information necessary which is why i resort to believing war is not
the answer.. easy for me to say this here on the westcoast of canada...
Ah yes, the "other side's" point of view about Armenian genocide. Did you look for the Nazis'
point of view about the Shoah, too?
Point is, Turkey has been genociding (directly or by proxies) non-Muslim people since the
late 19th century, and keeps trying to do it everywhere it can. In a way, Kurds are lucky to
be Muslim, they're just occupied and suppressed instead of being mass-murdered by the
millions - unlike Cypriots, Greeks, Armenians, Yazidis, Assyrians and others.
The seven surrounding regions should be returned to Azerbaijan, so that 600,000 refugees can
return to their homes. NKAO should be allowed to join Armenia to avoid creating new refugees.
I understand that legally NKAO is part of Azerbaijan, but Armenians have been living in
Artsakh for thousands of years, and it is unrealistic to expect them to give up and leave. On
the other hand, it is morally wrong to preserve the status quo and thus accept the ethnic
cleansing of the 90s. That's why a compromise is needed.
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 19:55 utc | 22
Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, is commonplace in war time,
and even in peace time.
Yeah, when was that when Bulgarians expelled Turks from Bulgaria, 1989? It was tragic, hard
to watch.
Nationalism is evil. I blame French for that disease.
Somewhat unrelated question: so Karabakh is written in Turkish Karabağ, which is
quite similar (to me) to Montenegro, Karadağ. Is the similarity accidental, or both
words have related meaning / connotation?
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Oct 3 2020 20:54 utc | 29
So far the jihadis are hearsay, not fact nay more than the PKK are fact fighting with the
Armenians. It would not be surprizing in either case, but neither has been confirmed as
fact, but merely propaganda.
Bulent Ecevit, two time PM of Turkey, leftist and a poet, suggested the logical solution to
the problem years ago. He suggested that Armenia cede land along the Armenian/Iran border
of similar size so that Azerbaijan could unite with its southern territory Nakhchivan, thus
Nagorno Karabagh could be exchanged for this territory. Both sides would be winners one
assumes.
I would not be one who so assumes. Armenia would be nuts to give up their border
with the one neighbor supportive of them while creating contiguity between Turkey and
Azerbaijan's main territory.
One of my all-time favorite recordings is Love, Devotion, Surrender
(Santana, McLaughlin). The very first piece on the album, a cover of Coltrane's "A Love
Supreme," has the two guitarists engage in a master-acolyte argument that frantically
escalates, culminating in a crescendo of...agreement?
Yeah, those Syrian "rebels" that Turkey shipped to Azerbaijan are more than hearsay and
rumor. My heart really bleeds for them that when they got there they found they were facing a
well-equipped and trained army, rather than having their pick of defenseless Christian
villages where they could bring to bear their skills in robbing, raping, enslaving, and
beheading.
Even without conquering anything, with a large supply of drones and cheap yet robust comms
(I feel the need to think of point to point IR, but I don't know enough about modern radio),
the attacker can do a lot of damage without losing anything that expensive, i.e. potentially
cheap spotter and relay drones, plus the munitions themselves. Air defense technology made to
counter turn-of-the-century jets/helis/cruise-missiles, is not really appropriate. Handing
out manpads in quantity creates other problems.
This is what I come to MoA for. And it's nice to see b disclose his authorship with his
trademark idiomatic slips ("full extend" for "to their full extent", 'unveil' for 'reveal'
and 'relicts' for 'relics', etc).
"Full extend" was a slight error, but "unveil" seems perfectly fine to me, and "relicts"
was a better choice than "relics" in that context. (Though really the Antonov An-2 isn't
either a relic or relict "from the late 1940s": they were produced in vast numbers for
decades.)
@ Dr Wellington 46: Also 'Visions of the Emerald Beyond' by The Mahavishnu Orchestra is a
fantastic album that I think captures the Fusion era with a sense of refinement and less of
the "slop".
Extend should be extent, I like discover better there than reveal or unveil, and relic has
religious connotations, relict implies "remnant" which might work, derelict suggests
inoperable, hmmm.
Maybe "remnant" or "survivor" would work.
But to be honest B's usage didn't bother me reading over it, the Internets is nothing if
not slovenly about grammar and usage.
Some people here speak of yet more "exchanges" of territory as if it wouldn't involve 100%
replacement of the people living there. and almost certainly by murder. They seem to think
ethnic cleansing can be undone by more ethnic cleansing or at the very least loudly support
one more round of it as a "final solution". They make it easy to understand why Erdogan
references Hitler in positive terms.
The suggestion that Armenia and Artsakh losing their borders to Iran is fair is silly and
anything but fair. It is an invitation to more war and genocide after such a "peace deal".
The "peace plan" is nothing but siege warfare, it is a barely disguised war plan targeting
Armenia and Artsakh.
North Cyprus being presented as some kind of Turkish benevolence belies the fact of the
current ethnic Turkic dominance of the demographics of North Cyprus which did not happen by
natural means, ie. it was/is over forty years of steadfast ethnic cleansing. Almost none of
them were Cypriot when the Turkish invasion happened no matter how much they lie and pretend
they were.
@hopehely how conveniently you forget that Bulgaria was under the Ottoman rule for 500 years
and plenty of Bulgarian got murdered by the Turks during that time. WHEN the Bulgarians
rebelled against the Turks in 1875–78, the Europeans didn't wept for ALL the Bulgarian
women, children and men that were savagely slaughtered by the Turks, but instead sent one guy
who claimed he never saw any atrociousness.
YEah, most of modern peoples' memory goes as far back as WII, everything else is forgotten.
FUCK YOU, the Turks have always been savages.
Before President Trump stopped the program the CIA had used the Azerbaijani Silk Way Airlines
in more than 350 flights to bring weapons from Bulgaria to Turkey to then hand them to
'Syrian rebels'. Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, is not only a CIA station but also a Mossad
center for waging its silent war against Iran.
This is dubious. Why use an Azeri airline to ferry weapons over the border that separates
Bulgaria from Turkey, with a choice of three highways, an electrified railroad, or even by a
ship (164 nautical miles between the main ports of the two countries).
If Blitzkrieg failed the Azeris will use the attrition war tactic and that is absolutely
certain to succeed. Murad Gazdiev tweeted selfies posted by Jihadi imports in Azeri uniforms
in Azerbaijan here: https://mobile.twitter.com/MuradGazdiev/status/1312372865937932289
Jihadis will therefore be used as canon fodder by Azerbaijan while the Ottomans take over the
air combat, directly or indirectly. Unless Azerbaijan is stupid enough to attack Armenia
directly there is nothing Russia will ever do about it.
At some point approaching rapidly Armenian frontline positions will collapse and then
there will be a panicked refugee flood into Armenia from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding
occupied Azeri areas. At that point Nagorno Karabakh will become impossible to defend.
Whether Azerbaijan permits Erdogan to seed the area with jihadis is an open question, but at
the least Erdo will place Ottoman troops there to "guard against Armenia".
Without Nagorno Karabakh Armenia is actually worth very little to Russia. Even if it could
be "taught a lesson" by Putinist restraint it would be strategically useless and a resource
hole. A NATO Armenia, with or without a NATO Azerbaijan, would be a strategic disaster but
that's the way things seem headed.
Watching the latest South Front videos it is easy to see how drone technology makes it
difficult to move vehicles and set up fixed positions. It looks like a very high technology
affair to counter drones.
Very expensive very costly training would equate to excellent results in second and third
world areas for combat drones. Again the war party wins. It would be cheaper to build stable
societies. What a toxic mess. It must be some weird parallel groups of death cults pushing
this continued chaos.
Maybe is is just plain old human nature with high tech advantages over bronze and iron
weapons. Even the bronze age brought a long period of peace and prosperity for a time.
If Blitzkrieg failed the Azeris will use the attrition war tactic and that is absolutely
certain to succeed. Murad Gazdiev tweeted selfies posted by Jihadi imports in Azeri uniforms
...
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 4 2020 2:18 utc | 58
I beg to differ. This is not Libya, both sides have relatively large armies, Armenians
have weapons, high ground, prepared positions and people who believe that the choice is
between standing the ground and exile (or worse). They will not be demoralized by few hundred
casualties. Azerbaijan has low ground, attack uphill is not easy, and the motivation of
soldiers is not as good. After bringing few hundred or even few thousands of second rate
jihadists the equation will not change (inequality if you will).
Of course, if the war is protracted, both sides will need supplies. Except for Turkey, no
one declared the will to supply either side, but unofficial traffic is bound to happen.
Russia and Iran will surely neutralize any supplies from Turkey and Israel, they need to
maintain the regional balance that so far is in their favor.
Then there is no potential for tipping the balance by direct intervention: it will trigger
direct Russian response. Concerning the coming winter, one should read Wikipedia "Battle of
Sarikamish". On New Year Eve of 1915, Turkish army advised by Germans attacked Russian
positions after crossing high mountains. Because of even bloodier fighting in France, Russia
was attacking in East Prussia to relieve the French and Caucasus Army was at half of full
strength. The result was that 1/3 of Russian troops were lost, a lot of them to frostbite,
and about the Turks there are debates: did 1/10 of them survive, a bit less, or a bit
more.
"... As soon as many generals retire, they become the high-paid consultants and lobbyists for the major weapons manufacturers. There was a time when the Boston Globe and papers wrote about it. I wonder how many will now. It is time to recognize the problem and face up to the destructive influence it is having on our nation and our families in both our foreign and domestic policies. ..."
"... This is another consequence of allowing the people who own the media to own other things. Allowing the people who make bullets and bombs to own media is a sure recipe for perpetual war. ..."
"... It is quite normal for a top General to protect his cabal of corruption. He still has his slush fund money to protect. These military "Heroes" are in the habit of sending men to their deaths, just to advance themselves into top jobs with the Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... They retire into prime Lobbying positions as well. This corruption has produced more broken Veterans than Covid-19 has produced deaths. ..."
"... “ I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort, ” As invading Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos.... and many other countries was a last resort to secure the US national security. ..."
"... Trump says those things, and at the same time increases the Pentagon's budget & spending to over $1 Trillion (more than the next 15 Countries combined, and 13 of them are your allies).. ..."
"... Trump is picking up some that vote that supported Tulsi Gabbard, or so I speculate. Though he speaks with a bit of forked tongue -- stealing oil in Syria, won't pull out of Iraq when told by Iraqi government; still in Afghanistan long after the Pentagon lost the war there again another war lost against a fourth world country. ..."
"... An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When you retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid position?" ..."
"... Trump should spin the rest of the beans. Directly and indirectly, the Violence Industry is the biggest employer in the US. It's a gigantic social program. ..."
"... I think Trump is posturing for re election purposes . He is clearly in the hands of the deep state. ..."
"... Trump promised to end America’s “endless wars” . Just look at the people he appointed. They all love war. and trying to expand them. Russia showed the world, convoys of stolen Syrian oil. Than Russia bombed them. Now the US is stealing even more Syrian oil and nobody is bombing it. ..."
"... Biden was thinking about rebuilding contracts for his family and friends before the first bombs ever fell General.. ..."
Army Chief of Staff General James McConville has vehemently rejected Donald Trump's comments
alleging that the military's top commanders wish to entangle the US in as many wars as possible
in order to enrich weapon manufacturers.
" I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending
our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort, "
McConville, a Trump appointee, said during an online conference on Tuesday. " We take this
very, very seriously in how we make our recommendations. "
The general added that many of the US commanders have sons and daughters that currently
serve in the military and some of them " may be in combat right now. " The general
declined to more directly respond to Trump's allegations, saying the military should remain out
of politics.
The Chief of Staff was referring to the highly publicized comments Trump made on Monday. The
president said that " the top people in the Pentagon " might not be " in love "
with him " because they want to do nothing but fight wars " to provide business for the
US military-industrial complex.
During his 2016 campaign, Trump promised to end America's " endless wars " as he
often calls them. However, the long-time military bureaucrats he appointed to command publicly
opposed Trump's propositions to reduce US military presence in Afghanistan and Syria.
Please. Who is he kidding. Rather than recognize the problem like an Al-Anon, he discredits
himself and his institution even by suggesting there isn't one. As soon as many generals
retire, they become the high-paid consultants and lobbyists for the major weapons
manufacturers. There was a time when the Boston Globe and papers wrote about it. I wonder how
many will now. It is time to recognize the problem and face up to the destructive influence
it is having on our nation and our families in both our foreign and domestic policies.
This is another consequence of allowing the people who own the media to own other things.
Allowing the people who make bullets and bombs to own media is a sure recipe for perpetual
war.
The media needs to be splintered into a thousand pieces with the new owners not allowed
to own anything else. The Sherman anti trust act used to spell this out in law.
LonDubh 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:04 PM
It is quite normal for a top General to protect his cabal of corruption. He still has his
slush fund money to protect. These military "Heroes" are in the habit of sending men to their
deaths, just to advance themselves into top jobs with the Military Industrial Complex.
They
retire into prime Lobbying positions as well. This corruption has produced more broken
Veterans than Covid-19 has produced deaths. VFW (Victims of Futile Wars) have seen their
ranks increase and their support mechanism decreased. Another generation of American youth
destined for the scrapheap of "Heros"
IgyBundy LonDubh 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:25 AM
Have you noticed what great liars these so called honorable military brass have become?
Better than most politicians..
“ I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend
sending our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last
resort, ” As invading Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Grenada, Cambodia, Laos.... and
many other countries was a last resort to secure the US national security.
Everyone knows that there is collusion between some serving and ex top guns with the MIC.
Resulting in endless wars everywhere and many countries are forced by security tension to buy
more expensive weapons which they can ill afford
It is not the generals but the politicians that started the endless wars. The politicians get
campaign donations to their Super PACs or to an offshore numbered bank account.
Jewel Gyn 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:07 PM
What national security threat and last resort when all wars conducted are in foreign soils.
Even if there are threats on the hundreds of military bases deployed around the world, the
question is still 'what the *f are US troops there in the first place'.
Mark La Brooy 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:59 PM
Is it any surprise that the US spends $700 billion on defense. Next comes China with only $90
billion or thereabouts. Yes, Trump is right. It is all about the US military industry complex
and continuous war.
Apparently it's been the last resort continually since 1775.
Sinalco 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:05 PM
Trump says those things, and at the same time increases the Pentagon's budget & spending
to over $1 Trillion (more than the next 15 Countries combined, and 13 of them are your
allies).. As they say, action speaks louder than words - those are just cheap empty words to
rally his base for the coming election.
Trump not as much of a war monger as the establishment would like. Most Americans oppose war
but that has never slowed the establishment. Probably the biggest reason the establishment
is so opposed to Trump, among the other obvious reasons.
Are you a kindergartener or just plainly naive?!!! Trump knows Americans love to hear this,
so he is giving you the LIP SERVICE FCOL !!! He will pamper the MIC just as he has been doing
in the last 4 years once the election in November is over! Exactly because americans are so
incredibly foolish that Trump or Biden will be your next president, LOL!
donkeyoatee 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 01:52 AM
How was Vietnam or Iraq anything to do with US "national security" or the wars in Yemen or
anywhere in the middle east and around the globe. The US isn't doing "National security" it's
doing interference and domination.
Ekaterina 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 08:00 PM
I would laugh if this whole situation wasn’t so pitiful and sad. Eisenhower was right.
Shelbouy 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 10:34 AM
So many people say that Trump has not started any wars, which makes him ok. He didn't have
to, there were enough already going on. What he did not do is stop any!
Juan_More 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 07:39 PM
When the Generals and Colonels end up with very cushy jobs in the MIC after they retire. It
certainly does look like something is up. After all who authorised the F35, Ford class
aircraft carriers and my favourite winner of the silly name for a boat the USS Zumwalt
The MIC stooges at the Pentagon don't need to say anything, as Trump's remark reflects what
everybody already knows for decades.
Enki14 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 06:42 PM
LOL The facts speak for themselves and if one considers the endless war(s) since 911 were
based on LIES...the towers were brought down by controlled demolition...in charge that day
was dick cheney.
Trump is picking up some that vote that supported Tulsi Gabbard, or so I speculate. Though he
speaks with a bit of forked tongue -- stealing oil in Syria, won't pull out of Iraq when told
by Iraqi government; still in Afghanistan long after the Pentagon lost the war there again
another war lost against a fourth world country. And he's flirted with an invasion of
Venezuela, perhaps to keep the hawks and neolibs like Bolton and Bill Krystal on the edge of
their seats. Sort of like Merkel getting exercised over Navalny to counter all the blather of
war hawks and those who want to scuttle Nordstream 2. Throwing the ideological dog a bone.
It's satisfying to finally hear a US president pick up the theme Eisenhower warned of. Now
let him tell the truth of the filthy soul of the CIA, to take up where JFK left off. Trump
could do far worse than to thank Pence for his... See more
Jim Christian Rocky_Fjord 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:43 PM
Nah, Gabbi is a Democrat. But she's a good kid. She, unlike 99% of them, got a taste of ugly
military service and spoke out, only to be crushed. All you need to know of
military/political corruption is to study THAT.
Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 07:51 AM
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for
the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Dwight Eisenhower (former
USA President)
pykich Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 08:14 AM
says the man who signed the "Grenada Treaty"...
Jim Christian 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:37 PM
How many times has the 'good' general recycled himself between defense contractor jobs and
board positions and then right back into the White House, sometimes to a University posting,
then back to the Pentagon, rinsing and repeating several times after retirement? How do these
Generals and Admirals become multi-millionaires otherwise? And there are hundreds of them.
And they bring us the WORST, most corrupt procurement such as the Ford Class Carriers and the
F-35, to name just TWO examples, albeit big ones Please. It's crooked as a 3-dollar bill.
Look at the Pentagon opposition to Trump's every single overture toward peace in the Middle
East (except Iran, which is a big mistake, our issues were resolved until they weren't under
Trump). Any contest to the premise that the U.S. military is corrupt beyond repair is
patently absurd. And this "General" is just the wrong representative to refute the truth. He
is after all, part of the corruption.
Rocky_Fjord Jim Christian 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 11:46 PM
Two classes of US submarines were made with inferior steel from Australia. The steel was
known by the contractor to be inferior, but the Pentagon did not run its own tests. So tens
of billions wasted for subs that are unsafe at depths and of course in actual combat
conditions. The generals and politicians float above it all like scu*m on a fe*tid pond.
shadowlady 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:24 PM
The Pentagon has to justify its enormous budget, they provoke conflict at every turn.
a325 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 09:06 PM
“I can assure the American people that the senior leaders would only recommend sending
our troops to combat when it is required in national security and in the last resort" yada
yada , of course you are going to say that. Admitting the truth would be instant career
suicide
wasn't it Trump and many other presidents who were dishing out money left right and centre to
the american war machine to build bigger and so called better weapons. Goes to show no matter
what when push comes to shove the american government will always blame anyone else but
themselves.
foxenburg 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 01:48 AM
An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When you
retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking
chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid
position?"
Ever since Obama was elected we hear way to much out of these so called Generals. Jumping on
a bandwagon is something active Generals should never do.
lectrodectus 10 September, 2020 10 Sep, 2020 02:06 AM
Frankiln Delanor Roosevelt: (During The Depression Created The WPA Works Progress
Administration) "Instead Of Spending As Some Nations Do Half Their National Income In Piling
Up Armaments And More Armaments For The Purposes Of War, We in America Are Wiser In Using Our
Wealth On Projects Like This Which Will Us More Wealth And Greater Happiness For Our
Children" (Fireside Chats) Similar To Dwight D Eisenhower.
RealWorld1 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 12:26 PM
Trump should spin the rest of the beans. Directly and indirectly, the Violence Industry is
the biggest employer in the US. It's a gigantic social program.
I think Trump is posturing for re election purposes . He is clearly in the hands of the deep
state.
Fred Dozer 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 12:17 AM
Trump promised to end America’s “endless wars” . Just look at the people he
appointed. They all love war. and trying to expand them. Russia showed the world, convoys of
stolen Syrian oil. Than Russia bombed them. Now the US is stealing even more Syrian oil and
nobody is bombing it.
Is Trump really anti-war? Or he is just trying to exert his power over those hawkish generals
in Pentagon to tell the world who is in charge of US? If he is truly against all kinds of
war, that must be the only acceptable thing he has done so far.
The war industry, the prison industry, the pharmaceutical industry, and many others, they all
have their lobbyists and their plans for making more money. And manufacturing more wars, more
prisoners, and more diseases is not beyond them. Freedom and democracy and high cholesterol
are money making cons, and sometimes it takes a con like Trump to recognize it.
PurplePaw 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 02:59 PM
IF TRUMP WANTS TO END WARS ( KILLING) AND RIGHTLY SO THESE SO CALLED GENERALS NEED TO BE
OUSTED FAST. THE MILITARY SHOULD BE IN MY VIEW INCLUDED IN POLITICS AND EXPOSED AS IN ANCIENT
TIMES. A WARRIOR SHOULD BE ABLE TO BECOME CHIEF AS IN THE PAST. A PERSON LIKE ALEXANDER,
JULIUS, BUT THEY MUST ALSO BE THE MOST GALLANT WITH HUMILITY AS IN ARTHUR'S DAYS. NONE OF THE
HIGH MILITARY MEN HIDING BEHIND THE CLOAK IN THE DARK TO DECEIVE WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT. TO
MUCH OF THAT WHERE THEY ARE. TRUMP IS RIGHT ON HERE, STOP ABORTION.
pykich 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 08:10 AM
They should ask him what his plans after retiring are...
Ph7 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 06:06 AM
If he's so worried about national security "his" troops should be on the streets of US not in
the bushes of Afghanistan and Iraq .
off topic, but very important, Sen. Ben Sasse's op-ed regarding repeal of the 17th amendment.
Haven't seen mention of it at RT. Whether you are red or blue, this is massive in returning
power to the people.
DavidG992 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 06:08 PM
He could stage this 'ati-war' show only becasue democrats have ceded opposition to the
military-industrial war machine to a belligerent fraud.
Absolute truth really bothers these folks a lot. And Trump is not afraid to speak it.
Frank Cannon 8 September, 2020 8 Sep, 2020 08:58 PM
They leave the military for high paying indusrty jobs as a form of Briberty / reward for
keeping the endless wrs going & business good..
Mark90168 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:24 AM
Every candidate before election become wise due to seeing sword over his heads but after
winning the election they again become hate mongers and wars lovers. The US election
candidates should never be trusted. It reminds me "The game of thrones."
This is easy. Trump has always done exactly as the pentagon wants. this is a stunt for Qanon
votes that's all. Trump is smart he reads. He knows what Qanon thinks and wants to give them
a bone.
General James McConville , even if you tell us that tomorrow the Sun will rise from the East
we will not believe you, until we see it ourselves, general McCorrupt.
Karl194 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 07:55 AM
The DEEP STATE is build by the bosses in the FBI, CIA and the PENTAGON.
Winter7Mute 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 04:41 AM
Violence as a way of gaining power... is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition,
national honor [and] national security. For almost 100yrs now.
Mark90168 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 05:04 AM
Every candidate before election become wise due to seeing sword over his heads but after
winning the election they again become hate mongers and wars lovers. The US election
candidates should never be trusted. It reminds me the game of thrones.
Deeper down the rabbit hole of US-backed color revolutions.
Believe it or not, the US State Department's mission statement actually says the following:
"Advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community
by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of
well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty,
and act responsibly within the international system."
A far and treasonous cry from
the original purpose of the State Department - which was to maintain communications and
formal relations with foreign countries - and a radical departure from historical norms that
have defined foreign ministries throughout the world, it could just as well now be called the
"Department of Imperial Expansion." Because indeed, that is its primary purpose now, the
expansion of Anglo-American corporate hegemony worldwide under the guise of "democracy" and
"human rights."
That a US government department should state its goal as to build a world of "well-governed
states" within the "international system" betrays not only America's sovereignty but the
sovereignty of all nations entangled by this offensive mission statement and its
execution.
Image : While the US State Department's mission statement sounds benign
or even progressive, when the term "international system" or "world order" is used, it is
referring to a concept commonly referred to by the actual policy makers that hand politicians
their talking points, that involves modern day empire. Kagan's quote came from a 1997 policy
paper describing a policy to contain China with.
....
The illegitimacy of the current US State Department fits in well with the overall
Constitution-circumventing empire that the American Republic has degenerated into. The current
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, gives a daily affirmation of this illegitimacy every time
she bellies up to the podium to make a statement.
Recently she issued a
dangerously irresponsible "warning" to Venezuela and Bolivia regarding their stately
relations with Iran. While America has the right to mediate its own associations with foreign
nations, one is confounded trying to understand what gives America the right to dictate such
associations to other sovereign nations. Of course, the self-declared imperial mandate the US
State Department bestowed upon itself brings such "warnings" into perspective with the
realization that the globalists view no nation as sovereign and all nations beholden to their
unipolar "international system."
It's hard to deny the US State Department is not behind the "color revolutions" sweeping
the world when the Secretary of State herself phones in during the youth movement confabs her department
sponsors on a yearly
basis.
If only the US State Department's meddling was confined to hubris-filled
statements given behind podiums attempting to fulfill outlandish mission statements, we could
all rest easier. However, the US State Department actively bolsters its meddling rhetoric with
very real measures. The centerpiece of this meddling is the vast and ever-expanding network
being built to recruit, train, and support various "color revolutions" worldwide. While the
corporate owned media attempts to portray the various revolutions consuming Eastern Europe,
Southeast Asia, and now Northern Africa and the Middle East as indigenous, spontaneous, and
organic, the reality is that these protesters represent what may be considered a "fifth-branch"
of US power projection.
CANVAS :
Freedom House, IRI, Soros funded Serbian color revolution college behind the Orange, Rose,
Tunisian, Burmese, and Egyptian protests and has trained protesters from 50 other
countries.
As with the army and CIA that fulfilled this role before, the US State
Department's "fifth-branch" runs a recruiting and coordinating center known as the Alliance of
Youth Movements (AYM). Hardly a secretive operation, its website, Movements.org proudly lists the details of its
annual summits which began in 2008 and featured astro-turf cannon fodder from Venezuela to
Iran, and even the April 6 Youth Movement from Egypt.
The summits, activities, and coordination AYM provides is but a nexus.
As previously
noted , these organizations are now retroactively trying to obfuscate their connections to
the State Department and the Fortune 500 corporations that use them to achieve their goals of
expansion overseas. CANVAS has renamed and moved their list of supporters and partners while
AYM has oafishly changed their "partnerships" to "past partnerships."
Before & After: Oafish attempts to downplay US State Department's extra-legal
meddling and subterfuge in foreign affairs. Other attempts are covered
here .
It should be noted that while George Soros is portrayed as being "left," and the overall
function of these pro-democracy, pro-human rights organizations appears to be "left-leaning," a
vast number of
notorious "Neo-Cons" also constitute the commanding ranks and determine the overall agenda
of this color revolution army.
Then there are legislative acts of Congress that overtly fund the subversive objectives of
the US State Department. In support of regime change in Iran, the Iran Freedom and Support
Act was passed in 2006. More recently in 2011, to see the US-staged color revolution in
Egypt through to the end, money was appropriated to
"support" favored Egyptian opposition groups ahead of national elections.
Then of course there is the State Department's propaganda machines. While organizations like
NED and Freedom House produce volumes of talking points in support for their various on-going
operations, the specific outlets currently used by the State Department fall under the
Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG). They include Voice of America , Radio Free
Europe , Radio Free Asia ,
Alhurra , and Radio Sawa . Interestingly enough,
the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
sits on the board of governors herself, along side a shameful collection of representatives
from the Fortune 500, the corporate owned media, and various agencies within the US
government.
Hillary Clinton: color revolutionary field marshal & propagandist,
two current roles that defy her duties as Secretary of State in any
rational sense or interpretation.
Getting back to Hillary Clinton's illegitimate threat regarding Venezuela's associations
with Iran, no one should be surprised to find out an extensive effort to foment a color
revolution to oust Hugo Chavez has been long underway by AYM, Freedom House, NED, and the rest
of this "fifth-branch" of globalist power projection. In fact, Hugo Chavez had already
weathered an attempted military coup overtly orchestrated by the United States under Bush in
2002.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/Id--ZFtjR5c
Upon digging into the characters behind Chavez' ousting in 2002, it
appears that this documentary sorely understates US involvement.
The same forces of corporatism, privatization, and free-trade that led the 2002
coup against Chavez are trying to gain ground once again. Under the leadership of Harvard
trained globalist minion
Leopoldo Lopez , witless youth are taking the place of 2002's generals and tank columns in
an attempt to match globalist minion Mohamed
ElBaradei's success in Egypt .
Unsurprisingly, the US State Department's AYM is pro-Venezuelan opposition, and describes
in great detail their campaign to "educate" the youth and get them politically active.
Dismayed by Chavez' moves to consolidate his power and strangely repulsed by his "rule by
decree," -something that Washington itself has set the standard for- AYM laments
over the difficulties their meddling "civil society" faces.
Chavez' government recognized the US State Department's meddling recently in regards to a
student hunger strike and the US's insistence that the Inter-American Human Rights
Commission be allowed to "inspect" alleged violations under the Chavez government. Venezuelan
Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro even went as far as saying, "It looks like they (U.S.)
want to start a virtual Egypt."
The "Fifth-Branch" Invasion: Click for larger image.
Understanding this "fifth-branch" invasion of astro-turf cannon fodder and the role it is
playing in overturning foreign governments and despoiling nation sovereignty on a global scale
is an essential step in ceasing the Anglo-American imperial machine. And of course, as always,
boycotting and replacing
the corporations behind the creation and expansion of these color-revolutions hinders not only
the spread of their empire overseas, but releases the stranglehold of dominion they possess at
home in the United States. Perhaps then the US State Department can once again go back to
representing the American Republic and its people to the rest of the world as a responsible
nation that respects real human rights and sovereignty both at home and abroad.
Editor's Note: This article has been edited and updated October 26, 2012.
" And I cannot forget that when David Cameron's government was so schoolboyishly
eager to give support to the rebels attacking the tyranny of Syria's President Assad, a
very senior British soldier friend said to me: 'This is the first time in my career that I
think the Russians have a point. They keep waggling their fingers and saying to us "be
careful what you wish for". They believe the anti-Assad jihadis represent a threat to us
all, and they may be right' .
Professor Sir Michael Howard, Britain's most distinguished historian and strategist,
now 92, lamented to me last month the tottering, if not collapse, of every pillar that has
supported international order through his lifetime. By that he means the UN, Nato and a
strong America . "
Actually, I am in perfect sympathy with Michael Howard, bless the old codger. I too lament
the collapse of every pillar of an international order that served us well at least part of
the time over the most recent decades.
The crisis in Ukraine marks the end of even the pretense that international law is
anything other than a tool of the western powers – they made it, they staff it and they
disobey it when they deem it is important enough.
Oh, they will cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes after their victory and say how
sorry they are, blame it on Russia and try to recover and go back to the way things were, but
the day when you could pull that off is gone because of instantaneous reporting around the
world, and it's harder for a prefabricated cover story to hold up.
Most people who are paying attention at all know we now live under the law of the gun,
and might makes right, and the western alliance will wipe its ass on every principle it
espouses if it means that's what it must do to maintain its bankster corporate empire. Those
who are content with the extension of this world order are lulled by the promise of the
national dream.
What we are seeing In the Middle East, courtesy of ISIS or IS is an enacting of the Yinon
Plan, originally published in the early 1980's. This proposed that Israel needed to
'reconfigure' its regional 'architecture' by breaking up neighbouring Arab countries into
smaller statelets predicated upon ethnicity. US neocon thinking coincided with this in 'Clean
Break' and 'Project for the New American Century'.
The destruction of existing states was key – mini ethnic statelets would find it
much harder to defend their resources against predatory outsiders and, Israel, by virtue of
their existence, would no longer be unique as a state predicated on ethnicity but as one such
state amongst a number and, because of its overwhelming military force, would be the numero uno
in the region.
Now we have some new Islamic kids on the block who're achieving exactly what Israel and a
certain strand of US foreign policy has long held as a strategic goal for the Middle East.
Which probably leads most thinking people – and I'd include Hastings here who must know
the history – to realise that the ISIS/IS story is suspect. So I'd say his job is to
direct attention elsewhere – 'we' need to ramp up the army, rally for a 'strong' and
'confident' America etc.
Over the past three months, the Russian Be-200ES amphibious aircraft flew more than 200
times for suppressing wildland fires in Turkey. Aircraft with Russian crews onboard have been
participating in the firefighting missions at difficult and strategically important places
and locations since June 16. Total flight time exceeded 400 hours .
####
I don't know how I missed this.
So while Russia has been putting out fires in fancy parts of Turkey (Izmir), Turkey has
been continuing its fires in Syria!
Fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces over the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh intensified, on Monday, with heavy civilian and military casualties reported
amid disputed claims of an Azeri warplane being shot down.
Azerbaijani troops and forces from Nagorno-Karabakh have been trading artillery and rocket
fire, with the population of much of Karabakh told to seek shelter. Meanwhile, Armenia has
declared a general mobilization and barred men between the ages of 18 and 55 from leaving the
country, except with the approval of military authorities.
The most intense attacks took place in the Aras river valley, near the border with Iran, and
the Matagis-Talish front in the northeast of the region, according to Armenian Defense Ministry
spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan. He claimed that the Azeri side has lost 22 tanks and a dozen
other vehicles, along with 370 dead and many wounded.
Artur Sargsyan, deputy commander of the Nagorno-Karabakh military, said their own losses so
far have amounted to 84 dead and more than 200 wounded. Both figures should be understood in
the context of an ongoing information war run by the belligerents.
Vagram Pogosyan, spokesman for the president of the self-declared Artsakh Republic –
the ethnic Armenian de-facto government in the capital Stepanakert – said their forces
shot down an Azeri An-2 airplane outside the town of Martuni on Monday. This is in addition to
some three dozen drones, including ones provided by Turkey, that the Armenian forces claim to
have shot down over the past 48 hours.
Baku has denied the reports, saying only that two civilians were killed on Monday, in
addition to five on Sunday, and 30 were injured. There was no official information on military
casualties. Reports concerning the downed airplane were rejected as "not corresponding to
reality."
Azeri forces have taken several strategically important locations near the village of Talish
in Nagorno-Karabakh, Colonel Anar Eyvazov, spokesman for the Defense Ministry in Baku, said in
a statement. He was also quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that Lernik Vardanyan, an
Armenian airborne commander, was killed near Talish. Armenia has denied this and labelled it
"disinformation."
In a video conference on Monday, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev told UN General Secretary
Antonio Guterres that the question of Nagorno-Karabakh should be resolved in line with UN
Security Council resolutions guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and called
for the urgent withdrawal of Armenian troops from "occupied territories."
The current Azeri offensive is backed by Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has
called Armenia "the biggest threat" to peace in the region and called for it to end the
"occupation" of Azeri land.
"Recent developments have given all influential regional countries an opportunity to put
in place realistic and fair solutions," he said in Istanbul on Monday.
Unconfirmed reports that Turkish-backed militants from northern Syria have been transported
to Azerbaijan to fight the Armenians have been denied by Baku as "complete nonsense."
They amount to "another provocation from the Armenian side," Khikmet Gadzhiev, an aide
to President Aliyev, told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan vowed his people "won't retreat a
single millimeter from defending our people and our Artsakh." All Armenians "must unite
to defend our history, our homeland, identity, our future and our present, " Pashinyan
tweeted on Sunday from
Yerevan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is one of several border disputes left over from the collapse of the Soviet
Union. An enclave predominantly populated by Armenians, it seceded from Azerbaijan in 1988 and
declared itself the Republic of Artsakh following a bitter war in 1992-94.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
In Karabakh Turkish drones #Bayraktar started systematic destruction of enemy armored
vehicles. Of course they are ruled by the Turks. Azerbaijani operators simply could not learn
how to manage them in such a short time. The Armenian side opposes them with the outdated
Osa-AKM complexes. They cannot cope with this task.
Most likely, the Coral electronic warfire system operate in conjusction with the drones.
They create interference, operators are distracted by false targets, while drones enter the
target and destroy it. If in the near future the Armenian side will not be able to quickly
clear the airspace, then the Azerbaijanis will show many more shots with the destruction of
armored vehicles.
What can be opposed to #Bayraktar ? Do not think that they are invulnerable. "BUKs" and
"Pantsir" systems cope well with them. But we cannot say yet whether they are in the area of
hostilities.
By their actions, the Ottomans make it clear that strike drones will be deployed anywhere in
the world where there are Turkish interests. That's their brand. Similar to the Syrian
mercenaries. Accordingly, their opponents first of all need to think about building an
effective air defense system.
If you have a territorial dispute with Turkey, then it is better not to run to the UN with
another note of protest. And he will directly turn to Russia with a request to urgently sell
several "BUKs". Trust that there will be much more benefit from it. Indeed, while the world
community calls on the parties to sit down at the negotiating table, dozens of your soldiers
are dying on the battlefields. And "BUK" in seconds can prove to a presumptuous guest that he
was not expected in this sky. And neither he nor his brothers should appear here.
Interesting link Evdokimova, 79% Armenians and 84% Azerbaijanis want the USSR back, that
goes to confirm the castotrophe of the USSR dissolution, of course there would be no wars in
that inmense area, in exchange for McDonalds advertised by Gorby we have now conflicts
galore, Moldavia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kirguizia,
Abjazia, Osetia.... and who needs to eat that crap?
An opportunity to hit several skittles with one ball was too much to leave alone for the
Turks, especially if the skittles could be hit down in someone else's backyard and
particularly if that someone else happens to be a client state of Turkey's.
It surely also suits the United States in some way, if that opportunity leads to Russia
and Iran becoming bogged down fighting in the Caucasus, and they are forced to take their
attention (and money, arms and fighters) away from Idlib province in NW Syria.
So presumably if the Azeris could beat the Armenians with imported "Syrian rebels", that
then would encourage home-grown rebel wannabes in Daghestan, Chechnya and other Muslim areas
in the northern Caucasus to "rise up" against Russian rule. At the same time, Azeris in NW
Iran would be inspired (in the wildest dreams of both the American and Turkish governments)
to rise up against Tehran and declare their part of Iran independent.
Unfortunately the Armenians, despite their government's pro-American tendencies, recovered
from what must have been surprise attacks and were able to retaliate quickly and hard. Now
Russia has taken the high road and offered itself as a mediator.
Let's see if the US and the EU can persuade the Armenians with their offers of loans worth
billions (presumably contingent on Armenians deferring to Israel as to whose Holocaust
deserves to be called a "Holocaust" and not a mere genocide - even though Winston Churchill
about 100 years ago or so used the term to describe the Ottoman massacres of Armenians and
other Christian groups in their empire) away from Russian mediation and negotiation. If the
money fails to lure Armenia into the IMF / World Bank debt trap, there goes the opportunity
to scatter all the skittles.
I'm trying to get a better contextual setup to this conflict. I recall the USA directed
coup attempt dubber "Electric Yerevan" when a company from said nation bought the power
company, ran it into the ground and used it as a basis for sparking protests. Next I am
hearing that the current president is a "Random Guido" who answer to the USA. If so how does
this effect Armenias strategic partnership with Russia? From what little I know about the
Armenian spirit they are fiercely devoted to their culture. Many Americans of Armenian would
fly back to the old country in order to take up arms. It seems as though this conflict is
going to escalate if only because the damage done so far. Armenia is fully mobilizing.
In regard to the Donbass situation, I gathered that the Ukrops army was heavily laden with
conscripts many of whom fled to Russia. They succumbed to the cauldron tactic due in part to
be order by "results driven" leaders in the rear. That and they stuck to the roads and were
easily flanked by smaller NAF units operating "in the green" What I found interesting (and
disturbing) about this conflict is that it resembles what could very well happen in the USA,
minus the armor although....
I'm trying to get a better contextual setup to this conflict. I recall the USA directed
coup attempt dubber "Electric Yerevan" when a company from said nation bought the power
company, ran it into the ground and used it as a basis for sparking protests. Next I am
hearing that the current president is a "Random Guido" who answer to the USA. If so how does
this effect Armenias strategic partnership with Russia? From what little I know about the
Armenian spirit they are fiercely devoted to their culture. Many Americans of Armenian would
fly back to the old country in order to take up arms. It seems as though this conflict is
going to escalate if only because the damage done so far. Armenia is fully mobilizing.
In regard to the Donbass situation, I gathered that the Ukrops army was heavily laden with
conscripts many of whom fled to Russia. They succumbed to the cauldron tactic due in part to
be order by "results driven" leaders in the rear. That and they stuck to the roads and were
easily flanked by smaller NAF units operating "in the green" What I found interesting (and
disturbing) about this conflict is that it resembles what could very well happen in the USA,
minus the armor although....
Although it is, clearly I suppose, not my field, from known and new mostly military
analysis sources recently found, I will try form a somehow readable post...( forgive thus
if I do not write the weapons denomination correctly...I make the effort to keep you
informed...and alos take into account, I am figuring out the events without thoroughly
studying the maps, I have passed the day working/making food shopping/taking a nap... )
On the doubts about whether Russia would intervene on behalf of Armenia, that wouldv
happen if Armenia request assistance under CIS agreements, but Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh
( currently Republic of Arsakh, the name of ancient Great Armenia, to eliminate the azeri
denomination Karabakh.. ) is not Armenia, it is a region which apealed self-determination
but not recognized by any nation so far...not even by Armenia, due the ceasfire signed in
1994 ( what implies that the war never ended, but was frozen for a while, to be reignited
from time to time...) Thread ( you translate the Twitts on your own this time...otherwise
would get too long post..)
Both countries are very mountainous terrain, this is Caucasus, what makes advancement
quite difficult, thus, eventhough at first moments success was falling on the side of
Azerbaijan ( which counts with the unestimable help of Turkish swarms of drones and
intelligence from Turkish AWACSm it seems that Armenia, which has its borders mined, has
inflicted heavy loses in armor to Azerbaijan today, destroyed and captured....( warning
disturbing content of people flying in the air space..), also list of fallen in the
Armenian side, most milennials...This is when most fallen could have originated...in
Martakhert, in the North...
#LATEST HOUR #URGENT #Azerbaiyan army claims to have destroyed #Armenia's air defense in
Martakhert (north), with 12 OSA systems destroyed. The #Martakhert garrison would be
surrounded and offered the option to surrender.
#LATEST HOUR First list of fallen in combat by #Armenia. Note that most are kids born in
2000. The Armenian Defense Ministry also claims that during a successful counterattack
they have captured 11 armor including an advanced BMP-3.
It seems that modern warfare through drones is rendering heavy armor a bit obsolete,
well, like seating ducks slowly advancing in mountainous terrain of Caucasus..
The miniature air campaign being carried out by the #Azerbaijan drones against #Armenia
seems to be very successful. Its main protagonist is being the MAM-L micromissiles from
#Turkey.
#Azerbaiyan has already deployed the TOS-1 Buratino thermobaric rocket launchers. The
#Azerbaiyan drone air campaign continues to wreak havoc on the Armenian ranks.
BTW, @flighradar24, where some people use to follow flights path is under attack...guys
are saying this is Turkey/ Azrbaijan so that their drones can not be followed..
Some additional points in this thread by another guy who works for @descifraguerra, with
what is described by him as #cutremapa ( an outline made in the run without much
precision so as to clarify his points.. ):
There are skirmishes throughout practically the entire front but the "serious" fighting
is concentrated in the areas marked A (Murov Peak), B (Agdara - Heyvali axis) and C
(Fuzuli region). Especially in the latter, I refer to the video.
The ultimate goal of the Azeris appears to be a south-north pincer on the capital of
Artsakh, Stepanakert, with all the difficulties that this entails. Taking this into
account, it seems that there are two previous objectives.
The first of these objectives is to cut the M11, the main logistics artery of Artsakh,
for which they have two options: A) Take the peak of Murov and block the road taking
advantage of the heights. But storming up the mountain is always tricky.
B) Take the Heyvali junction. To do so, they must first cross several towns, such as
Aghdara, and it is in this area where it seems that more artillery fire is concentrating
in the last hours.
The second ideal objective would be to cut the M12, the second most important road in
the area and therefore the second most important supply route, but considering its
position this is something very difficult to carry out in most of its tracing.
So it seems that they are opting for a second objective, a priori simpler: to capture
the Fuzali region (remember, zone C on the map) and cut the M12 at the entrance to
Stepanakert itself (just 1.37 km south From the capital).
For now, it seems that the Armenians are holding up well to the south, although it is
the front in which the most intense fighting has taken place so far this day, but they
have less and less anti-aircraft and that allows the Azeri drones to act.
On the growing military drone industry being built by Turkey ( guess where the command
and control of those swarms of drones attacking one day after another Khmeimin and Syrian
positions and warehousesd is placed ), in the hands of his son-in-law, it seems that Syrian
oil smuggling resulted most profitting...
Turkey is laying the foundations of its geopolitics in the massive use of drones in
places of conflict where it has great interests.
To achieve his goals, Erdogan managed to establish his own drone industry. He is
currently in the hands of one of his sons-in-law.
But Erdogan is so blatant in his challenges that it is plain he fancies Turkey to be
Russia's equal on the world stage, and dares to poke it even as he takes actions that result
in greater power and influence for Turkey. He needs a hard kick in the ass to remind him
where his provocative actions are taking him. The west is unhappy with Turkey's cozying-up to
Russsia, but is doubtless delighted when he behaves like this.
Maybe Armenia could call it's new friends in NATO and in the EU
Please read the following it is a quote from an article over a Moon of Alabama.
" .. . Although a long-standing Russian partner, Armenia has also developed ties with the
West: It provides troops to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and is a member of NATO's
Partnership for Peace, and it also recently agreed to strengthen its political ties with the
EU. The United States might try to encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit. If
the United States were to succeed in this policy, then Russia might be forced to withdraw
from its army base at Gyumri and an army and air base near Yerevan (currently leased until
2044), and divert even more resources to its Southern Military District. "
Armenia after its colour revolution started to act in an anti -Russian way
Yet Russia is supposed to feel obliged to help Armenia?
What for? they have shown that they are going in another direction
And I think both Azerbaijan and Turkey looked at Armenia's behaviour to Russia and are
taking full advantage of a weakened alliance.
You make some good points. If Armenia has politically distanced itself from Russia and
approached the West and the NATO then it makes no sense for Russia to offer help without
strings attached. But Russia cannot let Turkey/Azerbaijan overrun Armenia either, or let
Azerbaijan grab Nagarno-Karabakh, because it would strengthen Turkish position too much in
the Caucasus region.
Yes, you are plainly having the time of your life and yukking it up again like you do
whenever something difficult happens to put Russia in a bad position – plainly, you are
a real friend of Russia, and only motivated by concern. Keep on laughing and making jokes.
Perhaps Russia should drop a bunker-buster on your house – would that be a martial
enough reaction for you?
They should – they should smack down a Turkish aircraft without warning and at the
first available opportunity. Russia is trying to stabilize the situation and calm things
down, while Turkey is openly backing Azerbaijan's military operation. A hard slap now could
break the cycle, but it seems plain Erdogan will get away with whatever he is allowed to.
It almost doesn't matter whether Turkey shot down the Armenian Su-25, rather that Armenia
has publicly stated it. This is about crossing the Rubicon. For all the chest-beating and rah
rah rah from In'Sultin' Erd O'Grand & Aliyev, both states have denied it happened. Here
we clearly see the gulf between broadcast to self-and actual potential consequences of such
an action.
Add to that Armenia has been open (not necessarily transparent) about its losses. Theres
been nothing from Azerbaidjan except American Vietnam war style 'body counts' of
Armenians.
It looks to me that Armenia are upping the ante to the max. and Azerbaidjan is left
wanting by its response which makes no sense if its claims of victories/whatever are anywhere
near true.
What I really want to know is what if any assistance, apart from words, the US is
providing and comparatively Russia. One or them is clearly in a much better position than the
other. There's really not much to go on as we know Russia does not broadcast and it certainly
would not be in the current 'pro-EU' Armenian administrations interest either. Yet again, we
are only left to ask what hasn't been said & done.
As far as I can see, Armenia is keeping most of its powder dry. The threat of 'other
measures' is currently more useful (and doesn't entail the same risks) than actually enacting
them. Maybe Putin will invite €µ to cover Aliyev's humilition as Sarkozy was for
Sakaashiti's? Now that would be funny, but we must not get ahead of ourselves..
Strategically, each time In'Sultin' Erd O'Grand backs stunts like these, he exposes
himself further to trouble at home. For Russia, not being fully NATO onside is evidently
quite useful however distasteful his behavior is, but he may well be undoing himself and
putting Turkey squarely back in to the western camp overall but retaining its nationalist Big
Boy streak.
Осеннее
военное
обострение в
Нагорном
Карабахе для
многих стало
совершенной
неожиданностью.
Но специалисты,
которые следят
за
военно-политической
обстановкой в
Закавказье,
подобное
развитие
событий давно
предсказывали.
В частности,
эксперты
Центра анализа
стратегий и
технологий
(ЦАСТ) еще два
года назад
спрогнозировали
обострение
ситуации в
Карабахе. В их
книге "В
ожидании бури:
Южный Кавказ"
даны оценки,
которые, судя
по всему,
подтверждаются
сегодня, пишет
Сергей
Вальченко в
материале для
сайта MK.ru
####
More at the link.
This looks like a reasonable analysis. If you are lazy like I am, use and online
translator.
I don't see how Armenia can accept the loss of critical territory even if the Azeri
operations are 'limited.' According to the interview, Azerbiajan is repeating the tactics of
2018 which is a big NO NO according to Tsun Tzu. I would be surprises is Armenia hasn't
already planned for this. The big fly in this ointment is Yerevan which may delay or limit a
response and listen to its 'western partners.' That would cement Azeri successes and damage
the 'Pro-EU' government. One reasonable strategy would be to actually encourage Azeri
'successes' as tehy would be tempted to go further than their limited goals and draw the
forces in to a pre-prepared 'cauldron', aka kiling zone as occured previously in the Donbass
and wrap up the Azeri army and gain ground. There's the risk that it wouldn't work either,
yet again Tsun Tzu do not fight the next war as you fough the last
On Sunday Ilham Aliyev, the longtime dictator of Azerbaijan,
launched a war on the Armenian held Nagorno-Karabakh area. That he dared to do this now, 27
years after a ceasefire ended a war over the area, is a sign that the larger strategic picture
has changed.
When the Soviet Union fell apart the Nagorno-Karabakh area had a mixed population of
Azerbaijani (also called Azeri) Shia Muslims and Armenian Christians. As in other former Soviet
republics ethnic diversity became problematic when the new states evolved. The mixed areas were
fought over and Armenia won the Nagorno-Karabakh area. There have since been several border
skirmishes and small wars between the two opponents but the intensity of the fighting is now
much higher than before.
In 1994 the Armenians won and forced Azerbaijan to a ceasefire. In the meantime
Nagorno-Karabakh organized itself into a sovereign country [called Artsakh] with its own
army, elected officials and parliament. But it still hasn't been recognized by any country
other than Armenia and is still classified as one of the "frozen conflicts" in the region,
along with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia.
But this "frozen conflict" may soon heat up, if you believe what Azerbaijan's
playboy/gambling addict/president, Ilham Aliyev, says. Not that Azerbaijanis should get too
excited about another war: If Armenians are still the fighters they were ten years ago, then
statistically, it's the Azeris who'll do most of the dying. While matched evenly in soldiers,
the Azeris had double the amount of heavy artillery, armored vehicles, and tanks than the
Armenians; but when it was over, the Azeri body count was three times higher then that of the
Armenians. Azeri casualties stood at 17,000. The Armenians only lost 6,000. And that's not
even counting the remaining Azeri civilians the Armenians ethnically cleansed.
Since the strategically-important Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline opened up, pumping Caspian Sea
oil to the West via Turkey, the Azeri president has been making open threats about reclaiming
Nagorno-Karabakh by force. The $10 billion in oil revenues he expects to earn per year once
the pipeline is fully operational is going to his head. $10 billion might not seem that much
-- but for Azerbaijan it constitutes a 30% spike in GDP. In every single interview, Aliyev
can't even mention the pipeline project without veering onto the subject of "resolving" the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Aliyev started spending the oil cash even before the oil started flowing and announced an
immediate doubling of military spending. A little later he announced the doubling of all
military salaries. Aliyev's generals aren't squeamish about bragging that by next year their
military budget will be $1.2 billion, or about Armenia's entire federal budget.
Over the next 14 years the war that Yasha Levine foresaw in 2006 did not happen. That it was
launched now points to an important change. In July another border skirmish broke out for still
unknown reasons. Then Turkey
stepped in :
Following the July conflict Turkey's involvement became much deeper than it had previously
been, with unprecedentedly bellicose rhetoric coming from Ankara and repeated high-level
visits between the two sides. Ankara appeared to see the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as yet
another arena in which to exercise its growing foreign policy ambitions, while appealing to a
nationalist, anti-Armenian bloc in Turkey's domestic politics.
Turkey's tighter embrace, in turn, gave Baku the confidence to take a tougher line against
Russia, Armenia's closest ally in the conflict but which maintains close ties with both
countries. Azerbaijan heavily publicized (still unconfirmed) reports about large Russian
weapons shipments to Armenia just following the fighting, and President Ilham Aliyev
personally complained to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
In August, Turkey and Azerbaijan completed two weeks of joint air and land military
exercises, including in the Azerbaijani enclave of Naxcivan. Some observers have questioned
whether Turkey left behind military equipment or even a contingent of troops.
The potential for robust Turkish involvement in the conflict is being watched closely by
Russia, which is already on opposing sides with the NATO member in conflicts in Libya and
Syria.
Russia sells weapons to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, but has a military base in Armenia
and favors that strategic partnership.
Azerbaijan has bought drones from Turkey and Israel and there are rumors that they are flown
by Turkish and Israeli personal. Turkey also hired
2,000 to 4,000 Sunni Jihadis from Syria to fight for the Shia Azerbaijan. A dozen of them
were already
killed on the first day of the war. One wonders how long they will be willing to be used as
cannon fodder by the otherwise hated Shia.
There were additional rumors that there are Turkish fighter jets in Azerbaijan while Turkish
spy planes look
at the air-space over Armenia from its western border.
The immediate Azerbaijani war aim is to take the
two districts Fizuli and Jabrayil in south-eastern corner of the Armenian held land:
While the core of the conflict between the two sides is the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh,
Fuzuli and Jabrayil are two of the seven districts surrounding Karabakh that Armenian forces
occupy as well. Those districts, which were almost entirely populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis
before the war, were home to the large majority of the more than 600,000 Azerbaijanis
displaced in the conflict.
While there has been some modest settlement by Armenians into some of the occupied
territories, Fuzuli and Jabrayil remain nearly entirely unpopulated.
The two districts have good farm land and Armenia, already poor, will want to keep them. It
certainly is putting up a strong fight over them.
The war has not progressed well for Azerbaijan. It has already lost dozens of tanks (vid) and hundreds
of soldiers. Internet access in the country has been completely blocked to hide the losses.
The losses do not hinder Erdogan's scribes to already
write of victory :
Defending Azerbaijan is defending the homeland. This is our political identity and conscious.
Our geopolitical mind and defense strategies are no different. Always remember, "homeland" is
a very broad concept for us!
We are not making a simple exaggeration when we say "History has been reset." We are
expecting a victory from the Caucasus as well!
Well ...
An hour ago the Armenian government
said that Turkey shot down one of its planes:
Armenia says one of its fighter jets was shot down by a Turkish jet, in a major escalation in
the conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The Armenian foreign ministry said the pilot of the Soviet-made SU-25 died after being hit
by the Turkish F-16 in Armenian air space .
Turkey, which is backing Azerbaijan in the conflict, has denied the claim.
...
Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that its air force does not have F-16 fighter jets. However,
Turkey does.
A Turkish attack within Armenian borders would trigger the Collective Security
Treaty which obligates Russia and others to defend Armenia.
A Russian entry into the war would give Erdogan a serious headache.
But that might not even be his worst problem. The Turkish economy is shrinking, the Central
Bank has only little hard currency left, inflation is hight and the Turkish Lira continues to
fall. Today it hit a new record low .
Azerbaijan has quite a bit of oil money and may be able to help Erdogan. Money may indeed be
a part of Erdogan's motivation to take part in this war.
Russia will certainly not jump head first into the conflict. It will be very careful to not
over-extend itself and to thereby fall into a U.S. laid trap.
Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data from Western and Russian sources, this report
examines Russia's economic, political, and military vulnerabilities and anxieties. It then
analyzes potential policy options to exploit them -- ideologically, economically,
geopolitically, and militarily (including air and space, maritime, land, and multidomain
options).
As one option the report discussed to over-extend
Russia (pdf) in the Caucasus:
The United States could extend Russia in the Caucasus in two ways. First, the United States
could push for a closer NATO relation-ship with Georgia and Azerbaijan, likely leading Russia
to strengthen its military presence in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Armenia, and southern Russia.
Alternatively, the United States could try to induce Armenia to break with Russia.
Although a long-standing Russian partner, Armenia has also developed ties with the West: It
provides troops to NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and is a member of NATO's Partnership
for Peace, and it also recently agreed to strengthen its political ties with the EU. The
United States might try to encourage Armenia to move fully into the NATO orbit. If the United
States were to succeed in this policy, then Russia might be forced to withdraw from its army
base at Gyumri and an army and air base near Yerevan (currently leased until 2044), and
divert even more resources to its Southern Military District.
The RAND report gives those options only a poor chance to succeed. But that does not not
mean that the U.S. would not try to create some additional problems in Russia's southern near
abroad. It may have given its NATO ally Turkey a signal that it would not mind if Erdogan gives
Aliyev a helping hand and jumps into anther war against Russia.
Unless Armenian core land is seriously attacked Russia will likely stay aside. It will help
Armenia with intelligence and equipment flown in through Iran. It will continue to talk with
both sides and will try to arrange a ceasefire.
Pressing Azerbaijan into one will first require some significant Armenian successes against
the invading forces. Thirty years agon the Armenians proved to be far better soldiers than the
Azeris. From what one can gain from social media material that seems to still be the case. It
will be the decisive element for the outcome of this conflict.
Posted by b on September 29, 2020 at 18:04 UTC | Permalink
div> As much as I appreciate b's conflict sitreps, I sure hope this one does not
become a recurring one..
As I reported last week, the Armenians were one of the international participants in recent
military exercises held in the Caucus region, and they frequently train with Russian troops
as CSTO members. Neither the Azeris or Armenians can really afford a conflict, although the
former have the better economic basis and have done a better job dealing with COVID. Because
of their history, Armenians are better and more tenacious in combat. Until Nagorno-Karabakh
is resolved, it will be exploited by the Outlaw US Empire.
The trouble with this kind of intimate geography, is that it is very tempting to operate
longer-range weapons or drones from the 'uncontested' portion of each country's territory,
since each home territory is theoretically out of bounds of the conflict.
The main meaningful response to a long-range or unmanned attack, targeting the source,
could then be used to blame the other side for any escalation. It seems Azerbaijan is more
comfortable with this at the moment. Assuming they end up occupying more of the contested
territory, they will end up on the receiving end of the same pattern, but either way the
result would be the same.
Besides the muddled geopolitics and heartbreaking history, it makes for a relevant study
in the state of modern drone and anti-drone systems, which will only increase in significance
going forward, as guidance systems, software integration,
networked/relay-based-communications and hard-to-detect point-to-point radio or IR comms are
all more accessible now. (for example, what would you do if you had the capacity to make ~10
million of the things a year)
Meanwhile, the radical blue ticks need some way to seem like they are superior to plebs who
might be inclined to take Armenia's side. It's all very complicated, both sides are just as
wrong you see!
"1 No side has a monopoly of justice. Both sides have historical claims to Karabakh. It
was the site of a medieval Armenian kingdom in the 12th century and an Azerbaijani (Persian
Turkic Shia) khanate in the 18th c. Both peoples have lived together here, mostly
peacefully."
But the people never changed, they were Armenian before and after the very brief period of
being a part of that Khanate (75 years, he left this out) against their will. It's all the
more surreal since the guy making the argument that 75 years of being under somebody's rule
300 years ago makes you theirs forever.
It's all the more surreal given the writers own father is from Amsterdam given.
I don't see anyone suggesting Spain has legitimate claims on Flanders and the
Netherlands.
It must be hard for bluechecks because their vaunted 'rules-based international order'
such it might ever have been said to exist with constant violation without consequence by
powerful countries is the source of the problem. Azerbaijan is only still after this
territory based on the thin logic that despite being 85-90% Armenian at it's lowest point in
the last 250 years and 100% Armenian today and being totally separated from Azerbaijan
politically, the UN still considers it's de jure Azerbaijan. The map says it's
Azerbaijan!
It is surprising seeing Erdogan who is a Muslim Brotherhood fanatic supporting a mostly Shia
Muslim country of Azerbaijan.
May be Persia should get involved to get back the land it lost during the Persian-Russo wars
!
B, it is good to see you reporting on matters that are within your area of expertise. Your
reporting on conflicts of this kind is invaluable, and I always follow your reports with
great interest.
I wish I could say the same for your recent post about Covid19, but there are aspects of
that post that are unfortunate. It is clear, for example, that you have not been following
the latest work on cross-reactive immunity--that is, the evidence that people who have not
yet been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 nevertheless have some immunity to it, due to exposure to
other corona-viruses. Nor is your overall analysis of the actual lethality of the disease
convincing--you seem to be unaware of the vast difference between young people and children,
who almost never die of Covid19, versus the elderly, who are much at risk. This has great
implications for what policies are best in dealing with the disease.
Yes NK was historically Arm going back forever. Nevertheless, the geography made defending
it impossible without occupying adjacent areas which as far as I know, were Azeri in modern
times. There are few happy answers to be found here.
As far as biases are concerned, deWaal is giving the interview to Al Jazeera, and the
network is (not surprisingly) somewhat more sympathetic to Turkish and therefore Azeri
statements on the matter, though they typically do a better job keeping a professional facade
than domestic (US) media at least. But that gives a hint.
Excellent couple of articles, 'b'. You are really on form. Thanks.
Think you are spot on regarding money and deflection. What we've seen recently from
Erdogan is vast expenditure in construction - unnecessary pandemic hospitals with
extortionate rental agreements to be met by the local authorities - and in technology - the
latest TechnoFest headed by his other 'damat' advertised significant projects to be funded by
the state, and of course oil and military: In these sectors nepotism and cronyism rule. it is
those companies close to Erdogan that reap very significant benefits. So, any earnings that
can be gleaned from Aliyev are very welcome I am sure.
The other aspect is deflection from a series of foreign policy failures, and several
serious domestic failures, one being the management of Covid currently and its obvious
manipulations and the abject failure of the online education system in which it is estimated
between 35 and 50 percent of pupils are NOT participating. The others being the economy as
'b' alluded to and the failed Greek, Libyan and Syrian situations. Other than that, the
political ground does not favour Erdogan at all and he is terrified of losing his 2023
deadline and therefore desperate to win back more of the electorate.
Turks talks about Turkey and Azerbaijan as One People, Two states - the Azeris do not say
the same. But it is a sign of just how important this is to Turks. As 'b' has mentioned, the
Turkish media is already in faitytale / victory mode - the last dreamt up report I saw
claimed that PKK were moving from Syria to Iraq and into Armenia to fight against Azeris -
and people are buying it, as they always do. Nationalism is very big in Turkey. There's a
reason why criticising a military campaign is considered a crime!
I was tempted to think that this 'conflict' would go the way of every other contrived
foreign policy foray this year, but Aliyev and Erdogan may be out to save each other's
political lives here in which case we need to consider what they're fighting to defend - very
wealthy authoritarian 'mafia states'. I do not think that Turkey would decide to push Russia
too far unless it had NATO or US backing because Turkey's economy and regional influence are
very dependent on Russia. So, I think this will be a limited show-piece that may score some
territory. What is certain is that in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, victory is already
guaranteed by the media! Does that imply a short 'conflict'?
Another aspect to remember is Iran. it has very good and important relations with both
Azerbaijan and Armenia and would no doubt fully back any Russian intervention be it
diplomatic or otherwise. It has also offered to mediate between the two. The Nagorno-Karabakh
area is very important to Iran.
So many fuses, so little time with desperate madmen on the march. As the good professor said,
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought
with sticks and stones." WWIII ain't your grandfather's World War.
R.A.
The swprs has been a constant source of Covid-19 scepticism from the outset. It is not
balanced and is full of cherry picking about its sources and analysis. It is a very serious
error to focus entirely on mortality in Covid 19 and its major effect on older people. It
does mean premature death for many. But even more seriously Covid-19 causes serious morbidity
and together with a high infectious rate leads to very sharp swamping of health systems,
major loss of front line workers because of illness and serious health and economic effects
independent of the mortality. Focussing on mortality of elderly only is a narrow view and
ignores why Covid 19 is such a serious pandemic.
Was lacking some of the details and depth of B's report but it was clear Erdogan is running
point on another Nato led shit sandwich on Russia's doorstep and a blatant 'damned if you do,
damned if you don't' trap laid out for Putin.
What's the bet if Russia supports Armenia the media will paint this as 'Russian
aggression' on poor Azerbaijan and an invasion of their sovereign territory? The region is
technically still part of Azerbaijan. Yet when all the first videos showed Azeri drones
striking Armenian tanks in defensive dugouts, while Armenian footage showed ATGM's striking
Azeri armour maneuvering in open fields, it doesn't take a genius to work out who the
aggressor was... but facts should never get in the way of a good narrative when it comes to
Nato..
Another frozen conflict would be just the ticket to drain more resources from Russia, not
to mention, the potential for instability and refugees right on Iran's doorstep would be too
much for the US not to want to invest in. Combine that with Erdogan's megalomania, and he'll
be happy to add 15% on all munitions charged to Azerbaijan to help plug some of his budget
holes, no doubt.
Luckily I'm no military strategist, but when i hear things like this i can't help wonder
if some good old 'domestic terrorism' or missiles flying into Baku, Washington or Istanbul
are just what is needed for these psychopaths to be brought to the negotiating table nice and
early and avoid a lot of human misery... It is just crazy to think we have leaders who
actually start wars in order to poke Russia in the eye... one wonders, since they know
exactly who is doing what and why, what sort of payback that may bring one day.
There is no doubt that Nagorno-Karabakh is traditionally part of Azerbaijan and only got
claimed by Armenia after a surfeit of Armenians invaded the territory since the end of WW1.
All in all a very similar situation to that which developed in Serbia vis a vis the invasion
of Kosovo by Albanians.
MOA has consistently stood against the internationally illegal Kosovo enclave, so why the
contradiction with Nagorno-Karabakh?
Surely it cannot be because of ideological reasons i.e. Armenia is 'good guys' &
Azerbaijan are bad guys? That is precisely the type of logical inconsistency which causes
wars.
Azerbaijan is in a tough enough situation with Armenia block the creation of a contiguous
nation with Armenia's takeover of the south of Azerbaijan up to the Iranian border. If you
look at the first map provided you will see an unlabelled black blob up against the Iranian
border a part of Azerbaijan which has been deliberately isolated by Armenia from the rest of
Azerbaijan.
This report sounds like something out of the NYT or Guardian next you'll be claiming with
zero evidence that there are Turkey funded terrorists brought in from Idlib just as the
guardian has been claiming.
Another motivation for Ottoman Sultan wannabe Erdogan may be the possibility of extending
Turkish influence (and by implication his and his family's) through Azerbaijan and the
Caspian Sea into Central Asia all the way to and into ... Xinjiang in NW China, with the
potential for Uyghur terrorists, nurtured by Turkish propaganda, money and arms, to get a
free ride through Central Asia and straight into any future conflict zones Turkey might want
to open up in Iranian Azerbaijan and all Iran's northern and eastern border areas with
Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Of course this will have US, UK, EU (possibly) and Israeli blessing if it means Turkey
will have to do most of the heavy lifting of money transactions.
thanks b.... seeing erdogan involved here makes sense.. at some point, someone is going to
take him out to bring peace back to the area.... until then he is a useful tool..
@ debs....thanks for your comments.. perhaps b will respond to them?? i agree with et tu,
the narrative the msm will spin here will tell us a lot..
@Jen
If I remember rightly, and I'll try to find the reports, it was claimed back in July that
Erdogan had offered to send Syrian militias to help defend Azerbaijan.
What makes you think the claim is unfounded?
The jihadists left in N.Syria are a serious problem for Turkey, so it would nake perfect
sense to try to 'liquidate' them in contrived 'conflicts'.
When did that "invasion of Kosovo by Albanians" did happen? You seem so pretty sure of it
that it makes me wonder if you are the creator of history itself, so you just invented it,
and believe it.
The solution would be to give back the adjacent territories that border Azerbaijan to
Azerbaijan and maybe pay some kind of nominal compensation to the displaced in return for
normalisation. They are to my knowledge much like parts of the buffer zone in Cyprus, full of
abandoned towns and villages. (Some of which you can see tanks using for cover in the
videos)
But the Caucuses are the Caucuses are grudges are grudges. Can't turn back the clock so
it's all or nothing, one side loses and one side wins.
Then you have all the exclaves and enclaves to deal with, which ironically, haven't become
an issue yet at all, probably because it would involve attacks on Armenia proper. Though
there has already been one strike in Armenia proper of a bus that was set to carry Armenian
solders.
1. It is obvious that the current aggravation was not accidental, but prepared in advance.
2. Possible goals for Turkey:
> Anchoring Turkey in Azerbaijan - the creation of full-fledged turkish military
bases.
> Inclusion of Azerbaijan in the Turkish orbit of influence (thesis "two countries -
one nation", in which Turkey assumes supremacy) within the framework of the concept of
neo-Ottomanism and (pseudo-)leadership of Turkey in the Turkic world.
> Economic goals and energy projects (Azerbaijani oil, gas) as part of the Turkish plan
to turn the country into an energy supplier.
> Given the circumstances (Ukrainian black hole, Belarusian problem, coronavirus,
spectacle with Navalny, threat to Nord Stream-2 etc), involve Russia in the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, thereby tying Russia's hands in the Caucasus direction in
order to act more freely and boldly in other theaters (the Mediterranean conflict with
Greece, Syria, Libya...), given the problematic position of Turkey (simultaneous war on
several fronts and the almost complete absence of assistants/allies). In this situation, the
Nagorno-Karabakh leverage/'trump card' in the hands of Turkey would be useful for
negotiations with Russia.
The latter assumption is probably the main one.
@Debsisdead, #16
There is no doubt that Nagorno-Karabakh is traditionally part of Azerbaijan
Funny.
Actually, this territory - Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan - have been
the territory (or "property", if you will) of Russia for the last 200-250 years.
Interesting historic fact. As long as the centre (USSR) held, the facts on the ground held,
much like the other areas of conflicts in Georgia, Ukraine and Transnistria. With the end of
the USSR, everything changed. This is what Putin meant when he called the breakup of the USSR
as disaster. And NATO will continue to poke a stick at these vulnerabilities. Are the people
of Armenia really that stupid that they see anything positive from joining NATO? Like that
will protect them against Turkey. They can see how Greece is treated. Hopefully this conflict
will put to bed any thought of Armenia being pried away from Russia.
Stalin's Legacy: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
Nagorno-Karabakh is a highly contested, landlocked region in the South Caucasus of the
former Soviet Union. The present-day conflict has its roots in the decisions made by Joseph
Stalin when he was the acting Commissar of Nationalities for the Soviet Union during the
early 1920s. In April 1920, Azerbaijan was taken over by the Bolsheviks; Armenia and Georgia
were taken over in 1921. To garner public support, the Bolsheviks promised Karabakh to
Armenia. At the same time, in order to placate Turkey, the Soviet Union agreed to a division
under which Karabakh would be under the control of Azerbaijan. With the Soviet Union firmly
in control of the region, the conflict over the region died down for several decades.
As #12 seems to be implying as well, b is ignoring this region is the backyard of another
regional powerhouse: Iran.
Any involvement from the US in Iran's backguard will be gladly countertargeted so that
automatically means Turkey has very big ambitions to join this battle. This could very well
end up in straight war if the diplomatic channels of mainly Russia are not effective
enough..
I've read somewhere that only English wankers call Iran "Persia". Iran lost those
territories when the Turkic Qajar incompetents were ruling Iran (in a fashion).
It is informative to look into Qajar Iran. They somehow managed to take a Safavid (also
Turkic) Iran from a fairly respectable state to the lowest state that Iran has likely been in
its entire 3000+ year history. It is amazing what the Pahlavis managed to do to resurrect
Iran in the short 50 turbulent years a Persian dynasty finally got to run Iran after
centuries.
As to Sultan of Turkey making noises about Azar (Fire) PaadGaan (Guardians) being the
homeland of the 'multi-faceted' spawn of the displaced Mongols of Turkistan, he can go and
suck the Tsar of All Russians and Minions prick, again.
--
Interesting that "B" claims (without any proof whatsoever) that Russia intends to use Iran
as a channel to transport arms to Armenia. Iran's media already has come out and has denied
reports by "foreign media" to say such things. I guess that includes you, Moon Of
Alabama.
--
Also interesting that the apparently very capable Turkish drone being used is not
discussed here at Moon of Alabama. When did this place turn into the New York Times? What's
next, B, a Pulitzer?
Since the bar keep is not sharing links to vidoes released by Azerbaijan's military
showing multiple distinct drone hits on Armenian armour, then I won't either. But it is just
a few clicks away.
--
Finally, this situation is a touchy one for Iran, aka as "Persia" amongst the wankers and
related sorts. Will the "Muslim" revolutionaries, the children of Ayatollah cum Imam of
"Persians" (lol) yet again choose infidels as waali, if they think this will permit them to
warm the throne of Jamshid and the Hidden Imam and wisely rule and chart the destiny of
"Persians"? The answer to that is answered by noting that no one has ever accused the Mullahs
of "Persia" to be impractical men. Unholy, sure, some. But impractical, estaghforallah!
"..Actually, this territory - Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan - have been
the territory (or "property", if you will) of Russia for the last 200-250 years." alaff@22
A very good point. These countries have never been independent states. In 1918, under
western influence, and led by mensheviks Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan formed the
Trans-Caucasian Republic. My guess is that by the end of the Soviet era secularism dominated
all three societies and religious disputes were largely forgotten.
One historical grudge very much alive is that of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the
Turks, a century ago.
Sorry grump one, I just got back from my wednesday morning doctor's run where I pick up some
locals from around the area & run them to the Drs in town.
I hope that this conflict won't get characterised as a religious conflict, because that
isn't really what it is about.
Armenians fled east during WW1 in direct response to the genocidal attacks on Armenians by
Turks, so that should be easy eh? Blame the Turks, but it isn't that easy because of the
French & Englanders machinations when sequestering all the assets of the Ottoman
empire.
Right the way through WW1 which was at heart a war over assets for empires, even the spark
that lit the fuse was caused by the Austro-Hungarian Empire's lust for grabbing Serbia &
including it in their repressive empire, all the politicians & bureaucrats to empire of
the 'big' nations, spent a lot more time and energy divvying up their hoped for imperial
gains, than they ever spent on concern about the generation of young men being forced through
the meat grinders.
There were 3 big nations on the winning side France, England & Russia, yet
Sykes Picot is a secret agreement between only two of the triumvirate. Many suppose this
is because Russia pulled out of WW1 after the October revolution, that is not correct as this
secret agreement was signed in May 1916, 18 months before the Bolshevik soviet uprising.
England & France were doing the dirty on Russia even while the Tsar was the
bossfella.
Perfidious Albion seems to be the one most responsible as it has always claimed that a
similarly secret deal England made with Russia, unbeknownst to France had been completed. A
deal whereby England would grab the oil rich Mesopotamia & all the rest of Arabian
peninsular in return for Russia getting Constantinople and most of Anatolia.
That seems unlikely since England and France had already spilt the blood of 213,980
French, English Australian, New Zealand & Canadian troops on the Dardanelles in pursuit of an
invasion and eventual takeover of Constantinople which england had begun planning since back
in 1905! Long before WW1. Winston Churchill in particular had been advocating this for more
than a decade because he wanted to deny Russia easy access to the mediterranean.
A lie was told to the fatally foolish Tsar - it was that the anglo-french invasion of
southern Turkey was to be a distraction that would require Turkey & Germany/Austria to
divert troops from the eastern front thereby relieving pressure on Imperial Russia's
armies.
So what? How does that effect Nagorno-Karabakh? Well it does, because after england
screwed up at the Dardanelles, they then encouraged Armenians to take up arms against the
Ottomans, all the while knowing that despite promises to the contrary, if the Armenians came
unstuck against the 'easybeat' Turks, there would be no way of helping the Armenians out.
That is what happened of course. Kemal Attaturk the bloke who had overseen Gallipoli &
england's send off was sent to oversee the fight against Armenian guerillas and the Armenians
got monstered, so fled eastwards some as far as into the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The situation is even more complicated by the fact that after WW1 ended and elites all
over europe were crazed with anxiety about a 'red' takeover of Europe, 'the west' kicked up
even more trouble. By financing a mob oops sorry, army, of so-called white russians to resist
the USSR in the South Western Caucasus, it meant that the USSR was unable to exert full
control of the region for nearly 5 years. This is why as Tom says at #24 it wasn't until 1921
that the Soviet Union could credibly promise Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, a blatant bribe to
encourage the warring parties to talk not shoot, but really it was more like 1923 when the
USSR got total control of the region.
I point out the mess that previous interference has caused because it is vital that
history not repeat itself in that regard. If it does, then all that will result will be a
conflict held in abeyance for a time until it flares up again.
There are two issues people & geography, maybe the boss of Azerbaijan is an arsehole
who is trying to get back onside with Azerbaijanis by cranking up a conflict that is close to
the hearts of most citizens because every time they look at a map they are confronted by the
injustice of their nation cleaved in two. His alleged arseholery does not diminish the
genuine injustice Azerbaijanis feel in their bones.
That is one group of people, the other group are the relatively small number of Armenians
squatting illegally on Azerbaijani land.
The easiest way to fix the geography & people issue is for those Armenians to be
relocated into decent accommodation within Armenia and return Nagorno-Karabakh plus a land
corridor that rejoins Azerbaijan once again.
It will be complex to resolve as there will also be an issue with Armenians who have occupied
the space between the two parts of Azerbaijan, but however much it costs, that is bound to be
less than the cost of airplanes, rockets & artillery shells that will be expended keeping
the conflict bubbling away.
Turkish officials are preparing for the worst case scenario as talks in Ankara made clear
that Moscow doesn't want a new deal
####
This is a Turkey sympathetic piece but may be one reason for current events between
Armenia and Azerbaidjan. As for Syria, Turkey has been claiming to keep the north/Idlib under
control which is has until the last few weeks at it has used the previous time to reinforce
its military presence ('observation posts') – vis Vinyard the Saker – and now
claims it is not reponsible and its not fair that Russia reacts to attacks by its re-dressed
(literally) jihadists. Turkey's preference is of course to do nothing despite the all the
attacks, and that in itself explains a lot. Turkey is now publicly putting out its argument
in advance that it is 'Russia wot broke the agreement' and thus 'we are not responsible for
any of the consequences.' Erd O'Grand is due another significant spanking. Would he call NATO
to his defense as he did before? Certainly. Will it happen? No. Not to mention his current
intreagues around Cyprus and pissing of the French, Greeks and others. Trouble t'mill.
Despite Turkey's efforts to maintain the status quo in Idlib, a Russian-backed Syrian
assault seems increasingly likely.
####
In short, Turkey has not kept up its side of the deal of bringing the rebels under control
and the supposed opening and joint patrols of the M4 & M5 highways has been suspended by
Russia because of the attacks by rebadged jihadis. Turkey has clearly used the agreement to
simply buy time for another 'cunning plan' and as no interest in fulfiling the agreement with
Russia. The latter's patience is almost gone.
"... The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades. Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all. ..."
"... Screw the war mongers and the MIC. ..."
"... If you read the article, it's obvious that [neo]liberals/whores are the apogee of hypocrisy. ..."
"... Perpetual war is about $$$. It knows no party. Never has and never will. ..."
Feral, yes; rabid, absolutely; smart... not so much. Why is anyone surprised?
The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated
to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves
that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades.
Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all.
Yup. It's always about the money. As Fitts would say, that screeching you hear is the cash flow drying up for the rentiers.
The murdering of women and children be damned. Hillary's demonic cackle is but the grotesque cherry on top:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
Washington is considering closing its embassy in Iraq, nine months after the US killing
of an Iranian general on Iraqi soil led to protests over what Baghdad called a "violation" of
its sovereignty, according to reports.
Multiple media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and Sky
News, reported on Sunday that US officials told their Iraqi counterparts that Washington will
shut down its operations unless there is an end to rocket attacks on the embassy, which is
located in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
Sounds more like a possible victory for Iraq and its people. I suspect that there is much
more to the story and the US is pre-emptively seeking a face-saving exit excuse if it were to
come to that.
However, it would be extremely unlikely for the US to abandon the embassy given that it
serves as the headquarters for numerous nefarious operations in Iraq and Iran
The claim that I have read is that this is in response to the USA's assassination of
General Solemani in Lebanon. More precisely the i-Ranian strategy is not per se to cause
American casualties but carry out sustained attacks via proxies on American interest in
i-Rack, i.e. psychological pressure, cost etc. the ultimate goal being the USA leaving i-Rack
as a suitable price for the assassination.I
I've also read (Vinyard the Saker?)that the USA has so far closed some of its smaller and
less defensible outposts but concentrated what remains in fewer better defended bases. The
USA does not want to leave i-Rack militarily and will hang on until it is out of options. The
US embassy leaving i-Rack will not be good enough for i-Ran, but maybe this is the beginning
of some kind of behind the scenes bargaining, though this is hard to believe considering the
US is still pushing for a gulf coalition (WAR!) against i-Ran as well as polically
neutralizing any potential spoiler countries. Also the embassay was built at quite a
significant cost $750 billion.* So, you are right PO, this is bluff by the big puff
Plumpeo.
i-Rack has also being trying to get rid of American military presence even though they
have bought F-16IQs from Washington but the latter is using the same figleaf excuse as in
Syria that they are 'fighting terrorists.'
The USA will never abandon its crown jewel in Iraq, and it would make little practical
difference anyway, as it lies entirely within the American 'Green Zone', and they will surely
not abandon that.
"But the location of the compound is well known in Baghdad anyway, where for several
years it has been marked by large construction cranes and all-night work lights easily
visible from the embattled neighborhoods across the river. It is reasonable to assume that
insurgents will soon sit in the privacy of rooms overlooking the site, and use cell phones or
radios to adjust the rocket and mortar fire of their companions. Meanwhile, however, they
seem to have held off, lobbing most of their ordnance elsewhere into the Green Zone, as if
reluctant to slow the completion of such an enticing target."
The Baghdad Embassy is the USA's most-expensive embassy in the world, and it costs far
more to run it each year than the cost of building it, in excess of a Billion dollars a year.
What America might do, and what Iraq does fear, is send its diplomats home for awhile, and
use it as an excuse to open a military operation in Iraq against what it terms Iran-aligned
militias.
Recruiting for military is much easier if there is no jobs.
Notable quotes:
"... They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers ..."
I wonder if any of the commentators here have considered that the [neoliberal] cabal now
in power in the US (not elsewhere) are not in power to "take power" except for a temporary
period. They don't want to run the federal government, they want to destroy it, except for
the police state and the military.
They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for
a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations
off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid,
medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and
so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done
with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that
they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global
corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and
bankers , and I think there's a high degree of cooperation for the agenda. The
revolution is the cabal run by Trump/Bannon who are more extreme and ideological than any
previous faction, who have no tolerance for compromise. They have an apocalyptic vision of
grinding it all down to a bare minimum police state.
Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called
the 'Fourth Estate'.
They are more correctly described as a Fifth Column , one far more open and sworn to
destroy our country and its foundational citizens – and taxpayers – as any that
ever operated during World War II. You would think this would be of vital interest to people
who loudly declare themselves to be "Nazi-punchers", but who time and again show themselves to
be merely low-level street terrorists informed and inspired by Mao's Red Guard and the
irredeemable thugs of the African National Congress.
One wonders what's preventing them from
mimicking the Red Terror waged by the leftists of Spain, when the battle for "freedom" involved
the disinterment of the graves of Catholic clergy to better pose the corpses in blasphemous
positions. Imagine how depraved those Mostly Peaceful protesters had to have been for even a
leftist-supporting site such as Wikipedia to baldly state
The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832
Roman Catholic priests, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military
coup), attacks on the Spanish nobility, industrialists, and conservative politicians, as well
as the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches.
Directly in the crosshairs this time are small and medium-sized owner-operated businesses
– the true backbone of American freedom and prosperity – who have largely been
sacrificed in exchange for the knock-kneed offerings of Danegeld from our giant conglomerates,
all of whom have prospered immensely from the suffering and privation brought on by the
Democratic lockdown of society – and the total shutdown of our economy.
Think! – have you read a single article charting how the government war on small
business directly enriched Amazon.com and
world's richest autocrat, Jeff Bezos? . who then funnels his windfall into a newspaper that
blatantly pimps for the Democratic Party, which translates into a vast payday for the DNC, not
least from its newly-approved partnership with the shadowy and many-tentacled Soros-surrogate
group, BLM?
The result is what you'd expect when a fringe group operates with the full cooperation and
partnership of major industry and both political parties (don't confuse Trump with a
standard-issue Republican, please – he may have terrible flaws, but that isn't one of
them) – 10% of the population holding the other 90% in a chokehold with only one set of
rules: no arrest and prosecution for Bolshevik violence and terror ..but the zero-tolerance
heavy hand of corrupt Leviathan coming down hard against any and all citizens who fight back
or, eventually – inevitably – who even struggle against their restraints.
Short of the sudden arrival of celestial horsemen to punish the guilty and reward the
set-upon, it has become clear that the only answer is the one that the Powers That Be claim to
be dead set against: racial separatism. (Particularly when we consider that all that will be
necessary to turn America into Hell on earth will be the adoption of Ibram Kendi's First Law,
sometimes known as equality of outcome :
To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the
U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is
evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.
Could any "amendment" be more terrifyingly totalitarian than this?)
White and black separation would, instead, accomplish two goals, both more important than
Kendi's quick fix: we would learn soon enough about actual equality of outcomes (which
is why no Communist, black or white, wants anything to do with the creation of one more failed
basket-case black state), and much more importantly, white families can sleep secure in their
beds at night, without worrying about Apache raids at midnight, egged on and recorded for
"posterity" by that Fourth Estate/Fifth Column referred to up top. Because the fact of the
matter is that, even should some combination of government and law-enforcement halt the burning
and looting of America – as things stand now, none of the worst malefactors will ever see
the inside of a prison cell .which means any ceasefire will only be temporary, to be violently
ripped asunder the moment they sense white Americans have at last lowered their guard once
more. And living in perpetual paranoid readiness for violent uprisings and mindless destruction
is no way to live at all.
Trump has it half right, a border wall is the answer: only it needs to run
lengthwise , between the Southern and Northern borders. If we don't use the next four
years to plan out such a separation, fretting over our children's children will be a fruitless
exercise – those who aren't murdered will be captured and 'go native' .and in case you
haven't looked at a globe lately, there's no place left to run.
As a recovering journalist, I can point out that even on a rinkydink rag in a small city,
where I got fired for being a real journalist back in the early '70's; he who owns the
presses and distribution networks calls the tune. It's a matter of working-class (no matter
how middle-class your income or social-status) versus the ownership class. The latter wins
every time.
In the United States, a great deal of study and energy goes into promoting respect for
democracy, not just to keep it alive here but also to spread it around the world. It embraces
the will of the majority, whether or not its main beneficiaries have more resources than other
citizens do, as shown by the election of President Obama, who promised hope and change for the
suffering majority, but did not sit long in office before being subjected to an economic vote
of no-confidence.
Those who claim we run a plutocracy (government for the rich by the rich) -- or that we're
victims of a conspiracy contrived by a shadow government -- are right while being wrong.
Our government is beyond the reach of ordinary American citizens in terms of economic power.
However, the creation of a system to keep the majority of the populace at the losing end of a
structure which neither promised nor delivered a state of financial equality was a predictable
extension of the economic system the U.S. government was formed to protect.
... .... ...
Forty years of Cold War and the ultimate realization that abuse of the communist system and
a hierarchy of privilege proved that system to be vulnerable to selfishness -- in common with
the triumphant capitalist countries.
Because any desired outcome can be written into an equation to exclude unwanted facts or
inputs by holding some things constant while applying chosen variables that may not hold true
under every historical circumstance, it's considered "falsifiable" and therefore "scientific."
But only if it appeals to the right people and justifies a given political need will it become
sacrosanct (until the next round of "progress").
.... .... ...
Abusive Self- Interest
In 1764, twenty- five years before the embrace of Madame Guillotine (when heads rolled
literally to put the fear of the mob into politics), contempt for the filth and poverty in
which the French commoners lived while the nobility gorged on luxury goods showed how arrogant
they were, not just in confidence that their offices of entitlement were beyond reproach and
unassailable, but that mockery and insult in the face of deliberate deprivation would be borne
with obedience and humility.
It certainly affected Smith's outlook, since he wrote The Wealth of Nations with a
focus on self- interest rather than moral sentiments. And while this may be purely pragmatic,
based on what
he witnessed, he also wrote about the potential for self- interest to become abusive, both
in collusion with individuals and when combined with the power of government. Business
interests could form cabals (groups of conspirators, plotting public harm) or monopolies
(organizations with exclusive market control) to fix prices at their highest levels. A true
laissez- faire economy would provide every incentive to conspire against consumers and attempt
to influence budgets and legislation.
Smith's assertion that self- interest leads producers to favor domestic industry must also
be understood in the context of the period. While it's true that the Enlightenment was a
movement of rational philosophy radically opposed to secrecy, it's important to understand that
this had to be done respectfully , insofar as all arguments were intended to impress the
monarchy under circumstances where the king believed himself God- appointed and infallible, no
matter his past or present policies, and matters were handled with delicacy. Yet, Smith's
arguments are clear enough (and certainly courageous enough) to be understood in laymen's
terms.
In an era when the very industry he's observing has been fostered by tariffs, monopolies,
labor controls, and materials extracted from colonies, he did his best to balance observation
with what he thought was best for society. It's not his fault we pick and choose our recipes
for what we do and don't believe or where we think Smith might have gone had he been alive
today.
The New Double Standard
The only practical way to resolve the contradiction between the existing beneficiaries of
state favoritism in this period and Smith's aversion to it is to observe that the means to
prevent competition and interference with the transition from one mode of commerce to another
that enhances the strength of the favored or provides a new means to grow their wealth is to
close the door of government intervention behind them and burn any bridges to it.
In psychological terms, the practice of "negative attribution" is to assume that identical
behavior is justifiable for oneself but not another. It may not be inconsistent with a system
of economics founded on self- interest, but it naturally begs a justification as to why it
rules out everyone else's self- interest. The beauty of this system is that it will
always have the same answer.
You may have guessed it.
Progress.
Reallocation of Assets
It was always understood that capitalism produces winners and losers. The art of economizing
is to gain maximum benefit for minimum expenditure, which generally translates to asset
consolidation and does not necessarily mean there is minimum sacrifice. There's an opportunity
cost for everything, whether it's human, financial, environmental, or material. But the most
important tenet of free market capitalism is that asset redistribution requires the U. S.
government to go to DEFCON 1, unless assets are being reallocated for "higher productivity," in
which case the entire universe is saved from the indefensible sin of lost opportunity.
Private property is sacred -- up until an individual decides he can make more productive use
of it and appeals to the courts for seizure under eminent domain or until the government
decides it will increase national growth if owned by some other person or entity. In like
manner, corporations can suffer hostile takeovers, just as deregulation facilitates predatory
market behavior and cutthroat competition promotes an efficiency orientation that means fewer
jobs and lower incomes, which result in private losses.
In the varying range of causes underlying the loss of assets, the common threat is progress
-- the "civilized" justification for depriving some other person or entity of their right to
own property, presumably earned by the sweat of their brow, except their sweat doesn't have the
same champion as someone who can wring more profit from it. The official explanation is that
the government manages the "scarcity" of resources to benefit the world. This is also how we
justify war, aggression, and genocide, though we don't always admit to that unless we mean to
avoid it.
Perfectly Rational Genocide
History cooperates with the definition of Enlightenment if we imagine that thoughtfulness
has something to do with genocide. In the context of American heritage, it has meant that when
someone stands in the way of progress, his or her resources are "reallocated" to serve the
pursuit of maximum profit, with or without consent. The war against Native Americans was one in
which Americans either sought and participated in annihilation efforts or believed this end was
inevitable. In the age of rational thought, meditation on the issue could lead from gratitude
for the help early settlers received from Native Americans to the observation they didn't
enclose their land and had no concept of private property,
to the conviction they were unmotivated by profit and therefore irreconcilable savages. But
it takes more than rational thought to mobilize one society to exterminate another.
The belief in manifest destiny -- that God put the settlers in America for preordained and
glorious purposes which gave them a right to everything -- turned out to be just the ticket for
a free people opposed to persecution and the tyranny of church and state.
Lest the irony elude you, economic freedom requires divorcing the state from religion, but
God can be used to whip up the masses, distribute "It's Them or Us" cards, and send people out
to die on behalf of intellectuals and investors who've rationalized their
chosenness.
CHAPTER TWO: INSTILLING THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE
Selfishness may be exalted as the root and branch of capitalism, but it doesn't make you
look good to the party on the receiving end or those whose sympathy he earns. For that, you
need a government prepared to do four things, which each have separate dictums based on study,
theorization, and experience.
Coercion:
Force is illegitimate only if you can't sell it.
Persuasion:
How do I market thee? Let me count the ways.
Bargaining:
If you won't scratch my back, then how about a piece of the pie?
Indoctrination:
Because I said so. (And paid for the semantics.)
Predatory capitalism is the control and expropriation of land, labor, and natural resources
by a foreign government via coercion, persuasion, bargaining, and indoctrination.
At the coercive stage, we can expect military and/ or police intervention to repress the
subject populace. The persuasive stage will be marked by clientelism, in which a small
percentage of the populace will be rewarded for loyalty, often serving as the capitalists'
administrators, tax collectors, and enforcers. At the bargaining stage, efforts will be made to
include the populace, or a certain percentage of it, in the country's ruling system, and this
is usually marked by steps toward democratic (or, more often, autocratic) governance.
At the fourth stage, the populace is educated by capitalists, such that they continue to
maintain a relationship of dependency.
The Predatory Debt Link
In many cases, post- colonial states were forced to assume the debts of their colonizers.
And where they did not, they were encouraged to become in debt to the West via loans that were
issued through international institutions to ensure they did not fall prey to communism or
pursue other economic policies that were inimical to the West. Debt is the tie that binds
nation states to the geostrategic and economic interests of the West.
As such, the Cold War era was a time of easy credit, luring postcolonial states to undertake
the construction of useless monoliths and monuments, and to even expropriate such loans through
corruption and despotism, thereby making these independent rulers as predatory as colonizers.
While some countries were wiser than others and did use the funds for infrastructural
improvements, these were also things that benefited the West and particularly Western
contractors. In his controversial work Confessions of an Economic Hit Man , John Perkins
reveals that he was a consultant for an American firm (MAIN), whose job was to ensure that
states became indebted beyond their means so they would remain loyal to their creditors, buying
them votes within United Nations organizations, among other things.
Predatory capitalists demand export- orientations as the means to generate foreign currency
with which to pay back debt. In the process, the state must privatize and drastically slash or
eliminate any domestic subsidies which are aimed at helping native industry compete in the
marketplace. Domestic consumption and imports must be radically contained, as shown by the
exchange rate policies recommended by the IMF. The costs of obtaining domestic capital will be
pushed beyond the reach of most native producers, while wages must be depressed to an absolute
bare minimum. In short, the country's land, labor, and natural resources must be sold at
bargain basement prices in order to make these goods competitive, in what one author has called
"a spiraling race to the bottom," as countries producing predominantly the same goods engage in
cutthroat competition whose benefactor is the West.
Under these circumstances, foreign investment is encouraged, but this, too, represents a
loaded situation for countries that open their markets to financial liberalization. Since, in
most cases, the
IMF does not allow restrictions on the conditions of capital inflows, it means that
financial investors can literally dictate their terms. And since no country is invulnerable to
attacks on its currency, which governments must try to keep at a favorable exchange rate, it
means financial marauders can force any country to try to prop up its currency using vital
reserves of foreign exchange which might have been used to pay their debt.
When such is the case, the IMF comes to the rescue with a socalled "bailout fund," that
allows foreign investors to withdraw their funds intact, while the government reels from the
effects of an IMF- imposed austerity plan, often resulting in severe recession the offshoot of
which is bankruptcies by the thousands and plummeting employment.
In countries that experienced IMF bailouts due to attacks on their currencies, the effect
was to reset the market so the only economic survivors were those who remained export- oriented
and were strong enough to withstand the upheaval. This means they remained internationally
competitive, which translates to low earnings of foreign exchange. At the same time that the
country is being bled from the bottom up through mass unemployment, extremely low wages, and
the "spiraling race to the bottom," it is in an even more unfavorable position concerning the
payment of debt. The position is that debt slavery ensues, as much an engine of extraction as
any colonial regime ever managed.
The Role of Indoctrination
The fact that it is sovereign governments overseeing the work of debt repression has much to
do with education, which is the final phase of predatory capitalism, concluding in
indoctrination. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lesson to the world was that
socialism can't work, nor were there any remaining options for countries that pursued "the
third way" other than capitalism. This produced a virulent strain of neoliberalism in which
most people were, and are, being educated. The most high- ranking of civil servants have either
been educated in the West or directly influenced by its thinking. And this status of acceptance
and adherence finally constitutes indoctrination. The system is now self- sustaining, upheld by
domestic agents.
While predatory capitalism can proceed along a smooth continuum from coercion to persuasion
to bargaining to formal indoctrination, the West can regress to any of these steps at any point
in
time, given the perceived need to interfere with varying degrees of force in order to
protect its interests.
Trojan Politics
Democracy is about having the power and flexibility to graft our system of government and
predatory capitalism onto any target country, regardless of relative strength or conflicting
ideologies. An entire productive industry has grown up using the tools of coercion, persuasion,
bargaining, and formal indoctrination to maximize their impact in the arena of U. S. politics.
Its actors know how to jerk the right strings, push the right buttons, and veer from a soft
sell to a hard sell when resistance dictates war, whether it's with planes overhead and tanks
on the ground or with massive capital flight that panics the whole world.
When the U. S. political economy goes into warp overdrive, its job proves far more valuable
than anything ever made in the strict material sense because there's never been more at stake
in terms of what it's trying to gain. It's the American idea machine made up of corporations,
lobbyists, think tanks, foundations, universities, and consultants in every known discipline
devoted to mass consumerism, and what they sell is illusory opportunity dressed in American
principles. They embrace political candidates who'll play by elitist rules to preserve the
fiction of choice, and, in this way, they maintain legitimacy, no matter what kind of
"reallocation" is on the economic agenda.
The issue is not whether we'll question it, but who we'll applaud for administering it.
In the Information Age, perception management is king.
During the last weeks there was news that Turkey was hiring some
2,000 'Syrian rebels' to fight in
Azerbaijan against Armenian forces which since 1993 occupy Nagorno- Karabakh . Earlier today the
Azerbaijan forces and the mercenaries launched
their attack on Armenian lines. It was a massacre. Two Azerbaijani helicopters were shot
down. Some 10 tanks and armored troop transporters went up in flames . Azerbaijani
artillery hit some civilian structures in Stepankert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkish(?) drones hit Armenia front positions .
The Azerbaijani tactic seems to be to bunch up a lot of their tanks in the open field and to
wait for the Armenian artillery to destroy them. Russian troops are stationed in Armenia and
additional heavy support from Russia was flown in today . But Russia is
friendly with both countries and is already urging for an armistice. Armenia has mobilized its
forces and reinforcements are moving towards the front.
This is now, after Syrian and Libya, the third country in which the wannabe Sultan of Turkey
is trying to fight Russian supported forces. It ain't gonna work. But Erdogan has to keep on
doing that as a domestic diversion because the Turkish economy has screeched to a halt. The
recent central bank
rate hike is unlikely to stop the loss of the Lira but will deepen the recession.
The situation might well escalated from here on. There will be a lot of disinformation
coming from both sides.
Posted by b on September 27, 2020 at 12:55 UTC |
Permalink
Azerbaijan can't lift a finger without Ottoman backing. Armenia is traditionally a Russian
ally, and even though the current regime is wooing Amerikastan, it can't survive without
Russian protection. In any regular war Armenia will smash Azerbaijan flat but the Ottomans
are guaranteed to get involved. Now Russia and the Ottomans are on different sides in Libya
of course, Russia would back Greece in any conflict with Ankara, and increasingly Russia is
getting fed up with Ottoman attempts to annex North Syria. I can only surmise that this is an
Ottoman warning to Russia.
The claim the Azeri tanks were just sitting in a field waiting to be smashed by Russian
artillery etc. actually sounds like the Russians attacking first. The aggressor usually has
the initiative and thus usually has operational success in the opening round. It's
theoretically possible that a Russian artillery offensive was on high alert, waiting to
launch after a suitable "incident" which could be represented as an Azeri assault. Whatever
the value of mercenaries from a losing war, a few weeks is very unlikely to permit meaningful
incorporation into an actual fighting force. Therefore it is highly unlikely that their
reinforcement was the enabling cause of an Azeri assault.
It is a strange and marvelous world, where wonders delightful and horrible abound. So it
is barely possible the Azeris are terminally stupid, the underlying theory of the post. I
would still say that it's *not* because non-Christians are stupid. More likely it's because
the Azeris are getting their military advice from their friends the Russians.
IMO this reigniting of an old conflict comes as response to recent Kavkas 2020 maneuvers
organized by Russia which are taking place right now, with the participation of Armenia, and
also as response of last meeting between Zarif and Lavrov, in whose presser Lavrov was quite
explicit, at least more than before...
This comes, in the first place, as a new hot front ( apart from Belarus ) in the
post-Soviet space to implicate Russia and make her choose amongst two neighbors she gets
along with quite well, and at the same time, the transport of Syrian jihadi mercenary forces
in a charter flight by Turkey imply that a new abcess the size and type of Idlib is planned
to be inserted in the viccinity of both Russia and Iran, which will act as destablization
force for future incursions after US elections...
As we talk Azerbaijan is announcing advances in the Southern front and the take over of
some localities along Iranian border ...Why? What that has to do with Armenia? To implant
there the jihadis for the coming "proxy war" on Iran, the same way they were implanted in
Syria/Turkey northern East and West border and Syria/Lebanon Southern border...
Turkey here acting as US proxy PMC to position US managed and funded jihadi forces, as it has
done in Syria and Lybia...
Also the conflict comes to shoot two, or three, birds with the same shot by starting
another military conflict or destabilization process in the Silk & Road path...
This is the US MIC reasuring their rate of profit for the coming US presidency by
extending the perpetual war...
Although may well be that they will not even wait for the elections results...
On the importance of this new conflict and its obvious connection with Iran...See map in
thread linked above...Some more sources...Probable objective of past "color revolution" in
Armenia...on the grounds of "alleged" US chaotic state...chaos in the US acts as veil for its
own population ( so as thvey can not think of continuously started wars while they cop with
the immeidate miserable oticome of the pandemic...) and for opponents... who may think of
relaxing...Fortunately, Gerasimov, and IRGC, are always attentive...
THE SECOND WAR OF THE NAGORNO-KARABAJ HAS BREAKED In red the disputed region, in the center
of which is Stefankert, the capital. In blue the areas supposedly conquered by #Azerbaiyan.
Everything indicates that the Azeri offensive began by surprise in the early hours of
today, and has maintained a reasonable pace of advance
On the visible hand of Turkey in this reginition...no way Turkey is moving without NATO
consent...and even support...recall "international coalition of the willing to fight ISIS in
Syria"...which then turned into ISIS proxy war onto Syrian state and population...
I have
been checking and Azerbaijan announced in June that they were interested in buying TB2 from
Turkey. In no way have they been able to buy, receive and put the drones into operation in
such a short time. It starts to get cloudy.
Twitter turco está diciendo abiertamente que son sus drones. Mientras Clash Report,
que ya se ha comentado muchas veces que podría estar ligada a la inteligencia truca
(por el acceso que tienen a cierto material informativo) habla de que los drones son
Bayraktar TB2.
Shooting is common in Upper Karabakh...but not in Down Karabakh...this conflict as part of
war on Russian gas supply to Europe...
Although shooting is common in Upper Karabakh, a disputed area between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, this is the fastest escalation in recent times. Just hours after the last
incident, Armenia has declared martial law and total mobilization.
Let's not think that this is simply a local conflict between two countries: Azerbaijan
is backed by Turkey, while Armenia is backed by Russia. And to this we can add the natural
gas that comes to Europe from the Caspian.
In case someone wants to follow, Youtube channel of Armenian TV which sometimes biradcast
in Englisgh language...
In case anyone is interested in following him from the origin, YouTube channel with a live
signal from an Armenian television (at times they speak in English)
Well, sorry, posting too fast, as I must go now, and without time to check two
times...
It seems that tweets by #DragonLadyU2 got middle trnaslated...Repost correctly and with
blockquote, as it is not, as it could seem by the size of letter, info of mine, but of this
account who is following the issue of Azerbaijani drones purchase...
I was introducing it as:
On the visible hand of Turkey in this reginition...no way Turkey is moving without NATO
consent...and even support...recall "international coalition of the willing to fight ISIS in
Syria"...which then turned into ISIS proxy war onto Syrian state and population...
I have been checking and Azerbaijan announced in June that they were interested in buying
TB2 from Turkey. In no way have they been able to buy, receive and put the drones into
operation in such a short time. It starts to get cloudy.
Turkish Twitter is openly saying that it is their drones. While Clash Report, which has
already been commented many times that it could be linked to Turkish intelligence (due to
the access they have to certain informative material), talks about the drones being
Bayraktar TB2.
On preparations for this conflict, and who provoked whom...also reflected some intends of
transforming this inot religious conflict...which then would reginite the whole Caucasus and
Caspian region, and thus would end implying Iran and Russia...and probably palcing them in
different sides...which could be one of the objectives, to put a breach into very good
Russian/Iranian relations...Beware...
I'm reminded Israeli bizjet associated w secret flights was in Baku, Azerbaijan 3 days ago.
Landed back in Israel along w Azeri ministry of defense cargo
I have not been able to verify the arrival of Syrian fighters from the Turkish-backed
factions (SNA) in Azerbaijan as of now. I can confirm that dozens of fighters from NW Syria
(outside of regime control) left Syria via Turkey in an unknown direction about a week ago.
Families lost touch with these men since their departure. Rumored destinations include
Azerbaijan, Qatar, Turkey and Libya. I am in touch with families & friends of men who
left and will report once they manage to get in touch with their loved-ones.
About a month ago, rumors spread on WhatsApp among SNA fighters that they can register
to go to Azerbaijan. Many registered over WhatsApp, others apparently thru offices in the
Turkish-controlled areas.
The fighters registered due to the enticing rumored salaries of $2K-$2.5K
The SNA mercenaries who've gone to fight in Libya against Haftar were recruited with
direct involvement by Turkish officers who met with commanders of the SNA factions to
pressure them to send fighters. With the alleged Azerbaijan recruitment, there haven't been
such meetings.
It seems likely that the recruitment is being carried out by a Turkish private security
company that is also involved in shipping Syrians to fight in Libya. There is no need to
apply pressure on Syrians to leave anymore. The number of men wanting to go far exceeds
demand.
With time, the idea of being deployed oversees as a mercenary is becoming more socially
acceptable in Syria, in both communities residing outside of regime control (men in Idlib
have registered to go to Azerbaijan too) and in regime areas (where men are going to fight
for Haftar)
Syrian lives are regarded as expendable, with Syria serving as an arena to settle
geostrategic scores at Syrians' expense. Syrians resisted & still resist this logic,
but the collapse of the economy is prompting many Syrians to be willing to sell themselves
to the highest bidder.
div> I think that Jihadists have no nationality, therefore it is wrong to
label them as "Syrian"!
(1) re: tanks bunched up - the linked Armenian MOD twitter-video with the cheesy music and
2 tank hits ( this one ) suggests it is not
artillery? Recently dug cover beind them, but tanks mostly facing toward camera. Bulldozer
still there. Direct hits. You can see from the reaction of the tanks what they think is the
direction from which they were attacked. After the first hit, the next tank to be hit
attempted (unsuccessfully) to hide behind the remains of the tank already destroyed. The
others which were not already facing that way, turn their turrets toward the camera, which is
the direction from which they think they were attacked. They start making smokescreen as the
clip ends.
(2) We really don't need to see a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
(3) I don't really get the geopolitics of this. For Turkish strategic motivations, the
relevant oil/gas pipeline does not pass thru the contested territory although is quite close.
Not sure what to make of that. Map
here , with Nagorno-Karabakh colored in under Azerbaijan. Turkey is in danger of being
bypassed by Greece-Cyprus-Israel pipeline, how does this this help them in any way?
(4) For US-Iran conflict, just seems like general chaos. Perhaps there is a land route
from Russia-Georgia-Iran, but it can't be as good as the caspian sea route.
(5) for Greece-Cyprus pipeline, there may be a commercial benefit, if the reliability of
the Azerbaijan-Turkey route comes into question due to war or instability.
Looks like Turkey has gone rogue. Since the 2016 assassination attempt, Erdogan doesn't
trust NATO anymore.
As for (3), it's very straightforward: Turkey probably wants some symmetrical leverage
against Russia against the FUBARed situation in Idlib (which is draining Turkish coffers and
soldiers). They are probably very desperate, and are looking for something on these lines:
"look, Russia, you give us Idlib and we let Nagorno-Karabakh alone the next day. Deal?".
The Azeris making advances is to be expected if they had the aggressor's initiative. The post
implies the Armenians are winning handily, which is not to be expected when a prepared Azeri
offensive kicks off.
Armenia has long been on the US Regime Change hitlist - June/July 2015, July 2017, April 2018
when the Random Guy Pashinyan was imposed as leader. He has the tricky task of balancing the
demands of his owners versus the reality of Armenian interests.
p>
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One of the most vibrantly alive people I met, André Vltchek, just died . Though he barely
made it past his mid-fifties he got in a lot more living than a hundred average Americans who
live to collect their pensions. Allah yarhamhu.
In honor of this great Truth Jihadi we're replaying this 2018 interview:
The West claims to be the "free world" -- the global leader in human rights,
humanitarianism, and free expression. Globetrotting independent journalist André Vltchek , who joins us from Borneo,
isn't buying it. His latest
essay begins:
Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and punishment.
By now it is clear that the West is the least free society on Earth. In North America and
Europe, almost everyone is under constant scrutiny: people are spied on, observed, their
personal information is being continually extracted, and the surveillance cameras are used
indiscriminately.
Life is synchronized and managed. There are hardly any surprises.
One can sleep with whomever he or she wishes (as long as it is done within the 'allowed
protocol'). Homosexuality and bisexuality are allowed. But that is about all; that is how far
'freedom' usually stretches.
Rebellion is not only discouraged, it is fought against, brutally. For the tiniest
misdemeanors or errors, people end up behind bars. As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per
capita than any other country on Earth, except the Seychelles.
Andre taunted rightwing elites and illness – with a passion. I guess one of them
caught up.
Living hard seems like a death-wish, maybe it was. Staring at darkness messes people up
and he traveled again and again into the hearts of darkness across the planet because he
wanted to be a modern Wilfred Burchett. He was one of the greats. My condolences to his
family and friends.
Peace to Stephen Cohen too. You both will be missed.
André Vltchek was not an intellectual heavyweight. What is fascinating about his
life-story is how and who financed. That should be easy for insiders to fish out, and
insiders there be.
As to my humble opinion, Chomsky was neither. From all angles, his pre-fabricated
prestige, his in-group attitudes, his encrusted prestance, pettiness, pedantry, always within
convention, his factoid approach, the channels of communication, the lack of any systemic
approach, his "good guys bad guys" copper´ approach, did not warrant the few hours
listening in on his tune and omni-presence. His numb personality, contrary to the combative
Vltchek is noted as a minor.
Some "intellectuals" have half a page of original content in them over the course of a
life-time (not the same as career (n´est ce pas Pinker?)), most have none. "History
repeat itself", through the bull-horns of public intellectuals. They both practiced a sort of
journalism that is superficial (accent on the superficial) agenda driven.
Ex-CIA John Kiriakou stated that the CIA was attempting to recruit just about anyone that
they were able to starting in the sixties ranging from Hollywood actors/actresses, musicians,
writers, journalists, artists, business people, just about anyone. Operation Mockingbird is
still widely used even if it is no longer regerred to it as Operation Mockingbird.
André Vltchek (1962-2020) was the son of a Czech nuclear physicist father, and a
Russian-Chinese artist-architect mother, born in Soviet-era St Petersburg (then Leningrad).
He spent part of his childhood as well in the famous Czech beer city of Pilsen.
Western culture is clearly obsessed with rules, guilt, submissiveness and
punishment.
What culture is not? Every single population on Earth wants to survive, Westerners want
non-Aryans to survive, but the mechanism is always the same. The Stasi, the Gestapo, the CIA,
the KGB – they all breathed air, and they all tortured dissenters. Turkey was almost
overthrown in 2016. The Shah of Iran was, as were Hosni Mubarak and Gaddafi in Egypt and
Libya. Bashar is facing quite a lot of criticism for being free – that critique comes
in the form of bombs and jihadi freedom fighters. The Saudi Prince is wise for strangling and
beheading Khashoggi. The USSR disintegrated after they had shut down the GULAG.
As a result, the U.S. has more prisoners per capita than any other country on Earth,
except the Seychelles.
In 2012, the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in [the DPR of Korea] estimated 150,000 to
200,000 are incarcerated, based on testimonies of defectors from the state police bureau,
which roughly equals 600–800 people incarcerated per 100,000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
The World Prison Brief puts the United States' incarceration rate at 655 per 100,000.
Okay. If the West is the least free society on the planet, why the heck do all these
third-world people keep trying to move there? It is plain that Vltchek's thinking flunks the
real-world reality test.
The reality is, the rest of the world is worse off than the West, or people wouldn't keep
trying to leave the third world for the West.
@Anon ey want to have freedom of their stupid religious beliefs, not freedom from
religion. They still don't know that freedom of religion is not worth anything if it also
doesn't guarantee freedom from religion.
Thomas Jefferson tried very hard to explain this to them, but Yankee morons have never
learned what Jefferson tried to teach them. (With some notable exceptions, though, who,
however, have absolutely no political power.)
Vltchek is/was right: American/Western civilization [sic] (siphilization, rather) is
bankrupt and inhuman. It can only offer an abundance of material goods and military weapons
as if the only goals of human life were material things and warfare.
Sunday saw huge clashes erupt between the armies of Armenia and Azerbaijan along the already
militarized and disputed Nagorno-Karabakh border region. An official state of war in the region
has been declared by Yerevan.
"Early in the morning, around 7 a.m. the Azerbaijani forces launched a large-scale
aggression, including missile attacks..." Armenia's Defense Ministry stated Sunday. Armenia has
since reportedly declared martial law and a "total military mobilization" in what looks to be
the most serious escalation between the two countries in years.
Air and artillery attacks from both sides ramped up, with each side blaming the other for
the start of hostilities, while international powers urge calm. Crucially, civilians have
already been killed on either side by indiscriminate shelling . At least a dozen soldiers on
either side have also been reported killed.
Armenia's high command has ordered all troops throughout the country to muster and report to
their bases : "I invite the soldiers appointed in the forces to appear before their military
commissions in the regions," a statement said.
Armenia's military has released footage of significant tank warfare in progress. The below
is said to be Armenian army forces destroying Azerbaijani tanks:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/-mJffVrtPLk
And here's more from Sunday's fighting:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D2jd1bw0AXQ?start=9
The recent conflict hearkens back to 2016, but before that to post-Soviet times. Christian
Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan fought a war at that time in which at least 200 people were
killed over Armenian ethnic breakaway Nagorno Karabakh, which declared independence in 1991,
despite being internationally recognized as within Azerbaijan territory .
Dozens of civilians have already been injured Sunday in the major flare-up of fighting, as
CNN reports :
While Armenia said it was responding to missile attacks launched by its neighbor Sunday,
Azerbaijan blamed Armenia for the clashes.
In response to the alleged firing of projectiles by Azerbaijan, Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan tweeted that his country had "shot down 2 helicopters & 3 UAVs, destroyed
3 tanks."
Multiple dramatic battlefield videos are circulating on social media confirming the
large-scale deployment of tanks, artillery units, and airpower . Multiple Azerbaijani soldiers
have been
reported killed, but it's as yet unclear what casualty numbers could be.
Turkey's role in new fighting is attracting scrutiny. Its foreign ministry blamed Armenia
and called for it to halt military operations, however, it hardly appears to be a mere outside
or 'neutral' observer, given
new widespread reports Turkey has transferred 'Syrian rebel' units to join the fighting on
Azerbaijan's side .
These reports of Turkish supplied Syrian mercenaries began days ago, in what regional
analysts predicted would be a huge escalation in hostilities in the Caucuses.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan
late in the day slammed Turkey's meddling in the conflict . Ankara had called Armenia "an
obstacle" to peace after the fresh hostilities broke out. Yerevan has now formally confirmed
Turkey is supplying fighters .
Given the number of vital oil and gas infrastructure facilities and pipelines in the region
, impact on global markets could be seen as early as Monday.
"At least 16 military and several civilians were killed on Sunday in the heaviest clashes
between Armenia and Azerbaijan since 2016, reigniting concern about stability in the South
Caucasus, a corridor for pipelines carrying oil and gas to world markets," Reuters reports.
Azerbaijan has also declared an official state of martial law while clashes between the
armies are unfolding.
Meanwhile footage has emerged showing Armenia's nationwide mustering of its national and
reserve forces :
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"Pipelines shipping Caspian oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the world pass close to
Nagorno-Karabakh,"
Reuters reports. "Armenia also warned about security risks in the South Caucasus in July
after Azerbaijan threatened to attack Armenia's nuclear power plant as possible retaliation
."
The fighting is expected to grow fiercer along front lines in the disputed region into the
night as the prospect of a full 'state of war' is looming between the historic rivals.
The tragedy of this situation the most of people who constitute fifth column will be
royally fleeced if this color revolution succeeds. As Ukrainian experience had shown the
immediate result will be the drop (2-3 times) of national currency against the dollar, mass
sellout of assets to the West at bargain process (for pennies on the dollar) as well as
continuation of the destruction of Soviet infrastructure. Western powers want 90% of
Byelorussian people to live on the level slightly above starvation and they have numerous
methods of achieving this goal directly and indirectly.
In two to three year Belorussia will be a regular debt slave of the West.
27 Sep, 2020 Around 200 have been detained as the Belarusian capital, Minsk and other cities
host rallies, during which the opposition plans to hold a "people's inauguration" of former
presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.
The action was called in response to the secret inauguration staged by long-time President
Alexander Lukashenko for himself earlier this week. Tikhanovskaya won't be attending the
protest, as she fled Belarus for Lithuania after the August 9 election, which the opposition
insists was rigged.
Thousands marched along Independence Avenue in Minsk, despite security forces thoroughly
preparing for the unsanctioned event and urging people to stay at home. Mobile internet speed
has been reduced in the capital. A local mobile operator said it has been ordered to do so by
the government. It may have been done to complicate communication among demonstrators.
The city's largest squares were blocked off, with seven subway stations in the center also
shut down. A convoy of armored vehicles has also been spotted outside Lukashenko's heavily
guarded residence.
Music was played from loudspeakers along the route of the march to drown out the chants of
the demonstrators, calling for Lukashenko's immediate resignation and a new, fair
election.
Police say that almost 200 people have been arrested in Minsk and other cities where
protests took place on Sunday.
The protests in Belarus have been marred by mass arrests from the very start, with
thousands of anti-government demonstrators detained in the weeks since the election. Police
have also been accused of using excessive force against demonstrators and mistreating
detainees. Three protesters have been killed during the unrest, according to official data,
with hundreds, including many officers, wounded.
Anatol Lieven's recent piece, How
the west lost , describes this moral defeat of the 'west' after its dubious 'victory' in
the cold war:
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of
history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn
up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul
Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central
message was:
...
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites
would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush
declared in his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to
the invasion of Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided
into two armed camps now recognises one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of
America."
But that power has since failed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, during the 2008
financial crisis and now again in the pandemic.
Selfishness may be exalted as the root and branch of capitalism, but it doesn't make you
look good to the party on the receiving end or those whose sympathy he earns. For that, you
need a government prepared to do four things, which each have separate dictums based on study,
theorization, and experience. Coercion: Force is illegitimate only if you can't sell it.
Persuasion: How do I market thee? Let me count the ways. Bargaining: If you won't scratch my
back, then how about a piece of the pie? Indoctrination: Because I said so. (And paid for the
semantics.)
Predatory capitalism is the control and expropriation of land, labor, and natural resources
by a foreign government via coercion, persuasion, bargaining, and indoctrination.
At the coercive stage, we can expect military and/or police intervention to repress the
subject populace. The persuasive stage will be marked by clientelism, in which a small
percentage of the populace will be rewarded for loyalty, often serving as the capitalists'
administrators, tax collectors, and enforcers. At the bargaining stage, efforts will be made to
include the populace, or a certain percentage of it, in the country's ruling system, and this
is usually marked by steps toward democratic (or, more often, autocratic) governance.
At the fourth stage, the populace is educated by capitalists, such that they continue to
maintain a relationship of dependency.
The Predatory Debt Link
In many cases, post-colonial states were forced to assume the debts of their colonizers. And
where they did not, they were encouraged to become in debt to the West via loans that were
issued through international institutions to ensure they did not fall prey to communism or
pursue other economic policies that were inimical to the West. Debt is the tie that binds
nation states to the geostrategic and economic interests of the West.
As such, the Cold War era was a time of easy credit, luring postcolonial states to undertake
the construction of useless monoliths and monuments, and to even expropriate such loans through
corruption and despotism, thereby making these independent rulers as predatory as colonizers.
While some countries were wiser than others and did use the funds for infrastructural
improvements, these were also things that benefited the West and particularly Western
contractors. In his controversial work Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins reveals
that he was a consultant for an American firm (MAIN), whose job was to ensure that states
became indebted beyond their means so they would remain loyal to their creditors, buying them
votes within United Nations organizations, among other things.
Predatory capitalists demand export-orientations as the means to generate foreign currency
with which to pay back debt. In the process, the state must privatize and drastically slash or
eliminate any domestic subsidies which are aimed at helping native industry compete in the
marketplace. Domestic consumption and imports must be radically contained, as shown by the
exchange rate policies recommended by the IMF. The costs of obtaining domestic capital will be
pushed beyond the reach of most native producers, while wages must be depressed to an absolute
bare minimum. In short, the country's land, labor, and natural resources must be sold at
bargain basement prices in order to make these goods competitive, in what one author has called
"a spiraling race to the bottom," as countries producing predominantly the same goods engage in
cutthroat competition whose benefactor is the West.
Under these circumstances, foreign investment is encouraged, but this, too, represents a
loaded situation for countries that open their markets to financial liberalization.
It is difficult to teach old chickenhawk a new tricks. Looks like she is a real "national
security parasite" and will stay is this role till the bitter end.
"America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit." took hit because of the crisis of neoliberalism
not so much because of Russia resistance to the USA neoliberal domination and unwillingness to became a vassal state a la EU
states, Japan and GB.
Her hostile remark confirms grave mistake of allowing immigrants to occupy high position in the US foreign policy hierarchy.
They bring with themselves "ancient hatred"
Only a blind (or a highly indoctrinated/brainwashed) person is unable to see where all these neocon policies are leading...
Notable quotes:
"... America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit ..."
"... "They lost the entire US political class ..."
Fiona Hill, the National Security Council's senior director for European and Russian affairs
till 2019, says divisions are rising inside the Kremlin over the knowledge of persevering with
a "dirty tricks" marketing campaign that's had combined outcomes and will now face diminishing
returns.
On the one hand, Russia's 2016 affect operations succeeded past the Kremlin's wildest goals.
The US-dominated, unipolar world that Putin has lengthy railed in opposition to is now not.
America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit. "On that ledger, wow, yes,
basically over-fulfilled the plan," mentioned Hill.
At the identical time, getting caught in the act of making an attempt to sabotage US
democracy has proved pricey. "They lost the entire US political class and politicized ties so that the whole future of
US-Russia relations now depends on who wins in November," she mentioned.
"... Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby ..."
"... In the early 2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." ..."
"... Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that now opposes its dictates. He concludes ..."
"... Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council. ..."
"... The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF et all. ..."
"... Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military. ..."
"... 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world order. ..."
"... Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on it). ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and crazier and there will be full blown hysteria. ..."
"... In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed. ..."
"... But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and greed for other people's resources. ..."
"... Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your stuff! And this is how it will forever be!" ..."
"... As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. ..."
"... Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. ..."
"... Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks ..."
"... Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'. ..."
"... Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled economies. It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of proxy conflicts. ..."
"... The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence. ..."
"... Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and social development. ..."
"... Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words, such as novichok. ..."
"... Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis] ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. ..."
"... The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them despite threats and intimidation from the Empire. ..."
"... The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine, subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own territories/population via intimidation and propaganda. ..."
"... On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. ..."
"... My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim "our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ? ..."
"... There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression, infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters. ..."
"... America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World). ..."
"... The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. ..."
"... The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss was not so stupidly naive. ..."
"... quite right. 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US et al) version of a welfare state. ..."
"... China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange reserves (on net) in 2014 leaving the US in a sort of limbo. ..."
"... "Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism, is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during the Cold War. ..."
"... The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No difference. ..."
"... It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials. ..."
The 'western' countries, i.e. the United States and its 'allies', love to speak of a 'rules based international order'
which they say everyone should follow. That 'rules based order' is a way more vague concept
than the actual rule of law:
The G7 is united by its shared values and commitment to a rules based international order.
That order is being challenged by authoritarianism, serious violations of human rights,
exclusion and discrimination, humanitarian and security crises, and the defiance of
international law and standards.
As members of the G7, we are convinced that our societies and the world have reaped
remarkable benefits from a global order based on rules and underscore that this system must
have at its heart the notions of inclusion, democracy and respect for human rights,
fundamental freedoms, diversity, and the rule of law.
That the 'rules based international order' is supposed to include vague concepts of
'democracy', 'human rights', 'fundamental freedoms', 'diversity' and more makes it easy to
claim that this or that violation of the 'rules based international order' has occurred. Such
violations can then be used to impose punishment in the form of sanctions or war.
That the above definition was given by a minority of a few rich nations makes it already
clear that it can not be a global concept for a multilateral world. That would require a set of
rules that everyone has agreed to. We already had and have such a system. It is called
international law. But at the end of the cold war the 'west' began to ignore the actual
international law and to replace it with its own rules which others were then supposed to
follow. That hubris has come back to bite the 'west'.
Anatol Lieven's recent piece, How
the west lost , describes this moral defeat of the 'west' after its dubious 'victory' in
the cold war:
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of
history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn
up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul
Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central
message was:
...
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites
would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush
declared in his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to
the invasion of Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided
into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of
America."
But that power has since failed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, during the 2008
financial crisis and now again in the pandemic. It also created new competition to its role due
to its own behavior:
On the one hand, American moves to extend Nato to the Baltics and then (abortively) on to
Ukraine and Georgia, and to abolish Russian influence and destroy Russian allies in the
Middle East, inevitably produced a fierce and largely successful Russian nationalist
reaction. ...
On the other hand, the benign and neglectful way in which Washington regarded
the rise of China in the generation after the Cold War (for example, the blithe decision to
allow China to join the World Trade Organisation) was also rooted in ideological arrogance.
Western triumphalism meant that most of the US elites were convinced that as a result of
economic growth, the Chinese Communist state would either democratise or be overthrown; and
that China would eventually have to adopt the western version of economics or fail
economically. This was coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be
predicated on China accepting a so-called "rules-based" international order in which the US
set the rules while also being free to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody
with the slightest knowledge of Chinese history should have believed.
The retired Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar touches on the same points in an excellent
series about the new Chinese-Russian alliance:
Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that
now opposes its dictates. He concludes:
Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in
the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a
universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign
states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a
number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of
state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the
centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council.
While the U.S. wants a vague 'rules based international order' China and Russia emphasize an
international order that is based on the rule of law. Two recent comments by leaders from China
and Russia underline this.
China firmly supports the United Nations' central role in global affairs and opposes any
country acting like boss of the world, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.
...
"No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others or keep
advantages in development all to itself," Xi said.
Noting that the UN must stand firm for justice, Xi said that mutual respect and equality
among all countries, big or small, is the foremost principle of the UN Charter.
No country should be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon or bully, Xi said.
"Unilateralism is a dead end," he said.
...
International laws should not be distorted or used as a pretext to undermine other countries'
legitimate rights and interests or world peace and stability, he added.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went even further by outright rejecting the 'western rules' that the 'rules
based international order' implies:
Ideas that Russia and China will play by sets of Western rules under any circumstances are
deeply flawed , Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with New
York-based international Russian-language RTVI channel.
"I was reading our political scientists who are well known in the West. The following idea
is becoming louder and more pronounced: it is time to stop applying Western metrics to our
actions and stop trying to be liked by the West at any cost . These are very reputable people
and a rather serious statement. It is clear to me that the West is wittingly or unwittingly
pushing us towards this analysis. It is likely to be done unwittingly," Lavrov noted.
"However, it is a big mistake to think that Russia will play by Western rules in any case,
just like thinking this in terms of China."
As an alliance China and Russia have all the raw materials, energy, engineering and
industrial capabilities, agriculture and populations needed to be completely independent from
the 'west'. They have no need nor any desire to follow dubious rules dictated by other powers.
There is no way to make them do so. As M.K. Bhadrakumar concludes
:
The US cannot overwhelm that alliance unless it defeats both China and Russia together,
simultaneously. The alliance, meanwhile, also happens to be on the right side of history.
Time works in its favour, as the decline of the US in relative comprehensive national power
and global influence keeps advancing and the world gets used to the "post-American century."
---
P.S.
On a lighter note: RT , Russia's state sponsored international TV station, has recently
hired Donald Trump
(vid). He will soon host his own reality show on RT . The working title is reportedly:
"Putin's Apprentice". The apprenticeship might give him a chance to learn how a nation that has
failed can be resurrected to its former glory.
Posted by b on September 22, 2020 at 17:59 UTC | Permalink
The Liberal International Order or Pax Americana are synonyms for The
Rules Based Order. The plan that was followed for years was the outline given by Zbigniew
Brzezinski and the Trilateral Commission in The Grand Chessboard to "contain" the ambition of
Russia, China, and Iran over their interest to expand into Central Asia and the Middle East.
Brzezinski changed
in 2016, so did Kissinger, Brzezinski wrote that it was time to make peace and to integrate
with Russia, China and Iran. But the elites had changed by then, newer people had taken
over and no longer followed Brzezinski.
The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World
Bank, the IMF et all. We will own you and you will do what we say and those are the rules.
Any challenge to our authority will lead to war, economic ruin or both.
Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another.
The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism
because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was
rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world
order.
Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document
is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on
it).
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the
world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and
crazier and there will be full blown hysteria.
In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and
animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild
animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed.
All the liberalism is just self-congratulation about how exceptionalist it is. It is born
out of narcisism and self-obsession during the "good times" of the West.
But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and
greed for other people's resources.
The real face of it is hateful and snarling. And it will be fully exposed during the next
10 years, as the West goes crazy and it becomes a hungry wild animal that desperately needs
to feed.
Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your
stuff! And this is how it will forever be!"
Countries need to stay out from the wild animal and carry a big stick just in case, until
it succumbs from its internal hatreds and contradictions.
As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. As b. outlines. the US elites no
longer follow the rule of law. This is even true within the US. The US inherited the role
formerly played by the British Empire after WW2.
The national security apparatus of both the
US and the Soviet Union kept the Cold War going. Notice how soon after JFK was assassinated
Khrushchev was deposed. Gorbachev rightly stopped the Soviets superpower regime. As Dmitri Orlov points out - Empire hollowed out the Soviet Union and he sees it doing the same to the
US.
Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major
nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. The life
expectancy of Russians fell 7 years in a decade until rescued by Putin.
It can now be seen
that the Nixon-Kissinger opening up to China was not to gain access to its large market
potential but to gain access to hundreds of millions of cheap, disciplined, and educated
workers. The elites starting in the 70s became greedier. Jet travel,electronic communication,
and computers allowed the outsourcing of manufacture.
The spread of air conditioning allowed
even the too hot south to be a location. First in the US as the factories began their march
through the non union southern states onto Mexico. Management from the north could now live
in air conditioned houses, drive air conditioned cars and work in air conditioned offices.
The 70s oil inflation led to stagnation as the unionized labor were powerful enough to get
cost of living raises. With the globalization of labor union power in the US has been
destroyed. As Eric X Li points out China's one party rule actually changes policies easier
than the Western democracies.
So China's government hasn't joined in with the West in just
creating wealth for the top 1% and debt for the real economy.
As b. pointed out, the Anglo
Zionist policies created the mutual benefit partnership of Russia and China. The Chinese belt
and road initiative appears to be intent on creating a large trading zone that could benefit
those involved. The US is just using sanctions and the military to turn sovereign functioning
countries that don't go along with it into failed states and their infrastructure turned to
rubble
Now, the US is forced into puppeteering the UN in order to maintain the illusion of the
'rules based order,' even as it slides further and further away from any meaningful
international cooperation:
Fortunately for the world, the United States took responsible action to stop this from
happening. In accordance with our rights under UNSCR 2231, we initiated the snapback process
to restore virtually all previously terminated UN sanctions, including the arms embargo. The
world will be safer as a result.
The United States expects all UN Member States to fully comply with their obligations
to implement these measures. In addition to the arms embargo, this includes restrictions
such as the ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the
prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development by Iran, and sanctions on the
transfer of nuclear- and missile-related technologies to Iran, among others. If UN Member
States fail to fulfill their obligations to implement these sanctions, the United States is
prepared to use our domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures and ensure
that Iran does not reap the benefits of UN-prohibited activity.
Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US
administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they
do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Pompeo talks more or less continually about "China's bullying behaviour". To me it is
wonderful that he can say this with a straight face. (Perhaps it is a result of his lessons
in the CIA on "how to lie better".)All the countries that have engaged with China have
benefitted from it, whether as salesmen or as recipients of aid or loans at advantageous
rates. The countries that have engaged with America have mostly (All?) lost. (The fifty+
countries invaded and wrecked since WW2 or the NATO "allies" or the countries attacked with
sanctions.) Either their economies were destroyed or billions upon billions of dollars were
paid to the US MIC. The NATO member countries have got what from their membership? Formerly,
they had "Protection" from an imaginary Soviet threat, more recently "Protection" from an
equally imaginary Russian threat! Some bargain, that!
Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the
U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran
indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'.
U.S, 'we have the right to seize cargo between any two countries transported in
international waters based on U.S. federal appeals court decision even though the transaction
in no way involves the U.S. We call this Freedom of Navigation and why we need to have
aircraft carriers in the South China Sea and Arabian Gulf'
Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled
economies.
It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international
finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of
proxy conflicts.
Thanks for the posting b as it gets to the core myths around the global private finance
jackboot on the neck of countries in the West.
The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key
ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation
of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline
include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and
hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in
suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most
Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence.
Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states
in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels
of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and
social development.
Capitalism might enrich a few, but it is the primary cause of America's relative and
absolute decline.
US and allied military analysts have been talking over the last year or so of the need to
enter a single focus and total "wartime" posture throughout our societies, with all financial
and industrial output directed to the "war". This has influenced the information/ propaganda
efforts, but also the uptick in military manoeuvres around Taiwan and renewed NATO pressure
directed at Russia (including the recent provocative B52 flights). Don't think Russia/China
can be tricked into over-reacting, but some kind of loss-of-life military confrontation may
be what the rules-based side is looking for as the population at large will probably not
accept a "wartime sacrifice" regimen without such.
Whilst Russia and China are creating a truly new, unique and creative alliance and a
market of everything, in Australia the "authorities" are sicking their police dogs on poor
grannies sitting on park benches. This image of five brainless armed state goons in a show of
force over two quiet little grannies really puts things into perspective. It must be that New
World Order that Soros and puppets always talked about.
Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words,
such as novichok.
The post scriptum stopped the clock for me. Has our host slipped into our drink there a
profound prophecy, disguised as jesting?
Many agree something big will happen (break?) soon, possibly with the elections. The other
thing is the Americans' ability to change course, drop all baggage, and run off in a new,
even the opposite direction with unfettered enthusiasm (and ferocity). No people has a
greater capacity for almost instant renewal, once it chooses to.
I also notice that the spoof takes good aim at The Donald's peculiarities, though in a
fair and human way. The proverbial Russian warmth, or a humorous invitation?
Meanwhile, I enjoy my newfound optimism in these dark times. Thanks b!
Thanks b and on Anatol Lieven in the Prospect story (fairy story?)...
Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited
role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of
influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual
we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of
arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which
western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the
competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis]
Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that colonialism just might
be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no competition? Does Lieven
watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex? This verbose Lieven
tosh is littered with fancy sentences trawled from here and there but always presented to us
from a narrow dimensional mind with limited analysis and seemingly zero interrogation.
again:- "then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world"...
So Lieven thinks the current behaviour of the US hegemon and its collaborator the UK is
innocuous? These were the two nations that blithely squandered the "peace dividend" from the
end of cold war as he describes and have led us to this time of perpetual war. A perpetual
war that he does not mention, does not allude to, does not treat as an important driver
behind the current global mistrust and disengagement from the USUK drive for global
dominance.
Lieven is putting lipstick on his pig and screaming about losing the competition to the
imagined wolf outside his prison.
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over
the world.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
_________________________________
Passer by @Sep22 20:15 #14
Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Yes. We still see the narratives like of Trump as Putin-lover despite the debunking of
Russiagate and the clear evidence of Cold War tensions. The incessant propaganda reeks of
desperation.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Some seem to think that the Empire is cornered.
Aha! We've got you now, you scoundrels!
LOL.
The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to
be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine,
subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own
territories/population via intimidation and propaganda.
On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate
Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its
red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. It would be satisfying to see the
collective wisdom of the Parliament to exceed that of the BND. But then that is a low bar.
"For our part, we more than once described a balanced and mutually acceptable framework
for future agreements in this sphere during our contacts with the American negotiators. Aware
of the difficulties on the path forward in light of how widely different our approaches are,
we proposed extending the New START as it was originally signed.
"We do not want any unilateral advantages, but we will not make any unilateral concessions
either. A deal may be possible if the United States is ready to coordinate a new document on
the basis of the balance of interests, parity and without expecting Russia to make unilateral
concessions. But this will take time. We can have time to do this if the treaty is
extended."
As predicted, the Outlaw US Empire makes an offer it knows will be refused so it can then
blame Russia for being an unreliable negotiating partner--a trick we've all seen before.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot.
What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
Yes, the big question remaining is to predict what will happen and when. This is what the
real deal is. And I'm sure they are working on that in the Intel agencies. It can certainly be predicted that the US and the EU will be significantly weaker in 2030
that today. Will this be enough is the question.
We now have some new information about US long term health as published by CBO. Very
interesting numbers.
They predict lower population growth and lower GDP growth for the US than previously
estimated, as well as higher debt rates. US federal debt is to reach 195 % of GDP by 2050 under best case scenario.
Analysts also seem to agree that the Covid 19 crisis further weakened the US vis a vis
China, as the Chinese economy significantly outperformed almost everyone else this year, more
than expected before the crisis.
I will also mention two important recent numbers. This year:
1. China, for the first time, became the biggest trading partner for the EU, beating the
US.
2. China's retail market overtook the one of the US.
Posted by: vk | Sep 22 2020 19:05 utc | 4 -- "....Eurasia is where most of human civilization
lives, it's the "World Island" - the world island not in the military sense, but in the
economic sense. Every path to human prosperity passes through Eurasia - that's why the USA
can't "let it alone" in the first place, while the reverse is not true, that is, Eurasia can
give to the luxury of letting the Americas alone."
Excellent observation, VK.
Even if the World Island (thanks for your formulation) trades with itself, within itself,
there is sufficient mass to last a century, during which the arrogantly exceptional West
might just wake up from their Century of Humiliation.
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted
"civilisation" was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from
the Middle Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out
above, because all wealth passes through that region).
Yes there are rules which are observed more by their breach than their observance: The Geneva
Conventions. Just ask Julian Assange.
I find it incredible that the Anglo-Zionist captive nations can sign, ratify, incorporate
into domestic law and then sign the additional protocol, making themselves high contracting
parties, which requires them to report all and any breaches to Geneva, then ignore all the
above commitments. One of these commitments includes educating their citizens on the basic
provisions of the conventions. Again they haven't bothered, that could expose their hypocrisy
to the public.
Even the bandit statelet signed but I am yet to see just one example of its application in
the seventy plus years of its barbaric and bloodthirsty occupation of Palestine.
Interestingly, the conventions prohibit the occupied from signing away one iota of their
territory to the occupier. So much for what Claude Pictet's Commentary to the Fourth Geneva
Convention calls "alleged annexations." This book is available from the ICRC.
My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities
now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim
"our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are
unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ?
It seems the New World Order has some familiar and unsurprising antecedents:
Anatol Lieven comes from an educated and cultured family in Britain's upper middle class
layer. His older siblings - he is the youngest of five children - include a High Court judge
(Dame Natalie Lieven), a Cambridge University professor / historian (Dominic Lieven) and a
psychologist / linguistics researcher (Elena Lieven). They haven't done badly for a family from the old Baltic German
aristocratic elite that used to serve the Russian empire as administrators for the
Livonia governorate.
The British Lievens might see themselves as gatekeepers and interpreters of what the
ruling classes desire (or appear to desire) and communicate that down to us. Hence their
positions in intellectual and academic occupations - no engineers, technicians or academics
in the physical or biological sciences among their number.
Anatol Lieven is right though about "competition", in the sense I believe he is using it:
it is "competition" for supposed global leadership and influence as only the British and
Americans understand it. Life as British and American elites understand it is the annual
football competition writ large; there can only be one winner and the worst position to be in
is second place and every other place below it. Never mind that what Russia and China have in
mind is a vision of the world with multiple and overlapping leadership roles dispersed among
nations according to various criteria: this ideal is simply too much for the Anglosphere
elites to understand, let alone digest and accept.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
if you aren't at least a little prepared for a
disruption in critical supplies, and choose instead to waste time commenting on online
forums, it won't matter how up to date you are on "rules based international order" vs.
"international law". at that point the reality will be something like this: if you aren't
holding it, you don't have it, and if you can't defend it, you won't be keeping it for long.
Got that absolutely right.
There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative
power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear
war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is
collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression,
infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime
between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters.
This month is National Preparedness Month. I recommend watching the following videos from
well-known "preppers" who have been warning about this stuff for years.
And this one from The Urban Prepper, an IT guy who is exceptionally well organized and
logical in his videos. I recommend subscribing to his channel. He avoids most of the
excessive "doom and gloom" hype that afflicts a lot of prepper channels and is oriented more
about urban survival than "backwoods bushcraft" since most people live in cities. Prepping 101: Prepping
Architecture Diagram for Gear Organization
And if you don't watch anything else, watch this one from Canadian Prepper - he's
absolutely right in this one and it specifically applies to the barflies here: What is Really Going
On? Its WORSE Than You Think
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted "civilisation"
was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from the Middle
Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out above,
because all wealth passes through that region).
Posted by: kiwiklown | Sep 22 2020 23:41 utc | 39
Oh, and this one from Canadian Prepper in which he muses about whether and why we actually
*want* the SHTF situation to occur. This one would resonate with a lot of the commentary here
about the social malaise and the psychological reasons for it. Maybe nothing really new for
some, but definitely relevant.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
Thank you that backgrounder explains a lot. Perhaps like Englanders before him he finds
Qatar, safe and rewarding PLUS mounds of finest hashish and titillating company. From my
understanding it is a grotesque abuser of human rights and everyone has a price.
America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based
Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World).
The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression
against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its
decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and
maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. These crimes against humanity have
been justified by Orwellian American lies about "Weapons of Mass Destruction," "fighting
terrorism," or the curious events of Sept. 11th.
This America "Rules-Based" order is one drenched in the blood of millions of people--even
as it sanctimoniously disguises itself behind endless propaganda about defending liberal
democracy or the rule of law.
Truly, America and its allies can take their malignant Rules-Based Disorder back to Hell,
where they all belong.
"Thus your "side note" has no "relevance" whatsoever."
You sound like some podunk UN official from a podunk country trying to impress a waitress
in a NYC bar. The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the
Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss
was not so stupidly naive.
Thank you - YES that is the answer and always has been PLUS there will be no pipeline from
Iran through Afghanistan to Pakistan and on to China. There will be NO overland pipeline or
rail route to sound the death knell to the maritime mafia.
Please vote for trump 2020. no president destroy America from inside like what trump did. The goal is to accelerate American empire destruction and grip in this world.
What better way to put such clown along his circus in white house. he will make a mess of everything and will definitely bring
America down
i hope he win 2020 and America explode into civil war and chaos. With America destroyed internally , they wont have time to invade
Venezuela or Iran
Remember , if Biden win 2020 , American foreign policy will revert into normalcy that means
seeking alliance with EU and 5 eyes in a more meaningful way , aka giving them preferential
treatment on trade..
all that to box in china and russia , reenable TPP , initiate the delayed venezuela overt
invasion other than covert
this is dangerous for the whole world , not that it will save US in the long run but it
will increase real shooting conflict with china and russia.. So focus on trump victory in 2020 , the more controversial the win the better , lets push america into chaos
I appreciate the time and thought that goes into a post like this; all without a popup ad
trying to sell me ANOTHER item I just bought via Amazon, in spite of the fact that I am among
the least likely to want another right now. Voice of reason crying in the wilderness and all
that.
The rule The Capitalist Ogres promote as the heart of Civilization is simply the age-old
Golden Rule. Those with the gold, make the rules.
@ptb quite right.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US
et al)
version of a welfare state.
as US et al can no longer fund their own unaffordable welfare promises made to their own
electorates, they have to call on the rest of the world to do so (China has been effectively
funding the US budget deficit since they entered the WTO.
and the EU (mainly Germany) was doing the same before China's entry into WTO)
China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange
reserves (on net) in 2014
leaving the US in a sort of limbo.
Well, you're sorta correct; it was all those nations including China that bought Outlaw US
Empire debt. China certainly knows better now and for almost a decade now it's purchases--and
those of the rest of the world -- of said debt have declined to the point where a huge crisis
related to the debt pyramid threatens all those aside from the 1% living within the Outlaw US
Empire. The Judo involved was very instructive.
"Trump's UN
address censured" headlines Global Times article that reviews yesterday's UNGA.
Domestic BigLie Media didn't like what it heard from Trump:
"Commenting on the US' performance, many Western media tended to view US as being
'isolated,' and its unilateral efforts 'widely derided....'
"Some US media outlets cannot stand Trump's accusations. A WSJ report said many Democrats
blamed Trump for "isolating the US and diluting American influence in the WHO or other
bodies."
It went on to say Trump's threat of withdrawal is often used as leverage to "influence
partner countries, or get allies to pay more for shared defense."
"Some US media linked Trump's address to his widely blamed effort to re-impose sanctions
on Iran, saying his address came as 'UN members push back against Washington,' AP
reported.
"Wednesday's Washington Post article reported that the Trump administration walked on a
'lonely path' at the UN where the US attacked WHO, and embarked on the 'widely derided'
effort to snap back Iran sanctions.
"A week before the UN General Assembly, US media NPR predicted that the US 'appeared to be
isolated' at this year's General Assembly, saying that Trump's 'America First' agenda left
him out of sync with America's traditional allies as it has a long record of pulling out of
international agreements, including one meant to tackle the world's climate crisis."
So, Trump's attack on China's environmental record was beyond hypocritical and ought to be
termed psychopathic prevarication. The best comment from the article well describes the
Trumptroll @53:
"'Trump's smears and attacks against China were apparently aimed at campaigning for his
reelection. Only his die-hard fans - those who do not care about truth but support him -
will buy his words ,' Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Institute of World Development of
the Development Research Center of the State Council, told the Global Times." [My
Emphasis]
And isn't that really the basic issue--the truth? 75 years of lies by the Outlaw US Empire
to cover it's continuous illegalities and subversion of its own fundamental law while killing
and displacing tens of millions of people. Guardian of the Free World my ass! More like
Guardian of the Gates of Hell.
Yes, I'm biased, but anyone seeking truth and invoking the Rule of Law would find themselves
at odds with the Outlaw US Empire. Today's Global Times Editorial makes
the following key observations:
"Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism,
is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation
among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all
parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and
confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side
at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during
the Cold War.
"The impulse to promote a cold war is the ultimate version of unilateralism, and shows
dangerous and mistaken arrogance that the US is almighty. Everyone knows that the US is
declining in its competitiveness under the rules-based international system the US itself
initiated and created. It wants to build a new system more beneficial to itself, and allow
the US to maintain its advantage without making any effort. This is simply impossible."
My research is pointing me to conclude the First Cold War was contrived so the Outlaw US
Empire could impose privately owned finance and corporations and the political-economies
connected to them upon the world lest the collective forces that were the ones to actually
defeat Fascism gain control of their national governments and shape their political-economies
into the public/collectively owned realm where the benefits would flow to all people instead
of just the already powerful. That's also the intent of imposing a Second Cold War. Some seem
to think there's no ideological divide at play, but as I've ceaselessly explained there most
certainly is, thus the intense demonization of both Russia and China--the Strategic
Competition also is occurring in the realm of Ideas. And the only tools available for the
Outlaw US Empire to use are lies, since the truths involved would encourage any neutral
nation to join the Win-Win vision of China and Russia, not the Zero-sum bankruptcy pushed by
the Parasites controlling the Empire.
@ karlof1 | Sep 23 2020 15:56 utc | 84 and forward with the links and quotes...thanks
I do like the confirmation Pepe quote, thanks
It is sad to understand that much of the US population does not have the mental clarity to
see that Trump is no different than Biden when it comes to fealty to the God of Mammon. Way
too many Americans think that replacing Trump with Biden will make things all better.
The end of the rules based international order/global private finance cannot end soon
enough, IMO
Thanks for your reply! As I discussed with the Missus last night, IMO only the people
regaining control over the federal government can rescue themselves from the multiple
dilemmas they face--the most pressing being the Debt Bomb and control of the monetary and
fiscal systems by private entities as exemplified by the Federal Reserve and Wall Street,
both of which employ the Financial Parasites preying on the nation's body-politic. Undoing
all the past wrongs requires both Congress and the Executive be captured by The People who
can then write the laws to end the wrongs while arresting and prosecuting those responsible
for the last 20+ years of massive fraud. The biggest components would be ending the Federal
Reserve, Nationalizing all the fraudster banks, writing down the vast majority of debt, and
disbanding NATO thus ending the overseas empire. Those are the most fundamental steps
required for the USA to avoid the coming calamity brought about by the Neoliberals. I also
have finally developed my thesis on where, why and how that philosophy was developed and put
into motion.
The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had
no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no
threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that
Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No
difference.
The key issues for the US were:
1. it needed western european capitalist states to buy US manufactured exports. Those
states had to remain capitalist and subordinate to the US, i.e. to avoid what Acheson called
'neutralism' in world politics.
2. the US wanted gradual decolonization of the British and French empires so that US firms
could access markets and resources in those same territories. but the US feared revolutionary
nationalism in the colonies and the potential loss of market access by the former colonial
powers, which would need resources from the post-colonial world to rebuild after WW2.
The key event which cemented the 'Cold War' in Europe was the division of Germany, which
Carolyn Eisenberg shows was entirely an American decision, in her important book, Drawing the
Line.
The driving force of all this, though, was the economic imperatives of US capitalism. The
US needed to restore and save capitalism in Western Europe and Japan, and the Cold War was
the ideological framework for doing so. The Cold War ideology also allowed the US to frame
its meddling in Korea, Guatemala, Iran, etc.
The late historian Gabriel Kolko wrote the best analyses of these issues. His work is much
better than the New Left 'revisionist' US historians.
I agree with your recap and second your appraisal of Gabriel Kolko. Eisenberg's work
somehow escaped my view but will no longer thanks to your suggestion.
But I see more to it all as the First Cold War had to occur to promote the
financialization of the USA's industrial Capitalism which began within the USA in 1913 and
was abruptly interrupted by the various market crashes, the failure of the international
payments system and subsequent massive deflation and Great Depression. A similar plan to
outsource manufactures to its colonies and commonwealth and financialize its economy was
began in the UK sometime after the end of the US Civil War. At the time in England, the
school of Classical Political-Economists and their political allies (CPE) were attempting to
rid the UK and the rest of Europe of the last vestiges of Feudalism that resided in the
Rentier and Banking Classes, the former being mostly populated by Royalty and its
retainers. Land Rent was the primary source of their income while it was the stated intent of
the CPE to change the tax burden from individuals and businesses to that of Land Rent and
other forms of Unearned Income. That movement came swiftly on the heels of the abolition of
the Slave Trade which was a vast source of Royal income. Recognizing this threat to the basis
of their wellbeing, the Royals needed to turn the tables but in such a manner where their
manipulation was secret because of the vast popularity of the CPE's agenda. Thus began the
movement to discredit the CPE and remove their ideas from discourse and later completely from
the history of political-economy. And there was another problem--German Banks and their
philosophy inspired by Bismarck to be totally supportive of German industry, which provided
the impetus for its own colonial pursuits primarily in Africa.
Within that paragraph is my thesis for the rise of Neoliberalism, much of which Dr. Hudson
documents but hasn't yet gotten to/revealed the root cause of the counter revolution against
the CPE. IMO, that reactionary movement underlies far more, particularly the growing
animosity between the UK and Germany from 1875 to 1914. As Eisenberg's research proves,
there's much more past to be revealed that helps to resolve how we arrived at the times we
now face.
Indeed, as Hudson and Max Keiser ask: Why pay taxes at all since the Fed can create all
the credit required. I've written about the pros and cons of Secession here before which are
quite similar to those existing in 1861. In Washington for example, how to deal with all the
Federal property located there. Just as Ft. Sumter didn't belong to South Carolina, the many
military bases there don't belong to Washington. Trying to seize it as the South Carolinians
attempted in 1861 merely creates the casus belli sought by Trump. Now if you could get the
vast majority of the military stationed in Washington to support your cause, your odds of
resisting would greatly improve.
IMO, trying to regain public control over the Federal government would be much easier.
Thank you brother karlof1, YES, the minotaur indeed but where is Theseus and Ariadne when
we need them? Please don't tell me that Biden and Harris are the 'chosen ones' - that would mock the
legend and prove that the gods are truly crazy :))
It seems to me that a review is required, that we need to turn back the clock to an earlier
analysis whose veracity has only been boosted by subsequent events. So here from
2011: "On November 3, 2011, Alan Minsky interviewed me on KPFK's program, 'Building a
Powerful Movement in the United States' in preparation for an Occupy L.A. teach-in." Here's a
brief excerpt to remind people what this is all about:
"Once people realize that they're being screwed, that's a pre-revolutionary situation.
It's a situation where they can get a lot of sympathy and support, precisely by not doing
what The New York Times and the other papers say they should do: come up with some neat
solutions. They don't have to propose a solution because right now there isn't one –
without changing the system with many, many changes. So many that it's like a new
Constitution. Politics as well as the economy need to be restructured. What's developing now
is how to think about the economic and political problems that are bothering people. It is
not radical to realize that the economy isn't working. That is the first stage to realizing
that a real alternative is needed. We've been under a radical right-wing attack – and
need to respond in kind. The next half-year probably will be spent trying to spell out what
the best structure would be."
It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon
warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before
the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the
connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary
Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials.
Like many others, I
have been slowly won over to the position that the attacks of 9-11, and especially the
totally unprecedented collapses of the three WTC towers, could only have been caused by the
precisely timed explosion of previously installed demolition materials containing nanothermite. But if one accepts that position the immediately subsequent question is "Who
planned and carried out the attacks?" Many people have claimed it was the Mossad, others that
it was the Mossad in concert with the US neocons etc., -- many of whom were Israeli/US dual
citizens -- but even now, so many years after the horrific events, I can find no coherent
account of how such conspirators, or any others for that matter, might actually have carried
out WTC building demotions. Do any of you know of sources on the matter that have made good
progress on connecting the dots and explaining what precisely happened -- the easier part --
and how exactly it was carried out, by whom, and how they have managed to get away with it
for all this time?
Lieven: If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with
Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality,
bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the
Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world.[my emphasis]
Uncle Tungsten: Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that
colonialism just might be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no
competition? Does Lieven watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex?
-------
It is clear to me that Tungsten does not understand Lieven because Lieven does not cross all
t's and dot all i's. There can be two reasons for Lieven style: (1) a British style, leaving
some conclusions to the reader, it is not elegant to belabor the obvious (2) Lieven works in
a pro-Western feudal state and that particular piece appeared in a neo-liberal outfit where
it is already a clear outlier toward (what I see as) common sense. Neo-liberals view
themselves as liberals, "tolerating a wide spectrum of opinion", but with clear limits about
the frequency and content for the outliers of their tolerance.
Back to "endangering the world", how "loosing competition to China" can result in huge
mayhem? I guess that Tungsten is a little dense here. The sunset of Anglo-Saxon domination
can seem like the end of the world for the "members" of that domination. But a longer
historical perspective can offer a much darker vision of the future. First, there is a clash
of two blocks, one with superior industrial production, domination of markets of assorted
goods -- both as importer and exporter, etc, the other with still superior military
technology and combative spirit.
Recall (or check) the situation in east Asia ca. 1240 AD. One of the major power was Song
China, after a calamitous defeat roughly 300 years later, diminished Song China succeeded in
developing all kinds of practical and beautiful goods and vibrant commerce while having quite
inept military. The second major power was the Mongols. You can look up the rest.
USA stresses the military types of pressures, and seeing its position slipping too far,
they may resort to a series of gigantic "provocations" -- from confiscation of property by
fiat, like they did to Venezuela, to piracy on open seas, no cargoes can move without their
approval and tribute, from there things can escalate toward nuclear war.
More generally, western decline leads to decrease of wealth affecting the lower classes
first but gradually reaching higher, enmity toward competitors, then hatred, such processes
can have dire consequences.
Importantly, these are speculations, so stopping short of spelling them out is reasonable.
However, give some credit to Lieven for "the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed,
criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period
after the Cold War".
On the rule-based world order. Scattered thoughts.
The article by Lieven was good in one aspect: it at least mentioned the crazy economic
template aka imho 'religion' that lead to a part of this mess. For the rest, hmm. The 'rules based international order' was always pretty much a phoney scaffold, used for
presentation to hide, cover up, legitimised many goings on (after WW2 I mean.)
Like a power-point extolling xyz product, with invented or 'massaged' charts and all.,
with tick boxes for what it positive or followed. (Fairness, Democracy, etc. etc. as
'Natural' 'Organic' etc. Total BS.)
In these kinds of discussions I am always reminded of the 'rights of the child' which in
CH are taught in grade 3-5, with a boiled down text, logo type pix, etc. It is very tough on
teachers, and they often only pretend to push the content. There are many immigrant children
in CH and the natives know that the 'rights' are not respected and not just in 'jungles'
(anarchist / animalistic hot spots) as they say. The kids go nuts - as they still more or
less believe that they 'have a voice' as it called -- the parents follow the kids, lotsa
troubles. OK, these are aspirations - but 'democracy' (purposely used as a calling card
following advice from a well-know ad agency..) is so as well. And presenting aspirations that
can't possibly be achieved in any way, when not a smiley joke about meeting God or flying to
Mars, and is socially important, is not well received.
Anyway, since the invasion of Iraq (totally illegal according to any standards) leading to
the biggest demos in the world ever, a loud indignant cry, which invasion the UN condoned,
ppl (in my experience, in CH, F, It) no longer have a shred of belief in 'international
rules'. Which of course makes them more 'nationalist' in the sense of acting in the
community, close at hand, as the Intl order is a shit-scene.
As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. As b. outlines. the US
elites no longer follow the rule of law. This is even true within the US. The US inherited
the role formerly played by the British Empire after WW2.
The national security apparatus of both the US and the Soviet Union kept the Cold War
going. Notice how soon after JFK was assassinated Khrushchev was deposed. Gorbachev rightly
stopped the Soviets superpower regime. As Dmitri Orlov points out - Empire hollowed out the
Soviet Union and he sees it doing the same to the US.
Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of
major nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it.
The life expectancy of Russians fell 7 years in a decade until rescued by Putin.
It can now be seen that the Nixon-Kissinger opening up to China was not to gain access to
its large market potential but to gain access to hundreds of millions of cheap, disciplined,
and educated workers. The elites starting in the 70s became greedier. Jet travel,electronic
communication, and computers allowed the outsourcing of manufacture.
The spread of air conditioning allowed even the too hot south to be a location. First in
the US as the factories began their march through the non union southern states onto Mexico.
Management from the north could now live in air conditioned houses, drive air conditioned
cars and work in air conditioned offices.
The 70s oil inflation led to stagnation as the unionized labor were powerful enough to get
cost of living raises. With the globalization of labor union power in the US has been
destroyed. As Eric X Li points out China's one party rule actually changes policies easier
than the Western democracies.
So China's government hasn't joined in with the West in just creating wealth for the top
1% and debt for the real economy.
As b. pointed out, the Anglo Zionist policies created the mutual benefit partnership of
Russia and China. The Chinese belt and road initiative appears to be intent on creating a
large trading zone that could benefit those involved. The US is just using sanctions and the
military to turn sovereign functioning countries that don't go along with it into failed
states and their infrastructure turned to rubble
US Attorney John Durham is investigating how the FBI handled their investigation of bribery
and pay-to-play allegations against the Clinton Foundation .
Notably, former FBI Director James Comey's family
supported Clinton in the 2016 US election, while the wife of his #2, Andrew McCabe,
received roughly
$700,000 from Clinton allies in her failed bid for Virginia state office - all while the
FBI was handling the Clinton Foundation investigation.
In a Thursday report by the New
York Times that mounts a robust, editorialized defense of Clintonworld ('Durham's probe is
politically charged' - 'Durham is chasing down conspiracy theories,' etc) - we learn that
Durham has sought documents and interviews about how the FBI handled allegations of political
corruption at the Clinton Foundation .
Recall that nothing ever came of revelations that the Hillary Clinton-led State Department
authorized $151 billion in Pentagon-brokered deals to 16 countries that donated to the Clinton
Foundation - a 145% increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame
during the Bush administration, according to
IBTimes .
American defense contractors also donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton
was secretary of state and in some cases made personal payments to Bill Clinton for speaking
engagements. Such firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion
worth of Pentagon-negotiated deals that were authorized by the Clinton State Department
between 2009 and 2012. -
IBTimes
Then there was that $1 million check Qatar reportedly gave
Bill Clinton for his birthday in 2012, which the charity confirmed it
accepted . Coincidentally, we're sure, Qatar was one of the countries which gained State
Department clearance to buy US weapons while Clinton was Secretary of State, "even as the
department signaled them out of a range of alleged ills," according to IBTimes.
Then there was $145 million donated to
the Foundation from parties linked to the Uranium One deal prior to its approval through a
rubber-stamp committee .
"The committee almost never met, and when it deliberated it was usually at a fairly low
bureaucratic level," Richard Perle said. Perle, who has worked for the Reagan, Clinton and
both Bush administrations added, " I think it's a bit of a joke. " –
CBS
The Clinton Foundation, meanwhile, told the NY Times that it "has regularly been subjected
to baseless, politically motivated allegations, and time after time these allegations have been
proven false."
Oddly, however, donations to the foundation plummeted
90% after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election - which would be odd if it wasn't a
pay-for-play enterprise.
The Clinton Foundation operated as a foreign agent 'early in its life' and 'throughout it's
existence' and did not operate as a 501c3 charitable foundation as required, and is not
entitled to its status as a nonprofit, alleged two highly qualified forensic investigators,
accompanied by three other investigators, said in explosive testimony Thursday to the House
Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
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...
Doyle and Moynihan have amassed 6,000 documents in their nearly two-year investigation
through their private firm MDA Analytics LLC. The documents were turned over more than a year
and a half ago to the IRS, according to John Solomon, who first published the report last week
in
The Hill.
" The investigation clearly demonstrates that the foundation was not a charitable
organization per se, but in point of fact was a closely held family partnership ," said
Doyle, who formerly worked on Wall Street and has been involved with finance for the last ten
years conducting investigations.
"As such it was governed in a fashion in which it sought in large measure to advance the
personal interests of its principals as detailed within the financial analysis of this
submission and further confirmed within the supporting documentation and evidence
section."
Will Durham's inquiry into the FBI's handling of the Clinton Foundation result in anything?
If recent history is any indicator, don't hold your breath.
By now, readers are no doubt familiar with the sight of angry mobs smashing windows, looting
stores, and harassing pedestrians and street diners around the country , supposedly in the name
of advocating for the rights of black Americans. Around the country, these mobs are diverse and
have diverse motives, ranging from simply wanting to loot and get free stuff to being driven by
deeply held ideological beliefs. However, one can't help but notice that in many places a
significant number of those causing disturbances are not the subjects of the state oppression
in question, but are often white and sometimes even affluent, and as a result are almost
completely isolated from the consequences of their destructive sprees.
Portland, site of over a hundred straight days of protests and often violent rioting, seems
like the poster child for this phenomenon. Portland is, in fact, the whitest big city in the US.
In New York City, the Daily Mail
reported on the recent arrest of seven members of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, a
revolutionary Maoist group, after a rioting spree that caused at least $100,000 in damages.
Every one of them appears to be white from their mugshots , and among them are an art director
who has done work for Pepsi and Samsung, a model and actress, and the son of famous comic book
writers. The New York Post profiled one
rioter, twenty-year-old Clara Kraebber, and discovered that her mother runs her own
architecture firm and her father is a psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University. The
family paid $1.8 million in 2016 for their New York City apartment and also own a home in
Connecticut with four fireplaces.
Or consider Vicky Osterweil, the white author of the much-discussed book In Defense of
Looting , who is also the daughter of a college professor. As Matt Taibbi reports in his review of the
book, "there's little evidence the author of In Defense of Looting has ever been outside" and
"she confesses to a 'personal aversion to violence,' lamenting a 'refusal to attack property'
that 'does not lessen the degree to which I benefit from systems of domination.'" In Taibbi's
words "this is a 288-page book written by a Very Online Person in support of the idea that
other people should loot, riot, and burn things in the real world."
Rioting by the affluent is not limited to white people either. Consider the
case of the two nonwhite attorneys, one of whom received his law degree at Princeton, whose
arrest for throwing a molotov cocktail at a riot in New York City made the headlines precisely
because of their high-status, well-paying jobs.
What all of these examples have in common is that the rioting and destruction, or advocacy
for the same, is being perpetrated by people who have no skin in the game and will not be
exposed to the long-term consequences for the people and communities that they are ostensibly
trying to help. Neighborhoods that suffer through riots often
end up economically depressed for decades to come, but people like Clara Kraebber will not
have to worry about such things.
In the last century, there has been a great deal of scholarship attempting to discover the
roots of these kinds of widespread revolutionary movements. In Liberalism , Mises discusses the
idea of a Fourier complex, where antiliberal revolutionary ideas are adopted by people as a
means of dealing with their own inadequacy in the face of reality. Political theorist Eric
Voegelin (who attended Mises's Vienna seminars) also posits a similar, though more complex,
explanation with his theory of gnosticism.
The classically liberal sociologist Helmut Schoeck also makes a similar argument in his book
Envy . Envy, Schoeck
argues, stems from an individual's reaction to a personal inadequacy and a desire to find a way
to shift the blame to anyone or anything other than himself. Like Mises and Voegelin, Schoeck
explores the ways in which this attitude is detrimental to society, but he also explores why
some people engaged in revolutionary movements are themselves well off and not members of the
toiling masses they seek to "liberate."
In these cases Schoeck argues that such people are not afflicted with envy, but rather with
a fear of envy or the guilt of being unequal. He argues that "the guilt-tinged fear of being
thought unequal is very deeply ingrained in the human psyche," and that it can be observed
everywhere from offices to schools in the way in which people who excel at something will
consciously or unconsciously lower their performance. This phenomenon is unfortunate enough
when it comes to the workplace, but when it comes to politics the consequences can be much more
serious.
Schoeck argues that such guilt may lead a person to forgo their old life in order to serve
the less fortunate but that many times such a person does not seek to extirpate their guilt by
leaving their own comfortable station, but rather by insisting that the entire world must join
them in eradicating inequality. In his words "I have no doubt that one of the most important
motives for joining an egalitarian political movement is this anxious sense of guilt: 'Let us
set up a society where no one is envious.'"
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No doubt even Schoeck would be impressed by the degree to which our current upheavals are
driven by those wracked with the guilt of being unequal rather than those filled with envy
itself. To be sure, there is no shortage of such envious people running around these days, but
there can be no doubt about which group is the driving force.
Hopefully, as social life slowly returns to normal and as the weather gets colder, the
guilt-ridden rich kids will tire out from playacting as revolutionaries and return home. But
until then, it seems that the rest of us will be forced to suffer as they work out their
psychological problems through some window-smashing therapy.
DEDA CVETKO , 2 hours ago
Just a friendly reminder to the author of the article:
Some of the most vicious and violent revolutionaries throughout human history were the
scions of aristocracy or descendants of extremely rich and affluent families: Jean-Paul
Marat, Girolamo Savonarola, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro, Sun Yat-Sen,
Che Guevara, Louis Auguste Blanqui, Oliver Cromwell, Friedrich Engels, etc, etc....all
either came from the very rich family background or descended from the blue-bloods and
nobility. Mao Zedong's father was one of the richest farmers in all of China, just as
Trotsky's dad was one of the richest farmers in Russian Ukraine. Mohandas Gandhi was a
brahmin. Count Mirabeau was a, well...count. Ataturk's father was one of the richest people
in Salonica, Greece. Louis Philippe II - who sided with Robespierre - was of the royal
blood, the first cousin of Louis XVI whose trial and execution he personally endorsed and
supported. And, oh....lest I forget...Nelson Mandela was no slouch in the class pedigree
department, either.
I could go on forever and ever.
In fact, impoverished and pauperized revolutionaries were always but a tiny subset of
the revolutionary class. People like Stalin, Gramsci or Tito were always an aberrant group,
an exception to the general rule.
One can probably write a very thick tome about the rich and aristocratic abandoning
their social stratus in order to side with the dispossessed and disenfranchised. This is
far from being a new and heretofore unknown phenomenon.
I am leaving it to the historians and political psychologists to explain why this is so.
Personally, I think that the inherent cynicism and hypocrisy of their own families is a
perfectly good reason to switch sides. Another possible reason is that the poor and hungry
people are typically too busy surviving and feeding themselves to be organizing violent
overthrow of the ruling class.
truth hound , 1 hour ago
They are knowingly in on the psyop. By DECEPTION, though shalt do war.
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
Possibly some but definitely not all. It would require a much more detailed
psychological profile to figure out what went on in these people's heads. I myself am just
visiting this cluster**** of galaxies, what the fvck do I know about how and why the humans
behave?
Blue_Rock , 1 hour ago
A very good post. I will add anger and rebellion by the youths. The realization that
they somehow don't measure up and that they might not be able to use that gender studies
lesbian basket weaving diploma to get ahead. I have personally seen more than one inherited
fortune lost and business run into the ground by spoiled entitled heirs.
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
I have personally seen more than one inherited fortune lost and business run into the
ground by spoiled entitled heirs.
This is the Law of Entropy on display: each subsequent iteration is only a paler and
paler version of the preceding one. This is why the caste and class-based societies can't
endure forever: the forces and ideas that guide them simply aren't genetically suited to
perpetuate themselves in their original, integral form. Sooner or later, the integrity of
the founding father(s) dissipates into degeneration and devolution.
algol_dog , 2 hours ago
An interesting note to history. The initiators of these movements are the first to go
once the new regime takes over. Once the new leaders get in charge they realize the danger
of having them around and quickly dispense with them. Examples being the Stalin purges and
Hitler's breaking of the SA.
Utopia Planitia , 2 hours ago
"What's With The Rich-Kid Revolutionaries?"
Safe spaces, exclusively female teachers, participation trophies, no siblings (nobody to
kick you in the face growing up when you are being an asswipe), never a harsh word, no
discipline, constantly being told you are "special", etc. etc. That's just a start.
not dead yet , 1 hour ago
Long before there were the things you mentioned there were rich kids doing rioting and
looting. Back in the sixties it was rich kids made to feel guilty about being rich by their
commie professors. Came from good families with a decent upbringing gone bad by propaganda.
Same kids would go home during breaks and argue with their families how they made their
money off the backs of the workers. Typical commie stuff. Unlike today back then they made
bombs and blew stuff up killing people with many of the bomb makers rich kids. Robberies
for the cause. The parents of the slimy San Francisco DA are serving life for killing a
guard while robbing an armored car. Idiot was then raised by Bill Ayers after his parents
were arrested.
motley331 , 3 hours ago
ALL of these people are useful idiots for the likes of Soros...
truthseeker47 , 1 hour ago
Leader of the violent Weather Underground and self-described communist revolutionary
Bill Ayers came from a very upper class suburban Chicago family.
Ignant Bastad , 1 hour ago
neglected and unloved as a child, so he spends his life "getting back at" his parents?
just a guess.
PGR88 , 2 hours ago
More importantly, those rich white kids out there burning 7-11s downtown are displaying
yet more entitlement. They've never faced consequences their whole life. Imagine if some
counter-protestor swung a bat at them, or small businessman defending his property shot
them? It would be an quick education in consequences.
play_arrow
Arctic_Fox , 1 hour ago
When they don't get shot, it's another manifestation of their white-assed privilege.
Plus, Progressive mayors tell the cops not to play hardball with the rioters, and even
if a few get busted the Soros-backed DA drops charges. Then if it does go to court, some
faculty lounge kook is on the bench as judge, and there are OJ juries to nullify the
prosecution... so they walk.
Privilege from start to finish...
Kind of makes you wonder why we even bother with this government-thing.
hoffstetter , 2 hours ago
People learn from their friends. I know tech millionaires that don't have a clue about
what's going on outside their own circle jerk echo chamber of "friends" that repeat leftist
talking points as if they were Catholics reciting the rosary. Occasionally, I get one to
admit that the stuff they're spouting is completely unsupported after tossing them a few
videos or transcripts that contradict what they thought was reality, but they just find
something else to which they can redirect that is completely unsupported and irrefutable as
it's nonexistent. These aren't kids. They've been around for decades but never left their
cubicles or their monitors and were extremely competent in their jobs, so now they think
they know everything because they knew one thing. It's extremely common.
hmmmm , 2 hours ago
Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains why a disproportionate amount of shallow thinking
rich kids are involved in such causes. Regular folks are not focused on self
actualization.
charlie_don't_surf , 2 hours ago
They are unaccomplished jealous little a-holes that can only tear down others to pretend
to elevate themselves.
Why123 , 2 hours ago
Alexis De Tocqueville analyzed the United States in the early 19th century, before
Germany was a country under the Kaisers. He predicted that the United States and Russia
would be the world's superpowers in the 20th century. With respect to the United States, he
predicted that we would be a preeminent superpower because 1) we didn't have permanent
concentrations of wealth (for example, if a rich guy had six kids, his plantation would be
evenly distributed in at least two generations) and 2) we focused exclusively on practical
education, not the theoretical ******** that dominated European academia, and which could
only benefit the aristocracy and absurdly intelligent proles (think Euclid or Gauss). With
respect to both Russia and the United States, he saw that both populations had the capacity
to sacrifice and overcome adversity (although different types of adversity). Those
advantages have been eviscerated. We don't focus on practical education. We have permanent,
feudal levels, of wealth, and the population has no will to sacrifice. The university
system and institutionalization of the United States was fundamental towards achieving
those aims.
It comes down to the needs of every human being, rich or poor, to feel achievement and
the specific needs of the rich. These kids have real money because they own assets that
replicate more money, without work. I won't get into tax, trade and immigration policies
that take an already advantageous position enjoyed by these pricks to the next level of
oligarchy. But that isn't enough. You have to impose your value system and "skills" as the
objective value system. You see, these kids want the advantage of the wealth, but they want
to demolish the path to achieving wealth by others. The university system has to be the
ONLY functioning economic path. What would happen if kids knew from a young age that the
name of the game is to save and acquire asserts, and all other pursuits are meaningless? Do
you think we would have a student loan problem? Do you think we would have an inequality
problem? The answer is a resounding "no." The education system is designed to destroy. It
blinds you to this indisputable truth. There are people who see through the BS though (more
on this later). As long as there is some freedom, these problem will rise up the dominance
hierarchy. These rich kids don't like that. These rich kids and their academic professors
deeply resent that. This is why they have to tear down the system. Their privilege will be
preserved, but the rest of the population will be enslaved. If they have their way, every
single young person in the United Stares will have the "benefit" of attending university
and having a "fulfilling career." Well have people in school until their thirties, learning
useless crap, and in permanent debt bondage. This cements the rich kids' status,
Anecdotally, I was speaking to friends from high school. Most of us are professionals.
Some work in law enforcement, some work as engineers, some as lawyers, a few unionized
tradespeople and one doctor. The unionized trades people blow all of us out of the water,
but that's not the startling thing. One of our friends went straight to work at 16. He's
not even a real "tradesman." His father, mother, three sister and himself worked three jobs
and saved aggressively. They bought a first multifamily in 2005. They now have 70
buildings. The first building, as my one friend put it, "caused a snowballs effect." That's
the American way. That's the American dream. The American dream is not going to school
until you are in your fu**** late twenties or mid thirties to go churn and burn on a W-2.
For the prick with an inheritance, that may be useful because he or she has wealth, and he
or she can, especially in light of Boomer cultural norms, pretend that the source of wealth
is the education, but deep inside they know the truth, and they resent the system because
it still allows it and a small number of people manage to rise as a result. These people
are at the top of the food chain. This offends these rich university assholes.
I chuckled when my friend who works for Homeland Security (Democrat) and my friend who
works as an engineer for the Defense Industry (Republican) both stated "why didn't they
teach us that in school?" Rofl. The point of the schools is that so you don't know the
source of success. The point of school is to cement the rich kids advantage and destroy
you. This causes a dual resentment: the poor kids feel resentment because they see they
were sold a bag of goods and the rich kid feels resentment because he or she can't pretend
the success is self induced.
I'll leave everyone with this: Donald Trump was called a racist, rapist, crook, liar,
etc by Clinton in the 2016 campaign. That didn't bother him. The only thing that got him
angry, ever, was when Clinton said he inherited money, which was the only thing that was
true.
Dying-Of-The-Light , 2 hours ago
Kind of ironic that you have the thick-as-shxt, criminal end of blacks who want lots of
bling without working for it, marching with middle class whites who have all the toys these
blacks want. A real match made in hell. The sooner these black and white retards are given
long prison sentences the better.
createnewaccount , 2 hours ago
Ironic? Maybe for the moment but watch this space, I expect the old Minsky quote also
applies to the body politic.
" stability breeds instability "
-Hyman Minsky
Eastern Whale , 2 hours ago
The US government especially Trump, Pompeo and Nancy Pelosi seem to like the "peaceful"
violence in Hong Kong. Nancy Pelosi even coined it a ""a beautiful sight to behold".
What goes around comes around, beware of what you are promoting overseas. Violence and
War all in the name of WMD, Democracy and National Security.
Herodotus , 3 hours ago
Same thing was going on in 1968.
Also, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were rich kid revolutionaries.
fackbankz , 3 hours ago
George Washington was not from a particularly rich family. Jefferson was though.
Jack's Raging Bile Duct , 1 hour ago
It's pretty simple. Rich kids are idle, don't understand the value of anything, and
commonly lazy. This is fertile ground for half-baked ideologies that run h
awesomepic4u , 3 hours ago
Revolutionary leftism is
contemporary Western society's operating definition of nobility and heroism. Social elites
have always justified themselves as being the people who fully live up to the ideal, and
their young men in particular are supposed to earn their aristocratic honors by being the
ones who run towards both good and evil rather than shrinking from them. Violence gets
justified as being the ultimate test of personal commitment to an ideal, and it's a short
road from there to arguing that violence must therefore be virtuous in itself.
If these kids feel guilty of anything, they feel guilty of sitting in classrooms and
offices rather than exercising their powers to the fullest. A moral crusade with lots of
opportunities for adrenaline-soaked adventure is an irresistible temptation.
Cheap Chinese Crap , 1 hour ago
I forget the exact context but I remember the story about an American couple who
wondered if they should send their kids to an American or British university.
"That depends," their British friend replied,"on whether you want them back as radicals
or homosexuals."
Now you get both.
sbin , 2 hours ago
Would be fun to move those BLM white tards to the real black neighborhoods.
Would produce a lot of racists.
My black friends do not want to live in a black majority neighborhood.
y_arrow
stinkypinky , 3 hours ago
Abused and angry children, lashing out at "the system" around them, being used by true
revolutionaries (Marxists). The abuse angle is key - they want all vestiges of "the power
structure" around them to be torn down, to get back at it all. Racism doesn't matter,
sexism doesn't matter, none of these causes are actually cared about one iota. They would
riot because it's Tuesday and 60 degrees outside as long as someone had a bullhorn, an
umbrella and a brick. It certainly helps that racism is a thought crime you can accuse
ANYONE OF, and it's been so loaded with meaning that it's a devastating attack of character
which can't be defended against.
Bottom line: to understand why these rich kids are rioting look to how they've been
abused.
4Y_LURKER , 2 hours ago
Yeah they are in reality human shields for the corporate apparently communist coup which
is ongoing.
1Y4NixfGQ4MbMO4f , 3 hours ago
I think they are called "Useful idiots" or more descriptive would be "Disposable
Idiots"
GRDguy , 29 seconds ago
Another generation of sociopaths, born to and indoctrined by sociopathic parents.
"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime," and a great number of victims.
smacker , 9 minutes ago
I believe there's a long history of rich kids being involved in revolutionary
conduct.
They are invariably brought up in the shadow of dominating strict rich white parents and
get to
an age where they want to cut out their own slice of life to establish themselves as
independent
individuals, not clones. Adopting political extremes and crime is an easy way to do
that.
Angular Momentum , 48 minutes ago
The industrial revolution has made life safe bland and comfortable for the middle class.
It's easy to be moral when life is easy. In rough dangerous times and places living a life
of integrity was a challenge and those who did it earned respect. But how can you be a hero
in Suburbia? By heroically challenging common sense. The stupider the cause the harder it
is to accept its ideas and thus the more heroic.
fcd443 , 58 minutes ago
Because these dipsh!ts didn't create their own wealth and they feel bad for all of their
parents/generational wealth. They don't know the first thing when it comes to creating
something and coming from nothing.
They want to feel as relevant as their priors so they do what they know best, throw a
tantrum. In this case, it's called a peaceful protest aka black lives matter.
LeftandRightareWrong , 1 hour ago
Many people just want to be relevant. Why do sites like Facebook work?
Psychological, psychiatric pandemic in full force.
darkstar7646 , 2 hours ago
Couple of ideas:
They know the game is over and that they will "fail" to live up to the legacy of
their parents, costing their families everything in the process (which see the scam
college-admissions scandals).
They are trying to provoke a reaction among the White Right Militias ( agent
provocateurs ).
They feel they can get away with anything and are actually acti
Linda Hand , 3 hours ago
The education system is infested with communists.
DancingDragon , 3 hours ago
You mean the democrat party and their MSM sycophants
Antifa and BLM are just shows with stunts designed to distract people from the level they are
fleeced by MIC and financial oligarchy. As well as restore the legitimacy of Clinton wing of
neoliberal oligarchy which was badly shaken during 2016 election, when their candidate was send
packing.
Nicholas Kristof is member of "Clinton gang of neoliberals" and a part of this effort to
distract people. The number of people who pay attention to Nicholas Kristof bloviations is
astounding. Few understand that we do not know the facts and the real issue if the tight grip of
MIC and financial oligarchy on the society. What is interesting is that s in California, there
are 8.5 million residents born outside the country and about 150,000 homeless. "The melting pot
burned over. It is now a ... salad.
For example, if money spend on wars were used to manage thoseforests with difficult terrain
and perioc drauts, would the outcome be different?
Can those fires and destruction be viewed as God punishment for war the USA unleashed? As
Thomas Jefferson said "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
BTW, the number of commenters with Russian paranoia symptom is frightening. Of course NYT
attracts specific audience, but still. In this sense NYT columnists including Nickolas Kristof
are just warmongering bottom feeders of MIC crumps. It is pathetic how he tries to hide the lack
of money for forest management and mismanagement if this issue by Oregon Dem politician under the
broad banner of "climate change" Existence of climate change does not mean that fire should burn
uncontrollably.
MIC steals half trillion dollars and then financial oligarchy steals probably another half,
if not more. What is left is not enough for proper maintenance of land, water and environment in
general. Stupid situation, but this is neoliberalism my friend, where "greed is good". And people
chose this mousetrap themselves in 1970th by electing first Carter and then Reagan and then
Clinton , allowing financial oligarchy to dismantle New Deal Capitalism. Clinton presidency was
especially destructive, In a way he should be views as the top villain in this story, a real
criminal boss.
Below I selected only more or less sane comment (which constitute probably less 1% of the
total)
Notable quotes:
"... How about a judicious Forrest management? ..."
"... So much for our useless 750 Billion dollar military budget. ..."
"... Amazing how ,close minded people become when, for them, everything is political. ..."
Wouldn't the conspiracy theories and concerns about antifa be lessened if progresses were as
vitriolic about violence committed in the name of equity, diversity and inclusion as they are
about violence committed in support of MAGA? Would the right have anything to crow about if
the NYT was as critical of physical altercations caused by social justice warriors as they
are of white supremacists? Wouldn't we all have more trust in MSM if they investigated the
facts before accusing Nick Sandman of racism or claiming a garbage pull was a noose? One
sided reporting and editorials like these fan the flames rather than squelch them.
It's amazing. You can write a column in the NY Times full of conspiracy theories -- all fully
believed by the left -- and accuse the right of being prone to believing conspiracy theories.
From Russia - collusion to rubes in the red states --a majority of dems share a set of
beliefs that are as delusional as anything a small group on the right might believe. But,
that's Kristof and the Ny Times for you.
People seemed to have lost a sense of what is plausible. While few of us know the news first
hand, we have to both trust and evaluate what is reported. Nothing is absolute. Jurors are
asked to decide cases beyond a reasonable doubt. That is how I feel taking in the news. But
within that sliver of doubt, within the fact that nothing is absolute is where conspiracy
theories begin to fester. It is where some have found solace to confirm what they want to
choose to believe despite how much there might be to question that. Events like this create
an opportunism to demonize those you hate and in doing so the essence of what we should be
debating is lost. How to prevent these fires in the first place? We will probably continue to
debate it despite the evidence on climate change, whether there is a deep state trying to
discredit Trump, whether the seriousness of covid is a hoax. Yes there is no absolute
certainty but there is taking an educated guess as opposed to an emotional response. I'll go
with the educated guess. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, I
will say it is a duck and accept that sliver of possibility I might be wrong.
Why do people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories?" It's actually quite simple. Take
QAnon for example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with
any religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while
offering a path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential
elements of cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever
you believe will be "validated." "Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories,
merely assertions. A theory is subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where
truth has no inherent monetary value, don't expect it. Why the rapid spread? To paraphrase
Bill Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability =
Profit That is the business model of the internet, a medium where "news" is whatever will
produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and until the youngest generation developes a
means of communication that does not depend on megacorporations, nothing will change. In the
Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had no honest access to the traditional media,
created its own, the "alternative press." Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their
own way to communicate that is reliable. It is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition"
becomes an actual threat to the profits of Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of
their ilk, they will be cut off.
The antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of
August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[73]
It is particularly present in the Pacific Northwest.[74] Wikipedia
In an age when the US Justice Department is anything but just, more closely resembling
something akin to "just us," I call to mind Thomas Jefferson, in a somewhat different
context: "I tremble for my country when I consider that God is just."
We spend hundred of billions of dollars every year on the types of weapons that won WWII,
while the real threat to our Republic and yes, our civilization, is ,,, It's funny and
tragic, simultaneously.
Antifa has done a lot of things. They have chosen to step into the arena. Whether they did it
or not, this is accusation is a result of wading into the fight. If Antifa doesnt like to be
accused of things and cant handle it, then Antifa should step off. Or does Antifa only want
praise? Because that isnt going to happen. Many people dont like Antifa nor trust Antifa. And
rightfully so. Ask any career criminal how many times they've been wrongfully accused of
something. If an individual or group doesnt want to be accused of things, then dont get
involved from the start.
Except that about a dozen people have been arrested and charged with starting the forest
fires. Shouting "without evidence!" doesn't make it so. Facts matter.
@JQGALT There are always people who are setting fires whether accidentally or intentionally.
Do you have any proof that these arsonists were politically motivated I any way ?
Yet the Almeda fire in Oregon that destroyed more than 2,300 homes was, according to NYT
reporting, caused by human activity and is subject of a "criminal investigation." Perhaps it
would be wise to reserve total judgment until that investigation is completed.
Who needs rumors? The organization showed what it is made of when it created its free zone in
downtown Seattle and had the highest crime and murder rate per capita in its short life in
the country.
Rational people know that Antifa is not staring forest fires. However, burning and looting
and using fireworks as weapons in the recent riots make even the dumbest claims of Trump
supporters more believable.
Leftwing activists have literally been arrested for starting some of these fires. There is
video of arsonists being caught, yet the media ignores this, and actively denies it. Gee, why
could that be?
@LV Do you have any proof that these people were were left wing activist or just the kind of
people who are always starting fires ad they have in the past ?
The [neoliberal] left spends 24/7 preaching to their choir about Trump fascists dictatorship,
an illegal government installed by a foreign power, destroying the constitution while
preparing to seize power and ignore coming election results. There is a zero factual evidence
for it, such as a refusal to follow judicial injunctions for example, but their well educated
audiences are buying it whole day long. So what is so baffling that a rural audience after
watching night after night Portland burning by arson and accompanied by "peaceful protest"
graphics on TV would buy into arson speculations and rumors and ignore your disclaimers?
Facebook needs to be regulated since it has effectively organ-harvested the critical thinking
skills of a significant portion of the population. It'd be better if thinking people simply
deleted Facebook and let Facebook shrink and become the right-wing agit-prop tool that it
truly is. Mark Zuckerberg is happy to to destabilize society with his little toy invention.
You'd think with all that money, he could afford a conscience. What a wrecking ball Facebook
is.
"All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." Ya think?
@California Scientist Amen. We are more like an international terminal at this point. A bunch
of people gathered by happenstance, heading in different directions, and often with very
little in common.
@California Scientist: It is even worse than when Adlai Stevenson noted that there aren't
enough educated people to elect a liberal government in the US.
@LV - The point is that "urbanites" aren't able to boss anyone around. It's the low
population rural areas that have outsize political power thanks to the unfortunate design of
our government. Every state gets two senators, regardless of population, and that also
factors into the allocation of Electoral College votes, so that an EC vote from WY is worth 4
times as much as an EC vote from CA, for example. In 2016, Senate Democrats got 20 million
more votes than Senate Republicans, yet Republicans kept control. In 2018, Senate Democrats
got "only" 11.5 million more votes, and consequently lost seats. We're being governed by a
minority in may areas of the country, and nationally, yet the "rural rubes" or whatever you
want to call them, insist that they don't have nearly enough power.
Strange that anyone living in or just knowing the west would NOT know that arsonists could
not burn down huge chunks of forest if they where not so very dry.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
The ugly truth of Oregon's political past is asserting itself...we aren't in "Portlandia"
anymore Nick.
Ominous! There are two information ecosystems in this country and Americans increasingly live
in different realities. Much of the media is in the business of massaging the egos of their
readers by feeding them stories that confirm their biases and make them feel clever. There is
less and less fact based news and more and more propaganda. A lot of people aren't really
interested in facts. They just want to be told how right they are and how stupid and evil the
people who disagree with them are. Media corporations are providing the market with what it
desires, and what it desires is poisonous.
There is a reptilian brain need to believe this nonsense and to propagate it- because the
believers are so terrified of the facts of the truth (and the lack of knowing what might be
done to address those facts). The people who are true believers are pointless to discuss.
They are too frightened. They need to believe this stuff. It is hopeless to address them.
Dark times, indeed.
With the natural buildup of combustible matter, combined with houses everywhere now and
little land management, these fires will happen and will cause problems. Lots of things can
start them and they will.
You left out "a century of zero-tolerance policies toward wildland fires (creating
precariously dense underbrush), and resistance to traditional controlled burning at the
human/wilderness interface". It's not the whole story, but neither is climate change which,
due to global technological leveling, is evermore the responsibility of China and India than
Western civilization. Signed, a moderate progressive endlessly frustrated with breathless
liberalism
If only there were no arsonists. Here is a video of a woman who found a man on her property
with matches in his hand (and no cigarettes, which was his excuse for having matches in his
hand). She made a citizen's arrest. This happened in peaceful Oregon. Don't listen if you
can't handle harsh language by a woman who is trying to save her property. Arson is real, and
it is no joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJW_M4pBCnY
A man was arrested for arson in Southern Oregon. His fire damaged or destroyed numerous
homes.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-charged-arson-connection-almeda-fire-southern-oregon/story?id=72960208
Rumors of antifa notwithstanding, people in Oregon were looking for arsonists because there
are arsonists.
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
"Conspiracy theories" are, for the most part, not theories, merely assertions. A theory is
subject to proof and disproof by evidence. In a world where truth has no inherent monetary
value, don't expect it. To paraphrase President Clinton, "It's the internet, Stupid!" Follow
the money: Agenda + Clickbaitability = Prominence That is the business model of the internet,
a medium where "news" is whatever will produce the most clicks. As in profit. Unless and
until the youngest generation developes a means of communication that does not depend on
megacorporations, nothing will change. In the Sixties, a generation which disbelieved and had
no honest access to the traditional media, created its own, the "alternative press."
Hopefully, today's teenagers will develope their own way to communicate that is reliable. It
is 100% guaranteed that if their "opposition" becomes an actual threat to the profits of
Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter, and the rest of their ilk, they will be cut off. As to why
people attach themselves to "conspiracy theories", it's actually quite simple. Take QAnon for
example: it is functionally just another religion competing for adherents. As with any
religion, it offers its believers an explanation of what they deem is wrong while offering a
path to right those wrongs. Certainty and simplicity: those are the essential elements of
cults/religion/bumpersticker politics. And the internet guarantees that whatever you believe
will be "validated."
" All this rumormongering leaves me feeling that the social fabric is unraveling, as if the
shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." You betcha.
(Palin doesn't look half bad compared to the current batch.) It's a simple formula: social
media driven disinformation + extreme capitalism which leaves us with no real will to address
it + legitimate grievances like racism and financial insecurity = craziness on all sides,
fanned by a president whose personal agenda takes precedence over absolutely everything. All
societies are constantly dealing with potentially destabilizing threats. Their institutions,
media, leadership, and understanding of a common good are their immune system. Ours is
compromised, we are destabilized.
How about a judicious Forrest management? We live in a period of global warming
because of our planet axis precision, aggravated by the presence of an unprecedented
population explosion needing more water, more food, the production of which needs more arable
land, cutting trees, displacing wild animals, exhausting the aquifer. Cutting trees increases
the CO2 in the atmosphere. More people in India, more cattle emitting methane, more old
fashioned way of cooking food and producing more CO2 ... Permanent frost melting also sends
more methane in the atmosphere ... The climate is extremely complex to permit exact modeling,
but it is clear that if we want to stay healthy, it is vital to regularly clear our western
forests of dead wood in order to prevent today's disaster of millions of people, particularly
children with asthma and old people breathing the heavily polluted air. It is time to move to
solar, wind power, electric trucks, cars etc. The technology is here. Let's hope that Biden
will support clean air as means to better health. If all these years instead of using
abstract terms like global warming or climate change, we have been appealing to people to
keep the air clean in order to have better health, perhaps they would have stopped buying the
behemoths cars, producing so much pollution?
As Nicholas and many readers on this page already know, this commentary is more evidence of
how needlessly and recklessly polarized our country has become. When tribal instincts push
people to look for anything - fact, fiction or fantasy - on social media or "rage commentary"
that supports and validates their identities they will glom onto it faster than maggots on
dead flesh. It is a sad state of affairs when so many people of all political persuasions
will not take the time - even a few minutes - to question and investigate the latest "truth"
being promoted. The new culture of low information consumers seems to be spreading as fast as
a pandemic despite the heroic efforts of honest journalism. I wonder if low information
consumption was so endemic to the citizens of Ancient Rome and Greece - long before Twitter,
Facebook and Rage TV? People, please take a moment to "click" one step further to see if the
latest conspiracy story is true. Why help propagate lies? It will only come back to haunt
you, or your children.
Antifa or not, at least some of the big fires have been started by arsonists. Of this fact we
have video proof. By downplaying or even denying it, the media are just as bad as the
conspiracy theorists in promoting disinformation.
This reminds me of a time when people saw "Reds" behind anything that was going wrong in the
country. Nothing new, but just as pathetically paranoid. I wonder how many people, or their
parents, fit into both groups?
Here's another urban myth. Ok, more a lefty myth. That we can just keep adding people to this
country (urban, suburban, rural, big city, anywhere and everywhere) and it won't have any
effect. With the corollary that it's just a matter of "green new deal" or everybody getting a
Prius or the dummies in the sticks realizing climate change is real and then we can just go
on like this forever. We can't. Not only is our much hated lifestyle, which from what I can
see, nobody really wants to give up, killing us, but believing 330 million Americans that add
2-3 million more a year is not a problem at all. Our entire way of life: endless population
and economic growth is unsustainable. We don't need to wait until 2050 to see it. Just step
outside.
It is very difficult to teach people that "research," doesn't mean you go to some TV show or
website you like and root around for stuff that tells you what you want to hear. One prob
seems to be really simple: it takes actual work to do it right. Another is that research,
done well, has an ugly habit of forcing you to think at least a little about whether your own
ideas make any sense. And a third is that people really, really don't like it when their
political views start getting contradicted by reality. It seems to be easier to change
reality than to change views, even a little. Oh, and another prob? Too few Americans really
read anything worth reading. I'm all for funsies (and I've probably read more crummy science
fiction than all y'all put together) but one of the joys of walking around in Paris is seeing
that the kiosks and bookstores still sell a ton of stuff on philosophy, lit, economics, and
that everywhere, people actually read them. Books teach thought. Newsmax don't.
@Beer Can Boyd: As a native-born American, I think the US fell down when the Congress put
"under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1953, ostensibly to preclude anyone thinking
about Godless communism, and gave itself a stroke.
The melting pot burned over. It is now a word salad. But appears there is a method to the
madness. It is hard for the world to tell the madness from the method
@Carolyn then there are the lies and the demonization of China and Russia by both parties to
top it off. How can voters believe anything and decide before they vote?
Supporting this atmosphere of potential violence are some of my republican friends. They are
mostly educated and not stupid. Yet they continue to support a man whom I think holds the
responsibility for most of the violence if it comes. Now I want to get down to my point about
these supporters. I believe they have succumbed to a cult-like dynamic. I say this because no
rational person could possibly support Trump. Religious cults create this same addiction and
irrationality. When my friends disagree with me, they try to put our friendship hostage to no
further discussion of politics. They are unwilling to even be confronted with objections to
their support of Trump. I have decided that I can always make new friends. What I do not want
to do is take on the task of building a new country because I stayed silent.
@Harcourt "They are mostly educated and not stupid." In my opinion, educated persons who
behave as you describe never benefited from their education. Even worse, to me it seems like
persons who behave like that are of the opinion that what they learnt in school is only for
the purpose of writing the exams they needed to pass to get out of school. It was all just
noise to them.
You nailed it. There is no longer "a shared reality" in America. So we have wildly different
views of who Joe Biden and Donald Trump are. And how serious climate change is. And whether
it's important to wear a mask. And if left-wing anarchists set forest fires. Thank you,
Internet. Thank you, social media barons who refuse to ban Russian propaganda and manipulated
videos. Thank you FCC that does not rein in Fox News and their promotion of lies. Who will
step in and stop this madness?
@CA I agree with you completely except for the refusal to stop Russian interference. We
can't. We can't unless we stop US interference in the process. The problem is that US
interference, and rumor mongering, are the business model of these platforms which happen to
be some of our largest companies. Extreme capitalism is preventing us from addressing any and
all issues propagated by these companies. Russia is just a speck.
Antifa adherents and wildfires ? Seems pretty far-fetched. Even ridiculous. But setting fire
to occupied apartment buildings in Portland ? Oh yes, definitely. It happened, and more is on
the menu, as well as municipal and federal buildings. Don't believe it ? Read the news
releases for yourself, on the Portland Police Bureau's website.
An excellent discussion of the perils of social media. Although newspapers, TV, radio,
magazines have a historical principal of "generally" telling the truth, social media has
opened up the world to every single Tom, Dick and Harry who with to spread their message. I
believe that how we, as a nation, as a species, handle social media will define what happens
over the next decade.
The state of this country is absolutely terrifying. While the shift to ever more
conservative, insular, xenophobic, coroporate-controlled government has been going on for
years, with the faux election of trump democracy is what has become fake, while common sense,
empathy, and both fiscal and environmental responsibility have virtually disappeared. The US
has gone off the deep end...
Years ago I read a science fiction short story that is unsettling in its analogy to this
situation. I starts with aliens visiting the Earth and accidently leaving behind a device
that can allow metal to be manipulated by softening it, then hardening it. The device gets
copied and mass produced. When they returned a year later, they come back and cannot fathom
how their device could have resulted in anarchy. THAT is the internet. 5 Recommend Share
Let me ask you all a question. If your neighbor told you the fire in a nearby Oregon town was
started by antifa, how would you disprove it? Since you cannot provide evidence for a
negative statement, it's difficult. There is actually some evidence that antifa did start the
fire: a voice said it on the radio, and tv showed them lighting fireworks in Portland. This
isn't very good evidence, but it is evidence, and you can't produce any evidence that antifa
did not do it (because there can't be any.) So you are in the position of asking your
neighbor to look at the quality of the evidence. This is something very few outside the legal
and scientific world are capable of. But that is all you have. Ultimately, it really does go
back to belief. How many of us could independently prove that the earth turns around the sun?
Those of us who aren't astronomers choose to accept this belief based on what we've been
told, and that's how it is with antifa starting the fires.
Kristof is afraid that fires in the West represent the new normal. The evidence suggests that
this fear is well-founded. He is concerned about the government's paralysis. That is partly
due to Trump, who stands a good chance of being reelected on November 3. He is worried about
ordinary citizens seeking oversimplified answers and finding them in the conspiracy theories
presenting the fire as the work of antifa. I am more worried about the breakdown in
credibility of news sources like the NY Times, which finds itself in competition with Fox
News and a host of online sources. Indeed, you-tube and facebook will select news stories for
you, confirming whatever bias you bring to your reading of the news. There is no guarantee
that democracy will survive. One of the things that keeps me up at night is the realization
that not only the right, but the left, is subject to oversimplified presentations of global
warming. Global warming is a consequence of too much population growth. But as we argue over
freedoms for LGBTQ minorities liberals have neglected the importance of freedom of speech.
And voices which have warned about population growth have been simply ignored by the left. It
isn't enough to shift from Fords using gasoline to Teslas running on electricity. We also
need to control population growth. The population of earth will double again by 2072 if
current rates continue. Population growth threatens to overwhelm the attempts to move to
clean energy. 2 Recommend
The scientific consensus will also conclude that not allowing wildfires to burn compounds the
problem. While what I am about to type is not science, continued development in fire prone
areas amplifies and compounds every aspect of the problem. From my perspective the system has
evolved to socializing cost and privatizing cost in every way. I don't see it getting better,
until such time as individuals are held accountable this should be considered normal.
@secular socialist dem PG&E just paid billions in fines and PLEADED GUILTY in starting
last year's Paradise fire. They also have already admitted fault in several fires started by
their faulty, untended grid. "Individuals" don't need to be held accountable unless there are
rules in place for them to follow regarding wildfire. There already are. Most already do. Why
do folks act so proud about their 'anti-science' opinion? It's not like this conversation
isn't ongoing; nobody argues that development in fire prone areas' carries risks. So does
rebuilding in Oklahoma, Florida and Louisiana..... You're right (although confused) about
socializing RISK and privatizing PROFIT. See PG&E above.
Unsure how people lighting fires directly indicates climate change is corroborated. The
fellow who was arrested in Tacoma, WA: https://thepostmillennial.com/antifa-activist-charged-for-fire-set-in-washington
Looking to past wildfires, like the one's in Montana & Idaho in 2008, 5.5 million acres
were burned and certain interest groups advocated for them to burn out because it's apart of
the natural cycle. Federal government shouldn't send assistance unless it's possibly to
communities in threat of burning, who are humans to say we ought to stop mother nature? It's
natural to let these fires burn, if you try to hinder it's course you are stopping the cycle.
Doug Terry Maryland, Washington DC metro
Sept. 20 Times Pick
Why do people believe wild stupid things more than actual facts? Partly it is because they
like the wild stupid thing more, it gives them some weird comfort. It is also because people
are busying with their lives and don't have time to gather enough information to counter the
wild rumor that flies around faster than the speed of sound. The most important aspect of
successful conspiracy theories is they impart to the person holding them the idea that they
are smarter than other people and have "cracked the code" that explains everything or a lot
of big things that people don't understand. Reading, thinking, considering and re-considering
can seem like hard work, particularly if it is foreign to one's experience and life training.
Why not just lock on to a cool idea that comes around, even if it is weird? .
This story highlights for me an equally growing problem, the "selective framing" by media
outlets on the left and right (NYT and Fox as just two examples). To read Mr Kristof's
version, you may believe that arsonists are wild figments of the unhinged radical right
imagination. To read the same story on Fox, Antifa arsonists are working their way up your
street.
"...the shared understanding of reality that is the basis for any society is eroding." And
yet reality still exist. Normally, if someone starts to exhibit the kind of behavior that
these "vigilantes" are - screaming about boogeymen, thinking people are out to get them,
engaging in aggressive behavior based on paranoid fantasies, creating self-reinforcing
delusions, becoming obsessed with baseless conspiracy theories - we would rightly diagnose
them as being mentally ill, and to the extent that they represent a danger to others, confine
them. I don't think we can afford to see this as just a time of extreme differences of
opinion. Facts, truth and reality are still actual, tangible things. And those who have
become so disassociated from them that they are stopping vehicles and hunting down their
fellow citizen need to be dealt with appropriately.
We have been witnessing the start of the Second Civil War in America. If we accept the
definition of a civil war as a conflict between factions of citizens for either secession or
control of the government--including organizations within the existing government--then we
are in the beginning stages of a Second Civil War. The question is what the level of violence
will be (not will there be violence, but how much violence). We are beginning to see
indications of that level. When naturally or accidentally caused wildfires are attributed to
one faction as a way to stoke the fires of civil violence, then physical violence between
factions is a heartbeat away simply because of the falsity and extremity of the accusations.
The era of peaceful protest has passed because of the intensity of feelings on both sides;
the anger produced when a government begins denying civil rights, e.g., Freedom of Speech and
the Right to Assemble, through legal actions where protest organizers could be charged with
sedition (see Barr's comments, 9/16/2020, NYT), which then suggests that all protests become
illegal, the fires of violence are stoked. With a heavily-armed populace on both sides,
gunfire is a hair-trigger pull away. If Trump and the Republican's intention was to remake
America in their image (I leave it to you to supply that image), they are succeeding. If
Putin's intention was to bring down America, he is succeeding. If Xi's intention was to
dominate the world, he is on that path. Vote 33 Recommend Share
... There's an old saying "Those who the gods would destroy they first make mad." I have come
to the conclusion that America has gone qute a long way down that road.
And yet, Mr. Kristoff, you never make mention of the real threat that groups like Antifa and
other radical left rioters pose to this country (forgetting about attacks on federal
buildings in Portland? Attempts to firebomb courthouses? Violence against law enforcement
officers?). No, instead it's always Trump, or Trump supporters who are your focus. I do not
know whether Antifa has been involved in any of these recent fires, but I do know that these
violent elements on the left pose a massive danger to our democracy. You are correct about
one thing, though: We should brace ourselves. It's just "what" we need to brace for that is
off mark in your article...
It's heartbreaking to watch these three West Coast states burned. For days, the sky was red
and the air was unbreathable. But the saddest part was the feeling of helplessness.
40 years ago, I hitchhiked around the Pacific Northwest during the summer after Mt. St.
Helens blew up. Mt. Rainier was ash-coated, as were the wild blueberries I often ate. Epic
and Biblical are words inadequate to describe that destruction near Mt. St. Helens, with
millions of huge, old trees blown down, piles of mud, and rivers diverted. Yet I and others
knew that eventually, that land would regrow, and it did.
I see a lot of egotism and self-love on both sides. The so-called progressives in our
community are breeding at baby boom levels, driving SUVs, and, before the pandemic, you'd see
a dozen school buses idling outside every school. Development is out of control as people
flee from the city, and people flee from here, or downsize, and breed and breed and breed.
Two years ago, we had a flash flood and our street was under water, and there was a lot of
damage all over town. Hurricane Irene in 2011 left many with over a foot of water in their
basements. And let's not even start on Sandy. My friend lives in Pensacola; their downtown
area is under three or four feet of water from Hurricane Sally. It's not just fire, it's
floods, and it's not just the GOP which is the problem...
I don't blame anyone for guarding their roads if they think arsonists are about. The
Tillamook Burn was larger and more devastating than these fires but are we to blame climate
change ? Environmentalists and Liberals who do not even live out West, who did not rely upon
Logging, placed their concerns about the Spotted Owl and Virgin Forests about the danger of
Forest Fires and the livelihood of Loggers and the Towns and Peoples who depended upon
Logging. Managed Logging of Forests is not an inherently evil act. Clearing the bush and dead
trees is not bad in and of itself. Let Logging companies responsibly manage sections of the
Forrests, let Towns clear fire breaks around their perimeters. Place large Water towers in
strategic points throughout the Forests, huge mounds of dirt/sand/gravel next to them so that
the Firefighters have what they need to fight the fires. Force developers to build houses 50
feet apart. Require fireproof roofs, require thinning of trees in housing developments.
Require volunteer Fire Departments in every neighborhood so that if they do nothing else,
they can cut a fire break, water down the grasses around their neighborhoods, chase and
extinguish embers, something/anything versus fleeing their homes without putting up a fight.
"... dry conditions exacerbated by climate change coupled with an unusual windstorm ..." May
I add that a couple of other things have also contributed to making the fires worse or making
them harder to manage? For a century or so, in California, Oregon and Washington we have not
been letting the normal, periodic fires burn. Consequently, a great deal of fuel has built up
on the forest floor. Second, folks have increasingly been building homes or even
neighborhoods in places which have historically seen such normal, periodic fires.
@Robert Yes. But now controlled burns are a bit problematic, given the droughts, the heat,
the massive fuel loads from all the dead trees. It's just so easy for the controlled burns to
get out of control.
Hi, I am from Clackamas County metro. Every time a FaceBook "Friend" (and I personally know
all of mine) posted a rumor, I tried to find the footage from any of our 4 local news
stations to depute their post but they just shared another one. One said she didn't trust KGW
8 the local NBC station and when I told her the same story was on KPTV 12, the local Fox
station. She said, "I'm just stressed"
@David Biesecker Remember that half the people are of below average intelligence. That may
answer the existence of the small percentage of conspiracy theorists. One problem is social
media provides free and outsized loudspeaker systems that enables them to find each other.
@M.i. Estner First, let me identify myself as a liberal Democrat who has a masters degree. I
find it more than disheartening when half of the country, or half of rural or not formally
educated folks are said to have low intelligent quotas, critical thinking skills or
analytical abilities. You better believe that when a highly trained Eastern Oregon
firefighter is assessing how to save peoples lives, homes and land, has to quickly act with
their many faceted skill set and are calling on abilities you or I would not be able to
fathom. Same with farmers of large pieces of complicated crops and land. Same with city
managers, librarians, and social workers for the elderly--all having low city budgets. What
about the veterinarians, doctors and nurses in rural areas? This is exactly the same as
calling Black or Hispanics people of lower intelligence. And, there are different types of
intelligence. I know a literary critic, a liberal Democrat, who doesn't have the critical
thinking skills to run her own home or raise her children. If you look, you can see these
same differences in any group. It has to do with the way people are raised, what they are
using their skill sets for, what information they are used to consuming, money, ideology,
etc...And it has to do with being devalued for growing your food, producing your meat,
chicken and eggs. I'm not excusing the violence, guns, racism and hatred. These divides have
been with us for ages. Please don't stoke the fires.
If we have a selfish federal government, then we will have selfish states and people.
Everyone is for himself or herself. No one will think about other people or public good. It
all started from the top
In 2017, 2018, and 2019 northern California's new phenomenon of forceful 40 to 60 miles per
hour winds - in Fall, no less - caused old and aging electrical equipment to malfunction. As
a consequence, too much of Santa Rosa burnt to the ground, and the entire town of Paradise
ceased to exist. This year during the heat of a hotter than usual summer following yet
another dry winter, we had dry lightning strikes from Sonoma County to Santa Clara County and
beyond.
Yes, the science is clear and you fail to mention it. The forest fires reach critical mass
and spread because of the surplus of dead or dying trees. They are there because the federal
government essentially no longer allows logging on its vast landholdings and also fails to
allow controlled burns to clean out the tinderbox. I won't bother attaching a link because
any Google search proves the point. Why focus on hysteria and rumermongering among the
Deplorables? Come on, Mr. Kristof, you were a Deplorable once (when you were a kid growing up
in the countryside) as was I. Please defend them sometimes, particularly when the actual
causes are so well documented.
@Stuck on a mountain Western States are working to clear the brush from forests where, due to
our previous incomplete understanding of forest ecology, fires were suppressed for a century.
However, the cost is astronomical and there are millions of acres left to clear. Spending
their entire forest management budgets fighting current wildfires doesn't help. We've been
doing controlled burns for decades but in many areas, they're now too dangerous. Dry forests
and a dense understory can quickly turn a "controlled burn" into a conflagration. Many
ranchers and timber companies who profit from our state and national forests seem unwilling
to pay to keep those forests healthy. People who live in or near forests mostly have incomes
too low to pay for forest management. The National Forest Service, Department of the Interior
and USDA have made some progress, but the problem is huge. Saying we can prevent forest fires
by allowing larger timber harvests is an oversimplification. No solution to this complex
issue will be simple, perfect or cheap.
Wacky conspiracy theories to explain seemingly bizarre and unusual occurrences have been
around since the dawn of human cognition. But in an electronic/social media age, these get
spread even faster than a wind-blown fire climbs a canyon hillside. Previously, they were
spread one set of ears at a time; now millions of eyes can read them every second. And that
is a major part of the problem.
As a grad student in sociology, having lived through the 60s and participated in the
counterculture, I was deeply intrigued by the social construction of reality - how we come to
share a taken-for-granted world. This is a long-standing concern within sociological social
psychology. We examined how language, interpersonal communications, media and social
structure shaped ones perception of one's self, what is real, what's important. At the time,
however, this was considered theoretical and academic. 40 years later, understanding how
Americans' realities have come to diverge is no longer armchair social science. It's urgent
and in our faces, as is the question of how can we heal this terrible fracturing of our
world?
@DeHypnotist Yes. When studying for the degree in and then teaching sociology in my early
years, I learned that, too. But, I have to admit, it's actually taken all the decades of life
since then, and now the obvious confirmation of it by this current 'reality' to actually
realize, deep down in my guts, that we 'make up' our so-called 'social reality' simply to
serve the most basic of biological requirements: the need to dominate in the deadly
completion with the other 'tribes' of our species just to survive. We are, after all, animals
like all the others, no matter how much we blab about how much 'smarter' we are.
@Alex B The primal driver, deep in the core of our brain, is usefully thought of as
"reptilian." Cold-blooded. Egoistic. Hedonistic. And, in extreme cases, narcissistic, and,
heaven forbid when all three are present...
I lived for a few years in Brazil when it was a dictatorship. The similarities between Brazil
and what is happening in the US is startling. The police were being used to quell peaceful
protesters and the justice system co-opted by authorities, fear mongering were present, just
as now in the US....
I didn't live in the US from 1977-1999, only visiting on short trips. That enabled me to see
changes in society that were slow and not seen by those residing here. And when I came back
permanently I could feel immediately a deep change....
Perhaps an apt metaphor for the "danger sign ahead" is the approach of a Category three
hurricane and it's increasing in intensity. One of the stark disconnects is between the
message in an article like this and the politicians and citizens who are little concerned
about tempering rhetoric and elevating the importance of eschewing misinformation. We are in
the Misinformation Age and the victims of a cyber war, evolving into a civil war.
@ML What is happening here? These are the beginnings of what happened in Germany in the 30s.
Over there the reason was the loss of WWI. Here, is the obvious decline of the American
lifestyle and we have not seen anything yet. The range of the economic decline is covered by
7 trillion dollars in phony money. I fervently hope and pray that is not too late to stop the
process. All men and women of goodwill have to rally to restore a sane, and one, country .
Stay safe! It is going to get worse before it gets better.
@FunkyIrishman Right on. Water is an enormous issue waiting to happen here -- and Wisconsin
is estimated to have between 10 and 20 percent of the world's fresh water (depending on how
it's calculated and whether that includes some of Lakes Michigan and Superior. A Dept. of
Climate, Weather and Water would be a logical cabinet department.
@FunkyIrishman And polluting the potable water continues sometimes by the most resolvable
modern approaches: sewers and water treatment plants. Reagan ended federal funding for sewers
leaving septic systems (and now ancient sewers) where sewers would lead to protected fresh
water. All the medicines, chemicals, and toxins seep unseen but very real into fresh and also
salt water. We are not a modern nation any more.
As Americans pause to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001 which saw almost 3,000 innocents killed in the worst terror
attack in United States history, it might also be worth contemplating the
horrific wars and foreign quagmires unleashed during the subsequent 'war on terror'.
Bush's so-called Global War on Terror targeted 'rogue states' like Saddam's Iraq, but also consistently had a focus on uprooting
and destroying al-Qaeda and other armed Islamist terror organizations (this led to the falsehood that Baathist Saddam and AQ were
in cahoots). But the idea that Washington from the start saw al-Qaeda and its affiliates as some kind of eternal enemy is largely
a myth.
Recall that the US covertly supported the Afghan mujahideen and other international jihadists throughout the 1980's Afghan-Soviet
War, the very campaign in which hardened al-Qaeda terrorists got their start. In 1999 The Guardian in a rare moment of honest
mainstream journalism warned of the Frankenstein
the CIA created -- among their ranks a terror mastermind named Osama bin Laden .
But it was all the way back in 1993 that a then classified intelligence memo warned that the very fighters the CIA previously
trained would soon turn their weapons on the US and its allies. The 'secret' document was declassified in 2009, but has remained
largely obscure in mainstream media reporting, despite being the first to contain a bombshell admission.
"support network that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to supplement the Afghan mujahidin" in the war against the Soviets,
"is now contributing experienced fighters to militant Islamic groups worldwide."
The concluding section contains the most revelatory statements, again remembering these words were written nearly
a decade before the 9/11 attacks :
US support of the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not necessarily protect US interests from attack.
...Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims' wrath. Afghan war veterans, scattered throughout the world, could
surprise the US with violence in unexpected locales.
There it is in black and white print: the United States government knew and bluntly acknowledged that the very militants
it armed and trained to the tune of hundreds
of millions of dollars would eventually turn that very training and those very weapons back on the American people .
And this was not at all a "small" or insignificant group, instead as The Guardian wrote a mere
two years before 9/11 :
American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla
warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up .
But don't think for a moment that there was ever a "lesson learned" by Washington.
Instead the CIA and other US agencies repeated the 1980s policy of arming jihadists to overthrow US enemy regimes in places like
Libya and Syria even long after the "lesson" of 9/11. As War on The Rocks recounted :
Despite the passage of time, the issues Ms. Bennett raised in her
1993 work continue to be relevant today.
This fact is a sign of the persistence of the problem of Sunni jihadism and the "wandering mujahidin." Today, of course, the problem
isn't Afghanistan but Syria. While the war there is far from over, there is already widespread nervousness, particularly in Europe,
about what will happen when the
foreign fighters return from that conflict.
Augury Unhappy Bird Watcher, State of Grave Doubt
Sept. 20
Oregon's racial demographics White alone, percent 86.7% Black or African American alone,
percent 2.2% Alabama's racial demographics White alone, percent 69.1% Black or African American
alone, percent26.8%
US diplomacy is turning into the not-so-subtle art of making demands and ultimatums, Sergey
Lavrov has lamented, as the Americans go it alone in restoring anti-Iran sanctions under a 2015
deal that no longer legally applies.
Washington's reasoning behind bringing back the UN sanctions against Iran looks
"funny," as the majority of UN Security Council members – 13 out of 15 – do
not support activating the 'snapback' mechanism, the Russian Foreign Minister said, in an
exclusive interview with the Al Arabiya news channel.
The council "clearly stated that there is no legal position or moral reasons for anything
close to the snapback and all the statements to the contrary are null and void," he
reminded his audience. The 'snapback' issue leaves Washington at loggerheads with even its
closest allies.
Earlier on Sunday, the three European signatories to the Iran deal – Germany, France
and the UK – stated the return of the sanctions will have no legal effect whatsoever.
However, the Trump administration continues to insist Washington now has the authority to
target any country breaching the "re-imposed" sanctions. For Lavrov, this is telling, in
terms of understanding the quality of US diplomacy.
The Americans lost any talent in diplomacy, unfortunately; they used to have excellent
experts, [but] now what they're doing in foreign policy is to put a demand on the table,
whether they're discussing Iran or anything else.
If their counterpart disagrees and refuses to toe the line, "they put an ultimatum, they
give a deadline and then they impose sanctions, then they make the sanctions
extra-territorial." Regrettably, the European Union also "is engaging in the same tricks
more and more," Lavrov noted.
On Saturday, Washington moved to bring back sweeping UN sanctions against Tehran, insisting
it was acting within its own right to do so as an original party to the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 pact Iran sealed with major world powers. The US left the deal
in 2018 following a decision by President Donald Trump.
"I can only remind them that they should respect the hierarchy of the American
administration, because their boss, President Trump, has personally signed an official decree
withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA," Lavrov added sarcastically.
Sanctions aside, Washington is also busy trying to prevent the lifting of the UN arms
embargo on Iran, set to expire on October 18. This endeavor doesn't make much sense either, the
Russian minister commented. "There is no such thing as an arms embargo against Iran," he
clarified. The UN Security Council reiterated the embargo will end on that date, and "there
would be no limitations whatsoever after the expiration of this timeframe."
A very good article. A better title would be "How neoliberalism collapsed" Any religious doctrine sonner or later collased
under the weight of corruption of its prisets and unrealistic assumptions about the society. Neoliberalism in no expection as in
heart it is secular religion based on deification of markets.
He does not discuss the role of Harvard Mafiosi in destruction of Russian (and other xUSSR republics) economy in 1990th, mass
looting, empowerment of people (with pensioners experiencing WWII level of starvation) and creation of mafia capitalism on post
Soviet state. But the point he made about the process are right. Yeltsin mafia, like Yeltsin himself, were the product of USA and
GB machinations
Notable quotes:
"... If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of western victory in 1989-91 was to drown out or marginalise criticism of what was already a deeply flawed western social and economic model. In the competition with the USSR, it was above all the visible superiority of the western model that eventually destroyed Soviet communism from within. ..."
"... These beliefs interacted to produce a dominant atmosphere of "there is no alternative," which made it impossible and often in effect forbidden to conduct a proper public debate on the merits of the big western presumptions, policies or plans of the era ..."
"... This was a sentiment I encountered again and again (if not often so frankly expressed) in western establishment institutions in that era: in economic journals if it was suggested that rapid privatisation in the former USSR would lead to massive corruption, social resentment and political reaction; in security circles, if anyone dared to question the logic of Nato expansion ..."
"... Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media ..."
"... By claiming for the US the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world and denying other major powers a greater role in their regions, this strategy essentially extended the Monroe Doctrine (which effectively defined the "western hemisphere" as the US sphere of influence) to the entire planet: an ambition greater than that of any previous power. The British Empire at its height knew that it could never intervene unilaterally on the continent of Europe or in Central America. The most megalomaniac of European rulers understood that other great powers with influence in their own areas of the world would always exist. ..."
"... "A stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values" ..."
"... Many liberals gave the impression of complete indifference to the resulting immiseration of the Russian population in these years. At a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington that I attended later, former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar boasted to an applauding US audience of how he had destroyed the Russian military industrial complex. The fact that this also destroyed the livelihoods of tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians was not mentioned. ..."
"... This attitude was fed by contempt on the part of the educated classes of Moscow and St Petersburg for ordinary Russians, who were dubbed Homo Sovieticus and treated as an inferior species whose loathsome culture was preventing the liberal elites from taking their rightful place among the "civilised" nations of the west. This frame of mind was reminiscent of the traditional attitude of white elites in Latin America towards the Indio and Mestizo majorities in their countries. ..."
"... I vividly remember one Russian liberal journalist state his desire to fire machine guns into crowds of elderly Russians who joined Communist demonstrations to protest about the collapse of their pensions. The response of the western journalists present was that this was perhaps a little bit excessive, but to be excused since the basic sentiment was correct. ..."
"... If the post-Cold War world order was a form of US imperialism, it now looks like an empire in which rot in the over-extended periphery has spread to the core. The economic and social patterns of 1990s Russia and Ukraine have come back to haunt the west, though so far thank God in milder form. The massive looting of Russian state property and the systematic evasion of taxes by Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs was only possible with the help of western banks, which transferred the proceeds to the west and the Caribbean. This crime was euphemised in the western discourse (naturally including the Economist ) as "capital flight." ..."
"... The indifference of Russian elites to the suffering of the Russian population has found a milder echo in the neglect of former industrial regions across Britain, Western Europe and the US that did so much to produce the votes for Brexit, for Trump and for populist nationalist parties in Europe. The catastrophic plunge in Russian male life expectancy in the 1990s has found its echo in the unprecedented decline in white working-class male life expectancy in the US. ..."
"... Perhaps the greatest lesson of the period after the last Cold War is that in the end, a stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values. ..."
"... Those analysing the connection between Russia and Trump's administration have looked in the wrong place. The explanation of Trump's success is not that Putin somehow mesmerised American voters in 2016. It is that populations abandoned by their elites are liable to extreme political responses; and that societies whose economic elites have turned ethics into a joke should not be surprised if their political leaders too become scoundrels. ..."
A s the US prepares to plunge into a new cold war with China in which its chances do not
look good, it's an appropriate time to examine how we went so badly wrong after "victory" in
the last Cold War. Looking back 30 years from the grim perspective of 2020, it is a challenge
even for those who were adults at the time to remember just how triumphant the west appeared in
the wake of the collapse of Soviet communism and the break-up of the USSR itself.
Today, of the rich fruits promised by that great victory, only wretched fragments remain.
The much-vaunted "peace dividend," savings from military spending, was squandered. The
opportunity to use the resources freed up to spread prosperity and deal with urgent social
problems was wasted, and -- even worse -- the US military budget is today higher than ever.
Attempts to mitigate the apocalyptic threat of climate change have fallen far short of what the
scientific consensus deems to be urgently necessary. The chance to solve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stabilise the Middle East was thrown away even before 9/11 and
the disastrous US response. The lauded "new world order" of international harmony and
co-operation -- heralded by the elder George Bush after the first Gulf War -- is a tragic joke.
Britain's European dream has been destroyed, and geopolitical stability on the European
continent has been lost due chiefly to new and mostly unnecessary tension with Moscow. The one
previously solid-seeming achievement, the democratisation of Eastern Europe, is looking
questionable, as Poland and Hungary (see Samira Shackle, p20) sink into semi-authoritarian
nationalism.
Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited
role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of
influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual we
tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of
arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which
western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and
endangering the world.
One of the most malign effects of western victory in 1989-91 was to drown out or marginalise
criticism of what was already a deeply flawed western social and economic model. In the
competition with the USSR, it was above all the visible superiority of the western model that
eventually destroyed Soviet communism from within. Today, the superiority of the western model
to the Chinese model is not nearly so evident to most of the world's population; and it is on
successful western domestic reform that victory in the competition with China will depend.
Hubris
Western triumph and western failure were deeply intertwined. The very completeness of the
western victory both obscured its nature and legitimised all the western policies of the day,
including ones that had nothing to do with the victory over the USSR, and some that proved
utterly disastrous.
As Alexander Zevin has written of the house journal of Anglo-American elites, the
revolutions in Eastern Europe "turbocharged the neoliberal dynamic at the Economist ,
and seemed to stamp it with an almost providential seal." In retrospect, the magazine's 1990s
covers have a tragicomic appearance, reflecting a degree of faith in the rightness and
righteousness of neoliberal capitalism more appropriate to a religious cult.
These beliefs interacted to produce a dominant atmosphere of "there is no alternative,"
which made it impossible and often in effect forbidden to conduct a proper public debate on the
merits of the big western presumptions, policies or plans of the era. As a German official told
me when I expressed some doubt about the wisdom of rapid EU enlargement, "In my ministry we are
not even allowed to think about that."
This was a sentiment I encountered again and again (if not often so frankly expressed) in
western establishment institutions in that era: in economic journals if it was suggested that
rapid privatisation in the former USSR would lead to massive corruption, social resentment and
political reaction; in security circles, if anyone dared to question the logic of Nato
expansion; and almost anywhere if it was pointed out that the looting of former Soviet
republics was being assiduously encouraged and profited from by western banks, and regarded
with benign indifference by western governments.
The atmosphere of the time is (nowadays notoriously) summed up in Francis Fukuyama's The
End of History , which essentially predicted that western liberal capitalist democracy
would now be the only valid and successful economic and political model for all time. In fact,
what victory in the Cold War ended was not history but the study of history by western
elites.
"The US claiming the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world was an
ambition greater than that of any previous power"
A curious feature of 1990s capitalist utopian thought was that it misunderstood the
essential nature of capitalism, as revealed by its real (as opposed to faith-based) history.
One is tempted to say that Fukuyama should have paid more attention to Karl Marx and a famous
passage in The Communist Manifesto :
"The bourgeoisie [ie capitalism] cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole
relations of society All fixed, fast-frozen relations with their train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and opinions, are swept away; all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can
ossify the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market drawn from under the
feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old established national industries
have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed "
Then again, Marx himself made exactly the same mistake in his portrayal of a permanent
socialist utopia after the overthrow of capitalism. The point is that utopias, being perfect,
are unchanging, whereas continuous and radical change, driven by technological development, is
at the heart of capitalism -- and, according to Marx, of the whole course of human history. Of
course, those who believed in a permanently successful US "Goldilocks economy" -- not too hot,
and not too cold -- also managed to forget 300 years of periodic capitalist economic
crises.
Though much mocked at the time, Fukuyama's vision came to dominate western thinking. This
was summed up in the universally employed but absurd phrases "Getting to Denmark" (as if Russia
and China were ever going to resemble Denmark) and "The path to democracy and the free
market" (my italics), which became the mantra of the new and lucrative academic-bureaucratic
field of "transitionology." Absurd, because the merest glance at modern history reveals
multiple different "paths" to -- and away from -- democracy and capitalism, not to mention
myriad routes that have veered towards one at the same time as swerving away from the
other.
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history.
This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in
April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central message was:
"The US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds
the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or
pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests We must maintain the
mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global
role "
By claiming for the US the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world and
denying other major powers a greater role in their regions, this strategy essentially extended
the Monroe Doctrine (which effectively defined the "western hemisphere" as the US sphere of
influence) to the entire planet: an ambition greater than that of any previous power. The
British Empire at its height knew that it could never intervene unilaterally on the continent
of Europe or in Central America. The most megalomaniac of European rulers understood that other
great powers with influence in their own areas of the world would always exist.
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites would
couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush declared in
his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to the invasion of
Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided into two armed camps
now recognises one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America."
Nemesis
Triumphalism led US policymakers, and their transatlantic followers, to forget one cardinal
truth about geopolitical and military power: that in the end it is not global and absolute, but
local and relative. It is the amount of force or influence a state wants to bring to bear in a
particular place and on a -particular issue, relative to the power that a rival state is
willing and able to bring to bear. The truth of this has been shown repeatedly over the past
generation. For all America's overwhelming superiority on paper, it has turned out that many
countries have greater strength than the US in particular places: Russia in Georgia and
Ukraine, Russia and Iran in Syria, China in the South China Sea, and even Pakistan in southern
Afghanistan.
American over-confidence, accepted by many Europeans and many Britons especially, left the
US in a severely weakened condition to conduct what should have been clear as far back as the
1990s to be the great competition of the future -- that between Washington and Beijing.
On the one hand, American moves to extend Nato to the Baltics and then (abortively) on to
Ukraine and Georgia, and to abolish Russian influence and destroy Russian allies in the Middle
East, inevitably produced a fierce and largely successful Russian nationalist reaction. Within
Russia, the US threat to its national interests helped to consolidate and legitimise Putin's
control. Internationally, it ensured that Russia would swallow its deep-seated fears of China
and become a valuable partner of Beijing.
On the other hand, the benign and neglectful way in which Washington regarded the rise of
China in the generation after the Cold War (for example, the blithe decision to allow China to
join the World Trade Organisation) was also rooted in ideological arrogance. Western
triumphalism meant that most of the US elites were convinced that as a result of economic
growth, the Chinese Communist state would either democratise or be overthrown; and that China
would eventually have to adopt the western version of economics or fail economically. This was
coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be predicated on China accepting a
so-called "rules-based" international order in which the US set the rules while also being free
to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody with the slightest knowledge of Chinese
history should
have believed.
Throughout, the US establishment discourse (Democrat as much as Republican) has sought to
legitimise American global hegemony by invoking the promotion of liberal democracy. At the same
time, the supposedly intrinsic connection between economic change, democracy and peace was
rationalised by cheerleaders such as the New York Times 's indefatigable Thomas
Friedman, who advanced the (always absurd, and now flatly and repeatedly falsified) "Golden
Arches theory of Conflict
Prevention." This vulgarised version of Democratic Peace Theory pointed out that two countries
with McDonald's franchises had never been to war. The humble and greasy American burger was
turned into a world-historical symbol of the buoyant modern middle classes with too much to
lose to countenance war.
Various equally hollow theories postulated cast-iron connections between free markets and
guaranteed property rights on the one hand, and universal political rights and freedoms on the
other, despite the fact that even within the west, much of political history can be
characterised as the fraught and complex brokering of accommodations between these two sets of
things.
And indeed, since the 1990s democracy has not advanced in the world as a whole, and belief
in the US promotion of democracy has been discredited by US patronage of the authoritarian and
semi-authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India and elsewhere. Of the predominantly
Middle Eastern and South Asian students whom I teach at Georgetown University in Qatar, not one
-- even among the liberals -- believes that the US is sincerely committed to spreading
democracy; and, given their own regions' recent history, there is absolutely no reason why they
should believe this.
The one great triumph of democratisation coupled with free market reform was -- or appeared
to be -- in the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, and this success was
endlessly cited as the model for political and economic reform across
the globe.
But the portrayal of East European reform in the west failed to recognise the central role
of local nationalism. Once again, to talk of this at the time was to find oneself in effect
excluded from polite society, because to do so called into question the self-evident
superiority and universal appeal of liberal reform. The overwhelming belief of western
establishments was that nationalism was a superstition that was fast losing its hold on people
who, given the choice, could everywhere be relied on to act like rational consumers, rather
than citizens rooted in one particular land.
The more excitable technocrats imagined that nation state itself (except the US of course)
was destined to wither away. This was also the picture reflected back to western observers and
analysts by liberal reformers across the region, who whether or not they were genuinely
convinced of this, knew what their western sponsors wanted to hear. Western economic and
cultural hegemony produced a sort of mirror game, a copulation of illusions in which local
informants provided false images to the west, which then reflected them back to the east, and
so on.
Always the nation
Yet one did not have to travel far outside the centres of Eastern European cities to find
large parts of populations outraged by the moral and cultural changes ordained by the EU, the
collapse of social services, and the (western-indulged) seizure of public property by former
communist elites. So why did Eastern Europeans swallow the whole western liberal package of the
time? They did so precisely because of their nationalism, which persuaded them that if they did
not pay the cultural and economic price of entry into the EU and Nato, they would sooner or
later fall back under the dreaded hegemony of Moscow. For them, unwanted reform was the price
that the nation had to pay for US protection. Not surprisingly, once membership of these
institutions was secured, a powerful populist and nationalist backlash set in.
Western blindness to the power of nationalism has had several bad consequences for western
policy, and the cohesion of "the west." In Eastern Europe, it would in time lead to the
politically almost insane decision of the EU to try to order the local peoples, with their
deeply-rooted ethnic nationalism and bitter memories of outside dictation, to accept large
numbers of Muslim refugees. The backlash then became conjoined with the populist reactions in
Western Europe, which led to Brexit and the sharp decline of centrist parties across the
EU.
More widely, this blindness to the power of nationalism led the US grossly to underestimate
the power of nationalist sentiment in Russia, China and Iran, and contributed to the US attempt
to use "democratisation" as a means to overthrow their regimes. All that this has succeeded in
doing is to help the regimes concerned turn nationalist sentiment against local liberals, by
accusing them of being US stooges.
"A stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on
some minimal moral values"
Russian liberals in the 1990s were mostly not really US agents as such, but the collapse of
Communism led some to a blind adulation of everything western and to identify unconditionally
with US policies. In terms of public image, this made them look like western lackeys; in terms
of policy, it led to the adoption of the economic "shock therapy" policies advocated by the
west. Combined with monstrous corruption and the horribly disruptive collapse of the Soviet
single market, this had a shattering effect on Russian industry and the living standards of
ordinary Russians.
Many liberals gave the impression of complete indifference to the resulting immiseration of
the Russian population in these years. At a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington
that I attended later, former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar boasted to an applauding US audience
of how he had destroyed the Russian military industrial complex. The fact that this also
destroyed the livelihoods of tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians was not mentioned.
This attitude was fed by contempt on the part of the educated classes of Moscow and St
Petersburg for ordinary Russians, who were dubbed Homo Sovieticus and treated as an
inferior species whose loathsome culture was preventing the liberal elites from taking their
rightful place among the "civilised" nations of the west. This frame of mind was reminiscent of
the traditional attitude of white elites in Latin America towards the Indio and Mestizo
majorities in their countries.
I vividly remember one Russian liberal journalist state his desire to fire machine guns into
crowds of elderly Russians who joined Communist demonstrations to protest about the collapse of
their pensions. The response of the western journalists present was that this was perhaps a
little bit excessive, but to be excused since the basic sentiment was correct.
The Russian liberals of the 1990s were crazy to reveal this contempt to the people whose
votes they needed to win. So too was Hillary Clinton, with her disdain for the "basket of
deplorables" in the 2016 election, much of the Remain camp in the years leading up to Brexit,
and indeed the European elites in the way they rammed through the Maastricht Treaty and the
euro in the 1990s.
If the post-Cold War world order was a form of US imperialism, it now looks like an empire
in which rot in the over-extended periphery has spread to the core. The economic and social
patterns of 1990s Russia and Ukraine have come back to haunt the west, though so far thank God
in milder form. The massive looting of Russian state property and the systematic evasion of
taxes by Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs was only possible with the help of western banks,
which transferred the proceeds to the west and the Caribbean. This crime was euphemised in the
western discourse (naturally including the Economist ) as "capital flight."
Peter Mandelson qualified his famous remark that the Blair government was "intensely relaxed
about people becoming filthy rich" with the words "as long as they pay their taxes." The whole
point, however, about the filthy Russian, Ukrainian, Nigerian, Pakistani and other money that
flowed to and through London was not just that so much of it was stolen, but that it was
escaping taxation, thereby harming the populations at home twice over. The infamous euphemism
"light-touch regulation" was in effect a charter
for this.
In a bitter form of poetic justice, however, "light-touch regulation" paved the way for the
2008 economic crisis in the west itself, and western economic elites too (especially in the US)
would also seize this opportunity to move their money into tax havens. This has done serious
damage to state revenues, and to the fundamental faith of ordinary people in the west that the
rich are truly subject to the same laws as them.
The indifference of Russian elites to the suffering of the Russian population has found a
milder echo in the neglect of former industrial regions across Britain, Western Europe and the
US that did so much to produce the votes for Brexit, for Trump and for populist nationalist
parties in Europe. The catastrophic plunge in Russian male life expectancy in the 1990s has
found its echo in the unprecedented decline in white working-class male life expectancy in the
US.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the period after the last Cold War is that in the end, a
stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values. To say this
to western economists, businessmen and financial journalists in the 1990s was to receive the
kindly contempt usually accorded to religious cranks. The only value recognised was shareholder
value, a currency in which the crimes of the Russian oligarchs could be excused because their
stolen companies had "added value." Any concern about duty to the Russian people as a whole, or
the fact that tolerance of these crimes would make it grotesque to demand honesty of policemen
or civil servants, were dismissed as irrelevant sentimentality.
Bringing it all back home
We in the west are living with the consequences of a generation of such attitudes. Western
financial elites have mostly not engaged in outright illegality; but then again, they usually
haven't needed to, since governments have made it easy for them to abide by the letter of the
law while tearing its spirit to pieces. We are belatedly recognising that, as Franklin Foer
wrote in the Atlantic last year: "New York, Los Angeles and Miami have joined London as
the world's most desired destinations for laundered money. This boom has enriched the American
elites who have enabled it -- and it has degraded the nation's political and social mores in
the process. While everyone else was heralding an emergent globalist world that would take on
the best values of America, [Richard] Palmer [a former CIA station chief in Moscow] had
glimpsed the dire risk of the opposite: that the values of the kleptocrats would become
America's own. This grim vision is now nearing fruition."
Those analysing the connection between Russia and Trump's administration have looked in the
wrong place. The explanation of Trump's success is not that Putin somehow mesmerised American
voters in 2016. It is that populations abandoned by their elites are liable to extreme
political responses; and that societies whose economic elites have turned ethics into a joke
should not be surprised if their political leaders too become scoundrels.
"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no
other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo
declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.
The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent
on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected
the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October
earlier this week.
The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member
of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia
opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not
discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.
... ... ...
"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The
US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman,
teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois,
tweeted.
"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.
Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might
be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.
Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement.
Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science
Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."
"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his
persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.
John Twomey, 16 August, 2020
Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US
decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries
whether they like it or not.
My Opinion, 17 August, 2020
Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't
do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.
"... Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level, some elements of the programs of socialist parties. ..."
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was
actually devoutly anti-socialist.
Yes, if was designed and supported as a tool of suppression of socialist movement. As an
instrument of suppression of socialist ideas. Still it borrowed, at least on the program level,
some elements of the programs of socialist parties.
Hitler and Mussolini were important leaders, but their movements succeeded through gaining
the favor of the middle class masses and the ruling elites. They won that favor by their
basic program. Of course neither had a formal written platform (Nazism's "unalterable" 25
Points became a joke, while Mussolini boasted about the untheoretical nature of his movement
in its early years), but their basic intentions emerged clearly from their speeches and
even more so from the style and slogans of their movements.
They proposed to exalt national power by building a dictatorially integrated national
community on the model of methods and moods familiar from World War 1. They also benefited
from being in the right countries at the right time to advance a plausible alternative
political approach
But simultaneously it tried to attract some socialists into his ranks. BTW Mussolini was the
editor-in-chief of Avante, so he was the leading figure in Italian socialist movement before
his metamorphose into a fascist. From Wikipedia:
He had become one of Italy's most prominent socialists. In September 1911, Mussolini
participated in a riot, led by socialists, against the Italian war in Libya. He bitterly
denounced Italy's "imperialist war", an action that earned him a five-month jail term.[38]
After his release, he helped expel Ivanoe Bonomi and Leonida Bissolati from the Socialist
Party, as they were two "revisionists" who had supported the war.
He was rewarded the editorship of the Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! Under his
leadership, its circulation soon rose from 20,000 to 100,000.[39] John Gunther in 1940 called
him "one of the best journalists alive"; Mussolini was a working reporter while preparing for
the March on Rome, and wrote for the Hearst News Service until 1935.[26]
Mussolini was so familiar with Marxist literature that in his own writings he would not
only quote from well-known Marxist works but also from the relatively obscure works.[40]
During this period Mussolini considered himself a Marxist and he described Marx as "the
greatest of all theorists of socialism."[41]
While the world's attention is absorbed by tectonic shifts unfolding across America as "a
perfect storm of civil war, and military
coup threatens to undo both the elections and the very foundations of the republic itself ,
something very ominous has appeared "off of the radar" of most onlookers. This something is a
financial collapse of the trans-Atlantic banks that threatens to unleash chaos upon the world.
It is this collapse that underlies the desperate efforts being made by the neo-con drive for
total war with Russia, China and other members of the growing Mutlipolar Alliance today.
In recent articles, I have mentioned that the Bank of England-led "solution" to this
oncoming financial blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives bubble is being pushed under the
cover of a "Great Global Reset" which is an ugly and desperate effort to use COVID-19 as a
cover for the imposition of
a new post-covid world order operating system. Since the new "rules" of this new system are
very similar to the 1923 Bank of England "solution" to Germany's economic chaos which
eventually required a fascist governance mechanism to impose it onto the masses, I wish to take
a deeper look at the causes and effects of Weimar Germany's completely un-necessary collapse
into hyperinflation and chaos during the period of 1919-1923.
In this essay, I will go further to examine how those same architects of hyperfinflation
came close to establishing a global bankers' dictatorship in 1933 and how that early attempt at
a New World Order was fortunately derailed through a bold fight which has been written out of
popular history books.
We will investigate in depth how a major war broke out within America led by anti-imperial
patriots in opposition to the forces of Wall Street and London's Deep State and we will examine
how this clash of paradigms came to a head in 1943-1945.
This historical study is not being conducted for entertainment, nor should this be seen as a
purely academic exercise, but is being created for the simple fact that the world is coming to
a total systemic meltdown and unless certain suppressed facts of 20 th century
history are brought to light, then those forces who have destroyed our collective memory of
what we once were will remain in the drivers seat as society is carried into a new age of
fascism and world war.
Versailles and the Destruction of Germany
Britain had been the leading hand behind the orchestration of WWI and the destruction of
the potential German-Russian-American-Ottoman alliance that had begun to take form by the late
19 th century as foolish Kaiser Wilhelm discovered (though sadly too late) when he
said: "the world will be engulfed in the most terrible of wars, the ultimate aim of which is
the ruin of Germany. England, France and Russia have conspired for our annihilation that is the
naked truth of the situation which was slowly but surely created by Edward VII".
Just as the British oligarchy managed the war, so too did they organize the reparations
conference in France which, among other things, imposed impossible debt repayments upon a
defeated Germany and created the League of Nations which was meant to become the instrument for
a "post-nation state world order". Lloyd George led the British delegation alongside his
assistant Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian), Leo Amery, Lord Robert Cecil and Lord John Maynard Keynes
who have a long term agenda to bring about a global dictatorship. All of these figures were
members of the newly emerging Round Table Movement, that had taken full control of Britain
by ousting Asquith in 1916 , and which is at the heart of today's "deep state".
After the 1918 Armistice dismantled Germany's army and navy, the once powerful nation was
now forced to pay the impossible sum of 132 billion gold marks to the victors and had to give
up territories representing 10% of its population (Alsace-Loraine, Ruhr, and North Silesia)
which made up 15% of its arable land, 12% of its livestock, 74% of its iron ore, 63% of its
zinc production, and 26% of its coal. Germany also had to give up 8000 locomotives, 225 000
railcars and all of its colonies. It was a field day of modern pillage.
Germany was left with very few options. Taxes were increased and imports were cut entirely
while exports were increased. This policy (reminiscent of the IMF austerity techniques in use
today) failed entirely as both fell 60%. Germany gave up half of its gold supply and still
barely a dent was made in the debt payments. By June 1920 the decision was made to begin a new
strategy: increase the printing press . Rather than the "miracle cure" which desperate
monetarists foolishly believed it would be, this solution resulted in an asymptotic devaluation
of the currency into hyperinflation. From June 1920 to October 1923 the money supply in
circulation skyrocketed from 68.1 gold marks to 496.6 quintillion gold marks. In June 1922, 300
marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42 trillion marks to get $1 US! Images are
still available of Germans pushing wheelbarrows of cash down the street, just to buy a stick of
butter and bread (1Kg of Bread sold for $428 billion marks in 1923).
With the currency's loss of value, industrial output fell by 50%, unemployment rose to over
30% and food intake collapsed by over half of pre-war levels. German director Fritz Lang's 1922
film Dr. Mabuse (The Gambler) exposed the insanity of German population's collapse into
speculative insanity as those who had the means began betting against the German mark in order
to protect themselves thus only helping to collapse the mark from within. This is very
reminiscent of those Americans today short selling the US dollar rather than fighting for a
systemic solution.
The dark effects of Versailles were not unknown and Germany's Nazi-stained destiny was
anything but pre-determined. It is a provable fact often left out of history books that
patriotic forces from Russia, America and Germany attempted courageously to change the tragic
trajectory of hyperinflation and fascism which WOULD HAVE prevented the rise of Hitler and WWII
had their efforts not been sabotaged.
From America itself, a new Presidential team under the leadership of William Harding quickly
reversed the pro-League of Nations agenda of the rabidly anglophile President Woodrow Wilson. A
leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip who had led in the world's largest
trade agreement in history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920 had called Wilson
"an autocrat at the inspiration of the British government." Unlike Wilson, President
Harding both supported the US-Russia trade deal and undermined the League of Nations by
re-enforcing America's sovereignty, declaring bi-lateral treaties with Russia, Hungary and
Austria outside of the league's control in 1921. The newly-formed British Roundtable Movement
in America (set up as the Council on Foreign Relations ) were not pleased.
Just as Harding was maneuvering to recognize the Soviet Union and establish an entente with
Lenin, the great president ate some "bad oysters" and died on August 2, 1923. While no autopsy
was ever conducted, his death brought a decade of Anglophile Wall Street control into America
and ended all opposition to World Government from the Presidency. This period resulted in the
speculation-driven bubble of the roaring 20s whose crash on black Friday in 1929 nearly
unleashed a fascist hell in America.
The Russia-Germany Rapallo Treaty is De-Railed
After months of organizing, leading representatives of Russia and Germany agreed to an
alternative solution to the Versailles Treaty which would have given new life to Germany's
patriots and established a powerful Russia-German friendship in Europe that would have upset
other nefarious agendas.
Under the leadership of German Industrialist and Foreign Minster Walter Rathenau, and his
counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Georgi Chicherin, the treaty was signed in Rapallo, Italy
on April 16, 1922 premised upon the forgiveness of all war debts and a renouncement of all
territorial claims from either side. The treaty said Russia and Germany would "co-operate in
a spirit of mutual goodwill in meeting the economic needs of both countries."
When Rathenau was assassinated by a terrorist cell called the Organization Consul on June
24, 1922 the success of the Rapallo Treaty lost its steam and the nation fell into a deeper
wave of chaos and money printing. The Organization Consul had taken the lead in the murder of
over 354 German political figures between 1919-1923, and when they were banned in 1922, the
group merely changed its name and morphed into other German paramilitary groups (such as the
Freikorps) becoming the military arm of the new National Socialist Party.
1923: City of London's Solution is imposed
When the hyperinflationary blowout of Germany resulted in total un-governability of the
state, a solution took the form of the Wall Street authored "Dawes Plan" which necessitated the
use of a London-trained golem by the name of Hjalmar Schacht. First introduced as Currency
Commissioner in November 1923 and soon President of the Reichsbank, Schacht's first act was to
visit Bank of England's governor Montagu Norman in London who provided Schacht a blueprint for
proceeding with Germany's restructuring. Schacht returned to "solve" the crisis with the very
same poison that caused it.
First announcing a new currency called the "rentenmark" set on a fixed value exchanging 1
trillion reichsmarks for 1 new rentenmark, Germans were robbed yet again. This new currency
would operate under "new rules" never before seen in Germany's history: Mass privatizations
resulted in Anglo-American conglomerates purchasing state enterprises. IG Farben, Thyssen,
Union Banking, Brown Brothers Harriman, Standard Oil, JP Morgan and Union Banking took control
Germany's finances, mining and industrial interests under the supervision of John Foster
Dulles, Montagu Norman, Averill Harriman and other deep state actors. This was famously exposed
in the 1961 film Judgement at Nuremburg by Stanley Kramer.
Schacht next cut credit to industries, raised taxes and imposed mass austerity on "useless
spending". 390 000 civil servants were fired, unions and collective bargaining was destroyed
and wages were slashed by 15%.
As one can imagine, this destruction of life after the hell of Versailles was intolerable
and civil unrest began to boil over in ways that even the powerful London-Wall Street bankers
(and their mercenaries) couldn't control. An enforcer was needed unhindered by the republic's
democratic institutions to force Schacht's economics onto the people. An up-and-coming rabble
rousing failed painter who had made waves in a Beerhall Putsch on November 8, 1923 was
perfect.
One Last Attempt to Save Germany
Though Hitler grew in power over the coming decade of Schachtian economics, one last
republican effort was made to prevent Germany from plunging into a fascist hell in the form of
the November 1932 election victory of
General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor of Germany . Schleicher had been a co-architect
of Rapallo alongside Rathenau a decade earlier and was a strong proponent of the Friedrich List
Society's program of public works and internal improvements promoted by industrialist Wilhelm
Lautenbach. The Nazi party's public support collapsed and it found itself bankrupt. Hitler had
fallen into depression and was even contemplating suicide when "a legal coup" was unleashed by
the Anglo-American elite resulting in Wall Street funds pouring into Nazi coffers.
By January 30, 1933 Hitler gained Chancellorship where he quickly took dictatorial powers
under the "state of emergency" caused by the burning of the Reichstag in March 1933. By 1934
the Night of the Long Knives saw General Schleicher and hundreds of other German patriots
assassinated and it was only a few years until the City of London-Wall Street Frankenstein
monster stormed across the world.
How the 1929 Crash was Manufactured
While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America
which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized
that this was not inevitable, but rather a controlled blowout.
The bubbles of the 1920s were unleashed with the early death of President William Harding in
1923 and grew under the careful guidance of JP Morgan's President Coolidge and financier Andrew
Mellon (Treasury Secretary) who de-regulated the banks, imposed austerity onto the country, and
cooked up a scheme for Broker loans allowing speculators to borrow 90% on their stock. Wall
Street was deregulated, investments into the real economy were halted during the 1920s and
insanity became the norm. In 1925 broker loans totalled $1.5 billion and grew to $2.6 billion
in 1926 and hit $5.7 billion by the end of 1927. By 1928, the stock market was overvalued
fourfold!
When the bubble was sufficiently inflated, a moment was decided upon to coordinate a mass
"calling in" of the broker loans. Predictably, no one could pay them resulting in a collapse of
the markets. Those "in the know" cleaned up with JP Morgan's "preferred clients", and other
financial behemoths selling before the crash and then buying up the physical assets of America
for pennies on the dollar. One notable person who made his fortune in this manner was Prescott
Bush of Brown Brothers Harriman, who went onto bailout a bankrupt Nazi party in 1932. These
financiers had a tight allegiance with the City of London and coordinated their operations
through the private central banking system of America's Federal Reserve and Bank of
International Settlements.
The Living Hell that was the Great Depression
Throughout the Great depression, the population was pushed to its limits making America
highly susceptible to fascism as unemployment skyrocketed to 25%, industrial capacity collapsed
by 70%, and agricultural prices collapsed far below the cost of production accelerating
foreclosures and suicide. Life savings were lost as 4000 banks failed.
This despair was replicated across Europe and Canada with eugenics-loving fascists gaining
popularity across the board. England saw the rise of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists in 1932, English Canada had its own fascist solution with the Rhodes Scholar "Fabian
Society" League of Social Reconstruction (which later took over the Liberal Party) calling
for the "scientific management of society". Time magazine had featured Il Duce over 6 times by
1932 and people were being told by that corporate fascism was the economic solution to all of
America's economic woes.
In the midst of the crisis, the City of London removed itself from the gold standard in 1931
which was a crippling blow to the USA, as it resulted in a flight of gold from America causing
a deeper contraction of the money supply and thus inability to respond to the depression.
British goods simultaneously swamped the USA crushing what little production was left.
It was in this atmosphere that one of the least understood battles unfolded in 1933.
1932: A Bankers' Dictatorship is Attempted
In Germany, a surprise victory of Gen. Kurt Schleicher caused the defeat of the
London-directed Nazi party in December 1932 threatening to break Germany free of Central Bank
tyranny. A few weeks before Schleicher's victory, Franklin Roosevelt won the presidency in
America threatening to regulate the private banks and assert national sovereignty over
finance.
Seeing their plans for global fascism slipping away, the City of London announced that a new
global system controlled by Central Banks had to be created post haste. Their objective was to
use the economic crisis as an excuse to remove from nation states any power over monetary
policy, while enhancing the power of Independent Central Banks as enforcers of "balanced global
budgets". elaborate
In December 1932, an economic conference "to stabilize the world economy " was
organized by the League of Nations under the guidance of the Bank of International Settlements
(BIS) and Bank of England. The BIS was set up as "the Central Bank of Central Banks" in 1930 in
order to facilitate WWI debt repayments and was a vital instrument for funding Nazi Germany-
long after WWII began
. The London Economic Conference brought together 64 nations of the world under a controlled
environment chaired by the British Prime Minister and opened by the King himself.
"The conference considers it to be essential, in order to provide an international gold
standard with the necessary mechanism for satisfactory working, that independent Central Banks,
with requisite powers and freedom to carry out an appropriate currency and credit policy,
should be created in such developed countries as have not at present an adequate central
banking institution" and that "the conference wish to reaffirm the great utility of
close and continuous cooperation between Central Banks. The Bank of International Settlements
should play an increasingly important part not only by improving contact, but also as an
instrument for common action."
Echoing the Bank of England's modern fixation with "mathematical equilibrium", the
resolutions stated that the new global gold standard controlled by central banks was needed
"to maintain a fundamental equilibrium in the balance of payments" of countries. The
idea was to deprive nation states of their power to generate and direct credit for their own
development.
FDR Torpedoes the London Conference
Chancellor Schleicher's resistance to a bankers' dictatorship was resolved by a "soft
coup" ousting the patriotic leader in favor of Adolph Hitler (under the control of a Bank
of England toy named Hjalmar Schacht) in January 1933 with Schleicher assassinated the
following year. In America, an
assassination attempt on Roosevelt was thwarted on February 15, 1933 when a woman knocked
the gun out of the hand of an anarchist-freemason in Miami resulting in the death of Chicago's
Mayor Cermak.
Without FDR's dead body, the London conference met an insurmountable barrier, as FDR refused
to permit any American cooperation. Roosevelt recognized the necessity for a new international
system, but he also knew that it had to be organized by sovereign nation states subservient to
the general welfare of the people and not central banks dedicated to the welfare of the
oligarchy. Before any international changes could occur, nation states castrated from the
effects of the depression had to first recover economically in order to stay above the power of
the financiers.
By May 1933, the London Conference crumbled when FDR complained that the conference's
inability to address the real issues of the crisis is "a catastrophe amounting to a world
tragedy" and that fixation with short term stability were "old fetishes of so-called
international bankers". FDR continued "The United States seeks the kind of dollar which
a generation hence will have the same purchasing and debt paying power as the dollar value we
hope to attain in the near future. That objective means more to the good of other nations than
a fixed ratio for a month or two. Exchange rate fixing is not the true answer."
The British drafted an official statement saying "the American statement on stabilization
rendered it entirely useless to continue the conference."
FDR's War on Wall Street
The new president laid down the gauntlet in his inaugural speech on March 4 th
saying: "The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our
civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the
restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary
profit".
FDR declared a war on Wall Street on several levels, beginning with his support of the
Pecorra
Commission which sent thousands of bankers to prison, and exposed the criminal activities
of the top tier of Wall Street's power structure who manipulated the depression, buying
political offices and pushing fascism. Ferdinand Pecorra who ran the commission called out the
deep state when he said "this small group of highly placed financiers, controlling the very
springs of economic activity, holds more real power than any similar group in the United
States."
Pecorra's highly publicized success empowered FDR to impose sweeping regulation in the form
of 1)
Glass-Steagall bank separation , 2) bankruptcy re-organization and 3) the creation of the
Security Exchange Commission to oversee Wall Street. Most importantly, FDR disempowered the
London-controlled Federal Reserve by installing his own man as Chair (Industrialist Mariner
Eccles) who forced it to obey national commands for the first time since 1913, while creating
an "alternative" lending mechanism outside of Fed control called the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation (RFC) which became the number one lender to infrastructure in America throughout
the 1930s.
One of the most controversial policies for which FDR is demonized today was his abolishment
of the gold standard. The gold standard itself constricted the money supply to a strict
exchange of gold per paper dollar, thus preventing the construction of internal improvements
needed to revive industrial capacity and put the millions of unemployed back to work for
which no financial resources existed . It's manipulation by international financiers made
it a weapon of destruction rather than creation at this time. Since commodity prices had fallen
lower than the costs of production, it was vital to increase the price of goods under a form of
"controlled inflation" so that factories and farms could become solvent and unfortunately the
gold standard held that back. FDR imposed protective tariffs to favor agro-industrial recovery
on all fronts ending years of rapacious free trade.
FDR stated his political-economic philosophy in 1934: "the old fallacious notion of the
bankers on the one side and the government on the other side, as being more or less equal and
independent units, has passed away. Government by the necessity of things must be the leader,
must be the judge, of the conflicting interests of all groups in the community, including
bankers."
The Real New Deal
Once liberated from the shackles of the central banks, FDR and his allies were able to start
a genuine recovery by restoring confidence in banking. Within 31 days of his bank holiday, 75%
of banks were operational and the FDIC was created to insure deposits. Four million people were
given immediate work, and hundreds of libraries, schools and hospitals were built and staffed-
All funded through the RFC. FDR's first fireside chat was vital in rebuilding confidence in the
government and banks, serving even today as a strong lesson in banking which central bankers
don't want you to learn about.
From 1933-1939, 45 000 infrastructure projects were built. The many "local" projects were
governed, like China's Belt and Road Initiative today, under a "grand design"
which FDR termed the "Four Quarters" featuring zones of megaprojects such as the Tennessee
Valley Authority area in the south east, the Columbia River Treaty zone on the northwest, the
St Laurence Seaway zone on the North east, and Hoover Dam/Colorado zone on the Southwest. These
projects were transformative in ways money could never measure as the Tennessee area's literacy
rose from 20% in 1932 to 80% in 1950, and racist backwater holes of the south became the
bedrock for America's aerospace industry due to the abundant and cheap hydropower. As
I had already reported on the Saker , FDR was not a Keynesian (although it cannot be argued
that hives of Rhodes Scholars and Fabians penetrating his administration certainly were).
Wall Street Sabotages the New Deal
Those who criticize the New Deal today ignore the fact that its failures have more to do
with Wall Street sabotage than anything intrinsic to the program. For example, JP Morgan tool
Lewis Douglass (U.S. Budget Director) forced the closure of the Civil Works Administration in
1934 resulting in the firing of all 4 million workers.
Wall Street did everything it could to choke the economy at every turn. In 1931, NY banks
loans to the real economy amounted to $38.1 billion which dropped to only $20.3 billion by
1935. Where NY banks had 29% of their funds in US bonds and securities in 1929, this had risen
to 58% which cut off the government from being able to issue productive credit to the real
economy.
When, in 1937, FDR's Treasury Secretary persuaded him to cancel public works to see if the
economy "could stand on its own two feet", Wall Street pulled credit out of the economy
collapsing the Industrial production index from 110 to 85 erasing seven years' worth of gain,
while steel fell from 80% capacity back to depression levels of 19%. Two million jobs were lost
and the Dow Jones lost 39% of its value. This was no different from kicking the crutches out
from a patient in rehabilitation and it was not lost on anyone that those doing the kicking
were openly supporting Fascism in Europe. Bush patriarch Prescott Bush, then representing Brown
Brothers Harriman was found guilty for trading with the enemy in 1942!
Coup Attempt in America Thwarted
The bankers didn't limit themselves to financial sabotage during this time, but also
attempted a fascist
military coup which was exposed by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler in his congressional testimony
of November 20, 1934. Butler had testified that the plan was begun in the Summer of 1933 and
organized by Wall Street financiers who tried to use him as a puppet dictator leading 500 000
American Legion members to storm the White House. As Butler spoke, those same financiers had
just set up an anti-New Deal organization called the American Liberty League which fought to
keep America out of the war in defense of an Anglo-Nazi fascist global government which they
wished to partner with.
The American Liberty league only changed tune when it became evident that Hitler had become
a disobedient Frankenstein monster who wasn't content in a subservient position to Britain's
idea of a New World Order. In response to the Liberty League's agenda, FDR said "some speak of
a New World Order, but it is not new and it is not order".
FDR's Anti-Colonial Post-War Vision
One of the greatest living testimonies to FDR's anti-colonial vision is contained in a
little known 1946 book authored by his son Elliot Roosevelt who, as his father's confidante and
aide, was privy to some of the most sensitive meetings his father participated in throughout
the war. Seeing the collapse of the post-war vision upon FDR's April 12, 1945 death and the
emergence of a pro-Churchill presidency under Harry Truman, who lost no time in dropping
nuclear bombs on a defeated Japan, ushering in a Soviet witch hunt at home and launching a Cold
War abroad, Elliot authored 'As He Saw It' (1946) in order to create a
living testimony to the potential that was lost upon his father's passing.
As Elliot said of his motive to write his book:
"The decision to write this book was taken more recently and impelled by urgent events.
Winston Churchill's speech at Fulton, Missouri, had a hand in this decision, the growing
stockpile of American atom bombs is a compelling factor; all the signs of growing disunity
among the leading nations of the world, all the broken promises, all the renascent power
politics of greedy and desperate imperialism were my spurs in this undertaking And I have seen
the promises violated, and the conditions summarily and cynically disregarded, and the
structure of peace disavowed I am writing this, then, to you who agree with me that the path he
charted has been most grievously -- and deliberately -- forsaken."
The Four Freedoms
Even before America had entered the war, the principles of international harmony which FDR
enunciated in his January
6, 1941 Four Freedoms speech to the U.S. Congress served as the guiding light through every
battle for the next 4.5 years. In this speech FDR said:
"In future days, which we seek to secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four
essential human freedoms.
"The first is the freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.
"The second is the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in
the world.
"The third is the freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic
understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants
-- everywhere in the world.
"The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide
reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in
a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the
world.
"That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world
attainable in our time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the
so-called new order of tyranny which dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
"To that new order, we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society
is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
"Since the beginning of American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a
perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself
to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The
world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly,
civilized society.
"This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of millions of free
men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy
of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or to
keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose."
Upon hearing these Freedoms outlined, American painter
Norman Rockwell was inspired to paint four masterpieces that were displayed across America
and conveyed the beauty of FDR's spirit to all citizens.
FDR's patriotic Vice President (and the man who SHOULD have been president in 1948) Henry
Wallace outlined FDR's vision in a passionate video address to the people in 1942 which should
also be watched by all world citizens today:
Elliot's account of the 1941-1945 clash of paradigms between his father and Churchill are
invaluable both for their ability to shed light into the true noble constitutional character of
America personified in the person of Roosevelt but also in demonstrating the beautiful
potential of a world that SHOULD HAVE BEEN had certain unnatural events not intervened to
derail the evolution of our species into an age of win-win cooperation, creative reason and
harmony.
In As He Saw It, Elliot documents a conversation he had with his father at the beginning of
America's entry into WWII, who made his anti-colonial intentions clear as day saying:
"I'm talking about another war, Elliott. I'm talking about what will happen to our world, if
after this war we allow millions of people to slide back into the same semi-slavery!
"Don't think for a moment, Elliott, that Americans would be dying in the Pacific tonight, if
it hadn't been for the shortsighted greed of the French and the British and the Dutch. Shall we
allow them to do it all, all over again? Your son will be about the right age, fifteen or
twenty years from now.
"One sentence, Elliott. Then I'm going to kick you out of here. I'm tired. This is the
sentence: When we've won the war, I will work with all my might and main to see to it that the
United States is not wheedled into the position of accepting any plan that will further
France's imperialistic ambitions, or that will aid or abet the British Empire in its imperial
ambitions."
This clash came to a head during a major confrontation between FDR and Churchill during the
January 24, 1943 Casablanca Conference in Morocco. At this event, Elliot documents how his
father first confronted Churchill's belief in the maintenance of the British Empire's
preferential trade agreements upon which it's looting system was founded:
"Of course," he [FDR] remarked, with a sly sort of assurance, "of course, after the war, one
of the preconditions of any lasting peace will have to be the greatest possible freedom of
trade."
He paused. The P.M.'s head was lowered; he was watching Father steadily, from under one
eyebrow.
"No artificial barriers," Father pursued. "As few favored economic agreements as possible.
Opportunities for expansion. Markets open for healthy competition." His eye wandered innocently
around the room.
Churchill shifted in his armchair. "The British Empire trade agreements" he began heavily,
"are -- "
Father broke in. "Yes. Those Empire trade agreements are a case in point. It's because of
them that the people of India and Africa, of all the colonial Near East and Far East, are still
as backward as they are."
Churchill's neck reddened and he crouched forward. "Mr. President, England does not propose
for a moment to lose its favored position among the British Dominions. The trade that has made
England great shall continue, and under conditions prescribed by England's ministers."
"You see," said Father slowly, "it is along in here somewhere that there is likely to be
some disagreement between you, Winston, and me.
"I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the
development of backward countries. Backward peoples. How can this be done? It can't be done,
obviously, by eighteenth-century methods. Now -- "
"Who's talking eighteenth-century methods?"
"Whichever of your ministers recommends a policy which takes wealth in raw materials out of
a colonial country, but which returns nothing to the people of that country in consideration.
Twentieth-century methods involve bringing industry to these colonies. Twentieth-century
methods include increasing the wealth of a people by increasing their standard of living, by
educating them, by bringing them sanitation -- by making sure that they get a return for the
raw wealth of their community."
Around the room, all of us were leaning forward attentively. Hopkins was grinning. Commander
Thompson, Churchill's aide, was looking glum and alarmed. The P.M. himself was beginning to
look apoplectic.
"You mentioned India," he growled.
"Yes. I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time
not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy."
"What about the Philippines?"
"I'm glad you mentioned them. They get their independence, you know, in 1946. And they've
gotten modern sanitation, modern education; their rate of illiteracy has gone steadily down
"
"There can be no tampering with the Empire's economic agreements."
"They're artificial "
"They're the foundation of our greatness."
"The peace," said Father firmly, "cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of
the peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost
freedom of competitive trade. Will anyone suggest that Germany's attempt to dominate trade in
central Europe was not a major contributing factor to war?"
It was an argument that could have no resolution between these two men
The following day, Elliot describes how the conversation continued between the two men with
Churchill stating:
"Mr. President," he cried, "I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire.
Every idea you entertain about the structure of the postwar world demonstrates it. But in spite
of that" -- and his forefinger waved -- "in spite of that, we know that you constitute our only
hope. And" -- his voice sank dramatically -- "you know that we know it. You know that we know
that without America, the Empire won't stand."
Churchill admitted, in that moment, that he knew the peace could only be won according to
precepts which the United States of America would lay down. And in saying what he did, he was
acknowledging that British colonial policy would be a dead duck, and British attempts to
dominate world trade would be a dead duck, and British ambitions to play off the U.S.S.R.
against the U.S.A. would be a dead duck. Or would have been, if Father had lived."
This story was delivered in full during an August 15 lecture by the author:
While FDR's struggle did change the course of history, his early death during the first
months of his fourth term resulted in a fascist perversion of his post-war vision.
Rather than see the IMF, World Bank or UN used as instruments for the internationalization
of the New Deal principles to promote long term, low interest loans for the industrial
development of former colonies, FDR's allies were ousted from power over his dead body, and
they were recaptured by the same forces who attempted to steer the world towards a Central
Banking Dictatorship in 1933.
The American Liberty League spawned into various "patriotic" anti-communist organizations
which took power with the FBI and McCarthyism under the fog of the Cold War. This is the
structure that Eisenhower warned about when he called out "the Military Industrial Complex" in
1960 and which John
Kennedy did battle with during his 900 days as president .
This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the November
elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is beginning
to be revived in America which may align with the 21 st Century international New
Deal emerging from China's Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian
alliance. French Finance Minister Bruno LeMaire and Marc Carney have stated their fear
that if the Green New Deal isn't imposed by the west , then the New Silk Road and yuan will
become the basis for the new world system.
The Bank of England-authored Green New Deal being pushed under the fog of COVID-19's
Great Green Global Reset which promise to impose draconian constraints on humanity's
carrying capacity in defense of saving nature from humanity have nothing to do with Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal and they have less to do with the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. These
are merely central bankers' wet dreams for depopulation and fascism "with a democratic face"
which their 1923 and 1933 efforts failed to achieve and can only be imposed if people remain
blind to their own recent history.
Taras 77
Yes, a very interesting article, which explains much, but not everything. The question which
need’s to be asked is who was FDR and how did he become President, ie. why was he
permitted to become President. It should be taken into account that he was a 33 degree
freemason, just like Truman. So, what really happened during the 1930’s ? The
impression is that the US elite during that period was not united, being heterogeneous.
In 1917 Wall Street bankers finance the Russian “revolution”, when Lenin is
brought to Russia from Switzerland, where he was living the high life, and when he was given
20 million dollars in gold to start an insurrection known as a “revolution”. The
intent was to create a communist central government which would control Russian industry, raw
materials and finances, and present them on a silver platter to Western bankers. The
additional intent was the break up of Russia. The federal system was introduced, and
artificial states like Ukraine were created within that system. These banker aspirations
collapsed in 1924 when their puppet Lenin dies from syphilis and when Stalin assumes control,
introducing industrialization.
The bankers then turn to Germany, when in 1925 an obscure character by the name of Adolf
Hitler pops up. Before he is bestowed with power in 1933, the bankers in 1931 open the Bank
of International Settlements in Basel, right next to the German border. It was this Bank
which financed Hitler, his economic and banking “miracles”, as well as his
upcoming war. As for Wall Street corporations, they of course invested in Germany, like Henry
Ford, who built truck factories which provided the German Army with transport. Without
Anglo-American involvement, there is no way that Hitler could have started World War Two. And
what was the intention of Anglo-American bankers ? The break up and plundering of Russia,
something that Stalin prevented, and something that in our age Putin also prevented.
And the US ? The bankers were obviously impressed what their puppet Adolf Hitler achieved,
introducing dictatorship and at the same time placating the masses. They wanted the same
thing in the US. This of course had to be prevented, as had the bankers succeeded with their
planned fascist coup d’etat, then the game would have been up, as it would become
obvious who was financing and controlling Hitler. I think that over this issue the US elite
became divided. The group which backed FDR prevailed, as they wanted a covert modus
operandi.
And FDR ? When did he join World War Two ? In December of 1941, when Stalin brought more
than a million troops from Manchuria to Moscow, and when it became apparent that Hitler would
be defeated, as he was. The Anglo-American elites feared that Russian troops would end up in
Paris, as they did in 1814, when Napoleon was defeated. This, of course, had to be prevented.
Also Hitler, the banker puppet, needed to be saved. His suicide in 1945 was more than
suspicious, with historians “forgetting” to mention that his bunker had four
escape tunnels (Hitler ostensibly commits suicide, while all of his staff manage to escape,
with historians failing to explain how they did this. Did they, perhaps, use the four escape
tunnels ?).
And what do we have today ? Unfortunately we have more of the same. What began in 1917
with the Russian revolution is still active. The Anglo-American bankers cannot forget their
aim of breaking up and plundering Russia. Unfortunately for them, their little plan is taking
too long. Their Praetorian Guard, NATO, is costing them billions. In 1971 Nixon takes the
dollar off the gold standard, opening the way for mass printing and financial collapse, as
mentioned in this article. On the other hand, Russia and it’s ally China have been
stockpiling gold for years, preparing to introduce gold backed rubles and yuans, which of
course needs to be prevented. The latest political machinations with Belarus and with Navalny
in Russia are repeat performances of 1917, the West hoping for new insurrecions, ie.
“revolutions”, where “democratic” leaders would be installed, little
Guaidos. I think the West will see a financial crash first.
“This is the structure which is out to destroy President Donald Trump and undo the
November elections under a military coup and Civil War out of fear that a new FDR impulse is
beginning to be revived in America which may align with the 21st Century international New
Deal emerging from China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Eurasian alliance.”
I was with you until that sentence. Trump is in no way the new Franklin Roosevelt. He was
put into office by a cabal of Zionists and banksters, the very same “money
changers” that Roosevelt railed about in the 1930s, the very same that Jesus threw out
of the Temple. They never forgave him for that, to this very day.
With the likes of Sheldon Adelson throwing “thirty pieces of silver” at him in
the last days of the 2016 election and pulling strings with the Kosher Nostra to get him
elected, Trump reciprocated by cancelling the Iran nuclear deal. That has set the stage for
the war that will be the end of the USA as we know it. With the COVID-19 plandemic bearing
down on us as well, Heaven only knows how this will all turn out.
Agree with you 100%; Trump is part and parcel of the so called deep state and his actions
have verified his status, like you the article is very good until the second last paragraph
referring to Trump.
In fact it’s a rather Slippery Conceptual Slope and there are a great
many…especially Commonwealth Lefties that just can’t seem to keep their
footing….and slide right (or left, as the case may be) off The Path….so
reliably …as programmed by the Masters of Ideological Left/Right Mind Control.
But there’s HOPE:
Today’s Anti-Mask anti-Lockdown demonstration in London’s Trafalgar
Square:
You’re right, Bro, it is more complicated than that. It’s more complicated
than we could even begin to understand. But, understand this: We have troops in the Middle
East because Israel wants them there, pure and simple. Even Trump understands that. We are
threatening Iran because Israel wants us to. The Likudniks and Zionists who Trump has
surrounded himself with are driving the USA into a war with Iran and Russia that no one but
them really want. It’s all part of their crazy “end times” ideology. The
“synagogue of Satan” is prepared to march us all right over a cliff. Americans of
faith need to get their heads out their asses and put a stop to this madness.
Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer?
The bad guys are godless bastards and don’t want to die in a firestorm I
wouldn’t think.
They are practicing divide and rule to the extent that we let them.
I’m thinking the “bad guys” aren’t even human anymore, maybe some
AI profit algorithm like what controls the hedge funds these days. They certainly have no use
for most humans, although they may keep a few of us around as pets.
absolutely agree. i’m not sure why ehert believes trump is anything but a tool but
he’s put this idea forth in several essays now. i also do not fully agree with cabal
signing on with the bri, yes, undoubtedly they will have to but china (russia as well) are
well acquainted with the cabal & will have no illusions about their ends. if or rather
when the cabal realizes it has no choice but to join it will be as a very controlled minor
player never to be trusted. neither china nor russia has suffered this long journey to
recovery to then hand its control over to the cabal yet again. i read last week
(middleeastmonitor i believe) that egypt is about to teach chinese in its schools. the world
is indeed changing.
Regarding Trump; the Saker has covered this issue well in a recent post. It is not a
matter of what we think of Trump. It is a matter of what the banking Cabal thinks of him.
They make it pretty obvious that they regard him as insufficiently under their own control.
They fear his loyalty to America. He is not as totally bought as the democrats. This for them
is a threat. The cabal wants a President that is totally under their control. For them Trump
does not cut it. So they cleverly provide as much ammunition in their controlled media as
they can find to reinforce the people’s dislike of him. Not a difficult task obviously.
Divide and rule works. Particularly in America where politics is reduced to a personality
contest.
It’s complicated? No, the truth is just obscured by all the theater. It’s
something like this …
For the first time in decades we have a potus that is not directly serving the ptb. This
is intolerable for the ptb, hence the deep state revolt against him.
Trump got into office because he promised the likudniks things that the ptb denied to them
because they conflicted with their interests
But on the issue of “the great replacement”, Trump is an obstacle to the
ptb.
nearly every name ,company,movement, politician mentioned in the article is connected by
freemasonry and “the money changers” . When individually looked at its readily
available to see. but when asked to step back and see a bigger world view. it becomes tin
foil time cognitive palsy for most.
trump ? just look at his photo ops with satans sidekick himself kissinger.
Thank you. Matthew Ehret, for your scholarly detail, and your persistence in trying to
present this story, in a world that has whitewashed it out of the culture. This long piece
was to my mind one of your best presentations yet. We should all be very grateful.
I had watched Wallace’s speech before, but this time, in the context you provided,
it became stunningly clear that the FDR school of thought regarded the socialist revolution
as a real thing around the world, and as a very American thing, ongoing for a century and a
half here, and not yet completed, as the revolution of the worker towards freedom from want
continued – and was intended to continue.
And this all should have continued, except that those who love money do not hesitate for
one second to kill anyone whom they deem it expedient to kill – perhaps this is the
truest lesson of all that the people must always hold in their thinking.
What a different world we could be living in today but for the greed of a few people who
all along have regarded the rest of humanity as nothing. No wonder they hate China, for
continuing that revolution that they killed in the United States – IF, in fact, it has
been killed.
Our revolution continues – the President’s man told us so. And they will kill
anyone they have to in order to defeat this revolution – our best general told us
so.
Thank you for the continual reminders, Matthew Ehret.
The hatred of China is recent, and currently over-dramatized by Trump, mostly for own
reasons. And the neocons still think there are means to “contain” China’s
economic growth (they will fail’), while Russia’s sabotage of an increasing
number of their evil plots around the world is hard to prevent.
Consequently, Russia remains the greater threat for the empire, as Putin has been
increasingly frustrating their second biggest tool for control after the $ – regime
change. Belarus, Venezuela, Syria, to which should be added Turkey, and other less known
spanners in the wheels.
And of course, Crimea, which the regime-changers refuse to get over…
Worse of all: the new weapons.
And to add insult to injury, the vaccine with the nose-thumb name, Sputnik V.
The cumulative effect of these steps is proving so irritating that Matthew Ehret’s
warning about a neocon-driven “total war with Russia, China…” should be
taken seriously.
Certainly Putin does, if this statement is anything to go by:
“And since Dec. 2019, the first strategic missile regiment with the Avangard system has
been on full combat alert.” (See here for context: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64058
)
Excellent historical link up of City of London + Wall st + JSOC/CIA/Deep state. At present
it seems to be the Left is Right and the Right is Left. Again like it was over 90+ years ago
the distraction of a DEM v GOP ensures we lose sight of the bigger picture.
the adverts are a bit annoying but it looks as though there is no other way to view this
film other than the link provided.
The info on how sovereign wealth (gold) was stolen is incredible. Just moved from one
vault to the other at either the BIS or the Bank of England!! And gold stolen from
Czechoslovakia, Austria, and POland was used by the Reich to make interest and dividend
payments to the Bank of England!
Really great film WW2 footage that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and interviews with
members of the Greatest Generation, many of them intelligent women who were on the scene.
A great companion film to The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire.
The takeaway: Don’t trust bankers! Especially not international bankers. The summary
at the end is: They like to have a quiet life, just keep making money regardless of who is in
power or who wins. They all fraternized throughout the war. Especially Chase. That is
Rockefeller, in case you forgot . . .
Thank you. Amazing text and great insights into original documents. I have learned a lot
from the text and the links. Many things mentioned in the text, I have heard before, by
reading Episodes on Oriental Review (it is on the list of news sources on the top of this
page), written by Nikolay Starikov. However, Starikov being a Russian, can hardly be used as
a reference in discussions with readers from US. Now I have another source to point to
– a fellow Canadian, eh :-)
History all very well, but I believe we have a situation in the world today unlike
anything mankind has experienced in the past. Thus, most unfortuneately there exists no
guidance, no lessons that could be learned from. In the course of the last century world
population has exponentially grown to a size that the planet cannot comfortably support.
Energy, nature, social, and economic systems are being stressed beyond their limits as
humankind is out to drown in its own guano. The problem is not in our ability to produce, but
in our inability to get rid of the excess, i.e. the byproducts. The West’s culture of
glutten provides no avail. Scientists know this, and have been warning for quite a long time,
but too few are listening. So yes, as Mr. Ehret points out we are in a slow motion world
order meltdown in many dimensions, but not because of political machinations (although the
political machinations certainly aid the quandary.) Rather, at the root, it is because of
technical-biological formations overwhelming the world’s natuaral orders, and these
formations also promise to overwhelm any world order that the planet’s oligarchies are
willing to accept . Our world leaders are totally lost. They do not know what to do as there
is no past history they can grasp on to even if they cared to do so. China’s belt and
road inititive is hardly a solution as it will only exasperate the basic problem of a world
seriously overpopulated wanting to live like one hundred million gluttonous Americans did
fifty years ago.
I only feel for the young people who will inherit this mess as the older generations have
become too decrepit to even acknowledge the situation.
In 1949 when Chairman Mao came to power, the population numbered about 1.0 billion, the
average life expectancy was 42 years, literacy was about 2%, opium addiction was about 25%.
Health care was non-existant except to a privileged few. Children had to look after their
elderly parents.
Today the population is 1.4 billion, average life expectancy is 78 years, literacy is
about 98% and opium addiction is almost irrelevant.
You will not read this from the priests at the Club of Rome. It is not in their
interest.
You should be celebrating one of the most extra-ordinary successes in history. Over 500
million people have been lifted from a life of abject poverty to a decent standard of living
with education, health care and a pension, in other words, a life worth living.
The world population will obviously have to rise as people live longer. This was one
reason for the one child policy that was persistently applied in China for decades. This does
create a burden on the care of elderly. Technology makes it less so.
China is converting its electricity plants from coal to gas and nuclear, greatly reducing
air and water pollution. China is not just a low wage country. It has learned over the last
decades to be the most efficient, high quality producer of goods and services.
Above all their belt and road initiative offers a great deal for its partners, a win-win
situation. No other developed nation offers so much hence the trade war.
”In June 1922, 300 marks exchanged $1 US and in November 1923, it took 42
trillion marks to get $1 US!”
Matthew Ehret doesn’t mention it, but what started the monstrous hyperinflation
instantly was the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops (January 1923)
as ”due compensation” for Germany defaulting on war reparation payments. Germany
found herself asset-stripped of her own industry and, without any colonies to rob blind,
resorted to print money with no backing. This is something which ominously haunts the
collective West ever since: What will happen if and when the Oppressor Nations — now
deindustrialised and with abysmal birth stats (except in immigrant communities) —
can’t coerce other countries and peoples into upholding any of this
’post-industrial’ nonsense anymore? Fascism is a consummate expression of
militant parasitism, with or without any racist depravities pertaining to it.
Matthew Ehret is dead right about the remedy: Kick out rapacious speculative finance and
join the BRI project which will eradicate poverty, hunger, and war by creating durable
infrastructure. The neocon filth doesn’t even qualify as fascists. They are anti-Life,
pure and simple.
I remember reading years ago a sentence from Keynes about the disaster that was
Versailles:
“Men will not always die quietly…In their distress they may overturn the
remnants of organization, and submerge civilization itself.”
and further:
“but who can say… in what direction men will seek at last to escape their
misfortunes.”
Unbelievable, how bankers gamble with the worlds population and then came what? The
nuclear deterrent, “MAD” lol and the cry for a one world government.
and now O look their all pointing their ICBM’s at us?
Right, Con-911 was the 21st century Reichstagsbrand. And it has been followed as the night
follows the day by Con-19, the 21st century version of Gleich-Gestaltung (Uniform Viewpoint)
with Lockdown, Mass Incarceration of suspects, and biological Reprogramming with forcible
injection of genetic material.
Please would you link, point to any reference for this:
“A leading US industrialist named Washington Baker Vanderclip ….agreement in
history with Russia to the tune of $3 billion in 1920”
Washington Baker Vanderclip was seemingly president of the Elkhart Masonic Mutual Life
Association from Elkhart, Indiana ( https://tinyurl.com/y2vnjktc ).
I guess the guy in question is not Vanderclip but a business man named ‘Washington
Baker Vanderlip’.
Vanderlip was also known as ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’.
He was often confused by the Russians with the banker Frank Vanderlip from the First
National City Bank. Might well be the case they were under the impression dealing with the
banker when matter of fact they were talking to the business man.
W.B. Vanderlip acted as a kind of semi-official US ambassador before the US established
diplomatic relations with the back then Soviet Union in 1933.
You shall find numerous references by searching for ‘The Khan from Kamchatka’
in history books from the time of the Russian revolution.
Absolutely brilliant. To be read and reread. I will recommend it to my family and friends.
A must to understand the dangers and opportunities of the current situation. Thank You Mr
Ehret.
Is there any chance that someone put together in the same format of article, connection
between City and catholic Kuria in Vatikan. This would than cover everything.
Yeah sure, lots of details but also lots none factual details that have been randomly
connected to events at the author’s discretion without any references to back up the
claims, especially when it comes to National Socialistic Germany and Hitler. Usually, a topic
that has been willfully ignored academically as well as scientifically since its
destruction.
Hence, we always get to hear the same nonsense over and over
Reading this article one gets the impression it was exclusively foreign money that funded
the rise of Hitler.
Why is there no mention of prominent domestic funding?
For example:
Kurt von Schroeder a German banker from Cologne who participated in the financing of the Nazi
party and was a director of the Keppler Circle (together with Hjalmar Schacht ) which grouped
together German businessmen who were sympathetic to the Nazis.
August Thyssen the German industrialist bought the “Brown House” in Munich
which became the Nazi HQ. The imposing building basically functioned as “state within a
state” in the Weimar Republic.
Albert Voegler, the founder of Vereinigte Stahlwerk AG funded the Nazis and was one of the
main beneficiaries of re-armament.
Also, not sure how one can describe Kurt Von Schleicher, a Nazi who paved the way for
Hitler to become Chancellor, as a “patriot”?
It makes it hard for me to continue reading this. I’m sick to death of this total
refusal to take a tiny bit of trouble to examine what is meant by “Britain”. The
Island of Britain holds 3 people; the Cymraeg, the Gaelic and the AngloSaxon.
Since the AngloSaxon, more accurately designated from genetic studied as Franco-Germanic
hybrids – invaded the land before the turn of the millenia under the pretext of coming
to aid the Cymraeg who inhabited and owned the entire island up to the northern border with
Pictish and Gaelic tribes, and were under attack by the same Picts – but took and
relabeled stolen land “Angle-Land”, the Island has been dominated by the
AngloSaxons and a few aristocratic Normans, known after a few hundred years as
“English”.
To the Cymraeg they are still “Saxons”.
Every ruling power over the island since those days has been English. Few Gaels or Celts
have been in any position of power, since the concept of Aristocracy was absorbed by the
English by their Norman forbears and to this day is clung to like immovable glue. The
attitude of English aristocracy towards us has been one of utter contempt and loathing. Only
one Cymraeg was ever Prime Minister and that was the highly charismatic David Lloyd George,
for whom English was a second language. He fought and fought against all those moneyed powers
stop WWI, and when he failed because of the power of group action, did all he could to
prevent the worst excesses.
The people being talked of here are primarily the English Aristocracy and Landed
“Gentry” as they call themselves, which includes the Royal Family line [primarily
Germanic, brought in by that Aristocracy to make sure the Gaelic or Scottish in line for the
throne didn’t inherit it], and the City of London, a city and power unto itself.
It’s the entire unimaginably wealthy class, which is not subject to most of the Laws of
Britain, being a power unto itself; it is comprised of Jewish, English and other
power-brokers and oligarchs.
There are NO “oligarchs ” who are Celtic or Gaelic.
So – forget we exist if you want, but for Gods sake stop just grouping us with our
first and only real enemy, the English, under the title THEY invented —-
“Britain”.
Just watched a movie about the IRA from the mid 80’s. How is it that they were
lamenting about the ”British” and not the ”English” and that on the
walls of Belfast it read ”Beware Brits”?
The people of Northern Ireland are Protestant Christians, who split off from the Roman
Catholics of Eire in 1920.
This has been the major cause of the violence in Belfast ever since. The Catholics wish to
unite with Eire (Southern Ireland), but the Protestants want to remain part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland having representation in Westminster.
That is partly correct.But the Catholic population is around 45% of the country.And the
Protestant around 55%.When the British kept the 6 counties they went too far. Fermanagh,and
Tyrone,were very majority Catholic.And Derry and Armagh,were close to half Catholic.Of the
other two,Down was around a third Catholic in its South region. And the industrial Antrim
with Belfast,had large workingclass Catholic ghetto’s in Belfast. Had they cut the
borders by a lot they could have had a mostly Protestant area.But to do so would leave only a
tiny area to them.And they wanted a bigger region.
I don’t think that Ehret has to undertake a genetic study of the British Isles
before he can write up this analysis of the role of the British ruling
class/oligarchy/monarchy in fomenting both WW1 and WW2.
I too would like to see more documentation of US-Russian cooperation between the wars.
From my recent reading I think Ehret does miss an important point regarding WW1, which is
the role of the hawk faction in Austro-Hungary and its failed plan to do a surgical
“cakewalk” type of punishment of Serbia for the assassination in Sarejevo (Franz
Ferdinand had actually been a “dove” re Serbia). But the fact was that
militarists in both Germany and Russia wanted war and put tremendous pressure on both Wilhelm
II and Tsar Nicholas, his cousin, to go to war. Possibly also in Britain. Britain certainly
did fear the growing clout of quickly industrializing Germany and wanted to nip it in the
bud. And Churchill was salivating over gaining territory and control for Britain from the
Ottoman Empire
Especially as Germany was already building the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, which would have
provided access to the newly discovered oil fields of the Ottoman Empire (now Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.). Germany certainly had the brainpower in chemistry, physics,
engineering, etc. to complete the railroad as far as the Persian Gulf and to develop the oil
fields and develop and manage all of the refinery infrastructure and processes.
Then there was that little issue of a Jewish homeland. Unfortunately David Lloyd George,
for all of his good deeds at home, can be practically be described as a militant Christian
Zionist. The Palestine idea was always there in the background as Britain teed up for the
Great One. Arguably the Balfour Declaration would have gone nowhere without the active
support of George to create a Jewish enclave, and British imperial toehold, in the Middle
East. Please, we should not assume that the imperialists were unable to read maps.
But back to Britain and the postwar era, a very relevant complement to Ehret’s
analysis is this excellent documentary film, about the creation of offshore tax havens by the
City of London:
The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire
Pamela, we seem to be “on same page” quite a few times and what is remarkable,
that is exactly what riles me when they say “British”, when the obvious evil
doers are the English! Plain and simple, but most people fail to make that distinction. By
the way, I have promised Saker another essay on that very subject – the global evil
that eminated and continues to eminate from that particular “race”, group or
whatever one can call them. That oppressive, domineering, imperialistic mindset that believes
only in subjugation and enslavement of others and that is why there is such deep,
all-consuming hatred towards Russia and Russians, who are radically opposite to them in their
understanding of living in this world. I want to address that and expand on it. Give me a
month or so. : )
If you truly want to understand the causes of Hyperinflation I can suggest no better
source than Mike Moloney’s “GoldSilver.com” site. He presents plenty of
graphs and economic history to show exactly how it is caused, what trends it is a part of ,
and why it is now totally unavoidable.
Regarding this piece, I have nothing to say for anyone who says that David Lloyd George,
the first and best true Socialist P.M. the people of the British Isle ever had, and who
formed what was the best Welfare state before it was ruined, was part of a drive for Global
domination. He was in a position of power as P.M. and therefor was a part of many
Committee’s but to suggest this ardent socialist and fighter for the rights of man was
a side kick to Globalism is just beyond discussion.
This article is an excellent narrative concerning international politics. However,
contrary to accepted financial wisdom, the rise of Germany from 1933 onwards under Hitler was
not financed by international bankers. Quite the opposite in fact,
The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 had imposed draconian war reparations on Germany, because
they had just lost the 1914-18 world war and had to be punished by the international bankers.
It was they who caused the hyperinflation of the German Mark that occurred in 1922 in order
to pay off the war loans incurred by France and England by printing more and more money that
Germany had to borrow at interest. This caused the breakdown of the German economy with
massive unemployment and the social discontent that led to the eventual rise of Adolf Hitler
as Chancellor of Germany.
In 1933 Hitler canceled Germany’s debts and created debt free money as Treasury
certificates that were paid to the German workforce for work done and/or materials supplied.
This enabled the rejuvenation of the German economy building railroads, autobahns and the
manufacture of war materiel resulting in full employment and prosperity to the nation.
The international bankers were aghast at this transformation and that is why Britain
declared war on Germany in 1939, since the rise of German power would threaten to destroy the
British Empire.
Kaprocorn, Hitler’s rise was fuelled by credit. Read up on MEFOBILLS. It was a
deferred payment system. He did not “create debt free money”. Credit will give
you an economic high for a while…Hitler milked it for what it was worth and then just
before the debts became due, he waged Blitzkrieg and stole his neighbors’ gold
reserves.
Jamshyd, since Hitler was financed by bankers how was he “against the
bankers”?? And, yes the Nazis were racist baby eaters.
Btw, Hitler also supported the cause of Zionism. Haavara agreement promoted the settlement
of Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Until now, I have never heard of FDR’s Four Freedoms (freedom of speech; freedom of
worship; freedom from want; and freedom from fear (of war, e.g.)). My ignorance probably says
something about the overwhelming completeness of the Banksters’ Putsch that occurred
after FDR’s death.
Learning about the Four Freedoms reminds me of the soaring opening phrases of the United
Nations Charter:
We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the
scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind
….
This is completely consistent with the Four Freedoms. I see now that FDR must have been
one of the primary creators of the UN — an enormous achievement. The UN Charter, and
the Four Freedoms, should be celebrated throughout the USA. I wonder why they
aren’t?
Ominous stuff indeed. For readers who wish to read further, please consult
the full Politico piece from which we have excerpted the above highlighted passages. There
is also a fascinating documentary on Sharp instructively titled "
How to Start a Revolution ."
This is all interesting and disturbing, to say the least. In its own right it would suggest
a compelling nexus point between the operations run against Trump and the Color Revolution
playbook. But what does this have to do with our subject Norm Eisen? It just so happens that
Eisen explicitly places himself in the tradition of Gene Sharp, acknowledging his book "The
Playbook" as a kind of update to Sharp's seminal "Dictatorship to Democracy."
And there we have it, folks -- Norm Eisen, former Obama Ethics Czar, Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia during the "Velvet Revolution," key counsel in impeachment effort against Trump,
and participant in the ostensibly bi-partisan election war games predicting a contested
election scenario unfavorable to Trump -- just happens to be a Color Revolution expert who
literally wrote the modern "Playbook" in the explicitly acknowledged tradition of Color
Revolution Godfather Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy."
Before we turn to the contents of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution manual, full title "The
Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding," it will be useful to make
a brief point regarding the term "democracy" itself, which happens to appear in the title of
Gene Sharp's book "From Dictatorship to Democracy" as well.
Just like the term "peaceful protestor," which, as we pointed out in our George Kent essay
is used as a term of craft in the Color Revolution context, so is the term "democracy" itself.
The US Government launches Color Revolutions against foreign targets irrespective of whether
they actually enjoy the support of the people or were elected democratically. In the case of
Trump, whatever one says about him, he is perhaps the most "democratically" elected President
in America's history. Indeed, in 2016 Trump ran against the coordinated opposition of the
establishments of both parties, the military industrial complex, the corporate media,
Hollywood, and really every single powerful institution in the country. He won, however,
because he was able to garner sufficient support of the people -- his true and decisive power
base as a "populist." Precisely because of the ultra democratic "populist" character of Trump's
victory, the operatives attempting to undermine him have focused specifically on attacking the
democratic legitimacy of his victory.
In this vein we ought to note that the term "democratic backsliding," as seen in the
subtitle of Norm Eisen's book, and its opposite "democratic breakthrough" are also terms of art
in the Color Revolution lexicon. We leave the full exploration of how the term "democratic" is
used deceptively in the Color Revolution context (and in names of decidedly
anti-democratic/populist institutions) as an exercise to the interested reader. Michael McFaul,
another Color Revolution expert and key anti-Trump operative somewhat gives the game away in
the following tweet in which the term "democratic breakthrough" makes an appearance as a better
sounding alternative to "Color Revolution:"
Most likely as a response to Revolver News' first Color Revolution article on State
Department official George Kent, former Ambassador McFaul issued the following tweet as a
matter of damage control:
With this now-deleted tweet we get a clearer picture of the power bases that must be
satisfied for a "democratic breakthrough" to occur -- and conveniently enough, not one of them
is subject to direct democratic control. McFaul, Like Eisen, George Kent, and so many others,
perfectly embodies Revolver's thesis regarding the Color Revolution being the same
people running the same playbook. Indeed, like most of the star never-Trump impeachment
witnesses, McFaul is or has been an ambassador to an Eastern European country. He has supported
operations against Trump, including impeachment. And, like Norm Eisen, he has actually
written
a book on Color Revolutions (more on that later).
Norm Eisen's The Democracy Playbook: A Brief Overview:
A deep dive into Eisen's book would exceed the scope of this relatively brief exposé.
It is nonetheless important for us to draw attention to key passages of Eisen's book to
underscore how closely the "Playbook" corresponds to events unfolding right here at home.
Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that regime change professionals such as Eisen
simply decided to run the same playbook against Trump that they have done countless times when
foreign leaders are elected overseas that they don't like and want to remove via
extra-democratic means -- "peaceful protests," "democratic breakthroughs" and such.
First, consider the following passage from Eisen's Playbook:
If you study this passage closely, you will find direct confirmation of our earlier point
that "democracy" in the Color Revolution context is a term of art -- it refers to anything they
like that keeps the national security bureaucrats in power. Anything they don't like, even if
elected democratically, is considered "anti-democratic," or, put another way, "democratic
backsliding." Eisen even acknowledges that this scourge of populism he's so worried about
actually was ushered in with "popular support," under "relatively democratic and electoral
processes." The problem is precisely that the people have had enough of the corrupt ruling
class ignoring their needs. Accordingly, the people voted first for Brexit and then for Donald
Trump -- terrifying expressions of populism which the broader Western power structure did
everything in its capacity to prevent. Once they failed, they viewed these twin populist
victories as a kind of political 9/11 to be prevented by any means necessary from recurring.
Make no mistake, the Color Revolution has nothing to do with democracy in any meaningful sense
and everything to do with the ruling class ensuring that the people will never have the power
to meddle in their own elections again.
The passage above can be insightfully compared to the passage in Gene Sharp's book noting
ripe applications to the domestic situation.
It is instructive to compare the passage in Eisen's Color Revolution book to the passage in
Michael McFaul's Color Revolution book:
First off, it is absolutely imperative to look at every single one of the conditions for a
Color Revolution that McFaul identifies. It is simply impossible not to be overcome with the
ominous parallels to our current situation. Specifically, however, note condition 1 which
refers to having a target leader who is not fully authoritarian, but semi-autocratic. This
coincides perfectly well with Eisen's concession that the populist leaders he's so concerned
about might be "illiberal" but enjoy "popular support" and have come to power via "relatively
democratic electoral processes."
Consulting the above passage from McFaul's book, we note that McFaul has been perhaps the
most explicit about the conditions which facilitate a Color Revolution. We invite the reader to
supply the contemporary analogue to each point as a kind of exercise.
A semi-autocratic regime rather than fully autocratic
An unpopular incumbent (note blanket negative coverage of Trump, fake polls)
A united and organized opposition (media, intel community, Hollywood, community
groups, etc)
Enough independent media to inform citizens of falsified vote (see full court press
in media pushing contested election narrative, social media censorship)
A political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators
to protest electoral fraud ( SEE BLACK LIVES MATTER AND ANTIFA )
On point number four , which is especially relevant to our present situation, Eisen has an
interesting thing to say about the role of a contested election scenario in the Orange
Revolution, arguably the most important Color Revolution of them all.
Finally, let's look at one last passage from Norm Eisen's Color Revolution "Democracy
Playbook" and cross-reference it with McFaul's conditions for a Color Revolution as well as the
situation playing out right now before our very eyes:
A few things immediately jump out at us. First, the ominous instruction: "prepare to use
electoral abuse evidence as the basis for reform advocacy." Secondly, we note the passage
suggesting that opposition to a target leader might avail itself of "extreme institutional
measures" including impeachment processes, votes of no confidence, and, of course, the good
old-fashioned "protests, strikes, and boycotts" (all more or less peaceful no doubt).
By now the Color Revolution agenda against Trump should be as plain as day. Regime change
professionals like McFaul, Eisen, George Kent, and others, who have refined their craft
conducting color revolutions overseas, have taken it upon themselves to use the same tools, the
same tactics -- quite literally, the same playbook -- to overthrow President Trump. Yet again,
same people, same playbook.
We conclude this study of key Color Revolution figure Norm Eisen by exploring his
particularly proactive -- indeed central role -- in effecting one of the Color Revolution's
components mentioned in the Eisen Playbook -- impeachment.
__________
The Ghost of Democracy's Future
We mentioned at the outset of this piece that Norm Eisen is many things -- a former Obama
Ethics Czar (but of course), Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, participant in the now notorious
Transition Integrity Project, et cetera. But he earned his title as "legal hatchet man" of the
Color Revolution for his tireless efforts in promoting the impeachment of President Trump.
The litany of Norm Eisen's legal activity cited at the beginning of this piece bears
repeating.
As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint
for suing the President into paralysis and his
allies into bankruptcy , who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted
10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever
called the Ukraine President in 2018 , who personally served as DNC co-counsel for
litigating the Ukraine impeachment
If that resume doesn't warrant the title "legal hatchet man" we wonder what does? We
encourage interested readers or journalists to explore those links for themselves. By way of
conclusion, it simply suffices to note that much of Eisen's impeachment activity he conducted
before there was any discussion or knowledge of President Trump's call to the Ukrainian
President in 2018 -- indeed before the call even happened. Impeachment was very clearly a
foregone conclusion -- a quite literal part of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution playbook -- and it
was up to people like Eisen to find the pretext, any pretext.
Despite their constant invocation of "democracy" we ought to note that transferring the
question of electoral outcomes to adversarial legal processes is in fact anti-Democratic -- in
keeping with our observation that the Color Revolution playbook uses "democracy" as a term of
art, often meaning the precise opposite of the usual meaning suggesting popular support.
Perhaps the most important entry in Eisen's entry is the first, that is, Eisen's
participation in the infamous David Brock blueprint on how to undermine and overthrow the Trump
presidency.
The Washington Free Beacon attended the retreat and obtained David Brock's private
and confidential memorandum from the meeting. The memo, "
Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action ," outlines Brock's four-year agenda to
attack Trump and Republicans using Media Matters, American Bridge, Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) , and Shareblue.
This leaked memo was written before President Trump took office, further suggesting that all
of the efforts to undermine Trump have not been good faith responses to his behavior, but a
pre-ordained attack strategy designed to overturn the 2016 election by any means necessary. The
Color Revolution expert who suggests impeachment as a tactic in his Color Revolution "playbook"
was already in charge of impeachment before Trump even took office -- -Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is run by none other than Norm Eisen.
But the attempt to overturn the 2016 election using Color Revolution tactics failed. And so
now the plan is to overthrow Trump in 2020, hence Norm Eisen's noted participation in the
Transition Integrity Project. Looking around us, one is forced to ask the deeply uncomfortable
question, "transition into what?"
To conclude, we would like to call back to a point we raised in the first piece in our color
revolution series. In this piece, we noted that star Never Trump impeachment witness George
Kent just happens to be running the Belarus desk at the State Department. Belarus, we argued,
with its mass demonstrations egged on by US Government backed NGOS, its supposed "peaceful
protests" and of course its contested election results all fit the Color Revolution mold
curiously enough.
One NGO called the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (TDWG) was bold or reckless enough
to draw the parallels between the Color Revolution in Belarus and the events playing out
against Trump explicitly. In response to a remark by a twitter user that the TDWG's remarks
about Belarus suggested parallels to the United States, the TDWG ominously replied:
Now, would the reader care to take a guess as to who runs the Transatlantic Democracy
Working Group? If you guessed Norm Eisen, you would be correct.
Stay tuned for more in Revolver.news' groundbreaking coverage of the Color Revolution
against Trump. Be sure to check out the previous installments in this series:
The QT has referenced "the playbook" (uncapitalized) several times. Don't know if they are
pointing to Eisen's book, or the "Nazi" playbook. Whichever one it is, probably both, the
legitimate question can be asked:
* Note what word is being defined in the dictionary link.
If interested in seeing what QT is referencing in regards to "the playbook" you can click
this link , type " playbook " into the
'Search' and all mentions of 'playbook' in the drops will come up.
The Democracy Playbook sets forth strategies and actions that supporters of liberal
democracy can implement to halt and reverse democratic backsliding and make democratic
institutions work more effectively for citizens. The strategies are deeply rooted in the
evidence: what the scholarship and practice of democracy teach us about what does and does not
work. We hope that diverse groups and individuals will find the syntheses herein useful as they
design catered, context-specific strategies for contesting and resisting the illiberal toolkit.
This playbook is organized into two principal sections: one dealing with actions that domestic
actors can take within democracies, including retrenching ones, and the second section
addressing the role of international actors in supporting and empowering pro-democracy actors
on the ground. [ Note: contains copyrighted material ].
The 238-page document, written by the majority staff of the House Transportation
Committee, calls into question whether the plane maker or the Federal Aviation Administration
has fully incorporated essential safety lessons, despite a global grounding of the MAX fleet
since March 2019.
After an 18-month investigation, the report, released Wednesday, concludes that Boeing's
travails stemmed partly from a reluctance to admit mistakes and "point to a company culture
that is in serious need of a safety reset."
The report provides more specifics, in sometimes-blistering language, backing up
preliminary
findings the panel's Democrats released six months ago , which laid out a pattern of
mistakes and missed opportunities to correct them.
In one section, the Democrats' report faults Boeing for what it calls "inconceivable and
inexcusable" actions to withhold crucial information from airlines about one cockpit-warning
system, related to but not part of MCAS, that didn't operate as required on 80% of MAX jets.
Other portions highlight instances when Boeing officials, acting in their capacity as
designated FAA representatives, part of a widely used system of delegating oversight
authority to company employees,
failed to alert agency managers about various safety matters .
Boeing concealed from regulators internal test data showing that if a pilot took longer
than 10 seconds to recognise that the system had kicked in erroneously, the consequences
would be "catastrophic" .
The report also detailed how an alert, which would have warned pilots of a potential
problem with one of their anti-stall sensors, was not working on the vast majority of the Max
fleet . It found that the company deliberately concealed this fact from both pilots and
regulators as it continued to roll out the new aircraft around the world.
In Bed With the Regulators
Boeing's defense is the FAA signed off on the reviews. Lovely. Boeing coerced or bribed the FAA to sign off on the reviews now tries to hide behind
the FAA.
There is only one way to stop executive criminals like those at Boeing. Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all of
their stock and options and hand the money out for restitution.
adr , 1 hour ago
Remember, Boeing spent enough on stock buybacks in the past ten years to fund the
development of at least seven new airframes.
Instead of developing a new and better plane, they strapped engines that didn't belong on
the 737 and called it safe.
SDShack , 21 minutes ago
What is really sad is they already had a perfectly functional and safe 737Max. It was the
757. Look at the specs between the 2 planes. Almost same size, capacity, range, etc. Only
difference was the 757 requires longer runways, but I would think they could have adjusted
the design to improve that and make it very similar to the 737Max without starting from
scratch. Instead Boeing bean counters killed the 757 and gave the world this flying coffin.
Now the world bean counters will kill Boeing.
Tristan Ludlow , 1 hour ago
Boeing is a critical defense contractor. They will not be held accountable and they will
be rewarded with additional bailouts and contract awards.
MFL5591 , 1 hour ago
Can you imagine a congress of Criminals Like Schiff, Pelosi and Schumer prosecuting
someone else for fraud? What a joke. Next up will be Bill Clinton testifying against a person
on trial for Pedophilia!
RagaMuffin , 1 hour ago
Mish is half right. The FAA should join Boeing in jail. If they are not held responsible
for their role, why have an FAA?
Manthong , 1 hour ago
"There is only one way to stop executive criminals like those at Boeing.
Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all
of their stock and options and hand the money out for restitution."
Correction:
There is only one way to stop regulator criminals like those in government.
Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all
of their pensions and ill gotten wealth a nd hand the money out for restitution.
Elliott Eldrich , 43 minutes ago
"There is only one way to stop executive criminals like those at Boeing.
Charge them with manslaughter, convict them, send them to prison for life, then take all
of their stock and options and hand the money out for restitution."
Ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA! Silly rabbit, jail is for poors...
Birdbob , 1 hour ago
Accountability of Elite Perps ended under Oblaba's reign of "Wall Street and Technocracy
Architects" .White collar criminals were granted immunity from prosecution. This was put into
play by Attorney Genital Eric Holder. This was the beginning of having an orificial Attorney
Genital that facilitated the District of Criminals organized crime empire ending the 3 letter
agencies' interference. https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/8310187817727287761/1843903631072834621
Dash8 , 1 hour ago
You don't seem to understand the basic principle of aircraft design...it must not require
an extraordinary response for a KNOWN problem.
Think of it this way; Ford builds a car that works great most of the time, but
occasionally a wheel will fall off at highway speeds...no problem, right? ....you just guide
the car to the shoulder on the 3 remaining wheels and all good.
Now, put your wife and kids in that car, after a day at work and the kids screaming in the
back.
Still feel good about your opinion?
canaanav , 1 hour ago
I wrote software on the 787. You are right. This was not a known problem and the Trim
Runaway procedure was already established. The issue was that the MAX needed a larger
horizontal stab and MCAS would have never been needed. The FAA doesnt have the knowledge to
regulate things like this. Boeing lost talent too, and gets bailouts and tax breaks to the
extent that they dont care.
Dash8 , 1 hour ago
But it was a known problem, Boeing admits this.
Argon1 , 41 minutes ago
LGBT & Ethnicity was a more important hiring criteria than Engineering talant.
gutta percha , 1 hour ago
Why is it so difficult to design and maintain reliable Angle Of Attack sensors? The
engineers put in layers and layers of complicated tech to sense and react to AOA sensor
failures. Why not make the sensors _themselves_ more reliable? They aren't nearly as complex
as all the layers of tech BS on top of them.
Dash8 , 1 hour ago
It's not, but it costs $$....and there you have it.
Argon1 , 37 minutes ago
Its the Shuttle Rocketdyne problem, the upper management phones down to the safety
committee and complains about the cost of the delay, take off your engineer hat and put on
your management hat. All of a sudden your project launches on schedule and the board claps
and cheers at their ability to defy physics and save $ millions by just shouting at someone
for about 60 seconds..
canaanav , 1 hour ago
Each AOA sensor is already redundant internally. They have multiple channels. I believe
they were hit with a maintenance stand and jammed. That said, AOA has never been a control
system component. It just runs the low-speed cue on the EFIS and the stick shaker. It's an
advisory-level system. Boeing tied it to Flight Controls thru MCAS. The FAA likely dictated
to Boeing how they wanted the System Safety Analysis (SSA) to look, Boeing wrote it that way,
the FAA bought off on it.
Winston Churchill , 43 minutes ago
More fundamental is why an aerodynamically stable aircraft wasn't designed in the first
place,love of money.
HardlyZero , 13 minutes ago
Yes. In reality the changed CG (Center of Gravity) due to the larger fan engine really did
setup as a "new" design, so the MAX should have been treated as "new" and completely
evaluated and completely tested as a completly new design. As a new design it would probably
double the development and test cost and schedule...so be it.
DisorderlyConduct , 1 hour ago
"Lovely. Boeing coerced or bribed the FAA to sign off on the reviews now tries to hide
behind the FAA."
No - what a shoddy analysis.
The FAA conceded many of their oversight responsibilities to Boeing - who was basically
given the green light to self-monitor. The FAA is the one that is in the wrong here.
Well, how the **** else was that supposed to end up? This is like the IRS letting people
self-audit...
Astroboy , 1 hour ago
Just as the Boeing saga is unfolding, we should expect by the end of the year other
similar situations, related to drug companies, pandemia and the rest.
8. The internet was invented by the US government, not Silicon Valley
Many people think that the US is ahead in the frontier technology sectors as a result of
private sector entrepreneurship. It's not. The US federal government created all these
sectors.
The Pentagon financed the development of the computer in the early days and the Internet
came out of a Pentagon research project. The semiconductor - the foundation of the
information economy - was initially developed with the funding of the US Navy. The US
aircraft industry would not have become what it is today had the US Air Force not massively
subsidized it indirectly by paying huge prices for its military aircraft, the profit of which
was channeled into developing civilian aircraft.
People believe that corporate executives are immune from prosecution and protected by the
fact that they are within the corporation. This is false security. If true purposeful and
intended criminal activities are conducted by any corporate executive, the courts can do what
is called "Piercing The Corporate Veil" . It is looking beyond the corporation as a virtual
person and looking at the actual individuals making and conducting the criminal
activities.
Just as the Boeing saga is unfolding, we should expect by the end of the year other
similar situations, related to drug companies, pandemia and the rest.
Allegations that a group or a political figure is neo-fascist are usually hotly contested,
especially when the term is used as a political epithet . The traits that provoke
such an epithet include usually includes ultranationalism, some kind of racial supremacy, extreme
authoritarianism, and xenophobia. Connection of the political movement or a politician to
intelligence service( in the USA to CIA) are more rarely used but Bush Senior was often called a
fascist.
From Fascism in North America -
Wikipedia "American intellectuals paid considerable attention to Mussolini, but few became
his supporters. He did have popular support in the Italian American community.[19][20]
In the so-called Business Plot in 1933, anti-war speaker Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy
businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup
d'état to overthrow American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified to
the Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack-Dickstein Committee") on these
claims. Dickstein, however, was a paid Soviet spy, and historians have not identified any
business leaders as a plotter.[21]
During the 1930s Virgil Effinger led the paramilitary Black Legion, a violent offshoot of the
Ku Klux Klan that sought a revolution to establish fascism in the United States.[22] Although
responsible for a number of attacks, the Black Legion was very much a peripheral band of
militants. More important were the Silver Legion of America, founded in 1933 by William Dudley
Pelley, and the German American Bund, which emerged the same year from a number of older groups,
including the Friends of New Germany and the Free Society of Teutonia. Both of these groups
looked to Nazism for their inspiration.
While these groups enjoyed some support, they were largely peripheral. A more prominent
leader, Father Charles Coughlin, sparked concern among some on the left at the time. Coughlin,
who publicly endorsed fascism, was unable to become involved in active politics because of his
status as a priest.[23] Other fascists active in the US included the publisher Seward Collins,
the broadcaster Robert Henry Best, the inventor Joe McWilliams and the writer Ezra Pound.
I try to avoid these terms like "fascism," but it has become clear that Donald J. Trump
actively seeks to become an at least authoritarian leader of the US...
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 3:49 pm
Fascism??? Nope. Zionism, yup. It's a form.
September 20, 2020 6:44 pm
We probably need to distinguish between fascism and neo-fascism. Those are two different
social models.
Fascism proper name is "national socialism." It is different from "national
neoliberalism" as advocated by Trump. In many ways, Classic Fascism strongly correlates
with the mental state of nation which is attacked by strong enemy, the enemy which has
supporters inside the country. It was also a revolt against financial oligarchy while
masking it with the particular national identity, due to historical for Europe
over-representation of Jews in financial industry. The distinct feature of fascism is its
strong aversion to the excessive financialization of economy and banking, which fascists
consider evil.
Often it is also connected with the attempt of modernization of the country "from
above."
The classic fascism involve charismatic leader, unhinged militarism, cult of the army,
unhinged nationalism and cult of personal scarifies in the name of the country, violence
against opponents and the rejection of parliamentary democracy.
National socialism model of the state was the first which emphasized the key role on
intelligence agencies in suppressing of the dissent and as a tool of infiltration into
opposition. Surveillance of the population became vital state function. It was fascism that
invented the role of intelligence agencies as the major part of oppressive apparatus of the
state. It re-invented "political police" on a new level in the form of Gestapo.
For the most part (and that's why many researchers do not consider Franco regime as a
proper fascist state) t also was defined by openly proclaimed goal of external expansion.
In this sense it is not unlike neoliberal states with the only difference in tools --
direct army occupation vs. indirect occupation via financial capital penetration and
subjugation of nation via debt and the control of its elite (debt slave mechanism)
Scapegoated ethnic minorities was typical only for selected national variants and first
of all for the German variant, (where it were Jews and Gypsies.)
BTW the formal program of NSDAP (not that they intended to implement it) was to the left
of the current Democratic Party Platform
.
The 25-point Program of the NSDAP
7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a
livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total
population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be
expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all
non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to
leave the Reich.
9.All citizens must have equal rights and obligations.
10.The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically.
The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but
must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.
Consequently, we demand:
11.Abolition of unearned (work and labor) incomes. Breaking of debt
(interest)-slavery.
12.In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war
demands of the people, personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime
against the people. Therefore, we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13.We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
14.We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
15.We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
16.We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate
communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small
firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or
municipality.
17.We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free
expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and
prevention of all speculation in land.
18.We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to
the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to
be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
21.The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and
child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of
the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all
organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
Neo-fascism is something very different and less defined. It is unclear if Trump's
"national neoliberalism" can be classified as neo-fascism (which in a very simplified
meaning is fascism within the bounds of parliamentary democracy) . I am not an expert on
the topic. But clearly several things simply do not match. First of all is should strives,
at least on the level of program, to raise the standard of living of lower 80% of
population. This is not the case with Trump.
Terry , September 20, 2020 7:28 pm
...Mostly, I am concerned that SCOTUS will become a rubber stamp for the oligarchs...
I do not know whether it is fascism, neither whatever or just the " law of the jungle",
but it is bad.
Bert Schlitz , September 20, 2020 8:26 pm
Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism. Soviet Russia went into this
as well by 1928, became known as social fascism as they starved nonrussian areas of the
Soviet to industrialize rapidly in roughly 10 years.
What's stupidly called neofascism now is just zionist/conservative authoritarianism.
Progressive authoritarianism is from Millsian liberalism, which many people do not get.
Fred C. Dobbs September 21, 2020 11:34 am
'Classical Fascism is just socialism, with violent tribalism.'
Fascism, as instituted by Benito Mussolini, is certainly NOT 'just socialism'. Wikipedia: Italian Fascism (Italian:
fascismo italiano), also known as Classical Fascism or simply Fascism, is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy by
Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini. The ideology is associated with a series of two political parties led by Benito Mussolini
…
Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) September 21, 2020 12:11 pm @Fred,
THX. Perhaps Nationalist Socialist was taken too literally there. In practice, Fascism was actually devoutly anti=socialist.
Also, congrats on your Boston Globe post given a thread.
That's naive take. Wary knows quite a bit about Antifa. Most probably the key people are
iether FBI agents or informants. The problem is that he find Antifa activities politically
useful. That's why he does not want to shut it down. This again put FBI in the role of kingmaker,
like under Comey.
Also don't forget that Brennan faction of CIA is still in power and that means the "deep
state" still is in control like was the case during Mueller investigation.
In May of 2017, President Trump did the right thing and fired FBI Director James Comey, the
individual at the center of the attempt to overturn the 2016 election results. Comey
orchestrated the spying efforts on President Trump and his campaign, which included the FBI
improperly applying for four separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to
eavesdrop on campaign aide Carter Page. He also authorized a politically motivated
investigation into Lt. General Michael Flynn and encouraged the entrapment of Flynn by his FBI
agents in an infamous White House interview.
Clearly, Comey was a disastrous FBI Director; however, the President made a terrible choice
when he replaced him with Christopher Wray, a bureaucrat who has not reformed the agency in any
meaningful way. He also seems to be incapable of identifying the real threats that are facing
the country.
In testimony on Thursday before the House Homeland Security Committee, Wray made a series of
remarkable claims. He stated that Antifa is not a group but is more of "an ideology or maybe a
movement." He also refused to identify Chinese efforts to interrupt the 2020 election and again
focused attention on activities from Russia.
With these remarks, Wray is doing the bidding of the Democrats and following their talking
points. Regarding Antifa violence, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY),
claimed it was a "myth."
Nadler has been in his congressional cocoon for too long. Antifa has been active for several
years, but since the death of George Floyd on May 25, it has intensified its activities around
the country. Millions of Americans have seen the frequent and disturbing video footage of
rioting and looting throughout the country. According to U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX),
"there have been more than 550 declared riots, many stoked by extremists, Antifa and the BLM
(Black Lives Matter) organization."
In his comments to Wray at the committee meeting, Crenshaw also noted the rioters have done
an extensive amount of damage. He stated that "between one and two billion dollars of insurance
claims will be paid out. That doesn't come close to measuring the actual and true damage to
people's lives, not even close."
Crenshaw is right as many of our urban areas, such as New York, Washington D.C.,
Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland among others have been devastated by a series of violent
protests. In the past few months, scores of monuments have been destroyed, and significant
damage has been done to businesses and public buildings. The group has also attacked innocent
civilians and targeted police officers. As Crenshaw asserted in this rebuttal to Wray, Antifa
matches the definition of a domestic terrorist organization.
18 September 2020 07:55 The Russian Embassy has demanded clarification from the United States about an NBC
report
The Russian Embassy in Washington has demanded an explanation from the US authorities
about an NBC TV report, which mentions US support for "Ukrainian units" in the
Crimea.
This has been reported in social networks on the official page of the diplomatic
mission.
In American journalists' material, it was said that the United States was arming
certain groups that were acting against Russian forces in the Crimea.
The point that the embassy is emphasizing is that Washington is supporting the
activities of terrorists in Russia. Diplomats admit that the channel may be wrong, but demand
that the United States clarify whether they are involved in organizing terrorist attacks
against the residents of Crimea.
Ukrainian units fighting Russian occupying forces in the Crimea?
For the liberation of Crimeans living under the yoke of post-Soviet Russian
imperialism?
This article is dedicated to the memory of an activist, inspiration, and recent friend:
Kevin Zeese. Its scope, sweep, and ambition are meant to match that of Kevin's outsized
influence. At that, it must inevitably fail – and its shortfalls are mine alone. That
said, the piece's attempt at a holistic critique of 19 years worth of war and cultural
militarization would, I hope, earn an approving nod from Kevin – if only at the
attempt. He will be missed by so many; I count myself lucky to have gotten to know him.
– Danny Sjursen
The rubble was still smoldering at Ground Zero when the U.S. House of Representatives
voted to
essentially transform itself into the Israeli
Knesset , or parliament. It was 19 years ago, 11:17pm Washington D.C. time on September
14, 2001 when the People's Chamber approved House Joint Resolution 64, the Authorization for
the Use of Military Force (AUMF) "against those responsible for the recent attacks."
Naturally, that was before the precise identities, and full scope, of "those responsible"
were yet known – so the resolution's rubber-stamp was obscenely open-ended by
necessity, but also by design.
The Senate had passed their own version by roll call vote about 12
hours earlier. The combined congressional tally was 518 to one. Only Representative Barbara
Lee of California
cast a dissenting vote , and even delivered a brief, prescient speech on the House floor.
It's almost hard to watch and listen all these years later as her voice cracks with emotion
amidst all that truth-telling
:
I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international
terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex and complicated matter
However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. Our country
is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, let's step back for a moment and think
through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of
control
Now I have agonized over this vote. But I came to grips with opposing this resolution
during the very painful, yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so
eloquently said, "As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore."
For her lone stance – itself courageous, even had she not since been
vindicated – Rep. Lee suffered
insults and death threats so intense that she needed around-the-clock bodyguards for a
time. It's hard to be right in a room full of the wrong – especially angry, scared, and
jingoistic ones. Yet the tragedy is America has become many of the things we purport to
deplore: the US now boasts a one-trick-pony foreign policy and a militarized society to
boot.
Endless imperial interventions and perennial policing at home and abroad,
counterproductive military adventurism, governance by permanent "emergency" fiat, and an ever
more martial-society? We've seen this movie before; in fact it's still playing – in
Israel. Without implying that Israel, as an entity, is somehow "evil," theirs was simply not
a path the US need or ought to have gone down.
"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"
In the nearly two decades since its passing, the AUMF has been cited at least
41 times in some 17 countries and on the high seas . The
specified nations-states included Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey,
Niger, Cameroon, and the broader African "Sahel Region" – which presumably also covers
the unnamed, but real, US troop presence in
Nigeria, Chad and Mali. That's a lot of unnecessary digressions – missions that
haven't, and couldn't, have been won. All of that aggression abroad predictably boomeranged
back home , in the
guise of freedoms constrained, privacy surveilled, plus cops and culture militarized.
Inevitably, just a few days ago, every publication, big and small, carried obligatory and
ubiquitous 9/11 commemoration pieces. Far fewer will even note the AUMF anniversary. Yet it
was the US government's response – not the attacks themselves – which most
altered American strategy and society. For in dutifully deciding on immediate military
retaliation, a "global war," even, on a tactic ("terror") and a concept ("evil") at that,
this republic fell prey to the Founders' great
obsession . Unable to agree on much else, they shared fears that the nascent American
experiment would suffer Rome's " ancestral curse " of ambition
– and its subsequent path to empire. Hence, Benjamin Franklin's supposed
retort to a crowd question upon exiting the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on
just what they'd just framed: "A republic, if you can keep it!"
Yet perhaps a modern allegory is the more appropriate one: by signing on to an endless
cycle of tit-for-tat terror retaliation on 9/14, We the People's representatives chose the
Israeli path. Here was a state forged
by the sword that it's consequently lived by ever since,
and may well die by – though the cause of death, no doubt, would likely be
self-inflicted. The first statutory step towards Washington transforming into Tel Aviv was
that AUMF sanction 19 years ago tonight.
No doubt, some militarist fantasies came far closer on the heels of the September 11th
suicide strikes: According to notes taken by aides,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld waited a whole five hours after Flight 77 impacted his
Pentagon to instruct subordinates to gather the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to
hit [Saddam Hussein] at same time Not only [Osama Bin Laden]." As for the responsive strike
plans, "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and
not."
Nonetheless, it was Congress' dutiful AUMF-acquiescence that made America's
Israeli-metamorphosis official. The endgame that ain't even ended yet has been dreadful. It's
almost impossible to fathom, in retrospect, but remember that as of September 14, 2001,
7,052 American troops and,
very conservatively, at least 800,000 foreigners (335,000 of them
civilians) hadn't yet – and need not have – died in the ensuing AUMF-sanctioned
worldwide wars.
Now, US forces didn't directly kill all of them, but that's about 112 September
11ths-worth of dead civilians by the very lowest estimates – perishing in wars of
(American) choice. That's worth reckoning with; and needn't imply a dismissive attitude to
our 9/11 fallen. I, for one, certainly take that date rather seriously.
My 9/11s
There are more than a dozen t-shirts hanging in my closet right now that are each
emblazoned with the phrase "Annual Marty Egan 5K Memorial Run/Walk." This event is
held back in the old neighborhood, honoring a very close family friend – a New York
City fire captain killed
in the towers' collapse. As my Uncle Steve's best bud, he was in and out of my grandparents'
seemingly communal Midland Beach, Staten Island bungalow – before Hurricane Sandy
washed many of them away – throughout my childhood. When I was a teenager, just
before leaving for West Point, Marty would tease me for being "too skinny for a soldier" in
the local YMCA weight-room and broke-balls about my vague fear of heights as I shakily
climbed a ladder in Steve's backyard just weeks before I left for cadet basic training.
Always delivered with a smile, of course.
Marty was doing some in-service training on September 11th, and didn't have to head
towards the flames, but he hopped on a passing truck and rode to his death anyway. I doubt
anyone who knew him would've expected anything less. Mercifully, Marty's body was one of the
first – and at the time, only – recovered , just two days after Congress chose war in
his, and 2,976 others' name. He was found wearing borrowed gear from engine company he'd
jumped in with.
I was a freshman cadet at West Point when I heard all of this news – left feeling so
very distant from home, family, neighborhood, though I was just a 90 minute drive north.
Frankly, I couldn't wait to get in the fights that followed. It's no excuse, really: but I
was at that moment exactly 18 years and 41 days old. And indeed, I'd spend the next 18
training, prepping, and fighting the wars I then wanted – and, ( Apocalypse
Now-style )
"for my sins" – "they gave me."
Anyway, Marty's family – and more so his memory – along with the general 9/11
fallout back home, have swirled in and out of my life ever since. In the immediate term,
after the attacks my mother turned into a sort of wake&funeral-hopper, attending
literally dozens over that first year. As soon as Marty had a headstone in Moravian Cemetery
– where my Uncle Steve once dug graves – I draped a pair of my new dog tags over
it on a weekend trip home. It was probably a silly and indulgent gesture, but it felt
profound at the time. Then, soon enough, the local street signs started
changing to honor fallen first responders – including the intersection outside my
church, renamed "Martin J. Egan Jr. Corner." (Marty used to joke , after all, that he'd graduated
from UCLA – that is, the University, corner of Lincoln Avenue, in the
neighborhood.)
Five years later, while I was fighting a war in a country (Iraq) that had nothing to do
with the 9/11 attacks, Marty's mother Pat still worked at the post office from which my own
mom shipped me countless care packages. They'd chat; have a few nostalgic laughs; then Pat
would wish me well and pass on her regards. When some of my soldiers started getting killed,
I remember my mother telling me it was sometimes hard to look Pat in the eye on the post
office trips – perhaps she feared an impending kinship of lost sons. But it didn't go
that way.
So, suffice it to say, I don't take the 9/11 attacks, or the victims, lightly. That
doesn't mean the US responses, and their results, were felicitous or forgivable. They might
even dishonor the dead. I don't pretend to precisely know, or speak for, the Egan family's
feelings. Still, my own sense is that few among the lost or their loved ones left behind
would've imagined or desired their deaths be used to justify all of the madness, futility,
and liberties-suppression blowback that's ensued.
Nevertheless, my nineteen Septembers 11th have been experienced in oft-discomfiting ways,
and my assessment of the annual commemorations, rather quickly began to change. By the tenth
anniversary, a Reuters reporter spent a couple of days on the base I commanded in
Afghanistan. At the time the outpost sported a flag gifted by my uncle, which had previously
flown above a New York Fire Department house. I suppose headquarters sent the journalist my
way because I was the only combat officer from New York City – but the brass got more
than they'd bargained for. By then, amidst my second futile war "surge," and three more of
the lives and several more of the limbs of my soldiers lost on this deployment, I
wasn't feeling particularly sentimental. Besides, I'd already turned – ethically and
intellectually – against what seemed to me demonstrably hopeless and counterproductive
military exercises.
Much to the chagrin of my career-climbing lieutenant colonel, I
waxed a bit (un)poetic on the war I was then fighting – "against farm boys with
guns," I not-so-subtly styled it – and my hometown's late suffering that ostensibly
justified it. "When I see this place, I don't see the towers," I said, sitting inside my
sandbagged operations center near the Taliban's very birthplace in Kandahar province. Then
added: "My family sees it more than I do. They see it dead-on, direct. I'm a professional
soldier. It's not about writing the firehouse number on the bullet. I'm not one for
gimmicks." It was coarse and a bit petulant, sure, but what I meant – what I
felt – was that these wars, even this " good " Afghan
one (per President Obama), no longer, and may never have, had much to do with 9/11, Marty, or
all the other dead.
The global war on terrorism (GWOT, as it was once fashionable to say) was but a reflex for
a sick society pre-disposed to violence, symptomatic of a militarist system led by a
government absent other ideas or inclinations. Still, I flew that FDNY flag – even
skeptical soldiers can be a paradoxical lot.
Origin Myths: Big Lies and Long Cons
Although the final approved AUMF
declared that "such acts [as terrorism] continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," that wasn't then, and
isn't now, even true . The toppled towers, pummeled Pentagon, and flying suicide
machines of 9/11 were no doubt an absolute horror; and such visions understandably clouded
collective judgment. Still, more sober
statistics demonstrate, and sensible strategy demands, the prudence of perspective.
From 1995 to 2016, a total of 3,277 Americans have been killed in terrorist acts on US
soil. If we subtract the 9/11 anomaly, that's just 300 domestic deaths – or 14 per
year. Which raises the impolite question: why don't policymakers talk about terrorism the
same way they do shark attacks or lightning strikes? The latter, incidentally, kill an average of 49
Americans annually. Odd, then, that the US hasn't
expended $6.4 trillion, or more than 15,000 soldier and contractor lives ,
responding to bolts from the blue. Nor has it kicked off or catalyzed global wars that have
directly killed – by that conservative estimate – 335,000 civilians.
See, that's the thing: for Americans, like the Israelis, some
lives matter more than others. We can just about calculate the macabre life-value ratios
in each society. Take Israel's 2014 onslaught on the Gaza Strip. In its fifty-day onslaught
of Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)
killed 2,131 Palestinians – of whom 1,473 were identified as civilians, including
501 children. As for the wildly inaccurate and desperate Hamas rocket strikes that the IDF
"edge" ostensibly "protected" against: those killed a whopping four civilians. To review:
apparently one Israeli non-combatant is worth 368 Palestinian versions. Now, seeing as
everything – including death-dealing is "bigger in Texas" – consider the macro
American application. To wit, 3,277 US civilians versus 335,000 foreign innocents equals a
cool 102-to-1 quotient of the macabre.
Such formulas become banal realities when one believes the big lies undergirding the
entire enterprise. Here, Israel and America share origin myths that frame the long con of
forever wars. That is, that acts of terror with stateless origins are best responded to with
reflexive and aggressive military force. In my first ever published article
– timed for Independence Day 2014 – I argued that America's post-9/11 "original
sin" was framing its response as a war in the first place. As a result, I – then a
serving US Army captain – concluded, "In place of sound strategy, we've been handed our
own set of martyrs: more than 6,500 dead soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines." More than
500 American troopers have died since, along with who knows how many foreign civilians. It's
staggering how rare such discussions remain in mainstream discourse.
Within that mainstream, often the conjoined Israeli-American twins even share the same
cruelty cheerleaders. Take the man that author Belen Fernandez not inaccurately
dubs "Harvard Law School's resident psychopath:" Alan Dershowitz. During Israel's brutal
2006 assault on Lebanon, this armchair-murderer took to the pages of the Wall Street
Journal with a column titled " Arithmetic of Pain ."
Dershowitz argued for a collective "reassessment of the laws of war" in light of
increasingly blurred distinctions between combatants and civilians. Thus, offering official
"scholarly" sanction for the which-lives-matter calculus, he unveiled the concept of a
"continuum of 'civilianality." Consider some of his cold and callous language:
Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents – babies,
hostages at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide
material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the
terrorists politically, or spiritually.
Got that? Leaving aside Dershowitz's absurd assumption that there are loads of
Palestinians just itching to volunteer as "human shields," it's clear that when conflicts are
thus framed – all manner of cruelties become permissible.
In Israel, it begins with stated policies of internationally- prohibited
collective punishment. For example, during the 2006 Lebanon War that killed exponentially
more innocent Lebanese than Israelis, the IDF chief of staff's announced
intent was to deliver "a clear message to both greater Beirut and Lebanon that they've
swallowed a cancer [Hezbollah] and have to vomit it up, because if they don't their country
will pay a very high price." It ends with Tel Aviv's imposition of an abusive
calorie-calculus on Palestinians.
In 2008, Israeli authorities actually
drew up a document computing the minimum caloric intake necessary for Gaza's residents to
suffer (until they yield), but avoid outright starvation. Two years earlier, that wonderful
wordsmith Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained that
Israeli policy was designed "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of
hunger."
Lest that sound beyond the pale for we Americans, recall that it was the first female
secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who ten years earlier said of 500,000 Iraqi
children's deaths under crippling U.S. sanctions: "we think, the price is worth it."
Furthermore, it's unclear how the Trump administration's current sanctions-
clampdown on Syrians unlucky enough to live in President Bashar al Assad-controlled
territory is altogether different from the "Palestinian diet."
After all, even one of the Middle East Institute's resident regime-change-enthusiasts,
Charles Lister, recently admitted
that America's criminally-euphemized "Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act" may induce a
"famine." In other words, according to two humanitarian experts
writing on the national security website War on the Rocks , "hurting the very
civilians it aims to protect while largely failing to affect the Syrian government
itself."
It is, and has long been, thus: Israeli prime ministers and American presidents, Bibi and
The Donald, Tel Aviv and Washington – are peas in a punishing pod.
Emergencies as Existences
In both Israel and America, frightened populations finagled by their uber-hawkish
governments acquiesce to militarized states of "emergencies" as a way of life. In seemingly
no time at all, the latest U.S. threshold got so low that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
matter-of-factly
declared one to override a congressional-freeze and permit the $8.1 billion sale of
munitions to Gulf Arab militaries. When some frustrated lawmakers asked the State
Department's inspector general to investigate, the resultant report
found that the agency failed to limit [Yemeni] civilian deaths from the sales –
most bombed by the Saudi's subsequent arsenal of largesse. (As for the inspector general
himself? He was "
bullied ," then fired, by Machiavelli Mike).
Per the standard, Israel is the more surface-overt partner. As the IDF-veteran author Haim
Bresheeth-Zabner writes in his new book , An Army Like
No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation , Israel is the "only country in
which Emergency Regulations have been in force for every minute of its existence."
Perhaps more worryingly, such emergency existences boomerang back to militarized
Minneapolis and Jerusalem streets alike. It's worth nothing that just five days after the
killing of George Floyd, an Israeli police officer
gunned down an unarmed, autistic, Palestinian man on his way to a school for the
disabled. Even the 19-year-old killer's 21-year-old commander (instructive, that)
admitted the cornered victim wasn't a threat. But here's the rub: when the scared and
confused Palestinian man ran from approaching police at 6 a.m. , initial officers
instinctually reported a potential "terrorist" on the loose.
Talk about global terror coming home to roost on local streets. And why not here in the
States? It wasn't but two months back that President Trump labeled peaceful
demonstrators in D.C., and nationwide protesters
tearing down Confederate statues, as "terrorists." That's more than a tad troubling,
since, as noted, almost anything is permissible against terrorists, thus tagged.
In other words, the Israeli-American, post-9/11 (or -9/14) militarized connections go
beyond the cosmetic and past sloganeering. Then again, the latter can be instructive. In the
wake of the latest Jerusalem police shooting, protesters in Israel's Occupied Territories
held up placards declaring solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM). One read:
"Palestinians support the black intifada." Yet the roots of shared systemic injustices run
far deeper.
Though it remains impolitic to say so here in the US,
both "BLM and the Palestinian rights movement are [by their own accounts] fighting
settler-colonial states and structures of domination and supremacy that value, respectively,
white and Jewish lives over black and Palestinian ones." They're hardly wrong.
All-but-official apartheid reigns in
Occupied Palestine, and a de-facto two-tier system
favoring Jewish citizens, prevails within Israel itself. Similarly, the US grapples with
chattel slavery's legacy, lingering effects institutional Jim Crow-apartheid, and its
persistent system of gross, if unofficial, socio-economic racial disparity.
Though there are hopeful rumblings in post-Floyd America, neither society has much
grappled with the immediacy and intransigency of their established and routine devaluation of
(internal and external) Arab and African lives. Instead, in another gross similarity,
Israelis and Americans prefer to laud any ruling elites who even pretend towards mildly
reformist rhetoric (rather than action) as brave peacemakers.
In fact, two have won the Nobel Peace Prize. In America, there was the untested Obama: he
the
king of drones and free-press-suppression – whose main qualification for the award
was not being named George W. Bush. In Israel, the prize went to late Prime Minister Shimon
Peres. According to Bresheeth-Zabner, Peres was the "mind behind the military-industrial
complex" in Israel, and also architect of the infamous
1996 massacre of 106 people sheltering at a United Nations compound in South Lebanon. In
such societies as ours and Israel's, and amidst interminable wars, too often politeness
passes for principle.
Military Mirrors
Predictably, social and cultural rot – and strategic delusions – first
manifest in a nation's military. Neither Israel's nor America's has a particularly impressive
record of late. The IDF won a few important wars in its first 25 years of existence, then
came back from a near catastrophic defeat to prevail in the 1973 Yom Kippur War; but since
then, it's at best muddled through near-permanent lower-intensity conflicts after invading
Southern Lebanon in 1978. In fact, its 22-year continuous counter-guerilla campaign there
– against Palestinian resistance groups and then Lebanese Hezbollah – slowly bled
the IDF dry in a quagmire often called " Israel's
Vietnam ." It was, in fact, proportionally more deadly
for its troops than America's Southeast Asian debacle – and ended (in 2000) with an
embarrassing unilateral withdrawal.
Additionally, Tel Aviv's perma-military-occupation of the Palestinian territories of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip hasn't just flagrantly violated
International law and several UN resolutions – but blown up in the IDF's face. Ever
since vast numbers of exasperated and largely abandoned (by Arab armies) Palestinians rose up
in the 1987 Intifada
– initially peaceful protests – and largely due to the IDF's counterproductively
vicious suppression, Israel has been trapped in endless imperial policing and
low-to-mid-level counterinsurgency.
None of its major named military operations in the West Bank and/or Gaza Strip –
Operations Defensive Shield (2002), Days of Penitence (2004), Summer Rains (2006), Cast Lead
(2008-09), Pillar of Defense (2012), Protective Edge (2014), among others – has
defeated or removed Hamas, nor have they halted the launch of inaccurate but persistent
Katyusha rockets.
In fact, the wildly disproportionate toll on Palestinian civilians in each and every
operation, and the intransigence of Israel's ironclad occupation has only earned Tel Aviv
increased international condemnation and fresh generations of resistors to combat. The IDF
counts minor tactical successes and suffers broader strategic failure. As even a fairly
sympathetic Rand report on the Gaza operations
noted, "Israel's grand strategy became 'mowing the grass' – accepting its inability to
permanently solve the problem and instead repeatedly targeting leadership of Palestinian
militant organizations to keep violence manageable."
The American experience has grown increasingly similar over the last three-quarters of a
century. Unless one counts modern trumped-up Banana
Wars like those in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989), or the lopsided 100-hour First
Persian Gulf ground campaign (1991), the US military, too, hasn't won a meaningful victory
since 1945. Korea (1950-53) was a grinding and costly draw; Vietnam (1965-72) a quixotic
quagmire; Lebanon (1982-84) an unnecessary and muddled
mess ; Somalia (1992-94) a mission-creeping fiasco;
Bosnia/Kosovo (1992-) an over-hyped and unsatisfying diversion. Yet matters deteriorated
considerably, and the Israeli-parallels grew considerably, after Congress chose
endless war on September 14, 2001.
America's longest ever war, in Afghanistan, started as a seeming slam dunk but has turned
out to be an intractable operational defeat. That lost cause has been a
dead war walking for over a decade. Operations Iraqi Freedom (2003-11) and Inherent
Resolve (2014-) may prove, respectively, America's most counterproductive and aimless
missions ever. Operation Odyssey Dawn, the 2011 air campaign in pursuit of Libyan regime
change, was a debacle – the entire region still grapples with its
detritus of jihadi profusion, refugee dispersion, and ongoing proxy war.
US support for the Saudi-led terror war on Yemen hasn't made an iota of strategic sense,
but has left America criminally
complicit in immense civilian-suffering. Despite the hype, the relatively young US Africa
Command (AFRICOM) was never really "about Africans," and its dozen years worth of far-flung
campaigns have only further militarized a long-suffering continent and
generated more terrorists. Like Israel's post-1973 operations, America's post-2001 combat
missions have simply been needless, hopeless, and counterproductive.
Consider a few other regrettable U.S.-Israeli military connections over these last two
decades:
Both have set their loudly proclaimed principles aside and made devil's bargains
with the venal Saudis (many of whom really do hate our values), as well as with
the cynical military coup-artists in Egypt.
Both have increasingly engaged in " wars of choice
" and grown reliant on the snake oil of "magical" air power to [not] win them. In fact,
during the 2006 war there, the IDF's first-ever air force officer to serve as chief of
staff declared
his intent to use such sky power to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years." How's
that for the head of a force that still styles
itself "the most moral army in the world." It's hard to see much moral difference
between that and America's ever-secretive drone program (perhaps 14,000 total strikes) and
the US government's constant and purposeful underreporting of the thousands of civilians
they've killed.
Both vaunted militaries broke their supposedly unbreakable backs in ill-advised
invasions built on false pretenses. The Israeli historian Martin van Creveld has famously
called
Israel's 1982 Lebanon War – and the quagmire that resulted – his country's
"greatest folly." The mainstream US national security analyst Tom Ricks – hardly a
dove himself – went a step further: the 2003 "American military adventure in Iraq"
was nothing short of a Fiasco
.
Both armies have seen their conventional war competence and ethical standards
measurably deteriorate amidst lengthy militarized-policing campaigns. As van Creveld said
of the IDF during the 1982 Lebanon invasion (after it enabled
the vicious massacre of Palestinian refugees by Christian militiamen: it was reduced from
the superb fighting force of a "small but brave people" into a "high-tech, but soft,
bloated, strife-ridden, responsibility-shy and dishonest army."
The wear and tear from the South Lebanon occupation and from decades of beating up on
downtrodden and trapped Palestinians damaged Israel's vaunted military. According to an
after-action review, these operations"weakened the IDF's operational capabilities." Thus,
when Israel's nose was more than a bit bloodied in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, IDF analysts
and retired officers were quick – and not exactly incorrect – to blame the
decaying effect of endless low-intensity warfare.
At the time, two general staff members, Major Generals Yishai Bar and Yiftach Ron-Tal,
"warned that as a result of the preoccupation with missions in the territories, the IDF had
lost its maneuverability and capability to fight in mountainous terrain." Van Creveld added
that: "Among the commanders, the great majority can barely remember when they trained for and
engaged in anything more dangerous than police-type operations."
Similar voices have sounded the
alarm about the post-9/11 American military. Perhaps the loudest has been my fellow West
Point History faculty alum, retired Colonel Gian Gentile. This former tank battalion
commander and Iraq War vet described "America's deadly embrace of counterinsurgency" as a
Wrong
Turn . Specifically, he's
argued that "counterinsurgency has perverted [the way of] American war," pushed the
"defense establishment into fanciful thinking," and thus "atrophying [its] core fighting
competencies."
Instructively, Gentile
cited "The Israeli Defense Forces' recent [2006] experience in Lebanon There were many
reasons for its failure, but one of them, is that its army had done almost nothing but
[counterinsurgency] in the Palestinian territories, and its ability to fight against a
strident enemy had atrophied." Maybe more salient was Gentile's other
rejoinder that, historically, "nation-building operations conducted at gunpoint don't
turn out well" and tend to be as (or more) bloody and brutal as other wars.
Finally, and related to Gentile's last point, both militaries fell prey to the
brutality and cruelty so common in prolonged counterinsurgency and counter-guerilla combat.
Consider the resurrected utility of that infamous adage of
absurdity mouthed by a US Army major in Vietnam: "it became necessary to destroy the
town to save it." He supposedly meant the February 1968 decision to bomb and shell the city
of Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, regardless of the risk to civilians therein.
Fast forward a decade, and B?n Tre's ghost was born again in the matter-of-fact admission
of the IDF's then chief of staff, General Mordecai Gur. Asked if, during its 1978 invasion of
South Lebanon, Israel had bombed civilians "without discrimination," he
fired back : "Since when has the population of South Lebanon been so sacred? They know
very well what the terrorists were doing. . . . I had four villages in South Lebanon
bombarded without discrimination." When pressed to confirm that he believed "the civilian
population should be punished," Gur's retort was "And how!" Should it surprise us then, that
33 years later the concept was
rebooted to flatten presumably (though this has been contested) booby-trapped villages in
my old stomping grounds of Kandahar, Afghanistan?
In sum, Israel and America are senseless strategy-simpatico. It's a demonstrably
disastrous two-way relationship. Our main exports have been guns – $142.3 billion
worth since 1949 (significantly more than any other recipient) – and twin umbrellas
of air defense and
bottomless diplomatic top-cover for Israel's abuses. As to the top-cover export, it's not for
nothing that after the U.S. House rubber-stamped – by a vote of 410-8 – a 2006
resolution (written by the Israel Lobby) justifying IDF attacks on Lebanese civilians, the
"maverick" Republican Patrick Buchanan labeled the legislative body as " our
Knesset ."
Naturally, Tel Aviv responds in kind by shipping America a how-to-guide for societal
militarization, a built-in foreign policy script to their benefit, and the unending ire of
most people in the Greater Middle East. It's a timeless and treasured trade – but it
benefits neither party in the long run.
"Armies With Countries"
It was once
said that Frederick the Great's 18th century Prussia, was "not a country with an army,
but an army with a country." Israel has long been thus. It's probably still truer of them
than us. The Israelis do, after all, have an immersive system of military conscription
– whereas Americans leave the
fighting, killing, and dying to a microscopic and
unrepresentative Praetorian Guard of professionals. Nevertheless, since 9/11 – or,
more accurately, 9/14/2001 – US politics, society, and culture have wildly militarized.
To say the least, the outcomes have been unsatisfying: American troops haven't "won" a
significant war 75 years. Now, the US has set appearances aside once and for all and "
jumped the shark "
towards the gimmick of full-throated imperialism.
There are, of course, real differences in scale and substance between America and Israel.
The latter is the size
of Massachusetts, with the population of New
York City. Its "Defense Force" requires most of its of-age population to wage its offensive
wars and perennial policing of illegally occupied Palestinians. Israeli society is more
plainly "
prussianized ." Yet in broader and bigger – if less blatant – ways, so is the
post-AUMF United States. America-the-exceptional leads the world in legalized
gunrunning and overseas military
basing . Rather than the globe's self-styled "
Arsenal of Democracy ," the US has become little more than the arsenal of arsenals. So,
given the sway of the behemoth military-industrial-complex and recent Israelification of its
political culture, perhaps it's more accurate to say America is a defense industry with a
country – and not the other way around.
As for 17 year-old me, I didn't think I'd signed up for the Israeli Defense Force on that
sunny West Point morning of July 2, 2001. And, for the first two months and 12 days of my
military career – maybe I hadn't. I sure did serve in its farcical facsimile, though:
fighting its wars for an ensuing 17 more years.
Yet everyone who entered the US military after September 14, 2001 signed up for just that.
Which is a true tragedy.
Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor atAntiwar.comHis work has appeared in
the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Popular Resistance, and
Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units
in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the
author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His forthcoming book,
Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is now available forpre-order. Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan FoundationCultural Freedom Fellow. Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVet. Visit his
professionalwebsitefor contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past
work.
"... He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish? ..."
"... And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries? ..."
"... My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. ..."
"... Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank. ..."
"... If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots. ..."
"... The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades. ..."
"... Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan. ..."
"... The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it. ..."
"... There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones. ..."
"... I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern. ..."
"... Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy. ..."
"... When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause. ..."
"... But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice. ..."
"... the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables ..."
"... The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. ..."
It is clear that the heat has gone away in the fabled "Arab Street" over the issue of
Israel. If that were not so, the rulers would not have dared to do this. That being so ... It
will be very interesting to see how many people from these two countries go to Israel to
visit holy sites like the al-Aqsa Mosque. There have not been many religious tourists from
Egypt and Jordan. This is what the Israelis call pilgrims. Trump thinks that he can bring
Saudi Arabia into such a deal? Good! Let's see it. He thinks that Iran can be brought into
such a deal? Wonderful! Let's see it.
He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that
something we should relish?
And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad
two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of
Pompeo and Jeffries?
I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the
UAE.
I suspect this has less to do with peace and more to do with lining up a coalition against
Iran. He's signing peace deals at the white house the same day he not only threatens Iran for
a make believe assassination plot against our South African Ambassador, but admits he wanted
to assassinate Assad.
He's making a big mistake though if he thinks Iranians will behave and respond similarly
to the Arabs, and they are certainly not North Koreans.
He's being frog marched into a war with Iran while his ego is being stroked under the
guise of a Nobel peace prize.
What say about Alastair Crooke's "Maintaining Pretence Over Reality: 'Simply Put, the
Iranians Outfoxed the U.S. Defence Systems'" at Strategic Culture Foundation?
My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how
much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and
Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. The other issue is the degree with which Arab
elites can "reroute" Anti Israeli into Anti Iranian sentiments on the Arab street.
Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza
=! West Bank.
If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit
Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress
and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the
higher helots.
I think this will be fairly hard though. Various Historical, religion and cultural issues
specific to the situation make it quite hard for Arabs to actually assimilate into Israeli
society. There is also a lack of a unifying foe to unite against. If you look at relatively
successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was
threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause.
The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a
little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and
away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades.
The TDS afflicted media couldn't bear that some lemonade was made. Wolf Blitzer
interviewing Jared Kushner was all about pandemic nothing about the implications or process
to having couple gulf sheikhs recognize Israel. The fact is that these gulf sheikhs only paid
lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in any case. This formalizes what was reality.
The "Arab Street" have always been a manifestation of whatever were powerful manipulations.
The manipulators have been coopted in the current lemonade making. In any case Bibi must be
very pleased. He didn't have to give up anything in his difficult domestic political
predicament.
The arabs simply do not care anymore, from Morocco to Oman. Their spirit totally broken by
the "Arab spring", youth disillusioned and jobless. The only dream left for most is to ape
the western lifestyle. The others are fighting in wars.
I can see one of two futures, a Clean Break: Securing the Realm-style one in which all of the arabs live life as helots under the
thumb of a Greater Israel. This would bring relative economic prosperity to most of the
helots.
I think I see the flaw in this article: ..."If that turns out to be the case and this
maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the
Palestinians,"...
Surely you don't believe that these maneuvers are intended to bring about a Palestinian
state?
The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab
states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but
closes to it.
There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst
the less accurate ones.
One running theme that I have been seeing from the former so-called neocon critics and ME
wars opponents (Michael Scheuer comes to mind) is their uncontrollable exhilaration for any
terrible so-called F.P. 'success' that the Trump admin achieves in the ME.
I also remember
when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it
a national security success. This is shameful pattern.
Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz
(Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians
United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American
interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this
outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy.
It it exactly what it is. Israel normalized relations with the most notorious
dictatorships and wants to implement Pegasus spying program and wide-scale surveillance
(among other nefarious things) in UAE and Bahrain. How is that a success for America? America
should stay out of these Israeli-first trouble making schemes and stay neutral or out of
there.
Let me tell you what a F.P. success is, OK? It would have been a huge success if America
was able to lure Iran into its orbit to fend of the Chinese communists out of the region and
out of our lives and have a stronger alliance with regards to its upcoming Cold War with
China.
It would have been successful for America to balance China out with Iran, India,
Turkey and Afghanistan, and not let China to invest billions in Haifa port (close to U.S.
military forces there) a major hub of its Belt and Road initiative and a huge blow to U.S.
new Cold war effort against China.
Think about it.
Allow me to raise a few points: first of all , every single one of these brutal backward
Arab dictatorships has had low key but crucial relations with Israel since the Cold War and
they just made it open, Big deal! Second, this joyfulness for a hostile anti-american country
is quite sad for two reasons:
1. that Larry touts it as a success for America, which is
anything but a success for America. It is a success for Bibi and Trump's evangelical/zionist
sugar daddies to cough up some Benjamins for Trump's campaign and his GOP/Likudniks. I guess
nowadays our judgement is so clouded and inverted that MAGA and MIGA are considered
inseparable.
2. The delusion that dems are bitterly angry and anti-Israel (because they are
anti-Trump) and therefore it automatically becomes an issue of partisan support for Trump and
whatever he does. This idea is so absurd that I won't get into it. Dems were the first to
congratulate Israel.
I would like Larry to tell me what he thinks of H.R. 1697 Israel Anti-Boycot Act which
punishes American citizens for practicing their god-given 2nd Amendment rights. or the 3.8
billion of aid, or the the gifting of Golan heights to Bibi? Are these big foreign policy
success too?
What the Arab-Israeli normalization means:
*The U.S. wants out of the ME to focus on China, a wet dream that Israel favors especially
post Cold War. It does not want secular, (semi) democratic sovereign states around it, and if
anyone pays attention close enough they do whatever they can to prevent any kind of political
reform and change of government to occur among Arab nations. Israelis are staunch supporters
of Saudi, Bahraini, UAE, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships in the MENA region.
Israel
will now be better positioned to roll-back any kind of grassroots reform in the ME with the
help of their now openly pro-Israeli Arab rulers by directing policies to these backward
rulers to divest from human development and political reform and instead invest more in
security, tech, surveillance.
This trend also explains Israeli constant opposition to the
Iran Deal, which would have had further ramifications for political reform and accelerated
weakening of Hardliners in Tehran and a better position for America to pivot to China with
the help of a moderated Iran. Israel does not want a powerful democratic nation near its
borders, and especially not in Iran. Just take a look at Israel's neighbors and tell me how
many of them are democratic and friendly with Israel and how does Israel behave when there
are secular Arab democratic states around it?
There is a developing coalition of powerful states as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli
normalization that observers call "the rejectionists". They are, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan
(impending), Malaysia (impending), Iran, and EU (impending).
It is true that Iran has now a target on its back and if it were smart, it would try its
best to develop some kind of alliance with the secular democratic humanists in EU to try to
remove itself from isolation, save what is left of the Iran Deal, and try to isolate and
condemn Israelis, Arab dictators and their cohorts internationally and through diplomacy back
portraying them as illiberal and anti-democratic or similar things. Although I am not too
hopeful that Iran is be able to do this for a number of obvious reasons.
This Arab-Israeli normalization is a MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) vision of very
tightly controlled development for the MENA region and extremely' special' attention has been
given to the cyber tech development (call it surveillance) to control the 'Arab Street' from
social revolt and the prevention of next rounds of Arab Springs, which again goes back to
Israel's long-standing regional doctrine of propping pro-U.S. and now pro-Israeli Arab
dictatorships in the region.
In the end, it's all just tribal superstition. Logically a spiritual absolute would be the
essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we
fell.
The fact we are aware, than the myriad details of which we are aware.
One of the reasons we can't have a live and let live world is because everyone thinks their
own vision should be universal, rather than unique. So the fundamentalists rule.
The reason nature is so diverse and dense is because it isn't a monoculture.
Irrespective of our technology, we are still fairly primitive, in the grand scheme of
things.
When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in
history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty
highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or
used as that cause.
If this all ends up in the longest run leading to today's and tomorrow's Israelis
accepting the lesser Israel that Rabin ended up deciding would be necessary for a
lesser-but-still-real Palestine to emerge as a real country resigned with both resigned
enough to that outcome that they would tolerate eachother's separate independence over the
long term, then this will go somewhere good.
But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is
totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for
ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That
outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice.
To have a two state solution Israel will have to leave enough of Palestine without Jewish
settlement for there to be room for another state. Their actions show that they have no
intention of doing that.
Larry: the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad
enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats.
Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never
going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and
water tables)
The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push
this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. The gerontocracy that rules the PA will soon pass away. The younger generation of
Palestinians are much more sophisticated.
As a trial lawyer, I see this type of behavior all the time. If you offer someone
essentially nothing, they lose nothing by rejecting it. The Arab dictators will not be around forever. And before Camp David, the Palestinians
have suffered far worse than they are suffering now.
In short: "We Jews know that Arabs (Palestinians) will never, ever voluntarily give up
hope of resisting Jewish demands, and Jews will never stop with Jewish demands: that all of
Palestine become Jewish.
Since 'voluntary' will not work, only force -- an Iron Wall -- will suffice.
Jabotinsky defines "Iron Wall" as the enforcement capacity of an outside power:
"we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their
voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the
natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say "no" and depart from Zionism.
Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in
defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue
and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population
– an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto,
our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.
Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power
committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be
deterred from interfering with our efforts."
Be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's administrative
assistant, then replacement, in New York; that Bibi is very much heir to the ideological
fervor of Jabotinsky & of Benzion; and that Benzion and Benjamin laid out the blueprint
for the GWOT at the Jerusalem Conference July 4, 1979 https://www.amazon.com/International-Terrorism-Challenge-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0878558942
Trump plays only a walk-on role in this carefully scripted 150 year old zionist drama.
"there isn't a lot of difference between KSA and these fiefdoms of uae and bahrain.." A
total crock. you obviously have never been to either of these places.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
...Amid all the pedantic squabbling over when it is and is not legal under US law for a
journalist to expose evidence of US war crimes, we must never lose sight of the fact that (A)
it should always be legal to expose war crimes, (B) it should always be illegal for governments
to hide evidence of their war crimes, (C) war crimes should always be punished, (D) people who
start criminal wars should always be punished, (E) governments should not be permitted to have
a level of secrecy that allows them to start criminal wars, and (F) power and secrecy should
always have an inverse relationship to one another.
The Assange case needs to be fought tooth and claw, but we must keep in mind that it is so
very, very many clicks back from where we need to be as a civilization. In an ideal situation,
governments should be too afraid of the public to keep secrets from them; instead, here we are
begging the most powerful government in the world to please not imprison a journalist because
he arguably did not break the rules that that government made for itself.
Do you see how far that point is from where we need to be?
It's important to remember this. It's important to remember that the amount of evil deeds
power structures will commit is directly proportional to the amount of information they are
permitted to hide from the public. We will not have a healthy world until power and secrecy
have an inverse relationship to each other: privacy for rank-and-file individuals, and
transparency for governments and their officials.
"But what about military secrets?" one might object. Yes, what about military
secrets? What about the fact that virtually all military violence perpetrated by the world's
largest power structures is initiated based on lies ? What about the utterly indisputable fact that the
more secrecy we allow the war machine, the more wars it deceives the public into allowing it to
initiate?
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't be trying to squint at
its own laws in such a way that permits the prosecution of a journalist for telling the
truth.
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't prosecute anyone for
telling the truth at all.
In a healthy world, governments would prosecute their own war crimes, instead of those who
expose them.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't commit war crimes at all.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't start wars at all.
In a healthy world, governments would see truth as something to be desired and actively
sought, not something to be repressed and punished.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't keep secrets from the public, and wouldn't have any
cause to want to.
In a healthy world, if governments existed at all, they would exist solely as tools for the
people to serve themselves, with full transparency and accountability to those people.
We are obviously a very, very far cry from the kind of healthy world we would all like to
one day find ourselves in. But we should always keep in mind what a healthy world will look
like, and hold it as our true north for the direction that we are pushing in.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Reality007 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:07 AM
Unfortunately, no criminals that have committed or covered up war crimes, decades ago to
present, will ever be indicted. They are all above the law while all innocents that revealed
the truths must pay highly. We can only pray and hope for the best for Julian Assange.
Fred Dozer Reality007 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:16 PM
I see nothing wrong with robbing banks in criminal controlled countries. These governments,
murder, cheat, lie, & steal.
T. Agee Kaye 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 11:10 AM
The right of a people to know what their government is doing, and the potential consequences
of those actions on the people, nation, and society, is inalienable. The exposure of war
crimes and any corruption is not illegal and cannot be made illegal. The trial of Assange is
not about the legality of Assange's actions. It is a display of the influence that criminal
interests have over the government and judiciary. It is an attempt to create legitimacy by
creating precedent. Murder has plenty of precedent. It will never be legitimate.
Jewel Gyn 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:21 AM
Agreed but having said that, we are not living in a perfect world. Bully with big fists exist
and the lesser countries just stood by frustrated and sucking their thumbs, silent lest they
be targeted for voicing out. And you can see clearly why US is walking away from any form of
organised voice eg UN.
Odinsson 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:51 AM
What we need in the case of Julian Assange is factual reporting. While the motivation to
prosecute Assange is most likely political, there would be no ability to prosecute him were
it not for his active support of PFC Manning's hacking of a DOD information system. It is not
unlawful to publish classified information which was provided to you, so long as you are not
involved in the criminal acts leading to the exfiltration of the data. Had Assange not aided
PFC Manning by looking up hash codes in spreadsheets of known password to hash code
translations then the grand jury would not have indicted him. FWIW, it is my opinion that the
statute of limitations expired long ago and this should be grounds for dismissal of all
charges against him.
jholf 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:04 PM
These world leaders, claim to be Christians, ... their God 'commands', "Thou shalt not kill."
Yet, for more than 6 decades, that is exactly what each of these Christian Commanders in
Chief, have done for no reason, other than to fill the pockets of the elite. A man is known
by his deeds, Assange gave us truth, while these world leaders gave us war and destructi
"... This fully contradicts the sequence of events outlined in the Minsk agreements whereby restoring Ukrainian armed forces' control on the border with Russia is possible only after an amnesty, agreeing on the special status of these territories, making this status part of the Ukrainian Constitution and holding elections there. Now they propose giving back the part of Donbass that "rebelled" against the anti-constitutional coup to those who declared these people terrorists and launched an "anti-terrorist operation" against them, ..."
"... On the contrary, Alexander Turchinov, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and others like them attacked these areas. The guilt of the people living there was solely in them saying, "You committed a crime against the state, we do not want to follow your rules, let us figure out our own future and see what you will do next." There's not a single example that would corroborate the fact that they engaged in terrorism. It was the Ukrainian state that engaged in terrorism on their territory, in particular, when they killed [Head of the Donetsk People's Republic] Alexander Zakharchenko and a number of field commanders in Donbass. So, I am not optimistic about this. ..."
Question: Here I am listening to you and wondering how many people care about this? Why is
it that no one understands this? Is this politics that is too far away from ordinary people who
are nevertheless behind it? Take Georgia or Ukraine. People are worse off now than before, and
despite this, this policy continues.
Will the Minsk agreements ever be implemented? Will the situation in southeastern Ukraine
ever be settled?
Returning to what we talked about. How independent is Ukraine in its foreign policy?
Sergey Lavrov: I don't think that under the current Ukrainian government, just like under
the previous president, we will see any progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements,
if only because President Zelensky himself is saying so publicly, as does Deputy Prime Minister
Reznikov who is in charge of the Ukrainian settlement in the Contact Group. Foreign Minister of
Ukraine Kuleba is also saying this. They say there's a need for the Minsk agreements and they
cannot be broken, because these agreements (and accusing Russia of non-compliance) are the
foundation of the EU and the US policy in seeking to maintain the sanctions on Russia.
Nevertheless, such a distorted interpretation of the essence of the Minsk agreements, or rather
an attempt to blame everything on Russia, although Russia is never mentioned there, has stuck
in the minds of our European colleagues, including France and Germany, who, being co-sponsors
of the Minsk agreements along with us, the Ukrainians and Donbass, cannot but realise that the
Ukrainians are simply distorting their responsibilities, trying to distance themselves from
them and impose a different interpretation of the Minsk agreements. But even in this scenario,
the above individuals and former Ukrainian President Kravchuk, who now heads the Ukrainian
delegation to the Contact Group as part of the Minsk process, claim that the Minsk agreements
in their present form are impracticable and must be revised, turned upside down. Also, Donbass
must submit to the Ukrainian government and army before even thinking about conducting reforms
in this part of Ukraine.
This fully contradicts the sequence of events outlined in the Minsk agreements whereby
restoring Ukrainian armed forces' control on the border with Russia is possible only after an
amnesty, agreeing on the special status of these territories, making this status part of the
Ukrainian Constitution and holding elections there. Now they propose giving back the part of
Donbass that "rebelled" against the anti-constitutional coup to those who declared these people
terrorists and launched an "anti-terrorist operation" against them, which they later
renamed a Joint Forces Operation (but this does not change the idea behind it), and whom they
still consider terrorists. Although everyone remembers perfectly well that in 2014 no one from
Donbass or other parts of Ukraine that rejected the anti-constitutional coup attacked the
putschists and the areas that immediately fell under the control of the politicians behind the
coup. On the contrary, Alexander Turchinov, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and others like them attacked
these areas. The guilt of the people living there was solely in them saying, "You committed a
crime against the state, we do not want to follow your rules, let us figure out our own future
and see what you will do next." There's not a single example that would corroborate the fact
that they engaged in terrorism. It was the Ukrainian state that engaged in terrorism on their
territory, in particular, when they killed [Head of the Donetsk People's Republic] Alexander
Zakharchenko and a number of field commanders in Donbass. So, I am not optimistic about
this.
Question: So, we are looking at a dead end?
Sergey Lavrov: You know, we still have an undeniable argument which is the text of the Minsk
Agreements approved by the UN Security Council.
Question: But they tried to revise it?
Sergey Lavrov: No, they are just making statements to that effect. When they gather for a
Contact Group meeting in Minsk, they do their best to look constructive. The most recent
meeting ran into the Ukrainian delegation's attempts to pretend that nothing had happened. They
recently passed a law on local elections which will be held in a couple of months. It says that
elections in what are now called the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics will be held only
after the Ukrainian army takes control of the entire border and those who "committed criminal
offenses" are arrested and brought to justice even though the Minsk agreements provide for
amnesty without exemptions.
Question: When I'm asked about Crimea I recall the referendum. I was there at a closed
meeting in Davos that was attended by fairly well respected analysts from the US. They claimed
with absolute confidence that Crimea was being occupied. I reminded them about the referendum.
I was under the impression that these people either didn't want to see or didn't know how
people lived there, that they have made their choice. Returning to the previous question, I
think that nobody is interested in the opinion of the people.
Sergey Lavrov: No, honest politicians still exist. Many politicians, including European
ones, were in Crimea during the referendum. They were there not under the umbrella of some
international organisation but on their own because the OSCE and other international agencies
were controlled by our Western colleagues. Even if we had addressed them, the procedure for
coordinating the monitoring would have never ended.
Who within the Deep state is supporting the riots? This is the question. Antifa would not
last a a couple of months, if all repressive power of the state fall on the head of its
brainwashed children of the middles class, who constitute the majority of it members. All members
probably are well known to FBI and the organization was infiltrated long ago.
America went through its own bout of Dionysian intoxication in the days following May 25,
when a Minneapolis cop by the name of Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of a 46-year-old Black
man by the name of George Floyd, causing his death. Corrupted by 66 years of bad education,
America's Black Lumpenproletariat erupted in an orgy of rioting that brought the rule
of law to an end in many of America's large cities. As of this writing, Antifa, a group which
Donald Trump has designated a domestic terrorist organization, is still in control of a
six-square block section of downtown Seattle, which they have designated the "Capitol Hill
Autonomous Zone." In Minneapolis, the town where the rioting started, their Pentheus, Mayor
Jacob Frey, was denounced by one of the Bacchant women who spoke in the name of Black Lives
Matter after he refused to defund the Minneapolis police department. Frey was not torn limb
from limb, but he was expelled from the crowd and had to take refuge with the police he was
ordered to defund.
The race riots of May and June 2020 were only the latest installment of what might be called
the regime of governance by crisis which began four years ago, when the Deep State decided to
do whatever was necessary to depose Donald Trump. That campaign began with Russiagate, followed
by the impeachment, followed by the hate speech campaign of 2019 which sought to ban "unwanted
content" from the Internet, followed by the Covid-19 pandemic. What united all of these crises
was oligarch unhappiness with the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States
and a desire to replace the institutions of representative government with ad hoc committees of
crisis managers masquerading as scientific experts and/or aggrieved minorities.
By now it should be obvious that the racial narrative writes itself whenever a Black man
dies at the hands of a white cop. Floyd's body was still warm when the mainstream media took up
the story which had already been written and declared him a saint, complete with halo and
wings. In reality, Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in
his system, but the BBC described him as someone who "was simply trying to live life as any
other American, in search of betterment in the face of both personal and societal challenges."
[1] He then
became "the latest totem of the ills that plague the country in 2020." After growing in wisdom,
age, and grace, Floyd's life suddenly "took a different turn, with a string of arrests for
theft and drug possession culminating in an armed robbery charge in 2007, for which he was
sentenced to five years in prison." Missing from the BBC account was any mention of Floyd's
incarceration, drug dealing, violence against pregnant women or his role as a porn star,
[2] but no one
needed to tell a graduate of America's public school system that he was witnessing the latest
installment of the ongoing saga of American racism in action.
... ... ...
Both sides of the racial conflict which George Floyd's death ignited were controlled by
Jews. The ADL has consistently played a double game by condemning the racial violence that
their training seminars have created. According to the Democratic Socialists of America, "The
police violence happening tonight in Minneapolis is straight out of the IDF playbook," adding,
"US cops train in Israel." [20] After
the death of George Floyd, the ADL, eager to avoid any association with the violence their
police seminars wrought among Blacks, tweeted: "As we continue to fight for justice for
#GeorgeFloyd, we also need to fight for justice for #BreonnaTaylor, who was murdered in her own
home by police. We need justice for everyone who has been a victim of racist policing &
violence." [21]
At the same time that the ADL was demanding justice for George Floyd, they made no mention
of the death of Iyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man who was gunned down after pleading for
his life while on the way to his special education class in occupied East Jerusalem. [22] The
Electronic Intifada, which did mention Hallaq's death, then singled out the Anti-Defamation
league as "a major player in the industry of bringing US police junkets to Israel for
'counterterrorism' and other kinds of joint training." [23]
Docile Negroes at traditionally Jewish organizations like the NAACP routinely get praised
for their work against racism, but as soon as Black Lives Matter began its Black solidarity
with Palestine campaign, the Israeli government and its lobbies in America attempted to disrupt
the Black Lives Matter movement in retaliation. In 2018 Al Jazeera's documentary The
Lobby -- USA revealed how The Israel Project "pulled strings behind the scenes to
get a Black Lives Matter fundraiser at a New York City nightclub canceled." [24]
So on the one hand we have American policemen being trained to treat their fellow citizens
in the same way that Israelis treat Palestinians, including the knee holds that will subdue and
sometimes kill them. This explains the white cop side of the equation. But on the other hand,
we have George Soros funding Black Lives Matter and the insurrections which follow incidents of
police brutality as the black side of the equation. Taken together both Jewish-funded groups
perpetuate the cycle of increasing violent racial conflict in America, while remaining all the
while invisible.
Black Lives Matter was a reincarnation of the Black-Jewish Alliance, which began with the
founding of the ADL after the lynching of Leo Frank and has continued to this day, with
time-outs taken for the World Wars of the 20th century. Shortly after World War II, Louis
Wirth, a Jewish sociologist from the University of Chicago began implementing his plan to
"integrate" housing in Chicago. When Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods understood that
"integration" was a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, riots ensued, beginning with the Airport
Park riots of 1947 and culminating in the arrival of Martin Luther King in Marquette Park
almost 20 years later. As one more indication that Black Lives Matter was the reincarnation of
the Black-Jewish Alliance, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, was born in
1981 to a white Jewish father and a Black mother.
Black Lives Matter was funded by George Soros to promote race war in the United States, but
BLM also promoted sexual deviance, another cause dear to the heart of the world's most
prominent Hungarian Jewish philanthropist. In their recently published manifesto, BLM situates
its attempt to be "unapologetically Black in our positioning" within a matrix of sexual
deviance, including attempts "to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk," by
disrupting "the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure" and putting in its place a
"queer-affirming network." [25]
If that jargon sounds familiar, it's because it stems from the university gender studies
programs which provide the matrix from which groups like BLM and Antifa get both their ideas
and their recruits. The ultimate cause of the uprising which took place in city after city in
the wake of George Floyd's death was bad education. Beginning in the late 1980s, literature
departments had been taken over by "tenured radicals" who have used critical theory, derived
from thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, and Gramsci, to undermine the validity of all structures
of authority. This essentially Nietzschean transvaluation of all values transferred moral
superiority to anyone who could claim oppression according to oligarchic endorsed categories
like race and gender, allowing the tenured radicals to take over one department after another
and, more importantly, allowing the proliferation of new departments, invariably ending in
"studies," as in gender studies, which drove the traditional liberal arts from academe turning
traditional universities into Maoist inspired re-education camps. The takeover of academe
reached its bitter culmination when Antifa led groups of disaffected, badly educated young
people, who were aware of nothing more significant than their grievances, into the streets in
what became an uncanny replication of the Chinese cultural revolution of 1966. One of the most
unlikely leaders of that revolution in China was an American Jew from Charleston, South
Carolina by the name of Sidney Rittenberg.
The academic pedigree of Rittenberg's successors became apparent when Antifa warlord Joseph
Alcoff got apprehended in Philadelphia in 2017 for assaulting a group of Hispanic Marines.
Alcoff's arrest shed light on one of the main figures in a society that remained literally
faceless because of their habit of wearing masks at the protests they disrupted by their
violence. Alcoff, who was known as the leader of Antifa in Washington, DC, was the child of
radical academics and had co-authored an academic paper with his mother Linda Alcoff in Volume
79 of Science and Society in the special issue on "Red and Black: Marxist Encounters
with Anarchism," entitled "Autonomism in Theory and Practice." [26] Radical
theory in the mind of Linda Alcoff led to violent praxis in the life of her son. As with Black
Lives Matter, the ADL has played a double game with Antifa, condemning its tactics while at the
same time defending it against accusations that it was morally equivalent to the "white
supremacists" it attacked in the streets of Charlottesville in 2017.
Continuity between the generations was made possible by the Jewish revolutionary spirit. The
fact that Alcoff was a Jew got suppressed in virtually every mainstream account of his
activity, [27] which
sanitized his communist connections by linking him to the Democratic Party through figures like
Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters. Alcoff was more forthright when he spoke in his own voice,
saying on one Youtube video, "I'm a Communist, motherf***er," before spitting into the camera.
[28]
Christians for truth portrayed Alcoff as "a self-styled modern-day Leon Trotsky" and attributed
the suppression of his ethnic identity to the fact that "Antifa's political manifestations are
funded by the billionaire Jew, George Soros." [29]
Andy Ngo, who was severely beaten by Antifa thugs in Portland in the wake of the 2016
presidential election, claims that "prominent media figures and politicians glamorize and even
promote Antifa as a movement for a just cause. CNN's Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon have defended
Antifa on-air. Chuck Todd invited Antifa ideologue Mark Bray onto Meet the Press to
explain why Antifa's political violence is "ethical." [30] Ngo goes
on to mention Joseph Alcoff as one of the most visible figures in what is otherwise a
clandestine organization, and claims that he had access to Democrat Representative Maxine
Waters in 2016. [31] He also
mentions Adam Rothstein, who is associated with the Rose City Antifa group which assaulted him
in 2016. Rothstein conducted a series of "secret lectures" at a Portland bookstore where local
recruits learned how to "heckle" opponents and make them "look ridiculous, make them feel
outnumbered," and convinced that the "Trump thing is gonna go by the wayside." [32]
Armed with political clout of this magnitude, Antifa can easily overwhelm local police
forces, which is what happened in Portland in 2016. The result is that "city government and
police lack the political will to protect citizens." What happened in Seattle in 2020 with the
creation of the "Capital Hill Autonomous Zone" was only the logical conclusion to what began in
Portland in 2016 and spread all over the Pacific Northwest, "where Antifa is especially
active." In its attempt to destabilize and destroy the nation state and its sovereign borders,
Antifa drew support from "mainstream progressive politicians, such as Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, who normalize hatred of border enforcement and sovereignty as such." [33]
Antifa has continued to be successful in disrupting local government and thwarting police
attempts to bring them under control because it is a Jewish organization which can always count
on favorable press from the Jewish-controlled mainstream media, which renders the connection
invisible. The same cannot be said for the Jewish press, which cites Antifa's Jewishness with
thinly-disguised ethnic pride.
When Donald Trump referred to Antifa as a terrorist organization, the Israeli newspaper
Ha'aretz came to their defense, "Trump's Attacks on Antifa Are Attacks on Jews."
[34]
According to an article which appeared in the Forward , Antifa activism "is an
affirmation of Jewish identity, both religious and secular" [35] which
stretches all the way back to 1897 with the founding of Bundism, which "sought to organize the
working-class Jews of Russia, Poland, and Lithuania." [36] After
members of a specifically Jewish Antifa group defaced a plaque in New York City honoring the
president of Vichy France Philippe Petain, they left a note which defended the rationale behind
their act of vandalism:
With Monday's actions, Jewish antifascists and allied forces have served notice that fascist
apologism will not be tolerated in our city in 2019; that anti-Semitic ideology and violence
will be confronted with Jewish solidarity and strength; and that the Holocaust will be
remembered not only with sadness and grief but also with righteous anger and action: 'We will
never forget. We will never forgive.' [37]
In the final analysis, Antifa is a Jewish organization in the same way that Bolshevism and
Neoconservatism were Jewish political movements. Not every member of Antifa is a Jew, but Jews
invariably find their ways into leadership roles in places like Portland, Washington, DC, and
even in China, as was the case during the Cultural Revolution of 1966, because they have an
advantage over non-Jews in embodying the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit which is the hidden
grammar of all revolutionary movements.
Interesting article, not the least surprising the Usual Suspects are playing both sides.
Like WW2?
One picky point is the Yanez shooting, the victim did have a gun, he had a permit for it.
He didn't show his hands and died with his hand near the gun. This was the one his GF put out
on Facebook Live to it incited two police massacres right away, the one everybody knows about
in Dallas (where they killed the shooter with a robot bomb) an another in Louisiana.
I'm a witness the SF Bay Area as a model of the racial obsession/gender bending schemes.
What a mess the place is–the signature of the Left-wing establishment that runs the
place is how the education system fails to fulfill the simple market demands for labor in
their own locale, at the high end Silicon Valley runs on Indian/Pakistani B-1s and at the
other the booming (until now) construction business runs on mostly imported Hispanics.
They spend more per pupil than the rest of the world and the whole system runs on
immigration.
I couldn't finish this article after reading this garbage:
"Floyd was a violent felon who died with traces of fentanyl and cocaine in his system"
It was announced two weeks ago that he had a lethal dose. His toxicology report was
finally made public and shows that he had a lethal dose of the dangerous pain killer fentanyl
in his system. This caused his lungs to fill with fluid, which explains why he told arriving
cops "I Can't Breath" and did not cooperate as he was delusional and dying. The cops wrestled
him to the ground and cuffed him as he died from a fentanyl overdose. Floyd would have died
right there even if the cops had not shown up.
This is why coroners wait for toxicology results before declaring the cause of death, but
in this case he bowed to political pressure and announced his death was caused by the knee to
the neck. This news is so big that our corporate media, which has promoted the riots, refuses
to air the truth. Details can be read here.
https://spectator.org/minnesota-v-derek-chauvin-et-al-the-prosecutions-dirty-little-secret/
In fair and normal world, the accused cops would be immediately freed and rehired with a
bad mark for Chauvin using an improper neck hold. Let's see what happens, but I don't expect
justice.
Floyd said "i can't breathe" several times BEFORE he was put on the ground. The cops did
nothing wrong and were trying to help him. It's all another monstrous media lie like the
mueller report and jussie smollett and rayshard brooks and the covington kids and bubba
wallace and the KY gun range video.
The American Deep State can destroy anti-fa if it wanted. Hunting down all the leaders of
this terrorist organization is not that hard. But of course the American Deep State will not
do so because anti-fa is a branch of the deep state, just like how Hollywood and the media
are (& have been for a long time) arms of the American (Globalist) deep state.
This is one of Jones' many indispensable articles. The opening alone is required reading
of anyone slightly bothered by what is going on. Dionysius sparks sexual revolution, and it
leads to debauched riot and murder and then to either social collapse or else brutal
tyranny.
The American Left and the Neocons both demand tyranny, as brutal as possible. They serve
anti-Christ.
It is either Christ and Christendom or the chaos of anti-Christ.
If Jones would realize that the Novus Ordo Mass and Vatican II are at best impotent before
Dionysius and return to Tradition, he could serve much better.
It cannot be repeated too much: we live in the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0. The first phase
of Anglo-Zionist Empire was the British Empire. The Brit WASP Empire spread philoSemitism
across the globe: cultural Zionism that was the inherent fruit of Anglo-Saxon Puritanism,
which was a Judaizing heresy that was the final and most defining part of Modern English, and
Anglophone Protestant, culture.
The reality is that we are in the eyes of the Anglo-Zionist Empire's elites what Irish
Catholic were to archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell and what Palestinians are to Israelis. They
wish us exterminated or made serfs forever, and the base reason predates Freud, Darwin, Marx
and the French Revolution. It is Judaizing heresy birthing monsters to war against historic
Christianity and peoples who have any legacy in the building and maintenance of Christendom
and therefore do not serve Zionism.
WASP culture serves Zionism and always will.
When Kevin McDonald realizes all of that and the necessary inferences, his work will
become worth the effort.
There's a sure way to curb the influence that certain (((individuals))) have on American
culture and politics; it's called the "wealth tax." It's a tax on the assets of the rich and
also on foundations set up to circumvent the inheritance tax. Both Bernie Sanders and
Elizabeth Warren proposed a wealth tax but it is not included in Biden's platform. Instead,
he's proposed raising the maximum income tax rate to 39.6%. There are lots of loopholes that
individuals can utilize to reduce their income tax obligations. It won't stop their meddling
in social and political affairs. Only a very stiff wealth tax (at least 10% per year) will
curb their meddling.
...As I have written, Antifa is more of a movement than a specific organization. However, it
has long been the
"Keyser Söze" of the anti-free speech movement , a loosely aligned group that employs
measures to avoid easy detection or association.
Wray stated "And we have quite a number - and I've said this quite consistently since my
first time appearing before this committee - we have any number of properly predicated
investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists and some of those
individuals self-identify with Antifa. "
Wray was adamant: "Antifa is a real thing. It's not a fiction" and, while it is not a
conventional organization as opposed to a movement, they have arrested people who admit that
they are Antifa.
... ... ..
George Washington University student Jason Charter has been charged as the alleged
"ringleader" of efforts to take down statues across the capital. Charter has been an active
Antifa member on campus for years.
The State Department can designate foreign organizations as terrorist organizations, but there is no law governing domestic
organizations. At the moment, it is unclear what President Trump's tweet refers to in concrete legal steps. The Patriot Act
defines domestic terrorism, but there are no federal crimes tied to domestic terror.
Trump said in July of 2019 that he was considering declaring Antifa an "Organization of Terror."
Antifa is known for its black-bloc protest tactics, where protestors wear all black and cover up their face so that they can't be
identified by police or right-wing opponents.
Antifa's name comes from the pre-World War 2 German group Antifaschistische Aktion, which resisted the Nazi German state, and
birthed the design of Antifa's now infamous flag.
Noted black clergyman and left-wing activist Cornel West told Democracy Now that Antifa protected him and other clergy from the
worst of the white nationalist violence.
"We would have been crushed like cockroaches were it not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists," he told Democracy Now. "You
had police holding back and just allowing fellow citizens to go at each other."
Trump, in his response to the Charlottesville protest, said that he blamed Antifa and the "alt-left" for violence as well.
AG Barr: "To identify criminal organizers and instigators, and to coordinate federal resources with our state and local partners,
federal law enforcement is using our existing network of 56 regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). "
It is unclear what other avenues the federal government may use to pursue enforcement actions against Antifa, but the FBI Agents
Association has been lobbying for the creation of a domestic terrorism law.
Karlof 1 @ 32 attacks vk @4-- Your attempt to credit Karl Popper with the concept of public
opinion is just as false as the stories b wrote about. Click here for a history of that
concept. by: karlof1 | Sep 15 2020 17:04 utc | 32
What I like about what vk@ 4 said is that he has given this list a beginning to not only
understand our plight as members of the governed classes, but also to analyze our experience
with this stuff and to develop a set of rules that can allow us to defend our minds against
being controlled by invisible hands of mind control.
can we on this list develop a defensive strategy and use it to teach the governed
masses?
Around the globe and throughout history it can be observed that the oligarchs invent a
collection of values and stuff them into structures they call nation states, culture,
institutions and journalist are all designed to, and rewarded for supporting the values,
while media is charged to keep the propaganda circulating.
The H&C propaganda model pulls together from across the political communications
literature the variety of factors which essentially constrain journalist and means that they
don't actually play the independent autonomous and watchdog role that we expect them to in a
democracy ae Herman Chromsky talk about the importance oe size concentration ownership oe
mainstream media the way in w/e ownership of most oe media outlets w/people go to for their
information is essentially associated w/very large conglomerates w/h overlapping interests
and overlapping interests with government and this produces a large structural constraint oe
way the media operates.
The Interface between Propaganda and War: Prof.
The Propaganda Model: The filters (Herman & Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, the political
economy of the mass media).
"... On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls "[neo]liberal democracy." ..."
"... One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history." We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern times." ..."
"... [Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing an inevitable degradation of the human mind." ..."
"... The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically eliminated." ..."
"... Lumpenproletariat ..."
"... Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia ..."
"... I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York Times and Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies ..."
♦ Boys and girls are different. There, I've said it, a heresy of our time. We're not
supposed to suggest that a woman shouldn't fight in combat, or that an athletic girl doesn't
have a right to play on the boys' football team -- or that a young woman doesn't run a greater
risk than a young man when binge drinking. We are not supposed to reject the conceit that the
sexes are interchangeable, and therefore a man can become a "woman" and use the ladies'
bathroom.
Male and female God created us. I commend this heresy to readers. Remind people that boys in
girls' bathrooms put girls at risk, and that Obergefell is a grotesque distortion of
the Constitution. True -- and don't miss the opportunity to say, in public, that men and women
are different. This is the deepest reason why gender ideology is perverse. As Peter Hitchens
observes in this issue (" The Fantasy of
Addiction "), there's a great liberation that comes when, against the spirit of the age,
one blurts out what one knows to be true.
♦ Great Britain
recently announced regulatory approval for scientists to introduce third-party DNA into the
reproductive process. The technological innovation that allows for interventions into the most
fundamental dimensions of reproduction and human identity is sure to accelerate. Which is a
good reason for incoming President Trump to revive the President's Council on Bioethics. (It
existed under President Obama, but was told to do and say nothing.) We need sober reflection on
the coming revolution in reproductive technology. Trump should appoint Princeton professor
Robert P. George to head the Bioethics Commission. He has the expertise in legal and moral
philosophy, and he knows what's at stake. (See " Gnostic Liberalism ,"
December 2016.)
♦ On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of
Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many
parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social
outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls
"[neo]liberal democracy."
One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy
are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role
of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history."
We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be
neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal
frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that
liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern
times."
This gives [neo]liberalism a partisan spirit all the more powerful because it is denied.
Although such words as "dialogue" and "pluralism" appear among its favorite motifs, as do
"tolerance" and other similarly hospitable notions, this overtly generous rhetorical
orchestration covers up something entirely different. In its essence, liberalism is
unabashedly aggressive because it is determined to hunt down all nonliberal agents and ideas,
which it treats as a threat to itself and to humanity.
[Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example
of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal
spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly
that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in
nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire
history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the
effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide
range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing
an inevitable degradation of the human mind."
♦ The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has
shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a
telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics
is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any
legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as
such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically
eliminated."
♦ Karl Marx coined the term Lumpenproletariat . Lumpen means "rag"
in German, and its colloquial meanings include someone who is down-and-out. According to Marx,
this underclass has counter-revolutionary tendencies. These people can be riled up by
demagogues and deployed in street gangs to stymie the efforts of the true proletariat to topple
the dominant class.
Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who
buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We
certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia , left and right: tenured professors,
columnists, think tank apparatchiks, and human resources directors.
♦ I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of
our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York
Times and Bret
Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's
globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays
the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies.
♦ Bill Kristol recently stepped down
as day-to-day editor at the Weekly Standard . .... As he put it with characteristic humor, "Here at The Weekly Standard , we've
always been for regime change."...
It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist
criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects
chaos and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is
the virus, then surely Biden is the cure"
so this *** clown spends 5000 words on the criminal operation in Libya under
Obama/Biden/Clinton which leave the country in utter chaos and this is his money shot? Orange
man bad fascist, old school democrat War Criminal normal.
what a load of tripe
Ace006 , 5 hours ago
A+. He provides much needed clarity and perspective on the Libyan tragedy and then crashes
into the usual delusional, leftist landfill of fascism, murder of black youth, BLM (all
hail), and Biden as, so help me, some kind of a cure for anything.
The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries
across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of
distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive
from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the
shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war.
But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no
rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they
made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent
seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European
colonialism. The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced
by Hollywood.
These are slaves: human beings bought and sold for their labor. Some are bound for
construction sites while others for the fields. All face the certainty of forced servitude, a
waking nightmare that has become their daily reality.
This is Libya, the real Libya. The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the
US-NATO war that deposed Muammar Gaddafi and the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The
Libya now fractured into warring factions, each backed by a variety of international actors
whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian.
But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls. No,
it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice,
Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this
devastation. With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination, the First Black
President, along with his NATO comrades in France and Britain, unleashed the dogs of war on an
African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development.
But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes
carried out in the name of the American people. No, this is us, the antiwar left in the United
States, peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from
internal rot and political decay – to shine a light through the gloom named Trump and
directly into the heart of darkness.
There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the
desert sand.
To understand the depth of criminality involved in the US-NATO war on Libya, we must unravel
a complex story involving actors from both the US and Europe who quite literally conspired to
bring about this war, while simultaneously exposing the unconstitutional, imperial presidency
as embodied by Mr. Hope and Change himself.
In doing so, a picture emerges that is strikingly at odds with the dominant narrative about
good intentions and bad dictators. For although Gaddafi was presented as the villain par
excellence in this story told by the Empire's scribes in corporate media, it is in fact Barack
Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy, French
philosopher-cum-neocolonial adventurist Bernard Henri-Levy, and former UK Prime Minister David
Cameron, who are the real malevolent forces. It was they, not Gaddafi, who waged a blatantly
illegal war on false pretenses and for their own aggrandizement. It was they, not Gaddafi, who
conspired to plunge Libya into chaos and civil war from which it is yet to emerge. It was they
who beat the war drums while proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men.
The US-NATO war on Libya represents perhaps one of the most egregious examples of US
military aggression and lawlessness in recent memory. Of course, the US didn't act alone as a
wide cast of characters played a role as the French and British were keen to involve themselves
in the reassertion of control over a once lucrative African asset torn from European control by
the evil Gaddafi. And this, only a few years after former UK Prime Minister and Iraq war
criminal Tony Blair met with Gaddafi to usher in
a new era of openness and partnership.
The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist, and
amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. Having failed to
arrive in Egypt in time to buttress his ego by capitalizing on the uprising against former
dictator Hosni Mubarak, he quickly shifted his attention to Libya, where an uprising in the
anti-Gaddafi hotbed of Benghazi was underway. As Le Figaro
chronicled , Henri-Levy managed to talk his way into a meeting with then head of the
National Transition Council (TNC) Mustapha Abdeljalil, a former Gaddafi official who became
head of the anti-Gaddafi TNC. But Henri-Levy wasn't there just for an interview to be published
in his French paper, he was there to help overthrow Gaddafi and, in so doing, make himself into
an international star.
Henri-Levy quickly pressed his contacts and got on the phone with French President Nicholas
Sarkozy to ask him, rather bluntly, if he'd agree to meet with Abdeljalil and the leadership of
the TNC. Just a few days later, Henri-Levy and his colleagues arrived at the
Élysée Palace with TNC leadership at their side. To the utter shock of the
Libyans present, Sarkozy tells them that he plans to recognize the TNC as the legitimate
government of Libya. Henri-Levy and Sarkozy have now, at least in theory, deposed the Gaddafi
government.
But the little problem of Gaddafi's military victories and the very real possibility that he
might emerge victorious from the conflict complicated matters as the French public had become
aware of the scheme and was rightly lambasting Sarkozy. Henri-Levy, ever the opportunist,
stoked the patriotic fervor by announcing that without French intervention, the tricolor flag
flying over five-star hotels in Benghazi would be stained with blood. The PR campaign worked as
Sarkozy quickly came around to the idea of military intervention.
However, Henri-Levy had a still more critical role to play: bringing the US military
juggernaut into the plot. Henri-Levy organized the first of what would be several high-level
talks between US officials from the Obama Administration and the Libyans of the TNC. Most
importantly, Henri-Levy set up the meeting between Abdeljalil and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. While Clinton was skeptical at the time of the meeting, it would be a matter of months
before she and Joe Biden, along with the likes of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and others would
be planning the political, diplomatic, and military route to regime change in Libya.
The
Americans Enter the Fray
There would have been no war in Libya were it not for the US political, diplomatic, and
military machine. In this sense, despite the relatively meager US military involvement, the war
in Libya was an American war. That is to say, it was a war that could not have happened were it
not for the active collaboration of the Obama Administration with its French and British
counterparts.
As Jo Becker of the NY Times explained
in 2016, Hillary Clinton met with Mahmoud Jibril, a prominent Libyan politician who would go on
to become the new Prime Minister of post-Gaddafi Libya, and his associates, in order to assess
the faction now garnering US support . Clinton's job, according to Becker, was "to take measure
of the rebels we supported" – a fancy way of saying that Clinton attended the meeting to
determine whether this group of politicians speaking on behalf of a diverse group of
anti-Gaddafi voices (ranging from pro-democracy activists to outright terrorists affiliated
with global terror networks) should be supported with US money and covert arms.
The answer, ultimately, was a resounding yes.
But of course, as with all America's warmongering misadventures, there was no consensus on
military intervention. As Becker reported, some in the Obama Administration were skeptical of
the easy victory and post-conflict political calculus. One prominent voice of dissent, at least
according to Becker, was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Himself no dove, Gates was
concerned that Clinton and Biden's hawkish attitude toward Libya would ultimately lead to an
Iraq-style political nightmare that would undoubtedly end with the US having created and then
abandoned a failed state – exactly what happened.
It is important to note that Clinton and Biden were two of the principal voices for
aggression and war. Both were supportive of the No-Fly Zone from early on, and both advocated
for military intervention. Indeed, the two have been simpatico in nearly every war crime
committed by the US in the last 30 years, including perhaps most egregiously in support of
Bush's crime against humanity that we call the second Iraq War.
As former Clinton lackey (Deputy Director of Secretary of State Clinton's Policy Planning
staff) Derek Chollet explained, "[Libya] seemed like an easy case." Chollet, a principal
participant in the American conspiracy to make war on Libya who later went on to serve directly
under Obama and at the National Security Council, inadvertently illustrates in stark relief the
imperial arrogance of the Obama-Clinton-Biden liberal interventionist camp. In calling Libya an
"easy case" he of course means that Libya was a perfect candidate for a regime change operation
whose primary benefit would be to boost politically those who supported it.
Chollet, like many strategic planners at the time, saw Libya as a slam dunk opportunity to
turn the demonstrations and uprisings of 2010-2011, which quickly became known as the Arab
Spring, into political capital from the Democratic camp of the US ruling class. This rapidly
became Clinton's position. And soon, the consensus of the entire Obama
Administration.
Obama's War Off the Books
One of the more pernicious myths of the US war on Libya was the notion – propagated
dutifully by the defense lobbyists-cum-journalists at major corporate media outlets –
that the war was a cheap little war that cost the US almost nothing. There were no American
lives lost in the war itself (Benghazi is another mythology to be unraveled later), and very
little cost in terms of "treasure", to use that despicable imperialist phrase.
But while the total cost of the war paled in comparison to the monumental-scale crimes in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the means by which it was funded has cost the US far more than dollars;
the war on Libya was a criminal and unconstitutional endeavor that has further laid the
groundwork for the imperial presidency and unconstrained executive power. As the Washington
Post
reported at the time:
Noting that Obama had said the mission could be paid for with money already appropriated to
the Pentagon, [former House Speaker] Boehner pressed the president on whether supplemental
funding would be requested from Congress.
Unforeseen military operations that require expenditures such as those being made for the
Libyan effort normally require supplemental appropriations since they are outside the core
Pentagon budget. That is why funds for Afghanistan and Iraq are separate from the regular
Defense Department budget. The added costs for some of the operations in Libya are minimal But
the expenditures for weapons, fuel and lost equipment are something else.
Because the Obama Administration did not seek congressional appropriations to fund the war,
there is very little in the way of paper trail to do a proper accounting of the costs of the
war. As the cost of each bomb, fighter jet, and logistical support vehicle disappeared into the
abyss of Pentagon accounting oblivion, so too did any semblance of constitutional legality. In
essence, Obama helped establish a lawless presidency that not only has little respect for
constitutionally mandated checks and balances, but completely ignores the rule of law. Indeed,
some of the crimes that Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr are guilty of have their direct
corollary in the Obama Administration's prosecution of the Libya war.
So where did the money come from and where did it go? It's anybody's guess really, unless
you're one of those rubes who likes taking the Pentagon's word for it. As a Pentagon
spokesperson told CNN in 2011,
"The price tag for U.S. Defense Department operations in Libya as of September 30 [was] $1.1
billion. This included daily military operations, munitions, the drawdown of supplies and
humanitarian assistance." However, to illustrate the downright Orwellian impossibility of
discerning the truth, Vice President Joe Biden doubled that number when speaking on CNN,
suggesting that "NATO alliance worked like it was designed to do, burden-sharing. In total, it
cost us $2 billion, no American lives lost."
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to take
the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no clear
documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the idea that
there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a functioning
Constitution.
America's Dirty War in Libya
While the enduring memory of Libya for most Americans is the political theater that resulted
from the attack on the US facility in Benghazi that killed several Americans, including US
Ambassador Stevens, it is not nearly the most consequential. Rather, America's use of terrorist
groups (and the insurgents who emerged from them) as military proxies may perhaps be the real
legacy from a strategic perspective. For while the corporate media presented the narrative of
spontaneous protests and uprisings to overthrow Gaddafi, it was in fact a loose network of
terror groups that did the dirty work.
While much of this recent history has been buried by bad reporting, establishment
mythmaking, and conspiracist muddying of the truth, it was surprisingly well reported at the
time. For example, as the New York Times wrote of one of the
primary US-backed forces on the ground during the war in 2011:
"The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel
Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group's members
were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces Officially the
fighting group does not exist any longer, but the former members are fighting largely under
the leadership of Abu Abdullah Sadik [aka Abdelhakim Belhadj]."
Even at the time, there was considerable unease among Washington's strategic planners that
the Obama Adminstration's embrace of a terror group with known links to al-Qaeda could prove to
be a major blunder. "American, European and Arab intelligence services acknowledge that they
are worried about the influence that the former group's members might exert over Libya after
Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and they are trying to assess their influence and any lingering links
to Al Qaeda," the Times noted.
Of course, those in the know at the various US intelligence agencies already had a pretty
good sense of who they were backing, or at least the elements likely to be involved in any US
operation. Specifically, the US knew that the areas from which it was drawing anti-Gaddafi
opposition forces was a hotbed of criminal and terrorist activity.
"Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone.
Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the
Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to
Iraq may be linked with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) increasingly cooperative
relationship with al-Qa'ida which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qa'ida on
November 3, 2007 The most common cities that the fighters called home were Darnah [Derna],
Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 52 and 51 fighters respectively. Darnah [Derna] with a
population just over 80,000 compared to Riyadh's 4.3 million, has far and away the largest
per capita number of fighters in the Sinjar records."
It was known at the time that the majority of the anti-Gaddafi forces hailed from the region
including Derna, Benghazi, and Tobruk – the "Eastern Libya" so often referred to as
anti-Gaddafi – and that the likelihood that al-Qaeda and other terror groups were among
the ranks of the US recruits was very high. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Take the case of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, charged by the US with guarding the CIA
facility in Benghazi at which Ambassador Stevens was murdered. As the Los Angeles Times
reported in 2012:
"Over the last year, while assigned by their militia to help protect the U.S. mission in
Benghazi, the pair had been drilled by American security personnel in using their weapons,
securing entrances, climbing walls and waging hand-to-hand combat The militiamen flatly deny
supporting the assailants but acknowledge that their large, government-allied force, known as
the Feb. 17 Martyrs Brigade, could include anti-American elements The Feb. 17 brigade is
regarded as one of the more capable militias in eastern Libya."
But it wasn't just LIFG and al-Qaeda affiliated criminal groups entering the fray thanks to
Washington rolling out the blood-stained red carpet.
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A longtime asset of the US, General Khalifa Hifter and his so-called Libyan National Army
have been on the ground in Libya since 2011, and have emerged as one of the primary forces
vying for power in post-war Libya. Hifter has a long and sordid history working for the CIA in
its attempts to overthrow Gaddafi in the 1980s before being resettled conveniently near
Langley, Virginia. As the
New York Times reported in 1991:
The secret paramilitary operation, set in motion in the final months of the Reagan
Administration, provided military aid and training to about 600 Libyan soldiers who were
among those captured during border fighting between Libya and Chad in 1988 They were trained
by American intelligence officials in sabotage and other guerrilla skills, officials said, at
a base near Ndjamena, the Chadian capital. The plan to use the exiles fit neatly into the
Reagan Administration's eagerness to topple Colonel Qaddafi.
Hifter, leader of these failed efforts, became known as the CIA's "Libya point man,"
having taken part in numerous regime change efforts, including the aborted attempt to
overthrow Gaddafi in 1996. So, his arrival in 2011 at the height of the uprising signaled an
escalation of the conflict from an armed uprising to an international operation. Whether
Hifter was directly working with US intelligence or simply complimenting US efforts by
continuing his decades-long personal war against Gaddafi is somewhat irrelevant. What matters
is that Hifter and the Libyan National Army, like LIFG and other groups, became part of the
broader destabilization effort which successfully toppled Gaddafi and created the chaotic
hellscape that is modern Libya.
Such is the legacy of the US dirty war on Libya.
The Past is Prologue
It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist
criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects chaos
and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is the virus,
then surely Biden is the cure.
It is September 2020. Libya prepares to enter its eighth year of civil war. Slave markets
like the one in Bani Walid are as common as youth literacy centers were in Gaddafi's Libya.
Armed gangs and militias wield power even in areas nominally under government control. A
warlord regroups in the East as he looks to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab
Emirates for support.
It is September 2020 and the US-NATO war on Libya has faded to a distant memory as other
issues like Black Lives Matter and police murder of Black youth have captured the public
imagination and discourse.
But these issues are, in fact, united by the bond of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The
Libya once known as the "Jewel of Africa," a country that provided refuge for many sub-Saharan
African migrant workers while maintaining independence from the US and the former colonial
powers of Europe, is no more. In its place is a failed state that now reflects the kind of
vicious anti-Black racism forcefully suppressed by the Gaddafi government.
Libya as the global exemplar of the exploitation and disposability of the black body.
Squint a little and you can see President Joe Biden getting the old band back together.
Hillary Clinton welcomed into the Oval Office as an influential voice, someone to give words to
the demented thoughts of the living corpse serving as Commander-in-Chief. Derek Chollet and Ben
Rhodes laughing together as they buy another round at their favorite DC hangout, toasting to
the re-establishment of order in Washington. Barack Obama as the éminence grise behind
the political resurgence of the liberal-conservative dominant structure.
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
AVmaster , 13 hours ago
Number of wars the boy king and his minions started: 6, that we know of: Ukraine, Syria,
Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
(Not withstanding the proxy wars during the "muslim spring" like in egypt)
Number of wars Trump has started: 0
This is NOT including the ongoing wars that trump inherited but has dialed back
somewhat, like reduced troop presence in iraq/afghan.
fucking truth , 12 hours ago
Trump hasn't started any but he still feeds the beast, hopefully his next four will see
a correction to this behaviour,one can only hope.
ay_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Has no choice.
The economic reality is the MIC is a big part of the US domestic economy.
Shut that down and you would go into a full blown depression.
If you build bullets, missile, bombs, F35's etc. they have to be used or you have to
start scrapping them.
The issue though is not the MIC as such but the lack of any moral integrity and
disregard for human life by those mentioned in the article. Once the country was put into
this position by them it is much more difficult to extract.
Now I think those in the article should be prosecuted for not going to Congress to
declare a war and fund it correctly as this is supposed to be the check and balance of a
rogue president.
play_arrow
Bollixed , 2 hours ago
Regarding the MIC, many of those companies consist of manufacturing entities comprised
of engineers, factory infrastructure and logistics infrastructure funded by government
spending that could realistically be 'retooled' to produce things that could benefit
society instead of piss money away on the tools of destruction. America is in need of a
massive infrastructure overhaul from our electric grid to our transportation modes to name
just two. Nothing is preventing those MIC giants from refocusing their efforts toward a
better America versus the current focus they are paid to undertake. It's a matter of
priorities and right now I find their priorities misplaced and vulgar.
The money is available at their current funding rates, the manpower and brain power is
there, what is lacking is the will to turn the ship around and start putting humans before
profits. There is no need to go into a full blown depression as with the shut down of that
capacity if those entities are given a mandate to redirect their output for the good of
society and create things of lasting value. In other words, take the retooling mindset that
turned refrigerator factories into weapons factories like they did in WW2 and take the
weapons factories and turn them into entities for the betterment of society. And then wean
them off of the government teat.
DeepStateThrombosis , 3 hours ago
Unused funds from the Pentagon can be redirected to the Wall and other Defense
protections not known to the public at this time.
ay_arrow
DaiRR , 1 hour ago
DemoRats and NeoCons will try every way possible to keep the wars going.
The USA is incredibly blessed to have Donald J. Trump in the White House.
play_arrow
1
muggeridge , 11 hours ago
To think Americans demonstrated in the millions to stop the Vietnam war exposed as a
fraud by Daniel Ellsberg in the PENTAGON PAPERS. Obama did admit that the removal of
Ghadaffy was his biggest foreign policy mistake. Clinton also in trouble over Tunisia while
Secretary of State with US ambassador killed in 2012. She took responsibility but was found
not to have acted improperly by US Congress. However her part in this tragedy remains an
open question. Today the only Middle Eastern country still standing IRAN supported by
China. Syria supported by Russia. Cold Wars never go away?
play_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Cold war is an inevitable consequence of a MIC that must continually produce and expend
munitions to keep its part of the economy going.
2 play_arrow
scaleindependent , 10 hours ago
Final Jeopardy, genius!
What is Syria and Iran?
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war.
lay_arrow
muggeridge , 10 hours ago
Regime Change as our modus operandi to serve the cause of military superiority as if
pre-set by computer.
How everything became war and the military became everything by Rosa Brooks Tales of the
Pentagon.
Something funny happened on the way to the forum; Broadway musical. Hail
Caesar?
play_arrow
CheapBastard , 7 hours ago
Hey, military contractors have to put food on the table also, even if it means murdering
millions of innocent people in Yugoslavia (like Clinton did) or in the middle east (like
Bush and Obama did).
play_arrow
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Yep some people don't get it.
With all the military contractors now moved into peaceful protests maybe we actually
need more war to keep them gainfully employed.
Get the picture?
2 play_arrow
SoilMyselfRotten , 3 hours ago
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war
Don't forget also blockading Venezuela
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
No Libya story is complete without mentioning David Shayler- the MI6 agent turned
whistleblower who was tasked with blowing up Gaddafi in his car - but refused to do so when
he was accompanied by his wife and children. (under the Tony Blair govt). -yep.
Shayler later went into a bizarre series of personas -which is understood by many as self
preservation tactic - (testimony of mentally unstable is not recognised in court - so no
threat).
Then there's the covert ratlines of gathering the ex-Libyan army weapons & shipping
them to ISIS Syria via Turkey and White Helmets (see James Corbett) organised by HRC via
Benghazi -so no rescue for US Ambassador & team (RIP) HRC prefer'd keep op covert.
Carrier 50 miles off coast -HRC killed US Diplomats & support team. -Biden knew.
Also check out the courageous Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who runs armswatch .com and some SM
in her name. for laypersons overview of extent of games-within-games &
wheels-within-wheels in arms trade/ chem weapons "research". She's currently researching
the Beirut bombings - which will be another revelation when it hits.
sauldaddy , 11 hours ago
That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought slavery BACK to
Africa .....Q- That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought
slavery BACK to Africa
_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 13 hours ago
Qaddafi kept African migrants out of the Mediterranean and away from Europe's
shores.
Sarkozy couldn't allow that knowing what was in store for Europe.
He predicted what would happen to Europe were he to be deposed. He was right. Macron's (and
Merkel's) policies are proof.
That and the gold dinar was his undoing.
.
P.S. Don't tell the leftists, but Libya was the only case of a successful socialist state.
On second thought, it might be funny to see them publicly defending Qaddafi.
Ms No , 13 hours ago
That may work for a while when you pull black gold out of the ground, for a while. Oil
declines and free **** armies breed faster. Then you are Saudi Arabia and we are about to
see how that ends up.
play_arrow
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
Libyan youth unemployment was over 30% because these spoiled kids with their families
getting oil checks in the mail every month refused to do menial jobs. Qaddafi kept the
black Africans out of the boats by letting them do the work the kids and other Libyans
thought was beneath them. A lot of the money the Africans made they sent home which was
spent in the local economies which increased jobs there. Libya also invested heavily in
Africa which created lots of jobs. These actions kept the number of Africans headed to
Europe a trickle. Once Qaddafi was gone so were all the jobs in Libya and the money that
flowed into Africa dried up and jobs were lost. A lot of businesses the Libyans created in
Africa were confiscated by the local governments and no doubt given to cronies who ran them
into the ground.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
Gaddafi thought wrongly that job description would save him. Also suggested trading oil
for €uro's over dollar$, which blew the lid on powder keg. In the end they say it was
the oil, though my thinking was DC think tanks didn't want a monied "Mexico" on south coast
of Euroland - could make Europe too financially powerful & too difficult to
control.
play_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 6 hours ago
I had heard about selling oil for Euros in relation to Saddam, but not to Qaddafi.
Qaddafi was about the gold Dinar.
??
No1uNo , 6 hours ago
Yep, it's what can happen if I'm not careful when I post and try to watch a documentary
at the same time.
Thanks for your vigilance.
Find the Libyan gold that dissapeard.... and one likely finds the source of the
overthrow....
quanttech , 13 hours ago
try the french treasury...
Bill300 , 12 hours ago
Look no further than Hillary's brother. General Gage, a former Special Forces Colonel,
had been hired by Hillary, et al, to assemble a merc army to secure Qaddafi's gold amidst
the fog of war and transport it to Haiti to be laundered thru Hugh Rodham's little gold
mine. Does anyone really think Obama sold enough books to buy a $12M seaside mansion in
Massachusetts and the Washington DC home?
These people are so evil.
Justapleb , 12 hours ago
That's certainly titillating. Do you have a source that puts these things together?
I tried some Google searches, but I already know those searches are censored so it is
not an easy thing to find
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to know whats in the soil
DaCrustyDad , 13 hours ago
Imagine if some country invaded us and slaughtered about 23.5 million (apples for apples
based on the 500k civilians killed out of 7,000,000)? Obama and the Clinton's should be
playing basketball at Pelican Bay the rest of their lives at best.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
It's mind boggling.
Trump dropped 7400 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019. That would be like 60,000 bombs
dropping on the US one year.
Arch_Stanton , 9 hours ago
Libya was a modern, secular Arab state. A model for the rest of Islam. Who the f@@k
decided it was appropriate to reduce Libya to a 19th century sh1thole?
Shifter_X , 9 hours ago
Hillary ******* Clinton
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
on instruction from the cabalist banksters who never permit a rival currency system.
Qaddafi's gold-backed dinar throughout Nth Africa would have exposed and displace their
petrodollar scam in which they infinitely print their cronies untold trillion$.
end the fed, and all central banks.
Best Satan in Town , 6 hours ago
That's the story in a nutsh-ell
desertboy , 10 hours ago
The petrodollar centrality gets monotonously overplayed. For anyone who cares to look,
the geopolitics of the West/NATO are the geopolitics of all its central bank owners as an
interlinked group, who are keeping all their options open.
Destroying Libya went beyond the petrodollar to the fight for influence in Africa's
future, where France's history in Africa has made it the designated hitter. Note the new
CFR-type buzz on a "resurgent France" due to this role.
No1uNo , 8 hours ago
I maintained elsewhere on this thread, was advice of DC think tanks he was taken out.
Because a well funded, well educated, low cost, labor factory resource state on south coast
of eurozone makes europe too competitive to DC tank's interests. (and open Africa's growing
economy to cheap - outside eurozone - euro profiting business interests).
Gaddafi was never a threat to Europe, but europe buying his oil and building his
economy......different story.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
B-I-N-G-O !
get your case of beer for that one!
not dead yet , 11 hours ago
Qaddafi would have not met with death if he only wanted to sell oil in the Gold Dinar.
Instead he wanted the Gold Dinar as the currency for all of Africa. The system was being
set up along with 4 central banks to manage African economic and monetary affairs when
Libya was attacked. Libya also invested heavily in Africa creating lots of jobs and
enhancing communications. Unlike the IMF and World Bank with their draconian edicts
attached to their loans, like no loans for fossil fueled power plants and other eco
garbage, almost guaranteeing default the Libyan Development Fund attached no such garbage
to their loans making success possible. Europe was charging Africa $500 million a year for
use of their satellites. Qaddafi ponied up $300 million of the $400 million needed to put
up Africa's first satellite screwing Europe out of $500 million a year. Qaddafi was also
the driving force for Africa for Africans and which kept US African command and it's troops
out of Africa. Now the US has troops all over Africa. Qaddafi really was bad. Bad for
Western exploitation of Africa.
At the time of Qaddafi's demise the Libyan Development Fund had $32 billion in banks
around the world. Western governments and media tried to claim it was money stolen by
Qaddafi. Last I knew the Libyan's, the rightful owners of that money, haven't seen a
penny.
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
great info.
got a good concise source?
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you have to dig deep to get little nuggets of truth about Libya since so many sides want
to tarnish and twist to push their agenda and greed on its riches
SmokeyBlonde , 12 hours ago
America, as a country, deserves whatever happens just for electing and re-electing
Obama.
Far too many grifters, Bolsheviks, pedocrats, and sub-moron IQ feral ghetto rats
oh-so-pleased with themselves for being so enlightened and bringing chaos to the whole F'n
world.
ReflectoMatic , 11 hours ago
The Democrats are working with the globalist at the United Nations & World Economic
Forum. The program being run is the destruction of the United States and elimination of
humans, per instructions from "The Cult of Rasur", which is located in the jungle at Mount
Rasur in Costa Rica but now renamed as the United Nations University For Peace. The
university teaches occult and meditation and only graduates 20 students per year, those
students then take positions of influence within the UN. The cult was founded by Maurice
Strong & Dr Muller, Strong also created the Agenda 21 & World Economic Forum, plus
in 1982, the more exclusive secret group of 300 called just "World Forum" which met in Vail
Colorado near his hippie commune at the Baca Grande in the San Luis Valley.
The GAIA Theory which was converted into GAIA Religion at the Maurice Strong Hippie
Commune in Colorado. David Perkins was there, apparently one of the first hippies to arrive
at the commune around 1978. In this podcast we get a rare look into the mindset of the
globalist and the creation of Agenda 21.
It's not clear if David Perkins & his partner, Chris O'Brian, are aware of Maurice
Strong & Klaus Schwab conducting the special and secret World Forum of 300 at Vail in
1982. At that 1982 event the concepts David Perkins describes, combined with concepts
gotten by paranormal activities at Mount Rasur in Costa Rica, were passed down to the 300
and thus began the creation that has brought the world to a standstill.
Chris O'Brian has an interesting podcast also, describing the Maurice Strong hippie
commune, in this he describes meeting Lawrence Rockefeller at the commune.
And finally, who the heck is this guy, the one in the middle? MJ-12 captured this photo
of him in Hollywood in 1972, he was then usually seen in company of Curtis LeMay, grandson
of the General who founded JPL NASA MJ-12, then in 1982 he was at that World Forum in Vail
and in charge of covertly poisoning them all with LSD. He was born in Berkley or Alameda in
1951 while his mother was at theater watching "Day The Earth Stood Still". Seems there is a
message which needs to be understood.
David Champaign, night manager at the Christie Lodge in Avon Colorado, can give further
description and verification that the ultra-secret World Forum did occur.
If you listened to that podcast, there was mention of the "group of psychics" at the
Baca hippie commune. The guy in the photo, the link just above, the photo was taken in the
presence of Allen J Funk MJ-12, Funk's only friend took the photo, Bob Custer. Bob shared
hotel rooms with the Stones & Monkeys while on concert tour as official photographer.
The guy in the photo and Bob were taken one night, in Allen's white Cadillac convertible,
to a house in the hills east of JPL Pasadena. There he met Bob's ex, Val, and Val's work
associates, the work Val and associates did was some secret psychic project in Central
America and perhaps in Colorado, usually Val just came over to Bob's house to visit when
Val was not off at those remote locations. Secret about it they were.
Shifter_X , 8 hours ago
These are self-loathing humans. Imagine wanting to destroy the human race.
SMH
bobroonie , 13 hours ago
Obama bombed Libya in defense of Islamic terrorists he sold weapons to. 600 requests for
more security from Ambassador Stevens unanswered.. But when defense contractor Osprey
Global's Sidney Blumenthal called Clinton gave him special treatment. Lots of money to be
made for a defense contractor and the Secretary of State that starts the war.
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
At the time Stevens died, he was not murdered he died of smoke inhalation as the
invaders set the place on fire and the safe room wasn't air tight, Benghazi was the most
dangerous place on earth for diplomats. Attempted murders and kidnappings of diplomats were
so rife that most governments closed their missions and evacuated their people. Stevens was
well aware of this and he went to Benghazi, the US Embassy is in Tripoli, anyway with his
last meeting running guns with the Turks. By doing so he signed his death warrant.
According to many at the time Stevens was begging for more security shortly before he left
for Benghazi he was offered a military security detachment that was already in Tripoli and
Stevens refused. Seems Stevens and Hillary didn't want the military to know what they were
up to.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
the ambassador got what was coming to him. he was a terrorist, plain and simple.
the rest of the Americans were rescued ... by Qadaffi loyalists. the Americans are shy
to admit this.
David2923 , 5 hours ago
Facts you probably do not know about Libya under Muammar Gaddafi:
• There are no electricity bills in Libya; electricity is free for all its
citizens.
• There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to
all its citizens at 0% interest by law.
• If a Libyan is unable to find employment after graduation, the state pays the
average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
• Should Libyans want to take up a farming career, they receive farm land, a house,
equipment, seed and livestock to kick start their farms – all for free.
• Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great
Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.
• A home considered a human right in Libya. (In Qaddafi's Green Book it states:
"The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not
be owned by others.")
• All newlyweds in Libya receive 60,000 Dinar (US$ 50,000 ) by the government to
buy their first apartment so to help start a family.
• A portion of Libyan oil sales is credited directly to the bank accounts of all
Libyan citizens.
• A mother who gives birth to a child receives US $5,000.
• When a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidizes 50% of the price.
• The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per liter.
• For $ 0.15, a Libyan local can purchase 40 loaves of bread.
• Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Libya can boast one of the
finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to
doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of charge.
• If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya,
the government funds them to go abroad for it – not only free but they get US
$2,300/month accommodation and car allowance.
• 25% of Libyans have a university degree. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were
literate. Today the figure is 87%.
• Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – though
much of this is now frozen globally.
You have explained why Libya was perfectly ripe for looting by the US Evil Empire and
its slave states.
dark pools of soros , 5 hours ago
Yes I've been shining a light on this for years. The true history of Libya should red
pill EVERYONE that can still think for themselves.
We are destroying George Washington statues while worshiping a black african american
president who destroyed the one rare prosperous socialist African nation.. which now has
slave trading!!!! all because it didn't share it's water to french/italian bottlers. And of
course the Gold Dinar becoming the African currency.
Lokiban , 11 hours ago
Gadhaffi's two mistakes leading to this war.
Threaten to sell his sweet oil in gold dinars
Threaten French president Sarkozy to pull out all of his money out of France and reveal
to the public the donations he made to the French presidential campaign of Sarkozy, which
we know is illegal because foreigners can't donate money.
That sealed his fate. America needed to stop this gold for oil scheme just like it did
in Iraq and French president Sarkozy's presidency was ont he line.
NuYawkFrankie , 12 hours ago
Slick Willy --> War Criminal
Chimp --> War Criminal
Obongo --> War Criminal
Hillarity --> War Criminal
Groper Joe --> War Criminal
Etc... etc... etc...
Are you at least BEGINNING to see a pattern here???
If not, you soon will do as 'the chickens come home to roost' and ZOG focusses it's
attention on YOUR a$$!
Apeon , 11 hours ago
Apparently you are not old enough to remember Johnson
NuYawkFrankie , 8 hours ago
I'm holding "Johnson" as we speak... and the most I can accuse him of is being a naughty
- sometimes a VERY naughty- boy. Looks like he's due for another spanking!
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
you know it makes sense , 5 hours ago
Who writes this crap and who believes a word of it ?.
No mention that Gaddafi planned to set up a new gold backed African money to sell his
oil rather than the euro or the dollar. 143+ tons of gold and 140 tons of silver went
missing.
It was because of this lie and NATO's involvement in the destruction of Libya that both
Russia and China vowed never again to allow this to happen to another country
taglady , 7 hours ago
Trump: "lock her up" became "she's been through enough." What has she been through
exactly? "Make America great again" became we need to bail out Boeing and the rest because
of an "invisible enemy." It's invisible alright, because it doesn't exist. The only
invisible enemy are the parasites shoveling our money into their own very deep pockets in
every conceivable way. Like Biden and his entire family and the Clintons and the Obamas and
many others have been doing for many years. Like Bush and Cheney made out so well after
911. That's how Gates and the pharmaceutical industry became so bloated while real
Americans have struggled to make ends meet.
taglady , 7 hours ago
Interesting coalition between finance, government and media. Like when Bush announced
the necessary, unconstitutional war and changes to our society after 911. We didn't get to
vote on these changes. No referendum ever happened. Just an announcement in the media and
media spin on public opinion, then preplanned actions by corrupt officials. This alliance
was never more obvious than during the cv response. We are censored and silenced while
liars and thieves are given the bully pulpit to beat us over the head with their idiocracy
to enrich very few parasites, again. Then the public is blamed for the rogue actions of
government/ business/media. America is bad. We just keep voting for these dummies. Except
our voting system is run by the same corrupt dummies who keep getting re-elected. Hmmm.
Just like they did to Kadafi and many others. Suddenly Libya is poor. What happened to all
of Kadafi's gold? Probably the same thing that happened to the Pentagon trillions and SS
"surplus" and public pensions across America. Taxation without representation leaves us
broke, without a voice and broken. What are we going to do about it?
Iconoclast27 , 1 hour ago
The problem is you believe imperialism and colonialism has ended in the African
continent when that clearly isn't the case, this Libyan regime change op being the latest
example of interference you are claiming no longer exists.
John C Durham , 1 hour ago
Actually the end of colonialism that FDR ("Winston, Colonialism is the Cause of this
War. This war is going to end all Colonialism".) wished for is hardly over. We got
Democratic Party's Truman, not the great Henry Wallace, remember?
Libya only proves this true.
LEEPERMAX , 5 hours ago
America's "BOTCHED CIA OPERATION OF THE CENTURY" as they funneled GADDAFI WEAPONS from
the PORT OF BENGHAZI into SYRIA as OBAMA & CO. completed their agenda to DESTABILIZE
THE MIDDLE EAST and eventually ALL OF EUROPE.
NO MORE . . . NO LESS
QABubba , 5 hours ago
This is the very reason I sat out the 2016 election. They say citizens don't vote
foreign policy but I did. The "We came, we saw, he died" statement illustrated that our
leaders didn't have a clue as to the geopolitical damage we had done. The US supported a
"no fly zone" in the UN Security Council. Russia supported it. Gaddafi declared his own,
stating that none of his air force would fly. The US and their allies quickly "redefined"
it to mean they could destroy his air force on the ground, and once destroyed, any of his
antiaircraft guns, and once destroyed, any of his tanks and artillery (which don't fly),
and his troop convoys.
Gaddafi's, Russia's, perhaps North Korea's big mistake was believing the US would stand
by their agreement in the UN Security Council. This and the Eastward creep of Nato may very
well be the deciding factor's in Putin's view that he has no responsible actors in the West
to deal with. North Korea was watching. Any dream of getting a denuclearized North Korea
just receded by about 50 years.
And of course, our presstitute media had a starring role as always. The average American
thinks this was a just war, and knows nothing of the slave markets, and nothing about the
flood of African immigrants, who are majority muslim, and have no plans whatsoever to
assimilate, into Europe. The leaders of France and supposedly Great Britain have stabbed
their citizens in the back, as they will now have to watch European culture destroyed.
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Many thanks are due to Draitser for this excellent report on the vile activities of the
US Evil Empire in Libya. The power motives have been laid bare, but the massive greed of
the US/EU imperial elites have not been detailed. The greed for Libyan oil by France and
Italy is well known but the US also looted Libyan gold, just as they looted Ukrainian gold
after the 2014 Maidan coup.
By removing Gaddaffi (and who can forget Clinton's evil words "We came, we saw, he
died") and looting the gold they scuppered the plans to create a gold-backed dinar for all
of Africa, that would have challenged the use of USD, French-controlled "Franc" and other
fiat currencies.
That would have been shocking for the US/EU imperial elite that regards Africa as their
private fiefdom to loot at will.
Combined with a lust for power, the US/EU imperial elites have an insatiable greed.
After all, what use is an empire if the elites can't gorge themselves at will?
lastugro , 10 hours ago
... and Medvedev led Russia abstained (did not veto the vote) at the UNSC session where
the intervention was approved. Russia bears a tacit responsibility.
Michael Norton , 11 hours ago
Obama supplied ISIS with leftover weapons from the Libya operation to take out Bashar
Assad in Syria. That didn't work out for him too well, did it? Got an ambassador and some
CIA spooks killed in Benghazi.
dogfish , 9 hours ago
And Trump steals the oil, the oil that is desperately needed by the suffering Syrians.
Trump is a real humanitarian.
Maghreb2 , 5 hours ago
Obama believed every word he was fed about the R2P Right to Protect fantasy concocted at
the U.N. At the same time if you knew how dangerous the man was with his Green Revolution
and Desert sorcery you would have had him killed.
The first step of his plan was the Libyan African Gold Dinar which would have been a
commodity backed gold cuerrency. This would have broken Rothschild and most of the colonial
banking systems. On its own it was a just move but not even the Chinese could have an
African Bloc form that fast with that much growth. Imploding the CFA system would have
destroyed France as we know it and made it poorer than Poland.
Second factor was his ruthless plans to deal with his Islamic Nationalist and Monarchist
"Brothers". Gaddafis Green revolution could have spread across the desert wastes and easily
overthrown the Al Sauds and trapped Arab natioanlists in their citites. Not a powerful
fighter but understood desert warfare. It was the cost of Soviet equipment and the French
adapted technicals that made him weaker. The Wars of the Sahara desert like those of
Polisario Front and Libyan Chad War were decided by mobility.
Finally there were reports amongst the occultists that the man was obsessed with the
Occult and the Djinn. Giving a warlord his own banking system and access to African black
Magic was enough even for the Jesuits to view the man as a threat to global peace. Rumours
the djinns warned him of advance of air strikes and gave strength to his soldiers in the
deserts made him a force to be reckoned with in his borders. The association with Abu Nidal
is rumoured to have revealed things about the nature of these desert beings. If he had the
innate gift for it his tribe probably would have joined us at some point. Reports he had
fallen out with the real Green a man a sage and advisor to the Islamic leaders point to a
major rupture with the Islamic creed.
Only God can really judge whether his plan to emancipate Africa was his own power grab
to free the continent or another mad man trying to join the global elite by enslaving
them.
It would appear, at this point in time, that regardless of motive of his plan, the
US-backed alternative has turned out far worse. The only positive result is more money in
the pockets of the MIC and the opportunity to play war games in the desert.
Maghreb2 , 2 hours ago
Like I said he was a dangerous man. It takes one to rock the boat like he did. End of
the day the system could have been put in place for the African Gold Standard to start to
expand into areas that were tired of the Central African Franc system but it would have
destroyed Rothschild and led to hundreds of million of Black Muslims having resources to
throw at Israel.
Making Chad, Senegal and Mali into something like Yugoslavia with Chinese and Russian
Weaponry was beyond the imaginings of Africom. Would have lowered the birth rates with the
development and solved the migration and economic crisis. Having these countries like
Sweden would have also created living space for white liberals who were highly educated.
Instead all the money vanished with the Kleptokrats. Its only insane Facists who want dead
Africans on their doorsteps in Berlin and on the television that agree with this
madness.
Euafrica, Eurabia could be avoided by making sure the Africans slow their birth rates
through development and saving wealth rather than following it to Europe when the big men
run with gold and dollars.
At the same time he was known as a devil to the Arabs and the dissidents. Sort of like
Rockefeller with the company towns and corporate face. You ask the bastards to resign and
why all these people has vanished and gives you statistics on how many electrical
appliances have been handed out and says he was never in charge and you don't know how the
system works.
Hard to say but he played the game. Robbed Bunker Hunt which was enough for us. Bunker
C%nt as we called him when he tried to bring down the Morgue in Texas. Stuff like that is
why the Illuminati are feared. Its hard for anyone to gauge what is going on and what the
domino effects are. He was trained by the Americans and British and supplied with Socialist
apparatus. Gianni Agnelli the suavest yid since Joseph kept NATO off his back. He had ties
to the U.S deep State as well but that goes back to Wheelus.
Like we said about the Occult everyone has a backer but that man had demons watching
over him. According to some. Thin line between a Djinn and Shaytan when politics and murder
get involved.
Failed nation states make a perfect platform for a profitable global criminal
enterprise.
voting machine , 6 hours ago
Allen Dulles couldn't have scripted this operation any better.
This is right out of the CIA hand book. Regime change 101
Jackprong , 7 hours ago
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to
take the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no
clear documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the
idea that there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a
functioning Constitution.
Got an answer for this: CUTBACKS!
bshirley1968 , 3 hours ago
" The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist,
and amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. "
The real reason is the threat against the `dollar`.
JeanTrejean , 6 hours ago
It's the Frenchmen Sarkozy and B.H. Levy who are responsible for this agression.
The USA and NATO (outside Europe) were just "dumb followers".
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Nothing dumb about Obomber: why did he loot and murder in Libya (or Yemen, Ukraine,
Syria etc)? Because he CAN!!!
Joiningupthedots , 21 minutes ago
Everything The West touches turns to rat ****.
Mercifully Russia recognised its mistake with Libya and stepped in to save Syria from
the same fate.
Every country, its military bandits politicians involved in the unprovoked attack and
subsequent destruction of Libya can be considered........WAR CRIMINALS.
Hopefully one day they will be stupid enough to attack Russia or China and be completely
destroyed for their stupidity.
OTBorder@CA , 1 hour ago
First of all, Gadhafi gave an unconditional surrender that was brokered by international
diplomatic channels over a month before our invasion. Obama & his minions ignored it.
We knew many pilots that flew "missions" over Libya during this war & were involved in
a massive bombing campaign. Don't forget the Wikileaks where France signed onto the war on
the condition they got a % of Libya's gold. My wish is that someday history will tell the
truth about the bastard Obama. Read the Lost Arab Spring by, Walid Phares to see all of the
other Countries Obama tried to overthrow & have radical Islamic Terrorists replace the
peaceful governments.
csc61 , 1 hour ago
The author gives these idiots far too much credit. People must come to the understanding
that presidents and politicians (on all sides) simply do as they're told. It is the hidden
hand, the international financiers, who are ruining the world. Politicians are mere pawns
... minions willing to sell their souls for a few short years of presumed power, only to
scurry off afterward to play the role of elder statesmen. Politicians are nothing more than
privileged degenerates who proved early in their political lives they could be easily
corrupted and compromised. It is not them who do the damage directly - these things would
happen no matter who's in charge. No, they're simply the ones pushed out front to sign
documents and take blame for the world's ruination ... a small price they are willing to
pay to feed their narcissistic appetites.
Mentaliusanything , 7 hours ago
I would caption that image as "Who is going first to the platform and rope... Biden
thinks he has won a Prize and is excited , The Kenyan says you first Bro (loser) and the
white Privileged woman is laughing as she says , You have nothing on Me... Bitches, I bury
mine deep and dead, I do not swing
Scipio Africanuz , 8 hours ago
Fair enough..
Now that we've completed stage 1 of the harvest, perhaps we ought boost the Republic of
Liberty, and hopefully, temper the anxious wrath of folks..
Libya was a catastrophic mistake, borne of hubris, vanity, intellectual rigidity,
vainglory, and confusion. Hubris on the part of some, Sarkozy comes to mind, vanity on the
part of some, Hillary Clinton comes to mind, confusion on the part of some, Obama comes to
mind, and Ideological rigidity on the part of some, Biden comes to mind, and vainglorious
pride on the part of some, the security establishment and their directors come to
mind..
Having cleared that, it's no use crying over spilt milk, what's necessary, if the
humility to acknowledge errors is available, is contributing rationally, and pernitently,
to fixing the errors, and not by the same thinking that led to the errors, but fresh
thinking that ought now understand that..
What's sown, is what's reaped, but MERCY it is, mitigates the harvests of depravity, via
the provision of energy to restitute, and make amends..
The caveat however, is that mercy is NEVER deployed without REPENTANCE and
RECALIBRATION,
which are the foundational pillars that make MERCY provide the energy to effect
RESTITUTION..
Having clarified that, it's pertinent to inform, that Providence is NOT interested, in
any way, shape, or form, in the damnation of anyone and why?
Well, which loving father is interested in the damnation of his children, no matter how
depraved?
Still, patience ought not be mistaken for coddling and why?
With one, patience, the intent is to provide time for change..
With the other, coddling, the gambit is the turning of blind eyes to depravity..
But seeing as God, the Almighty Father is CONSISTENTLY Just, we can conclude then, that
patience is the prerequisite for either Mercy or Damnation and how so?
Because if patience is deployed, and the depraved utilize it to change, then their
salvation is self directed..
And if not, utilized that is, then their damnation as well, is self obtained..
And thus is the Justice and Honor of Divine Providence satisfied..
It's that simple..
And on that note VP Biden, we'll no longer refer to you as that, but as Joseph..
That ought awaken in you the grave responsibility on your shoulders, like that of the
Biblical Joseph, whose father made for him, a "Coat of MANY colors.."
And if you be perceptive Joseph, you're now about to wear E Pluribus Unum (Coat of many
colors..), created as a singular garment (ONE NATION..), for a reason (the glorification of
Provident Divinity..
)
And the glorification?
That E Pluribus Unum (coat of many colors created as a singular garment..), ought
demonstrate to all who see it worn, the goodness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and
LOVE of the Provider of the Coat..
And considering Joseph, that in service of the Republic, you've not withheld the fruit
of your loins, it's appropriate then, that you ought now demonstrate that love for the
Republic, by putting it first, just as you'd put the fruits of your loins first, except
above Divine Providence, known to you, as God Almighty..
So then Joseph, as we begin the next stage of the harvest, remember your oath that "you
keep your promises..", you'll be judged by that oath..
And Joseph, "a promise is a debt..", it MUST be paid..
And to boost you energetically, here's Parton the Sweet Voiced Nightingale..
As Americans pause to remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001 which saw almost
3,000 innocents killed in the worst terror attack in United States history, it might also be
worth contemplating the
horrific wars and foreign quagmires unleashed during the subsequent 'war on terror'.
Bush's so-called Global War on Terror targeted 'rogue states' like Saddam's Iraq, but also
consistently had a focus on uprooting and destroying al-Qaeda and other armed Islamist terror
organizations (this led to the falsehood that Baathist Saddam and AQ were in cahoots). But the
idea that Washington from the start saw al-Qaeda and its affiliates as some kind of eternal
enemy is largely a myth.
Recall that the US covertly supported the Afghan mujahideen and other international
jihadists throughout the 1980's Afghan-Soviet War, the very campaign in which hardened al-Qaeda
terrorists got their start. In 1999 The Guardian in a rare moment of honest mainstream
journalism warned of the Frankenstein the CIA created --
among their ranks a terror mastermind named Osama bin Laden .
But it was all the way back in 1993 that a then classified intelligence memo warned that the
very fighters the CIA previously trained would soon turn their weapons on the US and its
allies. The 'secret' document was declassified in 2009, but has remained largely obscure in
mainstream media reporting, despite being the first to contain a bombshell admission.
"support network that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to supplement the Afghan
mujahidin" in the war against the Soviets, "is now contributing experienced fighters to
militant Islamic groups worldwide."
During the war in Afghanistan, eager Arab
youths volunteered en masse to fight a historic "jihad"
against the Soviet •'infidel." The support network
that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to sup-
plement the Afghan mujahidin is now contributing
experienced fighters to militant Islamic groups world-
wide. Veterans of the Afghan jihad are being inte-
... ... ...
dump hundreds more devout fighters into the net-
work. exacerbating the problems of governments that
are accepting the wandering mujahidin.
* * *
When the Boys Come Home
The concluding section contains the most revelatory statements, again remembering these
words were written nearly a decade before the 9/11
attacks :
US support of the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not necessarily protect US
interests from attack.
...Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims' wrath. Afghan war veterans,
scattered throughout the world, could surprise the US with violence in unexpected
locales.
ue until wc throw India out," apparently is well armed
and operating about 80 miles southeast of Srinagar.
Mujahidin in Every Corner
Beyond the Middle East and South Asia, small
numbers of Afghan war veterans are taking up causes
from Somalia to the Philippines. Mujahidin connections
to the larger network heighten the chances that even
an ad hoc group could carry out destructive insurgent
attacks. Veterans joining small opposition groups can
contribute significantly to their capabilities; therefore,
some militant groups are actively recruiting returning
veterans, as in the Philippines where the radical Mus-
lim Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) reportedly is using muja-
hidin members' connections to the network to bolster
funding and broker arms deals. The ASG is believed
to have carried out the May bombings of Manila's
light rail system.
Focus on the United States
The alleged involvement of veterans of the Af-
ghan war in the World Trade Center bombing and the
plots against New York targets arc a bold example of
what tactics some fop^r mujahidin are willing in use
in their ongoing jihad (see box, p. 3). US support of
the mujahidin during the Afghan war will not neces-
sarily protect US interests from attack.
The growing perception by Muslims that the US
follows a double standard with regard to Islamic issues --
particularly in Iraq, Bosnia, Algeria, and the Isracli-
occupicd territories -- heightens the possibility that
Americans will become the targets of radical Muslims'
wrath. Afghan war veterans, scattered throughout the
world, could surprise the US with violence in unex-
pected locales.
(Gina BennoB. INfVTNA)
There it is in black and white print: the United States government knew and bluntly
acknowledged that the very militants it armed and trained to the tune of
hundreds of millions of dollars would eventually turn that very training and those very
weapons back on the American people .
And this was not at all a "small" or insignificant group, instead as The Guardian wrote a
mere two
years before 9/11 :
American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in
bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up
.
But don't think for a moment that there was ever a "lesson learned" by Washington.
So he found a different theatre for his holy war and achieved a different sort
of martyrdom. Three years ago, he was convicted of planning a series of
massive explosions in Manhattan and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Hampton-el was described by prosecutors as a skilled bomb-maker. It was
hardly surprising. In Afghanistan he fought with the Hezb-i-Islami group of
mujahideen, whose training and weaponry were mainly supplied by the CIA.
He was not alone. American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992,12,500
foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla
warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.
Instead the CIA and other US agencies repeated the 1980s policy of arming jihadists to
overthrow US enemy regimes in places like Libya and Syria even long after the "lesson" of 9/11.
As War on The Rocks recounted :
Despite the passage of time, the issues Ms. Bennett raised in her 1993 work continue to be
relevant today. This fact is a sign of the persistence of the problem of Sunni jihadism and
the "wandering mujahidin." Today, of course, the problem isn't Afghanistan but Syria. While
the war there is far from over, there is already widespread nervousness, particularly in
Europe, about what will happen when the
foreign fighters return from that conflict.
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The U.S. State Dept.'s own numbers at the height of the war in Syria: access the full
report at
STATE.GOV
19 June 2015, From US Department of
State, Country Report on Terrorism 2014:
"The rate of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria
[during 2014]- totaling more than 16,000 foreign
terrorist ficjhters from more than 90 countries as
of late December - exceeded the rate of foreign
terrorist fighters who traveled to Afghanistan and
Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in
the last 20 years"
By
Tony
Cox
, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.
The New York Times and CNN are desperate to paint Donald Trump as an enemy of the military, due to his desire not to get
involved in pointless wars. But this is simply not true, and Trump has the backing of many soldiers.
Someone should tell the
New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets that soldiers don't actually like getting killed or maimed for no good
reason. Nor do they like generals and presidents who spill their blood in vain.
Alas, ignorance of these
obvious truths probably isn't the issue. This is likely just another case of the biggest names in news pretending to not get
the point so they can take the rest of us along for a ride in their confidence game of alternative reality.
The latest example is the
New York Times spinning President Donald Trump's critique this week of Pentagon leadership and the military industrial complex
as disrespect for the military at large.
"Trump has lost the right and authority to be
commander in chief,"
the
Times quoted
retired US Marines General Anthony Zinni as saying. Zinni cited Trump's alleged
"despicable
comments"
about the nation's war dead – reported last week by
The
Atlantic
, citing anonymous sources – as one of the reasons Trump "must go."
Never mind that Trump and all on-the-record administration sources denied The Atlantic's report. The Times couldn't resist
when the pieces seemed to fit so well together for the military's latest propaganda campaign against Trump. First the
president disses the troops, calling them "losers" and "suckers," then he has the
temerity
to say
Pentagon leaders want to fight wars to keep defense contractors happy.
Except the pieces don't
fit. The many people who occupy so-called boots on the ground don't have the same interests as the few people who send them to
war. In fact, combat troops are given reason to hate the generals who send them to die when there's not a legitimate national
security reason for the war they're fighting. And the US has fought a long line of wars that didn't serve the nation's
national security interests. Even when a war is justified, the interests of top brass and front-line soldiers often clash.
Remember that great 1967
war movie, '
The
Dirty Dozen'
? A group of 12 soldiers who were condemned to long prison sentences or execution in military prison for their
crimes were sent on a 1944 suicide mission to kill high-ranking German officers at a heavily defended chateau far behind enemy
lines. After succeeding in the mission and escaping the Germans, the lone surviving convict, played by tough-guy actor Charles
Bronson, told the mission leader,
"Killing generals could get to be a habit with me."
So no, New York Times, speaking out against ill-advised wars does not equal bashing the military. And sorry, General Zinni,
but generals, defense contractors and their media mouthpieces don't get to decide who has the
"right
and authority"
to be commander in chief. The voters decided that already, and they expressed clearly that they don't want
senseless and endless wars and foreign interventions.
The Times cited General
James McConville, the Army's chief of staff, as saying Pentagon leaders would only recommend sending troops to combat
"when
it's required for national security and a last resort."
And no, it wasn't a comedy skit. What's the last US war or combat
intervention that measured up to that standard? Let's just say the late Bronson, who died in 2003 at the age of 81, was a
young man the last time that happened.
CNN tried a similar ploy
on Sunday, while trying to sell the "losers" and "suckers" story in an interview with US Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert
Wilkie. Host Dana Bash said the allegations fit a
"pattern of public statements
" by
the president because Trump called US Senator John McCain a "loser" in 2015 and said McCain shouldn't be considered a hero for
being captured in the Vietnam War. She repeatedly suggested to Wilkie, who didn't take the bait, that Trump's attacks on
McCain, who died in 2018, showed disrespect for the troops.
Apparently, this follows
the same line of propagandist thought which told us that saying there are rapists among the illegal aliens entering the US
from Mexico – which is undeniably true –
equals
saying
all Mexicans are rapists. In CNN land, a bad word about McCain is a bad word about all soldiers.
McCain was
a
warmonger
who didn't mind getting US troops killed or backing terrorist groups in Syria. If
he
had his way
, many more GIs would be dead or disabled, because the intervention in Syria would have been escalated and the
US might be at war with Iran. Soldiers wouldn't want their lives wasted in such conflicts.
All wars are hard on the
people who have to fight them, but senseless wars are spirit-crushing. An average of about 17 veterans commit suicide each day
in the US, according to Veterans Administration
data
.
Veterans account for 11 percent of the US adult population but more than 18 percent of suicides.
The media's deceiving
technique of trying to pretend that ruling-class chieftains and front-line grunts are in the same boat reflects a broader
campaign of top-down revolution against populism. The
military
is
just one of several pro-Trump segments of the population that must be turned against the president. Other pro-Trump segments,
such as
police
,
are demonized and attacked.
Trump has managed to keep
the US out of new wars and has drawn down deployments to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – despite Pentagon opposition. His rival,
Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, can be expected to rev up the war machine if he takes charge. His foreign policy
adviser, Antony Blinken, lamented in a May
interview
with CBS News
that Trump had given up US "leverage" in Syria.
Trump also has turned
around the VA hospital system, ending
decades
of neglect
that left many veterans to die on waiting lists.
Like past campaigns to
oust Trump, the notion that he's not sufficiently devoted to the troops might be a tough sell. No matter how good their words
may sound, the people who promote endless wars without clear objectives aren't true supporters of the rank and file.
This is surely the last thing the American people want to hear, but it does confirm
President Trump's
recent statements saying that top Pentagon brass essentially seeks out constant wars to
keep defense contractors "happy": the Department of Defense plans to cut major military
contractors a $10 billion to $20 billion COVID bailout check .
Defense One
reports : "With lawmakers and the White House unable to come to an agreement on a new
coronavirus stimulus package, it's unlikely that money requested to reimburse defense
contractors for pandemic-related expenses will reach these companies until at least the second
quarter of 2021, according to the Pentagon's top weapons buyer."
Defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, in recent statements has
indicated the private defense firm stimulus would cover the period from March 15 to Sept. 15
and is estimated at "between $10 and $20 billion."
"Then we want to look at all of the proposals at once," Lord said at a press briefing
Wednesday. "It isn't going to be a first in, first out, and we have to rationalize using the
rules we've put in place what would be reimbursable and what's not."
And strongly suggesting that it won't be the last of such stimulus for defense firms who
have already profited immensely off post 9/11 'wars of choice' launched under Bush and Obama,
Lord
said , "I would contend that most of the effects of COVID haven't yet been seen."
"I'm not saying the military's in love with me," Trump added , as he advocated for
the removal of U.S. troops from "endless wars" and lambasted NATO allies that he says rip off
the U.S. "The soldiers are."
"The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight
wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make
everything else stay happy," he added.
"Some people don't like to come home, some people like to continue to spend money," the
president said. "One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that's what it was."
The "outrage" that followed included reporters claiming that Trump's words were
"unprecedented".
But that's far from the truth, as Glen Greenwald reminded his fellow journalists:
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Well over a half-century ago, Eisenhower warned, "In the councils of government, we must
guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex . The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists
and will persist."
And further: "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry
can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Creepy Joe used to be a stanch neoliberal, who promoted open militarism, empowerment of
multinationals at the expense of working people; two feature of neofascism.
The Left justifies extreme and violent action by framing Trump as an existential threat to
America...
It might not seem immediately apparent that Joe Biden would have anything in common with
insurrectionary anarchists. After all, Biden has been deeply entrenched in the uppermost
echelons of American political power for nearly five decades straight -- whereas
insurrectionary anarchists generally seek to overthrow those systems, by violent force if
necessary.
The former Vice-President is not exactly the type you would imagine clad in all-black
combat-style street apparel, hurling commercial-grade fireworks at police officers. Rather, he
drafted the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill in concert with the National Association of Police
Organizations. He is even known to venerate the arcane institutionalist ethos of the US Senate
-- whereas to insurrectionary anarchists, such institutions could only be tools of
oppression.
But the Trump Era has an odd way of bringing about unexpected ideological convergences. In
the announcement video that formally kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden
paid homage to what he called the "courageous group of Americans" who descended upon
Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 to confront an assembly of Right-wing rally-goers. Among
that "courageous group" were Left-wing activist factions broadly classified under the banner of
"antifa".
For Biden, what transpired in Charlottesville was a "defining moment," and formed the basis
for his decision to launch a third campaign for the presidency at age 76. While Biden did
herald generic American idealism in that announcement video -- which would be anathema to most
insurrectionary anarchists -- in the gravity he assigned to the Charlottesville episode, he
also affirmed a core tenet of the "antifa" worldview: the notion that a uniquely pressing
fascistic threat has gripped the country, and crushing this threat is a matter of unparalleled
world-historic urgency.
Certainly, if you picked any "antifa" member at random, there'd be an almost 0% chance that
they would express any kind of personal enthusiasm for Joe Biden. But there'd be a virtually
100% chance that they'd express a great deal of enthusiasm for the theory that "fascism" is an
accurate characterisation of America's current state of governance. Biden would be similarly
enthused to present a variation of this analysis, albeit from a slightly different ideological
angle. He typically intones things like, "This is not who we are", rather than "All Cops Are
Bastards".
Still, where Biden is united with "antifa" is in assigning such outsized importance to the
role of small-time "fascist" agitators like the ones who gathered that weekend three years ago
in Charlottesville (despite ultimately being outnumbered by Left-wing activists) on account of
the validation they are purported to have received from Donald Trump. For both Biden and
"antifa," this dynamic constitutes the chief prism through which contemporary American
political affairs must be viewed.
And for both Biden and "antifa," this mode of analysis has been hugely successful. "Antifa"
has succeeded in stoking nationwide insurrectionary fervour on a scale unseen in decades. Given
their opposition to Trump as the alleged fascist-in-chief, as well as their appropriation of
the "Black Lives Matter" protest mantle, they've received an extraordinary amount of mainstream
liberal legitimation.
Democratic Party operatives have even gone so far as to exalt "antifa" activists as the
modern-day equivalents of US soldiers fighting in World War II -- while apparently exhibiting
no embarrassment for invoking this comparison.
Another clear beneficiary of the "fascism" panic, somewhat paradoxically, has been Biden. A
supreme irony of the outsized role that "anti-fascism" has played in post-2016 US political
discourse -- as popularised by both liberals and leftists, who often claim to be at odds with
each other but nonetheless overwhelmingly agree on the underlying "fascism" prognosis -- is
that it has ultimately limited the possibility of actual Left-wing policy reform.
Democratic presidential primary voters had been traumatised by the non-stop barrage of
Trump-related hysteria churned out each and every day by profit-driven corporate media outlets,
and laboured under the sincere belief that Trump's America bears some bonafide relation to
Weimar Germany. As such, a plurality were understandably uninterested in foundational reform to
the Democratic Party.
That was bad news for socialist Bernie Sanders, who ended up losing handily in the 2020
primaries to a former Vice President whose entire campaign was predicated on little more than
restoring the pre-2016 Democratic Party to power.
And in a way, you can't particularly blame those Biden voters. Because if your main sources
of information tell you for years on end that the reins of state have been seized by an
out-and-out fascist, who is fuelling a siege of "Nazi" street agitators, whatever deficiencies
the Democratic Party might have at the moment are of little or no concern. Now even Sanders
himself has called for a "united front" against Trump ahead of the election, seeming to suggest
that the precedent of Francisco Franco is historically apt. Wasn't the whole problem with
Franco that he couldn't be voted out?
Never mind that Trump would have to be quite a feckless fascist to allow himself to be
constantly maligned in the country's major media, plotted against by his own administration
underlings, and impeached. The decidedly unsexy reality is that Trump has been a fairly weak
executive, at least relative to his predecessors in the postwar era.
But his radically unorthodox communications style belies any dispassionate assessment of
this record, thus the fascism-mongering persists more-or-less unabated. And for all the
warnings of a Reichstag Fire moment always supposedly being around the corner, the past six
months of Covid and riots were a missed opportunity for any genuine fascist seeking to
consolidate power. Trump appears largely content with issuing inflammatory tweets.
So as riots continue around the country, and corporate news networks describe post-protest
scenes with raging infernos as "mostly peaceful", the temptation can be to write this off as
mere partisan side-taking. Certainly there's an element of that -- most journalists desperately
don't want to see Trump win in November.
But thanks to the prevailing "fascism" framework, their opposition to Trump isn't just a
matter of ordinary election-year preference. It's imbued with existential,
civilisation-altering significance. How could anyone in their right mind not do everything
within their capacity to ensure the defeat of fascism? Once you accept the premise that fascism
does in fact accurately describe the current state of American governance, all bets are off --
journalistically and otherwise.
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So even if the "anti-fascists" in the equation are burning down cities, they will still
never exist on the same moral plane as the actual "fascists" whose champion occupies the White
House. Hence, riots which result in the destruction of huge swaths of Kenosha, WI magically
become a "mostly peaceful" affair according to CNN and the New York Times .
Yes, journalists also presumptively ascribe a certain virtue to any protests that occur with
the imprimatur of "Black Lives Matter". But racial disparities have been a fact of American
life since the dawn of the republic. The unavoidable explanation for why they've taken on such
frantic energy in the past several months is the alleged spectre of fascism, namely Trump. With
a Democratic President, even one as vanilla as Biden, there will doubtless be future race-based
controversies. But they won't have the cosmic weight as those that occur when a "fascist"
president also looms.
Adding to the growing list of ironies, Trump's primary conception of the presidency has less
been Fuhrer, than "Pundit-in-Chief", whereby he proudly brandishes the role of world's loudest
media critic -- with media criticism having been one of his life-long passions. Given that
experience, Trump knows how to expertly pry at tensions in how pundit narratives get
constructed, and the "peaceful protest" cliché provides all the material that could ever
be desired in that respect. Kayleigh McEnany, in tweeting a photo of a
recent Trump air hanger rally in Pennsylvania, described the attendees (only half-jokingly) as
"peaceful protesters".
The reason she did this is because if one follows the recent patterns of media nomenclature,
any and all "peaceful protesters" should be painstakingly accommodated, even if their
gatherings produce widespread arson attacks or increase the Covid-19 infection rate. There is
no impartial explanation for why the "peaceful protests" of this past summer deserved praise,
adulation, and rousing defences from the standpoint of pandemic mitigation. Again, only does
this make sense when inserted into the blinkered fascism vs. anti-fascism context.
One wonders if these protesters and rioters have ever paused to consider why it is that so
many establishment media outlets are so consistently eager to advocate on their behalf, with
the phrase "largely peaceful" having been stretched well past the point of absurdity. And one
also wonders why so many powerful forces are so willing to join in affirming their
"anti-fascism" worldview -- up to and including, in his own way, Joe Biden. For all the talk
about dismantling systems of oppression, those who actually wield power in 2020 America seem to
view the "fascism vs. antifascism" dichotomy as awfully convenient to their own self-preserving
interests.
Oh, look, no masks! And you thought that got covered up by the investigation done by the
Mueller team? Let's go over this one more time:
The document declassified by DNI Grenell shows that there were 14 unique days when the NSA
received requests to "unmask"--the first was on 30 November 2016 by UN Ambassador Samantha
Power and the last came on 12 January from Joe Biden. There were two separate requests on the
14th of December by Samantha Power, which indicates two separate NSA reports. Samantha Power
would not have to submit two requests for the same document.
If after reading the headline you thought that is is one of the Russian universities got
financing from NED and is preparing to teach our grant-eaters "the science of color
revolutions", then you are mistaken.
It is the USA Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, which now offers 101 of
color revolution preparation in a course called "Overthrow the State" for its American students
and the subject of the course is the USA, not the xUSSR space.
According to the course description, it "puts every student at the head of a popular
revolutionary movement that seeks to overthrow the current government and create a better
society." Among questions discussed:
How will you gain power?"
How will you communicate with the masses?
How do you plan to improve people's lives?
How will you deal with the past?
These are the questions that the University course answers. To get a diploma in the course
"how to overthrow the state" you will need to pass 3 tests. It will be necessary to write your
"Manifesto" after studying historical examples and revolutionary thought from Franz Fanon to
Che Guevara, Mahatma Gandhi and representatives of the revolutionary movement. You will also
have to "write a compelling essay about rewriting history" and a "white paper" (white paper is
a kind of business plan, but it is written for an audience that is not related to
business).
Univrsity of Washington and Lee is so
progressive, that in July the faculty voted to remove the name of Robert Li from the name of
the University.
"... There has been a long string of U.S. provocations toward Russia. The first one came in the late 1990s and the initial years of the twenty-first century when Washington violated tacit promises given to Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that if Moscow accepted a united Germany within NATO, the Alliance would not seek to move farther east. Instead of abiding by that bargain, the Clinton and Bush administrations successfully pushed NATO to admit multiple new members from Central and Eastern Europe, bringing that powerful military association directly to Russia's western border. In addition, the United States initiated "rotational" deployments of its forces to the new members so that the U.S. military presence in those countries became permanent in all but name. Even Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was uneasy about those deployments and conceded that he should have warned Bush in 2007 that they might be unnecessarily provocative. ..."
"... Such provocative political steps, though, are now overshadowed by worrisome U.S. and NATO military moves. Weeks before the formal announcement on July 29, the Trump administration touted its plan to relocate some U.S. forces stationed in Germany. When Secretary of Defense Mike Esper finally made the announcement, the media's focus was largely on the point that 11,900 troops would leave that country. ..."
"... Among other developments, there already has been a surge of alarming incidents between U.S. and Russian military aircraft in that region. Most of the cases involve U.S. spy planes flying near the Russian coast -- supposedly in international airspace. On July 30, a Russian Su-27 jet fighter intercepted two American surveillance aircraft; according to Russian officials, it was the fourth time in the final week of July that they caught U.S. planes in that sector approaching the Russian coast. Yet another interception occurred on August 5, again involving two U.S. spy planes. Still others have taken place throughout mid-August. It is a reckless practice that easily could escalate into a broader, very dangerous confrontation. ..."
"... The growing number of such incidents is a manifestation of the surging U.S. military presence along Russia's border, especially in the Black Sea . They are taking place on Russia's doorstep, thousands of miles away from the American homeland. Americans should consider how the United States would react if Russia decided to establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico, operating out of bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. ..."
"... I think this has been bipartisan policy since at least 1947. Unlikely to change anytime soon, even with realists gaining ground. Perhaps expanding NATO east, sending support to Ukraine, and intervening in Syria (despite attempts to leave, the best we can get at this point are small troop reductions that most likely are redeployed to neighboring countries) aren't the best idea after all? ..."
"... they think Russia is a weak state and can do nothing therefore they are free to do as they please. ..."
"... the US leadership wants ether country to take a shot at some thing US. Then then can scream and stomp their feet that no one on earth is allowed to trade with ether country and the US can block all trade with ether country. ..."
"... The other thing at play is Americans love it when their leaders act like gangsters. That's why leaders do it. Nothing will get you votes faster in the US than saying your going to kill people. I see US citizens try that non-sense about it's all Washington we don't want that. But you keep voting for people that are going to give you the next war fix. When you stop they will stop. ..."
"... if people are convinced that Russia is a weak state -- then it is easier to approve adventures abroad -- including ringing Russia. ..."
"... Please explain to me, a Russian person, what kind of anti-American policy Russia is spreading in countries? If we exclude acts of counteraction against American expansion and aggression against Russia? ..."
"... The only people that are destroying Americans are within our borders, wielding power to fulfill their mission -- enrich themselves, keep the borders open, and our military all over the globe. ..."
"... I think there is a third option besides escalation and deescalation - exhaustion. Projecting power across the globe is expensive, it is a slow but steady drain on US resources, which are needed elsewhere (for example to quell the riots in major US cities). ..."
"... I see it as exhaustion by corruption. The US military is increasingly bureaucratic, political and ineffectual. Our weapons are gold-plated, hyper-tech focused and require highly-skilled people to maintain them, which means we can't quickly train new people up. The weapons themselves are so complex and expensive that there is no way to manufacture them at scale quickly. ..."
"... Read Jean Lartegy's "The Centurions." That is the direction where the tactically brilliant, but strategically incompetent US military leadership is headed. ..."
"... Stop focusing on what Trump says and look at what his administration does. Troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, Nord Stream 2, intrusive US reconnaissance flights along Russia's borders, support of Ukraine, interference with Russian patrols in Syria, the continuing attempt to destabilize Assad in Syria, the destruction of JCPOA, global sanctions campaign on Russia among others, withdrawal from arms control treaties, accusation that Russia was cheating on INF treaty, hiring dozens of anti-Russia hardliners, etc, etc. ..."
"... I don't think US-Russian cooperation is doable at this point--or any time soon. Given how erratic US policy is--yawing violently from one direction to another--Russia has no reason to accept the damage to its relationship with China that shifting to a strategic arrangement with the US would entail. The risk is too high and the potential rewards too uncertain. ..."
"... We have pretty much alienated the Russian state under Putin, and now we're trying to wait him out, with the expectation that there is no one of his capabilities to maintain the strategic autonomy of the Russian state in the longer term and that once he exits the scene, some Yeltsin-like stooge will present himself. ..."
"... Everyone is focusing on Russia because of the Russia hoax. Dems started a new cold war based on an irrational fear that Russia was threatening our democracy. ..."
"... The foreign policy elite dislikes Russia, always has, and will do anything to keep this "adversary" front and center because their prospects for prestige, power and position depend upon the presence of an enemy. As an example see Strobe Talbot and Michael McFaul. ..."
Tensions are becoming dangerous in Syria and on Russia's back doorstep. US soldiers stand
near US and Russian military vehicles in the northeastern Syrian town of al-Malikiyah (Derik)
at the border with Turkey, on June 3, 2020. (Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
A dangerous vehicle collision between U.S and Russian soldiers in Northeastern Syria on Aug.
24 highlights the fragility of the relationship and the broader test of wills between the two
major powers.
According to White House
reports and a Russian video that went viral this week, it appeared that as the two sides
were racing down a highway in armored vehicles, the Russians sideswiped the Americans, leaving
four U.S. soldiers injured. It is but the latest clash as both sides continue their patrols in
the volatile area. But it speaks of bigger problems with U.S. provocations on Russia's backdoor
in Eastern Europe.
A sober examination of U.S. policy toward Russia since the disintegration of the Soviet
Union leads to two possible conclusions. One is that U.S. leaders, in both Republican and
Democratic administrations, have been utterly tone-deaf to how Washington's actions are
perceived in Moscow. The other possibility is that those leaders adopted a policy of maximum
jingoistic swagger intended to intimidate Russia, even if it meant obliterating a constructive
bilateral relationship and eventually risking a dangerous showdown. Washington's latest
military moves, especially in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, are stoking alarming
tensions.
There has been a
long string of U.S. provocations toward Russia. The first one came in the late 1990s and
the initial years of the twenty-first century when Washington violated tacit promises given to
Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that if Moscow accepted a united Germany within
NATO, the Alliance would not seek to move farther east. Instead of abiding by that bargain, the
Clinton and Bush administrations successfully pushed NATO to admit multiple new members from
Central and Eastern Europe, bringing that powerful military association directly to Russia's
western border. In addition, the United States initiated "rotational" deployments of its forces
to the new members so that the U.S. military presence in those countries became permanent in
all but name. Even Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense under both George W.
Bush and Barack Obama, was uneasy
about those deployments and conceded that he should have warned Bush in 2007 that they might be
unnecessarily provocative.
As if such steps were not antagonistic enough, both Bush and Obama sought to bring Georgia
and Ukraine into NATO. The latter country is not only within what Russia regards as its
legitimate sphere of influence, but within its core security zone. Even key European members of
NATO, especially France and Germany, believed that such a move was unwise and blocked
Washington's ambitions. That resistance, however, did not inhibit a Western effort to meddle in Ukraine's
internal affairs to help
demonstrators unseat Ukraine's elected, pro-Russia president and install a new, pro-NATO
government in 2014.
Such provocative political steps, though, are now overshadowed by worrisome U.S. and
NATO military moves. Weeks before the formal announcement on July 29, the Trump administration
touted its plan to relocate some U.S. forces stationed in Germany. When Secretary of Defense
Mike Esper finally made the announcement, the media's focus was largely on the point that
11,900 troops would leave that country.
However, Esper
made it clear that only 6,400 would return to the United States; the other nearly 5,600
would be redeployed to other NATO members in Europe. Indeed, of the 6,400 coming back to the
United States, "many of these or similar units will begin conducting rotational deployments
back to Europe." Worse, of the 5,600 staying in Europe, it turns out that at least 1,000 are going
to Poland's eastern border with Russia.
Another result of the redeployment will be to boost U.S. military power in the Black Sea.
Esper confirmed that various units would "begin continuous rotations farther east in the Black
Sea region, giving us a more enduring presence to enhance deterrence and reassure allies along
NATO's southeastern flank." Moscow is certain to regard that measure as another on a growing
list of Black Sea provocations by the United States.
Among other developments, there already has been a surge of alarming incidents between
U.S. and Russian military aircraft in that region. Most of the cases involve U.S. spy planes
flying near the Russian coast -- supposedly in international airspace. On July 30, a Russian
Su-27 jet fighter
intercepted two American surveillance aircraft; according to Russian officials, it was the
fourth time in the final week of July that they caught U.S. planes in that sector approaching
the Russian coast. Yet
another interception occurred on August 5, again involving two U.S. spy planes. Still
others have
taken place throughout mid-August. It is a reckless
practice that easily could escalate into a broader, very dangerous confrontation.
The growing number of such incidents is a manifestation of the surging U.S. military
presence along Russia's border,
especially in the Black Sea . They are taking place on Russia's doorstep, thousands of
miles away from the American homeland. Americans should consider how the United States would
react if Russia decided to establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico,
operating out of bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
The undeniable reality is that the United States and its NATO allies are crowding Russia;
Russia is not crowding the United States. Washington's bumptious policies already have wrecked
a once-promising bilateral relationship and created a needless new cold war with Moscow. If
more prudent U.S. policies are not adopted soon, that cold war might well turn hot.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at The American Conservative, is the author of 12 books and more
than 850 articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur
(2019).
I mean, I think this has been bipartisan policy since at least 1947. Unlikely to change
anytime soon, even with realists gaining ground. Perhaps expanding NATO east, sending
support to Ukraine, and intervening in Syria (despite attempts to leave, the best we can
get at this point are small troop reductions that most likely are redeployed to neighboring
countries) aren't the best idea after all?
This is a very anti American article! Patriots know that where the U.S. gives political
or economic ground Russia and other adversaries will fill the vacum with policies intended
to destroy American peoeple. So no, it is not a bad idea to be involved in Syria and
Ukraine in fact it is a very good idea.
The entire framing of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood as "pro American"
and those who oppose them as "anti American" is delusional.
Russia is a weak state trying to maintain its natural spheres of influence along the Curzon
line. Why has the State Department/ Pentagon decided to try and roll this back? How the F
to they expect Russia to react. How would America react if a foreign power tried to turn
Mexico into a strategic asset. So why is it ok to make Ukraine into a Nato member? It's
reckless and ultimately it is pointless. Weakening Russia further serves little strategic
purpose and potentially threatens to destabilize the Balkans and mid east with Turkish
adventurism. What will America do if the Turks seize Rhodes under some pretext?
Syria is another case of State Department midwits not understanding the results of their
regime change. What purpose does it serve to put a Sunni extremist government in Damascus.
How hateful do you have to be to subject Syria's minorities to genocide at the hands of an
ISIS sympathetic government? How do you delude yourself that such a regime will serve
America's interests in the long run? So you can own Iran before the election? You are
trading victory today for permanent loss tomorrow. It's insane.
Just like you, they think Russia is a weak state and can do nothing therefore they are free to do as they please.
Also, since Turkey is a NATO member and as such an ally to the U.S. shouldn't you be cheering in good faith for Turkey
and against Russia?
You got that one. Because Turkey is a thorn in NATO side. It has massive economic
interests in Russia, China and the rest of Asia. The "adventure" in Syria is coordinated
with Russia to the last detail, while playacting tensions. US problem in Syria is not
Russia or Turkey, but Russia AND Turkey.
As US is frowning at Egypt Al-Sisi , or Saudi MBS -- it is because they frown at Egypt
AND Russia, as well as Saudi Arabia AND Russia.
Basically, countries nominally counted in OUR camp are frowned upon when collaborating with
the ENEMY countries.
Our foreign policy is stuck in Middle East -- and cannot get unstuck. Cannot be better
illustrated then Pompeo addressing Republican convention from Jerusalem.
The only way Russia can challenge encirclement is by challenging US in its home away
from home -- Middle East. And creating new realities in the ground by collaborating with
the countries in the region -- undermining monopoly.
And as the entire world is hurting from epidemic related economic setbacks, Russia and
China are economies that are moving forward. And nobody in the Middle East can afford to
ignore it.
I agree with you with the exception of Russia being weak. One day the US which has never
seen any thing in advance will push Russia one time to many and find the Russian Army in
Poland and Romania. That is if China doesn't take out some thing precious to the US in the
mean time like a U2, aircraft carrier etc.
There are two things at play here. The first is the US leadership wants ether country to
take a shot at some thing US. Then then can scream and stomp their feet that no one on
earth is allowed to trade with ether country and the US can block all trade with ether
country.
The other thing at play is Americans love it when their leaders act like gangsters. That's why leaders do it. Nothing will get you votes faster in the US than saying your going
to kill people. I see US citizens try that non-sense about it's all Washington we don't
want that. But you keep voting for people that are going to give you the next war fix. When
you stop they will stop.
I agree with your assessment except Russia will not put troops into any country without
the express request from the legitimate government.
They are not going into Poland and especially not Romania (Transnistria maybe) why would
they? The countries do not have any resources that Russia wants.
The only reason to put troops into Belarus is to maintain a distance between Poland and the
borders.
Russia needs nothing from the rest of the world except trade. Un-coerced, free trade. This
drives the US corporations crazy as no one will trade with the US anymore without
coercion.
PS the same goes for China with the proviso that Taiwan is part of China and needs to be
reabsorbed into the mainstream. It will take +20 years but China just keeps the pressure on
until there will be no viable alternative.
It has never meant to serve American interests. Ever. Once you put it in perspective, it
makes sense.
But if people are convinced that Russia is a weak state -- then it is easier to approve
adventures abroad -- including ringing Russia.
The problem for never satiated Zealots is the following -- regional powers in the Middle
East are hitching their wagons to Eurasian economic engine. That is definitely true of
Turkey, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia.
The tales of Moslem Brotherhood are here to interpret something today from the iconography
from the past. And to explain today what an entirely different set of leaders did -- be
that few years ago or one hundred years ago. Same goes for iconography of Al-Qaeda, ISIS,
Communism, Socialism, authoritarianism, and other ISMS.
Those icons serve the same purpose as icons in religion or in cyber-space. You look at
them, or you click -- and the story and explanation is ready made for your consumption. Time to watch actions -- not media iconography to tell us what is going on.
If we're being purely ideological here those with an overtly internationalist
disposition (barring leftists) are those who want to be involved overseas, hardly ones to
go on about national interest or pride. Its been a common stance associated with American
Nationalism and Paleoconservatives to be anti-intervention, these people (of which I
consider myself a part) can hardly be bashed for holding unpatriotic views.)
Russia has a declining population, and an economy smaller than that of Spain. Its hardly
a threat and our involvement in Eastern Europe was relatively limited pre-2014 and even so
the overall international balance of power hasn't shifted after Russian annexation of
Crimea, and the Ukrainians proved quite capable of defending their nation (though not so
capable as to end retake separatist strongholds.
Please explain to me, a Russian person, what kind of anti-American policy Russia is
spreading in countries? If we exclude acts of counteraction against American expansion and
aggression against Russia? What ideological foundations does Russia have after 1991? Isn't
Russia's actions a guerrilla war on the communications of the self-proclaimed "Empire of
Good", which is pursuing a tough offensive policy? And is it not because the Russians
support a significant part of Putin's initiatives (despite a number of Putin's obvious
shortcomings) precisely because they have experience of cooperation with the "Empire of
Good" in the 90s: give loans, corrupt officials and deputies, put Russian firms under
control big American companies, and then just give orders from the White House.
PS. I beg your pardon my google english
Another Zealot in Patriot garb. The only people that are destroying Americans are within our borders, wielding power to
fulfill their mission -- enrich themselves, keep the borders open, and our military all
over the globe.
It would be interesting to read the minds of the US pilots engaged in these activities.
My guess is that the cognitive dissonance energy in those heads is equivalent to the
biggest nuclear bomb ever exploded...
Hmmm... I think there is a third option besides escalation and deescalation -
exhaustion. Projecting power across the globe is expensive, it is a slow but steady drain on US
resources, which are needed elsewhere (for example to quell the riots in major US cities).
In a major crisis this could lead to a breaking point. What if some US adversary decides to
double down and attack (directly or by proxy) US troops and the US will not be able to
respond? A humiliating defeat combined with an exhausted public decidedly set against
military adventures abroad could cause a rapid retrenchment and global withdrawal.
I see it as exhaustion by corruption. The US military is increasingly bureaucratic,
political and ineffectual. Our weapons are gold-plated, hyper-tech focused and require
highly-skilled people to maintain them, which means we can't quickly train new people up.
The weapons themselves are so complex and expensive that there is no way to manufacture
them at scale quickly.
The DOD today is only about personal political position, and grubbing tax-payer dollars
for self-aggrandizement. In any real war with a real adversary, we wouldn't stand a
chance.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic regarding US military capabilities and I'm neither a US
citizen or a fan of US global hegemony.
The US armed forces are made up of professionals. There are some universal advantages
and disadvantages of such forces. A professional army is good at fighting wars but bad at
controlling territory because of its limited size and higher costs-per-soldier. In order to
control territory you need "boots on the ground" in great numbers, standing at checkpoints
and patrolling the countryside. They didn't have to be trained to the level of Navy SEALS,
for them it is enough if they can shoot straight and won't be scared from some fireworks
and the US lacks such forces.
So how is one going to get the millions of manpower to fulfill these tasks? Pauperize
the masses so that joining the army becomes the only viable solution? Introduce the Draft?
Provide a pathway for US citizenship for any foreigner that joins, establishing a US
Foreign Legion?
And then, how you'll have enough boots on the ground to pacify Russia or China. It took
more than a month to establish and secure the beach heads in Bretagne in France in 1944.
How do you think you can even get those boots to land in Russia or China, when you know
that the ICBMs are going to start flying towards the continental US if something like this
will ever happen?
So how is one going to get the millions of manpower to fulfill these tasks? Pauperize
the masses so that joining the army becomes the only viable solution? Introduce the
Draft?
It is no longer possible to introduce the draft in the US - even mentioning it would
lead to social unrests.
Read Jean Lartegy's "The Centurions." That is the direction where the tactically
brilliant, but strategically incompetent US military leadership is headed.
In addition, those gold-plated weapon systems often do not work as advertised. Look how
the multi-billion IADS of the Saudis couldn't protect their refinery complex from a cruise
missile attack from Yemen. Look at the embarrassing failures of the LCS and Zumwalt ship
classes, and the endless problems with the Ford CVN. The F35 is proving a ginormous
boondoggle that will massively enrich LM shareholders but will do squat for US military
capabilities.
He already did and the Military ignored him.
He backtracked with endless excuses and conditionals.
https://www.nbcnews.com/new...
**
Bill Clinton once reportedly told senior White House reporter Sarah McClendon, "Sarah,
there's a government inside the government, and I don't control it."
**
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of
the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid
of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so
watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their
breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
– Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
**
Do you really think that the adults with so much to lose would allow an idiot like Trump
(or Clinton or Obama or Bush) to actually run things?
Stop focusing on what Trump says and look at what his administration does. Troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, Nord Stream 2, intrusive US reconnaissance flights
along Russia's borders, support of Ukraine, interference with Russian patrols in Syria, the
continuing attempt to destabilize Assad in Syria, the destruction of JCPOA, global
sanctions campaign on Russia among others, withdrawal from arms control treaties,
accusation that Russia was cheating on INF treaty, hiring dozens of anti-Russia hardliners,
etc, etc.
I'll repeat: Focus on what Trump does, not what he says, and then total up the
pro-Russia and anti-Russia actions of this administration and see what that reveals.
A danger with this "new Cold War" is the assumption it will end like the first one
– peacefully. If this is the thinking among policy-makers we are in a very perilous
situation. History shows that fatal miscalculations contributed to the First World War, and
as a consequence the second. Today there is no room for miscalculation, which will set off
unstoppable escalation into a third.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
Russians deliberately repeatedly ram an American vehicle, but I'm sure it's all our fault. Shouldn't have worn that skirt
I guess.
Before y'all armchair Putin experts say all your loving things: you have nothing to contribute unless you speak fluent
Russian. I watched the video taken and published by the Russians and it was pretty clear what they were doing.
Something critical is being missed entirely. The United States has invaded Syria without
a mandate from the UN. Its' president has explicitly stated that it is the intention of the
US to take Syria's oil. Both are violations of international law. Any hostile action taken
against the illegal US presence in Syria is justifiable as self defense. While the US
presence in Syria is illegal, Russia's presence is not. Russia was invited into Syria by
the UN recognized Syrian government to assist it in defending against the US regime change
by Al Qaeda proxy operation..
establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico, operating out of
bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
What would happen if China or Russia established bases in the Caribbean and Latin
America? Trump joked about selling Puerto Rico, what if the Chinese bought it?
If the Israeli's have a problem with Russia being in Syria then Israel should deal with
it. Its not our problem and Russia is not our enemy. Infact India is bringing closer
relations between Russia and Japan. Which do you want? Russian antagonism because Israel
doesn't want Russians in Syria or Russian partnership with India, Japan, Australia and the
US dealing with China? Remember....you could spend 1000 years in the middle east and not
make a dent in the animosities between peoples there...so one is a futile endeaver...while
the other has great benefit.
Note that Russian soldiers are in Syria at the request of its government to help fend
off foreign invaders. The American troops are there illegally, with no UN or even
Congressional authorization.
Also note the USA risks another Cuban missile crisis by withdrawing from the INF treaty
after illegally building missile launch complexes in Romania and Poland that can hit Russia
with nuclear cruise missiles.
The USA did much more than "meddle" in Ukraine. The Obama/Biden team openly organized a
coup to overthrow its elected President because he didn't want to join NATO and the EU.
Is that guy in the middle of the left seated Vlad Klitschko? I great boxer no doubt, but
also known for his stunning stupidity. Is he part of the new Ukrainian political elite?
Poor Ukraine.
A Russian vehicle sideswipes an American vehicle, injuring two US soldiers, and that's
an American provocation? An American spy plane claims to be in international waters, and
you tack in a "supposedly" in that sentence? "Violating" a tacit promise, really?
Russia aggression against Georgia and Crimea is OK because Sphere of Influence? This
article is loaded with Blame America First crap usually associated with the Left
(much to this liberal's disgust). Never expected to find it here.
Yes, the expansion of NATO east must have looked to Russia like something coming at
their borders entirely too fast. I thought it was a terrible idea at the time, and wrote it
off to the wheels of a fifty-year-old bureaucracy not knowing how to slow down. Your
eye-straining gaze at the tea-leaves for Deeper State motives is unpersuasive, even without
your odious prejudices.
Maybe some play of Rashomon would be in order here. That is your perspective.
Now your honor, what I have seen is that Georgia attacked first and hoped to occupy a
certain area that Russian Federation was protecting, As a side comment, I have to point to
an Orwellian use of the word "aggressive" and "attack". It seems that anything that the US
cannot wantonly control or bomb is inherently aggressive and attacking either directly or
indirectly the "rules based order".
Crimea had Russian assets that became endangered. Crimea was part of Russia until 1954,
when was donated in an unsanctioned manner to Ukraine. The majority Russian population in
Crimea has been persecuted by the Ukrainian state since at least 1994. The Euromaidan would
have exacerbated that. A referendum was carried on and just considering ethnic lines,
Russians won in their desire to re-unite with the Russian Federation. There aren't many
legal arguments against that referendum and that process, if one looks for them...
So the above perspectives have nothing to do with just "sphere of influence" but with
direct core interests of the Russian state and its core security...
The deep state is a tool that is trying to fulfill one objective: integration of Russian
economy under the control of US and its Oligarchy. Otherwise it will always be a threat. A
Nationalist, democratic (but not oligarchic) and sovereign Russia will always be considered
an enemy of the world hegemon...
And the provocation is the actual presence in Syria of US troops. Ramming the US
military vehicle is not a provocation from Russians, it is a simple eviction notification.
End of story!
Isn't it just amazing how this writer gets to turn an incident of provocation by Russian
soldiers into a story of persistent provocation by America. That is remarkable dexterity
even for this paper. I am used to them suggesting that we should leave the people of
Eastern Europe to the tender mercies of the whims and wishes of a dictator in Moscow -
because they are in his backyard. But to be able to switch from that incident to their
regular theme is an achievement one can recognize, though not respect. The people of those
countries should have a choice about who they associate, and they certainly have a right
not to align with people they fear. Calling us for not respecting he rights of other people
to decide their fates is right and proper. I enthusiastically support this paper when they
do. But when they turn right around and castigate us for not respecting Russia's right to
do it - I am flabbergasted.
This piece spends too much time re-hashing everything Russia-US since 1990 and fails to
focus on the key current issues.
The vehicle incidents in Syria are distinct from the European issue -- see below in this
post -- that is generating some of the other tensions the author lists. Syria is really part
of the larger Middle East issue.
His brief summary of the latest Syria mishap is inadequate to convey what actually
happened.
If you actually look at the video, it does NOT appear to be the case that a Russian
vehicle simply "sideswiped" a US vehicle. It appears that the US was maintaining a
checkpoint on a road that in effect blocked Russian passage. Given the terrain, the
Russians could of course bypass such a checkpoint, which is what they appear to have done.
Then, however, other US vehicles left the checkpoint and attempted to block and turn back
the Russian bypass movement, and this led to the collision. So the incident is part of a
larger US policy to impede Russian operations in NE Syria.
Almost two years ago, Trump ordered US forces out of Syria, and Russia, in agreement
with that plan, sent patrols to the NE to ensure that provisions of an stability agreement
with Turkey and the Kurds were maintained. But then Trump was almost immediately
convinced--by whom is not clear, but ultimately Israel in all probability--to do a 180 and
keep US forces in NE Syria, the superficial rationale being to take control of oil, the
kind of pirate operation that Trump likes. In fact, the goal of those who influence Trump
is to keep Syria weak and unable to rebuild with the expectation that Assad can still be
overthrown at some future point. This is the desire of Israel and its operatives in the
US.
Trump's zag after the zig of planned withdrawal left the US-Russian understanding in
chaos. Now both the US AND the Russians were operating in NE Syria. And over time the US
has become more and more aggressive about impeding Russian operations. The Russians
claim--credibly--that we are demanding that they, in moving their patrols up to the area of
the Syria-Turkey border area not use the M4 highway, the main and direct route and instead
follow a secondary route that circuitously follows the border. The Russians don't accept
that demand. And the vehicle incidents that we are seeing are the outcome of that
disagreement. The Russians are driving up Highway 4 and when they get to the US checkpoint
are bypassing and then continuing up the highway. We are aggressively trying to deter them
from that route choice.
Not sure why this article does not go into detail on this issue in order to clarify
it.
Much of the other stuff the author is talking about here--intrusive air ops in the Black
Sea, etc--is really a separate, European issue. The US is highly concerned about the
economic interactions between Russia and Europe--especially the big economies of Western
Europe and most especially Germany. We are worried that over time Russian-European economic
integration will erode our strategic control and dominance over Europe in general.
Hence, we are making common cause with the anti-Russian elements in "the New Europe,"
i.e., Eastern Europe to try, in essence, to place a barrier between Russia and Western
Europe, playing off Poland, the Baltics and Romania, among others, against Russia, Germany,
France et al. Moving more US forces into Poland and the so-called "Black Sea Region";
impeding Nord Stream 2 and other Russian pipeline initiatives; indulging in recurrent
anti-German propaganda for not maintaining a more robust anti-Russian military posture;
fomenting (behind the scenes) the recent disturbances in Belarus; and promotion of the
so-called "Three Seas Initiative" intended to weld Eastern and Central Europe together into
a reliable tool of US policy are all part of this plan to retain US strategic control of
Europe over the long term.
That's what the heightened tensions in Europe are about.
As I said, the Syria issue, part of the larger Middle East struggle, is separate from
the parallel struggle for mastery in Europe.
It's all an important topic, but this article doesn't really capture the salient
points.
And you're playing word games. Syria's oil is effectively under US control. Yes, we are
deriving strategic benefit from it in that we are denying it to the Syrian government in
order to further destabilize it. It's not a good policy, but the policy does benefit from
denying Syria its oil.
The problem is that most of the oil is on Arab land, not Kurdish land, and the Arabs of
the Northeast are now realigning themselves with Assad, so holding on to the oil is likely
to get more difficult in the future.
I have no idea what you mean by "slander." Guess that means truths you find
inconvenient. Sorry--not in the business of coddling the faint of heart. Trump likes the
idea of taking resources which he imagines to be payment for services we have
rendered--like leaving the country in a state of ruin. He talked about Iraqi oil that way
too, but taking that would be much harder.
Time for you to stop dismissing every reality you don't like as unpatriotic.
The "Assad regime" is the UN recognized government of Syria. That is the only entity
entitled to the country's resources. How is it "the property of the Syrian nation" if the
Syrian government and its people no longer have access to it? To whom is the oil being
sold? Who is receiving the proceeds of the oil sales?
Here are some of Trump's own words with respect to Syria's oil. "I like oil. We are
keeping the oil." 4/11/2019. "The US is in Syria solely for the oil." "We are keeping the
oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for oil." "The US
military is in Syria only for oil." What part of Trump's public assertion that "We are
keeping the oil" are you having difficulty in understanding? How can you say the US "did
not take possession of the oil" when Trump could not have been more explicit in saying
precisely the opposite? Do you not comprehend that the US presence in Syria has no mandate
either from the UN or from the US Congress. Do you not understand that the US presence in
Syria is illegal under international law? Do you not understand that "Keeping the oil" is a
violation of international law? Your post is one of the most ridiculous I have even
read.
1. It's quite clear from the video that the US had set up a checkpoint on the road at
left in the video. (Indeed, we are open about the fact that we are doing so in general in
NE Syria.) And it's equally clear that Russian vehicles are seen bypassing those
checkpoints. The encounter between US and Russian vehicles takes place off the road. There
is only one logical interpretation of what happened. What is your alternative
explanation?
2. "No one reading this can believe that Eastern Europeans have genuine cause to fear
Russia, or that these countries continually request more military and political involvement
than we are willing to provide or that we are not inducing them to do anything or
manipulating them."
First of all, there are no current indications of any Russian intent to do anything in
regard to Eastern Europe. Yes, one can understand the history, which is why there is
anti-Russian sentiment in Eastern Europe, but aside perhaps from the Baltic states in their
unique geographic position, there is no country that has any basis in reality to worry
about Russian aggression in the present.
Of course, this does not stop the Poles from doing exactly that. And perhaps the
Romanians to a much lesser extent. So yes, there is fear in a few key countries based on
past history, Poland being the keystone of the whole thing, and yes, we are indeed
manipulating that fear in an attempt to block/undermine any economic integration between
Germany and Russia. We are also trying to use the "Three Seas Initiative" to block Chinese
commercial and tech penetration of Eastern Europe--5G and their plan to rebuild the port of
Trieste to service Central and NE Europe.
Do you actually believe Russia, which has lately been cutting its defense budget, is
actually going to invade Europe? That really is a fantasy. The only military operations
they will take are to prevent further expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Belarus. The real
game today is commercial and tech competition. Putin knows it would be disastrous for
Russia to start a war with NATO. Not sure why that's hard for you to see.
Your notion of the Russian threat--as it exists today--is wildly exaggerated.
Once President Putin remarked that there are forces in the United States trying to use
Russia for internal political struggle. He added that we will nevertheless try not to be
drawn into these confrontations.
A scene from a Hollywood action movie rises before my eyes, when two heroes of the film are
fighting and a circular saw is spinning nearby, and each of the heroes is trying to shove a
part of the enemy's body under this saw.
The relationship between Russian and American servicemen, I would compare with two hockey
teams, when the tough behavior of the players on the ice does not mean that the players of
one team would be happy with the death of the entire opposing team, say in some kind of
plane crash, since the presence of a strong opponent is a necessary condition for getting a
good salary.
Still, I would not completely deny the possibility of a "hot war".
Since the times of the Roman Empire, the West of Europe has been trying to take control of
the territory of Europe, Eurasia, and Eurasia, in turn, dreams of mastering the
technologies of the West.
The defeat of the 3rd Reich provided the Soviet Union with a breakthrough in the nuclear
industry and space...
It's hard to imagine that Russia is capable of defeating NATO, but I can imagine that in
the current situation, President Putin can offer China to build military bases in western
Russia for a million Chinese servicemen, for 100 thousand on the Chukchi Peninsula, for 500
thousand on Sakhalin...
The extra money for renting military bases in a coronavirus crisis will not hurt
anyone.
Of all the things about Hillary Clinton to despise, her selfish attempt to explain her
loss, and to attack the President (to whom she never conceded the election!) by blaming
Russia, is at the top of the list. To generate a completely unnecessary conflict with a
nuclear super-power that could burn this country to ashes in minutes, out of personal
vindictiveness, ... is lower than it can get.
I don't think US-Russian cooperation is doable at this point--or any time soon. Given
how erratic US policy is--yawing violently from one direction to another--Russia has no
reason to accept the damage to its relationship with China that shifting to a strategic
arrangement with the US would entail. The risk is too high and the potential rewards too
uncertain.
We have pretty much alienated the Russian state under Putin, and now we're trying to
wait him out, with the expectation that there is no one of his capabilities to maintain the
strategic autonomy of the Russian state in the longer term and that once he exits the
scene, some Yeltsin-like stooge will present himself.
We thought we were dealing with the main threats to our global hegemony
sequentially--Russia "defeated" in the Cold War, and then on to a defeat of "militant
Islam" in the Greater Middle East and finally to a showdown with China. But now, the
sequencing has fallen apart, and we're trying to prosecute all three simultaneously.
You have inverted the facts. The video evidence shows the Americans side-swiped the
Russian vehicle and claimed "American soldiers had 'concussions'". A concussion requires
loss of consciousness or significant changes in mental function. In football, you have your
"Bell rung". You can't add 2+2 correctly. There is no evidence to support that.
Everyone is focusing on Russia because of the Russia hoax. Dems started a new cold war
based on an irrational fear that Russia was threatening our democracy.
Along with Dems, I also blame Putin; he bribed Hillary millions for uranium -- that
doesn't lend to good relations.
The foreign policy elite dislikes Russia, always has, and will do anything to keep
this "adversary" front and center because their prospects for prestige, power and position
depend upon the presence of an enemy. As an example see Strobe Talbot and Michael
McFaul.
"... The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi) in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment." ..."
US foreign policy elite wants Biden & detests Trump because President failed to launch new NATO missions to justify its existence
One reason for the extraordinary hostility of the foreign policy insiders' brigade toward President Trump is that he has not wasted
his time conjuring up new missions to justify NATO's continued existence.
Instead, he has promised to withdraw 12,000 US troops from Germany and, to add insult to injury, he has demanded that NATO member
states increase their financial contributions toward the upkeep of the military alliance ostensibly there to "protect"
them.
This is sacrilege to a foreign policy elite that have spent the last 70 years worshipping at the altar of NATO.
"US troops aren't stationed around the world as traffic cops or welfare caseworkers -- they're restraining the expansionary
aims of the world's worst regimes, chiefly China and Russia," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., fumed.
Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice
expressed alarm about the
"continued erosion of confidence in our leadership within NATO, and more efforts that call into question our commitment, and
more signals to the authoritarians within NATO and Russia itself that this whole institution is vulnerable."
Trump,
according to Nicholas Burns, former US ambassador to NATO and current adviser to Joe Biden, has cast America's military allies
primarily as a drain on the US Treasury, and he has aggressively criticized Washington's true friends in Europe -- democratic leaders
such as France's President Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel -- even as he treats Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping,
Kim Jong Un, and other 'authoritarians' around the world with unusual tact.
Seventy former Republican national security officials recently issued a statement accusing Trump of having "disgraced America's
global reputation and undermined our nation's moral and diplomatic influence." And -- horror of horrors! -- Trump "has called
NATO 'obsolete.' "
Not only has Trump failed to spell out a new mission for NATO, the one mission of sorts he has come up with -- extraction of more
funds from NATO member-states -- is calculated to cause mutual recriminations within the alliance. Trump regularly boasts that he
has cajoled NATO to cough up an additional $130 billion a year "and it's going to be $400 billion," he recently warned.
To the denizens of Washington's foreign policy think-tanks, pressuring NATO member states to come up with more money is a dangerous
business. It could have the undesirable effect of forcing them to wonder whether devoting scarce resources to NATO -- particularly
now following the Covid economic downturn -- is a sound investment.
It is no secret that ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has been desperately
searching for a reason to justify its existence. The alliance has expanded its membership from 16 to 30 in 20 years, while failing
to put forward a convincing reason, other than inertia, for staying in business.
To be sure, there were and are threats -- cybersecurity, mass migration, human trafficking, narcotics, nuclear proliferation,
international terrorism -- but it was never clear how a narrowly-focused military alliance would be able to address them unilaterally.
NATO has thus been forced to engage in some vigorous head-scratching.
During the 1990s, we had the "humanitarian intervention" craze. This led to the NATO bombing of Bosnia-Herzegovina in
1994 and 1995 and, more horrifically, to the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Neither operation achieved anything that could not have
been achieved years earlier -- and without the use of force.
In 2001, NATO got in on the Global War on Terror. After 9/11 NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked Article 5 of the
North Atlantic Treaty, declaring that the terrorist attack on the US was an attack against every NATO member.
When the United States retaliated by invading Afghanistan in October 2001, NATO was on hand to assist. In December, it established
something called the International Security Assistance Force, the nebulous mission of which was to "assist the Afghan Government
in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance."
Next came Iraq. Despite the vocal opposition of France and Germany to the 2003 invasion, NATO, in no time got involved. In 2004,
it established NATO Training Mission-Iraq, the aim of which was supposedly to "assist in the development of Iraqi security forces
training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the
nation." One of its tasks was to train the Iraqi police. However, as WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs
disclosure revealed, Iraq's
finely-trained police conducted horrific torture on detainees. Neither NATO's Afghanistan nor its Iraqi mission covered itself in
glory.
With the Democrats returning to power in Washington in 2009, NATO was back in the "humanitarian intervention"
business.
Its bombing of Libya in 2011 destroyed government, law and public order, institutions that before the intervention had ensured that
the people of Libya were able to go about their daily lives free from the fear of death, not to mention the spectacle of slave markets.
The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi)
in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment."
Following the February 21, 2014, coup in Kiev and the reincorporation of Crimea into Russia, NATO's new mission was very much
like its old. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen promised that: "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on
the water, and more readiness on the land. For example, air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region. Allied
ships will deploy to the Baltic Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere."
Six years on, it's clear that there simply aren't enough armed conflicts in the world to justify the continued existence, not
to mention huge expense, of such a gargantuan military organization. NATO has therefore resorted to seizing on the latest fashionable
social and cultural issues to prove how up-to-date it is.
For example, NATO has added "climate change" to its repertoire. NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept
declared that "Key environmental
and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity and increasing energy needs will further shape the
future security environment in areas of concern to NATO and have the potential to significantly affect NATO planning and operations."
One would have thought that the most effective way NATO could contribute to minimizing global warming would be to cut back on
armaments, military exercises and naval and air patrols. But no, apparently the solution to "climate change" is more NATO,
not less.
Then came the issue gender equality. "Achieving gender equality is our collective task. And NATO is doing its part,"
said Mari Skĺre, the NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, in 2013. In March 2016, on International
Women's Day, NATO held a so-called "Barbershop Conference" on gender equality. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg took the
opportunity to declare that gender equality was a frightfully important issue for the alliance because "NATO is a values-based
organization and none of its fundamental values -- individual liberties, democracy, human rights and the rule of law -- work without
equality .We learned in Afghanistan and in the Balkans that by integrating gender within our operations, we make a tangible difference
to the lives of women and children".
Definitely a "tangible difference to the lives of women and children" : As a result of NATO's bombing campaigns in Yugoslavia
and Libya, thousands of women and children lost their lives. In Libya, for example, NATO helped deliver perhaps thousands of women
into the hands of ISIS.
This is how Human Rights Watch in 2017 described the record of ISIS rule in Libya:
"In the first half of 2016, fighters loyal to ISIS controlled the central coastal town of Sirte and subjected residents to
a rigid interpretation of Sharia law that included public floggings, amputation of limbs, and public lynchings, often leaving the
victims' corpses on display."
Trump's failure to articulate a new mission for NATO, combined with his desire to extract more and more funds from the 29 member
nations, puts the military alliance in a very vulnerable position. With no new mission and no obvious threats to Europe on the horizon
-- or at least none that NATO seems capable of addressing -- its member states, sooner or later, are bound to question the value
of belonging to an organization, with such high membership fees and so few benefits. No wonder the foreign-policy cognoscenti are
fulminating and praying for a Biden presidency.
One of the reasons the foreign policy crowd detests Trump is that he hasn't wasted his time trying to invent some "new mission"
for NATO. Where Trump differs from his predecessors is that he hasn't bothered trying to invent some new reason for NATO's continued
existence: Clinton had Yugoslavia, Bush Afghanistan & Iraq, Obama Libya. Trump hasn't identified any "new mission"
for NATO.
Maybe because there isn't one.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Michael Chan 3 hours ago Presidentials elections in the US
are a joke. The voters are given two choices: either Trump or Biden. Both are bad. They can only choose between who they think is
less bad, knowing full well that they will regret their choice the minute they leave the voting booth. So, half of the voters will
choose not to vote. And it seems that one of the two candidates will be happy if more than 90% of the voters choose not to vote.
Reply 2 CHEVI789 Michael Chan 2 hours ago You are lead to believe you have a choice, the fact is they are the same evil that both
are controlled by the same group. Reply T. Agee Kaye 4 hours ago Good article. If true, NATO will want a doozy of a conflict to make
up for lost time / earnings. Reply 2 MarkG1964 4 hours ago The problem is that the Trump administration has failed everywhere. Talks
with North Korea have stalled, and even President Moon in South Korea is losing patience with US policy. Sanctions and tariffs against
China have failed miserably, as it's left a record number of US farmers facing bankruptcy, has not helped to reduce the US trade
deficit with China, or persuaded US manufacturers to relocate back to the US. In Venezuela, every attempt to replace President Maduro
with Gaido has fallen short. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria continue unabated, with no end in sight. Whether it's Biden
or Trump, the US can't afford another four years of the same. Reply Jeff_P 5 hours ago The purpose of NATOs existence is to provide
the US with cannon fodder for its hegemonic designs. Nothing else. Reply 1 Bob 3 hours ago the USA should let Europe defend itself.
Save us taxpayers billions of dollars Reply Krieger 3 hours ago NATO = Neocon America's Terrorist Organization Reply 1 CHEVI789 2
hours ago Now tell me if america is not the tyrant and dictator of the world. I really feel sorry for the good americans who's name
is tainted by the evil running their country, being the you know who. Reply shadowlady 1 hour ago Clearly the old farts in Washington
DC are still stuck in the Cold War era, the US taxpayers can't continue to police the world with US military.
George Szamuely is a senior research fellow at Global Policy Institute (London) and author of Bombs for Peace: NATO's
Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Follow him on Twitter
@GeorgeSzamuely
"... 'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing. ..."
"... Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored. This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who fear that are right ..."
"... he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. ..."
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Wednesday he hasn't done enough to focus on damages caused
by some city protests over the last three months and the fallout from coronavirus. He
called on the community to help him come up with better solutions to city issues.
During the last months the Magnificent Mile in Chicago
was looted - twice. Yesterday new riots and looting occurred in Minneapolis after a rumor
of another police killing incited some people :
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo tried to dispel rumors that spread on social media about the
death of the unidentified Black man, who was suspected in a Wednesday afternoon homicide
and fatally shot himself on the Nicollet Mall as officers approached several hours later.
His death, which was captured on city surveillance video and released by police within 90
minutes, nonetheless sparked protests and unrest in the heart of downtown.
The video confirmed the police account of what happened and showed the man glancing over
his shoulder before pulling out the gun and firing, then collapsing to the ground as a
half-dozen witnesses ran away with their hands in the air. The officers, one of whom had
his gun drawn, shooed a remaining witness away and kicked the suspect's gun away before
performing chest compressions.
Last Sunday police in Kenosha, Wisconsin proved to be too incompetent to arrest a man
they had already had under control . They shot him 7 times into the back when he was
trying to get into his car. Nights of rioting followed. Buildings were burned down and businesses
were looted.
Yesterday a white teen with a semi-automatic weapon had the stupid idea to join others in
'protecting the businesses' in Kenosha from further looting. He ended up killing two people
and wounding more after he was attacked by some of
the rioters. The teen was arrested and he is facing charges but I doubt that he is guilty of
more than sheer stupidity and manslaughter in self defense.
The cycle of violence will likely continue. There are too many racist in the police and the level
of U.S. police training seems to be abysmal. There is also too much tolerance for violence
within the general community.
Politically this plays into Trump's law and order campaign. The Democrats have lauded
Black Live Matters and the protests but have hardly spoken out against the rioting and
looting that comes with them.
This CNN chyron from yesterday
evening is an expression of their position:
'Mostly peaceful protests' are like the 'moderate rebels' in Syria - propaganda
constructs that do not exist in the real world. The people who owned the burning cars and
whose businesses were destroyed will not be relieved by such phrasing.
Joe Biden's attempt to swing Republican voters to his side
has failed . At the same time he has rejected many of the issues progressives favored.
This will hurt the election turn out the Democrats will need. Add to that the unrest which
plays into Trump's hands. The Democrats who
fear that are right :
"There's no doubt it's playing into Trump's hands," said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor
of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. "There's a significant number of
undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to
the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections.
And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by police officers
in murdering African Americans, and ... for the safety of their communities."
Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. "So let me be
clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha," Vice President
Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking
on. "We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every
race and creed and color."
Republicans had chided Joe Biden and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in
the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn't
condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.
Despite Trump's failure to bring the pandemic under control his job approval rating
continues to be high
while Biden's lead in the polls
is shrinking . The United States seem to have a higher tolerance for avoidable death by
guns or viruses than other societies have. It is not the only point that makes it exceptional .
Posted by b on August 27, 2020 at 17:39 UTC |
Permalink
thanks b... it really looks like an empire in fast decline.... i don't believe the usa
constitution took into consideration the idea of corporations... also as you note - the
tolerance for violence or death as with covid is indeed much greater... i guess more people
have to have guns as it is in their constitution, and so much for public medicare... it is
like a dream about public finance and somewhere way off in the distant future... i don't
believe it is going to matter who wins this coming election, as the divisiveness is so
pronounced, it will be hard to build bridges.. it seems like no one is interested in building
bridges between the opposing sides either... all the politicians are mostly looking after
corporations and special interest lobbies - israel and etc. etc... sad kettle of fish...
Very fair analysis, I enjoyed this piece. You are absolutely right, the terrible training
and general ineptitude of the police is at the core of the problem. The protesters recognize
this and there are many salient examples to fuel the outrage. However, the solutions they
call for don't address this root problem and alienate many moderate voters. Defund the
police? This will make the police more responsible? The whole thing is a mess with no real
solutions in sight.
In my opinion, the problem is the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments.
Police officer is a critical job, you must often make snap judgments in tense situations, and
you have the power to do violence to others. But police officers are paid similarly to car
mechanics, not even as much as many private security guards! The most responsible and wise
Americans do not become police officers, they pursue other careers where their talents are
better rewarded. Then, if a great person makes it into the police force, there is no way to
distinguish themselves by excellent performance and rise quickly through the ranks. The red
tape in the personnel system is suffocating. The best officers leave for private
opportunities, leaving the police force to make do with the rest.
Given the US political system, where decisions are made based on which simple slogan can
rally the crowd, I don't see any hope of this improving. It would take a redesign of the org
structure and personnel management of the entire system. Far more likely that leaders make
some symbolic, token changes so they can claim to have "done something." The dysfunction of
the US government is starting to be noticeable in almost every area...
Thanks for this insightful essay and thanks for the last link to the chilling must read
essay by Larry Romanoff on the Unz Review. I simply don't know the answer to the multiple
problems faced by the US but isn't that the job of the professional politicians? It seems
none would even begin to address any of the mind blowing issues raised by Romanoff. In a
previous era many of those crucial issues would be career ending third rail, touch and die.
Times have been forever changed by events. I have the feeling the general populace won't put
up with the present archaic and parasitical structures for long. Hang on for a bumpy
ride.
The conclusion is unfortunately correct, but t he sole focus on Antifa as the problem
Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. Who do you
believe is more dangerous, Antifa or White Supremacist militias? The Feds are well aware that
WS groups are using the protests to destroy property and trying to set off a race war, but
the media and politicians are remarkably silent about the role of White Supremacists in the
violence, unless something happens that is too hard to ignore, like 'Umbrella Man.'
... as for antifa, what exactly have they done? who are they? is there an
organization?
My pet theory is that they are an off-shoot of JDL. Ready to turn any legitimate protest into
a riot for the evening news. Because Zionists need to protect the Zionist asshats that run
USA/Empire.
That's why they're (still) so mysterious. That's why the US government can never seem to
understand who they are. Antifa are the domestic "White Helmets" ready to support YOUR
protest. Except not.
the problem is
a. the hiring and personnel practices in US police departments by sabre <= @ 5.
b. the inner economic contradictions arising from secular decline. <= vk @ 7
c. media focus on Antifa <= according to B.
d. events and failures orchestrated to heightened economic oppression <= norecovery @
21
e. Business as usual while the country burns AU1 @ 34
f. repressive authoritarian state militancy and Trump @ 37..
g. All three shooting victims <= self-defense<= white, <= felons. gm 48
h. A JDL offshoot.. Jackrabbit @ 58
I say the problem of "unsatisfied rising discontent" is to be expected When anyone in a
democratic society fails to be heard, by all concerned, little recourse remains to those with
a grievance but to ....XXXXX
A very strong constitutional issue exists in these riots =>. The First Amendment
<=was not in the Federalist construct of Aristocrats and the corporate empires they owned.
The effort to control America is hidden deep inside the words and court interpretations since
the Constitution of the United States of America was imposed on Americans.
The Aristocrats in America wanted a British Colonial government without British
Aristocrats ; they wanted a government with a strong army so it could protect them from
Angry Americans! The Aristocrats and their corporations still in America after Britain was
defeated wanted to control the profits that could be made in America, much in the same
fashion as the British Colonial Government had helped its corporations, investors, and
bankers before the war to control who got the profits that were made in America.
The Federalist wanted a government the Aristocracy could use to exploit America ;
the federalist wanted to govern the behaviors and direct the toils of those in America in
such a way that only one federal government could do. In fact the so called Framers wanted a
royal government, tried to make George Washington, King.
Remember the Declaration of Independence was in 1776 , the America states defeated
the British Government in 1778, the Constitution of the USA did not come into being until
1788. During that 10 years John Hanson was the first President of the United States of
America.. Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKeeny, and others were President of the United States
of America. The British were gone, George Washington was appointed general to remove the
British corporations, Investors, and bankers from America, that was accomplished in 1778. The
American Aristocrats wanted to own America. George Washington was selected to be the general
of the Army because his wealth made him famous enough to attract mercenaries to fight the
British at Valley Forge. At the time the Constitution in Philadelphia was developed, George
was in Mt. Vernon.
The Aristocratic Convention in Philadelphia, was a meeting, designed to terminate
involvement by the newly emancipated American in American politics. The result of the
Convention in Philadelphia was a document which outlined how control of America could be
returned to the American Aristocrats, a document which would make the Aristrocrat powerful
again, the same Aristocrats who had previously used the British Government, to control
Americans. Check it out what were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and the
like doing in America while America was a British Colony (before 1776)? The Aristocrats
wanted a government that would allow America Aristocrats to direct and a government they
could use to control Americans.
The anti-federalist tried to refuse ratification of the denial to be against the
peoples involvement in their own government but the best the anti-federalist could do
against, the strong powers behind the Constitution, was to force the Federalist to add to
their regime change Constitution ten basic promises, <=these promises were in the form of
amendments and are known as the Bill Of Rights [BOR]: Anyway the first amendment of the BOR
reads.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances.. But, but but it does not say Congress will make every law necessary to
enforce the protection of the first Amendment.
So why can't those who are protesting be allowed to live so they can be heard? Why can't
their grievances be listed and placed on the national ballot? Let everyone be heard.. explore
every aspect of their concerns and accommodate those with a Grievance to rejoin our
democratic society, ask the nation to settle the issues dissenters have ? When the
Aristocrats use the government to impose their will on risings, they do so by eliminating
bystander awareness and deny everyone but a few to be involved; worse, they allow media to
promote, one side of the issue (no must carry rule).. this narrowing of participants happens
until nothing remains but conflict between bottom up grievance . . and top down power.. and
believe me that is the goal.. to divide and conquer.
"... BLM and Antifa having corporate sponsers makes them a little fascist, too, not to mention ideologically intolerant. The daughtets and sons of the spoiled upper-middle class. ..."
"... he sole focus on Antifa as the problem Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. ..."
BLM is not a protest movement, it's not even a civil rights movement. It's a Trojan
Horse funded by sinister globalist troublemakers
BLM is blamed for Antifa violence.
The Democrats and the media have encouraged this madness from the very beginning by
praising the protests while downplaying the magnitude of the damage.
That the rioting helps Trump and that establishment Democrats (Republican-lite)
support Trump is completely overlooked.
But it will change and change won't be pretty. The state will deploy all its assets
to reclaim its monopoly on violence. You can bet on that. Security will be reestablished
with brute force and an iron fist. A Crackdown is coming and the innocent are going to be
crushed along with the guilty.
Just as I said @Aug28 13:47 #199. Antifa+militia violence are a prescription for a
stronger police state.
@102 Karlof...i agree, your analysis is spot on, but where does a leftist put their
political energy when the two options are right-wing fascist and right-wing fascist-lite?
BLM and Antifa having corporate sponsers makes them a little fascist, too, not to
mention ideologically intolerant. The daughtets and sons of the spoiled upper-middle
class.
I would love a more sharing society, don't know how to get there. USA is probably a lost
cause, and as VK states, that is probably a good thing for the rest of the world.
Here is something to chew on. I live in portland and the first time I saw Antifa spring up
was back in 2009. Rose City Antifa organized a boycott of a local cooperatively owned bike
shop. They plastered the town and all the bike racks in the city saying to boycott the worker
owned business. What was it's crime you ask?, to get such treatment. The bike shop hosted a
meeting and speakers forum held by Portlanders for 911 truth. Draw your own conclusions
here.
What many are doing here, in the heat of battle, is forgetting that this is not a "civil
war," it is class war. The ruling class is pursuing its classic tactic of "divide and
conquer." Those divided are under the influence of the propaganda of the ruling class, and
continue to damage each other, rather than their true enemy the ruling class. This must be
made clear, in order to unite the working class, that they may exercise there true power and
crush the ruling class. There is no other way.
The conclusion is unfortunately correct, but t he sole focus on Antifa as the problem
Imo just shows the power of the media and politicians to shape the narrative. Who do you
believe is more dangerous, Antifa or White Supremacist militias? The Feds are well aware that
WS groups are using the protests to destroy property and trying to set off a race war, but
the media and politicians are remarkably silent about the role of White Supremacists in the
violence, unless something happens that is too hard to ignore, like 'Umbrella Man.'
... as for antifa, what exactly have they done? who are they? is there an
organization?
My pet theory is that they are an off-shoot of JDL. Ready to turn any legitimate protest into
a riot for the evening news. Because Zionists need to protect the Zionist asshats that run
USA/Empire.
That's why they're (still) so mysterious. That's why the US government can never seem to
understand who they are. Antifa are the domestic "White Helmets" ready to support YOUR
protest. Except not.
actually, there is NO such thing as "Antifa". Antifa is as made up as ISIS/Ali Queda is.
Antifa is a vague term loosely applied toward a group of people who are fed up with all the
fake "Capitalism" and are willing to fight against it.
Some may even not be "Antifa" but fake "Antifa" created for propaganda purposes. Exactly how
the notorious "red brigade" in Italy who kidnapped Aldo Moro and killed him. And the Red
Brigade was supposed to be Communist also; finny that, since Aldo Moro was about to create a
coalition with the Communists and he is prevented from accomplishing that by
"Communists".
But b is essentially correct, the average American moron™ is now fed up with all the
riots and looting and is siding with trump. But that's only because the Average American
moron™ (I have trademarked it, so dont try to steal it) is so stupid, they cannot even
think about anything, they live in a very simple good vs bad world.
"... The neo-liberal ideology, like many of its predecessor bodies of ideas and alibis for theft, teaches people that poverty is a mark of personal failure and moral turpitude. It also teaches that crime pays and that it is a constant temptation for the poor who, left unregulated, would help themselves to the wealth that members of the ruling class worked so hard for, from the very earliest age, by choosing the right fallopian tubes to crawl into. ..."
"... If such a reaction takes place it will lead to the formation of self defence militias where they are needed on the communities of the poor. And the failure of Biden /Harris would be a positive development in the discrediting of the corrupt "misleadership" class exemplified in the campaign to defeat Sanders and nominate Biden, which was based on the sense, in the Black community, that the Democrats- headed by the author of incarceration laws and one of the most evil prosecutors California has seen in the modern era-are their only protection. ..."
"...the terrible training and general ineptitude of the police is at the core of the
problem."
You are missing the point: the Police are very well trained, and indoctrinated. There is
nothing accidental in their behaviour. And the police culture is pretty well
internationalised. It is very similar in Canada and the UK for example. And, as we have seen
during the past year in France too.
It is a fascistic culture in which racism is an inherited and central but by no means
essential part. The Police are an crucial part of the neo-liberal system. And part of the
reward they get for doing as they are told, busting strikes, kettling demonstrators,
terrorising poor neighbourhoods and protecting private property, is a loose rein: they can do
more or less anything that they want. No Judge will do more than slap their wrists, the
Juries will thank them for their service. For certain personalities, in which US culture is
richly endowed, the right to run wild as part of the biggest biker gang in the world, is a
marvellous reward.
They are not only heavily armed but recruited, in large measure from the imperial armed
forces; there is nothing like a tour of duty in Afghanistan or Iraq to demonstrate impunity
in action.
The cops are the iron fist in the class system, defended by the judiciary, the
legislatures and the broad ideological apparatus, from the media to the educational system.
And backed up by armed and civilian militias, in most of which off duty cops and 'veterans'
of imperial adventures play leading roles. The police stations are gang headquarters in which
violence and contempt for democracy and legality are celebrated. And bullying is the secret
to success and advancement.
To put the matter in perspective- cops shoot about 1000 US civilians a year, about 25 a
week. And most of them are poor people, a constituency in which Black people are over
represented after centuries of discrimination and exploitation regimes enforced by
violence.
The neo-liberal ideology, like many of its predecessor bodies of ideas and alibis for
theft, teaches people that poverty is a mark of personal failure and moral turpitude. It also
teaches that crime pays and that it is a constant temptation for the poor who, left
unregulated, would help themselves to the wealth that members of the ruling class worked so
hard for, from the very earliest age, by choosing the right fallopian tubes to crawl
into.
It may be that b is right in his analysis. But it is also possible that-given the stark
nature of the facts surrounding these cases- public opinion will recognise that the one
constant in all these problems is the police system and the Gulags for private profit which
not only dwarf anything the Soviet Union ever developed, in terms of numbers, but in terms of
licence, unregulated violence and disregard for natural law hark back to the worst days of
the plantation culture.
If such a reaction takes place it will lead to the formation of self defence militias
where they are needed on the communities of the poor. And the failure of Biden /Harris would
be a positive development in the discrediting of the corrupt "misleadership" class
exemplified in the campaign to defeat Sanders and nominate Biden, which was based on the
sense, in the Black community, that the Democrats- headed by the author of incarceration laws
and one of the most evil prosecutors California has seen in the modern era-are their only
protection.
I agree with whoever wrote that it come down to culture.
The culture in the US and the West are the the result of the social contract that has
finance be a private owned and controlled element. It created the top/bottom class structure
which has been glossed over with left/right brainwashing.
The elite have manufactured the ignorance underpinning the misdirected protesting we are
seeing and all the "undesirables" who have been created by the system of inequality of
opportunity. The manufacturing of ignorance is called agnotology and came out of the study of
the decades long propaganda by the nicotine industry about cancer......are we sure, we are
sure, we are sure, we are sure that smoking causes cancer?
There are a few of us out here saying that private banking causes the culture you are
seeing in America and China is showing the way with purely sovereign central banking and
finance. We see the rest of you as victims of agnotology.
Among the most notable highlights at last night's Republican National Convention, Senator
Rand Paul delivered a blistering take down of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's
foreign policy, which Paul linked to multiple wars under Democrat administrations spanning
decades (going back to Clinton's bombing of Serbia).
"I fear Biden will choose war again," Paul
asserted . "He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our
blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home."
"If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to
Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home , you need
to support President Trump for another term," said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of
former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert
action toward destabilizing Syria.
He slammed Biden as a hawk who has "consistently called for more war" and with no signs
anything would be different.
Interestingly, Sen. Paul has also in the recent past led foreign policy push back against
President Trump - especially over the two times Trump has bombed Syria following alleged Assad
chemical attacks, which Paul along with other anti-interventionists across the aisle like Tulsi
Gabbard questioned to begin with.
But it appears Paul is firmly supportive of Trump's newly
released 50-point agenda for his second term outlining the Commander-in-Chief will "stop
endless war" and ultimately bring US troops "home." The plan still emphasized, however, the
administration will "maintain" US military strength abroad while 'wiping' out global
terrorism.
"President Trump is the first president in a generation to seek to end war rather than start
one. He intends to end the war in Afghanistan. He is bringing our men and women home. Compare
President Trump with the disastrous record of Joe Biden, who has consistently called for more
war ," Paul
said further.
Back during the primaries in 2016, Paul and Trump sparred intensely over national security
questions:
He also highlighted Biden's unrepentant yes vote to go to war in Iraq .
"I'm supporting President Trump because he believes as I do that a strong America cannot
fight endless wars. We must not continue to leave our blood and treasure in Middle East
quagmires," Paul concluded.
Elsewhere in the approximately four-minute speech, Paul said Trump will fight "socialists
poisoning our schools and burning our cities."
Cluster_Frak , 7 hours ago
Obama was a warmonger and so is Biden. They love war and doing everything possible for the
next war to be on the home ground.
Davidduke2000 , 7 hours ago
Obama had skeletons in his closet, he did what the neocons want, Trump gave them the
embassy and other shenanigans.
Izzy Dunne , 2 hours ago
And so is Trump. They are all warmongers, because war is what the US does...
Weihan , 7 hours ago
Paul is right.
Biden knows who butters his bread. At least candidate Trump - in principle - stood for
opposition to the deep state's monstrous agenda.
Biden, Clinton, Bush, Obama are despicable warmongers. Their administrations were
responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and the list
would have gone on and on had it not been for Trump.
Remember Biden's 1992 Wall Street Journal article titled:
"How I Learned to Love the New World Order."
JUICE E SMALL IT EMPIRE , 7 hours ago
Rand was the only guy I watched last night and he was on point. I did not disagree with
anything he said.
kulkarniravi , 8/26/2020, 2:33:07 PM
You can diss Obama all you want, but he signed a peace accord with Iran and Trump reneged
on it. Iran is not the villain, at least not when compared to the likes of Saudi Arabia. And
what's the deal with Cuba?
d_7878 , 6 hours ago
Rand on Trump:
"Are we going to fix the country through bombast and empty blather?
"Unless someone points out the emperor has no clothes, they will continue to strut about,
and then we'll end up with a reality TV star as our nominee."
"Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag"
"Have you ever had a speck of dirt fly into your eye?""[It is] annoying, irritating and
might even make you cry.
"If the dirt doesn't go away, it will keep scratching your cornea until eventually it
blinds you with all its filth. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president."
Trump is a "fake conservative."
mike_1010 , 7 hours ago
Trump might be talking peace, but he has increased US military spending significantly more
than previous presidents. He also tore up the US peace agreement with Iran and nearly
triggered a US war with Iran by assassinating one of their top generals.
If any president is going to start a war with Iran, then it's Trump. And such a war would
dwarf any recent wars USA has fought. Because Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in terms
of their population, and they've been preparing for a possible US attack for decades.
Perhaps Biden might start a small war here or there. But Trump goes big on anything he
does. If he starts a war, then it's going to be either with China or Iran.
So, neither Biden nor Trump is to be trusted, when it comes to war. But I'd say that Trump
is the bigger danger compared to Biden. Because if Trump starts a war, then it might end up
being a nuclear war.
Airstrip1 , 6 hours ago
Rand Paul needs to ask himself if the pot is blacker than the kettle.
How can he expect people to believe this disingenuous claptrap ?
The USA is an Empire-building Crime Cartel.
Dims or Reps are just frontmen managers for the Mob.
chopsuey , 7 hours ago
Ron and Rand. The dog and pony show. The alternative. They say what you want to hear.
I say
Phuck OFF Ron and Rand. You had many many years to do something (anything) about the
endless "wars" and in reality, they are not really wars. They are ruthless invasions of
vulnerable countries whereupon natural resources are contained, the culture and its symbolic
treasures are destroyed/stolen and thousands to millions are killed in the name of USA. These
unwarranted invasions are justified with lies and fraud and deceit.
Washington DC is the military capital of the world doing the dirty work of the elite. And
its soldier are your kids and grandkids.
Wake the Phuck UP people. It will not end until they have achieved their objectives. You
are fodder for their cannon.
Dragonlord , 7 hours ago
Biden voted for war in Iraq and supported Obama aggression in Libya, Syria, etc and he is
disappointed that Trump did not help Kurd to wage war against Turks for their
independence.
ConanTheContrarian1 , 7 hours ago
Not sure. Trump has to play ball with established Deep State interests while he tries (I
hope) to set things right. So, yes, questions will abound for some time.
takefive , 7 hours ago
whatever the reason, he is now part of the swamp. and that's why he's in a tough
re-election battle with a stiff.
Ex-Oligarch , 3 hours ago
You have it exactly wrong. If Trump were really part of the swamp, they wouldn't be
fighting so desperately to prevent his re-election. They wouldn't have spent three years on
the Russiagate failed coup, they wouldn't have gone through the ridiculous partisan
impeachment exercise, they wouldn't have torpedoed the economy over coronavirus, and we
wouldn't have organized race riots in all the democrat strongholds.
LaugherNYC , 3 hours ago
Rand Paul is just about the only grown-up in American politics.
How much bettter off would the USA be with a Paul/Gabbard ticket?
But ANYTHING is better than Joe Biden. Literally ANYTHING.
Well...assuming Hillary were dead or incapacitated,
DaVinciCode , 7 hours ago
It's happening. Yugoslavian girl give dire warning to Americans.
This all happened in her country the same way.
PLEASE LISTEN - it is coming to the USA and the West
I agree with the Yugoslav girl's premise that the powers that be have been deceptively
employing a divide-and-conquer strategy to get the American people to fight among themselves
rather than confront their own corrupt government, but I do not buy into the conclusion drawn
that the solution lies in trusting the head of the government (in this case Trump) to do
right by the people.
As George Carlin famously said, "it's a big club, and you ain't in it!" The American
people are not going to be able to fix the problems now confronting them by voting for one
uniparty politician over another any more than the Yugoslav people were
wick7 , 7 hours ago
The Democrats will get their regime change war no matter what. If Biden is elected they'll
continue the Syrian war that has cost 800,000 innocent lives so far. If Trump is elected
they'll try to have one here to take him down.
yojimbo , 7 hours ago
Afghani GDP - $20bn. US military spending - $50bn.
They must have the best services in the world!
yesnomaybe , 7 hours ago
That video clip from the 2016 GOP debate is classic... as Paul questions Trump attacking
personal appearances, Trump flat out denies it, and then proceeds to do just that in his next
breath.
In all seriousness, Rand is a stand up guy and would make a great president.
Maghreb2 , 7 hours ago
Ru Paul has as much chance of stopping this war as Rand Paul. If he was a threat to the
people starting it he would be getting the **** bashed out of him or shot dead by a mad man.
Don't see many people talking about auditing the Fed outside of Texas anymore.
He's got a point. Biden's son is in Ukraine milking it high on crack cocaine like a
senators son should in the new Roman Emperor. Ukrainian color revolution and CIA long war
strategy means he has set up shop there permanently like a little princeling. Same as
princess Kushners wonderful tour of the Middle Eastern courts to meet his boyfriends. Old
days they would both have be poisoned to death or strangled as children for disrespecting the
senate.
Real rules of Eastern European politics are Nationalist winding up dead in dust bins
behind the American Embassy and Russians threatening to switch of the gas and freeze everyone
to death every winter. Footage of hard man dictator Lukashenko showing up at opposition
protests with an assault rifle is broadcast to school children. I'd like to see Hunter Biden
and Jared Kushner show up to something like that.
Truth is Trump is a ******* liar. the Moment they started to shut down Rammenstein airbase
they moved forces close to the Belarus border to pull another color revolution right in front
of Putin. Trump and the Republicans are just stooges for the Zionist mafia. They are playing
war scare but its too piss take for anyone now. Polish and Baltic States are NATO and have
their own prerogative. They just push people closer to war.
Rand Paul should worry about the Civil War that should come after the election.
Aint no senators sons for that game....
DEDA CVETKO , 5 hours ago
Thank you, Rand, for remembering the little Serbia -- twice (in both World Wars) America's
fiercest and most loyal ally, and now a roadkill of the Clinton Foundation and Madeleine
Albright,
the new owner of Kosovo.
The nations that sadistically massacre and dismember their friends and allies do not have
a future, nor the right to claim any.
Scipio Africanuz , 5 hours ago
Again Senator Paul, we don't do self deception..
In almost four years, how many legions have been repatriated home, or how many of the
existing wars have been ended?
All we've observed, is an escalation of hybrid wars, reducing in some, kinetism, and
increasing death tolls via other means, and in some, increased covert kinetism..
Your candidate brazenly murdered a top general of a nation not at war with the US..
Imagine Senator Paul, if Iran had murdered Petraeus, would the US not have declared
war?
That the Iranians didn't significantly escalate, was NOT due to fear, but back channel
advocacy and energetic remonstrations by adult folks..
If you believe Biden is worse than your candidate who's done worse, in terms of brazen law
abrogation, then why aren't you a candidate, or is it that you'd prefer partisanship to
patriotism?
Look within your party for corollary and accomplice warmongers, and leave Biden alone
after all, you do have a rabid warmongering Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton as party
colleagues, no?
Senator Paul, there's principle, character, and integrity and then there's opportunism,
partisanship, and betrayal..
Of nobility..
Anyhow, you're sovereign and thus, fully entitled to your choices, we simply point out
inconsistencies between what you espouse, and what you support..
Character, Senator Paul, is destiny..
Cheers...
Anthraxed , 4 hours ago
Trump has dropped more bombs than Obama at the same time in his term.
You're in complete denial if you think Trump has stopped any of the wars. And yes, he is
expanding the wars to a much larger country.
Trump's first veto was a bill that would have stopped the Yemen war.
Reality is like Cryptonite for Trumptards.
quanttech , 4 hours ago
lol, 10 minutes ago I was being accused of being Antifa, and now I'm a Trumptard.
Definitely doing something right.
Yes, Trump is a war criminal extraordinaire. He dropped a MOAB. He removed controls on
civilian casualties. He dropped 7400+ bombs on Afghanistan in 2019.... 60% of the casualties
were civilians, mostly children.
He also stupidly listened to his generals when they told him to kill Sulemani. BUT... when
the Iranians retaliated (and they DID retaliate, injuring dozens of US soldiers) Trump
de-escalated. Similarly, when the Iranians downed a drone, the generals wanted to retaliate -
Trump asked how many Iranians would die. The generals said 150. Trump said it didn't make
sense to kill 150 people for downing a drone.
Trump is a moron who is completely out of it most of the time. But when he pays attention
for a moment, he's against a a war with Iran.
Now, if I'm a Trumptard, then you're a Hillaryhead. My question to you is... where would
we be if Hillary was president? Answer: at war with Iran. Another question: where will we be
if Biden is president?
Dull Care , 3 hours ago
How much authority do you think Trump has over the foreign policy? Not a rhetorical
question but I have yet to see an American president run for office advocating a more
interventionist foreign policy yet it doesn't change greatly no matter who is in office.
Trump often carries a big stick but he's nowhere near as reckless as his predecessors.
The one thing we know is Trump is hostile to the Chinese government and hasn't turned
around relations with Russia.
quanttech , 1 hour ago
"... I have this feeling that whoever's elected president when you win, you go into this
smoky room with the twelve industrialists capitalists scum-***** who got you in there. And a
big guy with a cigar goes: 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy Assassination from
an angle you've never seen before - It looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. Then the
screen comes up, and they go to the new president: 'Any questions?'"
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor (1993)
Observer 2020 , 5 hours ago
The spiritual, moral, ethical, philosophical, intellectual and cultural bankruptcy of
Biden and his fellow death cult reprobates is depthless. One need know nothing more about
them that they have become so detached from reality as to regard abortion, partial birth
abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, generational genocide, genocide, of the white race,
unremitting sociocultural warfare and the balkanization of this nation as being virtues.
Anyone who would even begin to contemplate supporting Biden or any of his fellow Fifth
Columnists should be regarded as being too demented or otherwise Bidenesque to be competent
to vote.
12Doberman , 5 hours ago
Biden has a record showing him to be a Neocon...and that's why we see the neverTrumpers
supporting him.
Musum , 5 hours ago
And Pompeous is 10X worse than Biden. And he serves as Trump's Sec. of State.
Of course, he's just a viceroy serving on behalf of the kosher people.
ted41776 , 8 hours ago
it's not what the president chooses
it's what chooses the president
conraddobler , 8 hours ago
This has lost all it's entertainment value.
Hollywood and the Postman was a more realistic view, in that movie I believe the warlord
was a former copier either salesman or technician, can't remember but it's more likely a guy
like that would have leadership capabilities than these clowns would.
invention13 , 1 hour ago
It saddens me that people can just go about their business in this country without giving
a thought about the men and women who are getting injured and coming home stressed out and
addicted to painkillers. Also that the real motive for continued military involvement in the
ME is that some people are making tons of money off it. We need our own version of Smedley
Butler these days.
It is all decadent beyond belief.
mrjinx007 , 1 hour ago
That MF no good SOB war mongering no good neocon SOB Shawn did everything he could to get
RP to agree with him that we need to continue with the policy of regime change.
Rand just basically told him to shut the f up and stop blowing the Neo-cons' erections. It
was precious. You know how people like this ******* Hannity get their funding from. Deep
state, MIC, and all the f'king Rino's like Tommy Cotton.
gm_general , 2 hours ago
Thanks to Hillary and Obama, Libya is a complete mess and black people are being sold as
slaves there. Let that sink in.
A couple of lessons for Belarus, if it has a government capable of learning from the
mistakes of others rather than insisting upon making them itself before learning; the first
– Ukraine.
The Biggest Little Country In Yurrup has just voted, in an extraordinary meeting of the
Verkhovna Rada, to beg the EU for a further loan of $1.2 Billion. For that mess of pottage,
it will accept enhanced external governance.
"With this memorandum, Ukraine undertakes to increase the role of international
structures in the judicial system, law enforcement agencies, and state-owned enterprises'
executive boards (with the restoration of their cosmic salaries)."
Of course, that's the selfish Russian perspective; it comes from Stalker Zone. The
'reality' as Ukrainians see it might be a lot more lighthearted, like going on an adventure
with some foreign friends! And it might not even happen, considering the Ukrainian plan to
get half the money up front, without having to satisfy any of the conditions, although even
the full $1.2 Billion seems to me a bargain price to gain control of Ukrainian state
institutions. If I had $1.2 Billion lying around doing nothing, I might buy them myself.
When you think about it, it is amazing how willing eastern Europeans are to believe the
siren song of western capital investment, since as soon as they control the company, they
break it up and sell it, and the locals are left with nothing but western newspapers to keep
their bums from freezing. But it happens over and over.
It's the lottery mentality, most of the poor saps will only get poorer but the chance of
winning big (especially if you have a few connections) overwhelms logic and common sense. It
what makes capitalism so attractive – dreams of big wealth and leaving your poor slum
behind make the most miserable life somehow tolerable.
And it what makes socialism so boring – you may be, on average, better off but
little prospect for that life-changing jackpot.
There is more to it than that but the dreams of a big payday explains much of why so many
Eastern Europeans put up with, if not embrace, capitalism BS.
The carrot always seemingly just out of reach works for most until the day you die. And if
you do reach the carrot, you will soon realize that it is rotten.
Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die.
– Bittersweet Symphony
Wow. a very precise shot at America's most underlying problem:
These individuals are vital for the success of the transformation of the US to a fascist
state, with the elites dependent upon them to execute their policies, yet they also
profit from their positions in terms of attractive salaries and protection from much of the
law . These are the people who best know of all the crimes and social injustices, being
in fact a willing part of their execution process, but least likely to blow the whistle for
fear of damaging their careers.
It is the middle level of educated executives, lawyers, accountants and managers in
government, criminal corporations, Foundations, think tanks, the media, and so many others,
who are directly responsible for knowingly inflicting the vast damage on their own people
and nation
A very illuminating description of modern day America, no punches pulled by Larry
Romanoff.
Another fact goes unmentioned: the US has the largest number of unindicted war criminals
in the post-WW II world, a fact that allows for an escalation of war crimes committed. For
those here who refuse to accept the racist nature of our country, they need only look at the
ethnic makeup of the millions of victims of our unprovoked foreign wars of aggression.
hough it was quickly overshadowed by the big-ticket appearances of Barack Obama and Kamala
Harris, Elizabeth Warren's Tuesday address to the Democratic National Convention deserves some
consideration.
A probable VP nominee before the events of the summer made race the deciding factor, Warren
is an able representative of what might be called the "non-socialist populist" branch of the
Democratic Party. Her economic populism -- though it does have an unmistakably left-wing flavor
-- has caught the eye of Tucker Carlson, who offered glowing praise of her 2003 book The
Two-Income Trap ; her call for "economic nationalism" during the primary campaign earned
mockery from some corners of the Left and a bit of hesitant sympathy from the Right. A few days
ago in Crisis , Michael Warren Davis referred to her (tongue at least somewhat in cheek)
as " reactionary senator Elizabeth
Warren ."
There is some good reason for all of this.
As I watched the first half of Warren's speech (before she descended into the week's
secondary theme of blaming the virus on Donald Trump) I couldn't help but think that it
belonged at the Republican National Convention. Or, rather, that a GOP convention that
drove home the themes addressed by Senator Warren on Tuesday would be immensely more effective
than the
circus I'm expecting to see next week.
Amid a weeklong hurricane of identity politics sure to drive off a good number of moderates
and independents, Warren offered her party an electoral lifeline: a policy-heavy pitch
gift-wrapped as the solution to a multitude of troubles facing average Americans, especially
families.
It was rhetorically effective in a way that few other moments in the convention have been.
Part of this is due to the format: a teleconferenced convention left most speakers looking
either like bargain-bin
Orwell bogeymen or like
Pat Sajak presenting a tropical vacation as a prize on Wheel of Fortune. But Warren, for
one reason or another, looks entirely at home in a pre-school classroom.
The content, however, is crucial too. Warren grounded her comments in experiences that have
been widely shared by millions of Americans these last few months: the loss of work, the loss
of vital services like childcare, the stress and anxiety that dominate pandemic-era life. She
makes a straightforward case for Biden: his policies will make everyday life better for the
vast majority of American families. She focuses on the example of childcare, which Biden
promises to make freely available to Americans who need it. This, she claims, will give
families a better go of things and make struggling parents' lives a whole lot easier.
It's hard not to be taken in. It's certainly a more compelling sales pitch than, "You're all
racist. Make up for it by voting for this old white guy." It's the kind of thing that a smart
campaign would spend the next three months broadcasting and repeating every chance they get.
(The jury is still out as to whether Biden's campaign is a smart one.) This -- convincing
common people that you're going to do right by them -- is the kind of thing that wins
elections.
But there's more than a little mistruth in the pitch. Warren shares a touching story from
her own experience as a young parent, half a century ago:
When I had babies and was juggling my first big teaching job down in Texas, it was hard.
But I could do hard. The thing that almost sank me? Child care.
One night my Aunt Bee called to check in. I thought I was fine, but then I just broke down
and started to cry. I had tried holding it all together, but without reliable childcare,
working was nearly impossible. And when I told Aunt Bee I was going to quit my job, I thought
my heart would break.
Then she said the words that changed my life: "I can't get there tomorrow, but I'll come
on Thursday." She arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy and stayed for 16
years. I get to be here tonight because of my Aunt Bee.
I learned a fundamental truth: nobody makes it on their own. And yet, two generations of
working parents later, if you have a baby and don't have an Aunt Bee, you're on your own.
Are we not supposed to ask about the fundamental difference between Elizabeth Warren's
experience decades ago and the experience of struggling parents now? Hint: she had a strong
extended family to support her, and her kids had a broad family network to help raise them. Not
too long ago, any number of people would have been involved in the raising of a single child.
("It takes a village," but not in the looney Clinton way.) Now, an American kid is lucky to
have just two people helping him along the way. As we've all been reminded a hundred
times, the chances that he'll be raised by only one increase astronomically in poor or black
communities.
Shouldn't we be talking about that? Shouldn't we be talking about the policies that
contributed to the shift? It's a complex crisis, and we can't pin it down to any one cause. But
a slew of left-wing programs are certainly caught up in it. An enormous and fairly lax welfare
state has reduced the necessity of family ties in day-to-day life to almost nil. Diverse
economic pressures have made stay-at-home parents a near-extinct breed, and left even
two-income households struggling to make ends meet. (Warren literally wrote the book on
it.) Not to mention that the Democrats remain the party more forcefully supportive of abortion
and more ferociously opposed to the institution of marriage (though more than a few Republicans
are trying real hard to catch up).
Progressive social engineering has ravaged the American family for decades, and this
proposal only offers more of the same. It's trying to outsource childcare to
government-bankrolled professionals without asking the important question: Whatever happened to
Aunt Bee?
Republicans need an answer. We need to be carefully considering what government has done to
accelerate the decline of the family -- and what it can do to reverse it. Some of the reformers
and realigners in the party have already begun this project in earnest. But it needs to be
taken more seriously. It needs to be a central effort of the party's mainstream, and a constant
element of the party's message. Grand, nationalistic narratives about Making America Great
Again mean nothing if that revival isn't actually felt by people in their lives and in their
homes.
If we're confident in our family policy -- and while it needs a good deal of work, it's
certainly better than the Democrats' -- we shouldn't be afraid to take the fight to them. We
should be pointing out, for instance, that Warren's claim that Biden will afford greater
bankruptcy protections to common people is hardly borne out by the facts: Biden spent a great
deal of time and effort in his legislative career doing exactly the opposite. We should be
pointing out that dozens of Democratic policies have been hurting American families for
decades, and will continue to do so if we let them. We should sell ourselves as the better
choice for American families -- and be able to mean it when we say it.
If we let the Democrats keep branding themselves as the pro-family party -- a marketing ploy
that has virtually no grounding in reality -- we're going to lose in November. And we're going
to keep losing for a long, long time.
"... The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ..."
"... "The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/ imperialism ..."
Yesterday the US
ordered an airstrike on Syrian forces, killing one, when they refused to let the illegal
occupying force past a checkpoint in northern Syria.
In both cases an arm of the US-centralized empire used wildly disproportionate force
against people who stood against a hostile occupation of their own country. In both cases the
more powerful and violent occupiers claimed they were acting in "self-defense". In both cases
dropping explosives from the sky upon human beings barely made the news.
Bombs should not exist. Explosives designed to blow fire and shrapnel through human bodies
should not be a thing. In a sane world, there wouldn't be bombs, and if some mentally
unbalanced person ever made and used one it would be a major international news story.
Instead, bombs are cranked out like iPhones at
enormous profit , and nearly all bombings are ignored. Many bombs
are being dropped per day by the US and its allies, with a massive
civilian death toll , and almost none of those bombings receive any international
attention. The only time they do is generally when a bombing occurs that was not authorized
by the US-centralized empire.
This is one of those absolutely freakish things about our society that has become
normalized through careful narrative management, and we really shouldn't allow it to be.
The fact that explosives designed to rip apart human anatomy are dropped from the sky many
times per day for no other reason than to exert control over foreign countries should horrify
us all.
An interesting social experiment when you talk to someone might be to tell them solemnly,
"There's been a bombing." Then when they say "What?? Where??", tell them "The Middle East
mostly. Our government and its allies drop many bombs there per day in order to keep a
resource-rich geostrategic region balkanized and controllable."
Then watch their reaction.
You will probably notice a marked change in demeanor as the person learns that what you
meant is different from what they thought you meant. They will likely act as though you'd
tricked them in some way. But you didn't. You just called a thing the thing that it is, and
let their assumptions do the rest.
When someone gravely tells you "There's been a bombing," what they almost always mean is
that there has been a suspected terrorist attack in a western, majority-white nation. They
don't mean the kind of bombing that kills exponentially more people and does exponentially
more damage than terrorism in western nations. They don't mean the kind of terrorism that our
government enacts and approves of.
There's a lot of pushback nowadays against the racism and prejudices that are woven
throughout the fabric of our society, and rightly so .
But what doesn't get nearly enough attention in this discourse is the fact that while some
manifestations of bigotry may have been successfully scaled back somewhat in our own
countries, it was in a sense merely exported overseas.
The violence that is being inflicted overseas in our name by the US-centralized empire is
more horrific than any manifestation of racism we're ever likely to encounter at home. It is
more horrific than the pre-integration American South. It is more horrific than even slavery
itself. Yet even the more conscious among us fail to give this relentless onslaught of
violence a proportionate degree of recognition and condemnation, even while the consent for
it is largely born of the unexamined
bigoted notion that violence against people in developing and non-western countries does
not matter.
Like many other forms of bigotry, this one has been engineered and promulgated by powerful
people who benefit from it. If the mainstream news media were what it purports to be, namely
an institution dedicated to creating an informed populace about what's truthfully going on in
the world, we would see the bombings in foreign nations given the same type of coverage that
a bombing in Paris or London receives.
This would immediately bring consciousness to the unconscious bigotry that those in the
US-centralized empire hold against people in low and middle income countries, which is
exactly why the plutocrat-owned media do not report on it in this way. The US-centralized
empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire.
When people set out to learn what's really going on in their world they often start
cramming their heads with history and geopolitics facts and figures, which is of course fine
and good. But a bigger part of getting a clear image of what's happening in the world is
simply turning your gaze upon things you already kind of knew were happening, but couldn't
quite bring yourself to look at.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
From the Ramparts, 17 hours ago
"The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/
imperialism.
The AmeriKKKan Empire is the reigning heir to that legacy of Western thuggery, plunder and pillage.
More than anybody, #UAE is committed to making sure
#Ankara
having won the #Tripoli battle in Jun never helps
it win the #Libya war. Idea is to contain
#Turkey
& turn its presence into a quagmire that bleeds it. By promising to help #Greece , the #French navy joins
that endeavor
France to bolster Mediterranean military presence. With Macron determined to assert French
leadership in the the Mediterranean, he will have to team up w RU to take on Turkey. This
means France will work w RU in Lebanon too. At cross purposes w the US. https://
reut.rs/31O3fjY Show this thread
IMO NATO should have ended with the fall of the USSR. It now "confronts" a largely
imaginary threat, concocted for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in US government
expenditures for defense and supporting the imperial dreams of the neocons.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? Really?
Isn't the western alliance for all intents & purposes already dead?
It is a shame as it could work together to counter the totalitarian CCP. But Mama Merkel
it seems would rather get a few yuan from the communists and turn a blind eye to CCP
authoritarianism until it becomes obvious that the CCP are ruthless and will be competing
with Germany around the world for machine tools and autos by undercutting them on price and
heavily subsidizing their companies until German industry is destroyed.
I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but have yet to meet one, so
am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many divisions do they
have?
If anything drives the US and Europe apart, it will be trade, not security. Germany is
clearly chafing under the US bit, which sacrifices European industry to US interests --
sanctions on Nordstream 2, trade with Russia, trade with Iran, and China and Huawei. The US
clearly prioritizes it's own LNG , finance, technology and arms industries over European
prosperity. It amazes me that it has taken Europe so long to wake up.
Biden will do nothing to change that dynamic, since he is beholden to the same interests
as Trump.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? The Baltics and most
likely the Poles do with past history in mind. I would like to see them and the Ukrainians
transition into something like the Finns who acknowledge Russian power but maintain their
independence. Right now they are looking at NATO as their guarantee of independence in the
future. Who can blame them when looking at history.
The Trump admin's (and for that matter, Trump's own instincts) are and have continuously
been quite correct with regards to EU's defense expenditures agenda. The European 'humanists'
take advantage of the American defense umbrella inside their own countries so they can afford
to NOT spend on defense and instead spend more on domestic and economic development. So while
America continues to pay for the EU's defense it cannot afford to invest in its own domestic
programs (infrastructure, etc.) adequately. These Europeans then with the collaboration of
their Atlanticist fellows on the other side of the pond do nation-building and
democratization projects (call it endless wars) abroad, such as in Afghanistan. Just don't
ask them about their track record in this department.
However, the thing is when their immediate interests are in danger they forget about
America in a heartbeat. Examples, Germany's Nordstream pipeline with Russia, 5G
infrastructure and development, trade with China, Paris climate accord, etc.
I tend to believe that EU knows best how to make an existential threat out of Russia.
Anyone still remembers the novichok incident back in 2018? The thing with Russia is that from
the POV of EU, they view their Eastern neighbor as a solid and stable illiberal system that
is not within the ideological orbit of the western liberal democracy and thus they feel
threatened by that ideologically, NOT a scenario in which from Tallinn to Toulouse is invaded
and captured by Putin. In this endeavor they also have found willing partners in
'anti-authoritarian' hawks such as Bob Kagan, Hilary, Sam Power et.al that tow the same line
and advocate for NATO expansion and other similar projects.
The EU in definitely terrified of a scenario in which the U.S. (under a nationalist
conservative administration) starts de-funding NATO or withdraws its troops from Europe. In
this case they need to cut public spending and allocate more on defense which has a clear
impact on the 'democratic spirit' of EU's over-hyped social democracy.
In the past few years we have seen the rise of right-wing populsit nationalist parties in
pretty much every single major EU country. I believe there are strong tendencies in the Trump
admin-if DJT manages to stay in power for another 4 years- to do a little *something
something* about EU's decades-long nefarious free-riding of U.S. defense umbrella and I don't
think the effeminate EU leaders will gonna like it very much.
Barbara Ann - You say "I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but
have yet to meet one, so am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many
divisions do they have?"
The term "European" has become disputed territory. As an Englishman I regard myself fully
as "European" as any German or Frenchman but for many the term now seems to mean exclusively
"Member of the European Union". Tricky, that one.
Me, I prefer the term "Westerner". It takes in the so-called "Anglosphere" as well and
therefore covers all the ground without going into the fact that some parts have become
considerably less powerful over the last century and others considerably more. Also
accommodates without fuss the fact that the cultural centre of gravity, at some indeterminate
time in that last century, moved across from Paris, Vienna and Berlin to New York and parts
west.
Not always to your advantage, to you as an American that is, because a fair chunk of the
Frankfurt mob moved over your way with it. You caught from Old Europe the destructive and
vacuous tenets of "Progressivism" and are now sharing the disease in its full vigour with
us.
I mention that last because the violent TDS you see across the Atlantic isn't specifically
European. It's merely that it's natural for progressives to detest Trump or rather, not the
man himself but the "populist" forces he is taken to represent. It's garlic to the vampire
for the progressive, the Little House on the Prairie or its various European equivalents, and
the allergic reaction will become stronger yet. That "smug superiority" you will therefore
find in the States as readily as you will find it here. America or here we live on sufferance
in occupied territory, if we are not progressives ourselves, and should not the occupiers
always be superior and smug?
I went hunting for the Telegraph article the Colonel discusses above. I didn't like that
article at all. It gets the "freeloading" part right but in the context of a Russophobia
that's seemingly set in stone. And the Telegraph is not so much a progressive newspaper as
one that, while throwing a few token bones to its mainly Conservative readership, buys the
progressive Weltanschauung just as much as the Guardian or New York Times.
"How many divisions do they have?" A few more than the pope but maybe that's not
the point. I recently tried to follow the twists and turns of Mrs May's negotiations with the
EU as they related to defence. I got the impression that in the matter of defence the supply
of divisions could safely be left to the Americans. It was the allocation of defence
contracts that they were all concerned about.
Residing in Europe in the late 1960's at a US joint NATO military attachment in Northern
Italy, we mused were we there to keep our eye on the Russians, or in fact keep our eyes on
the Germans. One still saw in the back rooms, AXIS memorabilia.
As an aside: the only reason Michelle Obama chose as one of her FLOTUS projects - support
of military families -- was so she could get Uncle Sam to jet her around to all those US
military bases still in Europe for tea with the commander's wife and then on to her real
purpose - shopping and having fun with friends and families she was able to drag along. On
our dime.
My last visit to Europe found there are now more Turks, than former "Europeans; except in
France where they were more Algerians, than native French. And of course UK has long been
little more than the entrenched polyglot of their vast far flung Empire.
Indeed, who is a "European" today. Birth rate demographics from the former colonies, boat
people or import of cheap labor has now taken over anything we used to call "European". Can a
resident Turk really serve up a perfect plate of raclette in Switzerland? One word answer:
no. And that is a sad loss. One must instead shift their tastes to shwarma, if one wants
European food today.
In regard to Europeans--and perhaps some Australians whom I've met--I have often felt that
they in some ways did feel a bit superior to Americans.
Their sense of superiority, however, seemed more rooted in a sense of cultural
superiority. Those on the blog who viewed the comic rendition of the Three Little Pigs that
was recently posted here might think of that and its wonderful ending about the house that
was "American made." it was a wonderful ending for that well-known tale and a great defense
of our culture's current limited and plain vocabulary in some groups.
As an English major and English teacher, so much of the great literature that we taught
did come from England. I took three Comps when I earned my Masters: English literature from
Beowulf (which I read in Old English) to Chaucer's Catterbury Tales (which I read in Middle
English) and then to Virginia Woolf.
For my comp in American literature, I read from Washington Irving to the modern American
writers at the time I was in college.
My third comp was in Modern Linguistic Theory.
Of course we taught Shakespeare and Dickens---English writers--to our junior high and high
school classes. We studied mostly American writers in regard to short stories, as short
stories are considered the American genre. Our teaching of poetry covered both English and
American poets. As far as novels go, we taught both English and American novels.
Russian and German novelists were also on our list of reading for our comps. (We read them
in English translation.)
In summary, American culture was often overshadowed by the many longer centureies of
European culture in much of my college career.
What the Europeans can't deny, though they may want to, is that the tehcology and
innovation in things like automobile production, electricity, telephones, and into space
expoloration ---many things like that--is where we can indeed be quite proud.
They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes them feel better. I defy
them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II.
A European was understood, in Iran, to be a Christian. A Turk in Germany or and Algerian
in France is just that, a Turk, an Algerian, i.e. another Muslim.
There are professional and managerial middle class French Muslims in Paris and elsewhere,
but are they French? I do not know how assimilated they are.
" he will follow some Trump-era objectives, because that is what American interests
demand, thus showing that Trump was no extremist on China."
So if Biden and Trump both want something, that shows that it isn't extreme. How does that
work again?
The drive for confrontation with Russia contradicts Europe's desire to do buisness with her.
Hence the end of the Western Alliance.
"The US faces a rapidly escalating political crisis. The losing party in November will
undoubtedly go to the federal courts to claim that their opponents cheated in the
process."
They all went along with electronic voting and postal ballots. Now they're all going to
complain about the consequences.
Of course NATO should have disappeared together with the Berlin Wall, but it is alive,
kicking and ever looking for trouble, Belarus comes to mind.
The problem with propaganda is that the emitter ends up believing it, Europe does not need
any protection, we have the means to protect ourselves.
The US is an occupation force, and on top of it demands payment for it. Pick up your gear and
go home, and by the way, Europe should worry about countries armed to their teeth by the US,
I'm thinking about Morocco for instance, since I live in Spain. The beautiful line of the
Sierra that I contemplate every morning while stretching has been contaminated with a radar
station of the Aegis system, and that means we in our quite and beautiful Andalusian town are
a target for the biggies. Stop believing your propaganda, pick up your gear and let everybody
take care of themselves, the benefits will be for the US population in the first place, and
the world will rejoice.
The reason German military contribution to the "western alliance" is what it is is very
simple.
It is according to the incentives that threats that German leadership perceives.
First: Objective strategic things:
Essentially, noone is going to invade Germany. This removes one major reason to have a large
army. Secondly, Germany is not going to productively (in terms of return of investment)
invade anyone else. This removes the second major reason to have a large army. There is
something to be said to have a cadre army that can be surged into a real army if conditions
change.
Second: Incentives of German political leaders.
While the degree of German vassal stateness concerning the USA is up to a degree of debate,
that the USA has a lot of influence over Germany is in my view not. Schröder got elite
regime changed over his Iraq war opposition (it was amazing that literally all the newspaper
were against him, had a big impact on me growing up during this time).
Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some adventure.
If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some confrontation in the
middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you are unlucky. Your
population is not going to like this, and you may face losing elections over this. It is also
expensive in terms of life and material (although not very expensive compared to actual wars
against competent enemies).
If you say no, Uncle Sam will be displeased with you and will make this known for example by
sicking the entire "Transatlantic leadership networks" on you, which can also make you lose
the next election.
Essentially, if Uncle Sam comes asking, you lose the next election if you say yes, and you
also lose if you say no. Saying no is on balance cheaper, because you dont incurr the
financial and human costs of joing a random US adventure on top of the risk of losing the
next election.
The winning play is to get your army in such a state that Uncle Sam will not even ask.
Germany basically did create condition that enabled this.
Its a reasonably happy state for Germany to be in.
We are basically doing Brave Soldier Schweijk on the national level.
Solutions from a US pov:
1: Do less military adventures. If you do less adventures, people will fear being
shanghaied along less. This will decrease the drawbacks associated with having a reasonable
military as a Nato state.
2: Dont soft regime change governments that say no to your foreign adventures. Instead,
maybe listen to them. Had the US listend to French and German criticism regarding the wisdom
of going to war with Iraq, the US and also a lot of others would have been much better
off.
3: Make it clear that particpation in foreign adventures is actually voluntary instead of
"voluntary", make also clear that participation in defensive operations is not voluntary and
is what Nato was created for and that you expect a considerable contribution towards this.
Also, do some actual exercises. For example, if Germany claims that its military expenditure
is sufficient, stress test this premise by having a realistic exercise in which a German
divisions goes up against an American one. Yes, do some division size exercizes pretty
please. Heck, after ensuring that this exercize wont be a failfest, have some Indian be the
referee.
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. My jest about never having met a European
was of course designed to illustrate that "Europe" is a secondary construct. Never has a
person, upon meeting me, introduced themselves as a "European".
Europe is a moveable feast and even territorial definitions are slippery. "Europeans" I
think, must be characterized by short memories, for was it not less than 25 years ago that
European NATO planes bombed their fellow Europeans in Bosnia? It can't have been an accident
either, as I understand the op. was called "Operation Deliberate Force".
If Europe is synonymous with the EU it has precisely zero divisions and though you
yourself may remain "Western", you are as a consequence of Brexit no longer "European". No, I
think you and Polish Janitor are close by identifying "European" as a progressive/liberal,
democratic (read "globalist") value system. An insufficiency of "European-ness" can thus be
used to justify NATO involvement across various geographies - from Bosnia to Afghanistan
(& shortly Belarus?).
But of course the "European" members of NATO are hardly on the same page. It looks not at
all unlikely that two of its members may go to war in the Eastern Mediterranean.
I agree with you re the Telegraph article btw. "European" smugness is well represented in
that organ.
No. They did NOT all go along with "electronic voting and postal ballots." The 50 states
each run federal elections in any way they please. The US Constitution requires that. There
are a wide variety of voting machines in use and only a few states use mailed in ballots. the
Republican Party particularly opposes mail in voting.
You should be complaining to the politicians you elect. They're the ones requesting US
military protection. Prior to Trump, our governments were quite happy to provide that
protection. He's now asking for some cost sharing.
Be careful though, before you know it Spain could become a vassal of the Chinese
communists as many countries in Africa are finding out now. Hopefully you can continue to
extract euros from the Germans and Dutch while battling the separatists in Catalonia. There's
a thin veneer between stability & strife.
Paco, with a huge cost of lives and treasure the US was twice asked to clean up Europe's
self-inflicted messes in the past century. Promise you won't call on us again, and we can
talk. I know, past is not necessarily prologue but do at least meet us half way. It is only
good manners.
Barbara Ann - Lots of Europes of course. "My" Europe may no longer be on the active list.
Traces here and there. Few green shoots that are visible to me. Many rank growths overlaying
it.
Also many "European Unions". They exist all right, in uneasy company.
So many "EU's". A ramshackle Northern European trading empire - I think that's too
unstable to be long for this world but I could be wrong. A nascent superpower, that denied by
many but for some their central aim.
A bureaucratic growth. A handy market place for all. A Holocaust memorial centre; when the
EU politicians find themselves in a tight spot they can always call on Auschwitz and all fall
back in line. I saw Mrs Merkel pull that trick at the last but one Munich Security Conference
and all there, because Mrs Merkel was at that time in a very tight spot, applauded with
relief.
A Progressive Shangri-La, all the more enticing for never being defined. Those adherents
of that "EU" do actually call themselves "EU citizens" and I see the term is becoming more
common usage. Maybe those are the self proclaimed "European citizens" you have not met.
And the producer of reams of lifeless prescription that seek to force all into the same
mould and tough on the poor devils who can't fit the model. And on their families.
Lots of "EU's". I like none of them. While we wait for that edifice of delusion to
collapse I hope the damage it does to "My" Europe is not irreparable.
@ Diana Croissant: "They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes
them feel better. I defy them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II."
Jack, with all due respect, the politician who committed treason and gave away Spanish
territory for a foreign power to install bases died in 1975, nobody voted for him, general
Franco, an ally of Hitler, someone who sent over 50k troops to the siege of Leningrad, one of
the greatest crimes in the history of mankind, a million casualties, mainly civilians, dead
by hunger and disease, that fascist ally of Hitler we had to endure for 40 years, the price
to close your eyes and your nose not to smell the stench were bases, an occupying force
watching one of the strategic straights in Rota, close to Gibraltar, plus other bases inland.
I could go on, and remind you of 4H bombs dropped over Palomares after a broken arrow
incident, one of them broke and plutonium is still poisoning an area that your government is
not willing to clean. So that is what foreign occupation looks like, if something goes wrong,
well, we are protecting you . they say. History should be taught with a bit more detail in
the USA.
I'm afraid you're reading the dynamics of the European/US relationship quite incorrectly.
Bluntly, you have the facts wrong.
This site, and particularly the Colonel's committee of correspondence, is packed with
experts who have lived in this field and know their way around it. So I don't venture a
comprehensive rebuttal myself - my knowledge is partial and I do not have the background to
be sure of getting it dead right. But here -
"Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some
adventure. If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some
confrontation in the middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you
are unlucky."
That is transparent nonsense.
Obama has stated that it was the Europeans, including the UK, who pushed him into some
middle East interventions. I don't think he was shooting a line. The leaked Blumenthal emails
confirm that and we merely have to look at the thrust of French military actions to
understand that the French in particular push continually for intervention in the ME.
They are still doing so, and not for R2P purposes. They would see the ME and parts of
Africa as part of the EU sphere of influence and their initial reaction to Trump's abortive
attempt to withdraw from Syria shows they would be more than prepared to go it alone there if
they could.
A squalid bunch, and here I must include my own country in that verdict. Reliant on US
logistics and military strength they seek to pursue their own interests and could they but do
so they would do so unassisted. Don't pretend that it's the Americans who force them into
these genocidal adventures.
As for the Ukraine, we see from Sakwa's unflattering study of the EU adventure there that
that was building up well before 2014. The dramatic rejection of the EU deal was the prelude
to the coup. The Ashton tape shows an astonishing degree of EU intervention in Ukrainian
internal affairs before that coup. And from the Nuland tape we get a glimpse of the EU regime
change project that shows it was deeply implicated.
Pushed into the Ukrainian adventure by the US? Rubbish. The EU and its constituent members
were attempting to play their own hand and were not merely following the US lead
submissively.
We hear little of European neocon ventures. But what little has surfaced about them shows
that your picture of peace loving Europeans dragged into these conflicts by an overbearing
"Uncle Sam" is dishonest and misleading.
So I tell my German friends and relatives when they push the same line. They look at me
with disbelief and go off and hunt around the internet themselves. And then come back and do
not disagree. I suggest you do the same. The facts are all there, even for those of us
without inside knowledge or who lack the requisite background.
Democrats are in bed with the deep state, take billions from the largest corporations, and
conduct the most undemocratic nominating process ever seen in the US, but thank god they are
not fascists!
Trezrek500 , 2 hours ago
It is amazing, Bezos becomes the richest guy in the world and the delivery of his packages
is subsidized by tax payers. The USPS should triple their rates to AMZN. Problem solved.
When I lived in Europe it seemed like all the post offices had banks which offered basic
services like checking and savings. They should do that here.
seryanhoj , 2 hours ago
They have a simple ' people's ' banking system for people that don't feel up to going to
to one if the majors, and probably deal in small smounts.
The same system handles distributions from the various social schemes. Also they give low
or no cost access to buy government securities, and savings schemes. It sound a bit 'Big
Brover' , but in practice it feels good.
Demeter55 , 46 minutes ago
You are threatening the banksters! They need every last penny!
" in 2015, the Post Office Inspector General issued a
blistering report about CBRE , the company that had served as sole real estate broker to
the U.S.P.S. from 2011 on. The report found that CBRE had been selling and/or leasing post
office properties at below-market prices, often to clients of CBRE – a company
chaired by Richard Blum , the husband of California Senator Dianne Feinstein. "
now, exactly how was blum punsihed for this fraud? let me guess. his wife headed off any
corruption charges via a quick phone call to her chinese buddies, who then instructed the fbi
to pull their head in.
ponyboy99 , 3 hours ago
Feinstein's husband had the contract to rebuild Iraq's power grid. Look it up. Her home in
SF cost $17 Mil fifteen years ago.
STP , 2 hours ago
CBRE also did the property transactions for the failed California High Speed Rail project
as well. What a nice bunch of juicy contracts that just happened to drop into Diane's
husband's lap! It's a coincidence!
Pair Of Dimes Shift , 2 hours ago
Richard Blum-Feinstein also took in some sweet Commiefornia Train to Nowhere money as
well.
America's actions have already caused Beijing and Moscow to put aside historic enmity and
increase its partnership on economic issues and increasingly frequent joint
military drills . China and Iran recently completed the basics of an energy and military
cooperation agreement. Moreover, President Xi Jinping has become increasingly effective at
deepening ties with European, African, and Latin American states.
Today, Washington is saturated with China hawks. Unfortunately, andy voices that champion
keeping America strong by avoiding conflict with China are reflexively smeared as
"appeasement." I fear America may one day find out to its harm that rejecting sober diplomatic
engagement, which could have extended its security and prosperity well into the future, was
dismissed in favor of an unnecessary military-first tactic of coercing China.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after twenty-one years, including four combat
deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.
Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.
Coincidence? I think not.
This was the blueprint used three years ago in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 , when the city
regularly cited as being one of the happiest places in America , became ground zero for a
heated war of words -- and actions -- over racism, "
sanitizing history ," extremism (both right and left), political correctness, hate speech,
partisan politics, and a
growing fear that violent words will end in violent actions.
It was a setup : local police deliberately engineered a situation in which protesters would
confront each other, tensions would bubble over, and things would turn just violent enough to
call in the bigger guns.
In Charlottesville, as in so many parts of the country right now, the conflict was over how
to reconcile the nation's checkered past, particularly as it relates to slavery, with the push
to sanitize the environment of anything -- words and images -- that might cause offense,
especially if it's a Confederate flag or monument .
That fear of offense prompted the Charlottesville City Council to get rid of a
statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that had graced one of its public parks for 82
years.
That's when everything went haywire.
In attempting to pacify one particularly vocal and righteously offended group while
railroading over the concerns of those with alternate viewpoints, Charlottesville attracted the
unwanted attention of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and the alt-Right, all of whom descended on
the little college town with the intention of exercising their First Amendment right to be
disagreeable, to assemble, and to protest.
When put to the test, Charlottesville did not handle things well at all.
On August 12, 2017, what should have been an exercise in free speech quickly became a brawl
that left one dead and dozens more injured.
As the New York Times reported, "Protesters began to mace one another, throwing
water bottles and urine-filled balloons -- some of which hit reporters -- and beating each
other with flagpoles, clubs and makeshift weapons. Before long, the downtown area was a melee.
People were ducking and covering with a constant stream of projectiles whizzing by our faces,
and the air was filled with the sounds of fists and sticks against flesh."
And then there was the police, who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence.
They failed to do either.
Indeed, a 220-page
post-mortem of the protests and the Charlottesville government's response by former U.S.
attorney Timothy J. Heaphy merely corroborates our worst fears about what drives the government
at all levels: power, money, ego, politics and ambition.
"The City was unable to protect the right of free expression and facilitate the permit
holder's offensive speech. This represents a failure of one of government's core functions --
the protection of fundamental rights. Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and
protect citizens from harm, injury, and death. Charlottesville preserved neither of those
principles on August 12, which has led to deep distrust of government within this
community."
In other words, the government failed to uphold its constitutional mandates. The police
failed to carry out their duties as peace officers. And the citizens found themselves unable to
trust either the police or the government to do its job in respecting their rights and ensuring
their safety.
Despite the fact that 1,000
first responders (including 300 state police troopers and members of the National Guard) --
many of whom had been preparing for the downtown rally for months -- had been called on to work
the event, despite the fact that police in riot gear surrounded Emancipation Park on three
sides, and despite the fact that Charlottesville had had what reporter David Graham referred to
as "
a dress rehearsal of sorts " a month earlier when 30 members of the Ku Klux Klan were
confronted by 1000 counterprotesters, police failed to do their jobs.
In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police "seemed to watch as groups beat each other
with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields At one point,
police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end
the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured."
Instead of establishing clear boundaries -- buffer zones -- between the warring groups and
protecting the First Amendment rights of the protesters, police established two entrances into
the permit areas of the park and created barriers "guiding rallygoers single-file into the
park" past lines of
white nationalists and antifa counterprotesters .
This is not much different from what is happening on the present-day national scene.
Commissioned by the City of Charlottesville, this Heaphy report
was intended to be an independent investigation of what went right and what went wrong in the
government's handling of the protests.
Heaphy found very little to commend.
What went right on Aug. 12 according to Heaphy:
1) Despite the presence of firearms, including members of the militia, and angry
confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters, no person was shot and no
significant property damage occurred;
2) Emergency personnel did their jobs effectively and treated a large number of people in
a short period of time; and
3) Police intelligence gathering was thorough (that's the best he had to say about
police).
Now for what went wrong, according to the report:
1. Police failed to get input from other law enforcement agencies experienced in handling
large protests.
2. Police failed to adequately train their officers in advance of the protest.
3. City officials failed to request assistance from outside agencies.
4. The City Council unduly interfered by ignoring legal advice, attempting to move the
protesters elsewhere, and ignoring the concerns of law enforcement.
5. The city government failed to inform the public about their plans.
6. City officials were misguided in allowing weapons at the protest.
7. The police implemented a flawed operational plan that failed to protect public
safety.
8. While police were provided with riot gear, they were never trained in how to use it,
nor were they provided with any meaningful field training in how to deal with or de-escalate
anticipated violence on the part of protesters.
9. Despite the input and advice of outside counsel, including The Rutherford Institute,
the police failed to employ de-escalation tactics or establish clear barriers between warring
factions of protesters.
10. Government officials and police leadership opted to advance their own agendas at the
expense of constitutional rights and public safety.
11. For all intents and purposes, police abided by a stand down order that endangered the
community and paved the way for massive civil unrest.
12. In failing to protect public safety, police and government officials undermined public
faith in the government.
The Heaphy report focused on the events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it
applies to almost every branch of government that fails to serve "we the people."
This isn't America, land of the free, where the government is "of the people, by the people
[and] for the people."
Rather, this is Amerika, where fascism, totalitarianism and militarism go hand in hand.
What you smell is the stench of a dying republic. Our dying republic.
The American experiment in freedom is failing fast.
Through every fault of our own -- our apathy, our ignorance, our intolerance, our
disinclination to do the hard work of holding government leaders accountable to the rule of
law, our inclination to let politics trump longstanding constitutional principles -- we have
been reduced to this sorry state in which we are little more than shackled inmates in a prison
operated for the profit of a corporate elite.
We have been saddled with the wreckage of a government at all levels that no longer
represents the citizenry, serves the citizenry, or is accountable to the citizenry.
"We the people" are not the masters anymore.
It doesn't matter whether you're talking about the federal government, state governments, or
local governing bodies: at all ends of the spectrum and every point in between, a shift has
taken place.
"We the people" are not being seen, heard or valued.
We no longer count for much of anything beyond an occasional electoral vote and as a source
of income for the government's ever-burgeoning financial needs.
Everything happening at the national level is playing out at the local level, as well: the
violence, the militarization, the intolerance, the lopsided governance, and an uneasy awareness
that the citizenry have no say in how their communities are being governed.
As I have warned repeatedly, the architects of the police state have every intention of
manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.
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Predictably, the police state is allowing these protests, riots and looting to devolve into
a situation where enough of the voting populace is so desperate for a return to law and order
that they will gladly relinquish some of their freedoms to achieve it. And that's how the
police state will win, no matter which candidate gets elected to the White House, and "we the
people" will continue to lose.
So what's the answer?
As always, it must start with "we the people."
I've always advised people to think nationally, but act locally.
Yet as Charlottesville made clear, it's hard to make a difference locally when the local
government is as deaf, dumb and blind to the needs of its constituents as the national
government.
Charlottesville much like the rest of the nation has had its fair share of government
leaders who are tone-deaf, focused on their own aggrandizement, and incapable of prioritizing
the needs of their constituents over their own personal and political agendas; law enforcement
officials for whom personal safety, heavy-handed militarized tactics, and power plays trump
their duty to serve and protect; polarized citizens incapable of finding common ground,
respecting each other's rights, or agreeing to disagree; and a community held hostage by
political correctness, divisive rhetoric and a growing intolerance for any views that may be
unpopular or at odds with the mainstream.
It was a perfect storm just waiting for the right conditions to wreak havoc, a precursor of
the rage, frustration and fear that is erupting all over the country.
No matter what forces are manipulating these present riots and violent uprisings, however --
and there are definitely such forces at play here -- none of this would be happening without
the government having laid the groundwork.
Clearly, it's time to clean house at all levels of government.
Stop tolerating corruption, graft, intolerance, greed, incompetence, ineptitude, militarism,
lawlessness, ignorance, brutality, deceit, collusion, corpulence, bureaucracy, immorality,
depravity, censorship, cruelty, violence, mediocrity, and tyranny. These are the hallmarks of
an institution that is rotten through and through.
Stop holding your nose in order to block out the stench of a rotting institution.
Stop letting the government and its agents treat you like a servant or a slave.
You've got rights. We've all got rights. This is our country. This is our government. No one
can take it away from us unless we make it easy for them.
You've got a better chance of making your displeasure seen and felt and heard within your
own community. But it will take perseverance and unity and a commitment to finding common
ground with your fellow citizens.
Incredible interview with Hassan Nasrallah ("The Old Man of The Mountain" as I think of
him) providing insight into his tactical and strategic thinking processes w.r.t the conflict
with Israel:
Hillary is a co-founder of Onward
Together , a Democratic Party front group that is affiliated to other activist
organizations. In a recent e-mail she played the race card in a bid to solidify the black vote
behind the Democratic Party, writing "Friend, George Floyd's life mattered. Ahmaud Arbery and
Breonna Taylor's lives mattered. Black lives matter. Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has
disproportionately ravaged communities of color, we are being painfully reminded right now that
we are long overdue for honest reckoning and meaningful action to dismantle systemic
racism."
It is, of course, a not-so-subtle bid to buy votes using the currently popular code words
"systemic racism" as a pledge that the Democrats will take steps to materially benefit blacks
if the party wins the White House and a majority in the Senate. She ends her e-mail with an odd
commitment, "I promise to keep fighting alongside all of you to make the United States a place
where all men and all women are treated as equals, just as we are and just as we deserve to
be." The comment is odd because she is on one hand promising to promote the interests of one
group based on skin color while also stating that everyone should be "treated as equals."
Someone should tip her off to the fact that employment and educational racial preferences and
reparations are not the hallmarks of a government that treats everyone the same.
But if one really wants to dig into the depths of the Democratic Party soul, or lack
thereof, there is no one who is better than former U.N. Ambassador and Secretary of State under
Bill Clinton, the estimable Madeleine Albright. She too has written an e-mail that recently
went out to Democratic Party supporters, saying:
"I'm deeply concerned. Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our standing in the world
and continues to threaten the decades of diplomatic progress we had made. It is easy to forget
from the comfort of our homes that for many people, America is a beacon of hope and
opportunity. We're known as a country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and
democracy, and that didn't just happen overnight. We've spent decades building our
nation's reputation on the world stage through careful, strategic diplomacy -- but in just
under four years, Trump has done unspeakable damage to those relationships and has insulted
even our closest allies."
Albright, who is perhaps most famous for having stated that she thought that the deaths of
500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. imposed sanctions was "worth it," is living in a fantasy
bubble that many politicians and high government officials seem to inhabit. She embraces the
America the "Essential Nation" concept because it makes her and her former boss Bill Clinton
look like great statesmen. She once enthused
nonsensically that "If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the
indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future,
and we see the danger here to all of us."
Madeleine Albright's view that "America is a beacon of hope and opportunity known as a
country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and democracy" is also, of course,
completely delusional, as opinion polls regularly indicate that nearly the entire world
considers the U.S. to be extremely dangerous and virtually a rogue state in its blind pursuit
of narrow self-interest combined with an unwillingness to uphold international law. And that
has been true under both Democratic and Republican recent presidents, including Clinton. It is
not just Trump.
Albright is clearly on a roll and has also submitted to a New York Times
interview , further enlightening that paper's readership on why the Trump administration is
failing in its job of protecting the American people. The questions and answers are singularly,
perhaps deliberately, unexciting and are largely focused on coronavirus and the new world order
that it is shaping. Albright faults Trump for not promoting an international effort to defeat
the virus, which is perhaps a bridge too far for most Americans who are not even very receptive
to a nationally mandated pandemic response, let alone one requiring cooperation with
"foreigners."
Albright's persistence as a go-to media "expert" on international relations is befuddling
given her own history as an integral part of the inept foreign policy promoted by the Clinton
Administration. She and Bill Clinton became cheerleaders for an unnecessary Balkan war that
still resonates and were responsible for what was possibly the greatest foreign policy blunder
(with the possible exception of the Iraq War) since the Second World War. That consisted of
ignoring the commitment to post-Soviet Russia to not take advantage of the 1991 end of
Communism by expanding U.S. or NATO military presence into Eastern Europe. Clinton/Albright
reneged on that understanding and opened the door for many of the former Soviet allied states
to enter NATO, thereby introducing a hostile military presence right up to Russia's border.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting of
his country's natural resources. The bad decision-making under the Clintons led inevitably to
the rise of Vladimir Putin as a corrective, which, exacerbated by Hillary Clinton as Secretary
of State and a maladroit Donald Trump, has in turn produced the poisoned bilateral relationship
between Washington and Moscow that currently prevails.
So, one might reasonably suggest to Joe Biden that if he really wants to get elected in
November it would be a good idea to keep the Clintons, Albright and maybe even Obama carefully
hidden away somewhere. Albright's interview characteristically concludes with her plan for an
"Avengers style dream team" to "fix the world right now." She said that "Well, it certainly
would be a female team. Without naming names, I would really try to look for women who are in
office, both in the executive and legislative branch. I would try to have a female C.E.O., but
also somebody who heads up a nongovernmental organization. You don't want everybody that's
exactly the same. Oh, and I'm about to do a program for the National Democratic Institute with
Angelina Jolie, and she made the most amazing movie about what was going on in Bosnia, so I
would want her on my team."
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
<a://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
title="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
href="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
<a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]"
href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].
Hillary and Barack were also complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria that
have devastated both countries.
Most Americans remain unaware of their destruction of Libya, Africa's most prosperous
nation, which claimed 40,000 black lives. Thousands more were killed as they destroyed
Somalia and Sudan as part of the neocon plan from the Bush era to destroy "seven countries in
five years" as General Wesley Clark told the world. Thousands more died as they attempted to
destroy Syria. Here is a short summary of their destruction of Libya:
Take a close look at the visage of Mad Albright. What do you see beyond the simple ravages
of the aging process on a life misspent? Check out those eyes, unmasked by the rouge. Take a
close look. What do you see? Can you discern the sociopathic evidence, the haunting by the
scores of thousands of Iraqi children who starved to death under the tender mercies of United
$tates of America Corporation's foreign policy on behalf of the agenda of the elite crime
clans of highest international finance.
Maddie is a minion, a minion for genocide and for a total lack of elementary human
empathy. She is an ambulatory exemplar of Kali Yuga, the age of devolution, which in polar
opposition to the Celestial Kingdom which reigned in China as recently as the Ming Dynasty.
During that era where administrative positions were based as much as possible on merit, the
contrast is vivid versus the current reality in our ruptured republic where instead of the
cream, the scum rises to the top.
Remove that pic of know nothing old owl from this site – some children might see
it!
We need updates on Biden's mega corruption in Ukraine investigation. Trump was impeached
for talking to Ukraine president about Biden's corruption and that lifetime taxpayers leech
is Democrats front runner for the highest office – pathetic.
During the days of her power and glory (Yeltsin years) Albright had made nine maps of the
countries that would be created by the dissolution of Russia. Somebody walked in the poker
game room and said "Let's play a different game". Enter the Putin era.
The democrats are just snake skins laying on the asphalt. The new sheriff in town (Syria,
Libya) is laying out a different plan. Good by NWO , halo multipolar world.
Trump declared on many occasions " we are there because we want the oil"; crude? Yes but
honest at least. For those who prefer smooth talkers like the Clintons and the Obamas, I
state that the legacy of those two administrations has done more harm to the foreign
perception of US power In the Middle East and Eastern Europe than any vulgar language
pronounced by Trump who, so far, can be credited with not having started any foreign
wars.
At least Trump tried to withdraw American troops from Syria only to be kept in check by
the reality of the American Deep state power structure. Had he succeeded in his endeavour, US
Russia relations would have better than they are today.
Three months to the election and what is on the main menu? Two old white men, neither fit
to serve the office of the Presidency. The nation is a tired old whore, spent from all those
wars for Zion, and it seems to me the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons is better than Trump
or Biden. Both candidates are loony tune, both are completely unacceptable. We are looking at
Weimar in the mirror. The nation has run it's course, the Republic is dead.
(Weimar Germany, of course, collapsed. Weimar is also the prelude democratic state before
the rise of the authoritarian state. All those who thought Trump was a new Hitler are fools,
Trump is the slavish whore of the Jews, not the opposing force, not the charismatic leader
who restores sanity to the nation wrecked by Jews. What Trump is, is the final wrecking ball,
not the savior.)
Gone are the glory days of imperial dreams, Amerika is not longer fit to wage another big
war in the Middle East for Israel. So what is Bibi to do, Israel is in corona crazy lockdown,
and his influence on Amerikan politics seems to me slipping badly. How much longer will AIPAC
be allowed to influence our politicians if we go into a hyper deflationary crash? It seems to
me the Greater Israel project is about to get the rug pulled out, because if the USA crashes
and burns no one will tolerate one more cent going to that god forsaken shithole.
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see
the danger here to all of us."
Whom the gods would destroy they first make Madeleine.
The main difference between the reps and dems is their party names. Both represent the
same oligarch interests. Most of the dem objections to trump are psywar manipulations for
public consumption, not serious policy differences. Pretty much all fluff. The reps also do
the same about influencial dems, they endlessly talk nonsense about inconsequential things
about them.
The drama queenery is to manipulate the public into thinking their votes for either party
actually matter in some way. As of late, that psywar has been failing since most people don't
see much difference between the two and believe both parties don't represent them and are
lying scum. Trying to neutralize this view by the people is part of the reason the psywar
critters have ramped up the hysterics.
Barack's mother, Madeleine's father and Chelsea's husband all have one thing in common and
that something is without which sleepy Joe can't be elected so the author's advice to keep
Obamas, Clintons and Albright at bay is moot at best!
Her statement about Iraqi children should not come as a surprise to any. She was is from
that part of Europe which is famous for being racist.
I came across with an interesting story during Balkan "peace" negotiations in a Paris in
90s. The Bosnian and Serbian delegates were negotiating in Paris hotel where American
delegate was staying. One time, at 4 O'clock in the morning out curiosity sMadeline went and
knocked on the negotiators door. One of them opened the door and failed to recognize her and
thought her to be the cleaning lady. Told her to come back later.
That role suits her perfectly.
Set everything else aside and consider the relationship of each POTUS to the
sovereign.
The terminology I use is that they fall somewhere on the spectrum from figurehead to real
POTUS.
Obama and Trump are opposites in this respect. Obama took office having gifted the
national security state a globally appealing front-man. While he had campaigned and started
his presidency looking like he wanted to use his power to move the needle in the right
direction, he was quickly snapped like a butter bean, retreating into the presidential safe
space offered, at least up until that point, to a POTUS that accepted the constrained role to
which the American presidency had been consigned in the modern era.
There were signs almost immediately with Obama. After decisively winning election and
becoming our first black president, he was house-trained early on over a single comment
defending his Harvard professor friend after a silly arrest.
Does anyone other than me even remember this incident? Or how it completely emasculated
the new POTUS, with him retreating behind a teleprompter for everything other than occasional
unscripted remarks that, if unwittingly notable or problematic, were quickly corrected by
some handler.
Now consider Trump. Both as candidate and POTUS he's Obama's opposite. Where Obama had the
establishment wind at his back, writ large those same forces tried to destroy Trump's
candidacy and presidency.
Rather than belabor any particulars I'll just note that the psychological driver for the
ruling and governing classes, regardless of their ideological and programmatic preferences,
is boundless resentment toward him.
After all, it isn't an overstatement to note that more than any other president, Trump got
there on his own, with a near complete array of establishment forces, domestic and foreign,
against him, including his own party.
Who would have thought such a thing possible before Trump did it?
Little has changed since 2016. We're in our current moment because destroying Trump
remains as close to a dues ex machina as any of us have or will see in our lifetimes. There
are real, monumental interests at stake but when you get right down to it most personalities
in the ruling and governing classes -- who to a one grew up with mama telling them they
should be POTUS someday, need him gone so they can go back to feeling better about
themselves.
@RoatanBill pointees he has to placate some truly awful people, such as Mitt Romney. Some
personnel selections that appear to be made by the President are actually part of package
deals where key Senators get to pick their names. That is why certain parts of the
administration are out of touch with Trump's agenda.
Trump has been 100% successful preventing NeoConDemocrats from starting new wars.
Unwinding the messes he inherited from prior administrations is much more complicated.
Hopefully Trump's now inevitable second term will include a friendlier Senate. That will
help him get more done than his first term which was impeded by the ObamaGate deception.
I don't care about all the political backstabbing and massaging. If he had any balls he'd
use the same New York English I grew up with and tell the entire Congress, the Supreme Court
and the intel agencies to go F themselves and do so on national TV. The silent majority in
the country would back up his play.
But he doesn't do that because he's a bought and paid for politico just like the rest of
them. The deep state probably has dirt on him like everyone else in the District of Criminals
and they tell him how to behave. He backs off and allows more deaths to occur to save his
sorry ass from some exposure.
@RoatanBill asking the wrong question . Let me Fix That For You.
As Impeachment Jury, the Senate has final say on whether Trump stays in
office.
Is that true or isn't it? Yes or no?
Are you leading a movement to:
-- Jettison the Constitution
-- Dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court
-- Proclaim Trump as God Emperor of the Golden Throne
When you finish this task, I will back your position that Trump can act unilaterally with
regard to foreign troop deployments.
Until then, I strongly recommend a more realistic and nuanced view on what a President can
accomplish.
complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria
That's putting it in polite terms. In reality it's massive war criminality, wars of
aggression that killed, maimed and uprooted millions of people in other countries. Not that
it caused as much of a stir domestically as the death of Floyd but there you have it, the
order of priorities of the American people and their supposed leaders. During the Vietnam war
a common chant was "Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids you kill today?". This is true for the
Clintons, Obama, Albright and all the rest of them yet somehow they still have their fans.
They're past their expiration dates yet are still kicking around since the Dem party is
sclerotic with no new blood, no new ideas, just the same old parasites. Their presidential
candidate is way past retirement age and has been obviously faltering in public. This is
their champion, a lifelong mediocrity who is entering senility? US no longer has any wind in
its sails.
O think out move in the Balkans was essentially correct. Even Russia scolded their allies
for their behavior as over the top in brutality. If Russia your closest ally says you are
over the top -- then there's a good chance the genocide claim has merit.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
But I see no reason for Dr. Giraldo to be tepid here. somalia is the a complete
embarssment. The admin took a feed and water operation and turned into a "warloard" hunt
without any clue began interfering into the internal affairs of a complex former colonized
region left bankrupt to reconfigure itself and began a failed bid to set aright -- ohhh that
should sound familiar.
1. They turned a mess into a "warlord" victory for the leader they thought most
dangerous(and I hate that word and its connotations -- a civil conflict) and then to top it
off
2. ran away with their tail between their legs -- it was in my mind the second sign of US
vulnerability to asymmetric warefare
counter balance that against not intervening in the genocide in Africa's Rwanda. The deep
level hypocrisy here or complete bankrupt moral efficacy -- intervening in Bosnia-Herzegovina
but completely ignoring the a worse case in Africa.
All of which occurred under the foreign policy headship of Mrs Albright. Ahhh they are
women hear them roar . . . Let's get it straight.
Women wanted us in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, they want to intervene . . . in the name
of humanity for any host of issues, in a bid to appear tough they will on occasion say the
incedulous -- but the bottom lie
female leadership has demonstrated to be no more effective, astute, or beneficial than
that of the men.
And allow me to get this out of the way before it starts though start it will,
In fact, it appears that not even white skin is not road to effective political leadership
or governance as all of the key players have been predominately and by that I mean near all
white. But here the test cases about femininity alone being a key qualifier just does not pan
out. And no personal offense Dr. Giraldi neither is an elite education.
@A123 ght as the dollar keeps declining in importance and the whole world is sick of the
sanctions and bullying.
So, Yes, I'm in favor of ending the Constitution as it has shown to be a useless piece of
paper except to deceive those that think it's worth something. Yes, I'm in favor of getting
rid of the criminals in DC including the asshat president, all of congress and the absolutely
useless supreme court. I'm in favor of 50 new countries once the empire expires offering 50
experiments on how to govern and let the best idea win.
Your more nuanced approach is exactly what Trump is doing – exactly nothing. He's
the most do nothing president in decades.
If a primary principle, supposedly justifying the Nuremburg Trials, that initiating wars
of aggression is a criminal act against humanity, then the Clintons, Bush II, Albright,
essentially all the USA's senior foreign policy and military bureaucrats over the last thirty
years, and all the Zionist/neocons urging them on and aiding and abetting their criminal
acts, would end their lives in Spandau Prison or dangling at the end of a rope.
In the following years I've been shocked again and again to observe Trump's ignorance of
government and politics and, even more disturbing, his apparent unwillingness to recover and
learn from his mistakes. I'm not sure whether this is due to stupidity, laziness, or
sociopathic levels of grandiosity. Whatever the cause, the result has been an inability on
the part of Trump to fill many campaign promises. (A less sympathetic interpretation of
events might be that Trump's campaign promises were deliberate lies.)
@A123 ng out of the country. The Chinese were eager to comply to get access to the
processes involved. The Chinese didn't have to steal anything, as the US corporations
voluntarily gave them the tech as part of the deal to be in China. The reason to move out of
the US is due to the high labor rate and regulations costs. Those costs are high because the
Fed Gov that you apparently like is sucking the life out of the population with high taxes,
an oversize and out of control military and intelligence services, a financial sector that
repeatedly rapes the country and gets away with it, etc, etc, etc.
@A123 a rel="nofollow"
href="https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy">
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
In other words, the Democrats and their Allied Media's malefactions against Trump
forestalled them suffering what Republicans did post-Watergate in the House and Senate
midterms in 1974, but all of that negative energy didn't go away.
Either they will get their comeuppance in 2020, or it will remain and grow, biting them in
ass soon enough.
We Americans are kinda attached to our constitutional republic thingie, including our
right to choose the POTUS.
It really is stunning that the dimo crats have learned nothing from their decades of
disaster after disaster after disaster!
From regime change to financial debacles to the looting of the break up of the Soviet
Union: the cretins are now once again being trotted out as part of the biden farcial
"campaign."
A case in point is the odious Larry Summers: This article goes far in summarizing this
pending disaster with the prominent placement of summers:
@Joe Levantine could be behind the lines calling the shots) and the other, representing
the Marianas Trench of the Deep $tate (CIA) and also the Rushdoony loonies of the
Dispensationalist "Great Rupture" Christian-Zionist ambulatory oxymorons are THEIR reeking
heinies.
Trump is merely a girlie-lusting ram compared with those two prowling lobos, sporting
images of blood in their eyes and hatred in their hearts. Suburban soccer-moms detest the
Dumpster, mainly because he exacerbates their emotional radar-screens. They totally overlook
the deep danger lurking beneath the surface in the likes of Bolton and Pomposity, because
they are adroit at masking their totally psychopathic sociopathy.
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Almost 40 years ago my late aunt (in her mid 70s) opined that more women leaders were
needed to stop all of the wars. I asked her if she thought Golda Meir, Sirimavo Bandaranaike,
and Margaret Thatcher were really women, and if so, how were they any different than the
men?
In a Foreword to Christopher Bollyn's book, "The War on Terror; The Plot to Rule the
Middle East," USMC vet, Alan Sabrosky wrote:
"The book provides a way for even informed readers to better appreciate the origins,
evolution, and extent to which Israel has driven a process by which the United States and
other countries have systematically destroyed Israel's enemies, at no cost to itself. As we
have torn up or assailed a long list of countries -- only Iran has not yet been openly
attacked."
A less known fact is how the US is undergoing systematic Israel attack, and I suggest that
the best outcome is our being "Balkanized," as described by vagabond, Linh Dinh, who now
describes the resilient life in Serbia.
The Process continues even if Trumpstein does or does not consent to leave the Blue &
White House.
Thank you, Friends.
The Cato article in May on her "new book" gives her the right treatment. Even if you are a
long way from libertarian, well worth a read. The first paragraph:
"Madeleine Albright is back with a new book to sell. Interviewed in by the New York
Times magazine, she reminds us how she continues to live in the past. Unfortunately, that's
what made her advice as UN ambassador and secretary of state so uniformly bad."
@BL culate faceman which the shotcallers running the Deep $tate tend to prefer as their
podium images.
The failure of the Wicked Witch of the West to achieve her 2017 coronation was a total
shock to the system for the DNC, FBI, CIA, Chew Pork Slymes and other major institutional
minions for the ruling plutocratic oligarchy. Even before Trump's Inauguration, they set out
to destroy his presidency. After all, it had been decreed from on high that our ruptured
republic would be blessed by our first female (more or less) chief executive and that she
would be totally on-message and not some small (d) Democrat the likes of Tulsi
Gabbard–an irrepressible anti-imperialist.
President issues executive order at 4 PM. Liberals electronically file for a court order
at 5 PM. 8AM next day some judge, county, state or federal, issues an injunction forbidding
carrying out the executive order. The executive order is tied up in the courts for
months.
Last President to successfully defy the courts was Lincoln. The judiciary overturns laws
passed by legislators and referendums. The judiciary's orders create new laws.
@Ray Caruso who looks cross eyed at terrorist states Israel or Saudi Arabia , it takes
some pretty rancid balls to call those defending their nations from an illegal
aggressor, 'terrorists'.
What, if not massive and collective terror, is the murder by drone of villagers and
leaders? When their children look at the sky, they don't see wonder and beauty, but terror of
an arbitrary death.
The only thing we Americans should be feeling these days, is an excruciating shame for the
mass-murder and nation destructions our government has perpetrated in our name.
'The exceptional people'. If only we understood just how true that is.
Dr. Phil is sound on this issue. Democrat nomenklatura must impute some cultic authority
to the quivering rhytides of their living-dead mummies.
A gerontocracy is the appropriate government for this degenerate state. The interview
excerpt is priceless with Albright's senile brain fart: "let's hire Angelina Jolie, she made
an amazing movie!" about how those crispies fucked the Balkans up for shits & grins. You
can just see her masticating bon-bons in her slow-motion catapult chair, watching the
genocide she caused like it's Star Wars, feeling transient stirrings in her crepey loins at
the more romantic rape scenes. Just give that rank old downer cow the bolt gun.
One cavil on the rhetorical devices of the piece: even in jest it makes no sense to
suggest ideas to Vegetable-in-Chief Joe Biden. CIA is going to hook him up to a teleprompter
or some brain electrodes or whatever and make him talk and nod and gesture like
audio-animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland. He's gonna say we have to blow shit up. And MBNA
needs privatized debtors' prisons. It's pointless to offer friendly advice to the captive
parties of this failed state. It's like telling NAMBLA they should fuck adults. Wipe out this
roach motel of a party. The Greens have signed on to BAP's demilitarization pledge. Or write
in your Grammy's moldering corpse. Or that big wet floater dump you took this morning. Fuck
the USA and its fake democracy.
OK, now to be serious. This article and most of the responses to it thus far, however
erudite and with good intention seem to have fallen into a trap before they realized it was a
trap namely that everything depends on the result of Dems vs Repubs version 2020. Will Mr.
Giraldi write an article to show how it makes even in the slightest way a difference who is
the President at this late stage ( or any stage) of decay in the US? I know he knows better
to especially on this site. So has he really shed his roots?
I have recently entered into cash bets with almost all of my friends of all dispositions
and mental acuity on the prospect of Trump being re-elected. They think that I am crazy. I
may be but not on this topic. They are all infected with a mental disease called "normiesm".
It is immensely frustrating for me to put any kind of 'out of the box' thinking into
conversations regarding Trump because they react like women going through hormonal flushes.
All verbal reactions seemingly in lockstep.
So with the monetary challenges shoved in their faces they all seemed to pause briefly to
wonder if it was decent to take money from a fool such as I. After a few profanities and
insults as to their inter-cranial pressure from me they gladly accepted to a one and some
doubled down.
Taking their money, as I will, is the only way that they can be brought to bear to hear me
out about my logic. Funny, but it always seems to come down to money.
Now lookie here. What have we had since the Trump inauguration? Four years of 24/7/365
vilification, right versus left, grabbing P ***** , Putin, Stormy Daniels, impeachment (a 24
hour respite when he sent 77 missiles into Syria) and then back to 24/7 of Trump foibles.
Do you see what is/was happening? TDS was the precursor of Covid. And like a charm it
worked and still works. Divide and conquer, bread and circuses rolled onto one tasty bagel.
Look around you. Would you recognize main-street 4 months ago? I would not. Why would the PTB
want to remove Trump? He is a major cog in their satanic wheel whether he knows it or
not.
So with the powerful combination of TDS, COVID, BLM and antifa backed by MSM effectively
scaring the normies from even uttering a peep , I would say that things are going swimmingly
in some power's interests.
Mr Giraldi, "New Dummies, Same Ventriloquist" should be your next article for the sake of
your own credibility not digging up another corpse (living or not) like that of of Madeleine
Halfbright.
Your use of the ad hominem 'hopium addict' slur shows your frustration. You can't come up
with an actual retort, so you lash out.
I notice that you intentionally came out against me personally, because you are unable to
defeat my ideas. Your sad & pathetic attempt to paint you submission to Biden as a virtue
has failed. And, your personal attacks are simply shameless.
@Alden ferson's administration. But as Leo the Lip Durocher insisted, "nice guys finish
last."
Jefferson should have had his fellow Virginian arrested and imprisoned for overstepping
his constitutional powers. Didn't happen. Marshall (the darling of the Kavanaugh-cloned
Federalist Society of statist lawyers) had set a bad precedent, much to the dismay of the
president and all freedom-loving elements of WE THE PEOPLE. The very root concept of small
(r) republicanism, that of popular sovereignty ,was promptly derailed by that closet
monarchist.
Well, at least his fellow Federalist (and London bankster tool) Alexander Hamilton got his
just desserts.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting
of his country's natural resources.
False. But Giraldi knows most readers won't know the truth. It wasn't "western looting,"
it was looting by a group inside Russia, "the oligarchs". Eight out of the twelve were Jews,
among them the top oligarch, Berezovsky.
Philip Giraldi also doesn't mention that Madeleine Albright is a Jew. It's as if her lust
for war springs from being pro-American to a fault. Right? Except it's all about destroying
Israel's targets, the few Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations that support the
Palestinians. And Russia, for giving some support to pro-Palestinian Iran and Syria. The
Israeli Lobby always gets what it wants.
Both in Russia and in the Middle East it's about race, not "the West". Of course, ask a
communist like "Eric Striker" who writes for Unz Review, and he'll do everything he can to
make you believe it's "the Right," "capitalists," "the West" who are behind it all, while
conveniently forgetting the Left's domination of media, universities and politics. The lies
flow freely.
'Steal of the Century' (Part 2), filmed in occupied #Palestine is now out! (The first part
is being censored on Youtube.) Find out what Donald Trump's plan has paved the way for and
what's happening right now in Palestine. •Premiered Aug 2, 2020
'Steal Of The Century': Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe (Documentary) | Episode
2/2
Belgrade has been razed 44 times. In the 20th century, it was bombed thrice. In World War
II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs were mass murdered by Croats, an undisputed fact still
little known.
From the taxi into town, I was reintroduced to the concrete housing blocks that are typical
of the former Eastern Bloc. Belgrade's few high-rises are left over the 1970's, perhaps the
worst decade for architecture ever. Its gorgeous buildings from the late 19th and early 20th
centuries have been crumbling for decades.
I passed a monstrously huge banner of Serbian soldiers, with the lead one a stern female
saluting, with accusation in her eyes. This draped the former Yugoslav Defense Ministry
. Bombed
by NATO in 1999, its mauled remains
are left as
is .
At a nearby park days later, I'd chance upon a bronze statue of a small
girl holding a rag doll. Framed by a black marble slab resembling butterfly wings, she
stood on a grave-like marker that's partly inscribed, "DEDICATED TO THE CHILDREN KILLED BY NATO
AGGRESSION 1999."
Most of the world, though, don't see Serbians as victims so much as perpetrators of
genocide, as recently evidenced by the Siege of Sarajevo and, even more so, Srebrenica.
During the mid 1990's, the world turned its back on the massacres of Muslims in Bosnia.
The UN would not call it genocide because that would have demanded military intervention.
Most shamefully, the Muslim world also closed its eyes as up to 160,000 Bosnian Muslims were
slaughtered, starved and tortured in Serb-run concentration camps. At least 10,000 Muslim
girls and women were gang raped, some in special rape camps.
A hundred-and-sixty-thousand is an atrociously high number of victims, but how many were
actually slaughtered, as opposed to tortured or starved? Surely, Margolis didn't mean they were
all starved, tortured then slaughtered? It's an oddly ambiguous passage for a seasoned
author.
In any case, Margolis had seen it coming:
In 1988, I wrote warning that Milosevic would create disaster in Bosnia and Kosova, the
Albanian-majority region of southern Serbia. I was denounced in Belgrade and declared an
enemy of the Serbs. In truth, I had always been an admirer of Serbs as courageous,
intelligent people. But the Serbs that Milosevic rallied were the scum of the gutter,
criminals, racists, brutal pig farmers, fanatical priests.
On December 8th, 2017, The Saker presented an entirely different take :
Truly, that war had it all, every dirty trick was used against the Serbs: numerous false
flags attacks, pseudo-genocides, illegal covert operations to arm terrorists groups, the
covert delivery of weapons to officially embargoed entities, deliberate attacks against
civilians, the use of illegal weapons, the use of officially "demilitarized zones" to hide
(fully armed) entire army corps – you name it: if it is disgusting it was used against
the Serbian people. Even deliberate attacks on the otherwise sacrosanct journalistic
profession was considered totally normal as long as the journalists were Serbs. As for the
Serbs, they were, of course, demonized. Milosevic became the "New Hitler" (along with Saddam
Hussein) and those Serbs who took up arms to defend their land and families became genocidal
Chetniks.
Brigadier-General Pierre Marie Gallois of the French Army has condemned the NATO
destruction of Yugoslavia, and has gone on record stating that the endless stories of Serb
atrocities, such as mass rapes and the siege of Sarajevo were fabricated. Gallois also argues
that the German elite sought revenge for the fierce Serb resistance during the two world
wars, especially with regard to the Serb partisans that held up German divisions that were
headed towards Leningrad and Moscow during Operation Barbarossa. While relentlessly
demonized, the Serbs were in many ways the greatest victims of the NATO-orchestrated Balkan
wars, as hundreds of thousands of Serbs were forcibly expelled from both Croatia and Kosovo
while Serbia was turned into a free-fire zone by NATO for over seventy days. Washington took
advantage of the conflict to solidify control over its European vassals.
The Saker's parents fled to Belgrade as Russian refugees, and he even had a Serbian
godmother, so there is a strong emotional attachment here, which The Saker freely admits.
Still, The Saker at his website has rebutted the inflated hooey of Srebrenica with some
hard facts
.
It's entirely unclear, even approximately, how many were intentionally executed, instead of
being killed in battle, whether by Serbs or other Muslims, or who died because of starvation,
suicide or illness.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's star witness, and the only
one convicted of direct participation in the Srebrenica "genocide," was not a Serb, but a
Bosnian Croat, Drazen Erdemovic.
On June 27th, 1996, the ICTY itself declared Erdemovic mentally impaired, yet, on July 5th,
1996, it put him on the witness stand anyway.
Even more incredibly, Erdemovic admitted he had fought for all three sides during that
conflict, Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Dude couldn't decide whom he was trying to kill or
defend.
In exchange for his testimonies against Serbs, Erdemovic was jailed for just five years,
then given a new identity and whisked to a new country, so who knows, he might be living next
to you as John Smith.
It's just a neighborhood squabble, you might be thinking. Who cares about Montenegroes? I've
got my own black asses to kiss. I'm already kneeling, massa.
As always, though, there are lessons aplenty from the Balkans.
Serbs didn't have a country for five centuries, and Croats went stateless for eight, yet
neither lost their fierce sense of nationhood, that is, their nationalism. It's not a debatable
concept, but a deeply felt necessity, for how can any population with a unique history,
heritage and identity not have its own homeland?
In the 21st century, such tribal thinking is not just deemed barbaric, but evil, Nazism, in
short, except in Israel, of course. Gas chambers, remember?
When nations are contorted, tortured or simply enticed into any supranational entity, a
correction, often violent, is inevitable, and that's exactly what has happened, repeatedly, in
the Balkans. Wholesome pig farmers convulsed against the Ottomans, Austro-Hungarian Empire and
Communists, etc. There is no progress beyond this.
This innate nationalism can only be purged when a population has been thoroughly cowed
and/or brainwashed into renouncing itself, but the Serbs, for all for their defeats and
humiliations down the centuries, never did. There's a magnificent lesson there.
Rebecca West, "So in the first battle of Kossovo the Serbs learned the meaning of defeat,
not such defeat as forms a necessary proportion of all effort, for in that they had often been
instructed during the course of their history, but of total defeat, annihilation of their
corporate will and all their individual wills. The second battle of Kossovo taught them that
one may live on such a low level of existence that even defeat cannot be achieved. The third
taught them that even that level is not the lowest, and that there is a limbo for subject
peoples where there is neither victory nor defeat but abortions which, had they come to birth,
would have become such states."
Repeatedly butchered, suffocated and written off, Serbs have rebirthed themselves, thanks to
their nationalism.
When the Turks were in Belgrade, they embellished this city with 273 beautiful mosques, so
where the hell are they?! Only one is left, unfortunately, and the Bajrakli Mosque
almost joined all the rest when it was torched in 2004, in retaliation for the burning of
Serbian churches in Kosovo.
Built in 1575, it is elegant, intimate and handsomely proportioned, with the only false note
the jivey, concrete minaret, clearly a recent replacement. Inside , I
admired its minbar ,
octagonal wooden tablets etched with calligraphy and, especially, the stone, baroque frame around
some verse, a nice East meets West touch. Light angled in from high windows . The
darkened dome soothed.
It's an active mosque. Half a dozen suited Muslims milled outside, until they all left, so
that I could have cleared out their mosque had I wanted to, and started World War III. Outside
the gate, there was an old beggar
, but she too disappeared, because I had already given her sixty cents.
Leaving the Bajrakli Mosque, I walked by Dukat, a Turkish restaurant, then Zein, a Lebanese
one. The Arabic Zuwar was also nearby. Though not nearly as cosmopolitan as, say, Busan,
contemporary Belgrade is no xenophobic backwater. Chinese
takeouts dot the city, and there's even a Chinese shopping center at Blok 70, in New
Belgrade.
I'm writing this in a bar, Dzidzi Midzi
, where American pop music is played nonstop. On its walls are mostly photos of American icons,
such as Hitchcock, Dylan, Hendrix, Buffalo Bill, Jack Nicholson, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd,
Louis Armstrong and Bruce Lee (who was born in San Francisco, graduated from the University of
Washington, married an American and is buried in Seattle). Though imploding, America
still mesmerizes. Tellingly, there's just one Serb, Nicolas Tesla, and one Russian, Yuri
Gagarin, who's depicted as a generic, faceless astronaut, with a quotation in English, "I see
no god up here "
This is no touristy brewpub, but a Janko Janković joint in Hadžipopovac, a
neighborhood of drab buildings, frankly. I'm paying $1.90 for a pint of Staropramen, and a
flatbread sandwich with prosciutto and gouda is just $2.50.
Although Vietnam doesn't have an embassy here, there's a Vietnamese at the University of
Belgrade. Here nine years and working on his second degree, this young man's so in love with
Serbia, he's changed his name to Hoan Zlatanovic. Odder still was the Japanese who fought
alongside Serbs and Russians in Bosnia. A self-declared "Japanese cheknik," he risked his life
while forgoing a salary and his monthly cigar.
Oddest, perhaps, is Serbia's yearning to join the European Union, though not NATO, which
already includes Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro. They're all
leaning West. Last to board, they'll get to enjoy some choppy sailing with the big boys.
Bombing Serbia, America gave Russia and China a wakeup call, and forced them towards a new
understanding. Everything changed after 1999. Again, this tiny nation played an outsized role
in remaking our world.
Balkanizing, Americans can look here for warnings and inspiration. Five hundred years from
now, a Serbian nation will still exist.
"Gallois also argues that the German elite sought revenge for the fierce Serb resistance
during the two world wars, especially with regard to the Serb partisans that held up German
divisions that were headed towards Leningrad and Moscow during Operation Barbarossa"
I wonder whether this french general has talked to some actual Germans. Everybody who knows
just a little bit about german elites in the nineties knows that this an abstruse idea.
Balkanizing, Americans can look here for warnings and inspiration. Five hundred years from
now, a Serbian nation will still exist.
Beautiful tail on a beautiful essay. Thanks, Linh.
As also, the Serbs had no choice in any Balkanization, but their American counterparts look
on sheepishly as their plutocrat masters are inflicting it on the USA. Our end won't be
justice: The same scum who used 1999 as practice are just using what they learned in
California, etc. They won't be happy till the whole world is stateless and landless. Except
them.
"Balkanization" is a curiously old subject. As a true wet-behind-the-ears nipper the first
public speech I ever heard was during the one (and only) week I ever spent in New England. Ayn
Rand gave her speech, entitled Global Balkanization at Boston's Ford Hall Forum in 1977. Just
as a curiosity I wanted to see if it has any of it held up. She might have been on everyone's
brown list by then, but her energy levels were still high:
I put these comments on the open thread about the same time b started this one
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1289724554982629377
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil to
US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White
House."
Trump a few months back "We've kept the oil". Well, he hasn't had a problem hanging onto
it and getting an American company involved.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil
to US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White
House."
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 2 2020 14:35 utc | 2
Very likely the Kurds were under pressure from Trump, and the act wasn't voluntary. It's
not even the Kurds' oil to sign a deal on (except one well). We'll see whether the
operation actually succeeds. At the moment, everybody is waiting to see whether Trump is
re-elected in November. Signing a piece of paper now is of no significance.
How a US military doctrine became Colombia's 'origin of evil' | Part 1: "Popeye" : What is known in Latin America as the National Security Doctrine [is] not defense against
an external enemy, but a way to make the military establishment the masters of the game
[with] the right to combat the internal enemy : it is the right to fight and to exterminate
social workers, trade unionists, men and women who are not supportive of the establishment,
and who are assumed to be communist extremists. And this could mean anyone, including human
rights activists such as myself.
Colombia's former Foreign Minister Alfredo Vasquez
"... Does the mass media think they can “hide the ball” while Seattle turns into a war zone? Seriously–in the Internet age? They _can’t_ be that stupid, can they? ..."
Does the mass media think they can “hide the ball” while Seattle turns
into a war zone? Seriously–in the Internet age? They _can’t_ be that
stupid, can they?
(When I put on the tin foil hat it whispers to me “they know, they are lying on
purpose, they want Trump re-elected to improve their ratings, and they want to anger voters
by lying about Seattle”. Then I take off the tin foil hat and I say
“Na–they really are that stupid.”)
@Big Dan
were Bolsheviks, they'd be out burning down BANKS, Corporatized Giants like Target, Walmart,
Amazon warehouses and MOST of Silicon Tech Giants.
We know these protesters are funded by:
George Soros
The Ford Foundation
Amazon
Big Tech
Big Banks
Nike
Adidas
T-Mobile
Amazon
and ALL the other vulture capitalists that thrive in this environment.
Whitney, needs to start reading about the history of Socialism; Marx' acute hatred against
Capitalism, Lenin, Others. Then and ONLY THEN will his preposterous statements reveal him as
the usual ILLITERATE American.
@Robert
Dolan d come out to a modernistic building on York U's Keele Campus in Toronto to hear
the stories of former Israeli soldiers.
York U's Vari Hall had been the scene of some ugly confrontations in the past, but no one
had expected 500 BDS and Antifa bigots to show up screaming hatred and attacking Jewish
students on campus.
Some of these Bolsheviks can be the most disgusting racists in the world. Some months
back, a bunch of anti-fa criminal baffoons attacked two Hispanics, who they mistook to be
members of the Conservative group 'The Proud Boys' and called them spics and beaners. So much
for anti-racism.
"... The U.S. has spent a century or more trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences. ..."
"... The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal, nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. ..."
"... To the point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so? ..."
"... Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business. ..."
"... Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers, including former Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin, Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world. ..."
"... Under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the ' Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to have played a role in the murder of Che Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered. ..."
"... To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,' adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind. ..."
"... Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War. ..."
"... the U.S. had indicated its intention to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be taken in good faith. ..."
"... Following the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them. In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former Baltic states were brought under NATO's control . ..."
"... The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC) in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here . The economic and military annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2 . The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis on its payroll in 1948. ..."
"... That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges ..."
"... Its near instantaneous adoption by bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?' ..."
"... Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this move. ..."
The political success of Russiagate lies in the vanishing of American history in favor of a
façade of liberal virtue. Posed as a response to the election of Donald Trump, a
straight line can be drawn from efforts to undermine the decommissioning of the American war
economy in 1946 to the CIA's alliance with Ukrainian fascists in 2014. In 1945 the NSC
(National Security Council) issued a series of directives that gave logic and direction to the
CIA's actions during the Cold War. That these persist despite the 'fall of communism' suggests
that it was always just a placeholder in the pursuit of other objectives.
The first Cold War was an imperial business enterprise to keep the Generals, bureaucrats,
and war materiel suppliers in power and their bank accounts flush after WWII. Likewise, the
American side of the nuclear arms race left former
Gestapo and SS officers employed by the CIA to put their paranoid fantasies forward as
assessments of Russian military capabilities. Why, of all people, would former Nazi officers be
put in charge military intelligence if accurate assessments were the goal? The Nazis hated the
Soviets more than the Americans did.
The ideological binaries of Russiagate -- for or against Donald Trump, for or against
neoliberal, petrostate Russia, define the boundaries of acceptable discourse to the benefit of
deeply nefarious interests. The U.S. has spent a century or more
trying to install a U.S.-friendly government in Moscow. Following the dissolution of the USSR
in 1991, the U.S. sent neoliberal economists to
loot the country as the Clinton administration, and later the Obama administration, placed
NATO troops and armaments on the Russian border after a
negotiated agreement not to do so . Subsequent claims of realpolitik are cover for a
reckless disregard for geopolitical consequences.
The paradox of American liberalism, articulated when feminist icon and CIA asset Gloria
Steinem described the CIA as ' liberal,
nonviolent and honorable ,' is that educated, well-dressed, bourgeois functionaries have
used the (largely manufactured) threat of foreign subversion to install right-wing nationalists
subservient to American business interests at every opportunity. Furthermore, Steinem's
aggressive ignorance of the actual history of the CIA illustrates the liberal propensity to
conflate bourgeois dress and attitude with an imagined
gentility . To the
point made by Christopher Simpson , the CIA could have achieved better results had it not
employed former Nazi officers, begging the question of why it chose to do so?
On the American left, Russiagate is treated as a case of bad reporting, of official outlets
for government propaganda serially reporting facts and events that were subsequently disproved.
However, some fair portion of the American bourgeois, the PMC that acts in supporting roles for
capital, believes every word of it. Russiagate is the nationalist party line in the American
fight against communism, without the communism. Charges of treason have been lodged every time
that military budgets have come under attack since 1945. In 1958 the senior leadership of the
Air Force was charging the other branches of the military with treason for doubting its utterly
fantastical (and later disproven) estimate of Soviet ICBMs. Treason is good for business.
Shortly after WWII ended, the CIA employed hundreds of former Nazi military officers,
including former
Gestapo and SS officers responsible for murdering tens and hundreds of thousands of human
beings , to run a spy operation known as the Gehlen Organization from Berlin,
Germany. Given its central role in assessing the military intentions and capabilities of the
Soviet Union, the Gehlen Organization was more likely than not responsible for the CIA's
overstatement of Soviet nuclear capabilities in the 1950s used to support the U.S. nuclear
weapons program. Former Nazis were also integrated
into CIA efforts to install right wing governments around the world.
By the time that (Senator) John F. Kennedy claimed a U.S. 'missile gap' with the Soviets in
1958, the CIA was providing estimates of Soviet ICBMs (Inter-continental Ballistic Missiles),
that were
wildly inflated -- most likely provided to it by the Gehlen Organization. Once satellite
and U2 reconnaissance estimates became available, the CIA lowered its own to 120 Soviet ICBMs
when the actual number
was four . On the one hand, the Soviets really did have a nuclear weapons program. On the
other, it was a tiny fraction of what was being claimed. Bad reporting, unerringly on the side
of larger military budgets, appears to be the constant.
Under the
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act passed by Congress in 1998, the CIA was made to partially
disclose its affiliation with, and employment of, former Nazis. In contrast to the '
Operation Paperclip ' thesis that it was Nazi scientists who were brought to the U.S. to
labor as scientists, the Gehlen Organization and CIC employed known war criminals in
political roles. Klaus Barbie, the 'Butcher of Lyon,' was employed by the CIC, and claims to
have played a role in the murder of Che
Guevara . Wernher von Braun, one of the Operation Paperclip 'scientists,' worked in a Nazi
concentration camp as tens of thousands of human beings were murdered.
The historical sequence in the U.S. was WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, to an economy that
was heavily dependent on war production. The threatened decommissioning of the war economy in
1946 was first met with an
honest assessment of Soviet intentions -- the Soviets were moving infrastructure back into
Soviet territory as quickly as was practicable, then to the military budget-friendly claim that
they were putting resources in place to invade Europe. The result of the shift was that the
American Generals kept their power and the war industry kept producing materiel and weapons. By
1948 these weapons had come to include atomic bombs.
To understand the political space that military production came to occupy, from 1948 onward
the U.S. military became a well-funded bureaucracy where charges of treason were regularly
traded between the branches. Internecine battles for funding and strategic dominance were (and
are) regularly fought. The tactic that this bureaucracy -- the 'military industrial complex,'
adopted was to exaggerate foreign threats in a contest for bureaucratic dominance. The nuclear
arms race was made a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the U.S. produced world-ending weapons
non-stop for decades on end, the Soviets responded in kind.
What ties the Gehlen Organization to CIA estimates of Soviet nuclear weapons from 1948
– 1958 is 1) the Gehlen Organization was central to the CIA's intelligence operations
vis-à-vis the Soviets, 2) the CIA had limited alternatives to gather information on the
Soviets outside of the Gehlen Organization and 3) the senior leadership of the U.S. military
had
long demonstrated that it approved of exaggerating foreign threats when doing so enhanced
their power and added to their budgets. Long story short, the CIA employed hundreds of former
Nazi officers who had the ideological predisposition and economic incentive to mis-perceive
Soviet intentions and misstate Soviet capabilities to fuel the Cold War.
Where this gets interesting is that American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was working for the Rand
Corporation in the late 1950s and early 1960s when estimates of Soviet ICBMs were being put
forward. JFK had run (in 1960) on a platform that included closing the Soviet – U.S. '
missile
gap .' The USAF (U.S. Air Force), charged with delivering nuclear missiles to their
targets, was estimating that the Soviets had 1,000 ICBMs. Mr. Ellsberg, who had limited
security clearance through his employment at Rand, was leaked the known number of Soviet ICBMs.
The Air Force was saying 1,000 Soviet ICBMs when the number confirmed by reconnaissance
satellites was four.
By 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA had shifted nominal control of the
Gehlen Organization to the BND, for whom Gehlen continued to work. Based on ongoing satellite
reconnaissance data, the CIA was busy lowering its estimates of Soviet nuclear capabilities.
Benjamin Schwarz, writing
for The Atlantic in 2013, provided an account, apparently informed by the CIA's lowered
estimates, where he placed the whole of the Soviet nuclear weapons program (in 1962) at roughly
one-ninth the size of the U.S. effort. However, given Ellsberg's known count of four Soviet
ICBMs at the time of the missile crisis, even Schwarz's ratio of 1:9 seems to overstate Soviet
capabilities.
Further per Schwarz's reporting, the Jupiter nuclear missiles that the U.S. had placed in
Italy prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis only made sense as first-strike weapons. This
interpretation is corroborated by Daniel Ellsberg , who argues
that the American plan was always to initiate the use of nuclear weapons (first strike). This
made JFK's posture of equally matched contestants in a geopolitical game of nuclear chicken
utterly unhinged. Should this be less than clear, because the U.S. had indicated its intention
to use nuclear weapons in a first strike -- and had demonstrated the intention by placing
Jupiter missiles in Italy, nothing that the U.S. offered during the Missile Crisis could be
taken in good faith.
The dissolution of the USSR in 1991 was met with a promised reduction in U.S. military
spending and an end to the Cold War, neither of which ultimately materialized. Following the
election of Bill Clinton in 1992, the Cold War entered a new phase. Cold War logic was
repurposed to support the oxymoronic 'humanitarian wars' -- liberating people by bombing them.
In 1995 'Russian meddling' meant the Clinton administration rigging
the election of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian presidential election. Mr. Clinton then
unilaterally reneged on the American agreement to keep NATO from Russia's border when former
Baltic
states were brought under NATO's control .
The Obama administration's 2014 incitement in Ukraine , by way of
fostering and supporting the Maidan uprising and the ousting of Ukraine's democratically
elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, ties to the U.S. strategy of containing and overthrowing
the Soviet (Russian) government that was first codified by the National Security Council (NSC)
in 1945. The NSC's directives can be found here and here .
The economic and military
annexation of Ukraine by the U.S. (NATO didn't exist in 1945) comes under NSC10/2
. The alliance between the CIA and Ukrainian fascists ties to directive NSC20 , the plan
to sponsor Ukrainian-affiliated former Nazis in order to install them in the Kremlin to replace
the Soviet government. This was part of the CIA's rationale for putting Ukrainian-affiliated
former Nazis on its payroll in 1948.
That Russiagate is the continuation of a scheme launched in 1945 by the National Security
Council, to be engineered by the CIA with help from former Nazi officers in its employ, speaks
volumes about the Cold War frame from which it emerges.
Its near instantaneous adoption by
bourgeois liberals demonstrates the class basis of the right-wing nationalism it supports. That
liberals appear to perceive themselves as defenders 'democracy' within a trajectory laid out by
unelected military leaders more than seven decades earlier is testament to the power of
historical ignorance tied to nationalist fervor. Were the former Gestapo and SS officers
employed by the CIA 'our Nazis?'
The Nazi War
Crimes Disclosure Act came about in part because Nazi hunters kept coming across Nazi war
criminals living in the U.S. who told them they had been brought here and given employment by
the CIA, CIC, or some other division of the Federal government. If the people in these agencies
thought that doing so was justified, why the secrecy? And if it wasn't justified, why was it
done? Furthermore, are liberals really comfortable bringing fascists with direct historical
ties to the Third Reich to power in Ukraine? And while there are no good choices in the
upcoming U.S. election, the guy who liberals want to bring to power is lead architect of this
move.Cue the Sex
Pistols .
"Modern jihadism was co-invented in 1979 by Saudi Prince"
Yes after the Mecca siege they found the potential of wahabi islam(redefined by Qutb
teachings in the previous years) to be used against the enemy of zionism.Without 20 November
1979 (not in Teheran but in Mecca) there wouldn't have been any suicide bomber in the years
after.Those men with long beards and strong motivations were a great threat to the saudi
family..they had no fear to die for their struggle because the struggle was all their
life...They had a genuine hatred for usa and saudi corrupted state.It was only a matter of
annihilating them internally and at the same time promoting their birth everywhere in the
Sunni Islamic world...to serve the zionist scum.
The "no-fly zone" issue is covered in a second video suggested when this one almost
ends...It is also told that Obama opposed at first the destruction of Lybia, along with the
important participation of some NATO superpowers on basis of geopolitical interests and, of
course, looting of always...It was a coalition of the willing with assorted goals...althoughm
ainly benefitted the US in its cursade on the ME...
All these wars have happened to destroy kinda powerful nations ( competing
economic/military powers...), like Lybia in Africa and Yugoslavia in Europe on behalf of
others´hegemony...
Great video that everyone should see (especially clueless Americans) but it should've
included Obama's illegally turning a "no fly" Zone into a bombing campaign.
The UN had only authorized a "no fly" zone and Obama never sought authorization from
Congress for war.
Okay, I'll bite, Jackrabbit - sorry if I haven't followed your line of thinking on CIA and
Hillary ...wanting to elect Trump??? That really doesn't make sense to me. That would mean
everything about the really outrageous campaign against Trump's presidency has been
orchestrated so we chumps wouldn't guess they really were secretly rejoicing?
Sorry, I just don't buy it. But of course, I could be wrong. Who knows what dark deeds are
being secretly devised behind all these curtains of lies? (A good reason to suppose there is
a God who sees and who will someday reveal to us mortals what has really been going on. I
can't wait to find out.)
A couple of relevant section from the NPR which I think Putin was replying to.
https://media.defense.gov/2018/Feb/02/2001872886/-1/-1/1/2018-NUCLEAR-POSTURE-REVIEW-FINAL-REPORT.PDF
From page 21...
"The United States would only consider the employment of nuclear weapons in extreme
circumstances
to defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners. Extreme
circumstances
could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks. Significant non-nuclear strategic
attacks
include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population
or
infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or
warning
and attack assessment capabilities.
The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons
states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation
obligations.
Given the potential of significant non-nuclear strategic attacks, the United States reserves
the right
to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and
proliferation
of non-nuclear strategic attack technologies and U.S. capabilities to counter that
threat."
And page 34...
"Our deterrence strategy is designed to ensure that the Iranian leadership understands
that
any non-nuclear strategic attack against the United States, allies, and partners would be
defeated, and that the cost would outweigh any benefits. There is no plausible scenario
in
which Iran may anticipate benefit from launching a strategic attack. Consequently, U.S
deterrence strategy includes the capabilities necessary to defeat Iranian non-nuclear,
strategic capabilities, including the U.S. defensive and offensive systems capable of
precluding or degrading Tehran's missile threats. The United States will continue to
strengthen these capabilities as necessary to stay ahead of Iranian threats as they grow.
Doing so will enhance U.S. security and that of our regional allies and partners."
The page 34 section states plainly that US is willing to use nuclear weapons against
Iran's non nuclear capabilities.
I should have highlighted this in my previous post.
The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons
states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation
obligations.
After the drone shoot-down last week, Israel and USA sought to convince Russia to allow a
strike against Iran. The Russians rebuffed this request as well as the depiction of Iran as a
terrorist state
"In the context of the statements made by our partners with regard to a major regional
power, namely Iran, I would like to say the following: Iran has always been and remains
our ally and partner , with which we are consistently developing relations both on
bilateral basis and within multilateral formats,"
...Iran launching very clever non-silo dug down ballistic missiles. Anyone can copy the
idea in earth or sand, it looks relatively simple and perhaps genius. It should only require
minimal additions similar to when missiles are "containerized"/vertical on ships.
· "W93/MK7 Navy Warhead -- Developing Modern Capabilities to Address Current and
Future Threats" - Pentagon, Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), unclassified 5-page white paper, May 2020 is still not "leaked". Seems a dud: reading
between the lines not written no one was convinced and instead complained about anyone saying
there's any problems (how "exceptional").
"Red, commanded by retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, adopted an
asymmetric strategy, in particular, using old methods to evade Blue's sophisticated
electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to
front-line troops and World-War-II-style light signals to launch airplanes without radio
communications.
Red received an ultimatum from Blue, essentially a surrender document, demanding a
response within 24 hours. Thus warned of Blue's approach, Red used a fleet of small boats to
determine the position of Blue's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive
strike, Red launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces'
electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. The losses were as follows: one aircraft
carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real
conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the
cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of Blue's navy was "sunk" by an armada
of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized
on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected."
Iranians are not part of the rules based order it seems - not that the bad guys in the war
game was played by Iranians.
In the 2002 war game, the US was defeated in 2 days - lost a massive part of its fleet or
some such. So they stopped the game and changed the rules. I think that's when Van Riper quit
the game in disgust, and of course ultimately went public. But even with the rules changed,
the US still lost.
The point about these exercises is that they are real endeavors to create a playbook that
will result in victory. Millennium cost about $200 million to stage, and even for the
Pentagon that was war-fighting money spent to try to get somewhere. The next point even more
crucial is that in EVERY exercise the Pentagon has undertaken since this game, the US is
ALWAYS beaten by Iran.
This is the point I frequently try to hammer home here - the Pentagon has no map
whatsoever that leads to victory in warfare against Iran. Any warfare will always result in
defeat for the US - and we know how unpalatable a public defeat would be for the whole MIC
stream of income. The fundamentals are stacked against the US. It's very similar to Israel's
position right now against Hezbollah. For both the US and Israel, neither one can move
forward along the path it wants to go because its foe simply cannot be beaten by any
stratagem it can devise.
Sharmine Narwani talked about this extensively in her interview with Ross Ashcroft last
year on Renegade, Inc. It's an excellent interview. She's expert on the geopolitics of the ME
and laid out many of the fundamentals that create and support Iran's unwavering position in
this theater and in the great game:
I keep this episode bookmarked largely to share it here from time to time. You will both
enjoy the interview. The takeaway is that the US can bluster all it wants, but it dare not
cross a red line with Iran - such as it already has, for example, with Soleimani's murder,
and for which it has not yet suffered its full punishment, which is complete banishment from
the ME (and which I am convinced Iran will ultimately achieve).
~~
When your generals tell you constantly, daily, that you can't go into battle in a certain
theater, you are free to bluster all you want. In fact, it's all you have left, and you pour
all your feeble energy into it. Thus, the US.
Peter AU1 50 & 55 Bemildred & Grieved 70
RE: Millenium Challenge 2002
And yet, I keep pointing out that, that was 18 long years ago, when Iran did NOT have the
following:
Terminal guidance for it's ballistics
Armed drone technology
Satellite to map out the battlefield
Proximity to Israel (two countries sat between Iran and Israel)
Electronic surveillance and response, like spoofing a drone to land in Iran.
S300 and home built variations
Cyber
Experience watching coalition forces fighting in ME
Etc, etc,
US could not attack Iran conventionally but with Trump's earlier fixation on nuclear
weapons I think he was going to give that a try. Putin must have thought so to as he very
publicly laid Russia's nuclear umbrella over Iran and maintained the status quo.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 1 2020 9:03 utc | 88 US could not attack Iran
conventionally
The US is perfectly capable of *attacking* Iran conventionally. The only thing to question
is whether the US can *defeat* Iran in the sense that Iran "surrenders" officially to the US.
*That* is in my view impossible short of the US actually killing thirty million Iranians by
nuking Iran.
Which in turn I believe even Trump would not do. He really would get Pentagon pushback on
that, as well as from every US ally and the UNSC, because no one wants to get the
geopolitical hear from being the first country to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear
country (this isn't WWII any more, before anyone brings up Hiroshima.)
As for Putin declaring Iran an ally, that does *not* mean that Putin would risk a nuclear
confrontation with the US over Iran. Not going to happen - even if the US nuked Tehran.
Putin's charge is to take care of Russian interests - and having Iran as an "ally and
partner" does qualify as an "interest". But it is *not* an *overriding* interest. Putin would
not be authorized by the Russian people to risk their country being nuked over a bunch of
Persians and if he did, they'd kick his butt out at the next election - and rightly so.
Current Russian military doctrine (discussed
here specifies the following:
The section on use begins by repeating the formulation in the last two Russian military
doctrines (translation from the Russian Embassy in the U.K.): "The Russian Federation shall
reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types
of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of
aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the
very existence of the state is in jeopardy." Like the doctrines, Foundations underlines
that the president of the Russian Federation makes any decision to use nuclear weapons.
However, unlike the doctrines, it then, in paragraph 19, outlines four conditions that
could allow for (not require) nuclear use:
credible information that Russia is under ballistic missile attack (the missiles don't
have to be nuclear -- this isn't specified -- but in many cases, it's hard to tell before
they land);
the use of nuclear or other WMD by an adversary against Russian territory or that of its
allies;
adversary actions against Russian critical government or military infrastructure that could
undermine Russia's capacity for nuclear retaliation (so, for example, a cyber attack on
Russia's command and control -- or perhaps one that targets Russian leadership could also
qualify); and, finally,
conventional aggression against Russia that threatens the very existence of the state.
The primary requirement is the use of nukes or "WMDs" against Russia, or conventional
weapons where their use is an "existential threat", i.e., Russia is about to be defeated on a
conventional battlefield.
the phrase "and/or its allies" almost certainly does *not* include Iran. There are two
"alliances" to which Russia is a party, according to Wikipedia:
1) Collective Security Treaty Organization: Military alliance with 6 former Soviet republics:
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
2) Union State: an alliance between Russia and Belarus (also already covered by 1).
Russia and Iran do not have any formal military or mutual-defense alliance agreements.
Russia and Iran are "allied" only with regard to Syria and Islamic terrorism in general.
Russia is willing to sell Iran arms, obviously. Equally obviously, that does not indicate a
willingness to risk nuclear war.
Putin made the following statement in June of 2019:
After talks Friday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the sidelines of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization summit in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Putin said that
"relations between Russia and Iran are multifaceted, multilateral" and that "this concerns
the economy, this concerns the issues of stability in the region, our joint efforts to
combat terrorism, including in Syria."
Nothing in that statement indicates a willingness to use Russia's nuclear arsenal to
threaten the US to prevent a US attack on Iran.
It is of course *possible* that some in the Pentagon, the Deep State, and/or Congress, may
interpret that to be the case. But I think the primary restraint on any President would be
the heat for a first use of nukes on a non-nuclear country - even if the alleged "reason" was
that Iran was developing nukes.
Even severe damage to US Navy assets in the region would not be sufficient to justify the use
of nukes against Iran, in particular because the only viable target for nukes would Tehran or
some other major Iranian city.
It is just possible that a tactical nuke would be used against a heavily buried facility
involved in nuclear weapons development (or more precisely, alleged to be so - because Iran
won't be developing nukes regardless of any US attack.) But even that would likely produce
more heat than the US would want - and if it was done, it would be done as covertly as
possible and then denied by the US. And even in that case, Russia would not threaten a
nuclear response over that.
Of course, if the US leadership were to become even more unhinged than Trump, or say, the
Russian leadership after Putin were to become more hawkish, then all bets are off. But under
current conditions, it's not going to happen.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/56957
"In this connection, I would like to note the following. We are greatly concerned by certain
provisions of the revised nuclear posture review, which expand the opportunities for reducing
and reduce the threshold for the use of nuclear arms. Behind closed doors, one may say
anything to calm down anyone, but we read what is written. And what is written is that this
strategy can be put into action in response to conventional arms attacks and even to a
cyber-threat.
I should note that our military doctrine says Russia reserves the right to use nuclear
weapons solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack with other weapons of mass
destruction against the country or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with the
use of conventional weapons that threaten the very existence of the state. This all is very
clear and specific.
As such, I see it is my duty to announce the following. Any use of nuclear weapons against
Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a
nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant
consequences."
Patrushev from my link above.
"In the context of the statements made by our partners with regard to a major regional power,
namely Iran, I would like to say the following: Iran has always been and remains our ally and
partner, with which we are consistently developing relations both on bilateral basis and
within multilateral formats"
Patrushev went to the meeting as a presidential envoy. After Putin's 2018 speech, I wondered
who Russia considered an ally as I had not seen Russia name any. I tend to think Patrushev
had reason to publicly name Iran as an ally at that presser. My guess is Israel and US were
trying to get Russia to stand aside while they attacked Iran.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 1 2020 10:52 utc | 95 I tend to think Patrushev had reason to
publicly name Iran as an ally at that presser. My guess is Israel and US were trying to get
Russia to stand aside while they attacked Iran.
Nonetheless, the two statements do not constitute an official declaration that Iran is an
ally in the sense of being under the Russian nuclear umbrella, as the countries in the list I
quoted from Wikipedia are. The Collective Security Treaty Organization "charter reaffirmed
the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force.
Signatories would not be able to join other military alliances or other groups of states,[3]
while aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all."
That's a military alliance which specifically declares those countries as "allies" in the
military sense and specifically states that an attack on any of them is an attack on all of
them.
Putin nor anyone else in Russia has specifically stated that Iran is an ally in those same
terms. Putin's reference to Iran as an ally applied to economic matters and the security of
Syria.
There is an article at Stratfor which I cannot access, but the tagline says: "Nikolai
Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), said Feb.
25 [2020] that Moscow's nuclear umbrella has been extended to other CSTO member countries..."
In other words, the nuclear umbrella didn't even cover the former Soviet Union countries
until this year, apparently. From another article I found, Russia extended the umbrella to
Belarus in 2000. Another article I found says this:
Finally, Russia has created its own military alliance through the Collective Security
Treaty (1992) or "Tashkent treaty". In 2002, the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) was created, with a view to parallel NATO. As of June 2009, the organization
included Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which are
implicitly covered by a Russian nuclear guarantee. Even though Russian officials refer
sometimes to all Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) countries being protected by Moscow's nuclear forces, it is
reasonable to assume that only CSTO countries are effectively under the Russian nuclear
umbrella.
So I simply don't see any reference anywhere to Russia explicitly extending its nuclear
umbrella outside of the former Soviet Bloc countries. Again, all of the references made by
Russians - Putin or otherwise - to Iran as an "ally" do not reference a military dimension.
Of course, it's always *possible* that Putin or some future Russian leader *would* extend
that umbrella to Iran, depending on future circumstances. But it seems highly unlikely.
I repeat: There is no chance that Russia will go to nuclear war over Iran. Or even
conventional war against US military assets engaged in an attack on Iran because that would
risk escalation to a nuclear level. The most Russia will do is supply arms and intelligence
to Iran.
Which was not a wild decade: this is was the decade of the brutal economic rape of the West
under the disguise of "shock therapy" and will help and active participation of "Harvard mafia."
A special breed of ruthless economic hitmen decended on Russia with the full support of Western
intelligence services. A classic example here is Mr. Browder.
By securing victory in a
national vote on constitutional changes , Vladimir Putin could now remain president of
Russia until 2036 if he chooses to stand again. After 20 years in power, the narrative of
Russia's chaotic 1990s remains core to Putin's legitimacy as the leader who
restored stability .
Although the decade still
divides public opinion , what's not in doubt is that it was a dangerous and
exciting period. The ambiguity of the 90s is summed up by the then-popular Russian word,
bespredel , the title of a 1989 prison drama meaning anarchic freedom and
unaccountable authority.
... ... ...
The social impact was immense. Life expectancy fell, with up to five million excess adult deaths in
Russia in 1991-2001, birth rates
collapsed and both of these trends were compounded by widespread crime and
trafficking . These negative effects were concentrated in periods of economic crisis in
1991-94 and 1998-99.
Sharply rising inequality and the emergence of a new wealthy class, including some leading
reformers, meant that the term "democrat" had become a term
of abuse as early as 1992 .
USA's shift to the Western Pacific (Australia) is taking shape. This withdrawal of
American troops and personnel from Germany points to the direction of European long-term
decline in importance, as it seems the USA is opting for a more aggressive, less in-depth
model against the Russian Federation. Either it believes the Russian Federation will fall
soon (after Putin's death) or it is giving up Europe altogether. Both scenarios imply in
Germany's (the EU) decline.
For months the US has been in a full court diplomatic press on fellow UN Security Council
members in an attempt to ensure that a UN arms embargo against Iran does not expire.
The embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran is set to end October 18, and is
ironically enough part of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under Obama, which the Trump
administration in May 2018 pulled out of.
But now Pompeo vows
the US will "take necessary action" -- no doubt meaning more sanctions at the very least,
and likely military action at worst. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week
that "in the near future... we hope will be met with approval from other members of the
P5."
"In the event it's not, we're going to take the action necessary to ensure that this arms
embargo does not expire," he said.
"We have the capacity to execute snapback and we're going to use it in a way that protects
and defends America," Pompeo told the committee further.
Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued
to call on the world to accept extending the UN arms embargo against Iran. The embargo is
scheduled to expire on October 18.
But it's clear at this point that the UN is not intent on extending the embargo . Russia for
one has promised as much. Both Russia and China also have recent weapons deals in the works
with the Islamic Republic.
LibertarianMenace , 55 minutes ago
"protects and defends America"
Nothing is farther from the truth, fat man. We know (((who))) it is we're
"protecting".
bumboo , 37 minutes ago
Is this fat guy being blackmailed to saying stupid things all the time
monty42 , 35 minutes ago
He works for the Council on Foreign Relations who have been bankrupting the States with
perpetual war since they fomented WW2.
LibertarianMenace , 30 minutes ago
Yes, him and the rest of the USG. When you can assassinate a U.S. President in broad
daylight and get away with it, you can get away with more extravagant illusions, like 09/11,
or if people are finally catching on, throw in just a smidgen of reality like CV-19. Sky is
the limit.
This is Trump's redeeming value: he's showing all, including the densest among us
(((who))) it is that runs the country. Whether he does it intentionally or not, as in
kowtowing to (((them))), is ultimately irrelevant. (((They))) have to be a bit uncomfortable
from the unaccustomed exposure. The censoring just proves it.
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 36 minutes ago
This pneumatic bull frog is a deep state sock puppet with a Zionist hand way up his
***.
When his lips move, Satanyahoo's voice comes out
This has zero to do with the interests of real Americans.
**building 7 didn't kill itself**
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 23 minutes ago
TRUMP: "Larry Silverstein is a great guy, he's a good guy, he's a friend of mine."
The reason that the US government are trying to get Iran is because Epstein/Mossad has
blackmailed them all into doing their bidding.
Why don't you cover that in the news, huh?
El Chapo Read , 31 minutes ago
"Necessary Action" = Call Israel and ask what they want him to do.
jaser , 43 minutes ago
Protect America? Protect corrupt Netanyahu more like it. Your nation is about to implode
and you just cut off the $600 welfare payment to your citizens hey but let's ban TikTok and
protect America from Iran.
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
rwe2late , 43 minutes ago
Embargo Iran to make them as desperate as possible.
Then accuse them of being "aggressive" while one attacks and bombs Iran's near neighbors
(Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen).
Sounds like a plan of aggressive war if done by any but an "exceptional" nation.
If Russia and China want to trade with Iran, how in the world is it the US Government's
right to tell them not to? If we want to put sanctions on Iran, go for it. But at this point,
the dollar is collapsing as world reserve currency. Iran should well be able to buy anything
they need, from China/Russia and the rest of the world which doesn't respect US sanctions, or
so I would think.
My point - there's really getting nothing that the US even can do about Iran. So
maybe...we should just stop and give it a rest.
Einstein101 , 13 minutes ago
Iran should well be able to buy anything they need, from China/Russia
Fact is Russia and China sell almost nothing to Iran, fearing US sanctions.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 minutes ago
Don't forget Turkey, Azerbaijan and Europe! Turkish stream is not only bypassing Ukrain
but it is connected to Azeri pipeline that is 10km from Iranians border.
monty42 , 15 minutes ago
"Obviously the Iranian army has a bunch of non thinkers..."
Hypocrisy much? The US regime employs paid mercenaries who swore to uphold and defend the
Constitution, yet lie and unthinkingly "just follow orders" and believe that absolves them of
their oathbreaking and actions.
"Dude, I am FREE. I have firearms that are deadly." Heh, only a very limited arsenal
permitted by the Central Committee in D.C., to maintain firepower supremacy in the empire's
favor. Your firearms may be deadly, but the empire mercenary can take you out without you
ever seeing their face.
Clearly having firearms and ammo alone do not prevent tyranny, the States under the D.C.
regime prove that.
vipervenom , 17 minutes ago
pompass the fat boy coward sending our troops to die while he hides behind his own extra
large rear end.
Executed Turkish general exposed misuse of Qatari funds for Syria extremists: Report Semih Terzi, a general within the Turkish army, was executed on the night of the 2016
Turkish coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Photo via the
stockholmcf) Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English Friday 31 July 2020 Text size A A A
The Turkish army executed a senior general within its ranks after he had discovered the
embezzlement of illicit Qatari funding for extremists in Syria by public officials, according
to a 2019 court testimony unveiled in a report by the Nordic Monitor.
Semih Terzi, a general within the Turkish army, was executed on the night of the 2016
Turkish coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The new allegations unveiled in court testimonies from a hearing March 20, 2019at Ankara
17th High Criminal Court were made by Col. Fırat Alakuş, an army officer working
within Turkey's Special Forces Command's intelligence section.
According to the Nordic Monitor, Terzi is said to have been executed after discovering that
Lt. Gen. Zekai Aksakallı, in charge of the Special Forces Command at the time, was working
covertly with Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) "in running illegal and
clandestine operations in Syria for personal gain while dragging Turkey deeper into the Syrian
civil war."
"[Terzi] knew how much of the funding delivered [to Turkey] by Qatar for the purpose of
purchasing weapons and ammunition for the opposition was actually used for that and how much of
it was actually used by public officials, how much was embezzled," Col. Alakuş was quoted
as saying by the Nordic Monitor via his court testimony.
The Nordic Monitor said in its report published on Friday that Alakuş testified that
Aksakallı had run a gang outside of the chain of command within the Turkish intelligence
that was involved in illicit activities.
The report further alleged that Terzi was aware of public officials involved in
oil-smuggling operations with ISIS from Syria.
"[Terzi] was aware of who in the government was involved in an oil-smuggling operation from
Syria, how the profits were shared, and what activities they were involved in," Alakuş
said in his testimony.
PS likbez@46 reminded me of a line from the movie Reds. Warren Beatty's John Reed spoke of
people who "though Karl Marx wrote a good antitrust law." This was not a favorable comment.
The confusion of socialism and what might be called populism is quite, quite old. Jack
London's The Iron Heel has its hero pointing out even before the Great (Class) War that the
normal operations of capitalism, concentration and centralization, destroyed the middle class
paradise of equal competition. It wasn't conspiracies.
likbez 07.29.20 at 3:30 pm
@steven t johnson 07.29.20 at 3:14 pm (51)
Jack London's The Iron Heel has its hero pointing out even before the Great (Class) War
that the normal operations of capitalism, concentration and centralization, destroyed the
middle class paradise of equal competition.
I think the size of the USA military budget by itself means the doom for the middle class,
even without referring to famous Jack London book (The Iron Heel is cited by George Orwell 's
biographer Michael Shelden as having influenced Orwell's most famous novel Nineteen
Eighty-Four.).
Wall Street and MIC (especially intelligence agencies ; Allen Dulles was a Wall Street
lawyer) are joined at the hip. And they both fully control MSM. As Jack London aptly said:
"The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist
class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it
serves it." ― Jack London, The Iron Heel
Financial capitalism is bloodthirstily by definition as it needs new markets. It fuels wars.
In a sense, Bolton is the symbol of financial capitalism foreign policy.
It is important to understand that finance capitalism creates positive feedback loop in the
economy increasing instability of the system. So bubbles are immanent feature of finance
capitalism, not some exception or the result of excessive greed.
Modern jihadism was co-invented in 1979 by Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al Saud, and U.S.
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, working together, and here is the background for
it, and the way -- and the reasons -- that it was done:
Back in the later Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church and its aristocracies had used
religious fervor in order to motivate very conservative and devout people to invade foreign
countries so as to spread their empire and to not need to rely only on taxes in order to fund
these invasions, but also to highly motivate them by their faith in a heavenly reward. It was
far cheaper this way, because these invading forces wouldn't need to be paid so much; the
reason why they'd be far cheaper is that their pay would chiefly come to them in their
afterlife (if at all). That's why people of strong faith were used. (Aristocracies always rule
by deceiving the public, and faith is the way.) Those invaders were Roman Catholic Crusaders,
and they went out on Crusades to spread their faith and so 'converted' and slaughtered millions
of Muslims and Jews, so as to expand actually the aristocracies' and preachers' empire, which
is the reason why they had been sent out on those missions (to win 'converts'). This was
charity, after all. (Today's large tax-exempt non-profits are no different -- consistently
promoting their aristocracy's invasions, out of 'humanitarian' concern for the 'welfare', or
else 'souls', of the people they are invading -- and, if need be, to kill 'bad people'. This
has been the reality. And it still is. It's the way to sell imperialism to individuals who
won't benefit from imperialism -- make mental slaves of them.)
The original Islamic version of the Christian Crusades, Islamic Holy
War or "jihad," started on 14 November 1914 in Constantinople (today's Istanbul) when the
Sheikh Hayri Bey, the supreme religious
authority in the Ottoman Empire , along with the Ottoman Emperor, Mehmed V , declared a Holy War for their Muslim
followers to take up arms against Britain, France, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro in World War
I. They were on Germany's side, and lost. (That's the reason why the Ottoman Empire ended.)
Both
the Sheikh and the Emperor had actually been selected -- and then forced -- by Turkey's
aristocracy, for them to declare Islamic Holy War at that time. In fact, the sitting Sheikh,
Mehmet
Cemaleddin Efendi , in 1913, was actually an opponent of the pro-German and
war-oriented policy of the Union and Progress Party, which represented Turkey's aristocrats,
and so that Sheikh was replaced by them, in order to enable a declaration of Islamic Holy War.
Jihad actually had its origin in Turkey's aristocracy -- not in the Muslim masses, and not even
in the Muslim clergy. It resulted from an overly ambitious Turkish aristocracy, hoping to
extend their empire. It did not result from the public. And, at that time, relatively few
Muslims followed this 'Holy' command, which is one reason why the Ottoman Empire soon
thereafter ended.
The fact that the decision about the Armenians was made after a great deal of thought,
based on extensive debate and discussion by the Central Committee of the CUP [Committee for
Union and Progress] , can be understood by looking at other sources of information as well.
The indictment of the Main Trial states as follows: ''The murder and annihilation of the
Armenians was a decision taken by the Central Committee of the Union and Progress Party.''
These decisions were the result of ''long and extensive discussions.'' In the indictment are
the statements of Dr. Nazım to the effect that ''it was a matter taken by the Central
Committee after thinking through all sides of the issue'' and that it was ''an attempt to reach
a final solution to the Eastern Question .'' 54 In his memoirs, which were published in
the newspaper Vakit, Celal, the governor of Aleppo, describes the same words being spoken to
him by a deputy of the Ottoman Parliament from Konya, coming as a ''greeting of a member of the
Central Committee .'' This deputy told Celal that if he had ''expressed an opinion that
opposed the point of view of the others, [he would] have been expelled .''
55
(And, consequently, when Hitler allegedly -- on 22 August 1939 , right before his
invasion of Poland which started WW II, and it is
on page 2 here , but the sincerity and even the authenticity of that alleged private
'speech' by him should be questioned and not accepted outright by historians -- cited Turkey's
genocide against Armenian Christians as being proof that genocide is acceptable, Hitler would
actually have been citing there not only a Muslim proponent of genocide, but an ally of Germany
who had actually done it, because the Ottoman Empire's aristocracy had been both Muslim and
German-allied. Hitler would, in that 'speech', if he actually said it, have been citing that
earlier ally of Germany, which had actually genocided Christians. The genocide happened, even
if that speech mentioning it was concocted by some propagandist during WW II.)
The new jihad, or Islamic version of the Crusades, is, however, very different from the one
that had started on 14 November 1914. It wasn't Turkish, it instead came straight from Turkey's
top competitor to lead the world's Muslims, the royal family who owned Saudi Arabia, the Sauds.
But they partnered with America's aristocracy, in creating it.
Today's jihadism started in 1979, when U.S. President Jimmy Carter's national security
advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (a born Polish nobleman), and his colleague Prince Bandar bin
Sultan al Saud, re-created jihad or Islamic Holy War, in order to produce a dirt-cheap army of
Pakistani fundamentalist Sunni students or "mujahideen," soon to be renamed Taliban (
Pashto &
Persian ṭālibān, plural of ṭālib student, seeker, from Arabic )
so as to invade and conquer next door to the Soviet Union the newly Soviet-allied Afghanistan,
and to turn it 'pro-Western', now meaning both anti-Soviet, and anti-Shiite. (The Saud family
hate Shiites , and so do America's
aristocrats, whose CIA had conquered Shiite Iran in 1953, and who became outraged when Shiites
retook Iran in 1979. And, from then on, America's aristocracy, too, have hated Shiites and have
craved to re-conquer Iran. By contrast, the Sauds had started in 1744 to hate Shiites.) So, modern Islamic Holy War started
amongst fundamentalist Sunnis in Pakistan in 1979, against both the Soviets and the Iranians
(and now against both
Russia and Iran ). Here is a video of Brzezinski actually doing that -- starting the
"mujahideen" (subsequently to become the Taliban) onto this 'Holy War':
Brzezinski ,
incidentally, had been born a Roman Catholic Polish aristocrat whose parents hated and despised
Russians, and this hostility went back to the ancient conflicts between the Roman Catholic and the
Russian Orthodox Churches.
So: whereas on the American end this was mainly a Roman Catholic versus Orthodox operation,
it was mainly a Sunni versus Shiite operation on the Saudi end.
Here's more of the personal background regarding the co-creation, by the aristocracies of
America and of Saudi Arabia, of today's jihadism, or "radical Islamic terrorism":
Whereas Nelson Rockefeller in the Republican Party sponsored Harvard's Henry Kissinger as
the geostrategist and National Security Advisor, David Rockefeller in the Democratic Party
sponsored Harvard's and then Columbia's Zbigniew Brzezinski as the geostrategist and National
Security Advisor. The Rockefeller family was centrally involved in controlling the U.S.
Government.
According to pages 41-44 of David B. Ottaway's 2008 The
King's Messenger: Prince Bandar , U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose National Security
Advisor was Brzezinski, personally requested and received advice from a certain graduate
student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Saudi Prince Bandar
bin Sultan al Saud, regarding geostrategy. At the time, Brzezinski commented favorably on
Bandar's graduate thesis. But that's not all. "Secretly, Carter had already turned to the
kingdom for help, calling in Bandar and asking him to deliver a message to [King] Fahd pleading
for an increase in Saudi [oil] production. Fahd's reply, according to Bandar, was 'Tell my
friend, the president of the United States of America, when they need our help, they will not
be disappointed.'13 The king was true to his world." However, Bandar's advice went beyond oil.
And the re-creation, of the fundamentalist-Sunni movement (amongst only fundamentalist Sunni
Muslims, both in 1914 and in 1979), that now is called "jihadism," was a joint idea, from both
Brzezinski and Bandar.
It was the United States that, together with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates, and Pakistan, dispatched the jihadists to Afghanistan. Prince Bandar bin Sultan of
Saudi Arabiaplayed a key rolein those operations, with Saudi Arabia providing the key
financial, military and human support for them. The kingdom encouraged its citizens to go to
Afghanistan to fight the Soviet army. One such citizen was Osama bin Laden. Saudi Arabia agreed
to match, dollar for dollar, any funds that the CIA could raise for the operations. The
U.S.provided Pakistan with $3.2 billion, and Saudi Arabia bought weapons from
everywhere, including international black markets, and sent them to Afghanistan through
Pakistan's ISI.
That was then, and this is now, but it is merely an extension of that same operation, even
after the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact military alliance all ended in
1991, and Russia ended its side of the Cold War but the United States secretly continued its side , as is shown here,
by an example. This example, of America's continuing its Cold War, is America's longstanding
effort, after the death of FDR in 1945, to overthrow and replace Syria's pro-Russian Government
and install instead a Syrian Government that will be controlled by the Sauds:
So, in this new 'Islamic holy war', to overthrow Syria's non-sectarian Government, the
fighters entered Syria through Turkey, and they were welcomed mainly in Syria's province of
Idlib, which adjoins Turkey.
On 13 March 2012, the Al Jazeera TV station, of the pro-jihad Thani royal family of Qatar,
headlined "Inside
Idlib: Saving Syria" , and opened
The Syrian government crackdown on the dissenting northern city of Idlib has continued
for a third day, with casualties from random shelling and sniper fire mounting, and growing
concerns for many citizens detained by government forces. "I can't tell you what an unequal
contest this is . The phrase that we felt yesterday applied to it was 'Shooting fish in a
barrel' – these people can't escape, they can't help themselves, they have very little
weaponry, what can they do but sit there and take it?"
The UK Government had given Qatar to the Thanis in 1868. On 12
September 1868 , Mohammed Bin Thani signed "an agreement with the British Political
Resident Col. Lewis Pelly, which was considered as the first international recognition of the
sovereignty of Qatar"; so, on that precise day, Britain's Queen Victoria gave Qatar to his
family, which owns it, to the present day. The Thanis are the leading financial backers of the
Muslim Brotherhood, which spreads Thani influence to foreign countries. (At least up till 9/11,
the Saud family have been the main financial
backers of Al Qaeda .) The Thanis have been, along with the Sauds, the main financial
backers of replacing the non-sectarian Syrian Government by a fundamentalist-Sunni Syrian
Government. Whereas the Sauds want to control that new government, also the Thanis do, and this
is one reason for the recent falling-out between those two families. America's aristocracy
prefers that Syria's rulers will be selected by the Saud family, because they buy more weapons
from the U.S. than does any other country. However, everything is transactional between
aristocracies, and, so, international alliances can change. It's always a jostling, everyone
grabbing for whatever they can get: aristocracies operate no differently than crime-families
do, because FDR's dream of an anti-imperialistic U.N., which would set and enforce
international laws, died when he did; we live instead in an internationally lawless world -- he
died far too soon. In a sense (at least ideologically), Hitler won, but, actually, Churchill
did (he was as much an imperialist as Hitler and Mussolini were).
Anyway, uncounted tens of thousands of jihadists from all over the world descended upon
Syria, funded by the Sauds and the Thanis, and armed and trained by the United States, to
conquer Syria. At the Syrian Government's request,
Russia started bombing the jihadists on 30 September 2015 . That air-support for the Syrian
Army turned the war around. By the time of 4 May 2018, Britain's Financial Times
headlined "Idlib offers uncertain sanctuary
to Syria's defeated rebels" ("rebels" being the U.S. and UK Governments' term for jihadists
who were serving as the U.S., Saud and Thani, proxy-forces or mercenaries to conquer Syria) and
reported (stenographically transmitting what the CIA and MI6 told them to say) that, "more than
70,000 rebels and civilians" -- meaning jihadists and their families -- who were "fleeing the
last rebel holdout near the capital," had been given a choice, and this "choice was die in
Ghouta, or leave for Idlib," and chose to get onto the Government-supplied buses taking them to
Idlib. So, perhaps unnumbered hundreds of thousands of jihadists did that, from all over Syria,
and collecting them in Idlib.
On May 8th, Syria's Government bannered,"6th batch of terrorists leave
southern Damascus for northern Syria"and reported that "During the past five days,
218 buses carrying terrorists with their families exited from the three towns to Jarablos and
Idleb under the supervision of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent." Jarablos (or "Jarabulus")
is a town or "District" in the Aleppo Governate; and Idleb (or "Idlib") is the
capital District in the adjoining Governate of Idlib, which Governate is immediately to the
west of Aleppo Governate; and both Jarabulus and Idlib border on Turkey to the north. Those two
towns in Syria's far northwest are where captured jihadists are now being sent.
The Government is doing that because at this final stage in the 7-year-long war, it wants
civilian deaths and additional destruction of buildings to be kept to a minimum, and so is
offering jihadists the option of surviving instead of being forced to fight to the death (which
would then require Syria's Government to destroy the entire area that's occupied by the
terrorists); this way, these final clean-up operations against the terrorists won't necessarily
require bombing whole neighborhoods -- surrenders thus become likelier, so as to end the war as
soon as possible, and to keep destruction and civilian casualties at a minimum.
The Syrian and Russian Governments had planned to finish them off there in Idlib, so that
none of them could escape back into their home countries to continue their jihad. However, the
U.S. and its allies raised 'humanitarian' screams at the U.N. and other international
organizations, in order to protect the 'rebels' against the 'barbarous dictator' of Syria, its
President, Bashar al-Assad -- just in order to create more anti-Assad (and anti-Russian, and
anti-Iranian) propaganda. And, so, on 9 and 10 September 2018, Putin and Erdogan and Rouhani
met in Rouhani's Tehran to decide what to do. By that time, Erdogan was riding the fence
between Washington and Moscow. On 17 September 2018, I headlined "Putin and Erdogan Plan Syria-Idlib DMZ as I Recommended" and
reported that Putin and Rouhani entrusted Idlib to Erdogan, with the expectation that Erdogan
would keep the jihadists penned-up there, so that Putin and Assad would be able to bomb them to
hell after the 'humanitarian crisis' in Idlib would be no longer on front pages.
The role of the United Nations in this has been to stand aside and pretend that it's a
'humanitarian crisis' (as the U.S. regime wanted it to be called) instead of a U.S.-and-allied
invasion, aggressive war, and consequently a vast war-crime such as Hitler's top leaders were
prosecuted and executed for at Nuremberg. As Miri Wood wrote, at Syria News, on 28
February 2018 :
Members of the General Assembly must be in good financial standing to vote. Dues are on a
sliding scale but do not factor in draconian sanctions against targeted members, nor crimes of
war involved in their destruction. As such, CAR, Libya, Venezuela and Yemen have been stripped
of their voting rights. The non-permanent SC members function as obedient House Servants to the
P3 bullies, ever mindful of placing self-preservation above moral integrity .
So Truman's U.N. turns out to be on the side of the new Nazism, against its victims.
Erdogan wants to be with the winners. He evidently believes that whatever empire he'll be
able to have will be just a vassal nation within the U.S. Empire. He had been
extremely reluctant to accept this viewpoint , but, apparently, he now does. And so, now,
Erdogan has become so confident that he has the backing of Christian-majority America and of
Christian-majority Europe, so that Turkey's
Hagia Sophia , which had been "the world's largest cathedral
for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520," has finally become
officially declared by the Turkish Government to be, instead, a mosque. He feels safe enough to
insult the publics in the other NATO countries so as to be able now to assert publicly his
support for Islam against Christianity, because he knows that NATO's other
aristocracies -- all of them majority-Christian, and all of these aristocrats ruling their
respective Christian-majority countries -- don't really give a damn about that. Amongst
themselves, the concern for 'heaven' is all just for show, because they are far more interested
to buy Paradise in the here-and-now, for themselves and for their families. As for any possible
'afterlife', it will be reflected in the big buildings and charities that will bear their
names, after they're gone. Erdogan feels safe, knowing that they're all psychopaths. And, as
for the publics anywhere -- Syria, Libya, even in Turkey itself -- they don't matter, to him,
any more than they do to the leaders of those other NATO countries.
Turkish forces started recruiting numbers of its armed fighters to send them to
Azerbaijan in order to assist the Azerbaijani forces in confronting the Armenian army.
According to sources, Turkey opened special promotion offices in different parts of Afrin
northern Aleppo, to attract the militants and encourage them to sign contracts by which they
would move to fight in Azerbaijan for a period of six months, renewable in case they wanted
to.
According to the contract, the militants receive a monthly salary of $2500, while the
advantage of granting Turkish citizenship to the families of the militants in case they died is
absent, contrary to the contracts that Turkey had signed with the armed men who wanted to move
to Libya.
The sources said that Turkey has designated centers for registering militants wishing to
fight in Azerbaijan within the towns of Genderes and Raju, along with Afrin city, and these
centers have already started receiving requests by the militants.
Armenia is virtually 100% Christian, and, according to Wikipedia :
The Armenian Genocide[c](also known as the Armenian
Holocaust )[13]was the systematic mass
murder and expulsion of 1.5 million[b]ethnicArmenianscarried out in Turkey and adjoining regions by theOttoman governmentbetween 1914 and 1923.[14][15]The starting date is
conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities rounded up, arrested,
and deported fromConstantinople(now Istanbul) to the region of Angora (Ankara),235 to 270 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, the majority of whom
were eventually murdered.
So, the recruitment of fundamentalist-Sunni mercenaries in the areas of Syria that Turkey
has captured, and sending those men "to assist the Azerbaijani forces in confronting the
Armenian army," is likewise consistent with the NATO member-country Turkey's restoration of its
former Ottoman Empire. Using these jihadist proxy-soldiers, NATO is now invading Christian
Armenia.
However, Iskef was reporting without paying any attention to the aristocratic interests
which were actually very much involved in what Erdogan was doing here. On July 19th, Cyril
Widdershoven at the "Oil Price" site bannered
"The Forgotten Conflict That Is Threatening Energy Markets" and he reported the economic
geostrategic factors which were at stake in this now-emerging likely hot war, which is yet
another "pipeline war," and which pits Turkey against Russia. In this particular matter, Turkey
has an authentic economic reason to become engaged in a possible hot war allied with Muslim
Azerbaijan against Christian Armenia. Russia, yet again, would be backing Christian soldiers.
Of course, NATO, also yet again, would be on the Muslim side, against the Christians. But, this
time, NATO would be backing Azerbaijan, which is 85% Shiite. Consequently, in such a conflict,
the U.S. could end up on the same side as Iran, and against Russia.
If history is any guide, aristocratic interests will take precedence over theocratic
interests, but democratic interests -- the interests of the publics that are involved -- will
be entirely ignored. The sheer hypocrisy of the U.S. regime exceeds anything in human
history.
How can anybody not loathe the U.S. regime and its allies? Only by getting one's 'news' from
its 'news'-media -- especially (but not only) its mainstream ones.
Before looking into Russian options in relation to the US, we need to take a quick look at
how Russia has been faring this year. The short of it would be: not too well. The Russian
economy has shrunk by about 10% and the small businesses have been devastated by the combined
effects of 1) the economic policies of the Russian government and Central Bank, and 2) the
devastating economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic, and 3) the full-spectrum efforts of the
West, mostly by the Anglosphere, to strangle Russia economically. Politically, the "Putin
regime" is still popular, but there is a sense that it is getting stale and that most Russians
would prefer to see more dynamic and proactive policies aimed, not only to help the Russian
mega-corporations, but also to help the regular people. Many Russians definitely have a sense
that the "little guy" is being completely ignored by fat cats in power and this resentment will
probably grow until and unless Putin decides to finally get rid of all the Atlantic
Integrationists aka the "Washington consensus" types which are still well represented in the
Russian ruling circles, including the government. So far, Putin has remained faithful to his
policy of compromises and small steps, but this might change in the future as the level of
frustration in the general population is likely to only grow with time.
That is not to say that the Kremlin is not trying. Several of the recent constitutional
amendments adopted in a national vote had a strongly expressed "social" and "patriotic"
character and they absolutely horrified the "liberal" 5th columnists who tried their best two
1) call for a boycott, and 2) denounce thousands of (almost entirely) imaginary violations of
the proper voting procedures, and to 3) de-legitimize the outcome by declaring the election a
"fraud". None of that worked: the participation was high, very few actual violations were
established (and those that were, had no impact on the outcome anyway) and most Russians
accepted that this outcome was the result of the will of the people. Furthermore, Putin has
made public the Russian strategic goals for 2030
,which are heavily focused on improving the living and life conditions of average Russians (for
details, see here ). It is impossible to predict
what will happen next, but the most likely scenario is that Russia has several, shall we say,
"bumpy" years ahead, both on the domestic and on the international front.
I would add that Russia should also start opening channels of communication with various
organizations in Canada, especially those in the far north. While Canada is small
politically, it is vastly bigger than the U.S. in natural resources, very strategically
located and right next door to Russia.
I really agree with you that the "blame Russia" and "blame China" thing has gotten out of
hand in US politics. Whether it will turn into a shooting war seems doubtful to me, as the
government is still full of people who are looking out for their own interests and know that
a full-sized war with Russia, China, Iran or whoever will not advance their interests.
But who would have guessed, a few years ago, that "Russian asset" would become the
all-purpose insult for Democrats to use, not just against Republicans, but against other
Democrats?
I think Trump can win, though, if he successfully hangs the escalating Antifa/BLM mayhem
around the Democrat's necks. Normal, salt-of-the-earth-type Americans won't vote for the
party of Maoist mayhem. I just hope their numbers are still sufficient. So, really, the
mayhem needs to worsen and get ultra-bad, and Trump needs to carefully respond with just
enough law enforcement to bait the Democrats into defending the insurrectionists and their
tactics and loudly condemning Trump's "fascist" response. Normal people will see the true
story and in the privacy of the voting booth, not vote Democrat. And if you think the other
side lost their minds after the 2016 election .
Thanks Saker – I would have loved it, had Alaska been able to hang on to the 90s
relationship with Russia. It was a perfect match, except that Russian economy { as we were
told} was just tanking, and they had no money to throw into the tourist trade. Not that us
Alaskans, expected much more than what our bush villages had to offer. lol But , I'm afraid
this will never happen again, with the Zio freaks in charge of the US. I recall when I was
flying and living in McGrath in the 90s, that a womens Russian helicopter team dropped down
to refuel and I was workin on my cessna about 50 yrds away. I saw about 6+ really good
looking Russian chicks come out of those choppers, and us guys were floored ! We started to
communicate with them, they told us that they were re -tracing the WW II lend lease route and
were headed to the lower 48. Just about the time we started getting close tho, an old Lady
colonel jumped out and put the girls in place – lol . I also remember the Magadan
hockey team came over to play against our University teams Anchorage and Fairbanks. My
neighbor here in Kryme, was on that Russian team – small world. Ya, Russia and Alaska
would be a great match today – just gotta get rid of Washington. Thanks for the
memories.
" until and unless Putin decides to finally get rid of all the Atlantic Integrationists
aka the "Washington consensus" types which are still well represented in the Russian ruling
circles, including the government."
Putin's regime is merely a less unbearable version of the Yeltsin regime, with open loot
by oligarchs replaced by less overt loot by smaller scale actors. Putin is exactly as
beholden to the neoliberal capitalist system as Yeltsin. To expect Putin to change sides as
this point is ludicrous.
" Russia and the Empire have been at war since at least 2013, for no less than seven
years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to
ignore)."
I have no idea what a "neo" Marxist is (apart from a blatant made up term to taint us by
association with the neo-Nazis), but as a Marxist, which the Saker obviously is not, it's
obvious to me that the Imperialist States of America has been at war with Russia since the
Yeltsinite attack on the Moscow parliament in 1993, and probably from the failed patriotic
coup of 1991. If we ignore the Saker's idea of a war since 2013 it's only because we know
it's twenty years out of date.
Things will never improve between Amerikastan and Russia and don't need to. Amerikastan is
sinking and will sink; Putin will, if he continues on the neoliberal capitalist track, sink
Russia as well in the end.
The video link to Sahra Wagenknecht's report was the best part of this article although
the article itself was spot on if one has any respect for reality.
I keep waiting for Germany to tell NATO and the US to get the hell out, but their
political establishment is just as corrupt as the US's.
The amount of money the US Fed Gov steals from the population in taxes and regulation or
causes loss of purchasing power by increasing debt could be much better put to use than
shoveling it into the military to murder people around the globe. The entire Fed Gov will, I
hope, disappear like fart gas as a result of the economic collapse in the making.
@Emily at was just a brutal form of monopoly capitalism that is the essence of the
Zionist syndicate we all are up against. Today piratized not privatized Russia is suffering a
less severe form but it is estimated that half Jew Putin and his oligarch cronies control ap.
30% of the Russian economy. all of this insider theft was "codified and Legalized" by Larry
Summers and the Harvard Jews. Same thing is happening in Jewmerica and moving lots faster now
with the theft under cover of the fake virus. Don't forget in 08-09 the bailout for
billionaires cost the regular economy trillions then too. No problem, the Jews at Black Rock
picked up some great bargains as they will this time.
The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot
be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed.
I would add that Putin (a masterful statesman) tamed Russia's oligarchs. The greatest fear
of America's oligarchs might well be a similar taming by a masterful American statesman.
Hence the refusal to allow anyone other than corrupted mediocrities anywhere near nominal
power in the US. And hence the entirely genuine hatred for Putin. He embodies their worst
nightmare.
"Russia will never attack first (which is a major cause of frustration for western
russophobes)"
Now that team orange clown (with the full support of congress) has done away with the
doctrine of mutually assured destruction, apparently replacing it with the concept of a
"winnable" nuclear war (impliedly by way of a devastating first strike), the time may come
when Russia may have to either strike first or be struck first.
Also, what about the case where the empire is finally successful in starting a war against
Iran, for example, and the war goes badly for the empire (i.e. Iran is inflicting some
serious damage), whereupon the empire resorts to nukes. Would Russia just sit back and watch,
or would Russia then realize that the monster has to be put down?
"The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot
be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed."
In a sense that's true as far as it goes, but it really doesn't explain very much. Lots of
countries are unable to subdue, subvert or conquer other countries but that in itself doesn't
generally lead to "hatred." The simpler and more profound explanation is that the empire does
what it does because it's evil. And the evil empire is analogous to an aggressive cancer:
either the cancer wins and the patient dies, or the cancer is completely eradicated and the
patient survives. There is no peaceful coexistence with the evil empire just like there is no
peaceful coexistence with glioblastoma. You cannot negotiate with it to find some kind of a
reasonable compromise.
The US government and FRS seem to be hell-bent on destroying the value of the US $: when
someone issues debt obligations (treasuries) and then buys them himself because there are no
other takers, you cannot help smelling a rat.
The crash of the $ will hurt everyone, but some will recover faster than others. Euro and
yen would be buried with the US $, but assets in less US-dependent countries that have real
economies producing things other than hot air will likely fare better. Which leaves Russia,
big China, South Korea, and some SE Asia countries.
the US was at about the same level in 2013: "The top 10% of families held 76% of the
wealth in 2013, while the bottom 50% of families held 1%. Inequality worsened from 1989 to
2013"
Indications are that the worsening has only continued since then, and with all the money
being poured into the stock market by the Fed this year, 2020 is on track to be exceptionally
iniquitously inequitable.
Trump 're-election' is certain. All roads are paved toward it. In fact and so far Trump is
the best Neocon/Deep State's man they found. Stop pretending Saker!
The US is under rule by decree, not by rule of law. Looking at the original list of
grievances the Colonists had against King George, it looks like most of them are met –
and then some – by our current system of government. Can we regain our
independence?
said:
"A Trump re-election will virtually guarantee civil war, but that is still a better option
than a Biden hot war against Russia. Either way though, the country is totally fucked."
– We already have a civil war.
– Either way there will be no "hot war against Russia". That's just silly.
– And there is no "Biden" there.
– The US is much, much better off with Trump, it's not even close. Especially if you
value free speech, fighting violence, and at least some semblance of a market economy devoid
of the 'Green New Deal' scam.
after Vietnam war, Vietnam, ally of China , keep their regime in their own
hand.
The ally of North Vietnam was Russia.
China blocked the transit of Russian weapons to North Vietnam. After North Vietnam
defeated the Americans, with Russian help, China invaded North Vietnam and was defeated.
For Saker it is always about Russia, Russia, Russia Sure, Russia is a big world power, it
used to be and it is now. It is so mostly because of its military, which draws its strength
and know-how from the USSR (meaning it is not strictly Russian). However, Russia will never
again be a superpower as the USSR had been. It was possible then only because of the
(historically) unparalleled appeal of the communist ideology. Firstly and objectively, Russia
does not have an economy necessary to support such a status. Secondly, Russia has no
sufficient population which, again, is a limiting factor to its economy. Putin probably
realized that although he did not realize that the Putin-inspired immigration from the former
Muslim republic of the USSR will not alleviate the problem. But again, who would even want to
go to today's Russia if not Asiatic muslims. It will slowly but surely make Russia not much
different from the West. Muscovites, just like New Yorkers are already leaving the city,
those who can afford.
And, subjectively, Russia or the Russians don't have the most important ingredient fort the
superpower status – the MENTALITY. The recent (1990-2020) Russian history clearly
displays that. It shows that in order to realize the centuries old dreams of the few (so
called "elites") Russia as a nation and as country had put itself to the downward trajectory:
As an empire it sold Alaska; as a civilization – it destroyed itself by dismantling the
rest of the empire, the USSR. As an ally it abandoned and handed over the most Russophile
german friend and ally E. Honecker and others to the "partners" in the west. And, as an
orthodox and Slavic "brother" it betrayed and abandoned the only people that have always
loved Russia – the Serbs. As an ally it behaved recklessly and treacherously. Russia
will do the same again. So, hate Russia.
Since 2016 I've always believed Trump will be legally elected in 2020 but the DNC/Deep
State will reject the result much more forcefully and violently than they've been doing since
2016. The DNC/Deep State will establish a shadow government minus the shadow. It will not be
Joe Biden leading it but someone much younger, possibly Biden's VP choice – who was
(will be) selected to replace Biden should Biden actually win. Hell, it may even be Hussein
since he's such a treasonous pussy and easy to manipulate. The communists behind the scenes
(aren't they always such cowards) currently coordinating BLM and Antifa riots all over
America will again use rioting but with firearms and bombings. This must be met with a
military response and the violence will be nationwide. At some point either Trump declares
martial law and outright civil war ensues, or a military coup takes over with or without
Trump as a figurehead and they crush the communists and leftists while right wing militias
join in the hunt. The only wild-card is if race driven factionalism within lower ranks cause
wide divisions and some officers break away – then the whole show is over and there
will be no place safe from people with guns and bad intentions. We will be fighting over food
and gasoline. At least, like in China, there will be plenty of dogs to satisfy hunger.
Putin's difficulty is that Russia is really too important for the West to ignore.
Western elites, and not just in the US, but in the EU and the western-hemisphere in
general, are facing a problem: people are beginning to notice that human values are not
universal. This had been one of the main pillars for the existence and credibility of a
technocratic elite, specifically for the people to trust the elites to implement some
unspecified but benevolent neo-enlightenment.
Putin became truly anathema first when he rejected western neoliberal criminality
because
[Hide MORE] it was destroying his country, secondly, when he thwarted amputation
of Crimea by color revolution, and thirdly, when he kept calling out NATO/EU expansionism for
what it was. This made conversion of Russia to the neoliberal finance and 'universal value"
system even less likely than the conversion to Roman Catholicism prophesied at Fatima. Putin
decided that Russia would live by its own values, thank you very much. Russia could
still have been an arms-length ally, but Anglo-Zionist geopolitical extremism forced him to
make cause with a clearly adversarial China, and encouraged him to circumvent the western
currency system as well.
But peoples within the west were also developing this NGTOW (Nations Going Their Own Way)
attitude. Hungary and Poland were already becoming thorns in the side of the EU over the
"human value" immigration, and the elections of Trump and Brexit were further assertions of
populist preferences. Other politicians like Wagenknecht, LePen and Salvini are nurturing
this movement elsewhere. It remains to be seen whether the neoliberal oligarchy, by dialing
up propaganda and censorship, and by using Orwellian cancel terrorism, can quell this
awakening rebellion.
@Wally licies.
6. Dramatically improve US education, from elementary school up.
7. Reform US healthcare, with a view of making it healthcare, rather than extortion racket it
is today.
There are many other things, but anyone attempting to do even half of those listed would
be promptly JFK'ed by the Deep State. That is why there is no one in the US politics decent
enough to even talk about real problems, not to mention attempting to do what needs to be
done to save the country. Hence, I can name no names.
As things stand, even Trump is better than senile and corrupt Biden. But being better than
that piece of shit is not a big achievement.
China allowed Soviet arms through to North Vietnam and was herself giving weapons to them.
The Soviets didn't trust the Chinese though, so they preferred to transport more advanced
weapons on ships rather than by train through China, to prevent the Chinese from getting a
close look on these.
China attacked Vietnam for invading Cambodia, but this war exposed the weakness of the
Chinese Army. Deng Xiaoping was able to push through military reforms after the debacle.
@Ko e and destabilize western nations. These paid activists, opportunists and useful
idiots could be taken care of by the local law enforcement as the constitution mandates if
allowed to do so. The goal of the Zionist criminals is to create enough chaos and breakdown
that people will demand that the national gov. step in with martial law. This is exactly what
the Zionists want so they can get rid of the locally controlled police and implement a
gestapo of thugs that are accountable only to the elite at the top.
The zionist politicians and their operatives from the mayors to the Governors on up need
to be thrown out of office. That is the first step in restoring the Republic.
@alwayswrite ernative media has excellent analysts) instead of immersing in the stinky
products of presstituting MSM controlled by 6 zio-corporations.
Your hysterics about Russia's alleged attempts at destabilizing the EU are particularly
entertaining. For starter, 1. learn about US bases in Europe and beyond, and 2. read about
the consequences of the wars of aggression (also known as Wars for Israel) in the Middle East
for the EU.
If you are in search of neonazi, turn your attentions to a great project run by ziocons and
neonazi in Ukraine. See Grossman, Kolomojsky, Zelinsky, Nuland-Kagan, Pyatt, Carl Gershman
(NED), and the whole Kagans' clan united with Banderites What can go wrong?
Turkey is currently involved in quite a few international military conflicts -- both against
its own neighbors such as Greece, Armenia, Iraq, Syria and Cyprus, and against other nations
such as Libya and Yemen. These actions by Turkey suggest that Turkey's foreign policy is
increasingly destabilizing not only several nations, but the region as well.
In addition, the Erdogan regime has been militarily targeting Syria and Iraq, sending its
Syrian mercenaries to Libya to seize Libyan oil and continuing, as usual, to bully Greece.
Turkey's regime is also now provoking ongoing violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.398.1_en.html#goog_1565758762 NOW PLAYING
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in'
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Since July 12, Azerbaijan has launched a series of cross-border attacks against Armenia's
northern Tavush region in skirmishes that have resulted
in the deaths of at least four Armenian soldiers and 12 Azerbaijani ones. After Azerbaijan
threatened to launch missile attacks on Armenia's Metsamor nuclear plant on July 16, Turkey
offered military assistance to Azerbaijan.
"Our armed unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition and missiles with our experience, technology
and capabilities are at Azerbaijan's service,"
said İsmail Demir, the head of Presidency of Defense Industries, an affiliate of the
Turkish Presidency.
One of Turkey's main targets also seems to be Greece. The Turkish military is targeting
Greek territorial waters yet again. The Greek newspaper Kathimerini
reported :
"There have been concerns over a possible Turkish intervention in the East Med in a bid to
prevent an agreement on the delineation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Greece
and Egypt which is currently being discussed between officials of the two countries."
Turkey's choice of names for its gas exploration ships are also a giveaway. The name of the
main ship that Turkey is using for seismic "surveys" of the Greek continental shelf is
Oruç Reis , (1474-1518), an admiral of the Ottoman Empire who often raided the
coasts of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean that were still controlled by Christian
powers. Other exploration and drilling vessels Turkey uses or is planning to use in Greece's
territorial waters are named after Ottoman sultans who targeted Cyprus and Greece in bloody
military invasions. These include the drilling ship
Fatih "the conqueror" or Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who invaded Constantinople in 1453; the
drilling ship
Yavuz , "the resolute", or Sultan Selim I, who headed the Ottoman Empire during the
invasion of Cyprus in 1571; and
Kanuni , "the lawgiver" or Sultan Suleiman, who invaded parts of eastern Europe as well as
the Greek island of Rhodes.
Turkey's move in the Eastern Mediterranean came in early July, shortly after the country had
turned Hagia Sophia, once the world's greatest Greek Cathedral, into a mosque. Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan then
linked Hagia Sophia's conversion to a pledge to "liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque" in
Jerusalem.
On July 21, the tensions arose again following Turkey's announcement that it plans to
conduct seismic research in parts of the Greek continental shelf in an area of sea between
Cyprus and Crete in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
"Turkey's plan is seen in Athens as a dangerous escalation in the Eastern Mediterranean,
prompting Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to warn that European Union sanctions could follow
if Ankara continues to challenge Greek sovereignty," Kathimerini
reported on July 21.
Here is a short list of other countries where Turkey is also militarily involved:
In Libya , Turkey has been increasingly involved in the country's civil war. Associated
Press reported on July 18:
"Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three
months of the year, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general concluded in a new
report, its first to detail Turkish deployments that helped change the course of Libya's
war.
"The report comes as the conflict in oil-rich Libya has escalated into a regional proxy
war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country."
Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when an armed revolt during the "Arab Spring" led to
the ouster and murder of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Political power in the country, the current
population of which is around 6.5 million, has been split
between two rival governments. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), has been led
by Prime Minister Fayez al Sarraj. Its rival, the Libyan National Army (LNA), has been led by
Libyan military officer, Khalifa Haftar.
Backed by Turkey, the GNA
said on July 18 that it would recapture Sirte, a gateway to Libya's main oil terminals, as
well as an LNA airbase at Jufra.
Egypt, which backs the LNA,
announced , however, that if the GNA and Turkish forces tried to seize Sirte, it would send
troops into Libya. On July 20, the Egyptian parliament
gave approval to a possible deployment of troops beyond its borders "to defend Egyptian
national security against criminal armed militias and foreign terrorist elements."
Yemen is another country on which Turkey has apparently set its sights. In a recent video ,
Turkey-backed Syrian mercenaries fighting on behalf of the GNA in Libya, and aided by local
Islamist groups, are seen saying, "We are just getting started. The target is going to be
Gaza." They also state that they want to take on Egyptian President Sisi and to go to
Yemen.
"Turkey's growing presence in Yemen," The Arab Weekly reported
on May 9, "especially in the restive southern region, is fuelling concern across the region
over security in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb.
"These concerns are further heightened by reports indicating that Turkey's agenda in Yemen
is being financed and supported by Qatar via some Yemeni political and tribal figures
affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
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In Syria , Turkey-backed jihadists continue occupying the northern parts of the country. On
July 21, Erdogan
announced that Turkey's military presence in Syria would continue. "Nowadays they are
holding an election, a so-called election," Erdogan said of a parliamentary election on July 19
in Syria's government-controlled regions, after nearly a decade of civil war. "Until the Syrian
people are free, peaceful and safe, we will remain in this country."
Additionally, Turkey's incursion into the Syrian city of Afrin, created a particularly grim
situation for the local Yazidi population:
"As a result of the Turkish incursion to Afrin," the Yazda organization
reported on May 29, "thousands of Yazidis have fled from 22 villages they inhabited prior
to the conflict into other parts of Syria, or have migrated to Lebanon, Europe, or the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq... "
"Due to their religious identity, Yazidis in Afrin are suffering from targeted harassment
and persecution by Turkish-backed militant groups. Crimes committed against Yazidis include
forced conversion to Islam, rape of women and girls, humiliation and torture, arbitrary
incarceration, and forced displacement. The United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its 2020 annual report confirmed that Yazidis and Christians
face persecution and marginalization in Afrin.
"Additionally, nearly 80 percent of Yazidi religious sites in Syria have been looted,
desecrated, or destroyed, and Yazidi cemeteries have been defiled and bulldozed."
In Iraq , Turkey has been carrying out military operations for years. The last one was
started in mid-June. Turkey's Defense Ministry
announced on June 17 that the country had "launched a military operation against the PKK"
(Kurdistan Workers' Party) in northern Iraq after carrying out a series of airstrikes. Turkey
has named its assaults "Operation Claw-Eagle" and "Operation Claw-Tiger".
The Yazidi, Assyrian
Christian and Kurdish
civilians have been terrorized by the bombings. At least five civilians have been killed in
the air raids, according to
media reports . Human Rights Watch has also issued a
report , noting that a Turkish airstrike in Iraq "disregards civilian loss."
Given Turkey's military aggression in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Armenia, among others, and its
continued occupation of northern Cyprus, further aggression, especially against Greece, would
not be unrealistic. Turkey's desire to invade Greece is not exactly a secret. Since at least
2018, both the Turkish government and opposition parties have openly been calling
for capturing the Greek islands in the Aegean, which they falsely claim belong to
Turkey.
If such an attack took place, would the West abandon Greece?
Gaius Konstantine , 10 hours ago
If such an attack took place, it will get real messy, real fast. The Turkish military is
only partially adept at fighting irregular forces that lack heavy weaponry while Turkey has
absolute control of the sky. Even then, the recent performance of Turkish forces has been
lacklustre for "the 2nd largest Army in NATO".
Turkey should understand that a fight with Greece will mean that the advantages she
enjoyed in her recent adventures will not be there. Nor should Turkey look to the past and
expect an easy victory, the Greek Army will not be marching deep into Anatolia this time,
(which was the wrong type of war for Greece).
So what happens if they actually take it to war?
The larger Greek islands are well defended, they won't be taken, but defending the smaller
ones is hard and Turkey will probably grab some of those. The Greeks, who have absolute
control and dominance in the Aegean will do several things. Turkish naval and air bases along
the Aegean coastline will be attacked as will the bosphorus bridges, (those bridges WILL go
down). The Greek army, which is positioned well, will blitz into eastern Thrace and stop
outside Istanbul where they will dig in and shell the city, thereby causing the civilians to
flee and clogging up the tunnels to restrict military re-enforcement.
That's Greece acting alone, a position will be achieved where any captured islands will be
traded for eastern Thrace. Should the French intervene, (even if it's just air and naval
forces), it gets a lot more interesting.
The mighty Turkish fleet was just met by the entire Greek navy in the latest stand-off, it
was enough to cause Turkey to reconsider her options. There will be no Ottoman empire 2.0
OliverAnd , 9 hours ago
The Greeks need their navy for surgically precise attacks against Turkey's navy. Every
island, especially the large ones are unsinkable aircraft carriers. No one has mentioned in
any article that Turkey's navy is functioning with less than minimum required personnel. No
one has mentioned that their air force is flying with Pakistani pilots. The only way Turks
will land on Greek uninhabited islands is only if they are ship wrecked and that for a very
very short period of time. Turkey's population is composed of 25% Kurds... that will also be
very interesting to see once they awaken from their hibernation and realize their great and
holy goal of Kurdistan. Egypt will not waste the opportunity to join in to devastate whatever
Turkish navy remains. Serbian patriots will not allow the opportunity to go to waste and will
attack Kosovo and indirectly Albania composed primarily of Turkish descendants... realize the
coverage lately of how the US did wrong for supporting these degenerate Muslim
Albanians.
I have no doubt Greeks will make it to Aghia Sophia but will not pass Bosporus. The result
will be a Treaty that is a hybrid of the Treaty of Lausanne and the Treaty of Sevron. If the
Albanians decide to support the Turks by attacking Greeks in the North and in Northern
Epeirus they should expect annexation of Northern Epeirus to Greece. Erdogan bases his
bullying on Trump's incompetences and false friendship. This is why America is non existent
in any of these regions. If Trump wins the election it will be a long war and very
destabilized for the region. If Trump loses the war will be much much quicker. The outcome
will remain the same. The Russians will not allow Turkey to dictate in the area. Israel will
not allow Turkey to dictate in the area. Egypt will not allow Turkey to dictate in the area.
Not even European Union. UK is the questionable.
The West has Turkey's back otherwise the Turkish currency the Turkish Lira would have
collapsed by now under attacks from the City of London Freemasonic Talmudic bankers.
Remember what happened to the Russian Rouble when Russia annexed Crimea?
The Fed and the ECB in cahoots with the usual Talmudic interests, are supporting the
Turkish Lira and propping up the Erdogan regime.
There is NO OTHER explanation.
The Turks have NO foreign currency reserves, no net positive euro nor dollar reserves.
Their tourism industry and main hard currency generator has COLLAPSED (hotels are 95 percent
empty). The Turkish central bank has resorted to STEALING Turkish citizens'
dollar-denominated bank accounts via raising Turkish Banks' foreign currency reserve
requirements which the Turkish central bank SPENDS upon receipt to buy TLs and prop up the
Turkish Lira.
This is utter MADNESS and FRAUD and LARCENY.
London-based currency traders would be all over the Turkish Lira and/or Turkish bonds and
stocks by now UNLESS they had been instructed by the Fed and the ECB or the Talmudic bankers
that own and control both, to lay off the Turkish Lira.
Despite the noise on TV or the press,
BY DEFINITION,
Erdogan and the Turks are only doing the bidding of the TRIBE hence Erdogan has the
blessing and the protection of the people ZH censors the name.
BUT
You know how those parasites treat their host and what the inevitable outcome is,
right?
Indeed,
Erdogan and the Turks are being set up to be thrown under the proverbial bus at the
appropriate time.
The Neo-Ottoman Sultan has inadvertently set up his (ill begotten) country for eventual
destruction and partition. The Kurds will get a piece of it. Who knows, maybe even the
Armenians will be able to recover some bits of their ancient homeland.
Greeks in Constantinople? Nothing is impossible thanks to the hubris and chutzpah of
Erdogan who is purported to have "Amish" blood himself.
Know thyself , 5 hours ago
Good for the UK that they have left the EU.
Apart from the Greeks, who would be fighting for their lives and homeland, the only EU
forces capable of acting are the French. German does not have an operative army or navy;
Italy, Spain and Portugal have neglected their armed forces for many years, and the Baltic
and Eastern Nations are unlikely to want to get involved. The Netherlands have very good
forces but not many of them.
MPJones , 7 hours ago
We can live in hope. Erdogan certainly seems to need external enemies to hold the country
together. Let us also hope that Erdogan's adventurism finally wakes up Europe to the reality
of the ongoing Muslim invasion so that the necessary Muslim repatriation can get going
without the bloodshed which Islam's current strategy in Europe will otherwise inevitably lead
to.
Know thyself , 5 hours ago
The Turkish army is a conscript army. They will need to be whipped up with religious
fervour to perform. Otherwise they will look after their own skins.
But remember that the Turks put up a good defence in the Dardanelles in the First World
War.
HorseBuggy , 9 hours ago
What do you expect? He killed Russian fighter pilots and he survived, this empowers
terrorists like him. Those pilots were the only ones at that time fighting ISIS. May they
RIP.
Max.Power , 9 hours ago
Turkey is in a "proud" group of failed empires surrounded by nations they severely abused
less than 100 years ago.
Other two are Germany and Japan. Any military aggression from their side will be met with
rage by a coalition of nations.
US position will be irrelevant at this point, because local historical grievances will
overweight anything else.
monty42 , 10 hours ago
"Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when an armed revolt during the "Arab Spring" led
to the ouster and murder of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Political power in the country..."
Kinda gave yourself away there. The coordinated assault on Libya by the US, Britain,
France, and their Al-CiA-da allies on the ground resulted in the torture, sodomizing, and
murder of Gaddafi, as well as his son and grandchildren killed in bombings by the US.
Also, let's not forget that Turkey is still in NATO, and their actions in Syria were
alongside the US regime and terrorist proxies labeled "moderate rebels". The same terrorists
originally used in Libya, then shipped to destroy Syria, now flown back to Libya. The attempt
to paint all of those things as Turkey's actions alone is not honest.
When Turkey isn't in NATO anymore, let me know.
TheZeitgeist , 10 hours ago
Don't forget that Hiftar guy Turks are fighting in Libya was a CIA toadie living in
Virginia for a decade before they gave him his "chance" to among other things become a client
of the Russians apparently. Flustercluck of the 1st order everywhere one looks.
monty42 , 10 hours ago
Then they put on this whole production where it's the CIA guy or the terrorist puppet
regime they installed, so that the rulers win regardless of the outcome. The victims are
those caught up in their sick game.
GalustGulbenkyan , 9 hours ago
Turkish population has been recently getting ****** due to the economic contractions and
devaluation of the Lira. Once Turkey starts fighting against a real army the Turks will
realize that they are going to be ****** by larger dildos. In 1990's they sent thousands of
volunteers to Nagorno Karabagh to fight against irregular Armenian forces and we know how
that ended for them. Greeks and Egyptians are not the Kurds. Erdogan is a lot of hot air and
empty threats. You can't win wars with Modern drones which even Armenians have learned how to
jam and shoot down with old 1970's soviet tech.
Guentzburgh , 5 hours ago
Greece should be aligned with Russia, EU and USA are a bad choice that Greece will
regret.
Greece needs to pivot towards Russia which will open huge opportunities for both
countries
KoalaWalla , 6 hours ago
Greeks are bitter and prideful - they would not only defend themselves if attacked but
would counter attack to reclaim land they've lost. But, I don't know that Erdogan is clever
enough to realize this.
60s Man , 9 hours ago
Turkey is America's Mini Me.
currency , 3 hours ago
Erdogan is in Trouble at home declining economy and his radical conservative/Thug type
policies. Turks are moving away from him except the hard core radicals and conservatives. He
and his family are Corrupt - they rule with threats and use of THUGS. Sense his constant wars
may be over stretched Time for a Turkish Spring.
Time for US, Nato and etc. to say goodbye to this THUG
OrazioGentile , 7 hours ago
Turkey seems to be on a warpath to imploding from within. Erdogan looks like a desperate
despot with a failing economy, failing political clout, and failing modernization of his
Country. Like any despot, he has to rally the troops or he will literally be a dead man
walking.
HorseBuggy , 9 hours ago
The world fears loud obnoxious tyrants and Erdogan is the loudest tyrant since Hitler.
Remember how countries pandered to Hitler early on? Same thing is happening with Erdogan.
This terrorist will do a lot more damage than he has already before the world wakes
up.
By the time Hitler was done, 70 million people were dead, what will Erdogan cause?
OliverAnd , 9 hours ago
Turkey is not Germany. Not by far. Erdogan may be a bigger lunatic than Hitler, but Turkey
is not Germany of the 30's. Without military equipment/parts from Germany, Italy, Spain,
France, USA, and UK he cannot even build a nail. Economies are very integrated; he will be
disposed of very very quickly. He has been warned. He is running out of lives.
NewNeo , 9 hours ago
You should research a lot more. Turkey is a lot more power thank Nazi Germany of the
1930's. Turkey currently have brand new US made equipment. It even houses the nuclear arsenal
of NATO.
You should probably look at information from stratfor and George Friedman to give you a
better understanding.
The failed coupe a few years ago was because the lunatic had gone off the reservation and
was seen as a threat to the region. Obviously the bankers thought it in their benefit to keep
him going and tipped him off.
OliverAnd , 8 hours ago
Clearly the lockdown has hindered your already illiteracy. Turkey has modern US equipment.
Germany did not need US equipment. They made their own equipment; in fact both the US and
USSR used Grrman old tech to develop future tech.
The coup was designed by Erdogan to bring himself to full power. When this is all done he
will be responsible for millions of Turkish lives; after all he is not a Turk but a Muslim
Pontian.
For much of the past year Trump has caused angst among allies by maintaining a consistent
position that Russia should be invited back into the Group of Seven (G7), making it as it was
prior to 2014, the G-8.
Russia had been essentially booted from the summit as relations with the Obama White House
broke down over the Ukraine crisis and the Crimea issue. Trump
said in August 2019 that Obama had been "outsmarted" by Putin.
But as recently as May when Germany followed by other countries rebuffed Trump's plans to
host the G7 at Camp David, Trump blasted the "very outdated group of countries"
and expressed that he planned to invite four additional non-member nations, mostly notably
Russia .
Germany has rejected a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump to invite Russian President
Vladimir Putin back into the Group of Seven (G7) most advanced economies , German Foreign
Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview published on Monday.
Interestingly enough the Ukraine and Crimea issues were raised in the interview: "But Maas
told Rheinische Post that he did not see any chance for allowing Russia back into the G7 as
long as there was no meaningful progress in solving the conflict in Crimea as well as in
eastern Ukraine," according to the report.
"... By Dr. Karin Kneissl , who works as an energy analyst and book author. She served as the Austrian minister of foreign affairs between 2017-2019. She is currently writing her book 'Die Mobilitätswende' (Mobility in transition), to be published this summer. ..."
"... "humanitarian corridor" ..."
"... "good opposition" ..."
"... "humanitarian war," ..."
"... "worst mistake." ..."
"... "geopolitical commission." ..."
"... "community of the good ones" ..."
"... "Friends of Libya," ..."
"... "good opposition" ..."
"... "exclusive economic zone" ..."
"... "other actors" ..."
"... "mare nostrum" ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
By
Dr.
Karin Kneissl
, who works as an energy analyst and book author. She served as the Austrian minister of foreign affairs
between 2017-2019. She is currently writing her book 'Die Mobilitätswende' (Mobility in transition), to be published this
summer.
A confrontation between the two NATO states France and Turkey continues to trouble the Mediterranean region; Egyptian forces
are mobilizing. And many other military players are continuing operations there.
In March 2011, during a hectic weekend, the French delegation to the UN
Security Council managed to convince all other member States of the Council to support Resolution 1973. It was all about a
"humanitarian
corridor"
for Benghazi, which was considered the
"good opposition"
by the
government of Nicolas Sarkozy. One of his whisperers was the controversial philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who supported a
French intervention. Levy, fond of the
"humanitarian war,"
found a congenial
partner in Sarkozy.
France was at root of crisis
Muammar Gaddafi had been received generously with all his tents in the park of
the Elysée, but suddenly he was coined the bad guy. The same had happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It was not the Arab
dictator who had changed; it was his usefulness to his allies. The Libyans had been distributing huge amounts of money in
Europe, in particular in Rome and Paris at various levels. In certain cases they knew too much. Plus, the Libyans had been
protecting the southern border of the Mediterranean for the European Union.
So, the French started the war in 2011, took the British on board, which made
the entire adventure look a bit like a replay of the Suez intervention of 1956, the official end of European colonial
interventions. A humanitarian intervention changed into regime change on day two, which was March 20, 2011. Various UN
Security Council members felt trapped by the French.
The US was asked to help, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
many other advisers in favor of joining that war. President Obama, however, was reluctant but, in the end, he gave in. In one
of his last interviews while still in the White House, Obama stated that the aftermath of the war in Libya was his
"worst
mistake."
Libya ever since has mostly remained a dossier in the hands of administrative
officials in Washington, but not on the top presidential agenda anymore. This practice has been slightly shifting in the past
weeks. US President Donald Trump and France's Emmanuel Macron had a phone conversation on how to deescalate the situation
there. Trump also spoke on that very topic with Turkish President Recep T. Erdogan. Paris supports General Haftar in his war
against the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord, which is also supported by the European Union, in theory
The triggering momentum for the current rise in tensions was a naval clash
between French- and Turkish-supported vessels. Both nations are NATO members, and an internal alliance investigation is
underway. But France decided to pull out of the NATO naval operation that enforces the Libya arms embargo, set up during the
high-level Berlin conference on Libya in mid-January 2020. Without the French vessels it will be even more toothless than its
critics already deem it. This very initiative on Libya was the first test for the new European commission headed by Ursula von
der Leyen and claiming to be a
"geopolitical commission."
The EU strives to speak
the language of power but keeps failing in Libya, where two members, namely Italy and France, are pursuing very different
goals. Rome is anxious about migration while Paris cares more about the terrorist threat. But both have an interest in
commodities.
When Gaddafi was reintegrated in the
"community
of the good ones"
in early 2004 after a curious British legal twisting on the Lockerbie attack of December 1988, a
bonanza for oil and gas concessions started. The Italian energy company ENI and BP were among the first to have a big foot in
the door. I studied some of those contracts and asked myself why companies were ready to accept such terms. The answer was
maybe in the then rise in the oil price of oil and the proximity of Libya to the European market.
Interestingly, in September 2011, the very day of the opening ceremony of the
Paris conference dubbed
"Friends of Libya,"
a secret oil deal for the French
company Total was published by the French daily Libération. The
"good opposition"
had
promised the French an interesting range of oil concessions. Oil production continuously fell with the rise of the war,
attracting sponsors, militias and smugglers from all horizons. The situation in Libya has since been called 'somalization,'
but it would become even worse, since many more regional powers got involved in Libya than ever was the case in hunger-ridden
Somalia.
In exchange for its military assistance, Turkey recently gained access to
exploration fields off Libya's shores. Ankara had identified an
"exclusive economic
zone"
with the government in Tripoli, which disregards the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Actually, Israel made the
same bilateral demarcation with Cyprus about ten years ago, when Noble Energy started its delineation of blocs in the Levant
Basin. So Turkey is infringing on Greek and Cypriot territorial waters, while President Macron keeps reminding his EU
colleagues of the
"other actors"
in the Mediterranean Sea. Alas, it is nobody's
"mare
nostrum"
as it was 2,000 years ago in the Roman era. In principle, all states which have ratified the UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea should simply comply with their legal obligations.
The crucial question remains: who has which leverage to de-escalate? Is it the
US President, who seemingly has acted more wisely on certain issues in recent times? Or will Russian and Turkish diplomacy be
able to negotiate and implement a truce? The tightrope-walk diplomacy between these last two countries is a most interesting
example of classical diplomacy: interest-based and focused; able to conduct hard-core relations even in times of direct
military confrontation and assassinations (remember the Russian Ambassador Karlov, shot by his Turkish bodyguard in Ankara in
December 2016?).
Meanwhile, yet another actor could move in to complicate everything even more.
On July 20, the Egyptian parliament voted unanimously for the deployment of the national army outside its borders, thereby
taking the risk of direct confrontation with Turkey in Libya. Egyptian troops would be mobilized in support of the eastern
forces of General Khalifa Haftar. Furthermore, Cairo would thereby compete even more obviously with Algeria, spending a
fortune on military control of its border with Libya. Algeria in the past could rely on US support in the region, but with the
gradual decline in US engagement in that part of the world, the country faces a fairly existential crisis.
There are currently two powers, among those involved in Libya, that can still
contain the next stage of a decade of proxy wars started by a French philosopher and various EU oil interests: Russia and the
USA.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of RT.
Quizblorg
48 minutes ago
Does anything here make sense? No, because France this, Italy that is not how the world is run. The parties
involved here go far beyond countries. Also no mention of Saudi-Arabia/Israel. Who engineered the "Arab
Spring"?
"... International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes. ..."
"... Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. ..."
Editor's Note: As the United States approaches the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion,
much of the commentary is focusing on the Bush administration's "incompetence" in prosecuting
the war -- the failure to coimnit enough troops, the decision to disband the old Iraqi army
without adequate plans for training a new one, the highhandedness of the U.S. occupation.
But what about the legal and moral questions aiising from the unprovoked invasion of Iraq?
Should George W. Bush and his top aides be held accountable for violating the laws against
aggressive war that the United States and other Western nations promulgated in punishing senior
Nazis after World War II? Do the Nuremberg precedents that prohibit one nation from invading
another apply to Bush and American officials -- or are they somehow immune? Put bluntly, should
Bush and his inner circle face a war-crimes tiibunal for the tens of thousands of deaths in
Iraq?
Despite the present-day conventional wisdom in Washington that these are frivolous
questions, they actually go to the heart of the American commitment to the rule of law and the
concept that the law applies to everyone. In this guest essay, Peter Dyer looks at this larger
issue:
Just over six decades ago, the first Nuremberg Trial began. On Nov. 21, 1945, U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the prosecution of 21 Germans for initiating a war of
aggression and for the crimes which flowed from this act. Now is a good time to reconsider some
of the history and issues involved in this momentous trial in the light of the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The trial lasted for over a year, culminating in verdicts of guilty of one, some, or all of
these crimes for 18 of the defendants. Eleven were sentenced to death.
While the Nuremberg trial is, these days, seldom invoked or discussed, it was, and still is,
in the words of Tribunal President Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, "unique in the history of the
jurisprudence of the world." Among the most groundbreaking aspects were the drive to formally
criminalize the three categories of crimes, and to establish responsibility by individuals for
these crimes.
These days, the Nuremberg Trial is chiefly remembered for the prosecution and punishment of
individuals for genocide. Equally important at the time, however, was the focus on wars of
aggression. Thus, the first sentence of Justice Jackson's opening statement: "The privilege of
opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave
responsibility."
Crimes against peace and the responsibility tor them were detined in Article 6, the heart of
the Charter of the IMT: "The tribunal.. .shall have the power to try and punish persons who..
.whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following
crimes...(a) Crimes Against Peace, namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war
of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances..
The desire was not only to punish individuals for crimes but to set an international moral
and legal precedent for the future. Indeed, before the end of 1946, the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 95 (1), affirming '4he principles of International Law
recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal." And, of
course, the United Nations Charter forbids armed aggression and violations of the sovereignty
of any state by any other state, except in immediate self defense (Article 2, Sec. 4 and
Articles 39 and 51).
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial in
1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of aggression.
There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world. The invasion
violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz.
Those who still justify the invasion of Iraq would do well to remember the words of Justice
Jackson: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it
finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling these grievances or
for altering these conditions."
And, for those who have difficulty visualizing American leaders as defendants in such a
trial, Justice Jackson's words again: "...(L)et me make clear that while this law is first
applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it
must condemn, aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in
judgment...This trial represents mankind's desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law
to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world's peace
and to commit aggression against the rights of their neighbors."
Peter Dyer is a machinist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in
2004.
Aaron , July 26, 2020 at 20:17
Well, it would have been up to one person to call for an investigation and prosecute any
illegal actions pertaining to the invasion – Barack Obama. Nobody in the Bush
administration would have done it, and it was something that Obama talked about alot in his
speeches in his campaign to be president.
Ana Márcia Vainsencher , July 25, 2020 at 17:47
Law is only applied to the USA "enemies", are they real, or no. Historically, the USA
loves to create enemies. It's the king of wars.
Sadly, we still entertain notions of war crimes, meaning that mass murders can be
conducted in legal ways that's the disease right there: all we have to do is make rules for
how to slaughter human beings according to a scholarly and civilized rule book written by our
most gifted and trained in the humanities experts and then wipe out as many humans as we need
to in a completely legal way hello?
How about a Geneva convention to write up rules of child
rape, wife beating, or maybe the only thing to get "civilized" people upset: pet
murdering?
Germany was only doing the politcal economic business of capital, as were its enemies, except
for Russia which played the greater role in the defeat of "evil" nazi
capitalism..anti-democratic capitalism is in the business of war and it will take democratic
communism to bring about peace and global sanity before it destroys humanity.
Andrew Thomas , July 25, 2020 at 13:25
It has been clear for several decades that Nuremberg was not a precedent. It was -- and this
is very difficult to actually write out -- victor's justice, which is exactly what the Nazis
and their sympathizers said it was then. The US has been "projecting power" around the world
ever since in violation of the spirit of the legal terms of the international order it was
instrumental in creating post World War II; and its clear provisions at least since Reagan
told the World Court to drop dead re: Nicaragua vs. US.
Other more informed readers may have
much earlier examples. International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked
by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes.
Robert Sinuhe , July 25, 2020 at 10:34
Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans
had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. Principles are morals and just but power trumps all.
Neocons are by nature paranoid. It's their 'circle the wagons', 'build walls' mentality.
In their simple view, the world is neatly divided into friends/toadies who obey you and
enemies who don't. And they LOVE big government
Naturally compromise, 'give-and-take' and free trade is OUT with that
ParkAveFlasher , 1 hour ago
I disagree that it's paranoia. It's an overt power grab on a global scale.
meditate_vigorously , 50 minutes ago
Neocons AKA Trotskyites only care about making war. Perpetual state of war is how they
keep generations weak.
Wars take the best and strongest men and
-kill them
-leave them changed or damaged
-impair them from making strong families
This is probably more important in destroying the family unit than all the efforts of
feminism and the Frankfort school combined. Generation after generation is damaged and
crippled by one war after another.
War lowers the birth rate, which is why (((Neocons))) are all too happy to make up the
deficit with immigrants of different races and ethnicity to further weaken their host nations
so that they can fill the power vacuum. The "baby boom" was less about a birthrate rebound
from WW2 and everything about improvements in agriculture and a booming economy due to no
competition, while women were still in their traditional and natural roles.
joyful-feet , 59 minutes ago
The world is finally waking up to taking steps to address to shine light on and address
the relentless systematic Chinese espionage network. While this should have happened 20 years
ago, the only question is will the world do enough to shatter it completely and take steps to
ensure it doesn't happen again.
Just read some of the page after page of convictions and prison sentences of Chinese
nationals committing espionage against the USA and these are just the fraction of those who
got caught.
When it comes to debate about US military policy, the 2020 presidential election campaign is
so far looking very similar to that of 2016. Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the
strongest military in the world," promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our
troops for the challenges of the next century, not the last one."
In the White House, President Trump is repeating the kind of anti-interventionist head
feints that won him votes four years ago against a hawkish Hillary Clinton. In his recent
graduation address at West Point, Trump re-cycled applause lines from 2016 about "ending an era
of endless wars" as well as America's role as "policeman of the world."
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military presence
abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As military
historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
When the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year came before Congress
this summer, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a modest 10 percent reduction in military spending
so $70 billion could be re-directed to domestic programs. Representative Barbara Lee introduced
a House resolution calling for $350 billion worth of DOD cuts. Neither proposal has gained much
traction, even among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Instead, the House Armed Services Committee
just
voted 56 to 0 to spend $740. 5 billion on the Pentagon in the coming year, prefiguring the
outcome of upcoming votes by the full House and Senate.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance. In the never-ending work of building a stronger anti-war
movement, Pentagon critics, with military credentials, are invaluable allies. Daniel Sjursen, a
37-year old veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is one such a critic. Inspired in part by
the much-published Bacevich, Sjursen has just written a new book called Patriotic Dissent:
America in the Age of Endless War (Heyday Books)
Patriotic Dissent is a short volume, just 141 pages, but it packs the same kind of punch as
Howard Zinn's classic 1967 polemic, Vietnam: The Logic of
Withdrawal . Like Zinn, who became a popular historian after his service in World War II,
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment, and the
military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry president." His
appeal to the conscience of fellow soldiers, veterans, and civilians is rooted in the unusual
arc of an eighteen-year military career. His powerful voice, political insights, and painful
personal reflections offer a timely reminder of how costly, wasteful, and disastrous our post
9/11 wars have been.
Sjursen has the distinction of being a graduate of West Point, an institution that produces
few political dissenters. He grew up in a fire-fighter family on working class Staten Island.
Even before enrolling at the Academy at age 17, he was no stranger to what he calls
"deep-seated toxically masculine patriotism." As a newly commissioned officer in 2005, he was
still a "burgeoning neo-conservative and George W. Bush admirer" and definitely not, he
reports, any kind of "defeatist liberal, pacifist, or dissenter."
"The horror, the futility, the farce of that war was the turning point in my life,"
Sjursen writes in Patriotic Dissent .
When he returned, at age 24, from his "brutal, ghastly deployment" as a platoon leader, he
"knew that the war was built on lies, ill-advised, illegal, and immoral." This "unexpected,
undesired realization generated profound doubts about the course and nature of the entire
American enterprise in the Greater Middle East -- what was then unapologetically labeled the
Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)."
A Professional Soldier
By the time Sjursen landed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in early 2011, he had been
promoted to captain but "no longer believed in anything we were doing."
He was, he confesses, "simply a professional soldier -- a mercenary, really -- on a
mandatory mission I couldn't avoid. Three more of my soldiers died, thirty-plus were wounded,
including a triple amputee, and another over-dosed on pain meds after our return."
Despite his disillusionment, Sjursen had long dreamed of returning to West Point to teach
history. He applied for and won that highly competitive assignment, which meant the Army had to
send him to grad school first. He ended up getting credentialed, while living out of uniform,
in the "People's Republic of Lawrence, Kansas, a progressive oasis in an intolerant, militarist
sea of Republican red." During his studies at the state university, Sjursen found an
intellectual framework for his "own doubts about and opposition to US foreign policy." He
completed his first book, Ghost Riders , which combines personal memoir with counter-insurgency
critique. Amazingly enough, it was published in 2015, while he was still on active duty, but
with "almost no blowback" from superior officers.
Before retiring as a major four years later, Sjursen pushed the envelope further, by writing
more than 100 critical articles for TomDispatch and other civilian publications. He was no
longer at West Point so that body of work triggered "a grueling, stressful, and scary
four-month investigation"by the brass at Fort Leavenworth, during which the author was
subjected to "a non-publication order." At risk were his career, military pension, and
benefits. He ended up receiving only a verbal admonishment for violating a Pentagon rule
against publishing words "contemptuous of the President of the United States." His "PTSD and
co-occurring diagnoses" helped him qualify for a medical retirement last year.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit one
who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With several
left-leaning comrades, he started Fortress on A Hill, a lively podcast about military affairs
and veterans' issues. He's a frequent, funny, and always well-informed guest on progressive
radio and cable-TV shows, as well as a contributing editor at Antiwar.com , and a contributor to a host of mainstream liberal
publications. This year, the Lannan Foundation made him a cultural freedom fellow.
In Patriotic Dissent , Sjursen not only recounts his own personal trajectory from military
service to peace activism. He shows how that intellectual journey has been informed by reading
and thinking about US history, the relationship between civil society and military culture, the
meaning of patriotism, and the price of dissent.
One historical figure he admires is Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient
of two Medals of Honor for service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler
sided with the poor and working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I
bonus payments. And he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that
"war is just a racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big
Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
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Sjursen contrasts Butler's anti-interventionist whistle-blowing, nearly a century ago, with
the silence of high-ranking veterans today after "nineteen years of ill-advised, remarkably
unsuccessful American wars." Among friends and former West Point classmates, he knows many
still serving who "obediently resign themselves to continued combat deployments" because they
long ago "stopped asking questions about their own role in perpetuating and enabling a
counter-productive, inertia-driven warfare state."
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About Face:
Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our Troops Home.
US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right. Each in, its own way, seeks to
"reframe dissent, against empire and endless war, as the truest form of patriotism." But
actually taming the military-industrial complex will require "big-tent, intersectional action
from civilian and soldier alike," on a much larger scale. One obstacle to that, he believes, is
the societal divide between the "vast majority of citizens who have chosen not to serve" in the
military and the "one percent of their fellow citizens on active duty," who then become part of
"an increasingly insular, disconnected, and sometimes sententious post-9/11 veteran
community."
Not many on the left favor a return to conscription.
But Sjursen makes it clear there's been a downside to the U.S. replacing "citizen
soldiering" with "a tiny professional warrior caste," created in response to draft-driven
dissent against the Vietnam War, inside and outside the military. As he observes:
"Nothing so motivates a young adult to follow foreign policy, to weigh the advisability or
morality of an ongoing war as the possibility of having to put 'skin in the game.' Without at
least the potential requirement to serve in the military and in one of America's now
countless wars, an entire generation -- or really two, since President Nixon ended the draft
in 1973–has had the luxury of ignoring the ills of U.S. foreign policy, to distance
themselves from its reality ."
At a time when the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and
anti-imperial wave" sweeping over the country, we have instead a "civil-military" gap that,
Sjursen believes, has "stifled antiwar and anti-imperial dissent and seemingly will continue to
do so." That's why his own mission is to find more "socially conscious veterans of these
endless, fruitless wars" who are willing to "step up and form a vanguard of sorts for
revitalized patriotic dissent." Readers of Sjursen's book, whether new recruits to that
vanguard or longtime peace activists, will find Patriotic Dissent to be an invaluable
educational tool. It should be required reading in progressive study groups, high school and
college history classes, and book clubs across the country . Let's hope that the author's
willingness to take personal risks, re-think his view of the world, and then work to change it
will inspire many others, in uniform and out.
Do we need to be in 160 countries with our military and can we afford it?
Cat Daddy , 1 hour ago
I am all for bringing the troops home except for this one unnerving truth; nature abhors a
vacuum, specifically, when we pull out, China moves in. A world dominated by the CCP will be
a dangerous place to be. When we leave, we will need to make sure our bases are safely in the
hands of our friends.
dogbert8 , 1 hour ago
War is effectively the way the U.S. has done business since the Spanish American War, our
first imperial conquests. War is how we ensure big business has the materials and markets
they demand in return for their support of political parties and candidates. War is the only
area left with opportunities for growth and profit. Don't think for a minute that TPTB will
ever let us stop waging war to get what we (they) want.
TheLastMan , 2 hours ago
If you are new to zh all you need to do is study PNAC and the related nature of all
parties to understand the criminality of USA militarization and for whose benefit it
serves
Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago
I have written many times on this platform the exact same sentiments.
I am most disheartened by the COVID + Antifa/BLM Riots because of the facts this author
presents.
We are distracted with emotional and highly volatile MASSIVELY PROPAGANDIZED stories by
MSM (I don't watch) while the real problem in the world is as the author describes above.
We are war-mongering nation who needs to bring our troops home and disband over half of
our overseas installations and bases.
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the citizens
of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
Yet, we run around arguing about masks and who can go into a restaurant or toppling
statutes and throwing mortar-type fireworks at federal officers. This is what we do instead
of facing a real problem which is that we are war-mongering nation with no moral/ethical
conscience. These scraggily bearded white Antifas need to WTFU and realize who their true
enemy.
Oh, wait. They work for the true enemy! Get it?
Max21c , 1 hour ago
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the
citizens of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
I don't agree with the economic sanctions nonsense thing as they seem to be more of a
crutch for people that are not any good at planning, strategy, analytical thinking, critical
thinking, strategic thinking, and lack much in the way of talent or creativity or
intellectual acumen or intellectual skills...I believe there's around just shy of 10k
economic sanctions by Washington...
But the USA does have the right to receive or refuse to receive foreign Ambassadors and
Consuls and to recognize or not recognize other nations governments thus it does have some
degrees of the right to not trade or engage in commerce with other nations to a certain
extent... per imports and exports... et cetera... though it's not necessarily an absolute
right or power
IronForge , 2 hours ago
Sjursen may admire General Butler; but he doesn't seem to know that several of the
General's Descendants Served in the US Military.
Sjursen isn't Butler. The General Prevented a Coup in his Time.
The USA are a Hegemony whose KleptOchlarchs overtook the Original Constitutional
Republic.
PetroUSD, MIC, Corporate Expansion-Conquest, AgriGMO, and Pharma Interests Span the
Globe.
Wars are Rackets; and Societies to Nation-States have waged them over Real Estate, Natural
Resources, Trade Routes, Industrial Capacity, Slavery, Suppresive Spite,
Religious/Ideological Zeal, Economic Preservation, and Profiteering Greed.
YET, Militaries are still formed by Nation-States to Survive and for Some - Thrive above
such Competitive Existenstential Threats.
*****
The Hegemony are running up against New Shifts in Global Power, Systems, and Influences;
and are about to Lose their Unilateral Advantages. The Hegemon themselves may suffer Societal
Collapses Within.
Sjursen should read up on Chalmers Johnson. Instead of trying to Coordinate Ineffective
Peace Demonstrations, the Entire Voting/Political Contribution/Candidacy Schemes should be
Separated from the Oligarchy of Plutocrats and Corporate/Political KleptOchlarchs.
Without Bringing the Votes back to the Collective Hands of Citizenry Interests First and
Foremost, the Republic are Forever Conquered; and the Ethical may have to resort to
Emigration and/or Secession.
Ink Pusher , 2 hours ago
Nobody rides for free,there's always a cost and those who can't pay in bullion will often
pay in bodily fluids of one form or another.
Profiteers that create warfare for profit are simply parasitical criminals and should not
be considered a "special breed" when weighed upon the Scales of Justice.
gzorp , 2 hours ago
Read 'Starship Troopers' by Robert A Heinlein (1959) pay especial attention to the
"History and Moral Philosophy" courses... that's where his predictions for the future course
of 'America's' future appear.... rather accurately. Heinlein was a 1930's graduate of
Annapolis (Navy for you dindus and nohabs).....
A DUDE , 2 hours ago
t's not just the war machine but the entire system, the corporatocracy, of which the MIC
is a part. And there is no way to change the system from within the system because whatever
is anti-establishment becomes absorbed and neutered and part of the system.
Tulsi Gabbard ran on anti interventionism foreign policy.
Look how fast the DNC disappeared her.
Of course destroying Kamala Harris in a debate and going after the ancient evil Hitlery
sealed her fate.
BarkingWolf , 2 hours ago
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military
presence abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As
military historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
Now wait just a minute there mister, that sounds like criticism of the Donald John PBUH
PBUH PBUH ... you can't do that ... the cult followers will call you a leftist and a commie
if you point out stuff like that even if it is objectively true! That's strike one, punk.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance.
November doesn't have anything to do with anything really. The appeal to conscience is
wasted. The appeal would be better spent on removing the political class that is on the AIPAC
dole and have dual citizenship in a foreign country in the ME while pretending to serve
America while they are members of Congress. That's only the tip of the spear ... and that is
a nonstarter from the get go.
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment,
and the military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry
president."
I don't think Trump is necessarily a war power hungry president. While it is true that we
have not withdrawn from Syria and basically stole their oil as Trump has repeated promised he
would do, it is also true that Trump has yet to deliver Israels war with Iran and in fact had
called back an invasion of Iran ten minutes before a flotilla of US warships was about to set
sail to ignite such an invasion leaving Tel Aviv not only aggrieved, but angry as well.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit
one who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With
several left-leaning comrades ...
Okay, this is where you are starting to lose me .... i't like listening to a concert and
suddenly the music is hitting sour notes that are off key, off tempo, and don't seem to fit
somehow.
Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient of two Medals of Honor for
service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler sided with the poor and
working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I bonus payments. And
he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that "war is just a
racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for
Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
Butler was correct, war especially nowadays, is a racket that makes rich people who never
seem to get their hands dirty, even richer. As one grunt put it long ago, "it's a dirty job,
but somebody has to do it."
That "somebody" is going to be the kids of the little people (the real high-class
muscle-men ) who are hated by their political class overlords even as the political class are
worshipped as gods.
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About
Face: Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our
Troops Home. US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right.
The problem here is that the so-called "left" brand has always been about war and the
capitalism of death.
The Democrat party is really the group that started the American civil war for instance,
they are the ones behind legacy of Eugenists like Margaret Sanger who was a card carrying
Socialist who founded the child murder mill known today as Planned Parenthood that sadly
still exists under Trump but has turned into the industrialized slaughter of children ...even
after birth so that their organs can be "harvested" for profit.
Sjursen's affinity for "the left" as saintly purveyors of peace, goodness, love, and life
strikes me as rather disingenuous. Then he seems to argue if I read the analysis correctly
that conscription will somehow be the panacea for the insatiable appetite for war?
One false flag such as The Gulf of Tonkin or 911 or even Perl Harbor or the Sinking of the
Lusitania or the assassination of an Arch Duke ... is all that is really needed to arouse the
unbridled hoards to march off to battle with almost erotic enthusiasm -the political class
KNOWS IT!
Amendment X , 2 hours ago
And don't forget President Wilson (D) who was re-elected on the platform "He kept us out
of the war" only to drag U.S. into the hopeless European Monarchary driven WWI.
11b40 , 1 hour ago
Yo! Low class muscle man here, and I have to agree with bringing back the draft. It should
never have been eliminated, and is the root of the golbalists abiity to keep us in
Afghanistan, and other parts of the ME, for going on 20 years.
Skin in the game. It means literally everything. As noted we now have 2 generations of men
who never had to give much thought at all to what's happening around the world, and how
America is involved....and look at the results. It would be a much different situation today
if all those 18 year olds had to face the draft board with an unforgiving lottery.
Yes, one false falg can whip up the country to a war time fever pitch, but unless there is
a real, serious threat, the fever cannot be maintained. The 1969 draft lottery caught me when
I stayed out the first semester of my senior year. Didn't want to go, but accepted my fate
and did the best job I could to stay alive and keep those around me as safe as possible. In
1966, I was in favor of the war, and was about to go Green Beret on the buddy system. We were
going to grease gooks with all the enthusiasm of John Wayne. My old man, an artillery 1st Sgt
at the time in Germany, talked me out of it. More like get your *** on a plane back to the
States and into college, befroe i kick it up around your shouders. A WW2 & Korea vet, he
told me then it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The point is, when kids are getting drafted, Mom's, Dad's, and everyone else concerned
with the safety of their friends & relatives, start paying attention and asking hard
questions of politicians. Using Afghanistan as an example, we would have been on the way out
by the 2004 election cycle, or at max before the next one in 2008. That was 12 years ago, and
we are still there.
I addition, the reason we went would have been more closely examined, and there may have
been a real investigtion into 9/11. Plus, I am convinced that serving your country makes for
a better all around citizen, and God knows, we need better citizens.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo started new cold war with China, but have no way to back up their threats
and win it!! When i was in Kosovo peace corps i heard so many stories from Albanian who were
blamed to be Russian or American spy because of double cold war against Albania. Trump and
Pompeo just gave excuse to Xi to blame anyone who protest as American spy. BBC were showing
China's broadcast of the protests in Oregon to Hong Kong with subtitle "Do you really want
American democracy?", LMFAO
Max21c , 2 hours ago
Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the strongest military in the world,"
promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our troops for the challenges of the
next century, not the last one."
The United States shall continue to have a weak military until it starts to fix its
foreign policy and diplomacy. You cannot have the strongest military in the world if you lack
a good foreign policy and good diplomacy. Brains are a lot more important than battleships,
battalions, bullets, barrels, or bombs. Get a frickin' clue you friggin' Washington
morons.
Washington is weak because they are dumb. Blind, deaf, and dumb.
Heroic Couplet , 2 hours ago
Too little, too late. Great ad for a book that will be forgotten in a week. Read Bolton's
book. The minute Trump tries to reduce troops, Bolton is right there, saying "No, we can't
move troops to the perimeter. No, we can't move troops from barracks to tents at the
perimeter." Who needs AI?
Erik Prince wrote 3.5 years ago that 4th gen warfare consists of cyberwarfare and
bio-weapons. The US military is fooked. There's probably an interesting book to be
researched: How do Republicans feel about contracting COVID-19 after listening to Trump
fumble?
ChecksandBalances , 3 hours ago
Blame the voters. Run on a platform to reduce military and police spending. See how many
of those lose. Probably all of them. You have to stop feeding the beast. This is a slogan
Trump correctly said but as usual didn't actually mean. We should cut all military and police
spending by 1/2 and then take the remaining money and build a smarter, more efficient
military and police force.
Max21c , 3 hours ago
It's not just the "Deep State." It's Washingtonians overall. It's Deep Crazy. They're all
Deep Crazy! They're nuts. And the rare exceptions that may know better and have enough common
sense to know its wrong to sick the secret police on innocent American civilians aren't going
to say anything or do anything to stop it. The few that know better in foreign policy aren't
going to say anything or do anything against the new Cold Wars on the Eastern Front against
China or on the Western Front against Russia since they're not willing to go up against the
Regime. So the Regimists know they have carte blanche to persecute or terrorize or go after
any that stand in their way. This is how tyrannies and police states operate. It's the nature
of the beast. At a minimum they brow beat people into submission. People don't want to stick
their neck out and risk going up against the Regime and risk losing to the Regime, its secret
police, and the powers that be. They shy away from anything that would bring the Regime and
its secret police and its radicals, extremists, fanatics, and zealots their way.
nonkjo , 4 hours ago
It's okay to be against "forever war" and still not have to be a progressive douchbag.
Sjursen is an unprincipled ******** artist. He leaves Iraq disillusioned as a lieutenant
but sticks around long enough for them to pay for his grad school and give him some sweet
"resume building" experiences that he can stand on to sell books? FYI, from commissioning
time as a second lieutenant to promotion to captain is 3 years...that means Sjusen was so
disillusioned that he decided to stick around for 12 more years which is about 9 years longer
than he actually needed to as an Academy grad (he only had to serve 6 unless he elected to go
to grad school).
The bottom line is Sjusen capitalizes on people not knowing how the military works. That
is, that his own self-interest far outweighs his the principles he espouses. Typical leftist
hypoctite.
Max21c , 4 hours ago
...the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and anti-imperial
wave ..."
Perhaps the USA just needs a better foreign policy. Though we all know that's not going to
happen with the flaky screwballs of Washington and the flaky screwballs in the Pentagon, CIA,
State Department, foreign policy establishment, think tanks et cetera.
Minor technical point: the time for the "anti-imperial wave" was before Washingtonians
destroyed much of the world and created their strategic blunders and disastrous foreign
policy. You folks all went along with this nonsense and now you have your quagmires, forever
wars, and numerous trouble spots that have popped up here and there along the way to
boot.
Pottery barn rule: you broke it and you own it and it's yours...Ma'am please pay at the
register on the way out...Sorry Ma'am there's no more free gluing...though the gluing
specialist may be in on the third Thursday this month though it's usually the second Tuesday
each month...
Contemporaneously, in the same vein the American public has been brainwashed into going
along with the new Cold Wars on the Western Front against Moscow and the even newer Cold War
on the Eastern Front against Beijing. It's like P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every
minute," and you fools in the American public just keep buying right in to the brainwashing.
They're now successfully indoctrinating you into buying into their new Cold Wars with Russia
and China. The Cold War on the Eastern Front versus Peking is more getting more fanciful
attentions at the moment and the Cold War on the Western Front has temporarily been relegated
to the back burner but they'll move the Western Front Cold War from simmer to boil over
whenever it suits their needs. It's just a rendition of the Oceania has always been at war
with East Asia and Eurasia is our friend are just gameplays right out of George Orwell's
1984.
Most of the quagmires can be fixed to a certain extent by applying some cement and
engineering to the quicksand and many of the trouble spots can become more settled and less
unstable if not stable in some instances. Even some of the more serious strategic problems
like the South China Sea, North Korean nuclear weapons development, and potential Iranian
nuclear weapons development can still be resolved through peaceful strategies and
solutions.
In re sum, while I won't disparage a peace movement I do not believe it is either
necessary nor proper simply because you will not solve anything through a peace movement. The
sine qua non or quintessential element is simply to end one of these wars successfully
through a peaceful diplomatic solution or solve one of these serious foreign policy problems
through diplomacy which is something that hasn't been the norm since the downfall of the
Berlin Wall, is no longer in favor, and which is the necessary element to prove that peace
can be achieved through strategy and diplomacy and thereby change the course of the country's
future.
In foreign affairs the foreign policy establishment has its pattern of behavior and it is
that pattern of behavior that has to be changed. It's the mindset of the Washingtonians &
elites that has to be changed. Just taking to the streets won't really change their ways or
their beliefs for any significant part of the duration. They may pay lip service to peace
& diplomacy but it won't win out in their minds in the long run. They are so warped in
their views and beliefs that it'll have little or no effect over the long haul. As soon as
the protests dissipate they'll be right back at it, back to their bad ways and bad
behavior.
Son of Captain Nemo , 4 hours ago
For the past 19 years... And as Anti-War as you will ever get!...
Was it George Carlin that said " if voting made a difference they wouldn't let us do it "
? The only way to stop these forever wars is for people to stop joining the military. Parents
should teach their children that joining the military and trotting off to some country to
fight a war for the elite is not being patriotic . I was in the military from 1964 -1968.
When Lyndon Johnson became president he drug out the Vietnam war as long as he could. Oh !
Lady Byrd Johnson bought Decon Company [ rat poison ] when most people never heard of it.
Johnson bought this rat poison , government paid for ,at an inflated price . Sent ship loads
of it to Vietnam .Never mind all the Americans and so called enemy killed.. Jane Fonda ,
Hanoi Jane , was really a hero who helped save countless lives by helping to end the war.
Tommy and **** Smothers , Smother Brothers , spoke out against the war . Our government had
them black balled from TV. Our government is probably as corrupt as any other country.
A piece of irony, one of our greatest generals was Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme
Commander in WWII and two term president. He kept the peace for almost 10 years and warned
Americans to beware of the "military-industrial complex." Most military men never want war,
they just make sure they are ready if it comes. We have had the military industrial complex
for way too long, it needs to be reduced and we need more generals to run for president, Gen.
Flynn maybe? I'll also take Schwartzkoff.
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
captain noob , 7 hours ago
Capitalism has no morals
Profit is the driving force of every single thing
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
Chief Joesph , 7 hours ago
After what General Smedley Butler had to say and warned us about, here we are, 90 years
later, doing the very same thing. Goes to show how utterly dumb, unprogressive, sheepish, and
Medieval Americans really are. And you thought this is what makes America Great????
cowboyted , 8 hours ago
The U.S. Constitution provides for a "national defense." Yet, the last time we were
attacked by a foreign nation was on Dec. 7, 1941 in which, the Congress declared war on
Japan. Yet, in the past 100 years our country's leaders have convinced Americans that we can
wage war if the issue concerns our "national INTEREST." This is wrong and needs to be deleted
and replaced with our Constitution's language. Also, Congress is the ONLY Constitutional
authority to declare war, not the executive branch. Too many countries, including the U.S.,
spend too much money preparing for war on levels of destruction that are unnecessary. We must
attain a new paradigm with leading countries to achieve a mutual understanding that the
people of the world are better off with jobs, food, families, peace, and a chance at a better
life, filled with hope, faith, and flourishing communities. Things have to change.
transcendent_wannabe , 8 hours ago
I have to agree in sentiment with the author, but the reality of humans on earth almost
demands constant war, it is the price we pay for the modern city lifestyle. There are various
reasons.
1. Ever since WW1, the country has become citified, and the old peaceful country farm life
was replaced with the rat race of industrial production. Without war, there is no need for
the level of industrial production required to give full employment to the overpopulated
cities. People will scream for war and jingoism when they have no city jobs. How do you deal
with that? Sure, War is a Racket, but so far a necessary racket.
2. Every 20 years the military needs a real shooting war to battle test its upcoming
soldiers and new equipment. Now the battles are against insurgencies... door-to-door in
cities and ghettos, and new tactics need to be field tested. If the military goes more than
20 years without a real shooting war, they lose the real men, the sargeant majors, who just
become fat pot bellied desk personel without the adrenaline of a real fight.
3. Humans inately like to fight. Even children, boys wrestle, girls taunt one another.
There is no way discovered yet to keep people from turning violent in their attempts to steal
what others have, or to gain dominance thru physical intimidation. Without war, gangs will
form and fight over territorial boundaries. There is no escaping it.
4. Earth is where the battle field is, Battlefield Earth. There is no fighting allowed in
heaven, so Earth is where souls come to fight. Nobody on earth likes it, but fighting and war
is here to stay, and you should really use this life to find out how to transcend earth and
get to a place where war is not needed or allowed, like heaven or Valhalla.
Tortuga , 8 hours ago
So. He thinks the crooked, grifting, regressive hate US murdering dim pustules aren't the
warmongering, globalist, hate US, crooked, grifting, murdering republicrats. What a mo
ron.
HenryJonesJr , 8 hours ago
Real conservatives were always against foreign intervention. It was the Left that embraced
foreign wars (Wilson / Roosevelt / Truman / Johnson).
messystateofaffairs , 8 hours ago
From my perspective being a professional goon to serve the greater glory of international
criminals, is, aside from having to avoid the mirror, way too much hard and dangerous work
for the money. As a civilian of a society run by criminals on criminal imperialist
principles, I have no literal PTSD type of skin in that filthy game, but like most citizens,
knowing and unknowing, I do swim in that sewer everyday, doing my best to avoid bumping into
the larger turds. My "patriotism" lies where the turds are fewest, anywhere in the world that
might be.
bh2 , 8 hours ago
The threat to US interests is not in the ME (apart from Israel). It's in the Pacific.
NATO was never intended to be a defense arrangement perpetually funded by the US. Once
stood up and post-war economies in Europe were restored, it was supposed to be a European
defense shield with the US as ultimate backup. Not as a sugar-daddy for wealthy nations. Now
that Russia is no longer situated to attack through the Fulda Gap, NATO is a grotesque
expression of Parkinson's Law writ large.
China is a real threat to US interests. That's obvious simply by consulting a map.
Military assets committed to engagement in theaters that no longer seriously matter is
feckless and spendthrift. Particularly when Americans are put in harm's way with no prospect
of either winning or leaving.
Worse yet is the accelerating prospect of being drawn into conflict in the South China Sea
because fewer than decisive US and allied assets are deployed there.
While nations are now responding to that threat (including Japan, who are re-arming),
China must realize a successful Taiwan invasion faces steadily diminishing prospects. They
must act soon or give up the opportunity. Moreover, the CCP are loosing face with their own
people because of multiple calamities wreaking havoc. The danger of a desperate CCP turning
to a hot war to save face is an ever-rising threat. (If Three Gorges Dam fails, that could be
the final straw.)
FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor). It appears modern neo warmongers of all stripes would be delighted
if China were tempted into yet another senseless war in the Pacific. And more lives lost on
all sides.
While the size of US military and (ineptly named) "intelligence" budgets are vastly out of
scale, the short-term cost in money is secondary to risk of long-term cost in blood. Surging
the budget may make good sense when guns are all pointing in the wrong direction and
political donors don't care as long as it pays well.
Defeating that outrageously wasteful spending is the first battle to be won. Disengaging
from stupid, distracting, unwinnable conflicts is an imperative to achieve that goal.
The Judge , 8 hours ago
US. is the real threat to US interests.
DeptOfPsyOps-14527776 , 8 hours ago
An important part of this statue quo is propaganda and in particular neo-con
propaganda.
Once it was clear that agitating against the Russian federation had failed, they started
agitating against the PRC.
FDR administration wasn't that clever, they just had (((support))). They wanted Imperial
Japan unable to strengthen itself against the United Kingdom as it was waging a war against
the European Axis, did not realize that the Japanese fleet could reach as far as Hawaii and
after Pearl Harbor, believed the West Coast could have been attacked as well.
Hovewer, they likely expected the Japanese to intercept their fleet on the way to the
Phillipines after a war between Imperial Japan and the Commonwealth had started.
Salzburg1756 , 8 hours ago
"FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor)." No, we knew the japs were going to attack Pearl Harbor. We had
broken their code. That's why we sent our best battle ships away from Hawaii just before the
attack. Most of the ships they sank were old and worthless; our good ships were out at
sea.
TheLastMan , 4 hours ago
What constitutes "America's interests"?
the us military is the world community welcome wagon for global multi national Corp
chamber of commerce
Do us citizens serve corporations or do corporations serve us citizens?
next ?, who owns / controls corporations?
Alice-the-dog , 8 hours ago
There is a reason why suicide is the leading cause of death among active duty military.
They come to realize that what they are doing is perfect male bovine fecal matter. That they
are guilty of participating in completely unwarranted death and destruction.
847328_3527 , 9 hours ago
Liberals and "progressives" are traditionally against wars. This new "woke" group of
Demorats shows they are NOT liberals or progressives since they support the Establishment War
Criminals like Obama and his side kick, demented Biden, and Bloodthirsty Clinton.
The violent US, run by greedy billionaires, has to be cut down to size before they start
WW3. Full Spectrum Dominance (FDS) will be very expensive for the US Evil Empire. Did the
deluded US elites really think RF and China will not respond to their quest for space
dominance???
There are sources all over the web giving 14 identifying points of fascism, including from
Umberto Eco, who lived under Mussolini, but I leave finding that material as an exercise.
Rump's a close fit. My take right now is more personal.
My father left Europe when Hitler came to power. Dad had wandered into one of his early
rallies and heard him speak, and it scared him when he assumed power. I heard these stories
growing up, and I've had a terrible sinking feeling for the last 4 years. Yeah, Rump is a tv
era artifact (like Reagan was a movie era artifact), with no true power or talent except
manipulating, but the occupant of that house is always a figurehead for the ruling class.
There are truly frightening people invested in his "movement", like the aforementioned Erik
Prince. I've been saying for years that Rump has been grooming CBP and ICE as his personal
force, loyal to him and not the nation, and we're seeing the fruition.
(added)
It's not so much that Rump is a fascist. He's a seed crystal for the American propensity
for fascism. Americans have always had a soft spot for fascism. I am frightened. I remember the
stories. up 5 users have voted. --
If I'm wrong, it's the first time I'm happy to be confused. -Don Van Vliet
There is circumstantial evidence the European Union is systematically sinking boats loaded
with refugees coming from the Libyan route. The MS editorial is correct in calling the
Mediterranean "the graveyard of many people from the Middle East and Africa."
It looks like a continental-wide operation of genocide and silence: the Italian and Greek
Coast Guards do the dirty job with secret blessing from their governments, and their
governments count with the tacit blessing (and silence) from the other EU governments and
their respective MSMs. The Russian and Chinese MSMs do nothing because they can't prove it
(as they don't have access to the local) and are more honest than the Western MSM (they don't
report what they can't know).
I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking, after all of this is done, of about some
100,000 dead drowned in the Mediterranean. After that dead boy in a Turkish beach fiasco,
they took care of perfecting the scheme, so that the Italian and Greek coast guards can
operate deeper into the sea, where the drowned corpses cannot be beached. If true, this would
be the most well covered genocide in modern history, and the first one will full and direct
complying from the "free press".
News
/
Politics
Iran's top security official: Harsher revenge awaits perpetrators of Gen. Soleimani's assassination
Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM
[ Last
Update: Wednesday, 22 July 2020 4:29 PM ]
Members of the Iraqi honor guard walk past a huge portrait of Iran's late top general Qassem Soleimani (L) and Iraqi
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport last month, during a memorial
service held in Baghdad's high-security Green Zone on February 11, 2020. (Photo by AFP)
Iran's top security
official
says
harsher
revenge
awaits the perpetrators of the attack that killed senior Iranian anti-terrorism commander
Lieutenant
General Qassem Soleimani and his companions.
In a
post
on his Twitter
page on Wednesday, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said that US
President Donald Trump had admitted that the American, upon his direct order, committed the crime of assassinating General
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and
Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) counter-terrorism force, who were two
prominent figures of the anti-terrorism campaign.
"The two Iranian and Iraqi nations are avengers of blood of these martyrs
and
will not rest until they punish the perpetrators," read part of the tweet.
"Harsher revenge is one the way," it concluded.
The two commanders and a number of their companions were assassinated in a US airstrike near Baghdad airport on January 3,
as General Soleimani was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.
Both commanders were extremely popular because of the key role they played in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh terrorist
group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
In retaliation for the attack, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles a US base in Iraq on January 8. According to
the US Defense Department, more than 100 American forces suffered "traumatic brain injuries" during the counterstrike. The
IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans, who perished during the retaliation.
Iran has also issued an arrest warrant and asked Interpol for help in detaining Trump, who ordered the assassination, and
several other US military and political leaders behind the strike.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday Iran will never forget Washington's
assassination of General Soleimani and will definitely deliver a "counterblow" to the United States.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will never forget this issue and will definitely deal the counterblow to the Americans,"
Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Tehran.
"They killed your guest at your own home and unequivocally admitted the atrocity. This is no small matter," Ayatollah
Khamenei told the Iraqi premier.
A UN special rapporteur says
has
condemned the US assassination and said Washington has put the world at unprecedented peril with its murder of Iran's top
anti-terror commander.
Agnes Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has also warned that it is high
time the international community broke its silence on Washington's drone-powered unlawful killings.
Press TV's website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
The Congress is serving the interests of the US Oligarchy, at home and abroad. The
strategy is simple: keep allies/vassals in obeisance and non-competitive and destroy
polities that do not subject themselves to a similar system (which ends up to become
subservient to the US interests anyways, in the long run). Thus, all enemies are polities
were Oligarchy doesn't run the roster, and are semi-socialist / socialist countries:
Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, in the past Iraq.
Fully fledged democracies, that truly enact the will of the people, would not do
something like this.
For those too young to remember the horrible American war on Yugoslavia in 1999, or
those who have forgot, or were misled with lies about Kosovo, here is a quick summary:
This is a very accurate and honest report what { NATO } the North American Terrorist
Organization did to Yugoslavia . If you Americans wish to know what kind of global
government you are promoting . You only have to find the actual transcripts of Milosevic's
trail . Don't read or listen to any fake news of the trail . You must read the trail
transcripts and judge for yourself The butcher of Balkans has kind of been exonerated after
his death . The world court is something to be very afraid of not at all a instrument of
justice .But the trail transcripts are about 5000 pages so you will have to work to find
out the truth .
WW2 and it's depiction in various films and TV programs has had an unexpected effect on
the military psyche. The US believes it won the war on it's own and the troops came home as
heroes. This is the expectation of the US military even today, unable to accept that it can
be defeated. "Thank you for your service" is a given whatever crimes had been committed
abroad on the innocent who had done them no harm whatsoever. The ICC is opposed on the
theory that US troops cannot commit torture or massacres.
The Joke is that the US has not one a war since WWII, except maybe Granada. As for War
Crimes, the Current President himself committed a War Crime, He gave a Pardon to a
Convicted War Criminal, that is actually breach of the Geneva Conventions, which is US
Treaty Law and as such equal to the Constitution itself in importance. Schedule 4 Article
146
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide
effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the
grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged
to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring
such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it
prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons
over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting
Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all
acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches
defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial
and defense, which shall not be less favorable than those provided by Article 105 and those
following of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August
12, 1949.
Article 147
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of
the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present
Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological
experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,
unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling
a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a
protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present
Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not
justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Article 148
No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High
Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party
in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
The President has by absolving the Navy Seal of the Liability, Absolved the United
States of the War Crime also, Now I understand that we will hear arguments here of the
Presidents ability to Pardon, but take this as a given, there is no way that During the
Nuremberg Trials the Prosecution of those War Crimes would have accepted the argument that
the Head of State of Germany (Hitler) had the blanket Authority to Pardon German War
Criminals. as such and this is why this was placed in the Geneva Conventions the very act
of Absolving a War Crime is itself a War Crime!
We could care less what the ICC is opposed to. We are not subject to the ICC or
international law. We can enforce it if needed but do not have to abide by it.
The micrograins of ICC jurisdiction and validity require a sharper legal mind than mine
to sift through. But the debate is revelatory of something else -
In general, the current domestic ICC debate reveals part of the true nature of the US
(helped in no small part by the hamfisted and transparent vulgarity of President Trump):
that we are in fact the rogue state that we accuse everyone else in the world of being.
If we are who we say we are we should be straight up supporting the ICC, helping to fund
it and increase its reach and investigative power. Far better than any military
intervention to deal with the truly bad actors in the world would be a legal intervention.
The idea that vicious and violent despots should run scared when they travel or otherwise
face arrest and extradition is exactly right.
But we're not. Why? The answer is obvious at this point - because we have powerful
players in our midst that would face that arrest. And should face that arrest.
Move comes as Libya gov't and Turkey demand an end of foreign intervention in support of
commander Khalifa Haftar.
####
I suspect In'Sultin Erd O'Grand is a mole of the garden kind. He goes about digging
one hole for himself after another. If he keeps this up, all the holes will merge in to
one and he will disappear! It would give the West a chance to have someone running Turkey
with a more reliably western perspective though I think it is clear that whatever comes next,
Turkey will not allow itself to be treated as a western annex and pawn.
US military spending is certainly much higher than it needs to be for US defense needs. But
the US military is not primarily defending the US. It is defending Asia from China, NATO from
Russia, and a number of countries from Iran, not to speak of Norkland.
IOW, the US military is defending US global hegemony, and is priced accordingly. What you
think of US military spending depends on what you think of the US as a hegemon.
I am not a fan of military spending – following an excellent post by John about
Eisenhower's famous speech (more tanks or more hospitals), I often use it as an example
opportunity cost when teaching. One can certainly claim that the budget should be lower but,
as a share of overall economic resources, the budget has been cut substantially in the last
30 years.
"... In addition to the key international financial institutions, WB and IMF, there are the so-called regional development banks and similar financial institutions, keeping the countries of their respective regions in check. ..."
Imagine, you are living in a world that you are told is a democracy – and you may even
believe it – but in fact your life and fate is in the hands of a few ultra-rich,
ultra-powerful and ultra-inhuman oligarchs. They may be called Deep State, or simply the Beast,
or anything else obscure or untraceable – it doesn't matter. They are less than the
0.0001%.
For lack of a better expression, let's call them for now "obscure individuals".
These obscure individuals who pretend running our world have never been elected . We don't
need to name them. You will figure out who they are, and why they are famous, and some of them
totally invisible. They have created structures, or organisms without any legal format. They
are fully out of international legality. They are a forefront for the Beast. Maybe there are
several competing Beasts. But they have the same objective: A New or One World Order (NWO, or
OWO).
These obscure individuals are running, for example, The World Economic Forum (WEF –
representing Big Industry, Big Finance and Big Fame), the Group of 7 – G7, the Group of
20 – G20 (the leaders of the economically" strongest" nations). There are also some
lesser entities, called the Bilderberg Society, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Chatham
House and more.
The members of all of them are overlapping. Even this expanded forefront combined represents
less than 0.001%. They all have superimposed themselves over sovereign national elected and
constitutional governments, and over THE multinational world body, the United Nations, the
UN.
In fact, they have coopted the UN to do their bidding. UN Director Generals, as well as the
DGs of the multiple UN-suborganizations, are chosen mostly by the US, with the consenting nod
of their European vassals – according to the candidate's political and psychological
profile. If his or her 'performance' as head of the UN or head of one of the UN
suborganizations fails, his or her days are counted. Coopted or created by the Beast(s) are
also, the European Union, the Bretton Woods Organizations, World Bank and IMF, as well as the
World Trade Organization (WTO) – and – make no mistake – the International
Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. It has no teeth. Just to make sure the law is always on the
side of the lawless.
In addition to the key international financial institutions, WB and IMF, there are the
so-called regional development banks and similar financial institutions, keeping the countries
of their respective regions in check.
In the end its financial or debt-economy that controls everything. Western neoliberal
banditry has created a system, where political disobedience can be punished by economic
oppression or outright theft of national assets in international territories. The system's
common denominator is the (still) omnipresent US-dollar.
"Unelected Individuals"
The supremacy of these obscure unelected individuals becomes ever more exposed. We, the
People consider it "normal" that they call the shots, not what we call – or once were
proud of calling, our sovereign nations and sovereignly elected governments. They have become a
herd of obedient sheep. The Beast has gradually and quietly taken over. We haven't noticed.
It's the salami tactic: You cut off slice by tiny slice and when the salami is gone, you
realize that you have nothing left, that your freedom, your civil and human rights are gone. By
then it's too late. Case in point is the US Patriot Act. It was prepared way before 9/11. Once
9/11 "happened", the Patriot Legislation was whizzed through Congress in no time – for
the people's future protection – people called for it for fear – and – bingo,
the Patriot Act took about 90% of the American population's freedom and civil rights away. For
good.
We have become enslaved to the Beast. The Beast calls the shots on boom or bust of our
economies, on who should be shackled by debt, when and where a pandemic should break out, and
on the conditions of surviving the pandemic, for example, social confinement. And to top it all
off – the instruments the Beast uses, very cleverly, are a tiny-tiny invisible enemy,
called a virus, and a huge but also invisible monster, called FEAR. That keeps us off the
street, off reunions with our friends, and off our social entertainment, theatre, sports, or a
picnic in the park.
Soon the Beast will decide who will live and who will die, literally – if we let it.
This may be not far away. Another wave of pandemic and people may beg, yell and scream for a
vaccine, for their death knell, and for the super bonanza of Big Pharma – and towards the
objectives of the eugenicists blatantly roaming the world – see this . There
is still time to collectively say NO. Collectively and solidarily.
Take the latest case of blatant imposture. Conveniently, after the first wave of Covid-19
had passed, at least in the Global North, where the major world decisions are made, in early
June 2020, the unelected WEF Chairman, Klaus Schwab , announced "The Great Reset". Taking
advantage of the economic collapse – the crisis shock, as in "The Shock Doctrine" –
Mr. Schwab, one of the Beast's frontrunners, announces openly what the WEF will discuss and
decide for the world-to-come in their next Davos Forum in January 2021. For more details see
this
.
Will, We, The People, accept the agenda of the unelected WEF?
It will opportunely focus on the protection of what's left of Mother Earth; obviously at the
center will be man-made CO2-based "Global Warming". The instrument for that protection of
nature and humankind will be the UN Agenda 2030 – which equals the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG). It will focus on how to rebuild the willfully destroyed global
economy, while respecting the ("green") principles of the 17 SDGs.
Mind you, it's all connected. There are no coincidences. The infamous Agenda 2021 which
coincides with and complements the so-called (UN) Agenda 2030, will be duly inaugurated by the
WEF's official declaration of The Great Reset, in January 2021. Similarly, the implementation
of the agenda of The Great Reset began in January 2020, by the launch of the corona pandemic
– planned for decades with the latest visible events being the 2010 Rockefeller Report
with its "Lockstep Scenario" , and Event 201, of 18 October in NYC which computer-simulated a
corona pandemic, leaving within 18 months 65 million deaths and an economy in ruin, programmed
just a few weeks before the launch of the actual corona pandemic. See COVID-19, We Are Now Living the
"Lock Step Scenario" and
this and this .
The Race
Riots
The racial riots, initiated by the movement Black Lives Matter (funded by the Ford
Foundation and Soros' Open Society Foundation), following the brutal assassination of the
Afro-American George Floyd by a gang of Minneapolis police, and spreading like brush-fire in no
time to more than 160 cities, first in the US, then in Europe – are not only connected to
the Beast's agenda, but they were a convenient deviation from the human catastrophe left behind
by Covid-19. See also this .
The Beast's nefarious plan to implement what's really behind the UN Agenda 2030 is the
little heard-of Agenda ID2020 . See The
Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic: The Real Danger is "Agenda ID2020" . It has been created and
funded by the vaccination guru Bill Gates, and so has GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and
Immunizations), the association of Big Pharma – involved in creating the corona vaccines,
and which funds along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) a major proportion of
WHO's budget.
Following the official path of the UN Agenda 2030 of achieving the SDGs, the 'implementing'
Agenda ID2020 – which is currently being tested on school children in Bangladesh –
will provide digitized IDs possibly in the form of nano-chips implanted along with compulsory
vaccination programs, will promote digitization of money and the rolling out of 5G –
which would be needed to upload and monitor personal data on the nano chips and to control the
populace. Agenda ID2020 will most likely also include 'programs' – through vaccination?
– of significantly reducing world population. Eugenics is an important component in the
control of future world population under a NOW / OWO – see also Georgia Guidestones ,
mysteriously built in 1980.
The ruling elite used the lockdown as an instrument to carry out this agenda. Its
implementation would naturally face massive protests, organized and funded along the same lines
as were the BLM protests and demonstrations. They may not be peaceful – and may not be
planned as being peaceful. Because to control the population in the US and in Europe, where
most of the civil unrest would be expected, a total militarization of the people is required.
This is well under preparation.
In his essay "The Big Plantation" , John
Steppling reports from a NYT article that a
"minimum of 93,763 machine guns, 180,718 magazine cartridges, hundreds of silencers and an
unknown number of grenade launchers have been provided to state and local police departments
in the US since 2006. This is in addition to at least 533 planes and helicopters, and 432
MRAPs -- 9-foot high, 30-ton Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles with gun
turrets and more than 44,900 pieces of night vision equipment, regularly used in nighttime
raids in Afghanistan and Iraq."
He adds that this militarization is part of a broader trend. Since the late 1990s, about 89
percent of police departments in the United States serving populations of 50,000 people or more
had a PPU (Police Paramilitary Unit), almost double of what existed in the mid-1980s. He refers
to these militarized police as the new Gestapo.
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Even before Covid, about 15% to 20% of the population was on or below the poverty line in
the United States. The post-covid lockdown economic annihilation will at least double that
percentage – and commensurately increase the risk for civil turbulence and clashes with
authorities – further enhancing the reasoning for a militarized police
force.
China's Crypto RMB
None of these scenarios will, of course, be presented to the public by the WEF in January
2021. These are decisions taken behind closed doors by the key actors for the Beast. However,
this grandiose plan of the Great Reset does not have to happen. There is at least half the
world population and some of the most powerful countries, economically and militarily –
like China and Russia – opposed to it. "Reset" maybe yes, but not in these western terms.
In fact, a reset of kinds is already happening with China about to roll out a new People's Bank
of China backed blockchain-based cryptocurrency, the crypto RMB, or yuan . This is not only a
hard currency based on a solid economy, it is also supported by gold.
While President Trump keeps trashing China for unfair trade, for improperly managing the
covid pandemic, for stealing property rights – China bashing no end – that China
depends on the US and that the US will cut trading ties with China – or cut ties
altogether, China is calling Trump's bluff. China is quietly reorienting herself towards the
ASEAN countries plus Japan (yes, Japan!) and South Korea, where trade already today accounts
for about 15% of all China's trade and is expected to double in the next five years.
Despite the lockdown and the disruption of trade, China's overall exports recovered with a
3.2% increase in April (in relation to April 2019). This overall performance in China exports
was nonetheless accompanied by a dramatic decline in US-China trade.
China exports to the US decreased by 7.9% in April (in relation to April 2019).
It is clear that the vast majority of
US industries could not survive without Chinese supply chains. The western dependence on
Chinese medical supplies is particularly strong. Let alone Chinese dependence by US consumers.
In 2019, US total consumption, about 70% of GDP, amounted to $13.3 trillion, of which a fair
amount is directly imported from China or dependent on ingredients from China.
The WEF-masters are confronted with a real dilemma. Their plan depends very much on the
dollar supremacy which would continue to allow dishing out sanctions and confiscating assets
from those countries opposing US rule; a dollar-hegemony which would allow imposing the
components of The Great Reset scheme, as described above.
At present, the dollar is fiat money, debt-money created from thin air. It has no backing
whatsoever. Therefore, its worth as a reserve currency is increasingly decaying, especially
vis-à-vis the new crypto-yuan from China. In order to compete with the Chinese yuan, the
US Government would have to move away from its monetary Ponzi-scheme, by separating itself from
the 1913 Federal Reserve Act and print her own US-economy- and possibly gold-backed (crypto)
money – not fiat FED-money, as is the case today. That would mean cutting the more than
100-year old ties to the Rothschild and Co. clan-owned FED, and creating a real peoples-owned
central bank. Not impossible, but highly improbable. Here, two Beasts might clash, as world
power is at stake.
Meanwhile, China, with her philosophy of endless creation would continue forging ahead
unstoppably with her mammoth socioeconomic development plan of the 21st Century, the Belt and
Road Initiative, connecting and bridging the world with infrastructure for land and maritime
transport, with joint research and industrial projects, cultural exchanges – and not
least, multinational trade with "win-win" characteristics, equality for all partners –
towards a multi-polar world, towards a world with a common future for mankind.
Today already more than 120 countries are associated with BRI – and the field is wide
open for others to join – and to defy, unmask and unplug The Great Reset of the West.
Posted by: time2wakeupnow | Jul 18 2020 18:59 utc | 13 But there are also very real First
Amendment interests implicated by laws which bar entities from spending money to express
political viewpoints."
With regard to Greenwald's opinion, mine is relatively simple: ban corporations from doing
*anything* in the political arena. Corporations are *not* people, regardless of the legal
myth that they are. Officers of corporations have no standing other than their personal
standing, and they should be barred from contributing to campaigns, or lobbying for
legislation or anything else outside of conducting the business they are *licensed by the
state* to do.
This does not apply to incorporated non-profit organizations which are organized to do
precisely what corporations should be banned from doing: advocate and attempt to influence
specific legislation or policies or candidates for office. For profit corporations should be
banned from doing anything to influence non-profit organizations, by the way, otherwise
corporations will do an end-run around the ban on political action by funding fake
"non-profit" organizations.
With regard to the large social media, there should be a law passed which 1) prevents them
from being sued regardless of anything their subscribers say on their platforms, and 2)
prevents them from censoring anything their subscribers say on their platforms. This was true
on the street and should be true on the Internet. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of the
Constitution and should be protected on the Internet.
That does not apply here in MOA because MOA is a small operation owned and operated by one
person. He has the right to ban or censor anything he likes. But if he was the size of
Facebook or Twitter, he would have serious social influence. In that case, it would be
justified to both hold him blameless for the trolls and also prevent him from censoring
trolls.
Dealing with offensive people on the large platforms (and even here) should be done by
providing the users adequate personal controls in their interface which enable the users to
remove content from their view that they don't like, while the content remains in view for
anyone who approves of it or doesn't care. Some forums have been doing this for years, such
as Slashdot.
These solutions are incredibly simple. The reason they are not implemented is because
different factions see benefit in not implementing them.
Naturally, as an anarchist, the solutions I suggest are predicated on the idiocy of having
states and corporations in the first place. Otherwise, all these "issues" wouldn't even
exist. This is what you get when you have a religious belief in the state and society.
"... Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41. ..."
"... Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from power. ..."
"... Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy. ..."
"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of ..."
SCOTT RITTER: Powell & Iraq -- Regime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental
Lie July 18, 2020 Save
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
T he New York Times Magazine has published a puff piece soft-peddling former
Secretary of State Colin Powell's role in selling a war on Iraq to the UN Security Council
using what turned out to be bad intelligence. "Colin Powell Still Wants Answers" is the title
of the article, written by Robert Draper. "The analysts who provided the intelligence," a
sub-header to the article declares, "now say it was doubted inside the CIA at the time."
Draper's article is an extract from a book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration
Took America into Iraq , scheduled for publication later this month. In the interest of
full disclosure, I was approached by Draper in 2018 about his interest in writing this book,
and I agreed to be interviewed as part of his research. I have not yet read the book, but can
note that, based upon the tone and content of his New York Times Magazine article, my
words apparently carried little weight.
Regime Change, Not WMD
I spent some time articulating to Draper my contention that the issue with Saddam Hussein's
Iraq was never about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but rather regime change, and that
everything had to be viewed in the light of this reality -- including Powell's Feb. 5, 2003
presentation before the UN Security Council. Based upon the content of his article, I might as
well have been talking to a brick wall.
Powell's 2003 presentation before the council did not take place in a policy vacuum. In many
ways, the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a continuation of
the 1991 Gulf War, which Powell helped orchestrate. Its fumbled aftermath was again, something
that transpired on Powell's watch as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
administration of George H. W. Bush.
Powell at UN Security Council. (UN Photo)
Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that
Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled
the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution
in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's
post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41.
Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to
continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security
Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD
prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these
sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from
power.
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
I bore witness to the reality of this policy as a weapons inspector working for the United
Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), created under the mandate of resolution 687 to oversee the
disarming of Iraq's WMD. Brought in to create an intelligence capability for the inspection
team, my remit soon expanded to operations and, more specifically, how Iraq was hiding retained
weapons and capability from the inspectors.
SCUDS
UN weapons inspectors in central Iraq, June 1, 1991. (UN Photo)
One of my first tasks was addressing discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of its modified SCUD
missile arsenal; in December 1991 I wrote an assessment that Iraq was likely retaining
approximately 100 missiles. By March 1992 Iraq, under pressure, admitted it had retained a
force of 89 missiles (that number later grew to 97).
After extensive investigations, I was able to corroborate the Iraqi declarations, and in
November 1992 issued an assessment that UNSCOM could account for the totality of Iraq's SCUD
missile force. This, of course, was an unacceptable conclusion, given that a compliant Iraq
meant sanctions would need to be lifted and Saddam would survive.
The U.S. intelligence community rejected my findings without providing any fact-based
evidence to refute it, and the CIA later briefed the Senate that it assessed Iraq to be
retaining a force of some 200 covert SCUD missiles. This all took place under Powell's watch as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
I challenged the CIA's assessment, and organized the largest, most complex inspection in
UNSCOM's history to investigate the intelligence behind the 200-missile assessment. In the end,
the intelligence was shown to be wrong, and in November 1993 I briefed the CIA Director's
senior staff on UNSCOM's conclusion that all SCUD missiles were accounted for.
Moving the Goalposts
The CIA's response was to assert that Iraq had a force of 12-20 covert SCUD missiles, and
that this number would never change, regardless of what UNSCOM did. This same assessment was in
play at the time of Powell's Security Council presentation, a blatant lie born of the willful
manufacture of lies by an entity -- the CIA -- whose task was regime change, not
disarmament.
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still delivered his speech to the UN Security
Council.
In October 2002, in a
briefing designed to undermine the credibility of UN inspectors preparing to return to
Iraq, the Defense Intelligence Agency trotted out Dr. John Yurechko, the defense intelligence
officer for information operations and denial and deception, to provide a briefing detailing
U.S. claims that Iraq was engaged in a systematic process of concealment regarding its WMD
programs.
John Yurechko, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefs reporters at the Pentagon on Oct.
8, 2002 (U.S. Defense Dept.)
According to Yurechko, the briefing was compiled from several sources, including "inspector
memoirs" and Iraqi defectors. The briefing was farcical, a deliberate effort to propagate
misinformation by the administration of Bush 43. I know -- starting in 1994, I led a concerted
UNSCOM effort involving the intelligence services of eight nations to get to the bottom of
Iraq's so-called "concealment mechanism."
Using innovative imagery intelligence techniques, defector debriefs, agent networks and
communications intercepts, combined with extremely aggressive on-site inspections, I was able,
by March 1998, to conclude that Iraqi concealment efforts were largely centered on protecting
Saddam Hussein from assassination, and had nothing to do with hiding WMD. This, too, was an
inconvenient finding, and led to the U.S. dismantling the apparatus of investigation I had so
carefully assembled over the course of four years.
It was never about the WMD -- Powell knew this. It was always about regime change.
Using UN as Cover for Coup Attempt
In 1991, Powell signed off on the incorporation of elite U.S. military commandos into the
CIA's Special Activities Staff for the purpose of using UNSCOM as a front to collect
intelligence that could facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein. I worked with this special
cell from 1991 until 1996, on the mistaken opinion that the unique intelligence, logistics and
communications capability they provided were useful to planning and executing the complex
inspections I was helping lead in Iraq.
This program resulted in the failed coup attempt in June 1996 that used UNSCOM as its
operational cover -- the coup failed, the Special Activities Staff ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM, and we inspectors were left holding the bag. The Iraqis had every right to be concerned
that UNSCOM inspections were being used to target their president because, the truth be told,
they were.
Nowhere in Powell's presentation to the Security Council, or in any of his efforts to recast
that presentation as a good intention led astray by bad intelligence, does the reality of
regime change factor in. Regime change was the only policy objective of three successive U.S.
presidential administrations -- Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.
Powell was a key player in two of these. He knew. He knew about the existence of the CIA's
Iraq Operations Group. He knew of the successive string of covert "findings" issued by U.S.
presidents authorizing the CIA to remove Saddam Hussein from power using lethal force. He knew
that the die had been cast for war long before Bush 43 decided to engage the United Nations in
the fall of 2002.
Powell Knew
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still allowed himself to be used as a front to sell this
conflict to the international community, and by extension the American people, using
intelligence that was demonstrably false. If, simply by drawing on my experience as an UNSCOM
inspector, I knew every word he uttered before the Security Council was a lie the moment he
spoke, Powell should have as well, because every aspect of my work as an UNSCOM inspector was
known to, and documented by, the CIA.
It is not that I was unknown to Powell in the context of the WMD narrative. Indeed, my name
came up during an
interview Powell gave to Fox News on Sept. 8, 2002, when he was asked to comment on a quote
from my speech to the Iraqi Parliament earlier that month in which I stated:
"The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been
backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of
weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United
States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation."
"We have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but I'm afraid
that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the
region on that kind of an assertion by somebody who's not in the intelligence chain any
longer If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right,
why don't they say, 'Anytime, any place, anywhere, bring 'em in, everybody come in -- we are
clean?' The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what
we're going to do about it. And that's why it's been the policy of this government to insist
that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions."
UN inspectors in Iraq. (UN Photo)
Of course, in November 2002, Iraq did just what Powell said they would never do -- they let
the UN inspectors return without preconditions. The inspectors quickly exposed the fact that
the "high quality" U.S. intelligence they had been tasked with investigating was pure bunk.
Left to their own devices, the new round of UN weapons inspections would soon be able to give
Iraq a clean bill of health, paving the way for the lifting of sanctions and the continued
survival of Saddam Hussein.
Powell knew this was not an option. And thus he allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for
disseminating more lies -- lies that would take the U.S. to war, cost thousands of U.S. service
members their lives, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of regime
change.
Back to Robert Draper. I spent a considerable amount of time impressing upon him the reality
of regime change as a policy, and the fact that the WMD disarmament issue existed for the sole
purpose of facilitating regime change. Apparently, my words had little impact, as all Draper
has done in his article is continue the false narrative that America went to war on the weight
of false and misleading intelligence.
Draper is wrong -- America went to war because it was our policy as a nation, sustained over
three successive presidential administrations, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. By 2002 the
WMD narrative that had been used to support and sustain this regime change policy was
weakening.
Powell's speech was a last-gasp effort to use the story of Iraqi WMD for the purpose it was
always intended -- to facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In this light, Colin
Powell's speech was one of the greatest successes in CIA history. That is not the story,
however, Draper chose to tell, and the world is worse off for that failed opportunity.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet
Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm,
and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
ofConsortium News.
PleaseContributeto Consortium
News on its 25th Anniversary
Eric Weinstein, managing director of Thiel Capital and hsot of The Portal podcast, has
gone scorched earth on the New York Times following the Tuesday resignation of journalist
Bari Weiss.
Weinstein describes how The Times has morphed into an activist rag - refusing to cover
"news" unpaletable to their narrative, while ignoring key questions such as whether Jeffrey
Epstein's sex-trafficking ring was "intelligence related."
Jump into Weinstein's Twitter thread by clicking on the below tweet, or scroll down for your
convenience.
At that moment Bari Weiss became all that was left of the "Paper of Record." Why? Because the
existence of Black Racists with the power to hunt professors with Baseball Bats and even
redefine the word 'racism' to make their story impossible to cover ran totally
counter-narrative.
At some point after 2011, the NYT gradually stopped covering the News and became the News
instead. And Bari has been fighting internally from the opinion section to re-establish
Journalism inside tbe the NYT. A total reversal of the Chinese Wall that separates news from
opinion.
This is the paper in 2016 that couldnt be interested in the story that millions of Americans
were likely lying to pollsters about Donald Trump.
The paper refusing to ask the CIA/FBI if Epstein was Intelligence related.
The paper that can't report that it seeks race rioting:
I have had the honor of trying to support both @bariweiss at the New York Times and
@BretWeinstein in their battles simply to stand alone against the internal mob mentality. It is
THE story all over the country. Our courageous individuals are being hunted at work for
dissenting.
Before Bari resigned, I did a podcast with her. It was chilling. I'd make an innocuous
statement of simple fact and ask her about it. She'd reply " That is obviously true but I'm
sorry we can't say that here. It will get me strung up ." That's when I stopped telling her to
hang on.
So what just happened? Let me put it bluntly: What was left of the New York Times just
resigned from the New York Times. The Times canceled itself. As a separate Hong Kong exists in
name only, the New New York Times and affiliated "news" is now the chief threat to our
democracy.
This is the moment when the passengers who have been becoming increasingly alarmed, start to
entertain a new idea: what if the people now in the cockpit are not airline pilots? Well the
Twitter Activists at the @nytimes and elsewhere are not journalists.
What if those calling for empathy have a specific deadness of empathy?
Those calling for justice *are* the unjust?
Those calling "Privilege" are the privileged?
Those calling for equality seek to oppress us?
Those anti-racists are open racists?
The progressives seek regress?
The journalists are covering up the news?
Try the following exercise: put a minus sign in front of nearly every banner claim made by
"the progressives".
Q: Doesn't that make more sense?
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Those aren't the pilots you imagine. And we are far closer to revolution than you think.
Bari and I agree on a lot but also disagree fiercely. And so I have learned that she is
tougher than tough. But these university and journalistic workplaces are now unworkable. They
are the antithesis off what they were built to stand for. It is astounding how long she held
out.
Read her letter. I have asked her to do a make-up podcast & she has agreed. Stay tuned
If you don't want to be surprised again by what's coming understand this: just as there has
been no functioning president, there's now no journalism. We're moving towards a 🌎 of
pure activism.
Prepare to lose your ability to call the police & for more autonomous zones where kids
die so that Govenors & Mayors can LARP as Kayfabe revolutionaries . Disagree with Ms Weiss
all you want as she isn't perfect. But Bari is a true patriot who tried to stand alone. Glad
she's out.
We are not finished by a long shot. What the Intellectual Dark Web tried to do MUST now be
given an institutional home.
Podcast with Bari on The Portal to come as soon as she is ready.
Stay tuned. And thanks for reading this. It is of the utmost importance.
Thank you all. 🙏
P.S. Please retweet the lead tweet from this thread if you understand where we are.
Appreciated.
The spate of gas explosions are unlikely to be accidents. One maybe but not a spate of
them. Unlikely to be cyber as both a physical leak and ignition source are required.
I agree that most of these explosions are probably not "cyberattacks". Despite all the
scare stories about hacking destroying infrastructure, it's not that easy, especially in the
US where every industry and every company within that industry has their own "standards",
which means there are no real standards a hacker can rely on. It's much easier to steal data
than it is to influence hardware, although that certainly can be done in many cases.
On the other hand, there are plenty of internal Iranian dissidents and foreign visitors
who can be employed by both the CIA and Israel to further a spate of physical attacks.
Obviously these sorts of attacks are going to do next to nothing to actually damage
Iranian infrastructure, as Iran is a big country. These sorts of sabotage are merely a
psychological warfare ploy. This is amplified by Western media coverage of the incidents
which is intended to portray Iran as weak and unable to defend itself.
I've often speculated about what a few hundred saboteurs could do if inserted into the US,
armed with nothing but small arms and a decent amount of explosives. Depending on how well
they are kept covert and how smart they are in choosing targets, you could bring the US to
its knees in perhaps six months of operations. Car bombs, for instance - the US is *made* for
car bombs, given our reliance on vehicles and the congestion in the inner cities. Detonate a
car bomb in each of the 50 Major Metropolitan Areas simultaneously and do so consistently
every week for a month and most of the inner cities would be shut down and under martial
law.
That's the kind of actual physical campaign that could produce significant results in a
country. These pin-prick attacks in Iran are just a combination of psychological warfare plus
perhaps some effects as causing their protective services to be overstretched somewhat.
Mostly what they are is an attempt to provoke Iran into doing something *overtly* against
Israel or the US. The neocons want Iran to be the instigator of the war, not the US or
Israel. They want Iran to provide a casus belli for the war, so that Trump and Netanyahu can
present themselves as blameless for the resulting disaster, much like Bush presented Iraq as
responsible for 9/11.
In essence, the US and Israel are acting as Internet trolls, pin-pricking Iran in an
attempt to get Iran to engage and thus manipulate Iran for their own purposes.
Hopefully Iran will not take the bait, or if it does so, that it makes sure its
retaliations are as covert and deniable as the CIA's while being at least equally as damaging
or more so. If I were Iran, I would specifically target the CIA and its assets in the region.
It would not be hard to identify the CIA officers stationed in most countries and conduct
harassment operations against them, even perhaps engineering "accidental deaths". It would be
an analog of the US-Russian Cold War days. Competent spies aren't that plentiful and killing
them off tends to put a real crimp in operations while mostly being deniable since all such
events would be "classified".
That scientific debate soon turned into a geopolitical one, however. EU farmers are
overwhelmingly dependent on North and West Africa for phosphate where, because of the natural
conditions, there is usually a cadmium level far higher than 20mg/kg. At the same time,
phosphate coming from Russia has far lower natural levels of the metal.
Southern European countries feared that switching phosphate supplies away from Africa
to Russia could severely undermine volatile North African economies and trigger social
problems
One of the countries that has strongly opposed the new labeling rules is Poland -- a
country that historically wants to avoid commercial dependence on Russia but also has its own
national fertilizer business and has invested in a Senegalese phosphate mine
####
Plenty more at the link.
We support the environment as long as it benefits our trade partners and is poitically
balanced in our favor.
This looks like the european industry is waving the 'Russia Bad' flag because it cannot
counter the technical aspects and more environmental policies coming out of the EU.
They are also arguing in favor of less transparency and less information for farmers which
is suspect because their fear is that low cadmium fertilizer (from Russia/wherever) may get
tax-breaks to promote its use.
Rather than figure out a way to adapt and help their partners, their first reaction is to
throw poo at the walls.
To clear the air, I recalled the "Non-Aligned Movement a forum of developing states not
formally aligned with or against any major power bloc or nations." It consist of - Nehru
India, Tito Yugoslavia, Bung Karno, Bapa Sukarno Indonesia, Zhou Enlai China, Habib Bourguiba
Tunisian, Norodom Sihanouk Cambodian, U Nu Burma, Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt,
Fidel Castro Cuba, at the Bandung conference in 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was born.
Later many nationalism leaders were disposed. How about Sukarno, did he "slaughter" the
Chinese? Nope that's from what I was told from BBC and it remains in my mind until uncle
tungstan and Lucci points out my mistakes, it was Suharto with CIA and Brit Foreign Office
that brought down Sukarno and Suharto was disposed his wife was known as Ten Percent.
I was growing up and aligned with Americans exceptionlism. It was after ww2 and
nationalism on the rise (almost) everywhere changed of government. In school each morning
assembled to raised the union jack and sing god save the freaking queen. That's when I was
indoctrinated from BBC the evils of communism and socialism. Western imperialist was the way
to go man. Much of my lunch hours in the library mainly reading, one book, my librarian
recommended The Jungle is Neutral by Spencer F, Chapman . The book still available and
probably my view has changed am no longer accepting the stupid Brit and Yank.
@ JC there is a recent book which analyses how the US policy of preventive mass murder and
torture in Indonesia has inspired policies, structures and knowhow in many of US client
states : https://vincentbevins.com/book/
Thank you for clearing the air on Sukarno. The Indonesian coup that destroyed the
democratic socialis government he led was a tragic loss to the people of Indonesia. The coup
leader Suharto fully backed by the CIA murdered many hundreds of thousands of civilians and
their elected officials and educators and medical staff. It was a ruthless murderous purge.
The Dulles brothers at the top.
Suharto then ruled for decades and Indonesia became the evil corruption ridden prison it
is today. This sad country is our planets exemplar failed state ruled by criminal oligarchs
and their owned courts and religion.
Indonesian people are great in their spirit and humility, they deserve better.
JC and others who have been conversing with him on the issue of the Indonesian military's
persecution and slaughter of Chinese Indonesians and others perceived to be Communist or
sympathetic to Communism or socialism might be interested in watching Joshua Oppenheimer's
"The Act of Killing" to see how small-time thugs and young people (especially those in the
Pancasila Youth movement) alike were caught up in the anti-Communist brainwashing frenzy in
Indonesia during the 1960s and participated in the mass persecution and slaughter
themselves.
Oppenheimer tracked down some of these former killers in North Sumatra and got them to
re-enact their crimes in whatever from they desired. For various reasons, some of them
psychological, they were quite enthusiastic about this idea. Significantly they chose to
re-enact their crimes as a Hollywood Western / Godfather-style pastiche film, even getting
their relatives and friends to play extras.
The mass murderers interviewed did well for themselves with some of them even becoming
politicians and rising to the level of Cabinet Minister in the Indonesian government. The
film also shows something of how deeply corruption is embedded in everyday life with one
prospective political candidate going around bribing villagers and demanding money from
small-time ethnic Chinese shopkeepers in his electorate and threatening them with violence if
they do not cough up.
The major issue I have with the film is that by focusing on these mass murderers in North
Sumatra, it misses the overall national and international political and social context that
still supports and applauds what these killers did. As long as this continues, the likelihood
that similar persecutions and genocidal purges of outsider groups and individuals, be they
Chinese, Christian, Shi'a and other heterodox Muslim, academics, trade unionists, separatists
in Maluku, West Papua or other parts of Indoneisa, and all these purges supported by the West
in some way, will occur in the future is strong.
@ Jen 114
"As long as this continues, the likelihood that similar persecutions and genocidal purges of
outsider groups and individuals, be they Chinese, Christian, Shi'a and other heterodox
Muslim, academics, trade unionists, separatists in Maluku, West Papua or other parts of
Indoneisa, and all these purges supported by the West in some way, will occur in the future
is strong."
Yeah, "we" Anglos" are the only bad guys on this planet - not.
The CIA & co are not yet into slaughtering of Christians. Extremist Indonesian Sunni
Muslims were guilty in the above atrocities, continuing as harassments till today. Hard to
swallow: bad brown people do exist!
The question is : what is the role of FBI in organizing and driving the current protests,
especially the action of antifa?
Notable quotes:
"... It would be fitting justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards ..."
"... Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops or each other. ..."
"... Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power? ..."
"... In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar? ..."
Though government infiltrators undoubtedly helped to fragment Occupy, most protesters
gleefully went along with their own gelding, because, to them, it was never about rallying the
99% towards common goals, as they vaguely claimed, but airing minority grievances. Most
importantly, they could look
cool doing it.
With visual evidence uploaded onto FaceBook, Tumblr and Instagram, etc., soy boys from strip
malled subdivisions could accrue street cred.
Since "Occupy Everything, Demand
Nothing " became Occupy's rallying cry, it achieved literally nothing, predictably. A month
after all tents were cleared from Zuccotti Park, Time Magazine anointed "The Protester" as
Person Of The Year, so for being symbolically homeless for two months, the sans cazzo got a
participation lollipop from the bossman.
Since then, unscathed and smirking Wall Street has only amped up its state-of-the-art shell
games, punctuated by bailouts. What's left of the country's wealth keeps flowing to the
top.
Although Occupy Wall Street exposed widespread discontent, it was deftly tamed by the state,
without addressing any of the issues raised. Worsened economic malaise is papered over with
fake news and statistics. Unable to afford even an efficiency, the young and not so young
resignedly or bitterly move back home. I'm sure you know a few.
Beneath each basement, there's another, even darker and danker, Americans kept discovering,
so they just had to suck it up and simmer on, when not overdosing on opioids. It's the new
normal.
Occupy Wall Street protesters were mostly under-35-year-old whites, with at least some
college education. Now, the same demographic is back on the streets, but instead of chanting
for economic justice and representing, at least in theory, the 99%, they're fighting Fascism
and racism. With their inclusive definitions of such sins, however, they're warring against
most of the country.
... ... ...
On August 14th, 2018, CNN reeducated us, "There is no
national antifa group. It is mostly made up of people who are far left of center, who make it
their mission to battle Fascists, racists and alt right extremists." It's a grassroot,
homegrown resistance to hate, that's all. "Behind the masks are people from all walks of life,
artist, mom, ordinary American, as well as anarchist." Four most gentle faces were shown.
On June 16th, 2020, CNN reemphasized
that antifa was a belief system that unified all anti-Fascists, whatever their color, age or
background, so how could you be against it, unless you're a Fascist?! A burly, genial black man
explained, "It basically means that you are against Fascism. If you are against Fascism, then
you are antifa."
In a BLACK LIVES MATTER muscle-T, a white wuss added, "Antifa is not a group. It's not like
everybody sits in, like, some basement, talking about how to overthrow the Fascist regime. I
walked around picking up trash yesterday, behind the protesters. That's what antifa looks
like."
Burly black guy, "White people have to be involved in fighting racism, in fighting white
supremacy [ ] But if you are a white ally, remember that you still have to follow the lead of
people of color."
The New York Times and Washington Post have also written sympathetically about antifa. When
the corporate media give you a positive spin, it must mean you're serving the establishment.
Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's rulers
have antifa.
Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another.
Zealously branding its enemies as racist or Fascist, antifa generates more racism and
Fascism.
Slammed by the economic crisis of 2008, Americans started to look more closely at Wall
Street, Goldman Sachs and the Federal
Reserve , etc., and they were enlightened by people like Ron Paul and Matt Taibbi.
In Rolling Stone, Taibbi wrote, "The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is
that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid
wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that
smells like money."
Banksters were scrutinized with increasing intensity. It was in this climate that Occupy
Wall Street was born.
Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly, although
the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell, with millions suddenly laid off,
and millions of mom and pops permanently ruined. Thanks to another monster bailout, only Wall
Street is doing well.
Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are
imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and
attack cops or each other.
When your tyrants can't even be identified, much less found, no coup, uprising or revolution
is possible, and it's pointless to assassinate an American president, since he is but a puppet,
so who should be shot?
The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been
caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been
shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.
American elections are cathartic farces. Drawn out and elaborately staged, they're designed
to give false hopes and stoke emotions. With the national mood already so volatile and foul,
however, this year's balloting promises to be a horror show. Unable to aim at their oppressors,
Americans will be reduced to shooting each other.
"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another."
Kudos. Well said!!!
"Who should be shot?" I answer the question in the purely hypothetical, I am not in any
way suggesting this line of response. But the answer is obvious.
When Tsar Nicholas and his family were murdered by the communists, it put the fear of God
(or fear of something) in the hearts of the western plutocrats and we got the New Deal and
more than a half century of the working class getting at least sort of a reasonable cut of
the proceeds.
"Who shall we shoot?" If the Jeff Bezoses and Zuckerbergs and Soroses etc. of the world
take a personal hit – if they begin to think that even they, in their well-guarded
bubbles, are not safe – only then will we get any sort of consideration from the top.
It is personal fear, not morality, that will cause the elites to again begin to value
stability and order over rapacious looting.
No I am not in any way suggesting violence. Not me, no how. But it remains true that only
the threat of personal violence directed at the elites, will cause them to reconsider their
current socially destructive path.
Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously
broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been shot.
The CIA recruited Diem to be the puppet ruler of a nation they had created. He was living
in New Jersey and then became head of South Vietnam without an election. He had attended the
same elite school in Hue as Ho Chi Mihn and meant well. When he saw that fighting was
increasing he wanted to cut a deal with Ho Chi Mihn, who had won the 1954 elections was the
legitimate ruler of all Vietnam after the temporary cease fire line that divided Vietnam
ended in 1956. The DMZ was an illusion created by the CIA and Pentagon.
This is why Diem was killed by a CIA coup, and was followed by other puppet leaders. The
CIA's attempt to create a new nation that became known as South Vietnam failed by 1964, which
is why American troops arrived.
Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler his Brownshirts and Mao his Red Guards. America's
rulers have antifa.
The Black Shirts were able to gracefully fade away for the most part, but the other two
groups had a rather difficult go once they had served their purpose. It would be fitting
justice for AntiFa to go the way the Red Guards once President Abrams is safely
ensconced: After all, you can't feed a country with hooligan student revolutionaries roving
the streets rather than working the farms.
The month I was born, two presidents were killed. Though Ngo Dinh Diem has often been
caricatured as an American puppet, he obviously broke his strings, or he wouldn't have been
shot. Kennedy, too, went off script. His death was a warning. It works.
Liz Chaney is thwarting Trump's troop draw-down in Afghanistan with help from Dems as well
as Republicans.
House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump's Planned Withdrawal of
Troops From Afghanistan and Germany
Not quite nine years later, almost no one is talking about banksters, incredibly,
although the country has been plunged into a much worse economic hell Broke and enraged,
mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who are imploding their
society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot stores and attack cops
or each other.
Pelosi said even if DC burns down to the ground, the US will be 100% for Israel. Why
not include Wall Street, the money bag of Jewish Power?
In a way, what we are seeing is the Japanization of White America. This is why the US
should not have dropped the nukes and forced unconditional surrender. They should have
allowed Japan to surrender with honor. Make Japan give up its empire and military ambitions
but let the Japanese keep their culture and sacred myths. But the US forced unconditional
surrender, turned the Emperor into Tokyo Shoeshine boy, occupied Japan(and still has bases
there), used Japanese women as whores & mistresses, and turned Japanese men into
castrated cuck-wussies. Sound familiar?
Great article.
"Their movement fizzled out, however, because it degenerated into an endless display of
narcissistic posturing, with everyone making self-important speeches about his or her pet
cause, to an audience of fifty, tops, which is not how a revolution is ever made."
"Far from threatening the 1%, antifa sows dissension among the 99%. Ignoring Wall Street,
antifa trashes one Main Street after another."
Is it ANY wonder why Elites love the post-modern, the PC, & antifa so much. Talk about
the "magic pudding" & the gift that just keeps on giving .
Broke and enraged, mobs swarm American streets, but instead of targeting those who
are imploding their society, they pull down statues, break windows, deface walls, loot
stores and attack cops or each other .
Hey! What the 19th century robber baron said has finally come true:
"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." -- Jay Gould
They are being paid: BLM and Antifa people are being bankrolled. Just tote up the
corporate donations the BLM in the past week and flip. More money than most nations have in
the treasury. As to Antifa, Soros funded them for years. All to get rid of white people.
You left out the Media Jackals. They are the willing and ever ready mouthpieces for the
Satanic Cult the Financial Elites would turn America into. In fact, the Media liars have as
much culpability as any group in the country for our current disaster.
Who should be shot? Start with the neocons (particularly the Jewish ones). They are the
head of the snake in the West – especially the U.S. – today. Most evils are
downstream from their actions/policies, directly or indirectly.
Who should be shot? It's hard imaging Americans staging a revolution. The DOD says 75% of
young Americans don't quality to serve in the military, because they are too fat or too dumb.
Our protesters protest because they get to appear virtuous -- they need some kind of
participation award.
...Upthread someone mentioned Bezos as being in the 1%. While he is certainly uber
wealthy, I've always thought of him in a different way. In my mind the 1% are the wall street
guys who financialize everything, and if they all went away tomorrow our (main street)
economy would greatly improve. If Amazon goes away, I'd have to start buying all my crap in
person. Ugh
The same fools assume the 1 percent will hang around when things become very adverse in
the US. Nope. They'll do what wealthy South Africans did and the US lumpens will do what
Boers did.
Nobody cares if the poor in the gutters of Wall Street go on hunger strike The one percent
does not care if the poor go hungry anyhow.
Average middle class Americans are naive as to how callous and unconcerned the one percent
is. The blacks and Hispanics at the bottom of society are aware, of course. That is why laws
and customs mean nothing, nor bourgeois values. But it is the middle class who is actually
naive enough to believe the one percent gives a fat rat's ass about them, about America,
about their feelings.
Both Antifa and the Patriots have a huge red-blue target painted on their backs. Unless
they can identify their overlords clearly, they will fight each other.
Hey Americans, who is it that you cannot criticize?
This is all about maintaining the US-centered global neoliberal empire. After empires is created the the USA became the
salve of imperial interests and in a way stopped existing as an independent country. Everything is thrown on the altar of "full
spectrum Dominance". The result is as close to a real political and economic disaster as we can get. Like USSR leadership the US
elite realized now that neoliberalism is not sustainable, but can't do anything as all bets were made for the final victory of
neoliberalism all over the world, much like Soviets hoped for the victory of communism. That did not happened and although the USA
now is in much better position then the USSR in 60th (but with the similar level of deterioration of cognitive abilities of the
politicians as the USSR). In this sense COVID-19 was a powerful catalyst of the crush of the US-centered neoliberal empire
Notable quotes:
"... On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy." ..."
"... Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake. Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption, torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic revolutionaries, to America's horror. ..."
"... The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would be threatening war. ..."
"... In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments" – the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation. ..."
Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser, unkindly characterized the
foreign policy establishment in Washington, D.C., as "the Blob." Although policymakers
sometimes disagree on peripheral subjects, membership requires an absolute commitment to U.S.
"leadership," which means a determination to micro-manage the world.
Reliance on persuasion is not enough. Vital is the willingness to bomb, invade, and, if
necessary, occupy other nations to impose the Blob's dictates on other peoples. If foreigners
die, as they often do, remember the saying about eggs and omelets oft repeated by communism's
apologists. "Stuff happens" with the best-intentioned policies.
One might be inclined to forgive Blob members if their misguided activism actually benefited
the American people. However, all too often the Blob's policies instead aid other governments
and interests. Washington is overrun by the representatives of and lobbyists for other nations,
which constantly seek to take control of US policy for their own advantage. The result are
foreign interventions in which Americans do the paying and, all too often, the dying for
others.
The problem is primarily one of power. Other governments don't spend a lot of time
attempting to take over Montenegro's foreign policy because, well, who cares? Exactly what
would you do after taking over Fiji's foreign ministry other than enjoy a permanent vacation?
Seize control of international relations in Barbados and you might gain a great tax
shelter.
Subvert American democracy and manipulate US foreign policy, and you can loot America's
treasury, turn the US military into your personal bodyguard, and gain Washington's support for
reckless war-mongering. And given the natural inclination of key American policymakers to
intervene promiscuously abroad for the most frivolous reasons, it's surprisingly easy for
foreign interests to convince Uncle Sam that their causes are somehow "vital" and therefore
require America's attention. Indeed, it is usually easier to persuade Americans than foreign
peoples in their home countries to back one or another international misadventure.
The culprits are not just autocratic regimes. Friendly democratic governments are equally
ready to conspiratorially whisper in Uncle Sam's ear. Even nominally classical liberal
officials, who believe in limiting their own governments, argue that Americans are obligated to
sacrifice wealth and life for everyone else. The mantra seems to be liberty, prosperity, and
peace for all – except those living in the superpower tasked by heaven with protecting
everyone else's liberty, prosperity, and peace.
Although the problem has burgeoned in modern times, it is not new. Two centuries ago fans of
Greek independence wanted Americans to challenge the Ottoman Empire, a fantastic bit of
foolishness. Exactly how to effect an international Balkans rescue was not clear, since the
president then commanded no aircraft carriers, air wings, or nuclear-tipped missiles. Still,
the issue divided Americans and influenced John Quincy Adams' famous 1821 Independence Day
address.
Warned Adams:
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there
will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of
monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the
champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance
of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting
under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would
involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of
individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of
freedom."
"The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force . She
might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit .
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a
spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has
been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of
mankind would permit, her practice."
Powerful words, yet Adams was merely following in the footsteps of another great American,
George Washington. Obviously, the latter was flawed as a person, general, and president.
Nevertheless, his willingness to set a critical precedent by walking away from power left an
extraordinary legacy. As did his insistence that the Constitution tasked Congress with deciding
when America would go to war. And his warning against turning US policy over to foreign
influences.
Concern over obsequious subservience to other governments and interests pervaded his famous
1796 Farewell Address. Applied today, his message indicts most of the policy currently made in
the city ironically named after him. He would be appalled by what presidents and Congresses
today do, supposedly for America.
Obviously, the US was very different 224 years ago. The new country was fragile, sharing the
Western hemisphere with its old colonial master, which still ruled Canada and much of the
Caribbean, as well as Spain and France. When later dragged into the maritime fringes of the
Napoleonic wars the US could huff and puff but do no more than inconvenience France and
Britain. The vastness of the American continent, not overweening national power, again
frustrated London when it sought to subjugate its former colonists.
Indeed, when George Washington spoke the disparate states were not yet firmly knit into a
nation. Only after the Civil War, when the national government waged four years of brutal
combat, which ravaged much of the country and killed upwards of 750,000 people in the name of
"union," did people uniformly say the United States "is" rather than "are." However, the
transformation was much more than rhetorical. The federal system that originally emerged in the
name of individual liberty spawned a high tax centralized government that employed one of the
world's largest militaries to kill on a mass scale to enforce the regime's dictates. The modern
American "republic" was born. It acted overseas only inconsistently until World War II, after
which imperial America was a constant, adding resonance to George Washington's message.
Today Washington, D.C.'s elites have almost uniformly decided that Russia is an enemy,
irrespective of American behavior that contributed to Moscow's hostility. And that Ukraine, a
country never important for American security, is a de facto military ally, appropriately armed
by the US for combat against a nuclear-armed rival. A reelection-minded president seems
determined to turn China into a new Cold War adversary, an enemy for all things perhaps for all
time. America remains ever entangled in the Middle East, with successive administrations in
permanent thrall of Israel and Saudi Arabia, allowing foreign leaders to set US Mideast policy.
Indeed, both states have avidly pressed the administration to make their enemy, Iran, America'
enemy. The resulting fixation caused the Trump administration to launch economic war against
the rest of the world to essentially prevent everyone on earth from having any commercial
dealing of any kind with anyone in Tehran.
Under Democrats and Republicans alike the federal government views nations that resist its
dictates as adversaries at best, appropriate targets of criticism, always, sanctions, often,
and even bombs and invasions, occasionally. No wonder foreign governments lobby hard to be
designated as allies, partners, and special relationships. Many of these ties have become
essentially permanent, unshakeable even when supposed friends act like enemies and supposed
enemies are incapable of hurting America. US foreign policy increasingly has been captured and
manipulated for the benefit of other governments and interests.
George Washington recognized the problem even in his day, after revolutionary France sought
to win America's support against Great Britain. He warned: "nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for
others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all
should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either
of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
Is there a better description of US foreign policy today? Even when a favored nation is
clearly, ostentatiously, murderously on the wrong side – consider Saudi Arabia's
unprovoked aggression against Yemen – many American policymakers refuse to allow a single
word of criticism to escape their lips. The US has indeed become "a slave," as George
Washington warned.
The consequences for the US and the world are highly negative. He observed that "likewise, a
passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the
favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no
real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement
or justification."
This is an almost perfect description of the current US approach. American colonists
revolted against what they believed had become ever more "foreign" control, yet the US backs
Israel's occupation and mistreatment of millions of Palestinians. American policymakers parade
the globe spouting the rhetoric of freedom yet subsidize Egypt as it imprisons tens of
thousands and oppresses millions of people. Washington decries Chinese aggressiveness, yet
provides planes, munitions, and intelligence to aid Riyadh in the slaughter of Yemeni civilians
and destruction of Yemeni homes, businesses, and hospitals. In such cases, policymakers have
betrayed America "into a participation in the quarrels and wars without adequate inducement or
justification."
On the other side are the targets of "inveterate antipathies." This also characterizes US
Middle East policy. So hated are Iran and Syria that Washington, DC is making every effort to
destroy their economies, ruin their people's livelihoods, wreck their hospitals, and starve
their population. The respective governments are bad, to be sure, but do not threaten the US
Yet, as the nation's first president explained to Americans, "Antipathy in one nation against
another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of
umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute
occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation,
prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the
best calculations of policy."
Consider how close the US has come to foolish, unnecessary wars against both nations. There
were manifold demands that the US enter the Syrian civil war, in which Americans have no stake.
Short of combat the Obama administration indirectly aided the local affiliate of al-Qaeda, the
terrorist group which staged 9/11 and supposedly was America's enemy. Moreover, there was
constant pressure on America to attack Iran, targeted by the US since 1953, when the CIA helped
replace Tehran's democracy with a brutal tyrant, whose rule was highlighted by corruption,
torture, and a nuclear program – which then was taken over by Iran's Islamic
revolutionaries, to America's horror.
Read George Washington and you would think he had gained a supernatural glimpse into today's
policy debates. He worried about the result when the national government "adopts through
passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation
subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the
victim."
What better describes US policy toward China and Russia? To be sure, these are nasty
regimes. Yet that has rarely bothered Uncle Sam's relations with other states. Saudi Arabia, a
corrupt and totalitarian theocracy, has been sheltered, protected, and reassured by the US even
after invading its poor neighbor. Among Washington's other best friends: Bahrain, Turkey,
Egypt, and United Arab Emirates, tyrannies all.
The US now is pushing toward a Cold War redux with Russia, after successive administrations
treated Moscow as if it was of no account, lying about plans to expand NATO and acting in other
ways that the US would never tolerate. Imagine the Soviet Union helping to overthrow an
elected, pro-American government in Mexico City, seeking to redirect all commerce to Soviet
allies in South America, and proposing that Mexico join the Warsaw Pact. US policymakers would
be threatening war.
Washington, DC also is treating China as a near-enemy, claiming the right to control China
along its own borders – essentially attempting to apply America's Monroe Doctrine to
Asia. This is something Americans would never allow another nation, especially China, to do to
the US Imagine the response if Beijing sent its navy up the East Coast, told the US how to
treat Cuba, and constantly talked of the possibility of war. America's consistently hostile,
aggressive policy is the result of "projects of pride, ambition, and other sinister and
pernicious motives."
This kind of foreign policy also corrupts the American political system. It encourages
officials and people to put foreign interests before that of America. As George Washington
observed, this mindset: "gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own
country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; guiding, with the appearances of a
virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal
for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."
For instance, Woodrow Wilson and America's Anglophile establishment backed Great Britain
over the interests of the American people, dragging the US into World War I, a mindless
imperial slugfest that this nation should have avoided. After the Cold War's end Americans with
ties to Central and Eastern Europe pushed to expand NATO to their ancestral homes, which
created new defense obligations for America while inflaming Russian hostility. Ethnic Greeks
and Turks constantly battle over policy toward their ethnic homelands. Taiwan has developed
enduring ties with congressional Republicans, especially, ensuring US government support
against Beijing. Many evangelical Christians, especially those who hold a particularly bizarre
eschatology (basically, Jews must gather together in their national homeland to be slaughtered
before Jesus can return), back Israel in whatever it does to assist the apparently helpless God
of creation finish his job. The policies that result from such campaigns inevitably are shaped
to benefit foreign interests, not Americans.
Regarding the impact of such a system on the political system George Washington also was
prescient: "As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are
particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities
do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead
public opinion, to influence or awe the public council. Such an attachment of a small or weak
towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."
In different ways many US policies illustrate the problem caused by "passionate attachments"
– the almost routine and sometimes substantial sacrifice of US economic and security
interests to benefit other governments. For instance, hysteria swept Washington at the
president's recent proposal to simply reduce troop levels in Germany, which along with so many
other European nations sees little reason to do much to defend itself. There are even those who
demand American subservience to the Philippines, a semi-failed state of no significant security
importance to the US Saudi Arabia is a rare case where the attachment is mostly cash and
lobbyists. In most instances cultural, ethnic, religious, and historical ties provide a firmer
foundation for foreign political influence and manipulation.
What to do about such a long-standing problem? George Washington was neither naïf nor
isolationist. He believed in what passed for globalism in those days: a commercial republic
should trade widely. He didn't oppose alliances, for limited purposes and durations. After all,
support from France was necessary for the colonies to win independence.
He proposed a practical policy tied to ongoing realities. The authorities should "steer
clear of permanent alliances," have with other states "as little political connection as
possible," and not "entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils" of other nations'
"ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice." Most important, the object of US foreign
policy was to serve the interests of the American people. In practice it was a matter of
prudence, to be adapted to circumstance and interest. He would not necessarily foreclose
defense of Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Germany, but would insist that such proposals reflect a
serious analysis of current realities and be decided based on what is best for Americans. He
would recognize that what might have been true a few decades ago likely isn't true today. In
reality, little of current US foreign policy would have survived his critical review.
George Washington was an eminently practical man who managed to speak through the ages.
America's recently disastrous experience of playing officious, obnoxious hegemon highlights his
good judgment. The US, he argued, should "observe good faith and justice towards all nations;
cultivate peace and harmony with all."
America may still formally be a republic, but its foreign policy long ago became imperial.
As John Quincy Adams warned, the US is "no longer the ruler of her own spirit." Americans have
learned at great cost that international affairs are too important to be left to the Blob and
foreign policy professionals, handed off to international relations scholars, or, worst of all,
subcontracted to other nations and their lobbyists. The American people should insist on their
nation's return to a true republican foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute . A former Special Assistant to President Ronald
Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire .
Again, probably not an urgent problem unless some existing Chinese aircraft in service are
on their last legs and urgently must be replaced. In which case they could go with Airbus if
the situation could not wait. China has options. Boeing does not.
The west loves to portray the Chinese as totally without ethics, and if you have a product
they can't make for themselves, they will buy it from you only until they have figured out
how to make it themselves, and then fuck you, Jack. I don't see any reason to believe the
Chinese value alliances less than the west does, or are any more incapable of grasping the
value of a give-and-take trade policy. The west – especially the United States –
favours establishing a monopoly on markets and then using your inability to get the product
anywhere else as leverage to force concessions you don't want to make; is that ethical? China
must surely see the advantages of a mutually-respectful relationship with Russia, considering
that country not only safeguards a significant length of its border from western probing, but
supplies most of its energy. There remain many unexplored avenues for technical, engineering
and technological cooperation. At the same time, Russia is not in a subordinate position
where it has to endure being taken advantage of.
Trade is hard work, and any partner will maneuver for advantage, because everyone in
commerce likes market share and money. But Washington has essentially forgotten how to
negotiate on mutually-respectful terms, and favours maneuvering its 'partners' into
relationships in which the USA has an overwhelmingly dominant position, and then announcing
it is 'leveling the playing field'. Which means putting its thumb on the scale.
After neocons in Washinton adopted Magnitsky act all bets for US-Russia cooperation are off.
And that in a long run will hurt the USA too.
Notable quotes:
"... Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire more end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by what you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should interject – to 'impose costs' is gone. ..."
Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire
more end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by
what you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should
interject – to 'impose costs' is gone. Sooner or later America's allies are going
to refuse to recognize its extraterritorial sanctions, which it has no legal right to impose;
it gets away with it by threatening costs in trade with the USA, which is a huge economy and
is something under its control. But that practice causes other countries to gradually
insulate themselves against exposure, and one day the cost of obeying will be greater than
the cost of saying "Go fuck yourself".
The New York Times goes a little further, stressing that the agreement would entail an
economic and military partnership: "It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research
and weapons development and intelligence sharing -- all to fight "the lopsided battle with
terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes." This would give Iran access
to some fairly high-tech systems, perhaps fighter aircraft and training and tech support, but
of that part of the package, I would rate intelligence sharing the highest. It would
potentially give Iran a heads-up on what the USA is planning in the region before it even is
briefed to Congress – Washington leaks like a sieve, and while it is often intentional,
it happens when it is not desired as well.
Washington's policy now consists of little more than frantically papering over cracks as
they appear; its ability to direct the world is gone and its ability to influence it is
deteriorating by the day as it becomes more and more intensely disliked, and everyone's
enemy. Perversely, this brings war closer as a possibility, as threats of it are no longer an
effective deterrent to partnerships and exchanges the USA does not like. More and more of
those threatened are taking the attitude of "Put up or shut up". Trade deals outside
Washington's influence increase those countries' insulation against US sanctions, and perhaps
it is beginning to dawn on the western banking cartel that it is in imminent danger of being
isolated itself, like a fleck of grit that irritates an oyster and finds itself encased in
nacre.
Beijing follows through on its promised retaliation for Washington's move to hold
individuals to account
Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio among those facing sanctions in latest tit-for-tat
move
####
More at the link.
What springs to mind is that Groucho Marx quote: "I refuse to join any club that would
have me as a member."
That the US sanctions China with an act named after a dodgy Russian book-keeper working
for a thief is all kinds of wrong, but as we all know, the ends justify the means. Hamsters
are happy.
Jonathan Guyer, managing editor of The American Prospect, has an unbelievably
well-reported piece on
the making of a Washington national security consultancy, starring two high placed Obama-era
officials and one of the Imperial City's more successful denizens -- Michele Flournoy.
Flournoy may not be a household name anywhere but the Beltway, but when she met Sergio
Aguirre and Nitin Chadda (Chiefs of staff to UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Secretary of
Defense Ash Carter respectively) she was already trading lucratively on her stints in two
Democratic administrations. In fact, according to Guyer, by 2017 she was pulling nearly a half
a million dollars a year a year wearing a number of hats: senior advisor for Boston Consulting
Group (where she helped increase their defense contracts to $32 million by 2016), founder and
CEO of the Democratic leaning Center for a New American Security, senior fellow at Harvard's
Belfer Center, and a member of various corporate boards.
Hungry to get their own consulting business going after Hillary Clinton's stunning loss in
2016, according to Guyer, Aguirre and Chadda approached Flournoy for her starpower inside the
Blob. Flournoy did not want "to have a firm with her name on it alone," so they sought and
added Tony Blinken, former Under Secretary of State and "right hand man" to Joe Biden for 20
years. WestExec Advisors, named after the street alongside the West Wing of the White House,
was born. "The name WestExec Advisors trades on its founders' recent knowledge of the highest
echelons of decision-making," writes Guyer. "It also suggests they'll be walking down WestExec
toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue someday soon."
Soon the firm was raking in corporate contracts and the high sums that go with it. They
weren't lobbying per se (wink, wink) but their names and connections provided the grease on the
skids their clients needed to make things happen in Washington. They shrewdly partnered with a
private equity group and a Google affiliate. Before long, Guyer says, they did not need to
market: CEO's were telling other CEO's to give them a call. More:
The founders told executives they would share their "passion" for helping new companies
navigate the complex bureaucracy of winning Pentagon contracts. They told giant defense
contractors how to explain cutting-edge technologies to visitors from Congress. Their
approach worked, and clients began to sign up.
One was an airline, another a global transportation company, a third a company that
makes drones that can almost instantly scan an entire building's interior. WestExec would
only divulge that it began working with "Fortune 100 types," including large U.S. tech;
financial services, including global-asset managers; aerospace and defense; emerging U.S.
tech; and nonprofits.
The Prospect can confirm that one of those clients is the Israeli
artificial-intelligence company Windward.
To say that the Flournoy helped WestExec establish itself as one of the most successful of
the Beltway's defense and national security consultancies is an understatement. For sure,
Flournoy has often been underestimated -- she is not flamboyant, nor glamorous, and is
absolutely unrecognizable outside of the Washington market because she doesn't do media (though
she is popular on
the think tank conference circuit ). She's a technocrat -- smart and efficient and highly
bred for Washington's finely tuned managerial class. She is a courtier for sure, but she is no
sop. She has staying power, quietly forging relationships with the right people and not trying
too hard to make a name or express ideas that might conflict with doctrine. She no doubt
learned much in two stints in the Pentagon, which typically chews up the less capable,
greedier, more narcissistic neophytes (not to mention idealists). She's not exactly known as a
visionary, however, and one has to wonder which hat she is wearing when she expounds on current
defense threats, like
this piece about beefing up the Pentagon budget to confront China .
But what does it all mean? Flournoy has been at the forefront of strategy and policy in two
administrations marked by overseas interventions (Clinton from 1993 to 2000) and Obama (2009 to
2012). All of her aforementioned qualities have helped her to personally succeed and profit --
especially now, no doubt helping weapons contractors get deals on the Hill, as Guyer susses out
in his piece, not to mention how well-placed she would be for an incoming Biden Administration.
But has it been in the best interest of the country? I think not. For this, she is queen of the
Blob.
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But elite is as elite does. She went from Beverly Hills High School to Harvard to Oxford,
and then back to Harvard, before landing a political appointment in the Clinton Administration.
In between government perches, she did consulting and started CNAS in hopes of creating a
shadow national security council for Hillary Clinton. When Clinton didn't get the nomination,
Flournoy and her colleagues supported Obama and helped populate his administration,
supporting the military surge in Afghanistan and prolonging the war. She was called the
"mastermind"
behind Obama's Afghan strategy, which we now know was a failure, an effort at futility and
prolonging the inevitable. In fact, we know now that most of the war establishment was
lying through its teeth . But that hasn't stopped her from getting clients. They pay for
her influence, not her ability to win wars.
Queen of the Blob, Queen of Business as Usual -- a business, as we well know from Guyer's
excellent reporting, that pays off bigtime. But it has never paid off for the rest of America.
But really, why should she care? She was never really with "us" to begin with.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC since 2007, focusing on
national security, foreign policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15
years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP News in Washington from
2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a
beat reporter at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security
Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native Nutmegger, she got her start
in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.
I wish that you would cover this equally in both parties; the near entire senior level of
the political apparatus (apart from the few individuals truly invested in the best for all
Americans) has become corrupted informing the policies, or lack thereof; whether implemented,
ignored, or written into law.
We really need to get these "Blob" people out of our government. Electing Trump didn't fix
the problem, and judging by this article, electing Biden won't either. Half of them people
aren't even recognizably American. They're global elites, and they'll continue to use
Americans and what's left of America to further their globalist agenda. With someone like
Flournoy, selling powerful US technology to known spies and thieves like the Israelis, who
take our tech, copy it, and sell it to enemies like China, only scratches the surface of
what's going on. She should be in prison after all the damage she's done to America, not
looking forward to yet another national security role in which she can get more Americans
killed, wreck more foreign countries, and waste and steal more billions of taxpayer
money.
Ms. Flournoy is an example of the type of competent high level staffer of which the Trump
Administration is devoid. Do you think that Mr. Fluornoy that those who work for her would
have had anything overturned at the Supreme Court because they were too lazy to complete the
paperwork?
"Ms. Flournoy is an example of the type of competent high level staffer of which the Trump
Administration is devoid."
I have to agree that Trump's administration is devoid of competent people, but don't
forget that it was incompetents like Flournoy that got Trump elected.
If you want to ID the individual most likely for President Trump winning, look up Joel
Benenson. He was Hilary Clinton's chief of strategy and was convinced that Trump could not
win any of the blue wall states. Ms. Fluornoy had nothing to do with that. Mr. Fluornoy would
have been the Secretary of Defense in a Hillary Clinton Administration and probably would
have been more competent that the current Secretary of Defense.
You would have done better just to critique her article in Foreign Affairs. As it is, you
sound like you're mad at Michele because she makes more money than you do (presumably).
I think that it is a bit unfair, given the fact that the odds are stack the way they are.
Ms. Vlahos has dedicated many years (they are so many she only whispers the number) on issues
related with foreign policy. The path she has chosen is the harder path, the ethical, and
moral one, which was never going to pay. If Ms. Vlahos is incensed, I bet that it is not
because of the money, but because she sees that in Washington DC, only crime and wanton
murder pays. She is accusing Ms Flournoy that she is a sellout to the crime syndicate, like a
cop that has started herself supporting the drug trafficking.
You should know that people believe in more things than only making money. Ms. Flournoy it
seems, has decided that she wants a piece of the cake and to hell with this absurd idea of
"arms to plowshares"....
Ms. Valhos can speak for herself. No one should project onto others their values. But it
does seem that Valhos does make a point that Flournoy does not have any guiding philosophy .
Except to be in a position to make a fine living from her contacts.
Could be that Flournoy is more greedy than not. She sure has the resume that would get her
into any job which she wanted to interview for. And she paid her dues also.
When one looks at Valhos's resume it likewise is impressive. She too it seems to be proud
of her connection to the elites. We should not condem either. We all want our children to
excell. Unless Flournoy is an unindicted co conspirator, this article is just a piece of
fluff. Too much time on Valhos's hands perhaps?
While I don't have anything else to do, I had hoped to read some good dirt. Alas all I got
was one high achieving person carping bout another person of similar achievement. Bless them
both.
The dirt presented is facilitating arms contracts. By peddling the need of strong military
and war. Being a merchant of death, which Ms. Vlahos doesn't seem to be, disqualifies Ms.
Flournoy entirely. of anything.
Not sure what you mean " poorly for it". I tend not to get wrapped around the axle . But
like it when someone comments on me personally. Lost perspective in old age. Would like to
know more what you mean. Unless you just want to be mean
But really, why should she care? She was never really with "us" to begin with.
That's a bit harsh don't you think? I remember that time on September 11, 2001, I was in
the New York area when it happened, I even had a close acquaintance who died in the Twin
Towers. I remember when America was united in its blood lust, it its ravenous quest for
revenge, ... revenge on anything and anyone. When America's vengeful eye was set on the
Taliban government of Afghanistan, it was off to the races. Left and Right, liberal and
conservative, Democrat and Republican, ... all were united in avenging 9/11 on the evil
Taliban and Afghan tribal peoples for harboring OBL. And I'm sure both you Miss Vlahos and
Miss Flournoy were united as well in wanting someone to pay ... am I right? So don't give me
this BS about 'us' and 'them' okay? America is a democracy, the American people get the
government they vote for, they get the President, Senators and Members of Congress they vote
for, that means they also get the flunkies, hangers on and entourages of think tankers and
careerists they vote for. Understand? You get what you deserve, you don't get to whine and
complain when you're leaders are incompetent and corrupt okay? So don't give me this 'us and
them' nonsense and absolve yourself of the blood lust you once had all those years ago on
September 11, 2001.
No, liberals were not for taking it out on the Afghan tribal peoples. We were for getting
those responsible, and sorry no, we didn't include the Afghan tribal people in on that too,
despite any sympathies some of them may have had for AQ.
We had no 'blood lust' and we don't believe in collective punishment.
Did you just say liberals "don't believe in collective punishment"? I'm gonna give you the
benefit of the doubt and assume you're not lock-step in support of the #BLM and Critical Race
Theory...
But your other point about liberals being anti-war is also flawed. Just connect the
foreign intervention (not just wars, but also funding to foreign opposition groups) with some
humanitarian urgency (think of those Afghan women!) and liberals have always advocated for
the same foreign policies than neoconservatives.
"...I'm sure both you Miss Vlahos and Miss Flournoy..."
It's been decades since I've seen the word "Miss" used in print - except when I write to
my granddaughter. In my profession, I write to women all the time, and although it used to be
that unmarried ones were quite accepting of - and indeed expecting to receive - missives from
me addressing them as such, I would be embarrassed to use that appellation when addressing
adult women today in a professional or unacquainted capacity. Now, I only use it for women
who wish it - old women, unmarried Catholic women and irascible old-school lesbians.
Ah, yes. Highly educated, multiple degrees, cultivated....and extremely dangerous. All of
that wonderful education dedicated to wanton killing and influence peddling. These people,
the hidden professionals of pull, are the most difficult to fight because unlike a politician
or a bureaucrat they are nearly invisible. She can only be effective if she is not seen. To
her, public exposure is toxic. So expose away! Make her name known to everyone.
"... Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a century ago. ..."
"... And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy'). ..."
Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not
realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a
century ago.
And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted
themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and
unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy').
The ideologies of the Empire are: neoConservativism(a form of aristocracy);neoLiberalism(a form of facism); and Zionism(a form of
colonialism).
In short, a combination of the worst inclinations in the Western tradition.
Here's a great must-see 36-minute piece by Abby Martin about the US perpetual occupation
of Afghanistan.
It was posted on YouTube on June 26, but I only came across it last night thanks to a Paul
Craig Roberts article, and I don't think it's been mentioned here at MoA yet by anyone yet
(at least I wasn't able to find any mentions using the MoA search.)
I'm sure many of us have come across many of the points over the years, but she does a
great job of reviewing and bringing it all together.
Google/Youtube has of course made the video "age-restricted", though I don't really see
why, requiring sign-in and probably greatly reducing its viewership as a result.
This alternate link to the same video doesn't seem to require sign-in:
"... The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the mainstream media and FBI's narrative. ..."
"... In a document dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies." ..."
"... Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a flyer sent to law enforcement personnel in Texas shows. ..."
"... As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger, Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public records law. ..."
The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) reported
similar information in its investigation of the Boston Free Speech Rally on August 19th, 2017.
BRIC noted that the nationalist and free speech demonstrators, about 60 of them in total, had a
permit for the event, while the anarchist groups that showed up to heckle-veto them were there
illegally.
The leftist rioters began attacking the protesters, and later, began engaging in gratuitous
yet apparently coordinated violence against police officers attempting to intervene, causing
multiple injuries.
The most interesting document of all is an intelligence assessment by DHS in the run up to
the now famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which starkly contradicts the
mainstream media and FBI's narrative.
In a document
dated August 9th, 2017, DHS wrote "We
assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and white
supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the principal
drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."
... ... ...
The close working relationship between mainstream social media companies, the FBI and "NGOs"
(the ADL and SPLC) is clear and assumed, adding a new layer of understanding when it comes to
tech censorship and the power of privately run organizations that are not subject general
ethics or government accountability.
Ideological uniformity is important in the FBI's relationship with local law enforcement, a
flyer sent to
law enforcement personnel in Texas shows.
The event, hosted by the FBI for local cops, featured lectures on "hate" (which is not a
crime) from a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church and the ex-lead singer of a skinhead
rock band. The conference was hosted in December 2017, so one can only imagine this
indoctrination has gotten more intense since then.
Ultimately, we can gather from these documents a climate of incompetence, rejection of facts
for political reasons, and a culture of selective prosecution. Those who post memes making fun
of the election are treated as conspirators against the Constitutional rights of others, while
anarchists who actively conspire in the open to do the same are rarely prosecuted by the
FBI.
The most disturbing aspect of all this is how groups like the Anti-Defamation League appear
to have more sway over the FBI's investigative priorities than intelligence provided to them by
local fusion centers.
It appears that in defense of their power, our elites are willing to do away with all
liberal pretenses and take on "emergency orders" that ultimately punishes peaceful dissent
while allowing real criminals to go free.
Law enforcement is fully aware of who provokes the fighting and rioting at riots: the
left. The documents from fusion centers across the country (intelligence provided by local
police departments) repeatedly report this.
But
Both the FBI and to a lesser extent the Department of Homeland Security are far more
concerned with political ideology and creating propaganda than upholding the law.
As Douglas Valentine points out, these fusion centers are Phoenix centers, which CIA
developed in Vietnam to eradicate independent civil society. You can see the CIA mannerisms
they teach the Junior Spy Cadets at the fusion center: pretend classmarks: (U//LES), Roger,
Wilco, Over and Out! Breathless dumbshit cops get to use U just like real spies, but they don't
get get collateral access and they have to make up little codes to try and blow off public
records law.
This is why when asshole cops strangle you, you can't complain to the city. CIA controls the
cops, not the city. This is most obvious in NYPD, with actual CIA secret police like Sanchez
and Cohen, arresting you like cops to facilitate illegal CIA domestic spying. DHS and FBI are
in there too, of course, fishing for dissent to repress but they're controlled by CIA focal
points.
So next time a pig kneels on your head you can't just burn down the precinct, you have to
burn down the CIA fusion center, and Langley too.
Aside from siccing cops on the latest internal enemies, CIA also uses fusion centers to
propagate the party line to cops, who will credulously swallow it and pass it on to show off
their double-secret spy connections. For instance, they circulated alt media disinfo claiming
KGB killed JFK. This happened to coincide with Unz and other bravura JFK coup exposes, and with
CIA's Russiagate fiasco.
"We assess that anarchist extremists' use of violence as a means to oppose racism and
white supremacist extremists' preparations to counterattack anarchist extremists are the
principal drivers of violence at recent white supremacist rallies."
Is there a bigger political statement than this? The anarchist extremists aren't opposing
racism, they are opposing the government(s). "White supremacist" is a pejorative label used to
discredit people's right to free assembly. Clearly, the only investigating the FBI does is on
whom it decides are political opponents.
I find it incredibly frustrating that all of this scandalous information is out there
confirming what we already knew to be true and yet these organizations, the media, and
especially elected officials continue on as if this isn't the case. It's vexing. Frustrating.
Enraging.
If this was a dictatorship, at least we could rage against that, but because it has the
words "democracy" slapped onto it, we are supposedly able to change things. And yet,
representative democracy has proven that nothing changes if the elites do not will it. It's
just a vile scheme by plutocrats to keep us in chains of our own imagination: "well, we voted
for this so I have to live with the results," no we didn't, and do we truly?
I think Solzhenitsyn would respectfully disagree on behalf of the 66 million Russian
Christians who were tortured, raped and slaughtered during 1917-1989, not to mention the
fourteen years he spent locked up in the gulags run by Jewish Communists.
Might also be a few Ukrainians who disagree with your assessment given the 11-17 million
murdered by Jewish Bolsheviks in the 1932 Holodomor, which to my knowledge is still the single
biggest genocide in human history.
Then we'd have a position of strength from which to force the end to Jewish occupation of
America – which is necessary before the rest of the world's gentile populations,
particularly Europe, can take similar action.
America freeing herself will be good for America, but not necessary for other nations. For
instance, Putin freed Russia from her oligarchs, the overwhelming majority of them Jewish, well
before America had shown any progress on this matter. Actually, Russia freed herself in
spite of America!
White man's welfare, they call it. They hold pigs in contempt just like everybody else. But
this is how CIA finds the eager beaver cops who'll break the law to suck up and play James Bond
with them.
That beaner psycho Sanchez blabbed CIA's real intention while he was illegally spying
undercover as a NYPD pig: they don't just want to solve crimes, they want to keep you from
committing crimes in the first place. They think it's their job to to keep you under control.
These drug-dealing, gun-running, money-laundering, kiddy-pimping criminal scumbags rule your
country because they can kill you and torture you and get away with it. Even if you're the
president. Your government is CIA, and CIA is a totalitarian state. Until you storm Langley
like the Germans stormed the Stasi, all your reforms and revolutions are worth shit.
Antifa members routinely cross state lines to violate the civil rights of those they
perceive as "fascists" yet the FBI does nothing. Since it's obvious the FBI is dominated by
partisan leftists who are either sympathetic with antifa (and BLM) or actively colluding them
them against pro-white and right of center groups engaged in lawful but politically incorrect
activity.
The FBI is clearly taking their marching orders from the ADL who's lobbied them for years to
take a more active and hostile stance towards the pro-white and anti-semitic right. But given
the leftist ideological proclivities of the average special agent and their superiors this
wasn't that hard of a sell.
The FBI declared that it would begin investigating memes posted on Twitter intended to
satirize low civic education by telling people to vote for Hillary Clinton via text message
as a "Conspiracy Against Rights Provided by the Constitution and Laws of the United
States"
Yet the FBI did absolutely nothing about the black panthers intimidating voters at a Philly
precinct in 2008. Their illegal actions were witnessed by several poll watchers yet the
Obama/Holder DOJ promptly dropped the charges upon taking office.
The FBI is awash in naked partisanship and corruption and should have at least 25% of its
funding cut and be barred from surveilling or infiltrating groups engaged in politically
incorrect but lawful activity. It's become an appendage of the Democrat party and radical left
wing establishment and should be treated as such.
You are both right. Soviet Communism was far more murderous and brutal, BUT the West faces a
greater crisis. After all, communism didn't wipe Russia off the map, and indeed, Russians began
to regain control and power after Stalin's death. Also, Stalin had done much to check Jewish
Power, and there was a kind of cultural conservatism in many walks of life.
@Levtraro to HIM and had City of London-Israeli financing. So what actually happened is
that the Jews, who had been ousted from power by Krushchev and Brezhnev in the post-ww2 era,
got back into positions of economic power in Russia. A position that, as I noted, they had
lost. This idea that Putin is a nationalist is simply not true. He is a Jew-boy lapdog who
takes his orders from Tel Aviv and London..
The Soviet economy has significant State ownership. Part of what Putin did was to put the oil
industry back into the hands of the State so the State would have the Revenues. Most countries
do this with Oil and Gas revenue. It is very popular and provides employment and desperately
needed money to pay the paltry pensions many Russians subside on.
Russia hasn't been free since 1917 and is still not free. To believe otherwise is to be blinded
by Eastern Jewish smoke and mirrors.
Chabbad is not having the time of its life in Russia. Neither are Zion uber alles like in
our Congress. It quite different in Russia. Russia has a bit more freedom that we do from Zion
uber alles.
For the eighth time this past decade, Russian authorities told a foreign Chabad rabbi
living in Russia to leave the country.
Josef Marozof, a New York-born rabbi who began working 12 years ago for Chabad in the city
of Ulyanovsk 400 miles east of Moscow, was ordered earlier this week to leave because the FSB
security service said he had been involved in unspecified "extremist behavior."
Back in the CHOICES thread, we had discussion on the US bullying Iran, and the semantics
of whether the US was engaging in "war" against Iran. I hope not to get caught up in those
semantics again, but here are a couple of good pieces to show the situation.
The latest Renegade Inc episode interviews Gareth Porter, who draws from Smedley Butler
and talks about the "racket" of the security state of the US, which acts only to perpetuate
and extend itself, and to increase its funding by all means.
The episode answers several questions about the US posture towards Iran. Porter supplies
the history and background to illustrate the US anger for Iran. Sharmine Narwani makes an
appearance also, and together they show why the Pentagon will never conduct acts of war
against Iran that will provoke the kind of overt retaliation that Iran delivered by targeting
the US bases this year.
The US will only conduct acts that Iran will not overtly respond to. It will escalate its
theater right up to that red line, but if it crosses the line - as it did with killing
Soleimani - it will be by miscalculation. The only purpose of the US security state is to
escalate the threat level to keep the funding coming, and to leave no possible margin for
de-funding by Congress. It's a racket, and the racket has swallowed all statecraft.
Once I suggested seriously that Ukraine could not be understood in terms of statecraft,
but only in terms of thievery. It becomes increasingly clear that the tenets of organized
crime are now the only way to parse US action.
~~
Iran meanwhile, lives by statecraft. It will always respond when that red line is crossed
- always and without hesitation. My view is that Iran is continuously working for the total
departure of the US from West Asia, as it said that it would in retribution for Soleimani.
Much of what it does we don't see, but I note the "resistance" axis goes from strength to
strength in solidarity. It was ready to erupt when Iran attacked the US base, but the US
disengaged and this unified axis of several nations and forces stood down.
So the school of thought presented for example by Richard Steven Hack here, that
the US will war on Iran for decades if it can, simply to feed the MIC, is correct. What's not
correct is that the US can perform much in the way of military action against Iran.
We stumbled over the word "war" so perhaps we can talk about minor activities of warfare,
which are not enough to bring the theater to full battle. All the nations in the region have
tolerated US incursions because to fight them head on would provoke escalation that serves
less purpose than living with them - there is a time for everything.
But we have to understand the red lines. And we have to understand that because we see
nothing moving, it doesn't mean nothing is moving. Narwani makes some good points about that
- and see her full interview on Renegade from last year for a good understanding of what Iran
is as a nation and an adversary. It's clear that the Pentagon agrees with her.
As to the Resistance axis, this interview with Lebanese analyst Anees Naqqash is worth a
quick read. It tells us much about Lebanon.
It is not the case that Iran is doing nothing in response to US warfare against it and its
regional allies. The red flag is still flying, and the Iranians take it seriously.
War is no longer about winning. Endless conflict is the name of the game. Military defense
contractors are the most influential of all lobbyists and so intertwined in government that
it's truly & effectively fascist. Profit is the end, war is the means.
Isn't USA effectively at war with Venezuela? Isn't it an act of war to seize billions
in State assets - including embassies - and support a coup?
Isn't USA effectively at war with Syria? If ISIS has been defeated - as Trump has said
several times - then USA is illegally occupying Syria oil fields. In addition, USA
"recognized" Israel's claim to the Golan Heights - against UN resolutions that deny that
claim.
Isn't USA at war with Yemen? USA supplies Saudi Arabia and UAE with weapons for this
war plus targeting.
Isn't it an act of war to renege on terms to end a war? If so, then one could say that
USA has renewed it's war with North Korea.
Isn't it an act of war to impose a virtual embargo on a country via crippling
third-party sanctions? And wasn't the assassination of Solemani an act of war? Then USA is
effectively at war with Iran. Putin's reminder that Iran was a Russian ally after the
downing of the USA drone may be the reason that we are not in a hot war with Iran.
USA argued for a "two-state" solution for Palestine for two decades, then (under Trump)
switched almost entirely to Israel's side. That sounds like an act of war against the
"State" that USA has argued should exist.
Isn't USA still at war with the Taliban? Or is that just a 20-year "police action" like
Vietnam?
And what about Libya that NATO Turkey is seeking to conquer - after USA played a key
(and illegal) role in destroying?
And then there are tensions with Russia and China, which only seem to grow more intense
every week. The Trump Administration seeks to stop NordStream (for security reasons) and
punish China for Trump's inept pandemic response and for exercising control of Hong Kong
(which is long recognized as Chinese sovereign territory).
<> <> <> <> <>
IMO Trump has started wars but the countries and peoples he picks on know that it's
best not to respond too forcibly or they invite greater damage.
I'm surprised that moa commenters give any credence to the claims that portray Trump as
peaceful/peace-loving. In addition to his belligerence, Empire front-man Trump has initiated
a huge military build-up, ended long-standing peace treaties, and militarized space.
This is the standard Washington rhetoric that accompanies their coup attempts. It is a
companion to the "moderate democracy" rhetoric about U.S. satellite governments like Saudi
Arabia. The rhetoric tells you that these people have zero interest in democracy, honesty, or
avoiding hypocrisy. Some of Bush's neocons are Biden Supporters; what a surprise.
@ Jackrabbit 102
re: Isn't USA effectively at war with Venezuela?. . .etc
Obviously you don't know jack about actual war, do you.
Or give us your creds?
I dropped back in to see what follows...imagine my deflation to find that people don't know
what war is.
@108 Don Bacon
Precisely. No one who has ever experienced the tragedy of war will ever mistake the
playground games of make-believe war with the real thing.
~~
That's the problem with the US administration, and its satraps and the many camp followers
and court jesters who follow it. They don't know the difference between posturing war and
waging war.
The difference is so profound that it calls for not only a new language but a new
departure point of reference within one's soul even to begin to speak of such things.
The US will pursue the make-believe war it postures through in order to score points
within its small group circle. But real war, should it ever come to touch it - and it will if
it pursues its childishness too far - will shock it into total frozen fear the moment that it
strikes.
Iran knew this, and had the human strength to test it and to prove it. Everything else, up
to this point, was an accommodation by the world's nations to the posturing of the US for its
own internal coherence. It was a matter of supporting the US ego rather than of being close
to the event when that ego falls apart, with potentially explosive consequences.
But Iran had the strength of character to stand on its principles, and to proclaim its
truth. And by the way, that stand is by no means done, despite what the trolls may suggest.
Iran has barely begun its action to remove the US from Southwest Asia, and we will only see
the footprints of its actions as we realize that the US has departed. And this will happen,
regardless of the US narrative and its many parrots.
~~
I don't blame the US or any of its supporters for threatening war when all it really does
is act as a nuisance and a spoiler in those few platforms left to it. Those it oppresses have
so far mostly chosen to bear the insult rather than to make a fuss. But Iran has shown the
way, and one should not expect many more of those oppressed to put up with the abuse from the
US many more times.
What is clearly known is that the very last thing the US can do is go to war, in the real
meaning of that term. The very last thing the US is capable of, is war. And the generals of
all the nations of the world know this because they have seen the proof of it. Anyone who
doesn't see the proof of it is behind the curve, and may well have license to comment here
and elsewhere, but fortunately does not sit in the security councils of the nations of the
world.
~~
If anyone wants to think that the US is "effectively" at war with another nation, then
consider that Iran is absolutely "effectively" at war with the US, just as Hezbollah is
beyond any doubt at war with Israel. And so what? When positions are "effectively" this or
that, then they had better produce "effective" results. And it is only from these effective
results that we can count the coup of the engagement. Hezbollah and Iran don't need to be
told the difference between real attacks and propaganda attacks.
What they count is the real force.
Everything else is bluster. And I was 16 years old myself once, so in all humility I don't
condemn this braggadocio, which I understand all too humanly.
But neither do I take it as real in the real world.
@ Grieved 109
Thanks for helping to deliver us from all that illusory make-believe on war from the deep
thinkers who apparently man this place. And yes, Iran has shown the way, which includes its
ability to put a serious hurt on US forces if attacked. We're talking about the possibility
of lots of US dead bodies, military and dependents, men women and children, also sunken
ships, and not just some supporting proxies and aerial bombing with the attendant publicity
that suggests to some that genuine war exists, when it doesn't.
People need to get real.
Trump is really no different than Clinton, GWBush, and Obama. Each a front-man for the
Deep State/Empire. Each portrayed as well-meaning, peace-loving men that were FORCED! to war
for all the right reasons. In that context, these Jedi mind-tricks fall
flat:
USA can't wage war?
Yet it's bullying other countries and engaging in acts of war.
Trump's belligerence is all bluster?
Yet USA is preparing for war with a costly arms build-up and massive propaganda
campaign (as described well by Caitlin Johnstone).
No one need fear USA?
Yet power-elites in USA subscribe to supremacist ideologies (neoconservativism,
neoliberalism, zionism), advocate a "New World Order", and a 'rules-based' international
system that can only be described as "might makes right".
With only four months left to the U.S. presidential elections, and the increasing
likelihood of Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel President in history, losing, Israel has been
trying to provoke Iran to start a war, so that it can drag the United State into it. This is
not anything new. For over a decade Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to force the United
States to go to war with Iran, and Israel itself almost attacked Iran three times between
2010 and 2011. But the with events of the last several months darkening the prospects of a
second Trump term, Israel feels a new urgency for a war with Iran.
For over two years Israel tried to provoke Iran by attacking Iranian-backed Shiite forces
in Syria, but Iran has opted not to retaliate. Since the attacks did not provoke Iran to
retaliate, and also failed to dislodge Iran's military advisers and the Shiite forces that it
trained, armed, and dispatched to Syria, Israel has seemingly turned to attacking Iran
directly within its borders.
The events of past two months in Iran are indicative of Israel's new push for war. These
events include large-scale infernos, explosions, and cyberattacks, all believed to have been
carried out by Israel and its Iranian proxies, the "fake opposition" which is the part of the
opposition that supports economic sanctions and military attacks against Iran, and has even
allied itself with small secessionist groups that carry out terrorist attacks inside
Iran.
In this video, Prof. Wolff talks about the breakdown of the capitalist system and outlines
4 major problems that the US has been faced with without for quite some time with no solution
in sight: climate change, capitalism's intrinsic instability, systemic racism inherited from
slavery, and lastly the lack of mechanisms to manage viruses.
In this video, Prof. Wolff compares and contrasts the preparation for and management of
COVID-19 with how the US has managed military preparedness and the handling of military
confrontations and activities. It has succeeded at one and completely failed at the other. He
explains why.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 7 2020 1:09 utc | 96 Prediction: The US may start a war but the US
will not finish that war. Its opponent will end that war, by causing unacceptable losses to
the US - something quite easily achieved, and already proved to the world by Iran in this
very year of 2020.
I agree. The US can not defeat Iran, short of nuking Tehran, which is not in the cards for
geopolitical reasons. However, the US can devastate much of Iran's civilian infrastructure,
which, like most such infrastructures, can't run and hide. The US can also kill a million or
two milllion Iranians, as it proved in Iraq.
All that will do, however, is merely guarantee that Iran will never surrender. Nor would
Iran ever surrender in the first place. Which is why I tend to reference the upcoming war as
the "New Thirty Years War". The clear example is the near twenty years we've spent in
Afghanistan - which is vastly weaker than Iran. Each war - Vietnam, Afghanistan, and arguably
Iraq - has lasted longer than the last and with failure as an outcome.
The US can keep attacking Iran from the air and sea for thirty years - but without ever
defeating Iran. It will do so because the military-industrial complex will make profits every
year from that war - and in the end, that's all that matters to the US (along with the
Only if the US tries a land invasion will the US lose a massive number of troops. But even
that will come over time, albeit at a *much* higher rate than the US saw in either Vietnam,
Iraq, or Afghanistan. US annual casualties would probably be in the low to medium 5 digits
per year, as opposed to the low 4 digits in most of those wars. In other words, four or five
times the rate in Iraq. That's as compared with a hot war in North Korea which would see
50,000 US casualties in the first ninety days, or any war with China or Russia. See "United
States military casualties of war" on Wikipedia. It's possible that casualties could rise to
the level of WWI, if the war lasts five or ten years, or even WWII if it lasts twenty - or
even higher if it lasts thirty.
Most people think the US will not try a land invasion. I've argued, however, that the
*only* way to even attempt to prevent Iran from closing the Straits for the duration of the
war will be for the US to put several score thousand Marines and US troops on Iran's shores
to attempt to prevent launching of mines and anti-ship missiles. This would be difficult
since Iran has a long Persian Gulf shoreline, Iran has fortified that shoreline, there are
many places to launch weapons from that shoreline - and any such US troops would be subject
to both conventional and guerrilla war by the Iranian military and perhaps a million or more
Iranian Basij militia. Nonetheless, the US is likely to be dumb enough to try.
In any event, the US will eventually be forced to withdraw either because the US
electorate would eventually tire of the war - although as Afghanistan proves, that could take
a *very* long time, mostly depending on the casualty rate, however, as I indicateed - or
because another "threat" takes precedence, which would likely mean either Russia or
China.
"And the US will strain its mighty Wurlitzer to the utmost to declare victory as it
retreats."
Yup. And the sad part is that the US electorate will probably believe that, then forget
about the reality and be willing to commit to a new war within another ten years.
In addition to the above, the idea that because there's a difference between "war" and
"conflicts before war" there is *no chance* of war is absurd.
Every war started with this sort of enmity between nations historically. As I've said
before, with this level of enmity between the US and Iran, and arguably between the US and
Russia, and the US and China, war is inevitable. With the latter two countries, such a war is
likely to be nuclear - which is why it hasn't happened yet - that risk is *way* too high
(although it can still happen if a miscalculation causes a conventional war, which then
escalates into nuclear.)
A war with Iran doesn't have that risk. No nuclear power that I am aware of is going to
enter the war on Iran's side and thus risk a nuclear war over Iran. Iran itself will not
develop or use nuclear weapons. Israel *might* consider using nuclear weapons against Iran -
that would be a*huge* mistake geopolitically and probably result in Israel's destruction by
geopolitical means if not by military means. But neither Russia nor China are going to
directly engage the US military to defend Iran. That would be stupid and putting their own
national survival at risk for the benefit of another nation. As Percival Rose would say,
"That ain't gonna happen."
The real problem for some people is cognitive dissonance. They can't emotionally accept
the possibility of these wars occurring - so they don't. They are reduced to saying, "well,
it hasn't happened...yet."
The "yet" is the operative term. There is no logical extension of that term to mean
"never".
There are many other mistaken assumptions, such as:
USA wouldn't start a war it can't win
We've seen that USA is often satisfied with just smashing another country.
USA would strain to justify a war or continue a war
USA is very adept at propaganda. They can apply pressure that forces a country to
"lash out", or intervene to help an abused population or an ally. USA also likes to use
proxies. Example: destabilize with "freedom fighters" then intervene when the target
country commits "atrocities" as it attempts to defend itself.
Trump is a negotiator, he doesn't want to fight
Trump is a stooge. The Deep State will decide when they're ready to fight.
Americans are tired of war
If only that were true. Most Americans just don't care. And are willing to accept
what ever lies they're told (at least for the first months).
What is plain to see is all of these "wars" are not wars but provocations, aggression from
one side and bullying. In every case the other side does not want a war.
Interesting how the US has way upped its aggression on Venezuela without a peep from the
people. This started off with some nonsense about an idiot named Guaido and is now full blown
nastiness.
Sadly they are not the only stooges. It beggars belief that people everywhere believe that
they can elect someone to change the system in the country in which they reside. Political
stripes have very little meaning as the differences are incremental at best. The
bureaucracies necessary to keep the modern systems of governance afloat are staggeringly
monolithic. Electing one individual, or party, or parties and presuming that the system will
somehow be improved upon is a laughable fantasy. It leads to a continuous cycle of four years
of initiatives to tear down the previous four years initiatives unless you're a second term
government. But actual change is still the sole purview of the entrenched bureaucracy or
"deep state" or whatever other label you prefer. To Jackrabbit's point, most decisions hinge
on whether or not the bureaucracies in charge believe a war, a social change etc. can be
implemented and a desired result achieved. It takes a finely developed sense of myopia to
think that the only stooges are those of the political class. Says volumes about the people
that put them there, and continues to suggest that they are electing "change".
As an aside, the Frank Zappa quote that "government is the entertainment division of the
military industrial complex" remains potently poignant.
Calling what the US is doing to these countries "war" is like saying that Floyd was in a
fight with the cop's knee.
Yes,there has been some very measured retaliation from some of the victims, but it amounts to
Floyd saying he can't breathe.
@450 132
The provocations and responses of the formation of a war with Iran have been very interesting
and I think that if Iran hadn't of shot down the Ukrainian airliner after their attack
against the American base we may have already or continue to witness that war. As I see it
there was a real hard on to go after Iran but word of the shoot down allowed the Don to pull
back and let Iran suffer the black mark without escalation.
There are way too many itchy trigger fingers and pretexts for this and that can be easily
engineered and sold to the masses. Helps Biden or whomever if he can blame the future cluster
fuck on cleaning up donnies mess. I expect something expectedly unexpected in the coming
months.
War is not a static proposition and its meaning and definition can and should change over
time to fit the prevailing military strategies and economic paradigm of the day. We don't
live and operate in an unassailable lexicon vacuum. War is not defined tautologically,
meaning, war is not war. War is many things and can be fought on many dimensional fronts,
meaning not just militarily.
I think war is a state of mind. That's why we talk about "the war on poverty" or a
"propaganda war".
You might say that there is a "Cold War" but the number of acts of war is too numerous for
that and targeted at multiple countries/peoples. It's more like a 'hybrid war' on everyone
that opposes the New World Order that the AZ Empire seeks to impose on the planet.
Importantly, you can't prevent war if you only start thinking of it as 'war' when the
shooting starts.
As for the timing of the likely pending Iran war,another consideration is the impact on
financial markets.
The market went into a mini panic last September when the Yemeni missiles hit the Saudi
refineries because the Saudis withdrew ~$60n - $80b from repo markets. Some blame JP Morgan
for that, but someone I know who works at the repo trading desk of the US branch of a large
foreign bank was adamant it was the Saudi pullback and JP Morgan had nothing to do with it. I
thought that the US withdrew Patriot batteries from the Gulf infrastructure in Saudi Arabia,
that is an odd move given Iran could destroy those facilities.
..
"Three weeks into the war, Marine Sgt. Ed Chin got the order: Help the Iraqis celebrating in
Baghdad's Firdos Square topple the statue of Saddam Hussein.
"My captain comes over and he's got like this package. He hands it to me and he's like, he
tells me there's an American flag in there and when I get up there, you know, he's like, show
the boys the colors," said Chin.
Are you seriously incapable of making a connection regarding the hypocrisy of the US
Govt/US military wrapping an American Flag on the Saddam Statue and destroying it for a media
photo op while cheering about it? And the condemnation of the US Govt declaring statues
should not be destroyed?
Do you see no insanity regarding the US Regime illegally invading and destroying another
Nation and its statues (war crime w/millions dead)? The very same Nation celebrating a "bad"
Iraqi statue being destroyed is suddenly disgusted when its own statues are being destroyed
by its own people?
My point is obvious if you can step back from your myopic view. The US is a mentally ill
Nation ridden with hypocrisy. I personally do not put much merit into statues, cultural
idolatry comes to mind, just as foolish as religious idolatry.
So what are your thoughts on the destruction of the Saddam statue sanctioned by the US
govt and military?
@114 I expect V will be along at some point but here are my thoughts on the Saddam
statue.....
The US is ridden with hypocrisy as you say ....no surprise there. The statue was actually
pulled down by a rentamob of Iraqi Saddam haters while American troops high-fived each
other.
They wouldn't see anything wrong with pulling the statue down because Saddam was a 'bad
guy' and an American enemy.
Those same troops would probably not feel the same way about Confederate generals.....who
just happened to be Americans who kept slaves and picked the losing side. They would be seen
as major figures in American history.
That is how a lot of Americans would justify it. Of course it is rank hypocrisy..
"... the essential backdrop for the timing of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution, that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer. ..."
"... That took place in this case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped. ..."
"... They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable. ..."
"... And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant, has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden. ..."
"... the Carter Administration, at the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield. And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do. ..."
"... What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia. So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real. ..."
"... just kind of neocon resistance mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump. ..."
"... And then you have this and it, you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate. ..."
"... This is what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous, bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller. ..."
Max Blumenthal breaks down the "Russian bounty" story's flaws and how it aims to prolong the
war in Afghanistan -- and uses Russiagate tactics to continue pushing the Democratic Party to
the right
Multiple US media outlets, citing anonymous intelligence officials, are claiming that Russia
offered bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan, and that President Trump has taken no
action.
Others are contesting that claim. "Officials said there was disagreement among
intelligence officials about the strength of the evidence about the suspected Russian
plot," the New York Times reports. "Notably, the National Security Agency, which specializes in
hacking and electronic surveillance, has been more skeptical."
"The constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party
and its base is moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into
this Cold War," Blumenthal says.
Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author of several books, including his
latest "The Management of Savagery."
TRANSCRIPT
AARON MATÉ: Welcome to Pushback, I'm Aaron Maté. There is a new supposed
Trump-Russia bombshell. The New York Times and other outlets reporting that Russia has
been paying bounties to Afghan militants to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump and the
White House were allegedly briefed on this information but have taken no action.
Now, the story has obvious holes, like many other Russiagate bombshells. It is sourced to
anonymous intelligence officials. The New York Times says that the claim comes from
Afghan detainees. And it also has some logical holes. The Taliban have been fighting the US and
Afghanistan for nearly two decades and never needed Russian payments before to kill the
Americans that they were fighting; [this] amongst other questions are raised about this story.
But that has not stopped the usual chorus from whipping up a frenzy.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: Vladimir Putin is offering bounties for the scalps of American
soldiers in Afghanistan. Not only offering, offering money [to] the people who kill Americans,
but some of the bounties that Putin has offered have been collected, meaning the Russians at
least believe that their offering cash to kill Americans has actually worked to get some
Americans killed.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign
of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin. He had has [sic] this information
according to The Times, and yet he offered to host Putin in the United States and sought
to invite Russia to rejoin the G7. He's in his entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but
this is beyond the pale.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: I was not briefed on the Russian military
intelligence, but it shows that we need in this coming defense bill, which we're debating this
week, tough sanctions against Russia, which thus far Mitch McConnell has resisted.
Joining me now is Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management of
Savagery . Max, welcome to Pushback. What is your reaction to this story?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, it just feels like so many other episodes that we've
witnessed over the past three or four years, where American intelligence officials basically
plant a story in one outlet, The New York Times , which functions as the media wing of
the Central Intelligence Agency. Then no reporting takes place whatsoever, but six reporters,
or three to six reporters are assigned to the piece to make it look like it was some
last-minute scramble to confirm this bombshell story. And then the story is confirmed again by
The Washington Post because their reporters, their three to six reporters in, you know,
capitals around the world with different beats spoke to the same intelligence officials, or
they were furnished different officials who fed them the same story. And, of course, the story
advances a narrative that the United States is under siege by Russia and that we have to
escalate against Russia just ahead of another peace summit or some kind of international
dialogue.
This has sort of been the general framework for these Russiagate bombshells, and of course
they can there's always an anti-Trump angle. And because, you know, liberal pundits and the,
you know, Democratic Party operatives see this as a means to undermine Trump as the election
heats up. They don't care if it's true or not. They don't care what the consequences are.
They're just gonna completely roll with it. And it's really changed, I think, not just US
foreign policy, but it's changed the Democratic Party in an almost irreversible way, to have
these constant "quote-unquote" bombshells that are really generated by the Central Intelligence
Agency and by other US intelligence operations in order to turn up the heat to crank up the
Cold War, to use these different media organs which no longer believe in reporting, which see
Operation Mockingbird as a kind of blueprint for how to do journalism, to turn them into keys
on the CIA's Mighty Wurlitzer. That's what happened here.
AARON MATÉ: What do you make of the logic of this story? This idea that the
Taliban would need Russian money to kill Americans when the Taliban's been fighting the US for
nearly two decades now. And the sourcing for the story, the same old playbook: anonymous
intelligence officials who are citing vague claims about apparently what was said by Afghan
detainees.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: This story has, as I said, it relies on zero reporting. The only
source is anonymous American intelligence officials. And I tweeted out a clip of a former CIA
operations officer who managed the CIA's operation in Angola, when the US was actually fighting
on the side of apartheid South Africa against a Marxist government that was backed up by Cuban
troops. His name was John Stockwell. And Stockwell talked about how one-third of his covert
operations staff were propagandists, and that they would feed imaginary stories about Cuban
barbarism that were completely false to reporters who were either CIA assets directly or who
were just unwitting dupes who would hang on a line waiting for American intelligence officials
to feed them stories. And one out of every five stories was completely false, as Stockwell
said. We could play some of that clip now; it's pretty remarkable to watch it in light of this
latest fake bombshell.
JOHN STOCKWELL: Another thing is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's
minds, and this is a major function of the CIA. And unfortunately, of course, it overlaps into
the gathering of information. You, you have contact with a journalist, you will give him true
stories, you'll get information from him, you'll also give him false stories.
OFF-CAMERA REPORTER: Can you do this with responsible reporters?
JOHN STOCKWELL: Yes, the Church Committee brought it out in 1975. And then Woodward
and Bernstein put an article in Rolling Stone a couple of years later. Four hundred
journalists cooperating with the CIA, including some of the biggest names in the business.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: So, basically, I mean, you get the flavor of what someone who was in
the CIA at the height of the Cold War I mean, he did the same thing in Vietnam. And the
playbook is absolutely the same today. These this story was dumped on Friday in The New York
Times by "quote-unquote" American intelligence officials, as a breakthrough had been made
in Afghan peace talks and a conference was finally set for Doha, Qatar, that would involve the
Taliban, which had been seizing massive amounts of territory.
Now, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Taliban had been fighting
one of the most epic examples of an occupying army in modern history, just absolutely chewing
away at one of the most powerful militaries in human history in their country for the last 19
years, without bounties from Vladimir Putin or
private-hotdog-salesman-and-Saint-Petersburg-troll-farm-owner Yevgeny Prigozhin , who always comes up
in these stories. It's always the hotdog guy who's doing everything bad from, like, you know,
fake Facebook ads to poisoning Sergei Skripal or whatever.
But I just don't see where the Taliban needs encouragement from Putin to do that. It's their
country. They want the US out and they have succeeded in seizing large amounts of territory.
Donald Trump has come into office with a pledge to remove US troops from Afghanistan and ink
this deal. And along comes this story as the peace process begins to advance.
And what is the end-result? We haven't gotten into the domestic politics yet, but the
end-result is you have supposedly progressive senators like Chris Murphy of Connecticut
attacking Trump for not fighting Russia in Afghanistan. I mean, they want a straight-up proxy
war for not escalating. You have Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign
Relations, someone who's aligned with the Democratic Party, who supported the war in Iraq and,
you know, supports just endless war, demanding that the US turn up the heat not just in
Afghanistan but in Syria. So, you know, the escalatory rhetoric is at a fever pitch right now,
and it's obviously going to impact that peace conference.
Let's remember that three days before Trump's summit with Putin was when Mueller chose to
release the indictment of the GRU agents for supposedly hacking the DNC servers. Let's remember
that a day before the UN the United Nations Geneva peace talks opened on Syria in 2014 was when
US intelligence chose to feed these shady Caesar photos, supposedly showing industrial
slaughter of Syrian prisoners, to The New York Times in an investigation that had been
funded by Qatar. Like, so many shady intelligence dumps have taken place ahead of peace summits
to disrupt them, because the US doesn't feel like it has enough skin in the game or it just
simply doesn't want peace in these areas.
So, that's what happened here. That's really, I think, the essential backdrop for the timing
of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution,
that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent
investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in
the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the
domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or
current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and
mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer.
That took place in this
case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties
to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for
nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now
we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The
Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped.
THE LINCOLN PROJECT AD: Now we know Vladimir Putin pays a bounty for the murder of
American soldiers. Donald Trump knows, too, and does nothing. Putin pays the Taliban cash to
slaughter our men and women in uniform and Trump is silent, weak, controlled. Instead of
condemnation he insists Russia be treated as our equal.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, maybe they're just really good editors and brilliant
politicians who work overtime. They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story
was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable.
And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant,
has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden.
They're always out there doing the hard work. Who are they? Well, Steve Schmidt is a former
campaign manager for John McCain 2008. And you look at the various personnel affiliated with
it, they're all McCain former McCain aides or people who worked on the Jeb and George W. Bush
campaigns, going back to Texas and Florida. This is sort of the corporate wing of the
Republican Party, the white-glove-country-club-patrician Republicans who are very pro-war, who
hate Donald Trump.
And by doing this, by them really taking the lead on this attack, as you pointed out, Aaron,
number one, they are sucking the oxygen out of the more progressive anti-Trump initiatives that
are taking place, including in the streets of American cities. They're taking the wind out of
anti-Trump more progressive anti-Trump critiques. For example, I think it's actually more
powerful to attack Trump over the fact that he used, basically, chemical weapons on American
peaceful protesters to do a fascistic photo-op. I don't know why there wasn't some call for
congressional investigations on that. And they are getting skin in the game on the Biden
campaign. It really feels to me like this Lincoln campaign operation, this moderate Republican
operation which is also sort of a venue for neocons, will have more influence after events like
this than the Bernie Sanders campaign, which has an enormous amount of delegates.
So, that's what I think the domestic repercussion is. It's just this constant it's the
constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party and its
base that's moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into this
Cold War that only serves, you know, people who are associated with the national security state
who need to justify their paycheck and the budget of the institutions that employ them.
AARON MATÉ: Let's assume for a second that the allegation is true, although, you
know, you've laid out some of the reasons why it's not. Can you talk about the history here,
starting with Afghanistan, something you cover a lot in your book, The Management of
Savagery, where the US aim was to kill Russians, going right on through to Syria, where
just recently the US envoy for the coalition against ISIS, James Jeffery, who handles Syria,
said that his job now is to basically put the Russians in a quagmire in Syria.
JAMES JEFFREY: This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My
job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, I mean, it feels like a giant act of psychological and
political projection to accuse Russia of using an Islamist militia in Afghanistan as a proxy
against the US to bleed the US into leaving, because that's been the US playbook in Central
Asia and the Middle East since at least 1979. I just tweeted a photo of Dan Rather in
Afghanistan, just crossing the Pakistani border and going to meet with some of the Mujahideen
in 1980. Dan Rather was panned in The New York in The Washington Post by Tom
Toles [Tom Shales], who was the media critic at the time, as "Gunga Dan," because he was so
gung-ho for the Afghan mujahideen. In his reports he would complain about how weak their
weaponry was, you know, how they needed more how they needed more funding. I mean, you could
call it bounties, but it was really just CIA funding.
DAN RATHER: These are the best weapons you have, huh? They only have about twenty
rounds for this?
TRANSLATOR: That's all. They have twenty rounds. Yes, and they know that these are
all old weapons and they really aren't up to doing anything to the Russian weaponry that's
around. But that's all they have, and this is why they want help. And he is saying that America
seems to be asleep. It doesn't seem to realize that if Afghanistan goes and the Russians go
over to the Gulf, that in a very short time it's going to be the turn of the United States as
well.
DAN RATHER: But I'm sure he knows that in Vietnam we got our fingers burned. Indeed,
we got our whole hands burned when we tried to help in this kind of situation.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: Your hands were burned
in Vietnam, but if you don't agree to help us, if you don't ally yourself with us, then all of
you, your whole body will be burnt eventually, because there is no one in the world who can
really fight and resist as well as the as much and as well as the Afghans are.
DAN RATHER: But no American mother wants to send her son to Afghanistan.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: We don't need
anybody's soldiers here to help us, but we are being constantly accused that the Americans are
helping us with weapons. What we need, actually, are the American weapons. We don't need or
want American soldiers. We can do the fighting ourselves.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And a year or several months before, the Carter Administration, at
the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become
Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The
Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field
where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield.
And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French
publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the
pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do.
And then with the introduction of
the Stinger missile, the Afghan mujahideen, hailed as freedom fighters in Washington, were able
to destroy Russian supply lines, exact a heavy toll, and forced the Red Army to leave in
retreat. They helped create what's considered the Soviet Union's Vietnam.
So that was really but the blueprint for what Russian for what Russia is being accused of
now, and that same model was transferred over to Syria. It was also actually proposed for Iraq
in the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. Then Senate Foreign Relations chair Jesse Helms actually
said that the Afghan mujahideen should be our model for supporting the Iraqi resistance. So,
this kind of proxy war was always on the table. Then the US did it in Syria, when one out of
every $13 in the CIA budget went to arm the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria, who we later
found out were 31 flavors of jihadi, who were aligned with al-Qaeda's local affiliate Jabhat
al-Nusra and helped give rise to ISIS. Michael Morell, I tweeted some video of him on Charlie
Rose back in, I think, 2016. He's the former acting director for the CIA, longtime deputy
director. He said, you know, the reason that we're in Syria, what we should be doing is causing
Iran and Russia, the two allies of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to pay a heavy
price.
MICHAEL MORELL: We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make
the Russians pay a price. The other thing
CHARLIE ROSE: We make them pay the price by killing killing Russians?
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And killing Iranians.
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes, covertly. You don't tell the world about it, right? You don't
stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this, right? But you make sure they know it in Moscow
and Tehran.
MAX BLUMENTHAL:What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was
literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia.
So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It
would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was
actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And
that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone
like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's
such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real.
AARON MATÉ: Let me read Dan Rather's tweet, because it's so it speaks to just
how pervasive Russiagate culture is now. People have learned absolutely nothing from it.
Rather says, "Reporters are trained to look for patterns that are suspicious, and time and
again one stands out with Donald Trump. Why is he so slavishly devoted to Putin? There is a
spectrum of possible answers ranging from craven to treasonous. One day I hope and suspect we
will find out."
It's like he forgot, perhaps, that Robert Mueller and his team spent three years
investigating this very issue and came up with absolutely nothing. But the narrative has taken
hold, and it's, as you talked about before, it's been the narrative we've been presented as the
vehicle for understanding and opposing Donald Trump, so it cannot be questioned. And now it's
like it's a matter of, what else is there to find out about Trump and Russia after Robert
Mueller and the US intelligence agencies looked for everything they could and found nothing?
They're still presented as if it's some kind of mystery that has to be unraveled.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And it was after, like, a week of just kind of neocon resistance
mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump.
Then Dick Cheney was welcomed into the resistance, you know, because he said, "Wear a mask." I
mean, you know, his mask was strangely not spattered with the blood of Iraqi children. But, you
know, it was just amazing like that. Of course, it was the Lincoln project who hijacked the
minds of the resistance, but basically people who used to work on Cheney's campaign said, "Dick
Cheney, welcome to the resistance." I mean, that was remarkable. And then you have this and it,
you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the
Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to
Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, just a few years ago, maybe it was two years ago, before
Bolton was brought into the Trump NSC, he was considered just an absolute marginal crank who
was a contributor to Fox News. He'd been forgotten. He was widely hated by Democrats. Now here
he is as a sage voice to tell us how dangerous this moment is. And, you know, he's not being
even brought on just to promote his book; he's being brought on as just a sober-minded foreign
policy expert on Meet the Press . That's where we're at right now.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and when his critique of Trump is basically that Trump was not
hawkish enough. Bolton's most the biggest critique Bolton has of Trump is, as he writes about
in his book, is when Trump declined to bomb Iran after Iran shot down a drone over its
territory. And Bolton said that to him was the most irrational thing he's ever seen a president
do.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, Bolton was mad that Trump confused body bags with missiles,
because he said Trump thought that there would be 150 dead Iranians, and I said, "No, Donald,
you're confused. It will be 150 missiles that we're firing into Iran." Like that's better!
Like, "Oh, okay, that makes everything all right," that we fire a hundred missiles for one
drone and maybe that wouldn't that kill possibly more than 150 people?
Well, in Bolton's world this was just another stupid move by Trump. If Bolton were, I mean,
just, just watch all the interviews with Bolton. Watch him on The View where the only
pushback he received was from Meghan McCain complaining that he ripped off a Hamilton
song for his book The Room Where It Happened , and she asked, "Don't you have any
apology to offer to Hamilton fans?" That was the pushback that Bolton received. Just
watch all of these interviews with Bolton and try to find the pushback. It's not there. This is
what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous,
bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a
sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller.
AARON MATÉ: And inevitably the only long-term consequence that I can see here is
ultimately helping Trump, because, if history is a pattern, these Russiagate supposed
bombshells always either go nowhere or they get debunked. So, if this one gets forcefully
debunked, because I think it's quite possible, because Trump has said that he was never briefed
on this and they'll have to prove that he's lying, you know. It should be easy to do. Someone
could come out and say that. If they can't prove that he's lying, then this one, I think, will
blow up in their face. And all they will have done is, at a time when Trump is vulnerable over
the pandemic with over a hundred thousand people dead on his watch, all these people did was
ultimately try to bring the focus back to the same thing that failed for basically the entirety
of Trump's presidency, which is Russiagate and Trump's supposed―and non-existent in
reality―subservience to Vladimir Putin.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: But have you ever really confronted one of your liberal friends who
maybe doesn't follow these stories as closely as you do? You know, well-intentioned liberal
friend who just has this sense that Russia controls Trump, and asked them to really defend that
and provide the receipts and really explain where the Trump administration has just handed the
store to Russia? Because what we've seen is unprecedented since the height of the Cold War, an
unprecedented deterioration of US-Russia relations with new sanctions on Russia every few
months. You ask them to do that. They can't do it. It's just a sense they get, it's a feeling
they get. And that's because these bombshells drop, they get reported on the front pages under
banners of papers that declare that "democracy dies in darkness," whose brand is something that
everybody trusts, The New York Times , The Washington Post , Woodward and
Bernstein, and everybody repeats the story again and again and again. And then, if and when it
gets debunked, discredited or just sort of disappears, a few days later everybody forgets about
it. And those people who are not just, like, 24/7 media consumers but critical-minded media
consumers, they're left with that sense that Russia actually controls us and that we must do
something to escalate with Russia. So, that's the point of these: by the time the
disinformation is discredited, the damage has already been done. And that same tactic was
employed against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, to the point where so many people were left with the
sense that he must be an antisemite, although not one allegation was ever proven.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and now to the point where, in the Labour Party―we
should touch on this for a second―where you had a Labour Party member retweet an article
recently that mentioned some criticism of Israel and for that she was expelled from her
position in the shadow cabinet.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, well, you know, as a Jew I was really threatened by that
retweet [laughter]. I don't know about you.
I mean, this is Rebecca Long Bailey. She's one of the few Corbynites left in a high position
in Labour who hasn't been effectively burned at the stake for being a, you know, Jew hater who
wants to throw us all in gas chambers because she retweets an interview with some celebrity I'd
never heard of before, who didn't even say anything that extreme. But it really shows how the
Thought Police have taken control of the Labour Party through Sir Keir Starmer, who is someone
who has deep links to the national security state through the Crown Prosecution Service, which
he used to head, where he was involved in the prosecution of Julian Assange. And he has worked
with The Times of London, which is a, you know, favorite paper of the national security
state and the MI5 in the UK, for planting stories against Jeremy Corbyn. He was intimately
involved in that campaign, and now he's at the head of the Labour Party for a very good reason.
I really would recommend everyone watching this, if you're interested more in who Keir Starmer
really is, read "Five Questions for [New Labour Leader] Sir Keir Starmer" by Matt Kennard at
The Grayzone. It really lays it out and shows you what's happening.
We're just in this kind of hyper-managed atmosphere, where everything feels so much more
controlled than it's ever been. And even though every sane rational person that I know seems to
understand what's happening, they feel like they're not allowed to say it, at least not in any
official capacity.
AARON MATÉ: From the US to Britain, everything is being co-opted. In the US
it's, you know, genuine resistance to Trump, in opposition to Trump, it gets co-opted by the
right. Same thing in Britain. People get manipulated into believing that Jeremy Corbyn, this
lifelong anti-racist is somehow an antisemite. It's all in the service of the same agenda, and
I have to say we're one of the few outlets that are pushing back on it. Everyone else is
getting swept up on it and it's a scary time.
We're gonna wrap. Max, your final comment.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, yeah, we're pushing back. And I saw today Mint Press
[News], which is another outlet that has pushed back, their Twitter account was just
briefly removed for no reason, without explanation. Ollie Vargas, who's an independent
journalist who's doing some of the most important work in the English language from Bolivia,
reporting on the post-coup landscape and the repressive environment that's been created by the
junta installed with US help under Jeanine Áñez, his account has been taken away on
Twitter. The social media platforms are basically under the control of the national security
state. There's been a merger between the national security state and Silicon Valley, and the
space for these kinds of discussions is rapidly shrinking. So, I think, you know, it's more
important than ever to support alternative media and also to really have a clear understanding
of what's taking place. I'm really worried there just won't be any space for us to have these
conversations in the near future.
AARON MATÉ: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management
of Savagery , thanks a lot.
There is not much "real" left in the the USA. Usually what we see is just different flavors
of far right and right.
Money quote: "Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of
globalist imperialists. pl"
Notable quotes:
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination program." ..."
"... In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she never has had US citizenship. ..."
"... WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why did we let these halfwits in the country? ..."
"... Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical ‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!! ..."
"... The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement ..."
"... The New York Times is not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM. ..."
"... America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and conservative-nationalist options. ..."
"... The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC) nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject. ..."
"... Way too hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit) and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with #MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate / employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions disappeared long ago and now this. ..."
"... Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion. It's very peculiar. ..."
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends.
A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and
Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process
throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what
was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination
program."
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parallels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials.
While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock.
In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar.
He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose ppointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother
emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she
never has had US citizenship. Christopher Hitchens is English born, never visited America
unti he was 32. And even then kept his British citizenship for another 26 years, only
becoming a US citizen in 2007. Probably to take advantage of favorable US income tax on his
book earnings.
WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why
did we let these halfwits in the country?
Seems to me we are better off by letting in a few more Sikh farmers from India or more
wannabee restaurant owners from Ethiopia. Or maybe even more wannabee bodega empresarios from
south of our border.
Anyone remember John Kerry, who criticized the anti-war movement and enlisted and served
in Vietnam, only to opportunistically turn against the war. As long as the winds blew
anti-war, he continued to posture that way. Then he reversed course, maybe sensing an SOS
opportunity, and voted for the War in Iraq, meanwhile posturing against it on the grounds
that it wasn’t being fought right!
Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical
‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was
the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the
party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have
taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!!
The "anti-antiwar left" is of course an oxymoron. In reality, they are neo-McCarthyites,
neocons, and Israel-firsters. Nothing new. They were never leftists to begin with and
certainly never will be.
To add onto the comments by Polish Janitor regarding Jamaal Bowman, I have this to say.
Just like AOC, he'll cuck out to Israel. He'll take the money and he'll probably take that
"educational" trip to Israel as well. While he's there, would anyone be surprised if he had a
hot time with some honey pie and they got him on Kodak? They'll only drop hints about the
stick, in the meantime, they'll be stuffing his face with carrots as he comes around to the
Zionist agenda.
The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of
statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement, if only conservatives weren't
afraid of being called 'racist' by people who hate them anyway.
To better get one's bearings regarding what's going on I highly recommend this Spectator
article to the committee. Although BLM and other nefarious types referred to as Antifa
certainly do pass the anarchist test and Marxist test it's critical the committee understand
that the whole thing is being managed by a wing of the establishment.
The New York Times is
not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and
foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM.
Editorial talents at NYT
instigated the wholesale rewriting of American history over a year ago with their fraudulent
1619 project which says American history began in that year with the importation of African
slaves.
But it's real thesis is that the revolution of 1776 (an inspiration to people
everywhere), was not undertaken to free the thirteen colonies from the tyranny of King
George - no - it was done for the sole reason of perpetuation of slavery because Washington
and other colonial land owners feared that the institution of slavery would be made illegal
by their then British overlords. I kid you not.
The NY Times. Pure revisionism of the worst
sort. But the ends which this revisionism serve, as do the subsequent BLM riots and mindless
iconoclasms, are revealed in this piece:
(This Revolution isn't What it Looks Like). Here's a brief excerpt - it's a management
device. Matt Taibbi has a treatment nearly as good but too diffuse and witty for these
purposes, under the title "Year Zero" on his blog, but it is behind a paywall. Many
illustrative exames though.
Spectator first few paragraphs..
Bear with this. What they're doing is designed to infuriate and disable critical
understanding as they proceed to carry the day in real time.
QUOTE:
America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About
four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of
globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror
as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and
conservative-nationalist options.
This deposition explains the storm of unrest battering American cities from coast to coast
and making waves in Europe as well. The storm’s ferocity — the looting, the mobs,
the mass lawlessness, the zealous iconoclasm, the deranged slogans like #DefundPolice —
terrifies ordinary Americans. Many conservatives, especially, believe they are facing a
revolution targeting the very foundations of American order.
But when national institutions bow (or kneel) to the street fighters’ demands, it
should tell us that something else is going on. We aren’t dealing with a Maoist or
Marxist revolt, even if some protagonists spout hard-leftish rhetoric. Rather, what’s
playing out is a counter-revolution of the neoliberal class — academe, media, large
corporations, ‘experts’, Big Tech — against the nationalist revolution
launched in 2016. The supposed insurgents and the elites are marching in the streets
together, taking the knee together.
They do not seek a radically new arrangement, but a return to the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit
status quo ante which was working out very well for them. It was, of course, working out less
well for the working class of all races, who bore the brunt of their preferred policy mix:
open borders, free trade without limits, an aggressive cultural liberalism that corroded
tradition and community, technocratic ‘global governance’ that neutered democracy
and politics as such.
When national institutions bow to the street fighters’ demands, it tells us
something else is going on
...Did you realize that the Black Lives Matter group only has 14 local chapters in America
and 3 in Canada? I don't think there are many actual Antifa members out there either. Now of
course a few determined troublemakers can cause a lot of problems but still I can't see how
the country is in real danger.
Probably the real danger here is that these groups get moral support from nonradical
people for radical actions and policies. Right now there are a lot more people against
getting rid of the police than are for it. Now if that changed I would get worried. I have to
admit that I don't like the fact that we do not know who's funding the radicals and that many
are anonymous but I am not afraid of them. I can't imagine a situation in which they would
win and we would lose over time.
No it doesn't, not that I know of. It was the brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones working
since 2015 for the times, who received a 2020 Pulitzer prize for the project which initially
was presented in the Times magazine for the 400th anniversary of 1619 when it is claimed that
enslaved Africans first arrived to the American colonies. However it mushroomed into
something much larger and won the award. It was to investigate the legacy of slavery but with
its claim that the true founding of the United States was in 1619 rather than 1776, it drew
criticism from several historians. The controversy was conducted in Politico and on the pages
of the World Socialist Web Site. See here:
You will find links to several of the articles of the project, including: "America Wasn't
a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One", essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones and "American
Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation", essay by Matthew Desmond.
I prefaced the intro to the Spectator article with mention of the Times award winning
project because it is vital cultural- historical background to what's transpired since George
Floyd incident of May 25.
My purpose was not to focus on that revisionist project though one
may investigate it at leisure, but the reactionary establishment counter coup to the 2016
election of which the events of May 25 et seq are the most recent chapter - chapters one and
two being Russiagate and impeachment.
Taibbi, in his latest which parallels the Spectator
piece, does think to mention it. The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the
American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC)
nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject.
Way too
hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south
of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will
discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on
wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit)
and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory
workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with
#MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate /
employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions
disappeared long ago and now this.
From Taibbi:
It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look
like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose
canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New
York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.
Much of America has watched in quizzical silence in recent weeks as crowds declared war on
an increasingly incoherent succession of historical symbols. Maybe you nodded as Confederate
general Albert Pike was toppled or even when Christopher Columbus was beheaded, but it got a
little weird when George Washington was emblazoned with “Fuck Cops” and set on
fire, or when they went after Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionist Colonel Hans Christian Heg,
“Forward,” (a seven-foot-tall female figure meant to symbolize progress), the
Portland, Oregon “Elk statue,” or my personal favorite, the former slave Miguel
de Cervantes, whose cheerful creations Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were apparently mistaken
for reals and had their eyes lashed red in San Francisco.
Was a What the Fuck? too much to ask? It was! In the space of a few weeks the level of
discourse in the news media dropped so low, the fear of being shamed as a deviationist so
high, that most of the weirder incidents went uncovered. Leading press organs engaged in
real-time Soviet-style airbrushing. Here’s how the Washington Post described a movement
that targeted Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, Abraham Lincoln (a “single-handed
symbol of white supremacy,” according to UW-Madison students), an apple cider press
sculpture, abolitionist Mathias Baldwin, and the first all-Black volunteer regiment in the
Civil War, among others:
Across the country, protesters have toppled statues of figures from America’s sordid
past — including Confederate generals — as part of demonstrations against racism
and police violence.
The New York Times, once the dictionary definition of “unprovocative,”
suddenly reads like Pol Pot’s Sayings of Angkar. Heading into the Fourth of July
weekend, the morning read for upscale white Manhattanites was denouncing Mount Rushmore,
urging Black America to arm itself, and re-positioning America alongside more deserving
historical parallels in a feature about caste systems:
For 150 years the US treated its defeated internal enemy with respect in the interest of
re-unification and reconciliation. Now that is gone destroyed by Marxist vanguard
conspiratorial parties like antifa and BLM and the the power hungry Democrat Party pols who
have made a deal with their soul mate extremists. Well, laissez les bon temps roulez!
Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion.
It's very peculiar. Maybe they think oh well, there's been plenty of riots over the years.
What ever happened? Didn't we get OJ freed? Didn't they pass civil rights legislation back in
the day? And as for right now - aren't all the big people taking the knee - aren't
corporations endorsing us? Isn't Twitter censoring in our favor? The mayor of New York City -
wasn't he all set to paint a black lives matter mural onto 5th avenue opposite Trump tower
before postponing it to paint one in Harlem instead?
Yes, all true. I don't think they've detected how furious people are getting with their
behavior though. The tide is turning - CHAZ is gone, the conventions loom.
Long term I see nothing to be optimistic about. If Trump wins the counter coups will
continue. If Biden, with a female minority VP who may become President -- good luck. Remember
the Tea Party reaction ensuing on the heels of the first African American President? Reaction
will be quite as bad at least with Trump, his family and his base still very much on the
scene and infuriated.
But the oligarchs have seen their assets rise by hundreds of billions of dollars in a few
short months. The surviving owners consolidate. People will be forced to work for peanuts.
Evictions and repossessions are coming soon.
Last week Turkey brought two MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems to the al-Watiyah Airbase.
Last night they were bombed by either French, UAE, Egyptian or Russian mercenary airplanes.
Officially the LNA (Hafter) has taken responsibility for the bombing. Whoever did this had a
message to Turkey: Stop trying to break our red lines.
Thanks for the link to the Egypt/Libya article, b. It's a rare insight into the
often-hidden complexities behind armed conflict. Thanks too for Caitlin J's opinion of
AmeriKKKa's two Right-wing Crank parties. She makes it easier to laugh about their un-funny
antics.
Slightly off topic, but I think Caitlin could be onto something worthwhile with her Utopia
Prepper meme (whether she invented it or not). The way things are going, Hell could freeze
over before sanity emerges in Western Political circles. Prompted by her optimism, I intend
to devote an hour every Sunday afternoon to Utopia Prepping and contemplate the many
potential delights which a mildly more Utopian world would facilitate. There's way too much
negative thinking at present and it's NOT accidental. We'll never get to Utopia if we don't
plan what we'll do when we arrive...
Last week Turkey brought two MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems to the al-Watiyah Airbase. Last
night they were bombed by either French, UAE, Egyptian or Russian mercenary airplanes.
Officially the LNA (Hafter) has taken responsibility for the bombing. Whoever did this had a
message to Turkey: Stop trying to break our red lines.
Wanted to ask the same question, i am sure B will have something as soon as some facts are
there to be dissected, seems for now that all we have to go by is the assumption it is either
US or Israel dirty work, one that is hard to disagree with.
Iran will have to respond, 4 attacks in less than 2 weeks is really taking the piss and
makes them look weak. Quite a reversal from the Iran that was seizing tankers, acting on its
threats and dictating the tempo of escalation. Israel and US are only deterred by credible
threats and the longer Iran waits, the more emboldened they will feel.
Perhaps Iran is more focused on investigations and searching through its own ranks for
collaborators or traitors first, meaning it is still not sure who to hit back at. Is it the
US or Israel, who is directly responsible for these attacks? What would be an appropriate
response? Anything too overt could be counterproductive as there is no proof tying the
explosions to anyone, much less anything concrete that Western media would publish that could
justify Iran's actions.
Hezbollah has plenty of problems of its own as explained in B's Lebanon article... so not
likely we'll see rocket showers on Israel any time soon on Iran's behalf. Seems those new
tankers on the way to Venezuela could be targeted soon too... perhaps they are waiting for
that as their pretext for escalation or retaliation?
I expect Iran to measure its response tit-for-tat. If these explosions are the result of
computer intrusion, Iran will respond in cyberspace. If they are not - and I find it hard to
believe they are, disrupting a centrifuge is one thing (and too clever by half), causing an
explosion is another - then Iran or a proxy will have to respond in kind. As the article
cited below states:
He said Israel was "bracing" for an Iranian response, likely via a cyberattack. In an April
cyberattack attributed by western intelligence officials to Iran, an attempt was made to
increase chlorine levels in water flowing to residential Israeli areas.
Probably BS by Israel and the US, but this sort of thing goes on all the time. Note that
there was no explosions involved.
The problem is that covert operations require some planning, especially if hacking is
involved. So Iran's response might be days, weeks or months delayed. Of course, it can
respond more directly by using Iraqi Shia militias against US forces in Iraq, or allies like
Hezbollah elsewhere. But that is a trap the US neocons have laid - anything Iran does can be
used to justify further attacks. Even if Iran proves that these explosions were not
accidents, they will not be believed. So anything Iran does which is not equally covert will
be used to justify further aggression.
There really is no winning this game by Iran. Only if the US and Israel stops covert
attacks - and that isn't going to happen.
Meanwhile, allegedly the EU has claimed Iran has now triggered the JCPOA dispute
mechanism.
I don't know if this is true, but if so, it represents the final collapse of the JCPOA.
The dispute mechanism has a specific time mechanism to which all parties must adhere. So
within a short period of time, Iran will either be granted its sanctions relief as promised
or the deal will end. The deal's snapback mechanism won't be applied, because Russia and
China will veto that no matter the US does. The US has no standing, but will try anyway just
for the propaganda value.
Once the JCPOA is finally declared dead, the US and Israel will escalate their aggression
against Iran, because no one in the ignorant electorate in those countries will be told that
the deal was ruined by Trump and the EU's spinelessness.
Without the JCPOA, the US can revert to the sort of warmongering it engaged in before the
Iraq war - constantly escalating accusations that can never be proven false and an unending
stream of propaganda justifying a war.
The *only* thing preventing an Iran war is Hezbollah's ability to derail the Israeli
economy. The US and Israel have no choice but to find a solution to that problem. Whether
they will succeed in that, and at what cost to Lebanon, is the question.
Historically, I don't think there has ever been this level of enmity between countries
without a war resulting (other than between nuclear armed nations due to MAD.) It may take
some years more to get the Iran war started, but it is inevitable.
And that recognition, contrary to Bagoom's claims, is *not* advocacy. An Iran war is going
to be very bad for *everyone* except Israel, the neocons and the military-industrial
complex.
"... To review, starting over a week ago a massive explosion was observed lighting up the midnight sky outside Tehran, caught on film by local residents, which Iran's military dismissed as a gas leak explosion incident. But it was later revealed to have occurred at a ballistic missile development facility. ..."
"... And this past week, another reported "accident" occurred at Natanz nuclear complex. But that particular 'mystery' blast caused Iranian officials to lash out in anger Thursday, saying "hostile countries" like the US and Israel are near the point of crossing "red lines". Crucially, Iran also said there were no radioactive leaks as a result of the incident. ..."
On Saturday an explosion
ripped through a power plant in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, marking the third 'mystery'
blast to hit the country in only under a week, and the fourth recently .
State media showed emergency crews on the scene of the daytime incident while a fire raged
at the power plant. This followed days ago
a huge blast which destroyed Sina hospital in northern Tehran, which killed 19 people and
injured 14.
To review, starting over a week ago a massive explosion was observed lighting up the
midnight sky outside Tehran, caught on film by local residents, which Iran's military dismissed
as a gas leak explosion incident. But it was
later revealed to have occurred at a ballistic missile development facility.
And this past week, another reported "accident" occurred at Natanz nuclear complex. But that
particular 'mystery' blast caused Iranian officials to lash out in anger Thursday, saying
"hostile countries" like the US and Israel are near the point of crossing "red lines".
Crucially, Iran also said there were no radioactive leaks as a result of the incident.
Both US and Israeli media, including The New York Times and Times of Israel, have begun
speculating that it
could be part of a Mossad or CIA op to set back Iran's nuclear development .
The Jerusalem Post on Sunday asked in
a headline and op-ed : Have four explosions pushed Iran farther away from a nuke?
Of the myriad fascinating questions surrounding the four recent, mysterious explosions in
Iran, there is still one key issue that rises above the rest: Has any of this significantly
distanced Iran further from a nuclear weapon?
The jury is still out, as there is so much that is unconfirmed. But to date, the early
answer would need to be: probably not .
Since the IAEA's March report that the Islamic Republic crossed the threshold for having
enough low-level enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the estimated time for Tehran to enrich
enough of that uranium up to a weaponized level dropped from 12 months to as little as four
months.
Most interestingly, an unnamed intelligence source said to be based in the Middle East told
The
New York Times this past week said of the mysterious incident at Natanz: "The blast was
caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility."
The official added that the bombing "destroyed much of the aboveground parts of the facility
where new centrifuges are balanced before they are put into operation."
Reports out of Iran's state media also suggest a possible cyber-attack, to which Tehran
military officials say "they'll respond" if the attack did indeed originate from Iran's
enemies like the US or Israel.
The statue, dedicated in 1984, is the latest monument to be destroyed in what President
Trump dubbed the "left-wing cultural revolution" by "angry mobs."
According to the
Baltimore Sun , the Columbus statue has been the site of a wreath-laying ceremony right
before the annual Columbus Day parade, which, in 2019 was replaced with the Italian Heritage
Festival.
Republican state delegates and Italian-American activists held a press conference at the
statue last month to ask Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. "Jack" Young to
preserve and protect the memorials , following activists' comments about pulling down the
monuments themselves and the introduction of a City Council bill this week to rename one of
them in honor of victims of police violence.
The downed statue is one of three monuments to Columbus in Baltimore. -
Baltimore Sun
BLM thugs have already started going after patriots. They ambushed our governor at the
small town of Ackley Iowa. They were stalking her as she visited companies providing
essential services during the pandemic. Her driver refused to stop, likely saving her life.
One BLM thug was hit but not seriously injured. They are not waiting to run out of statues.
We ordinary Americans must be heavily armed at all times now. Midwest states are full of
illegals, who serve the left as an army. Open civil war is upon us whether we would have it
or not.
warsev , 3 minutes ago
What these malicious rioters don't realize is that they are handing the November election
to DJT and Republicans for senate and house. Average Americans look on the footage that
accompanies this article with revulsion; for the ideas and the people behind them. Trump will
walk away with 2020. Just keep it up, loony lefties.
vic and blood , 4 minutes ago
We have been in a race and culture war with multiple factions for some time. The presumed
winner is not overtly participating.
Most white people are oblivious, though that is changing. Too bad we are demographically
doomed.
SolidGold , 1 minute ago
Divide and conquer. Who creates that genius?
NumberNone , 12 minutes ago
Was in downtown Baltimore less than 2 years ago, it felt like you were one person away
from someone that wanted to rob you. The downtown had all the usual suspects of faux high end
shopping but the vibe was one of John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit...it had all the look and
feel that was supposed to make you happy but it was rotten to the core.
Whoa Dammit , 13 minutes ago
We can't keep coddling these stupid brats. It's time to start making their parents pay for
the mess and destruction that their ill raised offspring cause.
GoldRulesPaperDrools , 17 minutes ago
Protesters == pavement apes
House of Cards , 17 minutes ago
Terrorists you mean
Watt Supremacissss , 16 minutes ago
Crybullies.
GoldRulesPaperDrools , 15 minutes ago
Redundant but accurate ... +100_000
Silver Savior , 17 minutes ago
Columbus was a dickhead anyway.
NumberNone , 9 minutes ago
So we tear apart the country for a guy that held a gun to a pregnant woman's stomach...if
you're gonna pass judgement and replace other people's icons you might want to make better
choices.
Blackdawg7 , 43 minutes ago
I've never been a fan of Christopher Columbus but witnessing these know-nothing
sanctimonious twits destroy public property while virtue signalling makes my blood boil.
Workdove , 44 minutes ago
Not worth the 10 years in jail...
vic and blood , 50 minutes ago
History's losers are terrorizing, and soon to be tyrannizing us because Caucasians are too
civilized and docile.
Every race and tribe is programmed by God to attempt to dominate.
As an adherent of the non-aggression principle, I don't care for the binary choice, but
accept it.
Either dominate or be dominated. Only cucks believe in co-existence. I assure you our
rivals do not believe in peaceful co-existence.
unionbroker , 1 hour ago
Christopher Columbus sails out into the unknown where no man has gone before. What the
**** has BLM done. Put the statues back up and throw BLM in the water
Looks like Liz Cheney words for Russians. Her action suggest growing alliance between Bush
repoblicans and neolibral interventionaistsof the Democratic Party. The alliance directed against
Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy them: ..."
"... The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives other states another incentive to do more of this. ..."
"... Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for many years to come. ..."
The immediate response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to keep fighting a
losing conflict.
Barbara Boland
reported yesterday on the House Armed Services Committee's vote to impede withdrawal of
U.S. from Afghanistan:
The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday night to put roadblocks on President
Donald Trump's vow to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, apparently in response to
bombshell report published by The New York Times Friday that alleges Russia paid dollar
bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S troops.
It speaks volumes about Congress' abdication of its responsibilities that one of the few
times that most members want to challenge the president over a war is when they think he might
bring it to an end. Many of the members that want to block withdrawals from other countries
have no problem when the president wants to use U.S. forces illegally and to keep them in other
countries without authorization for years at a time. The role of hard-liner Liz Cheney in
pushing the measure passed yesterday is a good example of what I mean. The hawkish outrage in
Congress is only triggered when the president entertains the possibility of taking troops out
of harm's way. When he takes reckless and illegal action that puts them at risk, as he did when
he ordered the illegal assassination of Soleimani, the same members that are crying foul today
applauded the action. As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday
sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy
them:
Crow's amendment adds several layers of policy goals to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan,
which has already stretched on for 19 years and cost over a trillion dollars. As made clear
in the Afghanistan Papers, most of these policy goals were never the original intention of
the mission in Afghanistan, and were haphazardly added after the defeat of al Qaeda. With no
clear vision for what achieving these fuzzy goals would look like, the mission stretches on
indefinitely, an unarticulated victory unachievable.
The immediate Congressional response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to
make it much more difficult to pull them out of a war that cannot be won. Congressional hawks
bemoan "micromanaging" presidential decisions and mock the idea of having "535
commanders-in-chief," but when it comes to prolonging pointless wars they are only too happy to
meddle and tie the president's hands. When it comes to defending Congress' proper role in
matters of war, these members are typically on the other side of the argument. They are content
to let the president get us into as many wars as he might want, but they are horrified at the
thought that any of those wars might one day be concluded. Yesterday's vote confirmed that
there is an endless war caucus in the House, and it is bipartisan.
The original reporting of the bounty story is questionable for the reasons that Boland has
pointed out before, but for the sake of argument let's assume that Russia has been offering
bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When the U.S. keeps its troops at war in a country for
almost twenty years, it is setting them up as targets for other governments. Just as the U.S.
has armed and supported forces hostile to Russia and its clients in Syria, it should not come
as a shock when they do to the same elsewhere. If Russia has been doing this, refusing to
withdraw U.S. forces ensures that they will continue to have someone that they can target.
The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states
will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction
in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives
other states another incentive to do more of this.
Because the current state of debate about Russia is so toxic and irrational, our political
leaders seem incapable of responding carefully to Russian actions. It doesn't seem to occur to
the war hawks that Russia might prefer that the U.S. remains preoccupied and tied down in
Afghanistan indefinitely.
Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of
their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and
irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with
the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for
many years to come.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico
Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a
columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides
in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
One needs to mention the democratic deficit in the US. All the members voting yes are
representatives, they represent the people in their constituencies, and presumably vote for
what the majority in those constituencies would want, or past promises.
Any poll shows that Americans would rather have the troops brought back home, thank you very
much. But this is not what their representatives are voting for. Talk about democracy!
And what's the logic, if you make an accusation against someone you don't like it must be
true. Okay well then let's drone strike Putin. If you are going to be Exceptional and
consistent, Putin did everything Soleimani did so how can Liz Cotton argue for a different
punishment?
1. Killed U.S. troops in a war zone, 2. planning attacks on U.S. troops.
The entire Russian military plans for attacks all the time just like ours does but the
Neocons have declared that we are the only ones allowed to do that. Verdict, death penalty for
Putin.
Interesting, well reasoned article as usual from Mr. Larison. However, I have to say that I
don't see why Russia would want the US in Afghanistan indefinitely. In primis, they have a
strategic partnership with China (even though we've got to see how Russia will behave now when
there is the India-China rift), and China has been championing the idea of rebuilding the Silk
Road (brilliant idea if you ask me) so in this sense it's more reasonable to assume that they
might be aiming to get stability in the region rather than keep it in a state of unrest (as to
be strategic partners you need to have some kind of common strategy, or at least not a
completely different strategy). In 2018 they (Russia) actually were trying to organise a
mediation process which would have the Afghan Gvt. and the Talibans discuss before the US would
retire the troops, and it was very significative as they managed to get all the parties sitting
around a table for the very first time (even the US participated as an observer).
Secondly, Russia also has pretty decent relations with Iran (at least according to Iranian
press, which seems to be realistic as Russia is compliant to the JCPOA, is not aggressive
towards them, and they're cooperating in the Astana process for a political solution for Syria,
for example), and it wouldn't be so if Russia would pursue a policy which would aim to keep the
US in the Middle East indefinitely, as Iran's WHOLE point is that they want the US out of the
region, so if Russia would be trying to keep the US in the Middle East indefinitely, that would
seriously upset Iran.
Thirdly, Russia is one of the founders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which now
includes most of the states in Central Asia, China, India and Pakistan. The association never
made overt statements about their stance on the US's presence in the region; yet they've been
hinting that they don't approve of it, which is reasonable, as it is very likely that those
countries would all have different plans for the region, which might include some consideration
for human and economic development rather than constant and never-ending militarisation (of
course Pakistan would be problematic here, as the funds for the Afghan warlords get channeled
through Pakistan, which receives a lot of US money, so I don't know how they're managing this
issue).
Last but not least, I cannot logically believe that the Talibans, who've been coherent in
their message since the late 70's ("we will fight to the death until the invaders are defeated
and out of our national soil") would now need to be "convinced" by the Russians to defeat and
chase out the invader. This is just NOT believable at all. Afghanistan is called the Graveyard
of Empires for a reason, I would argue.
In any case I am pleased to see that at TAC you have been starting debunking the
Russia-narrative, as it is very problematic - most media just systematically misrepresents
Russia in order to justify aggressive military action (Europe, specifically Northern Europe, is
doing this literally CONSTANTLY, I'm so over it, really). The misrepresentation of Russia as an
aggressive wannabe-empire is a cornerstone of the pro-war narrative, so it is imperative to get
some actual realism into that.
As if the Afghan freedom fighters need additional incentive to eliminate the invaders? In
case Amerikans don't know, Afghans, except those on the US payroll, intensely despise Amerika
and its 'godless' ways. Amerikans forces have been sadistic, bombing Afghan weddings, funerals,
etc.
Even if the Russians are providing bounties to the Afghans, to take out the invaders, don't
the Amerikans remember the 80s when Washington (rightfully) supported the mujahedin with funds,
arms, Stinger missiles, etc.? Again, the US is on shaky ground because of the neocons.
Afghanistan is known through the ages to be the graveyard of empires. They have done it on
their own shedding blood, sweat, and tears. Also, the Afghan resistance have been principled
about Amerikans getting out before making deals.
We can't keep coddling these stupid brats. It's time to start making their parents pay for
the mess and destruction that their ill raised offspring cause.
In her recently published memoir, Circle in the
Darkness , the author and journalist Diana Johnstone recalls that only "a few decades
ago, "the Left" was considered the center of opposition to imperialism, and champion of the
right of peoples to self-determination."
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps
because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of
their stateside contemporaries. Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years
wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence . The Paris based Johnstone brings a
moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most
contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years
should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of
waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts
including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would
make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the
process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the
trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II,
Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program.
At the time, Johnstone was one of the few who saw through the ruse, but, as she recalled,
she couldn't get her articles published in the liberal press. According to Johnstone, Hitchens
and Company saw to that. The wisdom of bombing Serbian civilians for 78 days in order to carve
out a Muslim enclave in the middle of Europe (which in short order would be overrun by the
Saudis, Albanian organized crime and human organ traffickers) was rarely questioned.
Indeed, among the bien-pensants , it was impermissible.
Today, skepticism of the mainstream narrative regarding both Russia and the war in Syria is
likewise deemed out of bounds by the Left. It is fair to say that a 3 year non-scandal,
Russiagate, ignited a cold war fever among liberals and self-styled progressives. Indeed,
liberals who once took principled stands against the Iraq war, such as Tom Dispatch and
Nation regular Bob Dreyfuss ,
transmogrified, after Trump's election, into frothing-at-the-mouth conspiracy theorists.
By my count, during the course of the three year Russiagate ordeal, Dreyfuss wrote at least
30 articles
promoting the most ludicrous of the Russiagate conspiracies, among them that Russia was " hiding
in your Facebook ," and that, variously, Paul Manafort, Felix Slater and/or General Michael
Flynn would, somehow, bring down Trump. That Dreyfuss would prove so credulous in the face of
what was so clearly an absurd distraction is perhaps not surprising given his
past ties to Lyndon Larouche .
Others, even less discerning than Dreyfuss, but far, far hungrier for attention, have
claimed that skeptics of the now discredited collusion conspiracy theory were themselves
guilty of indulging in, you guessed it, conspiracy theories of their own.
And so, if in the writings of Dreyfuss, TheNew York Times' Michelle Goldberg,
Mother Jones' David Corn, The Atlantic's Franklin Foer, New York
magazine's resident dolt Jonathan Chait, and many more besides, we can see the emergence of the
anti-anti-Cold War Left, there has also reemerged alongside it the very vocal and ravenously
unscrupulous anti-antiwar Left. And it is on the issue of the Syrian war on which the
anti-antiwar Left has coalesced, inexplicably arguing for the wholesale takeover of a secular
police state by the very same Islamist radicals who, if given the chance, would turn around and
immediately kill them on the grounds of apostasy.
In Syria, the protests that began in 2011 were quickly overtaken by armed jihadists whose
motto was "Christians to Beirut, Alawis to the grave." Before he was murdered by Syrian rebels,
the Jesuit missionary Father Frans vans der Lugt observed that "From the start the protest
movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in
the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security
forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels."
But many prominent voices in mainstream liberal media outlets such as The New York
Times,TheWashington Post and VICE turned a blind eye to the atrocities
committed by the Islamist opposition in their hunger for a US-led regime change operation
against Bashar al-Assad. And the war fever extended from the mainstream to the progressive
Left.
On the pages and website of the New York Review of Books one searches for genuine
antiwar voices in vain. Instead what you most likely will come across are screeds such as the
one issued by Janine di Giovanni. In her rage for another US-led war in the Middle East, di
Giovanni channelled
the ghost of Joseph McCarthy and baselessly accused the antiwar journalist Max Blumenthal
of, you guessed it, being in league with (who else?) the Russian government.
And then there is The Intercept, funded by a shadowy billionaire with ties to the US Agency
for International Development, Pierre Omyidar. Under the editorship of former Nation
managing editor Betsy Reed, The Intercept has given space to some of the most strident
anti-antiwar voices including those of James Risen, Robert McKay and the British-born Mehdi
Hasan. Hasan's enthusiasm for a jihadi victory over the socialist, multi-confessional Syrian
state is perhaps not surprising given his past views in which he compared
non-believers to "animals."
In an April 2018
column for The Intercept, Hasan penned a hysterical open letter to those he deemed
"al-Assad apologists" for the crime of expressing skepticism regarding the latest round of
accusations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime. "To those of you on the anti-war far
left who have a soft spot for the dictator in Damascus: Have you lost your minds? Or have you
no shame?," cried Hasan. What followed was a lengthy iteration of Assad's crimes and then,
oddly, reassurances from Hasan that he too stands against no fly zones, arming the rebels and
regime change wars.
So what, we might be forgiven to ask, was the point? It was simply a tedious exercise in
moral preening. A speciality of the anti-antiwar Left.
Hasan's, example is instructive because, in his
obvious opportunism and sly fanaticism , he exemplifies everything
that a writer like Diana Johnstone is not and, by extension, much that is seriously wrong with
the anti-antiwar Left.
Worryingly, the anti-antiwar Left is not going away. Indeed, it has some powerful
allies-in-waiting should Joseph R. Biden win in November. In a recent
interview with CBS , Biden protege and former deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken
bemoaned the fact that the Obama administration's regime change efforts in Syria didn't go
nearly far enough.
Indeed, Biden's foreign policy team is stacked from one end to the other with regime change
and new cold war enthusiasts who, alas, will find plenty of support from the growing ranks of
the anti-antiwar Left. Those who find this development more than mildly depressing might do
worse than to take refuge in the work of genuine antiwar voices such as Diana Johnstone's.
Join
the debate on Facebook More articles by: JAMES W. CARDEN
James W. Carden writes about foreign affairs from Washington, DC. His work has appeared
in The American Conservative, American Affairs, The National Interest, and The
Nation where he is a contributing writer.
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden ..."
"... Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl ..."
"... . While the former's rise in the Democratic Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan. ..."
"... Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers (The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and 80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+ years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post 2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats. ..."
"... And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class in D.C. will see business as usual ..."
"Only "a few decades ago, "the Left" was considered the center of opposition to imperialism,
and champion of the right of peoples to self-determination."
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps
because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of
their stateside contemporaries.
Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years
wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence . The Paris based Johnstone brings a
moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most
contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years
should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of
waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts
including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would
make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the
process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the
trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II,
Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden
---------------
Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a
vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parralels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials\
. While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar. He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose pointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
So former tank repairman decided again managed to make a make a mark in world diplomacy
:-).
Notable quotes:
"... Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his attempt to gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the old P5+1: ..."
"... The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S. stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation. ..."
"... Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's alarmist warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters that it would use to threaten Europe and India: ..."
"... This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed these capabilities while under the current embargo. ..."
"... The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law. ..."
Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his
attempt to
gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the
old P5+1:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for an arms embargo on Iran to be
extended indefinitely, but his appeal fell flat at the United Nations Security Council, where
Russia and China rejected it outright and close allies of the United States were
ambivalent.
The Trump administration is more isolated than ever in its Iran obsession. The ridiculous
effort to invoke the so-called "snapback" provision of the JCPOA more than two years after
reneging on the agreement met with failure, just as most observers predicted months
ago when it was first floated as a possibility. As I said at the time, "The
administration's latest destructive ploy won't find any support on the Security Council. There
is nothing "intricate" about this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the
JCPOA's own provisions to destroy it." It was never going to work because all of the other
parties to the agreement want nothing to do with the administration's punitive approach, and
U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA meant that it forfeited any rights it had when it was still part
of the deal.
Opposition from Russia and China was a given, but the striking thing about the scene at the
U.N. this week was that major U.S. allies
joined them in rebuking the administration's obvious bad faith maneuver:
The pointedly critical tone of the debate saw Germany accusing Washington of violating
international law by withdrawing from the nuclear pact, while Berlin aligned itself with
China's claim that the United States has no right to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran.
The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to
destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S.
stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran
and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of
its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation.
Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's
alarmist
warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters
that it would use to threaten Europe and India:
If you fail to act, Iran will be free to purchase Russian-made fighter jets that can
strike up to a 3,000 kilometer radius, putting cities like Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome, and
Warsaw in Iranian crosshairs.
This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last
thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how
deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to
launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed
these capabilities while under the current embargo.
It has no need for expensive fighters, and
it is not at all certain that their government would even be interested in acquiring them. Pompeo's presentation was a weak attempt to exaggerate the potential threat from a state that
has very limited power projection, and he found no support because his serial fabrications
about Iran have rendered everything he says to be worthless.
The same administration that wants to keep an arms embargo on Iran forever has no problem
flooding the region with U.S.-made weapons and providing them to some of the worst governments
in the world. It is these client states that are doing the most to destabilize other countries
in the region right now. If the U.N. should be putting arms embargoes on any country, it should
consider imposing them on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to limit their ability to wreak havoc on
Yemen and Libya.
The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to
reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt
to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law.
T he perpetual occupation of Afghanistan has become so normalized that it mostly serves as
background noise to most Americans. It's even jokingly referred to as the "Forever War,"
accepted as just another constant reality. A soldier dies now and again, a couple of dozen
civilians get killed in another bombing. It's never enough to stir the population to pressure
Washington enough to stop it. And the endless war drags on.
From George W. Bush to Barack Obama, to Donald Trump, every U.S. president has promised to
end the war. But their plans to bring the troops home inevitably require first sending more
troops to the country. You can't look at all this rhetoric and reality and not conclude that
the United States wants to stay in Afghanistan forever. And there is a reason, despite an
unresolvable military quagmire, that the Empire won't let go of Afghanistan.
In this latest "Empire Files" documentary, journalist Abby Martin covers reveals the reality
of America's Wars in Afghanistan, from the CIA construct of the 1980s through today's senseless
stalemate. MintPress brings you documentary in its entirety, published with permission
from filmmaker Abby Martin.
"... Some countries like Italy (maybe Germany) are warming to Russia a little bit but Russia has a long way to go just to get back to their pre-2014 status with Europe. That is 'tightening their grip?'. I know, this is how propagandists speak. ..."
VK, re: Russia's grip on Europe is gradually tightening from the U.K.'s
INDEPENDENT
It's behind a paywall but I read just enough to be curious as to how someone could
possibly justify a clickbait title like that.
I suspect that the rest of the article is just
going to recap Russia's alleged sins in order to fan hatred but how can someone objectively
say that Russia is tightening its grip on Europe?
FUCKUS banned Russia from the Olympics on a bogus state sponsored steroid scam, no
reinstatement on horizon.
FUCKUS kicked Russia out of the now G7 and imposed a trade embargo that destroyed a large
commercial relationship w/Germany.
What is the 'overwhelming' evidence that the Russians poisoned the Skripal's, Novichok can be
made by just about anyone.
Some countries like Italy (maybe Germany) are warming to Russia a little bit but Russia
has a long way to go just to get back to their pre-2014 status with Europe. That is
'tightening their grip?'. I know, this is how propagandists speak.
The BLM-Antifa Marxist revolution under the cover of ending "systemic racism" is controlled
by the ruling elite through foundations, progressive think tanks, wealthy liberals - and
corporate CEOs you'd think know better.
Success depends on the help of opportunistic Democrat politicians who believe raising a
clenched fist and parroting BLM will get them elected or re-elected, thus perpetuating a system
of crony capitalism and endless war behind a kinder and gentler Democrat facade that is now
falling away.
If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth program, but is in reality a
method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of superrich men
promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes the logical, even the
perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately, socialism, is not
a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite.
The ruling elite, the financial class that has profited so mightily from riots and violence,
will not allow Marxists and black hoodie nihilists to spawn a violent revolution.
Chocura750 , 4 minutes ago
I doubt very much that there is any significant ideological thinking in 99% of the BLM
protestors. Imagine for a minute that George Floyd wasn't murdered, do you think that the BLM
organizers could get 100 people to protest capitalism and rally for socialism.
ProsperD9 , 9 minutes ago
Looks like BLM is about to get canceled. They committed the biggest cardinal sin that can
ever be committed on this earth. They can shoot all white babies, they can take over a
nursing home and strangle all the old white people, they can paint the white house
black...but one thing they CANNOT do... .drum roll please ...criticize IsraHell. Looks like
they've done the deed and about to be canceled. Read about it
BLACK LIVES MATTER 'CANCELED' AFTER CRITICIZING ISRAHELL.
HenryJonesJr , 20 minutes ago
More doom **** .... This kind of hyper-ventilating nonsense might sell well in highly
urbanized, totally dependent regions of America, meaning cities. But the majority of
Americans - white, black and brown - despise the idiotic Left and all their violence and
insanity.
Putin has to stay within neoliberal framework because this is a the dominant social framework in existence. But he is determine
to "tame the markets" when necessary which is definitely anathema to neoliberals. So he is kind of mixture of neoliberal and traditional
New Deal style statist. At the same time he definitely deviates from neoliberalism in some major areas, such as labor market and monopolies.
In fact, much of his economic and social policies have a decidedly neoliberal bent. As Tony Wood argues, Putin has reformed
and consolidated the Yeltsin system. There is not as much of a break with Yeltsin as liberals -- or apparently leftists looking
for any hope -- want to believe.
You have no clue. This is a typical left-wing "Infantile Disorder" point of view based on zero understanding of Russia and neoliberalism
as a social system. Not that I am a big specialist, but your level of ignorance and arrogance is really stunning.
Neoliberalism as a social system means internal colonization of population by financial oligarchy and resulting decline of
the standard of living for lower 80% due to the redistribution of wealth up. It also means subservience to international financial
capital and debt slavery for vassal countries (the group to which Russia in views of Washington belongs) .
The classic example is Ukraine where 80% of population are now live on the edge of abject poverty. Russia, although with great
difficulties, follows a different path. This is indisputable.
The neoliberal resolution which happened under alcoholic Yeltsin was stopped or at least drastically slowed down by Putin.
Some issues were even reversed. For example, the USA interference via NGO ended. Direct interference of the USA into internal
affairs of Russia ( Russia was a USA colony under Yeltsin ) also diminished, although was not completely eliminated (and this
is impossible in view of the USA position in the the hegemon of the neoliberal "International" and owner of the world reserve
currency.)
Those attempts to restore the sovereignty of Russia were clearly anti-neoliberal acts of Putin. After all the slogan of neoliberalism
is "financial oligarchy of all countries unite" -- kind of perversion of Trotskyism (or. more correctly, "Trotskyism for the rich.")
In general, Yeltsin's model of neoliberalism in Russia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semibankirschina )
experienced serious setbacks under Putin's rule, although some of his measures were distinctly neoliberal.
Recent "Medvedev's" pension reform is one (which was partially a necessity due to the state of Russian finances at the time;
although the form that was chosen -- in your face, without some type of carrot -- was really mediocre, like almost anything coming
from Medvedev ); some botched attempt in privatization of electrical networks with Chubais at the helm is another -- later stopped,
etc.
But in reality, considerable if not dominant political power now belongs to corporations, whether you want it or not. And that
creates strong neoliberal fifth column within the country. That's a huge problem for Putin. The alternative is dictatorship which
usually does not end well. So there is not much space for maneuvering anyway. You need to play the anti-neoliberal game very skillfully
as you always have weak cards in hands, the point which people like VK never understand.
BTW, unlike classic neoliberals, Putin is a consistent proponent of indexation of income of lower strata of the population
to inflation, which he even put in the constitution. Unlike Putin, classic neoliberals preach false narrative that "the rising
tide lifts all boats."
All-in-all whenever possible, Putin often behaves more like a New Deal Capitalism adherent, than like a neoliberal. He sincerely
is trying to provide a decent standard of living for lower 80% of the population. He preserves a large share of state capital
in strategically important companies. Some of them are still state-owned (anathema for any neoliberal.)
But he operates in conditions where neoliberalism is the dominant system and when Russia is under constant, unrelenting pressure,
and he needs to play by the rules.
Like any talented politician, he found some issues were he can safely deviate from neoliberal consensus without too hard sanctions.
In other matters, he needs to give up to survive.
There is no reason for US elite act as is being suggested, because the cake they get the
lion's share of is growing and so even though inequality is growing, the economy is too and
the common people are getting slightly better off.
If a country were in the hands of a tiny minority and they were to act in such a way and
try steal all the wealth for themselves, then they would be overthrown by domestic enemies
like Somoza was.
Chagnon theorized that war, far from being the product of capitalist exploitation and
colonization was in fact the true "state of nature." He concluded that 1) "maximizing
political and personal security was the overwhelming driving force in human social and
cultural evolution," and 2) "warfare has been the most important single force shaping the
evolution of political society in our species."
Everything in the last five years is a symptom of the US reacting to being bested by
China.
I happen to think states that are even slightly nation-states have emergent qualities,
like a nest of social insects that react as though there is central direction though none
exists, and no state is closer to being alive than a democracy.
Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!
...They suffer from god-complexes, since they do not believe in God, they feel an obligation to act as God, and decide the fates
of over 7 billion people, who would obviously be better off if the PICs were sent to the Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants!
"... Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo where a statue of him was erected in the capital, Pristina. The Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate representation to depict Clinton standing on a pile of corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign. ..."
"... Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing of Serbia was as big a fraud as George W. Bush's conning this nation into attacking Iraq. The fact that Clinton and other top U.S. government officials continued to glorify Hashim Thaci despite accusations of mass murder, torture, and body trafficking is another reminder of the venality of much of America's political elite. Will Americans again be gullible the next time that Washington policymakers and their media allies concoct bullshit pretexts to blow the hell out of some hapless foreign land? ..."
President Bill Clinton's favorite freedom fighter just got indicted for mass murder, torture, kidnapping, and other crimes against
humanity. In 1999, the Clinton administration launched a 78-day bombing campaign that killed up to 1500 civilians in Serbia and Kosovo
in what the American media proudly portrayed as a crusade against ethnic bias. That war, like most of the pretenses of U.S. foreign
policy, was always a sham.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an international tribunal
in The Hague in the Netherlands. It charged Thaci and nine other men with "war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of
persons, persecution, and torture." Thaci and the other charged suspects were accused of being "criminally responsible for nearly
100 murders" and the indictment involved "hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include
political opponents."
Hashim Thaci's tawdry career illustrates how anti-terrorism is a flag of convenience for Washington policymakers. Prior to becoming
Kosovo's president, Thaci was the head of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), fighting to force Serbs out of Kosovo. In 1999, the Clinton
administration designated the KLA as "freedom fighters" despite their horrific past and gave them massive aid. The previous year,
the State Department condemned "terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army." The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking
and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden.
But arming the KLA and bombing Serbia helped Clinton portray himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention
after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many shameless members of Congress anxious to sanctify U.S. killing. Sen. Joe Lieberman
(D-CN) whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for
human rights and American values." And since Clinton administration officials publicly compared Serb leader Slobodan Milošević to
Hitler, every decent person was obliged to applaud the bombing campaign.
Both the Serbs and ethnic Albanians committed atrocities in the bitter strife in Kosovo. But to sanctify its bombing campaign,
the Clinton administration waved a magic wand and made the KLA's atrocities disappear. British professor Philip Hammond noted that
the 78-day bombing campaign "was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what it called 'dual-use' targets, such as
factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an attempt to terrorize the country into
surrender."
NATO repeatedly dropped cluster bombs into marketplaces, hospitals, and other civilian areas. Cluster bombs are anti-personnel
devices designed to be scattered across enemy troop formations. NATO dropped more than 1,300 cluster bombs on Serbia and Kosovo and
each bomb contained 208 separate bomblets that floated to earth by parachute. Bomb experts estimated that more than 10,000 unexploded
bomblets were scattered around the landscape when the bombing ended and maimed children long after the ceasefire.
In the final days of the bombing campaign, the Washington Post reported that "some presidential aides and friends are describing
Kosovo in Churchillian tones, as Clinton's 'finest hour.'" The Post also reported that according to one Clinton friend "what Clinton
believes were the unambiguously moral motives for NATO's intervention represented a chance to soothe regrets harbored in Clinton's
own conscience The friend said Clinton has at times lamented that the generation before him was able to serve in a war with a plainly
noble purpose, and he feels 'almost cheated' that 'when it was his turn he didn't have the chance to be part of a moral cause.'"
By Clinton's standard, slaughtering Serbs was "close enough for government work" to a "moral cause."
Shortly after the end of the 1999 bombing campaign, Clinton enunciated what his aides labeled the Clinton doctrine: "Whether within
or beyond the borders of a country, if the world community has the power to stop it, we ought to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing."
In reality, the Clinton doctrine was that presidents are entitled to commence bombing foreign lands based on any brazen lie that
the American media will regurgitate. In reality, the lesson from bombing Serbia is that American politicians merely need to publicly
recite the word "genocide" to get a license to kill.
After the bombing ended, Clinton assured the Serbian people that the United States and NATO agreed to be peacekeepers only "with
the understanding that they would protect Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians and that they would leave when peace took hold." In the
subsequent months and years, American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serb civilians,
bombing Serbian churches and oppressing any non-Muslims. Almost a quarter-million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled
Kosovo after Mr. Clinton promised to protect them. By 2003, almost 70 percent of the Serbs living in Kosovo in 1999 had fled, and
Kosovo was 95 percent ethnic Albanian.
But Thaci remained useful for U.S. policymakers. Even though he was widely condemned for oppression and corruption after taking
power in Kosovo, Vice President Joe Biden hailed Thaci in 2010 as the "George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council
of Europe report accused Thaci and KLA operatives of human organ trafficking. The Guardian noted that the report alleged
that Thaci's inner circle "took captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a number of Serbs are said to have been
murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market." The report stated that when "transplant surgeons" were "ready to
operate, the [Serbian] captives were brought out of the 'safe house' individually, summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their
corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic."
Despite the body trafficking charge, Thaci was a star attendee at the annual Global Initiative conference by the Clinton Foundation
in 2011, 2012, and 2013, where he posed for photos with Bill Clinton. Maybe that was a perk from the $50,000 a month lobbying contract
that Thaci's regime signed with The Podesta Group, co-managed by future Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, as the
Daily Caller reported.
Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo where a statue of him was erected in the capital, Pristina. The Guardian newspaper noted that
the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding
documents engraved with the date when NATO started the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate
representation to depict Clinton standing on a pile of corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.
In 2019, Bill Clinton and his fanatically pro-bombing former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, visited Pristina, where they
were "treated like rock stars" as they posed for photos with Thaci. Clinton declared, "I love this country and it will always be
one of the greatest honors of my life to have stood with you against ethnic cleansing (by Serbian forces) and for freedom." Thaci
awarded Clinton and Albright medals of freedom "for the liberty he brought to us and the peace to entire region." Albright has reinvented
herself as a visionary warning against fascism in the Trump era. Actually, the only honorific that Albright deserves is "Butcher
of Belgrade."
Clinton's war on Serbia was a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and most of the media portrayed
the war against Serbia as a moral triumph, it was easier for the Bush administration to justify attacking Iraq, for the Obama administration
to bomb Libya, and for the Trump administration to repeatedly bomb Syria. All of those interventions sowed chaos that continues cursing
the purported beneficiaries.
Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing of Serbia was as big a fraud as George W. Bush's conning this nation into attacking Iraq. The
fact that Clinton and other top U.S. government officials continued to glorify Hashim Thaci despite accusations of mass murder, torture,
and body trafficking is another reminder of the venality of much of America's political elite. Will Americans again be gullible the
next time that Washington policymakers and their media allies concoct bullshit pretexts to blow the hell out of some hapless foreign
land?
Run by veteran "non-profits careerists" movement is highly suspect
Notable quotes:
"... The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws -- racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced. ..."
"... much of what passes for popular and progressive, grass-roots activism has been co-opted, taken over and/or created by corporate America, the corporate-funded " nonprofit industrial complex ," and Wall Street's good friend, the Democratic Party , long known to leftists as "the graveyard of social movements." This " corporatization of activism " (University of British Columbia professor Peter Dauvergne's term) is ubiquitous across much of what passes for the left in the U.S. today. ..."
"... What about the racialist group Black Lives Matter, recipient of a mammoth $100 million grant from the Ford Foundation last year? Sparked by the racist security guard and police killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, BLM has achieved uncritical support across the progressive spectrum, where it is almost reflexively cited as an example of noble and radical grass-roots activism in the streets. That is a mistake. ..."
"... I first started wondering where BLM stood on the AstroTurf versus grass roots scale when I read an essay published three years ago in The Feminist Wire by Alicia Garza, one of BLM's three black, lesbian and veteran public-interest careerist founders. ..."
"... Why the prickly, hyperidentity-politicized and proprietary attachment to the "lives matter" phrase? Garza seemed more interested in brand value and narrow identity than social justice. Did she want a licensing fee? Wouldn't any serious, leftist, people's activist eagerly give the catchy "lives matter" phrase away to all oppressed people and hope for their wide and inclusive use in a viciously capitalist society that has subjected everything and everyone to the soulless logic of commodity rule, profit and exchange value? Who were these "charismatic Black men many are rallying around" in the fall of 2014? ..."
"... I couldn't help but wonder about the left-progressive credentials of anyone who gets upset that others would want to have a "conversation" (as Garza put it) about how their lives matter too. Is there really something wrong with a marginalized Native American laborer or a white and not-so "skin-privileged" former factory worker struggling with sickness and poverty wanting to hear that his or her life matters? For any remotely serious progressive, was there anything mysterious about the fact that many white folks facing foreclosure, job loss, poverty wages and the like might not be doing cartwheels over the phrase "black lives matter" when they experience the harsh daily reality that their lives don't matter under the profits system? ..."
"... My concerns about BLM's potential service to the capitalist elite were reactivated when I heard a talk by Garza's fellow BLM founder, Patrisse Cullors (another veteran nonprofit careerist). Cullors spoke before hundreds of cheering white liberals and progressives in downtown Iowa City in February. "We are witnessing the erosion of U.S. democracy," she said, adding that Donald Trump "is building a police state." Relating that she had gone into a "two-week depression" after Hillary Clinton was defeated by Trump, Cullors said she wondered if BLM had "done enough to educate people about the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton." She described Trump as a fascist. ..."
The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is
forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws -- racism, poverty, militarism, and
materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society.
It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of
society itself is the real issue to be faced. -- Martin Luther King Jr., 1968
You don't have to be one of those conspiratorial curmudgeons who reduces every sign of popular
protest to "George Soros money" to acknowledge that much of what passes for popular and
progressive, grass-roots activism has been co-opted, taken over and/or created by corporate
America, the corporate-funded "
nonprofit industrial complex ," and Wall Street's good friend, the Democratic Party , long known to
leftists as "the graveyard of social movements." This "
corporatization of activism " (University of British Columbia professor Peter Dauvergne's
term) is ubiquitous across much of what passes for the left in the U.S. today.
What about the racialist group Black Lives Matter, recipient of a mammoth $100 million
grant from the Ford Foundation last year? Sparked by the racist security guard and police
killings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, BLM has achieved uncritical support
across the progressive spectrum, where it is almost reflexively cited as an example of noble and
radical grass-roots activism in the streets. That is a mistake.
I first started wondering where BLM stood on the AstroTurf versus grass roots scale when I
read an essay published three years ago in The Feminist Wire by Alicia
Garza, one of BLM's three black, lesbian and veteran public-interest careerist founders. In
her "Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement," Garza wrote:
"Black lives. Not just all lives. Black lives. Please do not change the conversation by
talking about how your life matters, too. It does, but we need less watered down unity and a
more active solidarities with us, Black people, unwaveringly, in defense of our humanity. Our
collective futures depend on it."
Denouncing "hetero-patriarchy," Garza described the adaptation of her clever online
catchphrase ("black lives matter") by others -- "brown lives matter, migrant lives matter,
women's lives matter, and on and on" (Garza's dismissive words) -- as "the Theft of Black Queer
Women's Work."
"Perhaps," she added, "if we were the charismatic Black men many are rallying around these
days, it would have been a different story."
From a leftist perspective, this struck me as alarming. Why the prickly,
hyperidentity-politicized and proprietary attachment to the "lives matter" phrase? Garza seemed
more interested in brand value and narrow identity than social justice. Did she want a licensing
fee? Wouldn't any serious, leftist, people's activist eagerly give the catchy "lives matter"
phrase away to all oppressed people and hope for their wide and inclusive use in a viciously
capitalist society that has subjected everything and everyone to the soulless logic of commodity
rule, profit and exchange value? Who were these "charismatic Black men many are rallying around"
in the fall of 2014?
And how representative were Garza's slaps at "hetero-patriarchy" and "charismatic Black men"
of the black community in whose name she spoke? Would it be too hetero-patriarchal of me, I
wondered, to suggest that maybe a black male or two with experience of oppression in the nation's
racist criminal justice system ought to share some space front and center in a movement focused
especially on a police and prison state that targets black boys and men above all?
I defended the phrase "black lives matter" against the absurd charge that it is racist, but
I couldn't help but wonder about the left-progressive credentials of anyone who gets upset
that others would want to have a "conversation" (as Garza put it) about how their lives matter
too. Is there really something wrong with a marginalized Native American laborer or a white and
not-so "skin-privileged" former factory worker struggling with sickness and poverty wanting to
hear that his or her life matters? For any remotely serious progressive, was there anything
mysterious about the fact that many white folks facing foreclosure, job loss, poverty wages and
the like might not be doing cartwheels over the phrase "black lives matter" when they experience
the harsh daily reality that their lives don't matter under the profits system?
My concerns about BLM's potential service to the capitalist elite were reactivated when I
heard a talk by Garza's fellow BLM founder, Patrisse Cullors (another veteran nonprofit
careerist). Cullors spoke before hundreds of cheering white liberals and progressives in downtown
Iowa City in February. "We are witnessing the erosion of U.S. democracy," she said, adding that
Donald Trump "is building a police state." Relating that she had gone into a "two-week
depression" after Hillary Clinton was defeated by Trump, Cullors said she wondered if BLM had
"done enough to educate people about the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton."
She described Trump as a fascist.
Fox News
5.51M subscribers
SUBSCRIBE
A
look into the domestic terror organization ANTIFA and how it is attempting to take over the current peaceful protests of
the George Floyd death.
#FoxNews
"... In the memo, Barr identified members of the right-wing "Boogaloo" movement and the anti-fascist movement known as Antifa as the top targets of the task force. ..."
"... The task force's mission will be to develop information about "extremist individuals, networks, and movements," share data with local authorities and provide training to local prosecutors on how to wage cases against anti-government extremists. ..."
"... people associated with Antifa. ..."
"... "There are some groups that don't have a particular ideology, other than anarchy. There are some groups that want to bring about a civil war -- the Boogaloo group has been on the margin of this as well," he said earlier this month , adding that the Justice Department would find "constructive solutions." ..."
y Tal Axelrod -
06/26/20 08:13 PM EDT
1289 Comments Attorney General William Barr on Friday directed the Justice
Department to form a task force dedicated to combating "anti-government extremists," according
to a memo obtained by
The Washington Post , raising the stakes in the government's response to nationwide
protests.
Barr argued in the memo that anti-government agitators had infiltrated peaceful
demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism and "engaged in indefensible acts
of violence designed to undermine public order."
"Among other lawless conduct, these extremists have violently attacked police officers and
other government officials, destroyed public and private property, and threatened innocent
people," Barr wrote. "Although these extremists profess a variety of ideologies, they are
united in their opposition to the core constitutional values of a democratic society governed
by law. ... Some pretend to profess a message of freedom and progress, but they are in fact
forces of anarchy, destruction and coercion."
In the memo, Barr identified members of the right-wing "Boogaloo" movement and the
anti-fascist movement known as Antifa as the top targets of the task force.
Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, and Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. attorney for
the Northern District of Texas, will head the task force, which will also include
representatives from the FBI and other prosecutors' offices.
The task force's mission will be to develop information about "extremist individuals,
networks, and movements," share data with local authorities and provide training to local
prosecutors on how to wage cases against anti-government extremists.
"The ultimate goal of the task force will be not only to enable prosecutions of extremists
who engage in violence, but to understand these groups well enough that we can stop such
violence before it occurs and ultimately eliminate it as a threat to public safety and the rule
of law," Barr wrote.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill
regarding the memo.
Barr said in
an interview with NPR on Thursday that the Department of Justice has launched
"approximately 300 investigations" nationwide, including into some people associated with
Antifa.
Barr has sought to take a tough posture on anti-government groups since some early protests
over George Floyd's death in Minneapolis turned violent.
"There are some groups that don't have a particular ideology, other than anarchy. There are
some groups that want to bring about a civil war -- the Boogaloo group has been on the margin
of this as well," he
said earlier this month , adding that the Justice Department would find "constructive
solutions."
20 Jun, 2020 Ali Jr., who lives in Florida, also singled out Antifa, the group recently
recognized by Trump as a terrorist organization.
"They're no different from Muslim terrorists. They should all get what they deserve.
They're f**king up businesses, beating up innocent people in the neighborhood, smashing up
police stations and shops. They're terrorists – they're terrorizing the community. I
agree with the peaceful protests, but Antifa, they need to kill everyone in that thing," he
said.
Some comments show that black community might not benefit from those events. but on the
contrary. The same is true for Antifa memvbers and left radicals. Sttments like " Antifa is an
anti-white Marxist revolutionary group" does not promise them anything good.
What is funny in no way financial oligarchy is threatened by those events. And for them
that's all that matter. They will sell all US statures to China for the cost of metal, if that
suit them.
Notable quotes:
"... Assault, battery & attempted robberty commited by antifa/blm on @OANN 's reporter @JackPosobiec in DC earlier this evening. ..."
"... One of Posobiec's assailants has been identified as 25-year-old Jason Robert Charter , an Antifa terrorist who has a history of agitating at political events . ..."
"... Posobiec has filed a report with US Park Police and will be pressing charges ..."
"... Kuhn made headlines in 2017 when Project Veritas busted him in an undercover sting at Comet Ping Pong pizzeria - plotting to attack a DC Trump inauguration party. The sting resulted in the arrest of Kuhn - who once made several pedophilic posts to usenet internet groups. Kuhn was sentenced to probation in exchange for agreeing not to attend future Antifa events - however he was caught on camera in April, 2017 when Posobiec was assaulted by another member of Antifa . ..."
"... @JackPosobiec assaulted by Antifa - and pedo advocate Paul 'Luke' Kuhn caught on cam apparently violating probation! https://t.co/a96zafeIA0 pic.twitter.com/1fWAmAUC5p ..."
"... The man who punched Posobiec, Sydney Alexander Ramsey-Laree, served 60 days in jail. ..."
Post
Millennial reports: " The situation escalated when a black-clad Antifa insurgent wearing a
pair of red ski goggles and bicycle helmet identified Posobiec and accused him of "founding the
alt-lite" and of being a "literal Nazi," drawing a larger group of Antifa to approach and
surround the journalist."
Assault, battery & attempted robberty commited by antifa/blm on @OANN 's reporter @JackPosobiec in DC
earlier this evening.
More video of violent black bloc militants attacking @JackPosobiec in D.C. They dumped
liquid all over him, hit him and tried to steal his phone. pic.twitter.com/DCrOq8ZUtB
-- Cassandra Fairbanks
(@CassandraRules) June 27,
2020
Posobiec has filed a report with US Park Police and will be pressing charges. Meanwhile, noted Antifa agitator Luke Kuhn was reportedly spotted at the protest.
Kuhn made headlines in 2017 when Project Veritas busted him in an undercover sting at Comet
Ping Pong pizzeria - plotting to attack a DC Trump inauguration party. The sting resulted in
the arrest of Kuhn - who once made several
pedophilic posts to usenet internet groups. Kuhn was sentenced to probation in exchange for
agreeing not to attend future Antifa events - however he was caught on camera in April, 2017
when Posobiec was assaulted by another member of Antifa .
The man who punched Posobiec, Sydney Alexander Ramsey-Laree, served 60 days in jail.
Md4 , 1 hour ago
"The man who punched Posobiec, Sydney Alexander Ramsey-Laree, served 60 days in jail."
Well...you now know who they are...
Freespeaker , 3 hours ago
Militant wing of the Democrat Party.
Freespeaker , 4 hours ago
BLM/Antifa endorsement via Washington state healthcare letter is indicative. Medical
professionals in Houston were out marching for Social Justice a week ago.
BrutusTheBomber , 5 hours ago
Everyone remember.
The police are allowing this to happen. In my opinion, if you are not doing anything to
stop it, it's because you are in on it.
Thats the only explanation i can come up with.
@therealOrangeBuffoon , 5 hours ago
I repeat myself but: Oligarchy is the problem and BLM is the only real opposition to them.
They are taking the lead.
Either get behind them or start an effective movement, and I don't mean jabbering about
your stupid guns.
Perry Colace , 5 hours ago
So will I:
It's an anti-white agenda, backed by avowed Marxists intent on overthrowing this
government, and I will meet them in the street armed and ready to speak to them in the only
language they respect: Extreme violence.
VWAndy , 6 hours ago
Stupid on this scale dont happen by chance. At this scale its always well funded. These
kids cant even wipe their own asses without some else buying the tp.
Rest Easy , 6 hours ago
In general black people have amply demonstrated, almost universally, that they are unable
to peacefully co-exist. The collateral damage, if it can be called that, and blind hate do
not inspire future saintly behavior. Nor is it intended to.
But who is to say? They are the only ones fighting presently. Against a system that makes
slaves of us all. Or attempts to.
Perry Colace , 5 hours ago
Antifa is an anti-white Marxist revolutionary group that must be eliminated
physically.
Rest Easy , 6 hours ago
Wow. Completely deleted another post. No swearing. No bad terms. That I can recall. Just
opinion. And some scrip.
This to be precise.
Ephesians 6:12 King James Version (KJV)
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places.
Jesus is the way.
ThomasJefferson69 , 6 hours ago
Always carry. With spare mags. And stay out of **** cities. The collapse has already
started there.
Anonymous IX , 6 hours ago
I can't afford a weapon yet, but I'm getting some pepper spray + tear gas and a stun gun
to carry with me at all times until I can get out of this city.
Lonesome Cowboy Burt , 6 hours ago
Can get a subcompact for $250.
Jeff-Durden , 4 hours ago
Ruger Security 9 with a box of 50 shells is 325
numapepi , 7 hours ago
This from the article above...
"Kuhn made headlines in 2017 when Project Veritas busted him in an undercover sting at
Comet Ping Pong pizzeria - plotting to attack a DC Trump inauguration party. The sting
resulted in the arrest of Kuhn - who once made several
pedophilic posts to usenet internet groups."
Isn't it odd, the supposedly "debunked conspiracy theory" based on the Podesta emails, that
was debunked without having to go to the the tedious work of actually investigating it...
democrats orbit pedophilia and pedophiles?
fersur , 7 hours ago
Just wait until the already released unreleased still pictures captured ( all on a single
page ) of children in Orgy Island dungeon, identify the Lady and identify what the Children
were forced to do, Childrens Lives Matter will then be the Worlds Outcry !
numapepi , 7 hours ago
If that is true... I pray it all comes out in the open before November.
(Although, I also pray it isn't true, but fear it is).
Rest Easy , 7 hours ago
The 1st is only applicable if you are not an enemy of them. Otherwise, if your identity
and that of your family is known. You, and they will suffer. They will punish you. Severely
for not conforming. At all times. To what they determine is acceptable.
Punish them in return. Severely.
This movement has sponsors. Deny them your support financially. Bad mouth them at every
opportunity. Universities are not immune to finances. They do not wish to uphold 1st
Ammendment rights. Of students doxxing other students for a tweet. Calling for expulsion. For
a tweet, For 1/2 poor taste, 1/2 truth very likely. Sue them.
This behavior is so rampant. So pervasive. So unAmerican. So thoroughly one sided. It
should terrify any real Americans.
Soros's 'Act Blue' funds Antifa and funds Black Lives Matter while being in existance to
be the Arm of Democrat Political Campaign Fundraising Organization, everything is all out in
the open, even early releasing convicted Criminals to advance Democrat Death and Distruction
Mandate !
ToSoft4Truth , 7 hours ago
Republicans are going to get a Final Stand.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there should be a "review" of historical statues for
possible removal, perhaps even those of the Founding Fathers.
1) Allow CIA, corporations, media, to learn to topple nations
2) Use them to achieve geopolitical goals
3) Allow them to become self-directing and do the same to achieve corporate goals
4) They realize instead of your state using them, they can infiltrate and use the state
5) They realize they can topple your nation too for corporate goals
6) PROFIT
@Emslander
Hannah Arendt noted the 'banality of evil' long ago. It's pretty common, sad to say.
The military is filled with 'ordinary' people who apparently have no qualms about
murdering anyone their 'superiors' point to and say, "Kill!" They are just following orders,
after all.
The number of 'evil players' is simply staggering, whether we want to admit it or not. And
yes, they DO drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune" and have bar-b-ques. John Wayne
Gacy comes to mind immediately. Who knows who our neighbors really are, deep down inside?
As for naming names, gosh, I seem to have lost my DARPA personnel directory of evil
geniuses, and my CIA directory of same as well.
(But as for who REALLY controls things and gives the orders, I think you may have nailed
it with Sister Aimee. And she was HOT in her day, and apparently knew how to have a good
time. Hallelujah, brother ..)
The banality of evil is often not known until revisionist historians are able to make
connections post facto. In the moment people do not have enough information to make informed
decisions.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
For example, during the French Revolution most of the participants had no idea of what a
Jacobian was.
Or, during the Bolshevik Revolution, most participants had no idea of who Kuhn and Loeb
was.
Or, before WW1 was the machinations of the Milner Group known?
Or, before WW2, the machinations of Zionists to get Balfour.
Or, how Focus group had gotten to Churchill with loans.
Why the evil? It is usually hidden string pullers who are afraid of losing their vaunted
position in ruling hierarchy. They may actually think they are doing good, because doing good
is defined as "what is good for me, or my in-group."
Looks like antifa members is recruited and trained using the same methods as members of opposition in countries where the USA
plans to stage a color revolution. One important constituency are students. What is important all of them are paid. Adapting Maoism
with its cult of violence for those purposes is not a big deal.
I think that like is the case with the Red Brigades the level of infiltration by intelligence agencies is iether considerable or
total.
Notable quotes:
"... "By 1969, the Panthers began to use fascism as a theoretical framework to critique the U.S. political economy. They defined fascism as 'the power of finance capital' which 'manifests itself not only as banks, trusts and monopolies but also as the human property of FINANCE CAPITAL -- the avaricious businessman, the demagogic politician, and the racist pig cop.'" ..."
"... Other ideological anchors of the modern Antifa movement in the United States include a left-wing terrorist group known as the Weather Underground Organization, the American equivalent to Germany's Red Army Faction. The Weather Underground, responsible for bombings and riots throughout the 1970s, sought to achieve "the destruction of U.S. imperialism and form a classless communist world." ..."
"... In June 2018, Republican Representative Dan Donovan of New York introduced Bill HR 6054 -- "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018" -- that calls for prison sentences of up to 15 years for anyone who, while wearing a mask or disguise, "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates" someone else who is exercising any right or privilege guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. The bill remains stalled in the House of Representatives. ..."
"... "Antifa are terrorists, violent masked bullies who 'fight fascism' with actual fascism, protected by Liberal privilege," said Cassidy. "Bullies get their way until someone says no. Elected officials must have courage, not cowardice, to prevent terror." ..."
"... Antifa radicals increasingly are using incendiary events such as the death of George Floyd in Minnesota as springboards to achieve their broader aims, one of which includes removing President Trump from office. ..."
"... "We believe that a significant amount of people who came here from out of the area, who have come here as well as the advance preparation, having advance scouts, the use of encrypted information, having resupply routes for things such as gasoline and accelerants as well as rocks and bottles, the raising of bail, the placing of medics. Taken together, this is a strong indicator that they planned to act with disorder, property damage, violence, and violent encounters with police before the first demonstration and/or before the first arrest." ..."
"... "It's in 40 different states and 60 cities; it would be impossible for somebody outside of Antifa to fund this. It's a radical, leftist, socialist attempt at revolution. ..."
"... "What Antifa is doing is they're basically hijacking the black community as their army. They instigate, they antagonize, they get these young black men and women to go out there and do stupid things, and then they disappear off into the sunset." ..."
"... Across the country, in Bellevue, Washington, which was also hit by looting and violence, Police Chief Steve Mylett confirmed that the people responsible were organized, from out of town, and being paid: ..."
"... AFGJ has received substantial funding from organizations often claiming to be the mainstream of the center-left. The Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation, Arca Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, the Ben & Jerry Foundation and the Brightwater Fund have all made contributions to AFGJ, according to Influence Watch. ..."
This is Part II of a series on the history of the
global Antifa movement.
Part
I
described Antifa and explored the ideological origins of the group. Part II examines
the history, tactics and goals of the movement in the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump recently
announced
that
the American government would designate Antifa -- a militant "anti-fascist" movement -- as a
terrorist organization
due to the violence that erupted at George Floyd
protests
across
the United States.
The Code of Federal Regulations (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85)
defines
terrorism
as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social
objectives."
American media outlets sympathetic to Antifa have jumped to its defense.
They
argue that the group cannot be classified as a terrorist organization because, they claim, it is a
vaguely-defined protest movement that lacks a centralized structure.
As the following report shows, Antifa is, in fact, highly networked, well-funded and has a clear
ideological agenda: to subvert, often with extreme violence, the American political system, with
the ultimate aim of replacing capitalism with communism. In the United States, Antifa's immediate
aim
is
to remove President Trump from office.
Gatestone Institute has identified Antifa groups in all 50 U.S. states, with the possible
exception of West Virginia. Some states, including California, Texas and Washington, appear to have
dozens of sub-regional Antifa organizations.
It is difficult precisely to determine the size of the Antifa movement in the United States. The
so-called "
Anti-Fascists of Reddit
,"
the "premier anti-fascist community" on the social media platform Reddit, has approximately 60,000
members. The oldest Antifa group in America, the Portland, Oregon-based "
Rose
City Antifa
," has more than 30,000 Twitter followers and 20,000 Facebook followers, not all of
whom are necessarily supporters. "
It's Going Down
," a media
platform for anarchists, anti-fascists and autonomous anti-capitalists, has 85,000 Twitter
followers and 30,000 Facebook followers.
Germany, which has roughly one-quarter of the population of the United States, is home to 33,000
extreme leftists, of whom 9,000 are believed to be extremely dangerous,
according
to
the domestic intelligence agency (
Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV
). Violent left-wing
agitators are predominantly male, between 21 and 24 years of age, usually unemployed, and,
according
to
BfV, 92% still live with their parents. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most Antifa members in the
United States have a similar socio-economic profile.
In America, national Antifa groups, including "Torch Antifa Network," "Refuse Fascism"
and "World Can't Wait" are being financed -- often generously, as shown below -- by individual donors
as well as by large philanthropic organizations,
including
the
Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros.
To evade detection by law enforcement, Antifa groups in the United States often use encrypted
social media platforms, such as
Signal
and
Telegram Messenger, to communicate and coordinate their activities, sometimes across state lines.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Justice is currently
investigating
individuals
linked to Antifa as a step to unmasking the broader organization.
Historical Origins of American Antifa
In the United States, Antifa's ideology, tactics and goals, far from being novel, are
borrowed
almost
entirely from Antifa groups in Europe, where so-called anti-fascist groups, in one form or another,
have been active, almost without interruption, for a century.
As in Europe, the aims and objectives of the American Antifa movement can be traced back to a
single, overarching century-long ideological war against the "fascist ideals" of capitalism and
Christianity, which the Antifa movement wants to
replace
with
a "revolutionary socialist alternative."
The first so-called anti-fascist group in the United States was the American League
Against War and Fascism, established in 1933 by the Communist Party USA.
The League, which
claimed to oppose fascism in Europe, was actually
dedicated
to
subverting and overthrowing the U.S. government.
In testimony to the U.S. Congress in 1953, CPUSA leader Manning Johnson
revealed
that
the American party had been instructed by the Communist International in the 1930s to set up the
American League Against War and Fascism:
"as a cover to attack our government, our social system, our leaders... used as a cover to
attack our law-enforcement agencies and to build up mass hate against them... used as a cover to
undermine national security... used as a cover to defend Communists, the sworn enemies of our
great heritage... used as a cover for preparing millions of people ideologically and
organizationally for the overthrow of the United States Government."
A precursor to the modern Antifa movement was the Black Panthers, a revolutionary political
organization established in October 1966 by Marxist college students in Oakland, California. The
group
advocated
the use of violence and
guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government.
Historian Robyn C. Spencer
noted
that
Black Panther leaders were deeply influenced by "The United Front of the Working Class Against
Fascism," a
report
by
Georgi Dimitroff delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in July and
August 1935:
"By 1969, the Panthers began to use fascism as a theoretical framework to critique the U.S.
political economy. They defined fascism as 'the power of finance capital' which 'manifests
itself not only as banks, trusts and monopolies but also as the human property of FINANCE
CAPITAL -- the avaricious businessman, the demagogic politician, and the racist pig cop.'"
In July 1969, the Black Panthers organized an "anti-fascist" conference called "United Front
Against Fascism,"
attended
by
nearly 5,000 activists:
"The Panthers hoped to create a 'national force' with a 'common revolutionary ideology and
political program which answers the basic desires and needs of all people in fascist,
capitalist, racist America.'"
The last day of the conference was devoted to a detailed plan by the Black Panthers to
decentralize police forces nationwide. Spencer
wrote
:
"They proposed amending city charters to establish autonomous community-based police
departments for every city which would be accountable to local neighborhood police control
councils comprised of 15 elected community members. They launched the National Committees to
Combat Fascism (NCCF), a multiracial nationwide network, to organize for community control of
the police."
In 1970, members of the Black Panthers created a terrorist group called the Black
Liberation Army, whose
stated
goal
was to "weaken the enemy capitalist state."
BLA member Assata Shakur
described
the
group's organizational structure, which is similar to the one used by today's Antifa movement:
"The Black Liberation Army was not a centralized, organized group with a common leadership
and chain of command. Instead there were various organizations and collectives working together
out of various cities, and in some larger cities there were often several groups working
independently of each other."
Other ideological anchors of the modern Antifa movement in the United States include a left-wing
terrorist group known as the Weather Underground Organization, the American equivalent to Germany's
Red Army Faction. The Weather Underground,
responsible
for
bombings
and
riots throughout the 1970s, sought to
achieve
"the
destruction of U.S. imperialism and form a classless communist world."
Former FBI Counterterrorism Director Terry Turchie has
noted
the
similarities between Black Lives Matter today and the Black Panther Party and Weather Underground
groups of the 1960s and 1970s:
"The Black Panther Party was a Marxist Maoist Leninist organization and that came from Huey
Newton, one of the co-founders, who said we're standing for nothing more than the total
transformation of the United States government.
"He went on to explain that they wanted to take the tension that already existed in black
communities and exacerbate it where they can. To take those situations where there is a
tinderbox and light the country on fire.
"Today we're seeing the third revolution and they think they can make this happen. The only
thing that is different are the names of the groups."
American Antifa
The roots of the modern Antifa movement in the United States can be traced back to the
1980s,
with the establishment of Anti-Racist Action, a network of anarchist punk rock
aficionados dedicated to fist-fighting neo-Nazi skinheads.
Mark Bray, author of "
The Antifa Handbook
,"
explained
:
"In many cases, the North American modern Antifa movement grew up as a way to defend the punk
scene from the neo-Nazi skinhead movement, and the founders of the original Anti-Racist Action
network in North America were anti-racist skinheads. The fascist/anti-fascist struggle was
essentially a fight for control of the punk scene during the 1980s, and that was true across of
much of north America and in parts of Europe in this era.
"There's a huge overlap between radical left politics and the punk scene, and there's a
stereotype about dirty anarchists and punks, which is an oversimplification but grounded in a
certain amount of truth."
Anti-Racist Action was
inspired
by
Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a militant anti-fascist group founded in Britain in the late 1970s. The
American group shared the British group's penchant for
violently
attacking
political opponents. ARA was eventually renamed the
Torch
Network
, which currently brings together nine militant Antifa groups.
In November 1999, mobs of masked anarchists, predecessors to today's Antifa movement,
laid
waste
to downtown Seattle, Washington, during violent demonstrations that disrupted a
ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization.
The Seattle WTO protests
birthed
the
anti-globalization movement.
In April 2001, an estimated 50,000 anti-capitalists
gathered
in
Quebec to oppose the Third Summit of the Americas, a meeting of North and South American leaders
who were negotiating a deal to create a free trade area that would encompass the Western
Hemisphere.
In February 2003, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters
demonstrated
against
the Iraq War. After the war went ahead anyway, some parts of the so-called progressive movement
became more radicalized and birthed the current Antifa movement.
The Rose City Antifa (RCA), founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2007, is the oldest American group
to use "Antifa" in its name. Antifa is
derived
from
a group called
Antifaschistische Aktion
, founded in May 1932 by Stalinist leaders of the
Communist Party of Germany. Antifa's logo, with two flags representing anarchism (black flag) and
communism (red flag), are derived from the German Antifa movement.
The American Antifa movement gained momentum in 2016, after Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a
self-described Socialist, lost the Democratic Party's nomination to Hillary Clinton. Grassroots
supporters of Sanders
vowed
to
continue his "political revolution" to establish socialism in America.
Meanwhile, immigration became a new flashpoint in American politics after Donald Trump
campaigned on a pledge to reduce illegal migration. In June 2016, protestors
violently
attacked
supporters of Donald Trump outside a rally in San Jose, California. In January 2017,
hundreds of Antifa rioters tried to
disrupt
President
Trump's inauguration ceremony in Washington, DC.
In February 2017, Antifa rioters employing so-called
black
bloc
tactics -- they wear black clothing, masks or other face-concealing items so that they
cannot be identified by police --
shut
down
a speech by Milos Yiannopoulos, a far-right activist who was slated to speak at the
University of California at Berkeley, the birthplace of the 1964 Free Speech Movement.
Antifa radicals
claimed
that
Yiannopoulos was planning to "out" undocumented students at Berkeley for the purpose of having them
arrested. Masked Antifa vandals armed with Molotov cocktails, bricks and a host of other makeshift
weapons
fought
police
and
caused
more
than $100,000 in property damage.
In June 2018, Republican Representative Dan Donovan of New York
introduced
Bill
HR 6054 -- "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018" -- that calls for prison sentences of up to 15 years for
anyone who, while wearing a mask or disguise, "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates"
someone else who is exercising any right or privilege guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. The
bill remains
stalled
in
the House of Representatives.
In July 2019, Antifa radical Willem Van Spronsen
attempted
to
firebomb the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Tacoma, Washington. He
was killed in a confrontation with police.
That same month, U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy
introduced
a
resolution that would label Antifa a "domestic terrorist organization." The resolution
stated
:
"Whereas members of Antifa, because they believe that free speech is equivalent to violence,
have used threats of violence in the pursuit of suppressing opposing political ideologies;
Whereas Antifa represents opposition to the democratic ideals of peaceful assembly and free
speech for all; Whereas members of Antifa have physically assaulted journalists and other
individuals during protests and riots in Berkeley, California;
"Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Senate ... calls for the groups and organizations
across the country who act under the banner of Antifa to be designated as domestic terrorist
organizations."
"Antifa are terrorists, violent masked bullies who 'fight fascism' with actual fascism,
protected by Liberal privilege,"
said
Cassidy.
"Bullies get their way until someone says no. Elected officials must have courage, not cowardice,
to prevent terror."
Antifa Exploits Death of George Floyd
Antifa radicals increasingly are using incendiary events such as the death of George Floyd in
Minnesota as springboards to achieve their broader aims, one of which
includes
removing
President Trump from office.
Veteran national security correspondent Bill Gertz recently
reported
that
the Antifa movement began planning to foment a nationwide anti-government insurgency as early as
November 2019, when the U.S. presidential campaign season kicked off in earnest.
Former
National Security Council staff member Rich Higgins
said
:
"Antifa's actions represent a hard break with the long tradition of a peaceful political
process in the United States. Their Marxist ideology seeks not only to influence elections in
the short term but to destroy the use of elections as the determining factor in political
legitimacy.
"Antifa's goal is nothing less than fomenting revolution, civil war and silencing America's
anti-communists. Their labeling of Trump supporters and patriots as Nazis and racists is
standard fare for left-wing communist groups.
"Antifa is currently functioning as the command and control of the riots, which are
themselves the overt utilization of targeted violence against targets such as stores --
capitalism; monuments -- history; and churches -- God."
Joe Myers, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official and counterinsurgency expert,
added
:
"President Trump's election and revitalization of America are a threat to Antifa's nihilist
goals. They are fomenting this violence to create havoc, despair and to target the Trump
campaign for defeat in 2020. It is employing organized violence for political ends: destruction
of the constitutional order."
New York's top terrorism officer, Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John
Miller,
explained
why
the George Floyd protests in New York City became so violent and destructive:
"No. 1, before the protests began, organizers of certain anarchist groups set out to raise
bail money and people who would be responsible to be raising bail money, they set out to recruit
medics and medical teams with gear to deploy in anticipation of violent interactions with
police.
"They prepared to commit property damage and directed people who were following them that
this should be done selectively and only in wealthier areas or at high-end stores run by
corporate entities.
"And they developed a complex network of bicycle scouts to move ahead of demonstrators in
different directions of where police were and where police were not for purposes of being able
to direct groups from the larger group to places where they could commit acts of vandalism
including the torching of police vehicles and Molotov cocktails where they thought officers
would not be.
"We believe that a significant amount of people who came here from out of the area, who have
come here as well as the advance preparation, having advance scouts, the use of encrypted
information, having resupply routes for things such as gasoline and accelerants as well as rocks
and bottles, the raising of bail, the placing of medics. Taken together, this is a strong
indicator that they planned to act with disorder, property damage, violence, and violent
encounters with police before the first demonstration and/or before the first arrest."
In an interview with
The Epoch Times
, Bernard B. Kerik, former police commissioner of
the New York City Police Department,
said
that
Antifa "100 percent exploited" the George Floyd protests:
"It's in 40 different states and 60 cities; it would be impossible for somebody outside of
Antifa to fund this. It's a radical, leftist, socialist attempt at revolution.
"They're coming from other cities. That cost money. They didn't do this on their own.
Somebody's paying for this.
"What Antifa is doing is they're basically hijacking the black community as their
army.
They instigate, they antagonize, they get these young black men and women to go
out there and do stupid things, and then they disappear off into the sunset."
After photos appeared to show protesters with military-grade communications radios and
earpieces, Kerik
noted
:
"They have to be talking to somebody at a central command center with a repeater. Where do those
radios go to?"
Across the country, in Bellevue, Washington, which was also hit by looting and violence, Police
Chief Steve Mylett
confirmed
that
the people responsible were organized, from out of town, and being paid:
"There are groups paying these looters money to come in and they're getting paid by the
broken window. This is something totally different we are dealing with that we have never seen
as a profession before. We did have officers that were in different areas that were chasing
these groups. When we make contact, they just disperse."
Antifa Financing
The coordinated violence raises questions about how Antifa is financed. The Alliance for Global
Justice (AFGJ) is an organizing group that serves as a fiscal sponsor to numerous radical left-wing
initiatives,
according
to
Influence Watch, a research group that collects data on advocacy organizations, foundations and
donors.
AFGJ, which describes itself as "anti-capitalist" and
opposed
to
the principles of liberal democracy, provides "fiscal sponsorship" to groups advocating numerous
foreign and domestic far-left and extreme-left causes, including
eliminating
the
State of Israel.
The Tucson, Arizona-based AFGJ, and people associated with it, have
advocated
for
socialist and communist authoritarian regimes, including in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In the
2000s, AFGJ was involved in anti-globalization demonstrations. In the 2010s, AFGJ was a
financial
sponsor
of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
AFGJ has received substantial funding from organizations often claiming to be the mainstream of
the center-left. The Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation, Arca Foundation, Surdna
Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, the Ben & Jerry Foundation and the Brightwater Fund have all
made contributions to AFGJ,
according
to
Influence Watch.
One of the groups funded by AFGJ is called
Refuse Fascism
,
a radical left-wing organization devoted to promoting nationwide action to remove from office
President Donald Trump, and all officials associated with his administration, on the grounds that
they constitute a "fascist regime." The group has been present at many Antifa radical-left
demonstrations, also
according
to
Influence Watch. The group is an offshoot of the Radical Communist Party (RCP).
In July 2017, the RCP
bragged
that
it took part in violent riots against the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. The RCP has
argued
that
capitalism is synonymous with fascism and that the election of President Trump would lead the U.S.
government to "bludgeon and eliminate whole groups of people."
In June 2020, Refuse Fascism took advantage of the death of George Floyd to raise money for a
"National Revolution Tour" evidently aimed at subverting the U.S. government. The group's slogan
states
:
"This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!"
Antifa's "Utopia"
Meanwhile, in Seattle, Washington, Antifa radicals, protesters from Black Lives Matter, and
members of the anti-capitalist John Brown Gun Club seized control of the East Precinct neighborhood
and established a six-square-block "autonomous zone" called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,
"CHAZ," recently
renamed
"CHOP,"
the Capitol Hill Organized (or Occupied) Protest. A cardboard sign at the barricades
declares
:
"You are now leaving the USA." The group
issued
a
list of 30 demands, including the "abolition" of the Seattle Police Department and court system.
"Rapes, robberies and all sorts of violent acts have been occurring in the area and
we're not able to get to them,"
said
Seattle
Police Chief Carmen Best. Several people have been
wounded
or killed
.
Christopher F. Rufo, a contributing editor of
City Journal
,
observed
:
"The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone has set a dangerous precedent: armed left-wing activists
have asserted their dominance of the streets and established an alternative political authority
over a large section of a neighborhood. They have claimed de facto police power over thousands
of residents and dozens of businesses -- completely outside of the democratic process. In a
matter of days, Antifa-affiliated paramilitaries have created a hardened border, established a
rudimentary form of government based on principles of intersectional representation, and
forcibly removed unfriendly media from the territory.
"The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone is an occupation and taking of hostages: none of the
neighborhood's residents voted for Antifa as their representative government. Rather than
enforce the law, Seattle's progressive political class capitulated to the mob and will likely
make massive concessions over the next few months. This will embolden the Antifa coalition -- and
further undermine the rule of law in American cities."
Antifa in its Own Words
The American Antifa movement's long-term objectives are identical to those of the Antifa
movement in Europe: replacing capitalism with a communist utopia. Mark Bray, one of the most vocal
apologists for Antifa in the United States and author of "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,"
explained
:
"The only long-term solution to the fascist menace is to undermine its pillars of strength in
society grounded not only in white supremacy but also in ableism, heteronormativity, patriarchy,
nationalism, transphobia, class rule, and many others. This long-term goal points to the
tensions that exist in defining anti-fascism, because at a certain point destroying fascism is
really about promoting a revolutionary socialist alternative."
Nikkita Oliver, former mayoral candidate of Seattle, Washington,
added
:
"We need to align ourselves with the global struggle that acknowledges that the United States
plays a role in racialized capitalism. Racialized capitalism is built upon patriarchy, white
supremacy, and classism."
Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement,
confirmed
that
the immediate goal is to remove President Trump from office:
"Trump not only needs to not be in office in November, but he should resign now. Trump needs
to be out of office. He is not fit for office. And so, what we are going to push for is a move
to get Trump out. While we're also going to continue to push and pressure Joe Biden around his
policies and relationship to policing and criminalization. That's going to be important. But our
goal is to get Trump out."
"As antifascists we know that our fight is not just against organized fascism, but also
against the capitalist state, and the police that protect it. Another world is possible!"
"This is the revolution, this is our time and we will make no excuses for the terror."
A group called PNW Youth Liberation Front, Antifa's youth organization,
tweeted
:
"The only way to win a world without police, prisons, borders, etc. is to destroy the
oppressive systems which we are currently caught in. We must continue the fight against the
state, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and so on if we ever want to be
free."
A pamphlet distributed in the Seattle "Autonomous Zone"
stated
:
"The idea that the working class can control our own lives, without states, governments or
borders, is also called anarchism. But how do we get from our current capitalist society to a
future anarchist-communist one? .... In order to destroy the current order, there will need to
be a revolution, a time of great upheaval."
A poster in the Seattle "Autonomous Zone"
stated
:
"Oh, you thought I just wanted to defund the police? This whole system needs to go."
One of the leaders of the Seattle "Autonomous Zone"
said
:
"Every single day that I show up here I'm not here to peacefully protest. I'm here to disrupt
until my demands are met. You cannot rebuild until you break it all the way down. Respond to the
demands of the people or prepare to be met with any means necessary. By any means necessary.
It's not a slogan or even a warning. I'm letting people know what comes next."
A group called the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, which has nearly 15,000 Twitter
followers,
called
for
an insurrection:
"Revolutionary greetings from the insurrection sweeping throughout the occupied territories
of the so-called United States of America.
"As the history of this miserable nation repeats itself once again, what has become clearly
evident is that black people have been and will continue to be the only revolutionary force that
is capable of toppling the oppressive status quo.
"Everywhere the pigs [a derogatory
term
for
police] have lost their will to fight. Their eyes, which only yesterday were windows to empty
hatred and contempt, now display stultifying self-doubt and cowardice. For once, their behavior
portrays their weakness as every step they take back is marked by hesitation.
"Together, if we keep pushing, this land of chattel slavery, indigenous genocide, and foreign
imperial aggression can finally be wiped out so that it will only be remembered as one of the
more ugly chapters in human history."
"This isn't protest. This is rebellion. When rebellion gets organized we get revolution. We
are seeing the beginnings of that and it's glorious."
An Antifa agitator from New York
comments
on
the American flag:
"That sh*t is a fucking cloth with colors on it. It doesn't live or breathe and is nothing
but a representation. Any Black, Latinx, or Native person looking at that thing being respected,
should be offended at that flag that represents genocide, rape, slavery, and colonization."
An Antifa media platform, "It's Going Down,"
wrote
:
"Looting is an effective means of wealth redistribution."
An Antifa activist from North Carolina on
free
speech
:
"The idea that freedom of speech is the most important thing that we can protect can only be
held by someone who thinks that life is analogous to a debate hall. In my opinion, 'no
platforming' fascists often infringes (sic) upon their speech, but this infringement is
justified for its role in the political struggle against fascism."
Torch Antifa Network, in
response
to
President Trump's announced plans to designate Antifa as a terrorist group:
"Antifa will be designating the United States of America as a terrorist organization."
"... I see Geo has already pointed out the obvious absurdity that any of these criminal were in the least bit worried bout US security. If anything, they were overtly sacrificing US security on behalf of an enemy state. ..."
All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it
considered necessary to enhance its own security,
I see Geo has already pointed out the obvious absurdity that any of these criminal were in
the least bit worried bout US security. If anything, they were overtly sacrificing US security
on behalf of an enemy state. Not sure why you write stuff like that Mr. G, unless you just
expect people to ignore it as perfunctory tripe, but there are some, no doubt, who read those
words and assume you are actually saying they care about the US. When you and I both know they
don't.
Clinton and Obama were so-called liberal interventionists who sought to export something
called democracy to other countries in an attempt to make them more like Peoria.
Nope.
They were and are both amoral, opportunistic zio-whores, whose only ideology is what's good
for Clinton and Obama, respectively. Clinton didn't bomb Serbia out of some humanitarian love
of freedom and democracy, and Obama didn't destroy Libya and Syria except to serve his
zio-masters. Duh.
So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than
substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good,
I was telling my gal the other day, that Trump could be The One to End the Fed, by allowing
Goldman Sachs and the rest of them to feast at the Treasury to their heart's content.
I reminded her of Jackson's quote about hurting ten thousand families, in order to save
fifty thousand. And in a similar vein, Trump could be setting up the collapse of the ZUS
economy, which will hurt hundreds of millions, but if he could collapse the dollar, he very
well might save billions of people's lives.
"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have
used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you
divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me
that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand
families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will
ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.
I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out."
– Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)
Nuland is most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European
role
I beg to differ, Mr. G.
I would posit that her most famous utterings were when she imperiously demanded that "Yats
is our guy". IOW, the way she was promoting "democracy" in Ukraine, was by corrupting the
system with 5 billions of tax payer lucre- to the point where she, *personally* could decide
who- (Jewish banker) would be president in a nation thousands of miles away. That's how
the ZUS promotes "democracy" in foreign lands. (and, I suspect that it was the way that call
was leaked, that is the fount of all the rage at Russia, for "Russian hacking', breaking
long-standing diplomatic protocols against exposing other nation's treachery and corruption to
the 'little people').
Nuland's view . Russia to violate arms control treaties, international law, the
sovereignty of its neighbors, and the integrity of elections in the United States and
Europe
for Nuland to talk about 'International law and the 'integrity of European elections'.. is
like Jerry Sandusky lecturing people on child welfare.
That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level,
OK, so not only Nuland but also John Bolton is screeching that Trump is the disaster of our
times.
Not since John McCain has a mad dog Zionist insider been so full of hate for Trump.
Hmm..
"... Russia heavily subsidised Ukrainian energy imports for decades – gas and oil. In a similar fashion, Russia is doing this with Belarus until the present time. Russia is the only possible consumer of what Ukraine used to manufacture – a market that has disappeared. Gas turbines used to be made in Ukraine. Now, this has moved to Russia. Of course, the skilled Ukrainians went to Russia with their know-how. ..."
"... To the best of my knowledge the USSR was the only empire that actually subsidized its colonies – Poland, East Germany, Ukraine etc. Russia is far better off without them. ..."
"... Ukrainian supermarkets are overflowing with French/German/Italian products. European supermarkets are devoid of Ukrainian products. ..."
Only a complete and utter incompetent (or a rabid Ukrainian nationalist) can call Ukraine
an independent state. It is de-facto a colony of the West. A debt slave.
I applaud the US response of supporting Ukraine's aspirations for a freer, more
Western-oriented country and that it continues to support Ukraine's territorial interests
over those of Russia's.
This was not about supporting Ukrainian aspirations for a freer, more Western-oriented
country. It is about kicking out Russia from Ukrainian markets and plundering Ukraine all by
themselves. Mainly by Germany and the USA -- to major players of Euromaydan color revolution.
For Germans this is return to "Drang nach Osten" on a new level, on the level of neoliberal
neocolonialism.
They used Western nationalists as their fifth column, but Western Ukrainian suffered from
the results no less then people in Eastern Ukraine. Many now try to move to Kiev, Kiev region
and further East in order to escape poverty and unemployment. Seasonal labor to Russia
(mainly builders) diminished rapidly. Train communication now is blocked, and for Western
Ukraine only Poland now represents a chance to earn money for the family to survive the
winter.
For the USA this is first of all about selling Ukraine expensive weaponry, wasting
precious Ukrainian resources on permanent hostility with Russia (with Donbas conflict as a
real win to further the USA geopolitical ambitions -- in line with the "Full spectrum
dominance" doctrine) , cornering Ukrainian energy market (uranium supplies for power
stations, etc.), destruction, or buy-out of a few competing industries other than extracting
industries and maquiladoras, getting better conditions for the EU exports and multinationals
operating in Ukraine (and initially with plans for re-export products to Russia tax free) and
increasing the country debt to "debt slave" level.
In other words this is a powerful kick in a chin by Obama to Putin. Not a knockdown, but
very close.
For Ukraine first of all that means rapid accumulation of a huge external debt --
conditions of economic slavery, out of which there is no escape. Ukrainian people paid a very
dear price for their Euromaydan illusions. They became mass slave labor in Poland.
Prostitutes in Germany. Seasonal picker of fruits in some other EU countries (GB, France). A
new European blacks, so to speak.
The level of fleecing Ukraine by the USA after Euromaidan can be compared only with
fleecing of Libya. The currency dropped 300%, and 80% Ukrainians now live in abysmal poverty,
while neoliberal oligarchs allied with the West continue to plunder the country. Gold
reserves were moved to the USA.
If I had to choose between two colonizers, I probably would prefer Russians. They are
still colonizers, but they are less ruthless and brutal colonizers.
@likbezIf I had
to choose between two colonizers, I probably would prefer Russians. They are still
colonizers, but they are less ruthless and brutal colonizers.
I agree with 90% of what you wrote, but I would like to correct the above.
Russia heavily subsidised Ukrainian energy imports for decades – gas and oil. In
a similar fashion, Russia is doing this with Belarus until the present time. Russia is the
only possible consumer of what Ukraine used to manufacture – a market that has
disappeared. Gas turbines used to be made in Ukraine. Now, this has moved to Russia. Of
course, the skilled Ukrainians went to Russia with their know-how.
To the best of my knowledge the USSR was the only empire that actually subsidized its
colonies – Poland, East Germany, Ukraine etc. Russia is far better off without
them.
Ukrainian supermarkets are overflowing with French/German/Italian products. European
supermarkets are devoid of Ukrainian products.
@Druid55 That is
the western MSM sugared up version of what happened in Yugoslavia. Western MSM learned their
lesson about being truthful about war when US and friends were in Vietnam.
Lies and lies only come from western MSM these days so wars and regime change games can go
on with anyone noticing or caring.
Western MSM notifies their puppet readers that all the US and friends does is
"humanitarian" stuff these days. Most puppet readers lap up this junk.
March 24, 1999 will go down in history as a day of infamy. US-led NATO raped Yugoslavia.
Doing so was its second major combat operation.
It was lawless aggression. No Security Council resolution authorized it. NATO's
Operation Allied Force lasted 78 days.
Washington called it Operation Noble Anvil. Evil best describes it. On June 10,
operations ended.
From March 1991 through mid-June 1999, Balkan wars raged. Yugoslavia "balkanized" into
seven countries. They include Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Croatia and Slovenia.
Enormous human suffering was inflicted. Washington bears most responsibility.
"So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than
substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good, but there has
nevertheless been a resurgence of neocon-think in his administration. "
Apr 27, 2017 This Is Already Putting an End to the Age of Globalization and Bankrupting the
United States (2004)
For a major power, prosecution of any war that is not a defense of the homeland usually
requires overseas military bases for strategic reasons. After the war is over, it is tempting
for the victor to retain such bases and easy to find reasons to do so. February 26, 2015 The
Neoconservative Threat To World Order
Scholars from Russia and from around the world, Russian government officials, and the
Russian people seek an answer as to why Washington destroyed during the past year the
friendly relations between America and Russia that President Reagan and President Gorbachev
succeeded in establishing.
@Mr. Hack Only a
complete and utter incompetent (or a rabid Ukrainian nationalist) can call Ukraine an
independent state. It is de-facto a colony of the West. A debt slave.
I applaud the US response of supporting Ukraine's aspirations for a freer, more
Western-oriented country and that it continues to support Ukraine's territorial interests
over those of Russia's.
This was not about supporting Ukrainian aspirations for a freer, more Western-oriented
country. It is about kicking out Russia from Ukrainian markets and plundering Ukraine all by
themselves. Mainly by Germany and the USA -- to major players of Euromaydan color revolution.
For Germans this is return to "Drang nach Osten" on a new level, on the level of neoliberal
neocolonialism.
They used Western nationalists as their fifth column, but Western Ukrainian suffered from
the results no less then people in Eastern Ukraine. Many now try to move to Kiev, Kiev region
and further East in order to escape poverty and unemployment. Seasonal labor to Russia
(mainly builders) diminished rapidly. Train communication now is blocked, and for Western
Ukraine only Poland now represents a chance to earn money for the family to survive the
winter.
For the USA this is first of all about selling Ukraine expensive weaponry, wasting
precious Ukrainian resources on permanent hostility with Russia (with Donbas conflict as a
real win to further the USA geopolitical ambitions -- in line with the "Full spectrum
dominance" doctrine) , cornering Ukrainian energy market (uranium supplies for power
stations, etc.), destruction, or buy-out of a few competing industries other than extracting
industries and maquiladoras, getting better conditions for the EU exports and multinationals
operating in Ukraine (and initially with plans for re-export products to Russia tax free) and
increasing the country debt to "debt slave" level.
In other words this is a powerful kick in a chin by Obama to Putin. Not a knockdown, but
very close.
For Ukraine first of all that means rapid accumulation of a huge external debt --
conditions of economic slavery, out of which there is no escape. Ukrainian people paid a very
dear price for their Euromaydan illusions. They became mass slave labor in Poland.
Prostitutes in Germany. Seasonal picker of fruits in some other EU countries (GB, France). A
new European blacks, so to speak.
The level of fleecing Ukraine by the USA after Euromaidan can be compared only with
fleecing of Libya. The currency dropped 300%, and 80% Ukrainians now live in abysmal poverty,
while neoliberal oligarchs allied with the West continue to plunder the country. Gold
reserves were moved to the USA.
If I had to choose between two colonizers, I probably would prefer Russians. They are
still colonizers, but they are less ruthless and brutal colonizers.
"... First, our imperialists are the direct descendants intellectually, spiritually, and morally of the first WASP Empire, the first Anglo-Zionist Empire: the British Empire. And they have used their high IQs that are focused on grasping the One Ring to Rule Them All to locate where the Brit WASP Empire failed to achieve its goals, which allowed the collapse starting with World War 1. They are obsessed with that because they believe that if they can achieve what the Brit WASPs failed to achieve, then they can make the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0 as permanent as the Roman Empire – a Thousand Year Reich. ..."
"... And that is spiritually what all WASP imperialism, all Anglo-Zionist imperialism back to at least the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, is about: replacing the Roman Empire, which means replacing that which culturally led to, and was absolutely indispensable to, Christendom. ..."
"... Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire. ..."
"... The "foreign interventionists" want two things: Russia's mineral riches and its good gene pool (how do you think Middle Eastern Semites became blonde hair-blue eyed people who can easily blend into the West to undermine it from within in the first place to begin with?) ..."
Why do our 'foreign interventionists,' our 'permanent war for globalist perpetual peace'
crusaders, our Neocons, hate Russia so thoroughly and so centrally to their very beings?
First, our imperialists are the direct descendants intellectually, spiritually, and
morally of the first WASP Empire, the first Anglo-Zionist Empire: the British Empire. And
they have used their high IQs that are focused on grasping the One Ring to Rule Them All to
locate where the Brit WASP Empire failed to achieve its goals, which allowed the collapse
starting with World War 1. They are obsessed with that because they believe that if they can
achieve what the Brit WASPs failed to achieve, then they can make the Anglo-Zionist Empire
2.0 as permanent as the Roman Empire – a Thousand Year Reich.
And that is spiritually what all WASP imperialism, all Anglo-Zionist imperialism back to
at least the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, is about: replacing the Roman Empire, which means
replacing that which culturally led to, and was absolutely indispensable to, Christendom.
What they wish to redo and achieve that the Brit WASPs failed in is winning The Great
Game: becoming total master of Eur-Asia. And that requires taking out Russia and China. In
the 19th century, China was sicker than even the Ottoman Turkish Empire. To play the long
game to destroy Russia, the Brit WASPs allied with the Turks to prevent Russia acting to push
the Ottomans out of Europe. Brit WASP secret service in eastern Europe was focused on
reducing Russia significantly right through the Bolshevik Revolution, even with Russia
naively, stupidly allied with the British Empire in World War 1.
Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they
intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great
Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire.
Second, our Neocons are the spiritual and intellectual descendants not just of
Trotskyites, but of all Russia-hating Jews with ties to Central and/or Eastern Europe. For
them, Russia always is the evil that must be destroyed for the good of Jews.
Everything at its bedrock is about theology, is about the choice between Christ and
Christendom or the Chaos of anti-Christendom.
The "foreign interventionists" want two things: Russia's mineral riches and its good gene
pool (how do you think Middle Eastern Semites became blonde hair-blue eyed people who can
easily blend into the West to undermine it from within in the first place to begin with?)
And they won't stop until they get what they want, by hook or crook!
divideand conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful,
so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment.
In its most
general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that
members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different
things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal,
but I'm hoping I can say something new.
You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's
radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into
identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting
through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.
When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes
harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.
Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism,
which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and
marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for
a free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies.
As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary
neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that
some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they
then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.
Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies
of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.
Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals
claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better
than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan
for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in
Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has
shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi
government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.
Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy
but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups.
On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand
human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers
largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening
China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal
through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.
They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political
system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump
had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.
If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members,
who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.
Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so
of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with
Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.
So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the
"soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.
The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable
to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups,
such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals,
etc)
That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and
can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal
ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.
This is mainly alt-rght opinions. But as Oscar Wilde noted "Objective opinion is our opinion
about people we do not like"
"What is the essential quality of an Antifa? What is that attribute which, if you took it
away, would result in the person on the street wearing black clothes and a face mask no longer
being a member of the Antifa?" Can connection of ADL and Israel be such an essential quality?
Both far right and far left usually are infiltrated and sometimes even controlled by intelligence
agencies. So it is impossible for antifa to act as bold as they acted without covert blessing
from intelligence agency that control them
You bring up some great questions. No doubt that the violent protesters in cities across
America were planning this and outmaneuvered police who were still using crowd control
tactics and equipment from 20 years ago. Do you think that ANTIFA and BLM were born out of
the "Occupy Movement" from 2011-2012?
Okay, boring, but let's get back to that stuff Intelligent Dasein brought up a month ago.
What is the essential quality of an Antifa? What is that attribute which, if you took
it away, would result in the person on the street wearing black clothes and a face mask no
longer being a member of the Antifa?
A skateboard? A five dollar latte? A sign bearing a seven-word slogan that encapsulates
their entire life's thought process?
I submit that the essential characteristic of an Antifa is that they blame white people
for every ill which besets everyone of every race worldwide.
Why they do this is a different question, but the answer is "Because "white people" is
what they know." It's who's closest to them. It's who frustrates them. (Not plural because
that would mean they dealt with white people individually, i.e. fairly). So they are peoples
whose experience is severely circumscribed. What's the word I'm looking for? Of limited
breadth. Virtual isolates. Unable to compare dispassionately because they lack exposure to
other civilizations. Prone to blow up their frustrations to world-wide proportions. Delusions
of grandeur.
Anyway. If anyone has a better essential characteristic, hammer it out on the keyboard and
share it.
The fake virus was the cover for another huge theft by the elites like the bailout for the
super rich in 08-09. People were starting see the Corona fraud so they had the media change
scenes back to the race card and do the fake Floyd.
The left and the right are both elements of control from the top. The goal of the Zionists
is to demoralize and destabilize western societies using the techniques from the Jewish
Frankfurt School. Most of the riots are instigated by paid activists. It appears that some
police departments are in on it too.
The Elite's aim to instigate enough problems so that people will demand action from the
federal gov. The plan is to remove local control of the police and to nationalize them.
All totalitarian states have a centrally controlled police to do the bidding of the
bosses at the top. The Zionists have many key positions under their control. The
Presidency has been since Woodrow Wilson, and none in the Senate will defy aIPAC and the
other Jew groups and very few in the House will. It is easy for the CIA or other
intelligence Agencies to stage false flag events like fake murders and Los Vegas type
shootings since The Jews control all of the MSM. Everything the gov. does is a lie and a
fraud. From the contrived world wars and the War on Terror to 911 and WMD's it's the same
Zionist criminal syndicate at work.
@ThreeCranesYes, most of them are useful idiots as Lenin called them. Many are paid
actors in the Soros (Swartz Gyorgy) ANTIFA group. All of this is from the top down,
planned and coordinated by the Zionist criminals. They must have conflict, hatred and war to
achieve progress. A society of contented people does nothing for them. Once the
destabilization process has resulted in chaos then the rabble will be swept from the streets.
Order will be restored. Order of the totalitarian state.
@Corporal Punishment They were born out of the establishment of the NAACP in 1907 by Jew
International Banker Jacob Schiff. This began the process of radicalizing the blacks to
become proxy warriors for the Jews. It was supercharged by the so called civil rights mov. of
the 60's to gain more federal control within the unconstitutional 14th Amedment and open the
door to the antisemitism, and hate speech laws along with the anti white culture promoted by
our Zionist politicians and the Jew controlled MSM.
Gasoline was poured on the fire when the negroes were baited with minority set asides,
affirmative action and the general corrosive effects of the welfare state.
Excellent article. Once again, our glorious (((MSM))) is playing a pivotal role in attempting
to deflect attention away from the actual perpetrators of an organized campaign to produce
culture-wide mayhem and destruction. Entrenched media dishonesty in America is breathtaking.
The BLM endgame is extortion, pure and simple. The agitated perps want boatloads of
justice in the form of a massive wealth transfer. Cash and capital is to be shifted from big
corporations as well as the American taxpayer to underperforming POC.
Look for 'affirmative action' (anti-white hiring practices) to ramp-up as well. The
cops and pols are running scared. Disagree with this 'new normal' and you could be doxxed,
'un-hired', or branded a white supremacist.
Meanwhile, left wing activists posing as observers and journalists want us to believe that
all this George-Floyd-inspired violence is actually another vast right-wing conspiracy to
topple Confederate statues, loot Targets, and take over entire sections of US cities. Oh
sure.
The fact that the Lügenpresse are now trying to deflect blame for the riots onto
'right-wing Boogaloo bois' is probably good news. It means that their internal polling shows
what an unmitigated disaster these riots have been for the image of the Democrats. They were
probably all assuming that Trump would play to type, send in the Marines and go medieval on
the BLM and the Antifa, but he didn't. After making a few provocative tweets, he just decided
to sit back and enjoy the show along with the rest of us. And now it's starting to dawn on
Trump's enemies that they have completely destroyed their own cities for nothing!
I'm starting to think that this time not only will Trump win the election, but he'll
probably win the popular vote, too.
The footprints probably lead to the back door of the DNC. There's various billionaires
involved but they're tied in with politicians. There's lots of people out there willing to
hire on as Antifa thanks to the rotten gig economy where millions of young people are trapped
and see very little future for themselves .
You see them all over working service jobs with no future. They tattoo themselves up,
use drugs and are open to radicalization. What's to lose?Money, excitement and a cause are
being offered by the mysterious paymasters.
@Ann Nonny MouseI am laughing at blaming the DNC. They are hapless puppets who can't
go to the bathroom without asking permission from their wealthy donors. The "hate whitey"
propaganda is in Western Europe, Australia, even Japan. That is far out of DNC land. Who owns
and controls the mass media in all "democracies" around the world? It is _not_ the DNC.
Pelosi: One Thing That Would Remain Is Our Support For Israel Clip from the conference of the Israeli-American Council in Hollywood, Fla., Dec. 2, 2018.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, left, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, center, Haim Saban
@Piglet EyesWideOpen
30 subscribers
Clip from the conference of the Israeli-American Council in Hollywood, Fla., Dec. 2, 2018.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, left, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, center, Haim Saban , right.
QUOTE: "if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain would be
our commitment to our aid, I don't even call it our aid, our cooperation with Israel."
– Nancy Pelosi, Israel-American Council Conference
@Nicholas Stix Sheldon Adelson is the 'go to" man for Republicans in need of campaign
cash, and his equivalent on the Democratic side is Haim Saban. You'll find more on Saban
here:
Excerpt:
Democrats are now largely owned by Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban who calls himself
somewhere to the right of the late Ariel Sharon. Saban, a media mogul, recently gave $5-10
million to the Clinton Library and is Hillary's principal backer.
Exceprt:
In America's corrupt political culture, a monster like Sheldon Adelson can buy both a White
House and Congress on behalf of a foreign government for a paltry $150 million or so. It is a
reasonable investment for him given his views, as through him Israel is able to control a
large slice of American foreign policy while also receiving billions of dollars each year
from the US Treasury. And for those who think it would be different if the Democrats were in
charge, think again. The Democrats have their own Adelson. His name is Haim Saban, an
Israeli-American media magnate who has said he is a "one issue guy and my issue is Israel."
He is also the largest individual contributor to the Democratic Party.
Re: the Nuremberg trials , I became fascinated by the writings of Paul R. Pillar who
pointed out that U.S. sanctions are frequently peddled as a peaceful alternative to
war fit the definition of 'crimes against peace' . This is when one country sets up an
environment for war against another country. I'll grant you that this is vague but if this is
applicable at all how is this not an accurate description of what we are doing against Iran
and Venezuela?
In both cases, we are imposing a full trade embargo (not sanctions) on basic civilian
necessities and infrastructures and threatening the use of military force. As for Iran, the
sustained and unfair demonization of Iranians is preparing the U.S. public to accept a
ruthless bombing campaign against them as long overdue. We are already attacking the civilian
population of their allies in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.
How Ironic that the country that boasts that it won WW2 is now guilty of the very crimes
that it condemned publicly in court.
"... It's a commonplace to say the primary job of police is to "protect and serve," but that's not their goal in the way it's commonly understood -- not in the deed, the practice of what they daily do, and not true in the original intention, in why police departments were created in the first place. "Protect and serve" as we understand it is just the cover story. ..."
"... Urban police forces in America were created for one purpose -- to "maintain order" after a waves of immigrants swept into northern U.S. cities, both from abroad and later from the South, immigrants who threatened to disturb that "order." The threat wasn't primarily from crime as we understand it, from violence inflicted by the working poor on the poor or middle class. The threat came from unions, from strikes, and from the suffering, the misery and the anger caused by the rise of rapacious capitalism. ..."
"... What's being protected? The social order that feeds the wealthy at the expense of the working poor. Who's being served? Owners, their property, and the sources of their wealth, the orderly and uninterrupted running of their factories. The goal of police departments, as originally constituted, was to keep the workers in line, in their jobs, and off the streets. ..."
"... In most countries, the police are there solely to protect the Haves from the Have-Nots. In fact, when the average frustrated citizen has trouble, the last people he would consider turning to are the police. ..."
"... Jay Gould, a U.S. robber baron, is supposed to have claimed that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. ..."
"... I spent some time in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho. This area was the hot bed of labor unrest during the 1890's. Federal troops controlled the area 3 separate times,1892, 1894 and 1899. Twice miners hijacked trains loaded them with dynamite and drove them to mining company stamping mills that they then blew up. Dozens of deaths in shoot outs. The entire male population was herded up and placed in concentration camps for weeks. The end result was the assassination of the Governor in 1905. ..."
"... Interestingly this history has been completely expunged. There is a mining museum in the town which doesn't mention a word on these events. Even nationwide there seems to be a complete erasure of what real labor unrest can look like.. ..."
"... Straight-up fact: The police weren't created to preserve and protect. They were created to maintain order, [enforced] over certain subjected classes and races of people, including–for many white people, too–many of our ancestors, too.* ..."
Yves here. Tom mentions in passing the role
of Pinkertons as goons for hire to crush early labor activists. Some employers like Ford went as far as forming private armies for
that purpose. Establishing police forces were a way to socialize this cost.
[In the 1800s] the police increasingly presented themselves as a thin blue line protecting civilization, by which they meant
bourgeois civilization, from the disorder of the working class.
-- Sam Mitrani
here
It's a commonplace to say the primary job of police is to "protect and serve," but that's not their goal in the way it's commonly
understood -- not in the deed, the practice of what they daily do, and not true in the original intention, in why police departments
were created in the first place. "Protect and serve" as we understand it is just the cover story.
To understand the true purpose of police, we have to ask, "What's being protected?" and "Who's being served?"
Urban police forces in America were created for one purpose -- to "maintain order" after a waves of immigrants swept into northern
U.S. cities, both from abroad and later from the South, immigrants who threatened to disturb that "order." The threat wasn't primarily
from crime as we understand it, from violence inflicted by the working poor on the poor or middle class. The threat came from unions,
from strikes, and from the suffering, the misery and the anger caused by the rise of rapacious capitalism.
What's being protected? The social order that feeds the wealthy at the expense of the working poor. Who's being served? Owners,
their property, and the sources of their wealth, the orderly and uninterrupted running of their factories. The goal of police departments,
as originally constituted, was to keep the workers in line, in their jobs, and off the streets.
Looking Behind Us
The following comes from an
essay
published at the blog of the Labor and Working-Class History Association, an academic group for teachers of labor studies, by
Sam Mitrani, Associate Professor of History at the College of DuPage and author of The Rise of the Chicago Police
Department: Class and Conflict, 1850-1894 .
According to Mitrani, "The police were not created to protect and serve the population. They were not created to stop crime, at
least not as most people understand it. And they were certainly not created to promote justice. They were created to protect the
new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid to late nineteenth century from the threat posed by that system's offspring,
the working class."
Keep in mind that there were no police departments anywhere in Europe or the U.S. prior to the 19th century -- in fact, "anywhere
in the world" according to Mitrani. In the U.S., the North had constables, many part-time, and elected sheriffs, while the South
had slave patrols. But nascent capitalism soon created a large working class, and a mass of European immigrants, "yearning to be
free," ended up working in capitalism's northern factories and living in its cities.
"[A]s Northern cities grew and filled with mostly immigrant wage workers who were physically and socially separated from the
ruling class, the wealthy elite who ran the various municipal governments hired hundreds and then thousands of armed men to impose
order on the new working class neighborhoods ." [emphasis added]
America of the early and mid 1800s was still a world without organized police departments. What the
Pinkertons were to strikes , these
"thousands of armed men" were to the unruly working poor in those cities.
Imagine this situation from two angles. First, from the standpoint of the workers, picture the oppression these armed men must
have represented, lawless themselves yet tasked with imposing "order" and violence on the poor and miserable, who were frequently
and understandably both angry and drunk. (Pre-Depression drunkenness, under this interpretation, is not just a social phenomenon,
but a political one as well.)
Second, consider this situation from the standpoint of the wealthy who hired these men. Given the rapid growth of capitalism during
this period, "maintaining order" was a costly undertaking, and likely to become costlier. Pinkertons, for example, were hired at
private expense, as were the "thousands of armed men" Mitrani mentions above.
The solution was to offload this burden onto municipal budgets. Thus, between 1840 and 1880, every major northern city
in America had created a substantial police force, tasked with a single job, the one originally performed by the armed men paid by
the business elites -- to keep the workers in line, to "maintain order" as factory owners and the moneyed class understood it.
"Class conflict roiled late nineteenth century American cities like Chicago, which experienced major strikes and riots in 1867,
1877, 1886, and 1894. In each of these upheavals, the police attacked strikers with extreme violence, even if in 1877 and 1894 the
U.S. Army played a bigger role in ultimately repressing the working class. In the aftermath of these movements, the police increasingly
presented themselves as a thin blue line protecting civilization , by which they meant bourgeois civilization, from the disorder
of the working class. This ideology of order that developed in the late nineteenth century echoes down to today – except that today,
poor black and Latino people are the main threat, rather than immigrant workers."
That "thin blue line protecting civilization" is the same blue line we're witnessing today. Yes, big-city police are culturally
racist as a group; but they're not just racist. They dislike all the "unwashed." A
recent study that reviewed "all the data
available on police shootings for the year 2017, and analyze[d] it based on geography, income, and poverty levels, as well as race"
revealed the following remarkable pattern:
" Police violence is focused overwhelmingly on men lowest on the socio-economic ladder : in rural areas outside the
South, predominately white men; in the Southwest, disproportionately Hispanic men; in mid-size and major cities, disproportionately
black men. Significantly, in the rural South, where the population is racially mixed, white men and black men are killed by police
at nearly identical rates."
As they have always been, the police departments in the U.S. are a violent force for maintaining an order that separates and protects
society's predator class from its victims -- a racist order to be sure, but a class-based order as well.
Looking Ahead
We've seen the violence of the police as visited on society's urban poor (and anyone else, poor or not, who happens to be the
same race and color as the poor too often are), and we've witnessed the violent reactions of police to mass protests challenging
the racism of that violence.
But we've also seen the violence of police during the mainly white-led Occupy movement (one instance
here ; note that while the officer involved
was fired, he was also compensated $38,000 for "suffering he experienced after the incident").
So what could we expect from police if there were, say, a national, angry, multiracial rent strike with demonstrations? Or a student
debt s trike? None of these possibilities are off the table, given the
economic damage -- most of it still unrealized -- caused by the current Covid crisis.
Will police "protect and serve" the protesters, victims of the latest massive
transfer of wealth
to the already massively wealthy? Or will they, with violence, "maintain order" by maintaining elite control of the current predatory
system?
If Mitrani is right, the latter is almost certain.
Possible solutions? One, universal public works system for everyone 18-20. [Avoiding armed service because that will never
happen, nor peace corp.] Not allow the rich to buy then or their children an out. Let the billionaires children work along side
those who never had a single family house or car growing up.
Two, eliminate suburban school districts and simply have one per state, broken down into regional areas. No rich [or white]
flight to avoid poor systems. Children of differing means growing up side by side. Of course the upper class would simply send
their children to private schools, much as the elite do now anyway.
Class and privilege is the real underlying issue and has been since capital began to be concentrated and hoarded as the article
points out. It has to begin with the children if the future is to really change in a meaningful way.
I would add items targeted as what is causing inequality. Some of these might be:
1). Abolish the Federal Reserve. It's current action since 2008 are a huge transfer of wealth from us to the wealthy. No more
Quantitative Easing, no Fed buying of stocks or bonds.
2). Make the only retirement and medical program allowed Congress and the President, Social Security and Medicare. That will
cause it to be improved for all of us.
3). No stock ownership allowed for Congress folk while serving terms. Also, rules against joining those leaving Congress acting
as lobbyists.
4). Something that makes it an iron rule that any law passed by Congress and the President, must equally apply to Congress
and the President. For example, no separate retirement or healthcare access, but have this more broadly applied to all aspects
of legislation and all aspects of life.
I think you'd also have to legalize drugs and any other thing that leads creation of "organized ciminal groups." Take away
the sources that lead to the creation of the well-armed gangs that control illegal activities.
Unfortunately, legalising drugs in itself, whatever the abstract merits, wouldn't solve the problem. Organised crime would
still have a major market selling cut-price, tax-free or imitation drugs, as well, of course, as controlled drugs which are not
allowed to be sold to just anybody now. Organised crime doesn't arise as a result of prohibitions, it expands into new areas thanks
to them, and often these areas involve smuggling and evading customs duties. Tobacco products are legal virtually everywhere,
but there's a massive criminal trade in smuggling them from the Balkans into Italy, where taxes are much higher. Any time you
create a border, in effect, you create crime: there is even alcohol smuggling between Sweden and Norway. Even when activities
are completely legal (such as prostitution in many European countries) organised crime is still largely in control through protection
rackets and the provision of "security."
In effect, you'd need to abolish all borders, all import and customs duties and all health and safety and other controls which
create price differentials between states. And OC is not fussy, it moves from one racket to another, as the Mafia did in the 1930s
with the end of prohibition. To really tackle OC you'd need to legalise, oh, child pornography, human trafficking, sex slavery,
the trade in rare wild animals, the trade in stolen gems and conflict diamonds, internet fraud and cyberattacks, and the illicit
trade in rare metals, to name, as they say, but a few. As Monty Python well observed, the only way to reduce the crime rate (and
hence the need for the police) is to reduce the number of criminal offences. Mind you, if you defund the police you effectively
legalise all these things anyway.
I dunno, ending Prohibition sure cut down on the market for bootleg liquor. It's still out there, but the market is nothing
like what it once was.
Most people, even hardcore alcoholics, aren't going to go through the hassle of buying rotgut of dubious origin just to save
a few dimes, when you can go to the corner liquor store and get a known product, no issues with supply 'cause your dealer's supplier
just got arrested.
For that matter, OC is still definitely out there, but it isn't the force that it was during Prohibition, or when gambling
was illegal.
As an aside, years ago, I knew a guy whose father had worked for Meyer Lansky's outfit, until Prohibition put him and others
out of a job. As a token of his loyal service, the outfit gave him a (legal) liquor store to own and run.
Yes, but in Norway, for example, you'd pay perhaps $30 for a six-pack of beer in a supermarket, whereas you'd pay half that
to somebody selling beers out of the back of a car. In general people make too much of the Prohibition case, which was geographically
and politically very special, and a a stage in history when OC was much less sophisticated. The Mob diversified into gambling
and similar industries (higher profits, fewer risks). These days OC as a whole is much more powerful and dangerous, as well as
sophisticated, than it was then, helped by globalisation and the Internet.
I think ending prohibitions on substances, would take quite a bite out of OC's pocketbook. and having someone move trailers
of ciggarettes of bottles of beer big deal. That isn't really paying for the lifestyle.and it doesn't buy political protection.
An old number I saw @ 2000 . the UN figured(guess) that illegal drugs were @ 600 billion dollars/year industry and most of that
was being laundered though banks. Which to the banking industry is 600 billion in cash going into it's house of mirrors. Taking
something like that out of the equation EVERY YEAR is no small thing. And the lobby from the OC who wants drugs kept illegal,
coupled with the bankers who want the cash inputs equals a community of interest against legalization
and if the local police forces and the interstate/internationals were actually looking to use their smaller budgets and non-bill
of rights infringing tactics, on helping the victim side of crimes then they could have a real mission/ Instead of just abusing
otherwise innocent people who victimize no one.
so if we are looking for "low hanging fruit" . ending the war on drugs is a no brainer.
"What's being protected? The social order that feeds the wealthy at the expense of the working poor. " – Neuberger
In the aftermath of these movements, the police increasingly presented themselves as a thin blue line protecting civilization,
by which they meant bourgeois civilization, from the disorder of the working class. – Mitrani
I think this ties in, if only indirectly, with the way so many peaceful recent protests seemed to turn violent after the police
showed up. It's possible I suppose the police want to create disorder to frighten not only the protestors with immediate harm
but also frighten the bourgeois about the threate of a "dangerous mob". Historically violent protests created a political backlash
that usually benefited political conservatives and the wealthy owners. (The current protests may be different in this regard.
The violence seems to have created a political backlash against conservatives and overzealous police departments' violence. )
My 2 cents.
Sorry, but the title sent my mind back to the days of old -- of old Daley, that is, and his immortal quote from 1968: "Gentlemen,
let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve
disorder."
LOL!!! great quote. Talk about saying it the way it is.
It kind of goes along with, "Police violence is focused overwhelmingly on men lowest on the socio-economic ladder: in rural
areas outside the South, predominately white men; in the Southwest, disproportionately Hispanic men; in mid-size and major cities,
disproportionately black men. Significantly, in the rural South, where the population is racially mixed, white men and black men
are killed by police at nearly identical rates."
I bang my head on the table sometimes because poor white men and poor men of color are so often placed at odds when they increasingly
face (mostly) the same problems. God forbid someone tried to unite them, there might really be some pearl clutching then.
yeah, like Martin Luther King's "poor people's campaign". the thought of including the poor ,of all colors .. just too much
for the status quo to stomach.
The "mechanism" that keeps masses in line . is one of those "invisible hands" too.
Great response! I am sure you have more to add to this. A while back, I was researching the issues you state in your last paragraph.
Was about ten pages into it and had to stop as I was drawn out of state and country. From my research.
While not as overt in the 20th century, the distinction of black slave versus poor white man has kept the class system alive
and well in the US in the development of a discriminatory informal caste system. This distraction of a class level lower than
the poorest of the white has kept them from concentrating on the disproportionate, and growing, distribution of wealth and income
in the US. For the lower class, an allowed luxury, a place in the hierarchy and a sure form of self esteem insurance.
Sennett and Cobb (1972) observed that class distinction sets up a contest between upper and lower class with the lower social
class always losing and promulgating a perception amongst themselves the educated and upper classes are in a position to judge
and draw a conclusion of them being less than equal. The hidden injury is in the regard to the person perceiving himself as a
piece of the woodwork or seen as a function such as "George the Porter." It was not the status or material wealth causing the
harsh feelings; but, the feeling of being treated less than equal, having little status, and the resulting shame. The answer for
many was violence.
James Gilligan wrote "Violence; Reflections on A National Epidemic." He worked as a prison psychiatrist and talked with many
of the inmates of the issues of inequality and feeling less than those around them. His finding are in his book which is not a
long read and adds to the discussion.
A little John Adams for you.
" The poor man's conscience is clear . . . he does not feel guilty and has no reason to . . . yet, he is ashamed. Mankind
takes no notice of him. He rambles unheeded.
In the midst of a crowd; at a church; in the market . . . he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar.
He is not disapproved, censured, or reproached; he is not seen . . . To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable
."
likbez, June 19, 2020 at 3:18 pm
That's a very important observation.
Racism, especially directed toward blacks, along with "identity wedge," is a perfect tool for disarming poor white, and suppressing
their struggle for a better standard of living, which considerably dropped under neoliberalism.
In other words, by providing poor whites with a stratum of the population that has even lower social status, neoliberals manage
to co-opt them to support the policies which economically ate detrimental to their standard of living as well as to suppress the
protest against the redistribution of wealth up and dismantling of the New Deal capitalist social protection network.
This is a pretty sophisticated, pretty evil scheme if you ask me. In a way, "Floydgate" can be viewed as a variation on the same
theme. A very dirty game indeed, when the issue of provision of meaningful jobs for working poor, social equality, and social
protection for low-income workers of any color is replaced with a real but of secondary importance issue of police violence against
blacks.
This is another way to explain "What's the matter with Kansas" effect.
John Anthony La Pietra, June 19, 2020 at 6:20 pm
I like that one! - and I have to admit it's not familiar to me, though I've been a fan since before I got to play him in a
neighboring community theater. Now I'm having some difficulty finding it. Where is it from, may I ask?
run75441, June 20, 2020 at 7:56 am
JAL:
Page 239, "The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States."
Read the book "Violence: Reflections of A National Epidemic" . Not a long read and well documented.
MLK Jr. tried, and look what happened to him once he really got some traction. If the Rev. William Barber's Poor People's Campaign
picks up steam, I'm afraid the same thing will happen to him.
I wish it were only pearl-clutching that the money power would resort to, but that's not the way it works.
Yeah – that quote struck me too, never seen it before. At times when they feel so liberated to 'say the quiet part out loud',
then as now, you know the glove is coming off and the vicious mailed fist is free to roam for victims.
Those times are where you know you need to resist or .well, die in many cases.
That's something that really gets me in public response to many of these things. The normal instinct of the populace to wake
from their somnambulant slumber just long enough to ascribe to buffoonery and idiocy ala Keystone Cops the things so much better
understood as fully consciously and purposefully repressive, reactionary, and indicating a desire to take that next step to crush
fully. To obliterate.
Many responses to this – https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1273809160128389120
– are like, 'the police are dumb', 'out of touch', 'a lot of dumb gomer pyles in that room, yuk yuk yuk'. Or, 'cops/FBI are
so dumb to pursue this antifa thing, its just a boogieman' thinking that somehow once the authorities realize 'antifa' is a boogieman,
their attitudes towards other protesters will somehow be different 'now that they realize the silliness of the claims'.
No, not remotely the case – to a terrifyingly large percentage of those in command, and in rank & file they know exactly where
it came from, exactly how the tactics work, and have every intention of classifying all protesters (peaceful or not) into that
worldview. The peaceful protesters *are* antifa in their eyes, to be dealt with in the fully approved manner of violence and repression.
In most countries, the police are there solely to protect the Haves from the Have-Nots. In fact, when the average frustrated
citizen has trouble, the last people he would consider turning to are the police.
This is why in the Third World, the only job of lower social standing than "policeman" is "police informer".
The anti-rascist identity of the recent protests rests on a much larger base of class warfare waged over the past 40 years
against the entire population led by a determined oligarchy and enforced by their political, media and militarized police retainers.
This same oligarchy, with a despicable zeal and revolting media-orchestrated campaign–co-branding the movement with it's usual
corporate perpetrators– distorts escalating carceral and economic violence solely through a lens of racial conflict and their
time-tested toothless reforms. A few unlucky "peace officers" may have to TOFTT until the furor recedes, can't be helped.
Crowding out debt relief, single payer health, living wages, affordable housing and actual justice reform from the debate that
would benefit African Americans more than any other demographic is the goal.
The handful of Emperors far prefer kabuki theater and random ritual Seppuku than facing the rage of millions of staring down
the barrel of zero income, debt, bankruptcy, evictions and dispossession. The Praetorians will follow the money as always.
I suppose we'll get some boulevards re-named and a paid Juneteenth holiday to compensate for the destruction 100+ years of
labor rights struggle, so there's that..
Homestead, Ludlow, Haymarket, Matewan -- the list is long
Working men and women asking for justice gunned down by the cops. There will always be men ready to murder on command as long
as the orders come from the rich and powerful. We are at a moment in history folks were some of us, today mostly people of color,
are willing to put their lives on the line. It's an ongoing struggle.
So how can a tier of society(the police) . be what a society needs ? When as this story and many others show how and why the
police were formed. To break heads. When they have been "the tool" of the elite forever. When so many of them are such dishonest,
immoral, wanna be fascists. And the main direction of the US is towards a police state and fascists running the show . both
republican and democrat. With technology being the boot on the neck of the people and the police are there to take it to the streets.
Can those elusive "good apples" turn the whole rotten barrel into sweet smelling apple pie? That is a big ask.
Or should the structure be liquidated, sell their army toys. fill the ranks with people who are not pathological liars and
abusers and /or racists; of one sort or another. Get rid of the mentality of overcompensation by uber machismo. and make them
watch the andy griffith show. They ought to learn that they can be respected if they are good people, and that they are not respected
because they seek respect through fear and intimidation.
Is that idiot cry of theirs, .. the whole yelling at you; demanding absolute obedience to arbitrary ,assinine orders, really
working to get them respect or is it just something they get off on?
When the police are shown to be bad, they strike by work slowdown, or letting a little chaos loose themselves. So the people
know they need them So any reform of the police will go through the police not doing their jobs . but then something like better
communities may result. less people being busted and harassed , or pulled over for the sake of a quota . may just show we don't
need so much policing anyway. And then if the new social workers brigade starts intervening in peoples with issues when they are
young and in school maybe fewer will be in the system. Couple that with the police not throwing their family in jail for nothing,
and forcing them to pay fines for breaking stupid laws. The system will have less of a load, and the new , better cops without
attitudes will be able to handle their communities in a way that works for everyone. Making them a net positive, as opposed to
now where they are a net negative.
Also,
The drug war is over. The cops have only done the bidding of the organized criminal elements who make their bread and butter
because of prohibition.
Our representatives can legally smoke pot , and grow it in their windowboxes in the capital dc., but people in many places
are still living in fear of police using possession of some substance,as a pretext to take all their stuff,throw them in jail.
But besides the cops, there are the prosecutors . they earn their salaries by stealing it from poor people through fines for things
that ought to be legal. This is one way to drain money from poor communities, causing people to go steal from others in society
to pay their court costs.
And who is gonna come and bust down your door when you can't pay a fine and choose to pay rent and buy your kids food instead
. the cops. just doing their jobs. Evil is the banality of business as usual
The late Kevin R C O'Brien noted that in every case where the Police had been ordered to "Round up the usual suspects" they
have done so, and delivered them where ordered. It did not matter who the "Usual suspects" were, or to what fate they were
to be delivered. They are the King's men and they do the King's bidding.
To have a reasonable discussion, I think that it should be recognized that modern police are but one leg of a triad. The first
of course is the police who appear to seem themselves as not part of a community but as enforcers in that community. To swipe
an idea from Mao, the police should move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea. Not be a patrolling shark that attacks
who they want at will knowing that there will be no repercussions against them. When you get to the point that you have police
arresting children in school for infractions of school discipline – giving them a police record – you know that things have gotten
out of hand.
The next leg is the courts which of course includes prosecutors. It is my understanding that prosecutors are elected to office
in the US and so have incentives to appear to be tough on crime"" . They seem to operate more like 'Let's Make a Deal' from what
I have read. When they tell some kid that he has a choice of 1,000 years in prison on trumped up charges or pleads guilty to a
smaller offence, you know that that is not justice at work. Judges too operate in their own world and will always take the word
of a policeman as a witness.
And the third leg is the prisons which operate as sweatshops for corporate America. It is in the interest of the police and
the courts to fill up the prisons to overflowing. Anybody remember the Pennsylvania "kids for cash" scandal where kids lives were
being ruined with criminal records that were bogus so that some people could make a profit? And what sort of prison system is
it where a private contractor can build a prison without a contract at all , knowing that the government (California in
this case) will nonetheless fill it up for a good profit.
In short, in sorting out police doctrine and methods like is happening now, it should be recognized that they are actually
only the face of a set of problems.
How did ancient states police? Perhaps Wiki is a starting point of this journey. Per Its entry, Police, in ancient Greece,
policing was done by public owned slaves. In Rome, the army, initially. In China, prefects leading to a level of government
called prefectures .
I spent some time in the Silver Valley of northern Idaho. This area was the
hot bed of labor unrest during
the 1890's. Federal troops controlled the area 3 separate times,1892, 1894 and 1899. Twice miners hijacked trains loaded them
with dynamite and drove them to mining company stamping mills that they then blew up. Dozens of deaths in shoot outs. The entire
male population was herded up and placed in concentration camps for weeks. The end result was the assassination of the Governor
in 1905.
Interestingly this history has been completely expunged. There is a mining museum in the town which doesn't mention a word
on these events. Even nationwide there seems to be a complete erasure of what real labor unrest can look like..
Yeah, labor unrest does get swept under the rug. Howard zinn had examples in his works "the peoples history of the United States"
The pictched battles in upstate new york with the Van Rennselear's in the 1840's breaking up rennselearwyk . the million acre
estate of theirs . it was a rent strike.
People remembering , we have been here before doesn't help the case of the establishment so they try to not let it happen.
We get experts telling us . well, this is all new we need experts to tell you what to think. It is like watching the
footage from the past 100 years on film of blacks marching for their rights and being told.. reform is coming.. the more things
change, the more things stay the same. Decade after decade. Century after century. Time to start figuring this out people. So,
the enemy is us. Now what?
Doubtless the facts presented above are correct, but shouldn't one point out that the 21st century is quite different from
the 19th and therefore analogizing the current situation to what went on before is quite facile? For example it's no longer necessary
for the police to put down strikes because strike actions barely still exist. In our current US the working class has diminished
greatly while the middle class has expanded. We are a much richer country overall with a lot more people–not just those one percenters–concerned
about crime. Whatever one thinks of the police, politically an attempt to go back to the 18th century isn't going to fly.
" the 21st century is quite different from the 19th "
From the Guardian: "How Starbucks, Target, Google and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations"
More than 25 large corporations in the past three years have contributed funding to private police foundations, new report
says.
These foundations receive millions of dollars a year from private and corporate donors, according to the report, and are
able to use the funds to purchase equipment and weapons with little public input. The analysis notes, for example, how the
Los Angeles police department in 2007 used foundation funding to purchase surveillance software from controversial technology
firm Palantir. Buying the technology with private foundation funding rather than its public budget allowed the department to
bypass requirements to hold public meetings and gain approval from the city council.
The Houston police foundation has purchased for the local police department a variety of equipment, including Swat equipment,
sound equipment and dogs for the K-9 unit, according to the report. The Philadelphia police foundation purchased for its police
force long guns, drones and ballistic helmets, and the Atlanta police foundation helped fund a major surveillance network of
over 12,000 cameras.
In addition to weaponry, foundation funding can also go toward specialized training and support programs that complement
the department's policing strategies, according to one police foundation.
"Not a lot of people are aware of this public-private partnership where corporations and wealthy donors are able to siphon
money into police forces with little to no oversight," said Gin Armstrong, a senior research analyst at LittleSis.
Maybe it is just me, but things don't seem to be all that different.
While it is true, this is a new century. Knowing how the present came to be, is entirely necessary to be able to attempt any
move forward.
The likelihood of making the same old mistakes is almost certain, if one doesn't try to use the past as a reference.
And considering the effect of propaganda and revisionism in the formation of peoples opinions, we do need " learning against learning"
to borrow a Jesuit strategy against the reformation, but this time it should embrace reality, rather than sow falsehoods.
But I do agree,
We have never been here before, and now is a great time to reset everything. With all due respect to "getting it right" or at
least "better".
and knowing the false fables of righteousness, is what people need to know, before they go about "burning down the house".
You know it's not as though white people aren't also afraid of the police. Alfred Hitchcock said he was deathly afraid of police
and that paranoia informed many of his movies. Woody Allen has a funny scene in Annie Hall where he is pulled over by a cop and
is comically flustered. White people also get shot and killed by the police as the rightwingers are constantly pointing out.
And thousands of people in the streets tell us that police reform is necessary. But the country is not going to get rid of
them and replace police with social workers so why even talk about it? I'd say the above is interesting .not terribly relevant.
Straight-up fact: The police weren't created to preserve and protect. They were created to maintain order, [enforced] over
certain subjected classes and races of people, including–for many white people, too–many of our ancestors, too.*
And the question that arises from this: Are we willing to the subjects in a police state? Are we willing to continue to let
our Black and brown brothers and sisters be subjected BY such a police state, and to half-wittingly be party TO it?
Or do we want to exercise AGENCY over "our" government(s), and decide–anew–how we go out our vast, vast array of social ills.
Obviously, armed police officers with an average of six months training–almost all from the white underclass–are a pretty f*cking
blunt instrument to bring to bear.
On our own heads. On those who we and history have consigned to second-class citizenship.
Warning: this is a revolutionary situation. We should embrace it.
*Acceding to white supremacy, becoming "white" and often joining that police order, if you were poor, was the road out of such
subjectivity. My grandfather's father, for example, was said to have fled a failed revolution in Bohemia to come here. Look back
through history, you will find plenty of reason to feel solidarity, too. Race alone cannot divide us if we are intent on the lessons
of that history.
"... These mobs of hating, condemning, moralizing, groupthink hypocrites are modern-day Nazis. They don't wear uniforms or have guns, but their weapon of online psychological abuse is proving frighteningly effective. ..."
"... Psychological abuse is one of their classic methods, as they exploit a person's fear of ending up alone against a crowd. Instead of a prison cell or a concentration camp, they put people in social isolation. They can even prevent the victim from being employed – classic state repression of an individual. ..."
"... Without work, the geniuses will fade into obscurity, and the new PC brigade will make them kneel in solidarity. Individually, members of these combat units of political correctness are often smart and sophisticated people, but when they close ranks in the fight for or against something, they turn into an ignorant and aggressive mob. ..."
"... China has been testing a new system in several provinces via which the citizens and their community are encouraged to assess the social behavior of individuals by assigning scores for respecting the rules and values practiced in this society. If you don't achieve a high score, your ranking is low and your prospects are limited. Isn't this just perfect for the new stormtroopers?! It's a modern reincarnation of the Munich gang, when a mediocre, covetous burgher pretends to be a civilized, progressive thinker. ..."
"... They put labels on everyone who disagrees. They love drama and straightforwardness. But they are incapable of engaging in rational argument. It's only natural that they began with declaring lofty values and ended with riots. They have started fires and justified arson. But you can't rein in the freedom to love or hate using a set of rules established by the new ethics committee. Today, being free means being outside this mob of attacking, hating, condemning, moralizing, angry hypocrites. ..."
These mobs of hating, condemning, moralizing, groupthink hypocrites are modern-day Nazis. They don't wear
uniforms or have guns, but their weapon of online psychological abuse is proving frighteningly effective.
Totalitarianism didn't disappear when the Nazis were defeated. It hid, stealthily, only to come back
later. The US and Europe intuitively built a new elaborate type of dictatorship. The state delegated the
functions of surveillance, persecution, isolation and judgment to society. Initially, it looked very
innocent: fighting against intolerance, defending the mistreated and the oppressed. Noble goals.
But
with time, these values turned into idols, while intolerance of evil transformed into intolerance of a
different opinion. And social media is making things worse. Public opinion is now a repressive machine
that gangs up on people, booing and destroying anyone who dares to challenge its value system and moral
compass.
The staff members of this repressive machine do not wear uniforms, they don't carry batons or tasers,
but they have other weapons, such as herd instinct and groupthink, as well as deep insecurities and a
desire to dominate – at least intellectually.
Psychological abuse is one of their classic methods, as they exploit a person's fear of ending up
alone against a crowd. Instead of a prison cell or a concentration camp, they put people in social
isolation. They can even prevent the victim from being employed – classic state repression of an
individual.
In a Nazi state, a creative type such as Lars von Trier could lose his job and life over his
"degenerate art." In the beautiful modern state that people with beautiful faces are building, a Lars von
Trier could lose his job, because he can be a politically incorrect troll who sometimes supports the
wrong value system. And a Robert Lepage won't get funding for his new theatrical production, because all
the parts in the previous one were played by white actors.
You no longer need to take their lives.
Without work, the geniuses will fade into obscurity, and the
new PC brigade will make them kneel in solidarity. Individually, members of these combat units of
political correctness are often smart and sophisticated people, but when they close ranks in the fight
for or against something, they turn into an ignorant and aggressive mob.
And there's no point arguing with them. They have only one criterion: are you with us or not? That's
an ideal tool for the new way of abusing individuals – it's not physical, it's psychological.
China has been testing a new system in several provinces via which the citizens and their community
are encouraged to assess the social behavior of individuals by assigning scores for respecting the rules
and values practiced in this society. If you don't achieve a high score, your ranking is low and your
prospects are limited. Isn't this just perfect for the new stormtroopers?! It's a modern reincarnation of
the Munich gang, when a mediocre, covetous burgher pretends to be a civilized, progressive thinker.
They put labels on everyone who disagrees. They love drama and straightforwardness. But they are
incapable of engaging in rational argument. It's only natural that they began with declaring lofty values
and ended with riots. They have started fires and justified arson. But you can't rein in the freedom to
love or hate using a set of rules established by the new ethics committee. Today, being free means being
outside this mob of attacking, hating, condemning, moralizing, angry hypocrites.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Konstantin Bogomolov is an award-winning Russian theater director, actor, author and
poet.
Not coincidentally, many of those who use the Antifa vexillum are enthusiastic supporters of
and even volunteer mercenaries fighting with the YPG/SDF in an 'International Freedom
Battalion' which claims to be the inheritors of the legacy of the International Brigades which
volunteered to defend the Spanish Republic from fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Unfortunately, these cosplayers forgot that the original International Brigades were set up by
the Communist International, not the Pentagon. Meanwhile, despite their purported
"anti-fascism", there are no such conscripts to be found defending the Donetsk or Luhansk
People's Republics of eastern Ukraine against literal Nazis in the War in Donbass where the
real front line against fascism has been. Instead, they fight alongside a Zionist and imperial
proxy to help establish an ethno-nation state while the U.S. loots Syria's oil.
One can find signs and banners saying 'Antifa is for Israel'. The Antifa leadership is
heavily Jewish, and it is hence no surprise that you find them fighting for causes that
benefit Israel.
I rather suspect the Occupy Wall Street movement quickly grew into a hot potato that the
largely Jewish wall street oligarchs wanted to suppress. Americans were fresh off the great
financial crises and obscene bailouts that allowed the big banks to maintain bonuses while
avoiding any culpability for crashing the economy.
The anger of the street was quickly directed to race and gender issues. Conveniently since
it took the heat off the Jewish oligarchy that runs the USA and placed it squarely on middle
class white Americans. (Jews can magically become 'not white' when they choose). Of course,
the idea that some Deli manager in Duluth has more power than a Jewish B'Nai Brith member and
hedge fund manager in NYC is laughable, but with enough dollars and Jewish control of the
media, it was easy to pump race baiting and to let OWS wither away.
The working hypothesis should be that Antifa is already subverted and externally controlled (often for nefarious purposes)
organization, Not that different in principle from Red brigades.
On May 31 st , President Trump (or his people)
tweeted: "The United
States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization." Attorney General,
William Barr,
said: "The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in
connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly."
Trump and Barr were referring to the Antifascist collective that has supported the ongoing,
international Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations. Mary McCord, an ex-Department of Justice
official, reminds Trump that "no current legal
authority exists for designating domestic organisations as terrorist[s]." At the time of
writing, Trump has taken no action to officially designate Antifa a terror group.
Antifa is a leaderless, direct action platform, making it unusually easy for police,
intelligence groups, and rival organizations to infiltrate and frame for violence. For example,
on the same day that Trump tweeted his wish to see Antifa banned, a livestreamer was forced to
run away after he
incited a New York BLM group to "flip" over a truck before the crowd called him out.
So, let's see how the federal authorities infiltrate, provoke, and subvert.
ANTI-FASCIST ACTION & THE ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE
In Britain, Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) officers "Colin Clark" and "Paul Gray"
(cyphers HN80 and HN126) infiltrated the Socialist Workers' Party and
the Anti-Nazi League between 1977 and 1982. "Geoff" (HN21) raised money for Rock Against Racism
and the Anti-Nazi League in the 1970s, but was an undercover SDS officer. Anthony Lewis ("Bobby
Lewis" HN78) posed as an anti-racist in the 1990s to gather information about Doreen and
Neville Lawrence, whose son, Stephen, was murdered in a racist attack. The Lawrence family
campaigned against the police cover-up of the institutional racism behind their son's death. In
his undercover
role, Lewis had relationships with at least two anti-racist women, Bea and Jenny.
The British group, Anti-Fascist Action, was infiltrated by
the Metropolitan Police's Mark Jenner, who posed as "Mark Cassidy" (HN15). Jenner worked for
the Special Demonstration Squad. Jenner fathered children with a left-wing activist, Alison,
whom he later dumped.
In the US in 2001, it was alleged that the former Roman Catholic priest and anti-fascist,
Bill Wassmuth, was a de facto double-agent, using his Northwest Coalition Against
Malicious Harassment (NWCAMH) as a front to spy on Antifa. Following attacks against Idaho's
Anti-Racist Action (ACA) by a splinter of the racist Aryan Nations, it was alleged that
Wassmuth, who died in 2002, had used his sympathies with ACA as a pretext to gather information
later shared with the police. Disclosure suggests that Wassmuth passed
faxes, flyers, and letters on to Coeur d'Alene's Police Chief, Dave Scates.
It would also appear that Wassmuth worked wittingly or unwittingly with an FBI informant.
Activist and author Jay Taber writes of the broader left-wing groups with which the NWCAMH was
associated: "planted in the midst of the board of this group of social reformers and opponents
of US foreign policy was an FBI informant," whom the authorities could manipulate because of
her status as an immigrant ( Blind Spots , 2003).
THE GLADIO CONNECTION
After WWII, the US and Britain set up "stay behind" networks to fight the Soviets in case of
an invasion of NATO countries. Broadly known as Gladio, the other objective was to use
far-right and fascist groups in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere as a proxy against the pan-European
left. One alleged Gladio operative, Roberto Fiore, was wanted by the Italian authorities for
questioning over the blowing up of the Bologna railway station, Italy, in 1980: an act of
terrorism which killed 80 people and was blamed on the left. But Fiore was an MI6
asset who went on to mentor British racists, including members of the National Front. The
Thatcher government protected
him from extradition.
Fiore alleges that one Carlo Soracchi ("Carlo Neri" HN104), who was working for the Met
Police's Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), tried to provoke two Antifa activists
into firebombing Fiore's London property. Soracchi was later confirmed to be an SDS spy. In
July 2001, he drove Anti-Nazi League activists to a protest in Bradford, which led to the
infamous riots, as the left clashed with the National Front and the British National Party (led
by Fiore's protégé, Nick Griffin). In 2004, Soracchi attended a protest organized
by the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers' union, where it was feared that he was passing on
information about activists to industry black-listers. While spying on the Socialist Party,
Soracchi had relationships with at least three lefty women: Andrea, Beth, and Lindsey.
THE BLACK BLOCK
Since the anti-World Trade Organization "Battle of Seattle" in 1999, gangs of young, masked
vandals have descended on international protests, causing divisions between protestors and
police. These are broadly known as the Black Block, in reference to their dress code. Their
leaderless tactics and choice of attire lump them in with Antifa. But time after time, evidence
exposes their followers as agents provocateur .
In 2007, Heiligendamm, Rostock, Germany, hosted the Group of Eight (G8) meeting. Around
80,000 demonstrators protested that month, only to be met with then-unprecedented
state-violence: "pre-crime" raids, arrests, kettling, and eventual prohibition. After the Black
Block caused trouble, the Federal Constitutional Court banned the demonstrations. Weltreports:
"police have admitted the use of black-clad civilian officers during the summit protests."
Witnesses said that the undercover cop "incited to collect stones from the gravel bed of the
Molli Railway." Another said: "he hurled a stone at the fence and called: 'Get on the cops!'".
Statewatch counted at least five black-clad
provocateurs, some of whom were questioned by peaceful protestors about their agendas and
backgrounds, to which they replied in formal German and refused to answer questions.
Also in 2007, the political leaders of the US, Mexico, and Canada
met in the latter country in Montebello, near Ottawa, to discuss the Security and
Prosperity Partnership 2005. Two thousand people gathered at the chateau to protest. Despite
swearing that they were not provocateurs ("[a]t no time did the police of the
Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit criminal acts"), the Quebec
provincial police
acknowledged that they had planted at least three, black-clad, masked, undercover officers
among the protestors. Their police-issued boots gave them away. One of the coppers was seen
carrying a rock. Videographer, Paul Manly,
caught one of the undercover cops slapping the face of a riot squad officer.
In 2010, Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympic Games. The Olympic Resistance Network was there
to protest. Constable Lindsey Houghton of the Vancouver Police
described : "people dressed in all black who were encouraging the vandalism." Harsha Walia
described what activists believed was a provocateur: "He was pushing forward and forcing people
into the police."
CONCLUSION: ANTIFA TODAY
After Trump "won" the election in 2016, a young Baja Fresh manager, June Davies ("Tan"),
donned black to join Antifa in Lake Oswego, Portland, Oregon. Within weeks, "Tan" was
working with Portland Sgt., Jeff Niiya, telling him about planned protest routes.
Alberta-based teacher, Kurt Phillips, set up a website, Anti-Racist Canada, to track
far-right groups. But the far-right Rebel Media alleged that Phillips was also an
informant spying on the left. Phillips strenuously denies Rebel Media 's claim that he
was a "member" of Antifa, but in an
interview, Phillips does not deny or even raise the issue of being an informant against
Antifa. The term "member" does not apply to the member-less, leader-less Antifa. It would be
helpful if Phillips could clear this up.
Antifa came out in support of the recent and ongoing Black Lives Matter protests.
Referring to FBI Director, Christopher Wray, the National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien,
stated: "The president and the attorney general want to know from [Wray] what the FBI has
been doing to track and dismantle and surveil and prosecute Antifa And if that hasn't been
happening, we want to know what the plan is going forward." In early-June, media
reported on "a law enforcement official with access to intelligence" about Antifa.
Also in early-June in Minneapolis, #UmbrellaMan trended on Twitter after a man dressed in
black, carrying an umbrella and wearing a mask, gloves, and boots, was caught by peaceful
protestors breaking AutoZone windows with a hammer shortly before the establishment was set
ablaze. When asked if he is a policeman, Umbrella Man
replied: "Does it matter?" The St. Paul Police Department denies that he's one of their
officers. But it's not just the feds. More recently, @ANTIFA_US
incited violence on Twitter. The fake account was traced to the white supremacist group,
Identity Evropa, and deleted by Twitter.
As usual, the state is the most violent of all the institutions involved. It subverts and
oppresses as methods of its survival. The state typically directs its energy against left-wing
groups while allying with far-right and fascist elements as proxies against progressives. None
of this can be uttered in mainstream media, lest one is accused of conspiracy theorizing.
Grassroots activists, on the other hand, are all-too-aware of these tactics. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: T.J. Coles
It could also be said that not taking the responsibility to ensure who is voted for is not
a type of person who goal is to instill more authority to the government and size really is
more of the problem than voting.
Not voting also does not change the system for in that case the system quickly becomes
filled by those who are hell bent on ensuring the desires of the few become all powerful.
When any country gets to the point where almost more people are employed by the government
than in private sector jobs then you have a problem.
Example which anyone can find.
Nationally, state and local governments employed about 7.4 million full-time equivalent
(FTE) workers in 2014. That's approximately 232 public employees for every 10,000 Americans,
according to Governing calculations of Census survey data.
The only private company that has a large employee base is Walmart at about 1.3 million.
7.4 million people their only way of survival is either from taxes without being done through
a loan or taxes later collected from government taking out a loan.
The plan all along was not just to create competing sides for a vote but also to create a
mass of people who care not to be involved in how government is to become and ran.
The only level needed to be involved is to ensure government doesn't become to big to
eventually stab you in the back while robbing you.
#TermLimitsMatter That is what the people should be on the street protesting for.
The government has already captured without force a part of the population that is willing
to be monitored 24/7 without resistance because of the "Virus Hype". That is the reason the
"Virus" is still being pushed as a threat. It is to ensure those who have been captured
remain so.
Now it appears they are going for the rest of those who might resist such a thing by
allowing violence to flow freely more so than any freedom you think you have.
Eventually both sides will want the "Government" to do something about all forms of
violence. Why do you think there are two forms of violence that is being focused upon? Police
violence and People violence. It is to get both sides to ask for extra government
monitoring.
I always have to go back to the old saying "Be careful what you ask for". It will not be
what you are thinking it's going to be.
Propaganda will tell you the "Truth" and a "Lie" at the same time. It also ushers in a lot
of opinion not only to ensure that the average person can't tell when there are being told
the truth or a lie but also to keep a division going based upon opinions.
It is a "Blood Ritual" and the sides are fighting to see who gets to stab all natural
freedoms in the heart.
I am not trying to tell you how to think. It is your own life and your own choice but damn
it they are trying to kill every form of your choice to believe what freedom really is.
> Peter Dorman is correct about why Trump is in trouble, but there is still
more. Peter Dorman is correct about why Trump is in trouble, but there is still
more.
Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate
Trump's support base?
That's what make me wondering: is the faction of the elite driving these BLM riots are
those who support Trump?
Terrify people and threaten the existence of police is a good way to get close to 100%
of elderly voters out of their Covid-19 lockdowns on election day.
Doesn't the fact that pallets of bricks and frozen bottles in large cans were
delivered to the places of protests suggests that Antifa and other groups operating
within the protest movement are actually linked to intelligence agencies?
Is not it easier now for Trump to offload all the destruction of the economy and
Coronavirus recession on Neoliberal Dems which are supporting the rioters?
Neocons like the historian Robert Kagan may be
connecting with Hillary Clinton to try to regain influence in foreign policy.
Credit...
Left,
Stephanie Sinclair/VII via Corbis; right, Colin McPherson/Corbis
WASHINGTON -- AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the
neoconservative movement is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama,
not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that
bears responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen
feat: aligning themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to
return to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons --
Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle -- are permanently buried in the
sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The
Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further American
decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction -- one that might allow
them to restore the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning
away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the historian Robert Kagan,
the author of a recent,
roundly praised article
in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only
avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but also co-founded an
influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon
think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism
into the liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on
maintaining the link between modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among
other things, he has frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line
from him straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan
whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for
Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
noted in The New Republic
this year that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a
principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the
intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the
Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf
Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy.
It's easy to imagine Mrs. Clinton's making room for the neocons in her
administration. No one could charge her with being weak on national security with the likes of Robert Kagan
on board.
Of course, the neocons' latest change in tack is not just about intellectual
affinity. Their longtime home, the Republican Party, where presidents and candidates from Reagan to Senator
John McCain of Arizona supported large militaries and aggressive foreign policies, may well nominate for
president Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has been beating an ever louder drum against American
involvement abroad.
In response, Mark Salter, a former chief of staff to Senator McCain and a
neocon fellow traveler, said that in the event of a Paul nomination, "Republican voters seriously concerned
with national security would have no responsible recourse" but to support Mrs. Clinton for the presidency.
Still, Democratic liberal hawks, let alone the left, would have to swallow
hard to accept any neocon conversion. Mrs. Clinton herself is already under fire for her foreign-policy
views -- the journalist Glenn Greenwald, among others, has condemned her as "like a neocon, practically." And
humanitarian interventionists like Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations, who opposed the
second Iraq war, recoil at the militaristic unilateralism of the neocons and their inveterate hostility to
international institutions like the World Court.
But others in Mrs. Clinton's orbit, like Michael A. McFaul, the former
ambassador to Russia and now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a neocon haven at Stanford, are much
more in line with thinkers like Mr. Kagan and Mr. Boot, especially when it comes to issues like promoting
democracy and opposing Iran.
Far from ending, then, the neocon odyssey is about to continue. In 1972,
Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal and a man who championed the early
neocon stalwarts, shrewdly diagnosed the movement as representing "something of a swing group between the
two major parties." Despite the partisan battles of the early 2000s, it is remarkable how very little has
changed.
There is a counter-insurgence operation ongoing to demonize and hijack the original genuine
leaderless protests sparked by the murdering of Floyd in broad day-light by a gang of
policemen.
In this, the US is an expert, having mastered its expertise through the past Cold War
through its Gladio operations.
If you followed the videos linked by the people and independent journalists through social
media, there were lots of young, and not so, white and black people of various ways of life
demonstrating against policial violence and race hatred instigated to unknown heights in
decades by the current occupant of the WH.
After the first peaceful protests, riots started, riots which we witnessed being started
by police plants and infiltrators, and then followed by usual neighborhood gangs who always
fish in chaos.
The counter-insurgence operation started just after first days of protests, as the
authorities saw this was not a passing phenomena, but merely the drop which filled the glass
of US citizenry stamina to cop with Trump´s presidency´s ravage of the
country.
After some days of riots, some figures, impersonating BLM or Black Panthers started
appearing heading the demonstrations which, by their modeling look, suggested all the way an
intent on hijacking the protests for the political benefit of the Democratic Party, that is
the US establishment. The obvious fake support to the protests by Democrat politicians who
have never done anything for equality and to put an end to policial violence, only comes in
benefit of Trump, whose election was in danger after his disastrous management of the
Covid-19 pandemic in the US left his polls acceptance in thel owest marks. The only way to
save Trump´s reelection was to push the people´s rage to the limit,by the public
summary execution of Floyd, to then push chaos and violence, by the riots started by the
police and infiltrators, so that Trump can appear, since the Democrats appear supporting the
protests, as the only one who could bring "law and order" again, the only way he could win
the election after having proved inept for anything else, except applying fascist methods
needed to counter with the awareness by the people which will take place around September on
that they have been robbed of anything thye had left, this time at armed hand.
US "Antifa" movement, is probably to the real international antifascist movement as the
Democratic Party is to the real international left, a fake built by TPTB to deprestigiate,
demonize and disband the left and genuine protests by justified causes.
"Antifa" allied with the YPG kurds supported by the US in the Syrian war against the
legitimate government of Syria.
No antifascist will ally ever with an Imperialist fascist nation like the US is today
anywhere by whatever reason....As a proof, you could find real antifascists fighting along
the Donbass people which was in the way of being exterminated by the fascist junta unleashed
on them by the US through "color revolution" so called Maidan...
With this, I do not want to say there could not be genuine antifascist people who, by
ignorance or naivety join "Antifa" in the US. With this may happen as with the NGOs, of which
many of us have fallen victims out of lack of information and naivety proper of our youth
days.
Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and
non-government actors including terrorist groups, but [unlike in the past] they are only
considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing
honorable about them as their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it
did not do.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has
blamed Antifa -- a militant "anti-fascist" movement -- for the violence that has erupted at
George Floyd protests across the United States. "The violence instigated and carried out by
Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will
be treated accordingly," he said.
Barr also
said that the federal government has evidence that Antifa "hijacked" legitimate protests
around the country to "engage in lawlessness, violent rioting, arson, looting of businesses,
and public property assaults on law enforcement officers and innocent people, and even the
murder of a federal agent." Earlier, U.S. President Donald J. Trump had instructed the U.S.
Justice Department to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Academics and media outlets sympathetic to Antifa have argued that the group cannot be
classified as a terrorist organization because, they
claim , it is a vaguely-defined protest movement that lacks a centralized structure. Mark
Bray, a vocal apologist for Antifa in America and author of the book "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist
Handbook," asserts
that Antifa "is not an overarching organization with a chain of command."
Empirical and anecdotal evidence shows that Antifa is, in fact, highly networked,
well-funded and has a global presence. It has a flat organizational structure with dozens and
possibly hundreds of local groups. Not surprisingly, the U.S. Department of Justice is
currently
investigating individuals linked to Antifa as a step to unmasking the broader
organization.
In the United States, Antifa's ideology, tactics and goals, far from being novel, are
borrowed almost entirely from Antifa groups in Europe, where so-called anti-fascist groups, in
one form or another, have been active, almost without interruption, for a century.
What
is Antifa?
Antifa can be described as a transnational insurgency movement that endeavors, often with
extreme violence, to subvert liberal democracy, with the aim of replacing global capitalism
with communism. Antifa's stated long-term objective, both in America and abroad, is to
establish a communist world order. In the United States, Antifa's immediate aim is to bring
about the demise of the Trump administration.
Antifa's nemeses include law enforcement, which is viewed as enforcing the established
order. A common tactic used by Antifa in the United States and Europe is to employ extreme
violence and destruction of public and private property to goad the police into a reaction,
which then "proves" Antifa's claim that the government is "fascist."
Antifa claims to oppose "fascism," a term it often uses as a broad-brush pejorative to
discredit those who hold opposing political beliefs. The traditional meaning of "fascism" as
defined by Webster's Dictionary is "a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and
emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism."
Antifa holds the Marxist-Leninist definition of fascism which equates it with capitalism.
"The fight against fascism is only won when the capitalist system has been shattered and a
classless society has been achieved," according to the German Antifa group, Antifaschistischer
Aufbau München .
Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency, in a special report on left-wing extremism,
noted
:
"Antifa's fight against right-wing extremists is a smokescreen. The real goal remains the
'bourgeois-democratic state,' which, in the reading of left-wing extremists, accepts and
promotes 'fascism' as a possible form of rule and therefore does not fight it sufficiently.
Ultimately, it is argued, 'fascism' is rooted in the social and political structures of
'capitalism.' Accordingly, left-wing extremists, in their 'antifascist' activities, focus
above all on the elimination of the 'capitalist system.'"
Matthew Knouff, author of An Outsider's Guide to Antifa: Volume II , explained Antifa's ideology
this way:
"The basic philosophy of Antifa focuses on the battle between three basic forces: fascism,
racism and capitalism -- all three of which are interrelated according to Antifa.... with
fascism being considered the final expression or stage of capitalism, capitalism being a
means to oppress, and racism being an oppressive mechanism related to fascism."
In an essay, "What Antifa and the Original Fascists Have In Common," Antony Mueller, a
German professor of economics who currently teaches in Brazil, described how Antifa's
militant anti-capitalism masquerading as anti-fascism reveals its own fascism:
"After the left has pocketed the concept of liberalism and turned the word into the
opposite of its original meaning, the Antifa-movement uses a false terminology to hide its
true agenda. While calling themselves 'antifascist' and declaring fascism the enemy, the
Antifa itself is a foremost fascist movement.
"The members of Antifa are not opponents to fascism but themselves its genuine
representatives. Communism, Socialism and Fascism are united by the common band of
anti-capitalism and anti-liberalism.
"The Antifa movement is a fascist movement. The enemy of this movement is not fascism but
liberty, peace and prosperity."
Antifa's Ideological Origins
The ideological origins of Antifa can be traced back to the Soviet Union roughly a century
ago. In 1921 and 1922, the Communist International (Comintern) developed
the so-called united front tactic to "unify the working masses through agitation and
organization" ... "at the international level and in each individual country" against
"capitalism" and "fascism" -- two terms that often were used interchangeably.
The world's first anti-fascist group, Arditi del Popolo (People's Courageous Militia), was
founded in Italy in June 1921 to resist the rise of Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party,
which itself was
established to prevent the possibility of a Bolshevik revolution on the Italian Peninsula.
Many of the group's 20,000 members, consisting of communists and anarchists, later joined the
International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39).
In Germany, the Communist Party of Germany established the paramilitary group Roter
Frontkämpferbund (Red Front Fighters League) in July 1924. The group was banned due to its
extreme violence. Many of its 130,000 members continued their activities underground or in
local successor organizations such as the Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus (Fighting-Alliance
Against Fascism).
In Slovenia, the militant anti-fascist movement TIGR was established in 1927 to oppose the
Italianization of Slovene ethnic areas after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The
group, which was disbanded in 1941, specialized in assassinating Italian police and military
personnel.
In Spain, the Communist Party established the Milicias Antifascistas Obreras y Campesinas
(Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias), which were active in the 1930s.
The modern Antifa movement derives its name from a group called Antifaschistische Aktion ,
founded in May 1932 by Stalinist leaders of the Communist Party of Germany. The group was
established to fight fascists, a term the party used to describe all of the other
pro-capitalist political parties in Germany. The primary objective of Antifaschistische Aktion
was to abolish capitalism, according to a detailed history of the group. The group, which had
more than 1,500 founding members, went underground after Nazis seized power in 1933.
A German-language pamphlet -- "80 Years of Anti-Fascist Actions" ( 80 Jahre
Antifaschistische Aktion )" -- describes
in minute detail the continuous historical thread of the Antifa movement from its ideological
origins in the 1920s to the present day. The document states
:
"Antifascism has always fundamentally been an anti-capitalist strategy. This is why the
symbol of the Antifaschistische Aktion has never lost its inspirational power....
Anti-fascism is more of a strategy than an ideology."
During the post-war period, Germany's Antifa movement reappeared in various manifestations,
including the radical student protest movement of the 1960s, and the leftist insurgency groups
that were active throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
The Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, was a Marxist urban
guerrilla group that carried out assassinations, bombings and kidnappings aimed at bringing
revolution to West Germany, which the group characterized as a fascist holdover of the Nazi
era. Over the course of three decades, the RAF murdered more than 30 people and injured over
200.
After the collapse of the communist government in East Germany in 1989-90, it was discovered
that the RAF had been given training, shelter, and supplies by the Stasi, the secret police of
the former communist regime.
John Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, described the group's
tactics, which are similar to those used by Antifa today:
"The goal of their terrorist campaign was to trigger an aggressive response from the
government, which group members believed would spark a broader revolutionary movement."
RAF founder Ulrike Meinhof explained the relationship between
violent left-wing extremism and the police: "The guy in uniform is a pig, not a human being.
That means we don't have to talk to him and it is wrong to talk to these people at all. And of
course, you can shoot."
Bettina Röhl, a German journalist and daughter of Meinhof, argues that the modern
Antifa movement is a continuation of the Red Army Faction. The main difference is that, unlike
the RAF, Antifa's members are afraid to reveal their identities. In a June 2020 essay published
by the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Röhl also drew attention
to the fact that Antifa is not only officially tolerated, but is being paid by the German
government to fight the far right:
"The RAF idolized the communist dictatorships in China, North Korea, North Vietnam, in
Cuba, which were transfigured by the New Left as better countries on the right path to the
best communism....
"The flourishing left-wing radicalism in the West, which brutally strikes at the opening
of the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, at every G-20 summit or every year on
May 1 in Berlin, has achieved the highest level of establishment in the state, not least
thanks to the support by quite a few MPs from political parties, journalists and relevant
experts.
"Compared to the RAF, the militant Antifa only lacks prominent faces. Out of cowardice,
its members cover their faces and keep their names secret. Antifa constantly threatens
violence and attacks against politicians and police officers. It promotes senseless damage to
property amounting to vast sums. Nevertheless, MP Renate Künast (Greens) recently
complained in the Bundestag that Antifa groups had not been adequately funded by the state in
recent decades. She was concerned that 'NGOs and Antifa groups do not always have to struggle
to raise money and can only conclude short-term employment contracts from year to year.'
There was applause for this from Alliance 90 / The Greens, from the left and from SPD
deputies.
"One may ask the question of whether Antifa is something like an official RAF, a terrorist
group with money from the state under the guise of 'fighting against the right.'"
Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency explains
Antifa's glorification of violence:
"For left-wing extremists, 'Capitalism' is interpreted as triggering wars, racism,
ecological disasters, social inequality and gentrification. 'Capitalism' is therefore more
than just a mere economic order. In left-wing extremist discourse, it determines the social
and political form as well as the vision of a radical social and political reorganization.
Whether anarchist or communist: Parliamentary democracy as a so-called bourgeois form of rule
should be 'overcome' in any case.
"For this reason, left-wing extremists usually ignore or legitimize human rights
violations in socialist or communist dictatorships or in states that they allegedly see
threatened by the 'West.' To this day, both orthodox communists and autonomous activists
justify, praise and celebrate the left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction or foreign left-wing
terrorists as alleged 'liberation movements' or even 'resistance fighters.'"
Meanwhile, in Britain, Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a militant anti-fascist group founded in
1985, gave birth to the Antifa movement in the United States. In Germany, the Antifaschistische
Aktion-Bundesweite Organisation (AABO) was founded in 1992
to combine the efforts of smaller Antifa groups scattered around the country.
In Sweden, Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA), a militant Antifa group founded in 1993, established
a three-decade track record for using extreme violence against its opponents. In France, the
Antifa group L'Action antifasciste , is known
for its fierce opposition to the State of Israel.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of communism in 1990, the Antifa
movement opened a new front against neoliberal globalization.
Attac, established in France in 1989 to promote a global tax on financial transactions, now
leads the so-called alter-globalization movement, which, like the Global Justice Movement, is
opposed to
capitalism. In 1999, Attac was present in Seattle during violent demonstrations that led to the
failure of WTO negotiations. Attac also participated in anti-capitalist demonstrations against
the G7, the G20, the WTO, and the war in Iraq. Today, the association is active in 40
countries, with more than a thousand local groups and hundreds of organizations supporting the
network. Attac's decentralized and non-hierarchical organizational structure appears to be the
model being used by Antifa.
In February 2016, the International Committee of the Fourth International advanced the political
foundations of the global anti-war movement, which, like Antifa, blames capitalism and
neoliberal globalism for the existence of military conflict:
"The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no
serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital
and the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war."
In July 2017, more than 100,000 anti-globalization and Antifa protesters converged on the
German city of Hamburg to protest the G20 summit. Leftist mobs
laid waste to the city center. An Antifa group called "G20 Welcome to Hell" bragged about how it
was able to mobilize Antifa groups from across the world:
"The summit mobilizations have been precious moments of meeting and co-operation of
left-wing and anti-capitalist groups and networks from all over Europe and world-wide. We
have been sharing experiences and fighting together, attending international meetings, being
attacked by cops supported by the military, re-organizing our forces and fighting back.
Anti-globalization movement has changed, but our networks endure. We are active locally in
our regions, cities, villages and forests. But we are also fighting trans-nationally."
Germany's domestic security service, in an annual report, added :
"Left-wing extremist structures tried to shift the public debate about the violent G20
summit protests in their favor. With the distribution of photos and reports of allegedly
disproportionate police measures during the summit protests, they promoted an image of a
state that denounced legitimate protests and put them down with police violence. Against such
a state, they said, 'militant resistance' is not only legitimate, but also necessary."
Part II of this series will examine the activities of Antifa in Germany and the United
States.
Coram Justice , 34 minutes ago
One can see why Antifa comrades conceal their identities. If in the coming dog days of
summer, the rule: "Nine meals to anarchy," is exceeded, and Civil War-2 breaks out, the
Antifa instigators of violence could be in grave trouble.
Maltheus , 49 minutes ago
Any right-wing group, attempting to do what antifa has done, would have been broken up
long ago. The fact that they've been able to engage in violence, with little to no
accountability, tells me that this is a state-sponsored group.
LightBeamCowboy , 1 hour ago
I had a chance to talk once with a young 82nd Airborne army officer who was fresh back
from a posting in intelligence in Eastern Europe where he had to interface regularly with his
CIA counterparts. He described them thusly: "To a man, they were boneheads."
Iconoclast27 , 59 minutes ago
Operation Gladio would prove otherwise, they use these groups on the left and right for
political purposes, namely to maintain the existing gov't structure.
Operation Gladio - BBC documentary from 1992, they even interview the CIA director at the
time (I believe William Colby? It has been awhile) about their role in these groups
activities.
Drop-Hammer , 1 hour ago
Of course these Antifa rabble are organized and supported by outside benefactors. A young
person with no visible means of support can not travel cross-country or to other countries to
'protest' without money. Same holds true for all terrorism. Money is the life-blood. We know
that in the past, it was countries such as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, et al that
provided money to leftists/terrorists to destabilize western nations and governments. Today,
it is NGO's and individuals with king-pins such as the demonic *** vampire (((George Soros)))
who fund this chaos/mayhem.
LightBeamCowboy , 1 hour ago
...remember that the entire push to take down Trump has been tax-funded. From the FBI and
DOJ, to the Mueller Report, to the Obama White House, to Congress itself, hundreds of
millions of tax dollars have now been spent to obstruct or remove a duly elected president
based on nothing but lies. But when the arrests begin for all the lies, subversion, and
sedition, wait for the Dems to claim that it's all "political", not hard evidence of crimes
these people can be prosecuted for "by the book" as Obama would say.
Iskiab , 1 hour ago
What's most troubling is the widespread democrat acceptance of these tactics. Try and get
a Democrat to say someone's a looter and not a demonstrator, it's next to impossible.
It was also pretty genius to recruit so hard amongst rich white kids. If these autonom
zones or looters were black or poor kids there'd have been a crackdown by now. Instead we
have the police being asked to de-escalate.
It's no wonder police are so confused. They've been trained to control a situation at all
costs for the last 20 years, now it's white kids so they're being told to use different
rules.
Sandmann , 1 hour ago
When the two Brooklyn lawyers get to meet their future in the US penal system it might
create some reality check
Aquamaster , 1 hour ago
Because Democrats are totalitarians as well. They have always had their military wing.
First it was the KKK, who, in fact, killed whites as well as blacks. Now it is Antifa. They
have no problem with radical left wing groups terrorizing the population as long as it will
translate into more votes. They will buy your vote, steal your vote, change your vote, or
coerce your vote by any means necessary.
silverwolf888 , 2 hours ago
It was established in the 80's that Meinhof was Gladio, A creation and asset of German
Intelligence. The goal was to discredit the Ostpolitik movement.
This is an established fact, yet the article attempts to deceive you by ignoring it. The
Red Brigades in Italy were the same, part of Operation Gladio.
Antifa in America has been untouchable since 1986, when Reagan gave the Jews control of
American policy.
Many believe a new kind of Gladio has been in play since that time. Certainly the feds
have worked hand in glove with Antifa for decades.
Now Trump says he wants to designate them a terrorist group. But he only has a few months
left, and cannot get any orders obeyed, and his administration is stocked to the gills with
Globalists.
Perhaps the FBI wants to sever that relationship. It is true that since Comey was fired
the mass shootings that had been happening for decades have stopped. So there is hope.
But this article is deliberate disinformation. Antifa was a Soviet creation to begin
with.
Sandmann , 1 hour ago
Red Brigades were CIA directed to kill Aldo Moro so he would not bring Communists into
Coalition in Rome
Operation Gladio BBC documentary from 1992, all sides are clearly subverted.
TheOutlander , 2 hours ago
Antifa is Zionist *** sponsored fascist organization, period. Their sponsor, Soros, should
be executed first, prosecuted later.
Jacksons Ghost , 2 hours ago
The Feds are not going to do squat. Trump has done nothing to stand up to his enemies in
his whole term. Build Wall=Nope Drain Swamp=Nope indict Hillary=Nope Take on Globalist= Nope
He talked a great game and in the end did nothing. Now granted, he has been hamstrung by
impeachment and his enemies, but at what point does he say "**** it" and lay waste. He has
failed us. I will vote for him again, because the alternative is insane. Still, I am
disappointed.
LightBeamCowboy , 1 hour ago
Even in the above article it talks of these "anti-fascist" groups using the tactic of
goading the police/government into an over-reaction that will turn the public against them.
Trump has wisely left responding to these riots to the local governors and mayors so that
they own the results, not him. There is already evidence that this tactic is turning people
against their Dem elected officials and towards Trump. Q has repeatedly said that sometimes
you have to let people see exactly who these people are before you can win the silent
majority to your side. Antifa and BLM were just handed enough rope to hang themselves -- no
sane American could support them now.
Vernon_Dent , 2 hours ago
There's still slavery in Africa . Now. In the 21st. Century. And it has NOTHING to do with
whitey.
What do all the jive *** BLM hypocrite assholes and cuck boy Antifags have the say about
it?--absolutely nothing.
All those little SJW black and white *** boys should just stick to fellating each
other.
Time to get huge' , 2 hours ago
That's a lot to write when you could have just said CIA/DHS/FBI....It's another ISIS
creation....Originally from:
SoDamnMad , 3 hours ago
Given that our FBI 's main goal is to protect and defend the United States, to uphold and
enforce the criminal laws of the United States but couldn't overthrow the duly elected
President of the United State using their international contacts in the UK, Australia and
Ukraine, how about they find and break antifa before the Republic is destroyed. If the FBI
now finds that supporting Antifa will destroy Trump then they have to ask themselves who in
this broken Republic will pay their salaries and pensions. It will all be gone.
hootowl , 2 hours ago
The FBI is/and probably always has been a broken/unconstitutional national policing
agency, which our founders assiduously avoided providing in the U.S. Constitution, has run
amok ever since the early days of homosexual J. Edgar Hoovers leadership. It will certainly
NEVER become a lawful, trustworthy, agency under Christopher Wray and his cadre of
ne'er'do'wells in the Hoover Building coven of operatives + 17 Deep State
fauxjew/Edomite/Khazarian/Mossad/dominated alleged intelligence agencies.........That is
absolutely preposterous!!!
Antifa exists because elements in government allow it.
recent events should prove that. the mayor of DC all but handed out arms to encourage an
attack on the white house. the mayor of seattle refused to act, and even vowed to protect
protesters if Trump intervenes. in city after city, governments have refused to do more than
observe the violence. search, and there are entire web sites with hundreds of accounts filled
with coordination efforts. there are hundreds of groups and hundreds of millions of dollars
sloshing about.
all of this with a security state that monitors internet chatter, emails, cell calls, and
bank transfers?
antifa, and by extension, the current turmoil, can only be operating with the tacit
approval of certain elements of the establishment.
it is literally impossible for the government to not know what is going on.
Max21c , 3 hours ago
Sorry but Baader-Meinhof does not control the New York City Mayor's office.
This is entirely on a faction of radical screwball left wing Liberal Elites atop and
inside the Democrat Party.
tangent , 4 hours ago
What part of fascism are they supposed to be against? Certainly they enjoy censorship,
randomly beating the **** out of people who have different opinions than they do, and their
headquarters in Seattle shows strong border controls against unwanted classes of people by
warlord Raz who you can only defeat by rap battle.
OTMPut , 4 hours ago
Academics and media outlets sympathetic to Antifa have argued that the group cannot be
classified as a terrorist organization because, they
claim , it is a vaguely-defined protest movement that lacks a centralized
structure.
Ain't Al Qaeda like that? We have developed a a large body of laws and "special judiciary"
procedures to deal with them. We just need to apply them! Who is in favour of a Guantanamo
bay in Portland?
Le Baron , 3 hours ago
Having viewed and studied the Anarchist movement in Europe over several decades, and long
before Antifa showed up as a force in U.S. politics, I have concluded that Antifa is one and
the same as the European Anarchist movement. The Anarchists have a long history in Europe.
Other than chaos and destruction used to promote social unrest, they have no agenda beyond
destruction of whatever government is in power in the areas where they operate. History shows
that, in the few cases where they have successfully grabbed power on a limited basis, the
result is the same as Seattle is now experiencing: creation of a power vacuum into which the
most thuggish and brutal step. The fact that Anarchists/Antifa supporters do not operate in
Communist counties or true Dictatorships is that these power structures do not tolerate
dissent, brutally suppress it and the Anarchist/Antifa supporters know it. To summarize:
unlike true freedom fighters (e.g.: Thomas Payne, Martin Luther King, etc.) Anarchists/Antifa
supporters are cowardly thugs who offer nothing to overall society
nodhannum , 4 hours ago
KKK = democrats with white masks that burn crosses
Antifa = democrats with black masks that burn black businesses
What they both have in common is they are racist and totalitarian. The KKK goes for overt
racism. Antifa goes for the soft sneaky kind of racism of low expectations and the
development of dependency in the group to be subjugated.
Summers Eve , 4 hours ago
Downvoter doesn't like you leaking the truth
Oboneterm , 3 hours ago
How many Black owned businesses around the county were burned to the ground by antifa?
Answer.......All of them.
Commodore 1488 , 3 hours ago
This concept of comparing the Democratic ideology of 1850's to the anarchists/Democrats of
today is FLAGRANTLY false! First off the
Republicans ever since 1865 have empirically controlled America. The Democrats immediately
following 1865 couldn't even hold office. The KKK was a civil defense group when the average
Southerners had no voice after their defeat. The KKK helped to prevent northern extortion
plans, lawlessness, and in general was trying to protect against overreaching aggression in a
post apocalyptic war torn zone.
These anarchists on the otherhand are doing the exact opposite. They are tearing down an
established order with MAYBE a future order in mind. But even if they have a future order in
mind it seems that implementing it against the will of the majority is ok.
Caliphate Connie and the Headbangers , 1 hour ago
The KKK was formed by the southerners who were completely disillusioned by both the
confederates and the Union. Neither one offered anything before or after the war. The wealthy
owned the slaves, 95% of southerners did not own slaves, and after the war now they had even
more competition just to survive. They originally formed the Klan because they wanted to
reimplement the CLAN system, as in the Scottish Clans. Remember the Scots Clans were opposed
to the Union, meaning the United Kingdom and it was only 100 years earlier that the British
destroyed the Clans in Scotland. Most were rounded up and deported to the Americas as slaves
by the Union of the Crowns, The United Kingdom. As kids these Southerners would have heard of
all of it as children from their parents and grandparents. The Clan systems worked for 1000's
of years and provided security and a certain standard of living. We don't have a country
anymore, we just are diverse peoples being controlled and manipulated by
Internationalists.
IvannaHumpalot , 4 hours ago
Dangerous and violent
daily Mail group sent out an email to staff saying they would donate to black lives
matter
Ted Baker , 4 hours ago
another way to sell news..i think they should close the newspaper down or do an
independent enquiry.
Infinite QE , 4 hours ago
E. Michael Jones `The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit'. Can't understand any of this without
that book's wisdom.
Along with many other books the ADL has censored for inordinate truthiness.
Arch_Stanton , 3 hours ago
Jews have served our owners as tax farmers for centuries. "Revolution" is another product
they supply to our owners.
Sparehead , 4 hours ago
"decentralized and non-hierarchical organizational structure appears to be the model being
used by Antifa."
Arch_Stanton , 3 hours ago
BS.
Sparehead , 2 hours ago
I'm not denying that these are well-organized and well-funded largely criminal political
organizations. Just that it's structured in a way to allow its supporters the denial of
support.
Arch_Stanton , 1 hour ago
Yes. They are compartmentalized. Like the Masons, for example.
IvannaHumpalot , 3 hours ago
Thrr Er y have a structure of cells similar to multilevel marketing or Hizb ut tahrir
no official leader or member list For safety
a cell of 5 will have one recruiter / head who reports up to the next cell of five
nobody not in the cell knows the names of that cell and everyone uses fake names
anyway
Just a guess
847328_3527 , 5 hours ago
Anteefer (white kids dressed in black) and BLM burned down a significant portion of the
Bronx in NYC. 83% of the businesses destroyed in the Bronx by these white kids were black
owned.
"Yes we can!"
The black people be played. Keep voting Demorat liberals and that's what you get.
truthalwayswinsout , 6 hours ago
Antifa is the easiest thing in the world to end.
Why?
Because they are spoiled wanna be white brats who live in a dream world created by
activist left of left professors at universities and funded by the Soros crowd.
How do you end them? It can all be done in about 6 months max.
#1 Long term: Create an online university that is very hard and free. All you do is pay
for your exams. From $100 to $400 per exam. Have corporations sponsor special degrees that
are harder than the already difficult base degree. Those corporations would have to hire at
least 200 interns in their 3rd and 4th year of school and for the summer. All students must
work a part time job of at least 10 hours per week. A degree would cost $4000 to $16000 and
no student loans and no debt. Students can live at home or live in dorms for a monthly fee to
experience the social and connection aspect of college. This will bankrupt 95% of the current
private colleges and universities and get 100,000 radical left of left professors without a
job.
#2 Short Term: Cut the amount of funding for college loans by 50%. Almost overnight 1/2
the radical faculty at every school will be fired and 70% of the administrators will be gone
as well.
#3 Put the leaders in jail. The leaders are Hillary and the Half-Breed Muslim ****** along
with Soros and all the rest of the funders. Trump's worst mistake was in not putting Hillary
in jail from the very start of his presidency. As a result, she threw the first brick and now
you have 100's coming at us. Put her in jail where she belongs along with the coup
conspirators and the ****** and freeze all of Soros' money and watch how fast it all
ends.
#4 Take the most vocal of all the Antifa local groups and infiltrate and arrest them and
put them in jail for 30-40-50 years making sure they go to isolated prisons and are locked
down 23 hours per day. 10 or so in jail should do the trick.
What is important is the order you do things. To set the right tone announce the school
first so you can tell all the Woke that school will now be free. Then a month or two later
right before the start of the next school year cut the loan amounts, and then target the
people.
Oh and target just one violent Antifa demonstration and make sure you surround them with
1000's of law enforcement and arrest them all and kill any who violently resist. Then charge
them all with terrorism and try them all with no plea deals and make them and their parents
pay money to defend them. The sucker deal is whoever helps fund their legal defense is now on
the radar for elimination.
Let them go on go fund me and then seize the money raised.
The Atlantic and NYT just announced that Antifa is a grass-roots organization, and
(literally) that anyone who opposes their agenda is by definition a "white supremacist".
So that pretty much clears up the funding source.
Fireman , 7 hours ago
Aunty *** fascists are thugs and murderers. So if Agent Orange is serious about fighting
terrorism in Slumville (he isn't) then why doesn't he outlaw and arrest the filth on the
street and the Soros slash Rothschild filth financing these controlled whore punks?
The answer should be obvious to all who know who financed Orange's white House
sojourn.
Like BLM (Bowel Movements Matter) and the rest of the unwashed masses running riot across
Slumville....it's all part of the Hegelian con to take US all down to the next level of
outright tyranny. But try explaining that to the black shirted mobs and useful braindead
white assed idiots prostrating themselves on the streets in front of skateboard losers and
meth addled clowns.
As Shlomo Gatestein proves over and over again......If it's good for the juice...it's good
enough for everyone else by default.
We are looking at South Africa 2.0 and if the white community does not stop this, the
white community is going to be toast. Going after the attackers is not going to be
productive. Instead, we have to go after the manipulators.
We know where they are
They are over at Channel 3, or wherever your local news and radio stations are. They are on
CNN, and running Twitter, Facebook, Google and all the rest -
They are your city council, raping you for exorbitant taxes, working in secure areas,
leaving secure parking garages and then going home to gated communities.
IvannaHumpalot , 3 hours ago
Daily mail newspaper group is now funding BLM
hugin-o-munin , 8 hours ago
I want to apologize for calling you an idiot, that was uncalled for.
The reason I get upset is because I see the agenda being played out here. There was
recently a report about someone within the Seattle CHAZ area that wielded a machete and that
follows the script perfectly. If the government (in this case Trump) doesn't take the bait
they will switch tactic and start using operatives/patsies like this to force some kind of
resolution. The Soros clan use these types of tactics all the time, it's what they've done
for decades. I just want people to be awake to see it for what it is.
Southerly Buster , 8 hours ago
Gatestone Institute = didn't bother reading.
My theory from the froth and bubble generated by ANTIFA chatter is that they are obvious a
boogeyman for the right or fifth column organisation for the left. Either way they are an
irrelevance.
Keep your eye on those that have the real power.
supermaxedout , 9 hours ago
The article is complete ******** except for the fact that the modern Antifa was created in
Germany appx 20 or 25 years ago. But one can be assured that such a movement would have never
gathered any importance if it would have not been backed up by the Secret Services of the US
and the UK.
You can not let even a political fart go unnoticed by the powers still occupying Germany.
They controll Germany. That is a fact. So the logical conclusion is the US and the UK are
behind Antifa otherwise it would have been eradicated already longtime ago.
The actual conclusion regarding the US is that we see already the start of a Civil War in
the US. Antifa backers in the administration against Trump backers. Its that simple.
hugin-o-munin , 8 hours ago
Antifa is part of a spectrum of movements directly sponsored and funded through NATO and
it's Gladio network. This has always been the case and this article is full of propaganda
bullsh!t. It is well known that the Baader-Meinhof terrorists were directly led and funded by
western intelligence groups. Some people, especially clueless Americans may wonder why and it
is quite straight forward. Europe has since the end of ww2 developed a strong
social-democratic form of political movements which the US is quite afraid of.
Just look at my country Sweden which during the early 60's started very large scale plans
to allow organized labor unions, state funded programs to provide housing, education and
healthcare to everyone. A very socialist sounding program that relied on private capitalist
industries to work. The model proved successful and even profitable overall and this is what
US and UK powers absolutely did not want to see. Germany, France, Italy and many other
countries had similar trends and this is what sparked the Gladio operations to perpetrate
terror inside these countries and provide a reason for the governments to clamp down on these
'communists'.
A big part of the overarching agenda here is to keep in place the separation between
Europe and Russia. Russia today has many faults but it is hardly a communist dictatorship
like China and this is a problem for the mind controllers. It's all about economic power in
the end and all these politically flavored games are all meant to keep people fighting with
themselves. The US very often goes full throttle into things without even thinking and that's
the case right now with the American Antifa movement. They are exposing themselves for the
simple tools they are and I suspect they will get absolutely decimated soon.
webmatex , 8 hours ago
Merkel allows/uses them as push against the new right in Germany which is what her and her
party are afraid of.
They both share Stasi roots.
hugin-o-munin , 8 hours ago
I agree with your point on Merkel but I disagree with the notion that this is/was a Stasi
operation, it was orchestrated and funded by western intelligence. Merkel is now way behind
the curve and what may have worked in the past no longer does. What Antifa is doing in
Germany is actually bolstering AfD who are gaining ground in many Länder. The problem is
that the CDU/CSU are becoming stale and lack ideas. They still have a large portion of the
older generations but younger generations view them as rudderless and clueless. It is the
same in many European countries right now.
hootowl , 5 hours ago
Just another manipulative academic/Deep State/fauxjew dual state/Mossad/ israhell-American
Deep State/intelligence horror for the American people to have to deal with.
Egao , 9 hours ago
Current ANTIFA has nothing to do with pre-WW2 anti-Fascists. Those people were fighting
Fascism and Nazism risking their lives, and not all of them were Communists or even Left. And
history has proven that they were right.
As we move towards next economical and political crisis there will be drift towards
Fascism but modern ANTIFA are just bunch of fight clubs for people looking for thrill.
donkey_shot , 9 hours ago
much as we all should deeply abhor antifa, the gatestone institute is probably even worse:
this is like modern-day nazis criticising modern-day nazis for being modern-day nazis: the
gatestone institute is a far-right, neo-con "think tank" aka propaganda outlet and a known
zionist mouthpiece that has included the likes of john bolton (an architect of the iraq war
and as such a mass murderer) amongst its directors. please, boycott the gatestone institute!
please, don`t print their tripe on zerohedge.
One should point out Capitalists are the ones who came up with Communism and Fascism in
the first place.
All the systems are tools of the elite.
B52Minot , 9 hours ago
In the LEAST it is a GLOBAL TERROR NETWORK no different than ISIS...and any other terror
group that needs not just outlawing but a full disclosure of all of its donors and inner
workings....How about it DOJ/FBI and CIA...and the CONGRESS....Why are you Congress spending
your time on the items related to the Durham Prob when we the people want to know this group
and its relationship to BLM....How about NOW Congress??? Get off your asses and START your
investigation NOW.....and until we see who is/is not being indicted then we can always go
back to the 3+ yr ago issues with the Coup.
Meatballs , 9 hours ago
The stench is pretty thick around Gatestone.
Nina
Rosenwald , President
Naomi H. Perlman, Vice President
Just sayin'
*But wait! There's more! Nina- " She is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations".Prolly AIPAC too. GTFO with this ****.
Lazy, Tylers. WTF?
webmatex , 8 hours ago
I read these articles purely to keep an eye on neo-con policy making.
Their policies are much more dangerous than Antifa can smoke up.
These articles serve a purpose.
Most of us see thru their stale propaganda.
debunker1 , 10 hours ago
That's funny, a bunch of young unemployed loser/vandal/cowards that live in their parents
basement have become the latest "terrorist organization".
ANTIFA is what you get with massive youth unemployment. Keep letting corporations employ
cheap compliant third world labor, keep pushing young people out of work and ANTIFA is what
you get.
captain-nemo , 11 hours ago
We know they are labeled a terrorist organisation, yet nobody is arrested for it.
We know they uses campuses in schools to recruit people. Yet nothing is done to prevent
and put a stop to it.
we know that they are funded nationally by hundreds of big businesses and also large
political organizations to the left (Democrats), clinton foundation etc. and also
international groups , like Soros and others. Yet nothing is done to stop it (even when they
openly know they are funding a terrorist organization)
we know they have support among mayors, police, governors, senators, congress members of
all parties. Yet nobody is arrested or prosecuted for it.
There are 18 intelligence agencies in America , and they all seems to do nothing. We also
have BARR who is only talking and doing nothing. He recently sais this:
"The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection
with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,
Still, nothing is happening. Isn't silence the same as compliance??????
notppcperson , 11 hours ago
They want this whole thing to go out of control. They setup the beer virus **** to start
things off. Didn't go as plan. So BLM/Antifa ********.
It's set up either Orange Monkey to declare martial law or someone else to declare marital
law.
WorkingClassMan , 10 hours ago
Hopefully investigations are ongoing behind the scenes. I used to have some measure of
faith in the FBI and DoJ to act least act against low-level groups (if not their child raping
buddies), but even that seems beyond them now.
quanttech , 10 hours ago
faith in the FBI and DoJ??????? loolololololololololololoololoolololo .... Antifa is
likely run by the ******* FBI ffs.
Even J. Edgar's corpse got a laugh out of that one.
WorkingClassMan , 10 hours ago
Hey, I was naive once. I believed in Santa Claus too.
Victor999 , 9 hours ago
They could stop this if they wanted to. So it is much more than 'compliance', it is
complicity: it is control - to create chaos from which their New World Order will arise.
desertboy , 7 hours ago
"There are 18 intelligence agencies in America , and they all seems to do nothing."
Are you f'ing kidding me?
Who TF did you think was passing talking points to the MSM and Hollywood since before the
Church commission?
quanttech , 11 hours ago
...After 1968, the government determined that ONE OUT OF SIX rioters in Chicago 1968 was a
cop or a fed. Who the **** do you think "Antifa" is??? Suckers.
captain-nemo , 10 hours ago
How many people are working in the NSA? Doesn't the NSA have access to pretty much
everything there is that exist electronically? If i were given the job, It would take me a
few days to roll up the entire network and a week to destroy them.
quanttech , 10 hours ago
Exactly.
And yet it doesn't happen.
So who's Antifa again?
Joe A , 11 hours ago
If they are against capitalism, why don't they go after Wall Street, banks, big
corporations, etc. but instead go after small businesses downtown? Small businesses are
easier targets I guess and crimes against them more likely to go unpunished. I guess they
learned from the RAF in Germany: if you go after big businesses and important business people
then you get the full weight of the state on you, as happened with the RAF. But with their
actions of targeting small businesses they only alienate the average citizen.
By no means I want to say they should go after Wall Street, big corporations and business
people. But by destroying Main Street they show what they have in store for everybody should
they ever get into power (God forbid).
Real capitalism btw. is about small businesses, not the rogue capitalism of Wall Street
and big corporations.
G. Wally , 11 hours ago
Hmmmmm...so Germany's political parties seemingly aligned with the US Democratic party
fund Antifa?
"Bettina Röhl, a German journalist and daughter of Meinhof, argues that the modern
Antifa movement is a continuation of the Red Army Faction. The main difference is that,
unlike the RAF, Antifa's members are afraid to reveal their identities. In a June 2020 essay
published by the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Röhl also drew
attention to the fact that Antifa is not only officially tolerated, but is being paid by
the German government to fight the far right :
"The RAF idolized the communist dictatorships in China, North Korea, North Vietnam, in
Cuba, which were transfigured by the New Left as better countries on the right path to the
best communism....
"The flourishing left-wing radicalism in the West, which brutally strikes at the opening
of the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, at every G-20 summit or every year on
May 1 in Berlin, has achieved the highest level of establishment in the state, not least
thanks to the support by quite a few MPs from political parties, journalists and relevant
experts.
"Compared to the RAF, the militant Antifa only lacks prominent faces. Out of cowardice,
its members cover their faces and keep their names secret. Antifa constantly threatens
violence and attacks against politicians and police officers. It promotes senseless damage to
property amounting to vast sums. Nevertheless, MP Renate Künast (Greens) recently
complained in the Bundestag that Antifa groups had not been adequately funded by the state in
recent decades. She was concerned that 'NGOs and Antifa groups do not always have to struggle
to raise money and can only conclude short-term employment contracts from year to year.'
There was applause for this from Alliance 90 / The Greens, from the left and from SPD
deputies.
"One may ask the question of whether Antifa is something like an official RAF, a terrorist
group with money from the state under the guise of 'fighting against the right.'"
Isn't curious, then, that with all the videotaped violence... who does the FBI (the org
that tried to frame the sitting president and his staff) arrest? Let's LOOK:
The FBI arrested three suspected white supremacists on firearms charges on Tuesday, the
Justice Department announced Thursday. Brian Lemley, Jr., and William Garfield Bilbrough IV,
alleged to be ...
Three men connected to a white supremacist organization are facing federal charges related
to plans ... June 4, 2020 @ 8:21 pm. ... FBI arrests 3 connected to white supremacist group
who were ..."
So these "White Supremacists " had plans " to commit violence...anyone here think the FBI
weren't tracking them, infiltrating them...yet "for some reason" the FBI "could not find"
anyone actually COMMITTING VIOLENCE during this looting and pillaging???
Defund and eliminate the FBI.
How many US MSM journalists called for assassinating the sitting president? How many got
arrested?
Now, we learn donating to BLM means it is transferred to the DNC to elect Democrats! The DNC
was party to TREASON, with the FBI, CIA and NSA as willing accomplices...and what is Barr
doing about it?
Heck US aircraft carriers used to visit HK quite often until recently, even after the hand
over. They anchored in the harbor while thousands of sailors headed to the Wanchai bars,
although after the hand over they anchored in a less visible part of the harbor. China didn't
have a problem.
I doubt China sweats a couple of aircraft carriers when we have large bases in Japan and
South Korea, not to mention Guam.
False conflicts with China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are needed to keep support for
MIC and Security State which cost 1.2 trillion a year.
If the US were serious about confronting China there would be sanctions and not tariffs.
China and US are partners. We sell them chips that they put in our electronics and sell to
us, so we can spy on our people, and they test out our social control technology on their own
people. They clothe us, sell cheap API's for drugs and they invest in treasuries and other US
assets and we educate their young talent and give them access to our research and technology
and fund some of their own research and share numerous patents
"... As author Jim Keith explains, "Create violence through economic pressures, the media, mind control, agent provocateurs: thesis. Counter it with totalitarian measures, more mind control, police crackdowns, surveillance, drugging of the population: antithesis. What ensues is Orwell's vision of 1984 , a society of total control: synthesis." ..."
"... This isn't about racism in America. ..."
"... This is about profit-driven militarism packaged in the guise of law and order, waged by greedy profiteers who have transformed the American homeland into a battlefield with militarized police, military weapons and tactics better suited to a war zone. This is systemic corruption predicated on the police state's insatiable appetite for money, power and control. ..."
The Deep State, the powers-that-be, want us to turn this into a race war, but this is about
so much more than systemic racism. This is the oldest con game in the books, the magician's
sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is
being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
It was February 1933, a month before national elections in Germany, and the Nazis weren't
expected to win. So they engineered a way to win: they began by infiltrating the police and
granting police powers to their allies; then Hitler brought in stormtroopers to act as
auxiliary police; by the time an arsonist (who claimed to be working for the Communists in the
hopes of starting an armed revolt) set fire to the Reichstag, the German parliamentary
building, the people were eager for a return to law and order.
Fast forward to the present day, and what do we have? The nation in turmoil after months of
pandemic fear-mongering and regional lockdowns, a national election looming, a president with
falling poll numbers, and a police state that wants to stay in power at all costs.
Then again, it's also equally possible that the architects of the police state have every
intention of manipulating this outrage for their own purposes.
It works the same in every age.
As author Jim Keith explains, "Create violence through economic pressures, the media, mind
control, agent provocateurs: thesis. Counter it with totalitarian measures, more mind control,
police crackdowns, surveillance, drugging of the population: antithesis. What ensues is
Orwell's vision of 1984 , a society of total control: synthesis."
Here's what is going to happen: the police state is going to stand down and allow these
protests, riots and looting to devolve into a situation where enough of the voting populace is
so desperate for a return to law and order that they will gladly relinquish some of their
freedoms to achieve it. And that's how the police state will win, no matter which candidate
gets elected to the White House.
You know who will lose? Every last one of us.
Listen, people should be outraged over what happened to George Floyd, but let's get one
thing straight: Floyd didn't die
merely because he was black and the cop who killed him is white. Floyd died because America
is being overrun with warrior cops -- vigilantes with a badge -- who are part of a
government-run standing army that is waging war on the American people in the so-called name of
law and order.
Not all cops are warrior cops, trained to
act as judge, jury and executioner in their interactions with the populace. Unfortunately,
the good cops -- the ones who take seriously their oath of office to serve and protect their
fellow citizens, uphold the Constitution, and maintain the peace -- are increasingly being
outnumbered by those who believe the lives -- and rights -- of police should be valued more
than citizens.
These warrior cops may get paid by the citizenry, but they don't work for us and they
certainly aren't operating within the limits of the U.S. Constitution.
This isn't about racism in America.
This is about profit-driven militarism packaged in the guise of law and order, waged by
greedy profiteers who have transformed the American homeland into a battlefield with
militarized police, military weapons and tactics better suited to a war zone. This is systemic
corruption predicated on the police state's insatiable appetite for money, power and
control.
This is a military coup waiting to happen.
Why do we have more than a million cops on the taxpayer-funded payroll in this country whose
jobs do not entail protecting our safety, maintaining the peace in our communities, and
upholding our liberties?
This is the new face of war, and America has become the new battlefield.
Militarized police officers, the end product of the government -- federal, local and state
-- and law enforcement agencies having merged, have become a "standing" or permanent army,
composed of full-time professional soldiers who do not disband.
Yet these permanent armies are exactly what those who drafted the U.S. Constitution and Bill
of Rights feared as tools used by despotic governments to wage war against its citizens.
American police forces were never supposed to be a branch of the military, nor were they
meant to be private security forces for the reigning political faction. Instead, they were
intended to be an aggregation of countless local police units, composed of citizens like you
and me that exist for a sole purpose: to serve and protect the citizens of each and every
American community.
As a result of the increasing militarization of the police in recent years, however, the
police now not only look like the military -- with their foreboding uniforms and phalanx of
lethal weapons -- but they function like them, as well.
Thus, no more do we have a civilian force of peace officers entrusted with serving and
protecting the American people. Instead, today's militarized law enforcement officials have
shifted their allegiance from the citizenry to the state, acting preemptively to ward off any
possible challenges to the government's power,
unrestrained by the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment .
For years now, we've been told that cops need military weapons to wage the government's wars
on drugs, crime and terror. We've been told that cops need to be able to crash through doors,
search vehicles, carry out roadside strip searches, shoot anyone they perceive to be a threat,
and generally disregard the law whenever it suits them because they're doing it to protect
their fellow Americans from danger. We've been told that cops need extra legal protections
because of the risks they take.
Militarized police armed with weapons of war who are allowed to operate above the law and
break the laws with impunity are definitely not making America any safer or freer.
Militarism within the nation's police forces is proving to be deadlier than any
pandemic.
This battlefield mindset has gone hand in hand with the rise of militarized SWAT ("special
weapons and tactics") teams.
Frequently justified as vital tools necessary to combat terrorism and deal with rare but
extremely dangerous criminal situations, such as those involving hostages, SWAT teams have
become intrinsic parts of local law enforcement operations, thanks in large part to substantial
federal assistance and the Pentagon's military surplus recycling program, which allows the
transfer of military equipment, weapons and training to local police for free or at sharp
discounts while increasing the profits of its corporate allies.
Where this becomes a problem of life and death for Americans is when these SWAT teams --
outfitted, armed and trained in military tactics -- are assigned to carry out relatively
routine police tasks, such as serving a search warrant. Nationwide, SWAT teams have been
employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community
nuisances: angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and
misdemeanor marijuana possession, to give a brief sampling.
Remember, SWAT teams originated as specialized units dedicated to defusing extremely
sensitive, dangerous situations. They were never meant to be used for routine police work such
as serving a warrant. Unfortunately, the mere presence of SWAT units has actually injected a
level of danger and violence into police-citizen interactions that was not present as long as
these interactions were handled by traditional civilian officers.
Yet the tension inherent in most civilian-police encounter these days can't be blamed
exclusively on law enforcement's growing reliance on SWAT teams and donated military
equipment.
It goes far deeper, to a transformation in the way police view themselves and their line of
duty.
Specifically, what we're dealing with today is a skewed shoot-to-kill mindset in which
police, trained
to view themselves as warriors or soldiers in a war , whether against drugs, or terror, or
crime, must "get" the bad guys -- i.e., anyone who is a potential target -- before the bad guys
get them. The result is a spike in the number of incidents in which police shoot first, and ask
questions later.
Making matters worse, when these officers, who have long since ceased to be peace officers,
violate their oaths by bullying, beating, tasering, shooting and killing their employers -- the
taxpayers to whom they owe their allegiance -- they are rarely given more than a slap on the
hands before resuming their patrols.
This lawlessness on the part of law enforcement, an unmistakable characteristic of a police
state, is made possible in large part by police unions which routinely oppose civilian review
boards and resist the placement of names and badge numbers on officer uniforms; police agencies
that abide by the Blue Code of Silence, the quiet understanding among police that they should
not implicate their colleagues for their crimes and misconduct; prosecutors who treat police
offenses with greater leniency than civilian offenses; courts that sanction police wrongdoing
in the name of security; and legislatures that enhance the power, reach and arsenal of the
police, and a citizenry that fails to hold its government accountable to the rule of law.
Indeed, not only are cops protected from most charges of wrongdoing -- whether it's shooting
unarmed citizens (including children and old people),
raping and abusing young women, falsifying police reports , trafficking drugs, or
soliciting sex with minors -- but even on the rare occasions when they are fired for
misconduct, it's only a matter of time before they
get re-hired again .
Incredibly, while our own Bill of Rights are torn to shreds, leaving us with few protections
against government abuses, a growing number of states are adopting Law
Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBoR), which provide cops accused of a crime with
special due process rights and privileges not afforded to the average citizen.
This, right here, epitomizes everything that is wrong with America today.
As I explain in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , we need civic engagement and citizen activism,
especially at the local level. However, if it ends at the ballot box without achieving any real
reform that holds government officials at all levels accountable to playing by the rules of the
Constitution, then shame on us.
Agree with your post but hope to deepen it -- this "geostrategy" goes way back before
Brzezinski wrote about it in his The Grand Chessboard, or for that matter before Nixon's The
Real War as well. Both followed in the footsteps of the US Admiral Alfred Mahan and the
British strategist Halford Mackinder who laid the basis for this imperialist strategic vision
of world domination over a century ago.
Mahan, author of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, in the late 1800s developed the
worldview of seeing history as a series of confrontations between a Sea Power and a Land
Power (Athens-Sparta, Rome-Carthage, Britain vs. a series of European Land Powers, etc.),
paving the way for US "manifest destiny" to transcend North America to become truly global
imperialism. One of Mahan's most famous concepts is that either the Land Power or Sea Power
could win at any time, but that time was on the side of the Land Power since with more people
and resources it could eventually just build a bigger navy than the Sea Power could match --
therefore the Sea Power had to go on an especially aggressive offensive early on to prevent
this.
Mackinder in his 1904 presentation of
The Geographical Pivot of History first developed the concept of the "world island" or
"world continent" with its concentric "crescents". His most famous quote: "Who rules East
Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules
the World Island commands the World."
With the beginning of the "special relationship" between the US and UK after WW1 it was
the easiest of mergers for these two imperialist strategic visions to join together. They've
had various interpretations and refinements ever since, but Mahan and Mackinder are the
originators of this "geostrategy" that predates the Cold War, WW2 and even WW1. That it
predates the Russian and Chinese Revolutions indicates that it exists irrespective of
ideology (thus the US's continued hostility to a non-subservient capitalist Russia), though
anti-communism lends it an especially fevered tone, especially focused on China now.
At its outset this geostrategy was oriented toward European empires attempting to conquer
the "heartland" or "pivot" to obtain the sheer imperial mass that would be needed for world
conquest. But the Russian Revolution allowed the "heartland" to stand up as a Land Power in
its own right, rapidly industrializing. Toward the end of his life Mackinder attempted to
update his work, observing that if ever Eurasia were economically developed and spanned by
rail and telecommunications lines from East Europe to the Pacific, this would result in a
Land Power so vast -- with the majority of the world's people and resources -- that no Sea
Power could conquer or even blockade it.
Sound familiar? For a number of reasons beyond our scope here the USSR fell and broke
apart, but not before China could pick up that torch, rapidly industrialize itself and now
bring forth the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia joining China in a strategic relationship
that is for all intents and purposes an alliance (that the US brought on itself -- both
Beijing and Moscow have read Mahan and Mackinder very thoroughly) is effectively Mackinder's
nightmare made manifest. The antithesis of Manifest Destiny, LOL.
Nixon, Brzezinski and their wannabe successor Bannon are all simply continuing this
more-than-century-old strategic tradition. But no "geostrategy" will save global capitalism
from its own inner rot and sharpening contradictions, as the events of recent years have
shown. This year especially recalls Lenin's observation that "There are decades where nothing
happens, and weeks where decades happen."
"... You think, should the police go on strike, it will be kumbaya? If the police leave an area who fills the vacuum? This will destroy poor neighbourhoods not make them any better. ..."
Another important excerpt from the liked essay @14 that's highly informative:
"Defining social control as crime control was accomplished by raising the specter of the '
dangerous classes .' The suggestion was that public drunkenness, crime, hooliganism,
political protests and worker 'riots' were the products of a biologically inferior,
morally intemperate, unskilled and uneducated underclass . The consumption of alcohol was
widely seen as the major cause of crime and public disorder. The irony, of course, is that
public drunkenness didn't exist until mercantile and commercial interests created venues for
and encouraged the commercial sale of alcohol in public places. This underclass was easily
identifiable because it consisted primarily of the poor, foreign immigrants and free blacks
(Lundman 1980: 29). This isolation of the 'dangerous classes' as the embodiment of the
crime problem created a focus in crime control that persists to today, the idea that policing
should be directed toward 'bad' individuals, rather than social and economic conditions
that are criminogenic in their social outcomes .
Of course, none of the above is ever related via media when discussing the overall
issue--that it began as a class/immigrant/racial issue is suppressed so the root of the
problem doubly emphasized above is never discussed and is thus another component in the
longstanding Class War. Another input never considered is the many penny press True Crime and
Police Gazette publications that twisted the minds of the gullible during the period from
1880-1930, which today are present in the all too many cop "reality" shows on TV, although
some are now finally being pulled from broadcast.
"Qualified immunity" is clearly unconstitutional as it violates the 4th, 5th, and 7th
Amendments, and has no place in settled law. It will enter the dust bin just as non-majority
verdicts in jury trials did.
vk
, Jun 10 2020 21:30 utc |
34somebody , Jun 10 2020 21:34 utc |
35
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 10 2020 21:01 utc | 29
I wonder. People usually need the police to feel safe. If the police can feel safe in a
country where everyone may carry a gun or not is another matter.
The manner of the deaths doesn't follow any pattern, said Robyn Small with the National Law
Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Some officers died responding to robberies or domestic
disturbances. Others were ambushed.
Overall, that's less than last year -- 47 officers were gunned down by the end of 2018,
according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.
You think, should the police go on strike, it will be kumbaya? If the police leave an
area who fills the vacuum? This will destroy poor neighbourhoods not make them any
better.
The ruling class only needs one tactic: divide and rule.
But how do I try to explain that to a black 16 year old math student who has recently
started looking at me with murder in his eyes? Everything i can think of just sounds like a
cliche.
Also... the media deserve no pity, they made their allegiances clear (for the
millionth time) with Assange.
Yes, that's a most important point, the WHY behind the formation of police forces.
This multipart
essay details "The History of Policing in the United States" and gives us two key clues:
Policing in the South emerged to enforce slavery, while in the North it evolved much later
primarily as a means of social control :
"In the Southern states the development of American policing followed a different path.
The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the 'Slave Patrol' (Platt
1982). The first formal slave patrol was created in the Carolina colonies in 1704 (Reichel
1992). Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to
their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave
revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to
summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules. Following the
Civil War, these vigilante-style organizations evolved in modern Southern police departments
primarily as a means of controlling freed slaves who were now laborers working in an
agricultural caste system, and enforcing 'Jim Crow' segregation laws, designed to deny freed
slaves equal rights and access to the political system....
"More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to
'disorder.' What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those
terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile
interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of
bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social
control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too
crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a
mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the
conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the 'collective good'
(Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the
cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to
the state."
It seems clear the two systems and their rationales merged with the main goal being social
control, not the protections of freedoms and otherwise serving the community as the logo
Protect & Serve implies, unless we look at that logo from the Establishment's POV, for it
then becomes clear who the police protect and serve. When looking at Labor History, it
becomes very clear who police served and protected while totally ignoring the rights of those
they attacked--the Police Riot has a very long and sordid history and certainly attacked
whites more than blacks since the former constituted the greater mass of industrial workers
then and now. However, whites weren't subjected to being hunted down and lynched for sport
and entertainment in ways that evidenced cultural approval for such terroristic acts. Rightly
or wrongly, it's that putrid history that strikes a chord with all people, particularly when
the vastly greater amount of violence used against workers is suppressed and barely studied
in survey US History courses, the curriculum of which is controlled by that same
Establishment wanting to maintain social control.
Sorry, but I must copy/paste another excerpt for this aspect of the Outlaw US Empire's
political history gets very little mention--Tammany Hall usually being the sole example
provided without any details of how it functioned and for whom. New York City wasn't the only
large city where this sort of police-political syndicate arose:
"Early American police departments shared two primary characteristics: they were
notoriously corrupt and flagrantly brutal. This should come as no surprise in that police
were under the control of local politicians. The local political party ward leader in most
cities appointed the police executive in charge of the ward leader's neighborhood. The ward
leader, also, most often was the neighborhood tavern owner, sometimes the neighborhood
purveyor of gambling and prostitution, and usually the controlling influence over
neighborhood youth gangs who were used to get out the vote and intimidate opposition party
voters. In this system of vice, organized violence and political corruption it is
inconceivable that the police could be anything but corrupt (Walker 1996). Police
systematically took payoffs to allow illegal drinking, gambling and prostitution. Police
organized professional criminals, like thieves and pickpockets, trading immunity for bribes
or information. They actively participated in vote-buying and ballot-box-stuffing. Loyal
political operatives became police officers. They had no discernable qualifications for
policing and little if any training in policing. Promotions within the police departments
were sold, not earned. Police drank while on patrol, they protected their patron's vice
operations, and they were quick to use peremptory force. Walker goes so far as to call
municipal police 'delegated vigilantes,' entrusted with the power to use overwhelming force
against the 'dangerous classes' as a means of deterring criminality."
Yes, "organized crime" was developed by the police and their politico allies as further
means of social control and to augment their salaries. Still happens today with the nation's
supposedly most important intelligence agency--CIA--being the most formidable criminal
organization on the planet.
It didn't take very long as an examination of the literature shows the rise of Police came
with the rise of Capitalism and many excellent books exist on the subject, but there doesn't
seem to be much interest in looking beyond one's predilections on the topic. Further proof
cementing that verdict:
"State police agencies emerged for many of the same reasons. The Pennsylvania State Police
were modeled after the Phillipine Constabulary, the occupation force placed in the Philipine
Islands following the Spanish-American War. This all-white, all-'native,' paramilitary force
was created specifically to break strikes in the coal fields of Pennsylvania and to control
local towns composed predominantly of Catholic, Irish, German and Eastern European
immigrants. They were housed in barracks outside the towns so that they would not mingle with
or develop friendships with local residents. In addition to strike-breaking they frequently
engaged in anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic violence, such as attacking community social
events on horseback, under the pretense of enforcing public order laws. Similarly, the Texas
Rangers were originally created as a quasi-official group of vigilantes and guerillas used to
suppress Mexican communities and to drive the Commanche off their lands."
I wonder if those now in control of what's being called the Seattle Commune will form some
type of police or other defense force. According to this
article , the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone will be self-policing. IMO, this development
deserves watching as it's not getting much media attention a la Occupy Wall Street.
Let's not forget the likes of The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency. They are also precursors to
contemporary police. Another excellent movie that speaks to this theme and validates
karloft1's latest post is John Sayles' Matewan . It deals with the Matewan Massacre
which is the precursor to the Battle of Blair Mountain where bombs were dropped from
airplanes on the striking miners. The bombs were left over from World War I. The United
States government supplied aerial surveillance.
Trump has the audacity to pretend he's a friend of the coal miners, or what's left of
them. He's a friend of the owners and The Baldwin Felts Detective Agency or its contemporary
equivalent. You work, Trump doesn't. He's never worked a day in his life. He has no notion of
what work is, but he knows enough to know work is not for him, that it's for you instead as
he and his ilk spit and piss and crap on you.
Thanks for that link, a very interesting and detailed article. It seems Haftar is an
erratic and unreliable character and the LNA's major foreign allies/sponsors, including
Russia, make no secret of the fact that they basically consider him a temporary "necessary
evil" until a more solid and reliable leader can be found.
Last night on the Australian ABC current affairs program "The Drum", the host actually asked
a guest "Is it possible that the USA is becoming a fascist state?".
The guest replied that he thought the USA has been traveling down this path for the last
20 years.
The unusual aspect of this exchange was that a host on an Australian mainstream news
program had the courage to ask such a question at all.
"Is it possible that the USA is becoming a fascist state?".
Not until this happens:
"USURY is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon's knife of Fascism can cut it
out of the life of the nations." ~ Ezra Pound
If the guest who replied thought the USA has been traveling down this path for the last 20
years, it would follow that the plight of those who are not elites, would be better, not
worse.
Powell on Sunday aimed a broad critique at Trump's approach to the military, a foreign policy
he said was causing "disdain" abroad, and a president he portrayed as trying to amass
excessive power.
"We have a Constitution and we have to follow the Constitution, and the president has
drifted away from it," Powell said. Trump also, he said, "lies about things."
Trump responded swiftly on Twitter, mocking Powell and calling the retired four-star
general "a real stiff" who got the U.S. into wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
on the U.S.
Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous
Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden.
Didn't Powell say that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction?" They didn't, but off we went
to WAR!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
Credit when credit is due, Trump is completely right when he says Powell is an complete
hack and fraud who helped scam the US people into the Iraq war. Years after his UN appearance
Powell's own chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, admitted that he and Powell knew that the fix
was in to attack Iraq and the information they were presenting to the UN was falsified, i.e.
they knowingly lied to the UN to start a war, a war crime (was of aggression)! Rather than do
the honourable thing and resign in protest and go public with the truth they stayed quite and
obey their illegal orders, presumably reasoning that a competently managed crime would be
less damaging then an incompetently managed crime. As it turns out though, Powell was an
utterly incompetent Secretary of State who was outmaneuvered at every stage of the conflict
by the mad dog crazies in the administration that he thought he was controlling. in the end,
all Powell's shameful behaviour accomplished was to destroy his honour and leave him forever
known as a war criminal (even if the UN is too cowardly to charge him as such). So, seeing
Powell and the lamestream media try to croon about him as some sort of moral authority is
laughable and Trump is right to rub all of Powell's crimes right in his face.
Not to forget (as a Vietnam Vet, I can't) that Maj. Colin Powell - after a cursory
investigation into the massacre at My Lai - drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968 stating -
among other lies - that "[it] is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the
Vietnamese people are excellent" while denying any pattern of wrong-doing.
Powell was simply protecting other murderous gang members (especially his bosses) from
justice, thus becoming another un-indicted accessory to murder. The gods are not interested
in justice, though, and he roams free.
Wow I wish I had know that little tidbit back then when I watched the full uninterrupted UN
broadcasts from the Security Council before the war. He pretty much managed to get the US a
free pass with his testimony of lies. I believed him and so did a lot of other people. Now
his whitewash of My Lai is even on his Wikipedia page. Thank you Trisha.
Several years earlier I got to know about My Lai during relatively brief military
education (non-US but NATO) on the rules of the Geneva Convention, it was used as the prime
example of when to resist and disobey unlawful orders (I have to wonder if it still is).
If there had been a free press they should have shouted this little fact at the top of
their lungs while mocking the US, maybe someone somewhere did but I never heard any mention
of it, not even from any of all the people I knew that were opposing the war and who never
seemed to have anything substantive to say (a bit like BLM: who isn't against murder and
particularly murder committed by "cops"? There's a serious communication problem going
on).
I find this so strange that I'm starting to wonder if I have an extremely selective
memory. Did anyone here learn about this at the time? Not counting anyone who already
knew it well before that time.
Wall Street is a highly influential financial district but its history is rarely talked
about. In order to understand the largesse of Wall Street and the system of global
capitalism, it is crucial to know Wall Street's history. Wall Street was founded on slavery
and, to this day, it remains a key pillar in upholding racial inequality and economic
oppression.
"... Kevin Barrett's political incorrectness recently got him un-invited from a radio program. Here he argues, "The two biggest factors behind the demise of First Amendment America are the rise of identity politics, and the 9/11-launched "war on terror." Identity politics has made political correctness into the monster it has become, but "the dirty little secret" the American public is finally realizing, in spite of mainstream media's deception, is that, "It is not white identity advocates who are instigating the violence at these rallies, but their antifa opponents." ..."
"... The two biggest factors behind the demise of First Amendment America are the rise of identity politics, and the 9/11-launched "war on terror." Identity politics brought political correctness and the fear of offending this or that "disadvantaged" group. 9/11 and the war on terror destroyed America's self-confidence, led to the shredding of constitutional liberties, and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and hysteria. ..."
"... Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) agenda was in many respects a reaction against America's post-9/11 decline. In reaction to the prevailing leftist identity politics, heterosexual, white, working-class males began asserting themselves, often identifying with Trump and MAGA. Trump's attacks on the U.S. decision to invade Iraq ("the worst decision ever made") and his incoherent but provocative insinuations questioning the official version of 9/11 resonated with a broad segment of the population that vaguely sensed something in America had gone badly wrong. ..."
"... The Chicago Tribune ..."
"... This is the dirty little secret that is slowly leaking out to the American public: It is not white identity advocates who are instigating the violence at these rallies, but their antifa opponents. This was clearly the case at Charlottesville, where the police shut down the pro-Robert E. Lee statue rally, forced ralliers to exit through an antifa mob that had come primed for violence, and then disappeared as the provocateur-driven riot broke out. (For a detailed analysis of the events in Charlottesville, read Political Theater in Charlottesville ..."
Kevin Barrett's political incorrectness recently got him un-invited from a radio
program. Here he argues, "The two biggest factors behind the demise of First Amendment
America are the rise of identity politics, and the 9/11-launched "war on terror." Identity
politics has made political correctness into the monster it has become, but "the dirty little
secret" the American public is finally realizing, in spite of mainstream media's deception,
is that, "It is not white identity advocates who are instigating the violence at these
rallies, but their antifa opponents."
On Thursday, March 8, I was informed that my scheduled appearance the next day on Portland's
KBOO community radio had been cancelled by station management -- over the strong objections of
the host, John Shuck. The reason? Portland's antifa chapter, led by a graduate student named
Alexander Reid Ross, had led a defamation campaign calling me an "anti-Semite," "holocaust
denier," and "conspiracy theorist" who shouldn't be allowed to speak.
Since when could mindless insults shout down free and fair debate based on logic and
evidence? Since when did America become such a fearful place that non-mainstream ideas had to
be silenced rather than refuted?
The two biggest factors behind the demise of First Amendment America are the rise of
identity politics, and the 9/11-launched "war on terror." Identity politics brought political
correctness and the fear of offending this or that "disadvantaged" group. 9/11 and the war on
terror destroyed America's self-confidence, led to the shredding of constitutional liberties,
and created a toxic atmosphere of fear and hysteria.
Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) agenda was in many respects a reaction against
America's post-9/11 decline. In reaction to the prevailing leftist identity politics,
heterosexual, white, working-class males began asserting themselves, often identifying with
Trump and MAGA. Trump's attacks on the U.S. decision to invade Iraq ("the worst decision ever
made") and his incoherent but provocative insinuations questioning the official version of 9/11
resonated with a broad segment of the population that vaguely sensed something in America had
gone badly wrong.
Many leftists (as well as much of the centrist establishment) view the rise of the
Trump-supporting alt-right as a national emergency. The most extreme among them have joined
antifa.
Antifa shows little interest in critiquing or debating its opponents in order to explain why
they are wrong. It is dedicated to shutting them down, silencing them, making sure they can't
be heard -- using slanderous witch hunts, mindless name-calling, and even violence.
At universities all across America, antifa thugs are physically attacking speakers
identified with the alt-right, and even brutalizing audiences who come out to hear them.
The Chicago Tribune reported on March 14:
"At Michigan State University last week, anti-fascist protesters marched toward the venue
where (Richard) Spencer planned to speak, intent on keeping his supporters out. Fights quickly
broke out, and people were shoved to the ground, punched, and pelted with sticks and dirt. Some
people wanting to attend Spencer's speech were forced back. More than 20 people were arrested,
most of them people protesting Spencer."
This is the dirty little secret that is slowly leaking out to the American public: It is
not white identity advocates who are instigating the violence at these rallies, but their
antifa opponents. This was clearly the case at Charlottesville, where the police shut down the
pro-Robert E. Lee statue rally, forced ralliers to exit through an antifa mob that had come
primed for violence, and then disappeared as the provocateur-driven riot broke out. (For a
detailed analysis of the events in Charlottesville, read Political Theater in
Charlottesville , edited by Jim Fetzer and Mike Palecek, available from Moon Rock
Books.)
How can self-styled anti-fascists be rioting in the street and attacking people to shut down
free speech? Isn't their behavior . . . well, fascist ? After all, fascism is based on
using mob violence to shut down opposition and install a tyranny of one party and one opinion
that tolerates no dissent.
Antifa's violent, authoritarian attack on free speech exemplifies the core essence of
fascism. Other characteristics of historical fascism include: extreme glorification of the race
or nation, scapegoating of internal and external enemies, militarism, and socialism, including
an attempt to replace private bank-issued usury currency with national currency. On all but the
last of these counts, Zionism represents by far the biggest and most dangerous fascist movement
on Earth. Antifa, a subsidiary of Zionism, carries the Zionists' fascist thuggery into the
streets.
As an American loyal to our Constitution, and to our history as a tolerant "melting pot" of
different cultures, religions, and worldviews, I am strongly opposed to most aspects of
fascism. I loathe intolerance, authoritarianism, censorship, racism, extreme nationalism,
militarism, and scapegoating. But I do think some fascists, such as America's greatest 20
th -century poet. Ezra Pound, were right in their critique of usury and their
support for overthrowing the dictatorship of the international bankers. And I think much of the
so-called alt-right consists of patriotic Americans -- not fascists -- who are gradually waking
up to oppose the global Zionist dictatorship in the making sometimes known as the New World
Order.
Oppose fascism; support free speech! I have challenged Alexander Reid Ross to debate me on
the nature and history of fascism. Please urge him to accept my challenge. Email: [email protected]
or Tweet https://twitter.com/areidross.
Kevin Barrett, Ph.D., is an Arabist-Islamologist scholar and one of America's best-known
critics of the War on Terror. From 1991 through 2006, Dr. Barrett taught at colleges and
universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin. In 2006, however, he was attacked by
Republican state legislators who called for him to be fired from his job at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison due to his political opinions. Since 2007, Dr. Barrett has been informally
blacklisted from teaching in American colleges and universities. He currently works as a
nonprofit organizer, public speaker, author, and talk radio host. He lives in rural western
Wisconsin.
Typically, when a black man gets killed he's presented as some kind of angelic hero. I wonder if people knew George Floyd's
criminal history, including breaking into a pregnant woman's home and threatening her unborn child by pointing a gun at her
belly, whether they'd be so willing to abandon their recent hysteria over catching Covid-19 in favour of a virtue-signalling
march.
https://youtu.be/JtPfoEvNJ74
Designate, then decimate Antifa. "The Fascists of the future will call themselves Anti Fascist." Winston Churchill. "Judge a
man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character." Martin Luthor King Jr. We can see by their actions
that Antifa are Fascists and have no character other than that of psychopathic morons.
AntiFA getting bussed in to burn the city down. Left's narrative : it's white supremacists. Sociopaths use 180 degree lies to
deflect blame And the MSM are complicit.
I think NemesisCalling nails it here best of all, with keen nuances. I can't hear the sax
without thinking of Bill Clinton, Mr. Mass Incarceration himself, playing on Saturday Night
Live, and seducing black America and its turncoat elite, including Obama, for the next two
decades of neoliberal ruin. The malcontribution to American black society of its
entertainment and sports aristocracy could be fat treatise. So nice to see James Baldwin
getting at the heart of things in his 1965 lecture.
Sorry, Antifa and its KKK tactics – beating people up, trashing the homes of
academics, shutting down discussion on campus – speak for themselves. Goons hardly
better than their sworn opponents.
Anyone familiar with the Church Committee hearings knows that government agencies use
agent provocateurs to corrupt movements from within. Knowing that doesn't prove any of the
claims made herein. Without evidence it's all speculation. Speculation can be fun but when it
gets taken seriously we have idiots shaping the narrative.
many thoughtful observers on the right -- including Ross Douthat ,
Rod Dreher , and
Dan McCarthy -- have pointed out that the current protesting and rioting is likely to help
Donald Trump and the Republicans. That is, the ongoing violence, fomented by leftist elements,
including Black Lives Matter and Antifa, could boomerang against Joe Biden and his
Democrats.
However, the planted assumption here is that the vandals and looters want Joe Biden to win.
And that's not so obvious. Indeed, maybe the truth is just the reverse.
To be sure, the protesters and looters all hate Donald Trump. And yet actions speak louder
than words, and their actions on the street suggest a kind of anti-matter affection for the Bad
Orange Man. That is, each act of violence obscures the memory of George Floyd, who died at the
knee of a Minneapolis policeman, and raises the prospect of a national backlash against both
peaceful protestors and violent looters, offering a ray of hope for Trump.
Indeed, Douthat quotes Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow, whose research shows that
back in the 1960s, peaceful civil rights protests helped the Democrats, while violent
protests (also known as riots) hurt the Democrats. In Wasow's words, "proximity to
black-led nonviolent protests increased white Democratic vote-share whereas proximity to
black-led violent protests caused substantively important declines." And that's how Republican
Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968.
We might add that Humphrey was a lot like Biden. Both were gabby senators turned vice
presidents, regarded as reliable liberals, not as hard-edged leftists.
So now we're starting to see where Biden, a pillar of the smug liberal establishment -- he
once
told a group of donors that if he's elected, "nothing would fundamentally change" -- veers
away from the far-left ideologues amidst the mobs.
Let's let Andy Ngo –who has
shed blood , literally, while chronicling bullyboy leftists -- define the ideology of
Antifa and Black Lives Matter: "At its core, BLM is a revolutionary Marxist ideology. Alicia
Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors, BLM's founders, are self-identified Marxists who make
no secret of their worship of communist terrorists and fugitives, like Assata Shakur. They want
the abolition of law enforcement and capitalism. They want regime change and the end of the
rule of law. Antifa has partnered with Black Lives Matter, for now, to help accelerate the
breakdown of society."
We can observe that by "regime change," these revolutionary leftists don't mean replacing
Trump with Biden -- they mean replacing capitalism and the Constitution. In the meantime, if
one looks at a Twitter feed identified by Ngo as an Antifa hub, It's Going Down , one sees plenty of anti-Trump rhetoric,
along with general hard leftism, but nothing in support of Biden.
However, here's something interesting: The Biden campaign shows no small degree of
support for the street radicals. As Reuters
reported on May 30,
"At least 13 Biden campaign staff members posted on Twitter on
Friday and Saturday that they made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes the
practice of cash bail, or making people pay to avoid pre-trial imprisonment. The group uses
donations to pay bail fees in Minneapolis."
We might observe that these 13 employees posted their pro-rioter sympathies on Twitter; in
other words, not only did they make no effort to hide their donations, but they also actively
bragged about them.
It could be argued, of course, that these are just 13 vanguard employees out of a campaign
staff that numbers in the hundreds, maybe even thousands. And yet as the Reuters piece adds,
Team Biden is not practicing political distancing from its in-house radicals: "Biden campaign
spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to Reuters that the former vice president opposes
the institution of cash bail as a 'modern day debtors prison.'"
When pressed by Reuters -- which is not exactly Fox News in its editorial stance -- the
official spox for Middle Class Joe was unwilling to say more: "The campaign declined to answer
questions on whether the donations were coordinated within the campaign, underscoring the
politically thorny nature of the sometimes violent protests."
So we can see: The Biden campaign is trying to maintain its equipoise between liberals and
mobs, even as the former is bleeding into the latter. Indeed, a look at Biden's Twitter feed
shows the same port-side balancing act. On May 30, for instance, he tweeted , "If we are complacent,
if we are silent, we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence. None of us can
turn away. We all have an obligation to speak out."
There's enough ambiguity here, as well as in his other tweets, to leave everyone parsing,
and guessing, as to what, exactly, Biden is saying -- except, as he
said on June 2, that he opposes the use of chokeholds to restrain violent suspects, and
also opposes more equipment for the police. The only other thing we know for sure is that he
hasn't tweeted an iota of specific sympathy for the people other than George Floyd who have
died in the recent violence. One such is
Patrick Underwood , an African American employee of the Federal Protective Service; he was
shot and killed in Oakland, Calif. on May 29.
Yet while the Biden campaign attempts to keep its relationship with Antifa and its ilk
fuzzy, other Democrats have made themselves clear. For instance, in 2018, then-Congressman
Keith Ellison tweeted
out a photograph of himself holding a copy of a book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,
which the radical-chic types at The New Yorkerdescribed as
"A how-to for would-be activists, and a record of advice from anti-Fascist organizers past and
present." Ellison is now the attorney general for the state of Minnesota.
And on May 31, Ellison's son, Jeremiah, a Minneapolis city councilman, tweeted , "I hereby
declare, officially, my support for ANTIFA."
Still, if the Democrats can't quite quit Antifa, most are smart enough to recognize the
danger of being too closely associated with hooligans and radicals. Moreover, they need some
theory of the case they wish to make, which is that they loudly support the protests, even as
they mumble about the violence.
And Democrats have found their favored argument -- the one that conveniently takes them off
the hook. Indeed, it's an argument they increasingly deploy to explain everything bad that
happens: The Russians did it.
Thus on May 31, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice said on CNN of the
tumult, "In my experience, this is right out of the Russian playbook."
We might allow that it's possible, even probable, that the Russian government has been
taking delight in this spate of violence in America. And it's similarly probable that the
governments of China, Iran, and Venezuela, too, have been pleased, to say nothing of varying
portions of the public in every country. And so sure, more than a few tweets and Facebook posts
have probably resulted -- after all, stories ripping the U.S. were right there, for instance,
on the front
page of China's Global Times .
Still, it's ridiculous to think that hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of Americans
are taking their cues from a foreign power; we've got plenty of home-grown radicalism and
anger.
Yet even so, the Democrats have persisted in their Russia-dunnit narrative, because
it serves their political, and perhaps psychological, need -- the need to externalize criminal
behavior. In other words, don't blame us for the killings and lootings -- blame Moscow.
Okay, so back to Antifa and Black Lives Matter. The left wing of the Democratic Party --
including elements within the Biden campaign -- might like them, but there's no evidence that
they like Democrats back.
Indeed, if the violence keeps up, it will become obvious that the leftist radicals are
not trying to help Biden. To put it another way, the rads would become the objective
allies (a political science term connoting an ironic congruence of interest) of Trump.
To be sure, right now, Trump is running five or six points behind Biden in the
RealClearPolitics
polling average . And yet, just as Dreher, Douthat, and McCarthy suggest, if the violence
continues and Trump goes firm while Biden stays mushy, that could change.
Indeed, as we think of genuine radicalism, we would do well to look beyond the parochial
confines of American politics, Democrat vs. Republican. Instead, we might ponder the epic
panorama of leftist history, which offers radicals so much more inspiration than historically
centrist America.
For instance, we might look to Russia. But not to the Russia of Vladimir Putin , but
rather, to the Russia of Vladimir Lenin .
In the early 20th century, Lenin's Bolsheviks, awaiting their revolutionary moment, operated
according to a simple slogan: "The worse the better." That is, the enemy of Bolshevism was
incremental reform, or progress of any kind; the reds wanted conditions to get so bad as to
"justify" a communist revolution. And that's what Lenin and his comrades got in October 1917,
when they seized power in the midst of the calamities of World War One.
Yes, of course, the communists made conditions worse, not better, for ordinary Russians. And
yet things weren't worse for Lenin and his Bolsheviks -- they were now in power. So today,
that's the sort of dream that inspires Antifa radicals.
To be sure, an America dominated by Antifa and Black Lives Matter is a distant prospect. But
radicals figure that four more years of Trump in the White House will move the nation to even
higher levels of chaos -- and thus move them closer to power.
With all that in prospect for radicals -- that is, the worse, the better -- the
prospect of Joe Biden losing this year is a small price to pay. Actually, for them, it's no
price at all.
In the meantime, for America, there is no better. Only worse.
Antifa can't function without covert support of FBI. That's given.
Notable quotes:
"... According to reporting in a Brooklyn publication from 2013, the "anarchist collective" is run by Elysa Lozano, an assistant professor at LaGuardia Community College who wears her violent extremist views on her sleeve, and Khalid Robinson, a man who according to an interview on an anarchist podcast is the organizer of the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement in New York City. ..."
"... Robinson, pictured above with Lozano, can be seen wearing an "antifa" t-shirt sold as part of a fundraiser for the "Tinley Park 5," a group of anarchists who were arrested for brutally injuring 10 people in a premeditated hammer attack in the Illinois suburb of Tinley Park in 2012. ..."
"... It is unknown how much criminal activity is planned at this venue, but it is a bug light for left-wing extremists from across the country and abroad. The group uses images of explosions as its logo , and has close ties to the Kurdish terrorist militia in Syria, the YPG, which has provided many American anarchists with military training undoubtedly being used in the riots as we speak. ..."
"... National Justice ..."
"... National Justice ..."
"... National Justice ..."
"... It's obvious from surveillance video that Floyd was dealing drugs out of his parked car on the corner that fateful morning. The cops apprehending him appear nonchalant, quietly going about their business with a routine arrest. Only when Floyd begins physically resisting do things begin to go south. ..."
"... How is Floyd's life worth all this havoc? The guy was a criminal deviant who brought his demise upon himself. He was not a sterling example of a freedom fighter or a high-minded social reformer. He playacted not being able to walk, collapsing on the sidewalk as he was being escorted to the cop car. Went all jelly-legged. Winced when a cop merely steered him by one of his burly arms which, while handcuffed behind his back were obviously not overly constrained. Play acting. Oh, the poor 230 lb. black boy, built like Hercules himself, acting all hurt when an Asian male puts a little directing pressure on his arm. ..."
As American cities burn and people are murdered in the street with impunity by groups
protesting the death of George Floyd, very little reporting has been done on who exactly is
responsible beyond tweets from Donald Trump about the mobs being led by "Antifa" (Anti-Fascist)
-- an umbrella term anarchist organizations use as propaganda when trying to win liberal
support for paramilitary attacks they conduct on nationalist protesters and Trump
supporters.
The mainstream media has played its role in intentionally obfuscating who exactly the groups
inciting the rioting and killing are by claiming "antifa" is not a group, which is a malicious
half-truth. Law enforcement sources, Andy Ngo , and Fox News have identified two organizations as
playing an active role in the carnage: The Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement and The Base
.
These two groups are interlinked, and currently encouraging and organizing the violence in
the New York City area.
Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement and The Base
The Base, whose Facebook page is now explicitly
telling people to commit acts of violence, is an above ground "organizational space"
located at 1286 Myrtle Ave in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
According to reporting in a Brooklyn
publication from 2013, the "anarchist collective" is run by Elysa Lozano, an assistant
professor at LaGuardia Community College who
wears her violent extremist views on her sleeve, and Khalid Robinson, a man who according to an
interview on an anarchist podcast is the organizer of the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement in New York City.
Robinson, pictured above with Lozano, can be seen wearing an "antifa" t-shirt sold as part
of a
fundraiser for the "Tinley Park 5," a group of anarchists who were arrested for brutally
injuring 10 people in a
premeditated hammer attack in the Illinois suburb of Tinley Park in 2012.
According to Robinson's interview on the "Solecast," he helped start The Base as "a place
for anarchists to meet."
It is unknown how much criminal activity is planned at this venue, but it is a bug light for
left-wing extremists from across the country and abroad. The group uses images of explosions as
its logo , and has
close ties to the Kurdish terrorist militia in Syria, the YPG, which has provided many American
anarchists with military training undoubtedly being used in the riots as we speak.
The front is also an operating space for groups like the NYC Anarchist Black Cross, which is
composed of "antifa" members and used as an above ground way to raise money and write prisoners
letters.
A photograph obtained by open source intelligence shows masked "antifa" members the media
claims don't exist posing in front of The Base.
As for Khalid Robinson's Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, they do not hide what they are
about. As Fox News' Lara Logan has reported , they believe in engaging in racial violence
against white people and random police officers in the name of overthrowing "white
supremacy."
The group has two flags, one featuring a red AK-47 on a black banner, and another showing a
red star with the acronym "RAM."
An image of masked RAM members posing with shotguns, AK-47s, machetes and an "antifa" flag
was obtained by National Justice .
This group has been operating for years, spreading violent propaganda with the help of
social media companies, all while the FBI devotes all of its resources to chasing around
imaginary "white supremacist terrorists."
The extent of their terrorist activities is unknown, but they have been very active in the George Floyd riots -- calling it a
"black liberation revolt" -- and have
chapters across the country.
Related "Antifa" Extremists In Brooklyn
Christian Erazo is another important figure in organizing anarchist violence in New York
City.
Erazo, pictured above on the far right in the red and green bandana filming a video
announcing plans to disrupt public transportation, was profiled
for his activities by National Justice last January for his part in planning the
J31 subway riots . In spite of this reporting, the NYPD and the FBI took no action either
against the people who planned this chaos, or the Synagogue who allowed them to host their
planning sessions.
Erazo, the lead singer of punk band (A) Truth pictured above clutching the "antifa" flag,
helps lead multiple violent anarchist projects, such as Brigada 71 (a left-wing soccer hooligan group associated
with the New York Cosmos) and NYC Antifa
. Brigada 71 spends a lot of time at the East River Bar, a popular hangout for left-wing soccer
hooligans, on 97 South 6th Street in Brooklyn,
Both groups are also currently encouraging the violence on social media and are close to the
owners of The Base, who let them use the venue for their activities. Meet up spots like The
Base play an important role in providing fresh recruits due to its storefront visibility, which
invites curious and bored hipsters and radicalizes them in the rapidly gentrifying
neighborhood.
For years, Erazo used a warehouse on 258 Johnson Ave in East Williamsburg nicknamed "The
Swamp" to host punk rock shows that would serve to recruit new anarchists. While Erazo and his
friends did their best to keep the spot a secret, a Brooklyn hipster publication listed "The Swamp" as a cool place to see music as
recently as 2015. Erazo is specifically named as its "founder."
According to a source familiar with the anarchist community, when music wasn't playing, the
building had a gym and was used to conduct paramilitary training. While there doesn't seem to
be any more concerts happening at The Swamp, it is unknown if these anarchist groups are still
utilizing the space for other activities.
The Real Reason Its Difficult to Prosecute "Antifa"
Many Americans have complained that neither the police nor the FBI appear interested in
investigating or prosecuting anarchist paramilitary groups, even when they are leading the
worst and most deadly riots in modern history.
This isn't because it is hard to find out who these people are. It is due to state
corruption and privilege. A large number of anarchists are the sons and daughters of
politicians, bankers, judges, and other connected elite figures, thus immunizing from the
consequences of their crimes.
Recently, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio's
own daughter was arrested among the rioters in the city he governs. Vice presidential
contender and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine's
son is another example. An "antifa" organizer was exposed
by National Justice as the grandson of a judge and nephew of a Congressman who is also
now a judge.
Ken Klippenstein, a digital blogger who is a fan of the anarchist groups dubbed "antifa,"
was leaked documents by FBI agents about with details about an ongoing investigation into the
activities of these violent extremists.
With virtually every institution in America expressing support for these terrorist groups,
along with their connections to powerful officials, Donald Trump's bluster about labeling them
a terrorist group appears to be nothing but a gust of hot air.
It's obvious from surveillance video that Floyd was dealing drugs out of his parked car
on the corner that fateful morning. The cops apprehending him appear nonchalant, quietly
going about their business with a routine arrest. Only when Floyd begins physically resisting
do things begin to go south.
So this is the hill that liberals choose to take a stand and die on. Defending a low-life,
street drug dealer, who has three cocaine priors on his rap sheet. And when legitimate,
unrelated businesses burn, they say, "Good. That's justice for Floyd."
And they can't see how insane this is? How is Floyd's life worth all this havoc? The
guy was a criminal deviant who brought his demise upon himself. He was not a sterling example
of a freedom fighter or a high-minded social reformer. He playacted not being able to walk,
collapsing on the sidewalk as he was being escorted to the cop car. Went all jelly-legged.
Winced when a cop merely steered him by one of his burly arms which, while handcuffed behind
his back were obviously not overly constrained. Play acting. Oh, the poor 230 lb. black boy,
built like Hercules himself, acting all hurt when an Asian male puts a little directing
pressure on his arm.
What a despicable farce. There's no hope for a nation in which different sides play by
different Rules. The Left obeys no Laws. Acknowledges no limits to their behavior. Acts
according to what will best advance their cause. Has no compunction about lying, about
destroying their enemies by any means, fair or foul, possible.
If factions within a Nation will not and do not agree on basic Rules of the Contest, then
no governance is possible. That Nation will, indeed, degenerate into anarchy. This just
is . For some reason, someone wants America to fracture into smaller units.
@ThreeCranes I mean, he did five years in Prison for bursting into a woman's house with 5
other thugs and jamming a gun into her gut during an attempted robbery. (I heard she was
pregnant, but I'm not sure.) She was battered, though. This is their great Saint.
" the NYPD and the FBI took no action either against the people who planned this chaos, or
the Synagogue who allowed them to host their planning sessions."
Well, surprise surprise. Violent left wing groups hold planning sessions in
Synagogues.
The 'Russian' revolution and others in Eastern Europe followed the same pattern.
It's all political theatre. Antifa, supported by Jewish money, rails against 'white
privilege', never daring to point out that most of the powerbrokers and influencers (eg,
bankers, Hollywood studio owners, blackface performers, publishing house owners) are
Jews.
Leftist revolutionary radicals enjoy the support and protection of the establishment which
appoints them 'the good guys'.
If you are a conservative, you have no overt support from professors, journalists,
politicians, or trend-setting celebrities. You're labeled 'the bad guys'.
If given an informed choice, the Silent Majority of Americans would side with young
conservatives over young anarchists. The problem is that the other side is ahead in a culture
war, and the right is only just getting on its feet to fight it.
In a thoughtful analysis, the Irish journalist O'Toole asserts neoliberalism creates the
conditions for enabling what he calls a trial run for a full-blown state of contemporary
fascism:
To grasp what is going on in the world right now, we need to reflect on two things. One is
that we are in a phase of trial runs. The other is that what is being trialed is fascism -- a
word that should be used carefully but not shirked when it is so clearly on the horizon.
Forget 'post-fascist' -- what we are living with is pre-fascism. Rather than overthrow
democracy in one full swipe, it has to be undermined through rigged elections, the creation
of tribal identities, and legitimated through a 'propaganda machine so effective that it
creates for its followers a universe of "alternative facts" impervious to unwanted
realities.' . Fascism doesn't arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get
people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if
they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially
recoil from, and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we
would be fools not to see it. 40
Ultra-nationalist and contemporary versions of fascism are gaining traction across the globe
in countries such as Greece (Golden Dawn), Hungary (Jobbik), India (Bharatiya Janata Party),
and Italy (the League) and countless others. ...
... ... ...
Trump has elevated himself as the patron saint of a ruthless neoliberalism. This is evident
in the various miracles he has performed for the rich and powerful. He has systemically
deregulated regulations that extend from environmental protections to worker safety rules. He
has enacted a $1.5-trillion tax policy that amounts to a huge gift to the financial elite and
all the while maintaining his "man of the people" posture. He has appointed a range of
neoliberal fundamentalists to head major government posts designed to serve the public. Most,
like Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Betsy DeVos, the
secretary of Education, have proved to be either corrupt, incompetent, or often both. Along
with the Republican Congress, Trump has vastly increased the military budget to $717 billion,
creating huge financial profits for the military-industrial-defense complex while instituting
policies that eviscerate the welfare state and further expand a war machine that generates mass
suffering and death.
Trump has reduced food assistance for those who are forced to choose between eating and
taking medicine, and his policies have prevented millions from getting adequate health care.
43 Last but not least, he has become a cheerleader for the gun and
security industries going so far as to call for the arming of teachers as a way to redress mass
shootings in the nation's schools. All of these policies serve to unleash the anti-liberal and
anti-democratic passions, fears, anxieties and anger necessary to mainstream fascism.
... ... ...
The United States is in a dangerous moment in its history, which makes it all the more
crucial to understand how a distinctive form of neoliberal fascism now bears down on the
present and threatens to usher in a period of unprecedented barbarism in the not too distant
future. In an attempt to address this new political conjuncture, I want to suggest that rather
than view fascism simply as a repetition of the past, it is crucial to forge a new vocabulary
and politics to grasp how neoliberal fascism has become a uniquely American model for the
present. One way to address this challenge is to rethink what lessons can be learned by
interrogating how matters of language and memory can be used to illuminate the dark forces
connecting the past and present as part of the new hybridized political nightmare.
The Language of Fascism
Fascism begins not with violence, police assaults or mass killings, but with language. Trump
reminded us of this in 2015 while announcing his candidacy for president. He stated, without
irony or shame, that "when Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're
sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing
drugs, they're bringing crime...
... ... ...
Neoliberal fascism converges with an earlier form of fascism in its commitment to a language
of erasure and a politics of disposability. In the fascist script, historical memory becomes a
liability, even dangerous, when it functions pedagogically to inform our political and social
imagination...
Unsurprisingly, historical memory as a form of enlightenment and demystification is surely
at odds with Trump's abuse of history as a form of social amnesia and political
camouflage,,,
... ... ...
At the same time, the corruption of language is often followed by the corruption of memory,
morality and the eventual disappearance of books, ideas and human beings. Prominent German
historians such as Richard J. Evans and Victor Klemperer have made clear that for fascist
dictators, the dynamics of state censorship and repression had an endpoint in a politics of
disappearance, extermination and the death camps.
...neoliberal fascism has restructured civic life that valorizes ignorance, avarice and
willful forgetting. In the current Trumpian moment, shouting replaces the pedagogical
imperative to listen and reinforces the stories neoliberal fascism tells us about ourselves,
our relations to others and the larger world. Under such circumstances, monstrous deeds are
committed under the increasing normalization of civic and historical modes of illiteracy. One
consequence is that comparisons to the Nazi past can whither in the false belief that
historical events are fixed in time and place and can only be repeated in history books. In an
age marked by a war on terror, a culture of fear and the normalization of uncertainty, social
amnesia has become a power tool for dismantling democracy. Indeed, in this age of
forgetfulness, American society appears to revel in what it should be ashamed of and alarmed
over.
... ... ...
Trump's selective appropriation of history wages war on the past, choosing to celebrate
rather than question fascist horrors. The past in this case is a script that must be followed
rather than interrogated. Trump's view of history is at once "ugly and revealing."....
The production of new narratives accompanied by critical inquiries into the past would help
explain why people participated in the horrors of fascism and what it might take to prevent
such complicity from unfolding again. Comparing Trump's ideology, policies and language to a
fascist past offers the possibility to learn what is old and new in the dark times that have
descended upon the United States. The pressing relevance of the 1930s is crucial to address how
fascist ideas and practices originate and adapt to new conditions, and how people capitulate
and resist them as well.
...Neoliberal fascism insists that everything, including human beings, are to be made over
in the image of the market. Everyone is now subject to a paralyzing language of individual
responsibility and a disciplinary apparatus that revises downward the American dream of social
mobility. Time is now a burden for most people and the lesson to draw from this punishing
neoliberal ideology is that everyone is alone in navigating their own fate.
At work here is a neoliberal project to reduce people to human capital and redefine human
agency beyond the bonds of sociality, equality, belonging and obligation. All problems and
their solutions are now defined exclusively within the purview of the individual. This is a
depoliticizing discourse that champions mythic notions of self-reliance and individual
character to promote the tearing up of social solidarities and the public spheres that support
them.
All aspects of the social and public are now considered suspect, including social space,
social provisions, social protections and social dependency, especially for those who are poor
and vulnerable. According to the philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the subjects in a "neoliberal
economy do not constitute a we that is capable of collective action. The mounting egoization
and atomization of society is shrinking the space for collective action. As such, it blocks the
formation of a counter power that might be able to put the capitalist order in question."
65
At the core of neoliberal fascism is a view of subjectivity that celebrates a narcissistic
hyper-individualism that radiates with a near sociopathic lack of interest in others with whom
it shares a globe on the brink of catastrophe. This project is wedded to a politics that
produces a high threshold of disappearance and serves to disconnect the material moorings and
wreckage of neoliberal fascism from its underlying power relations.
Neoliberal fascism thrives on producing subjects that internalize its values, corroding
their ability to imagine an alternative world. Under such conditions, not only is agency
depoliticized, but the political is emptied of any real substance and unable to challenge
neoliberalism's belief in extreme inequality and social abandonment. This fosters fascism's
deep-rooted investment ultra-nationalism, racial purity and the politics of terminal
exclusion.
We live at a time in which the social is individualized and at odds with a notion of
solidarity once described by Frankfurt School theorist Herbert Marcuse as "the refusal to let
one's happiness coexist with the suffering of others." 66 Marcuse
invokes a forgotten notion of the social in which one is willing not only to make sacrifices
for others but also "to engage in joint struggle against the cause of suffering or against a
common adversary." 67
One step toward fighting and overcoming the criminogenic machinery of terminal exclusion and
social death endemic to neoliberal fascism is to make education central to a politics that
changes the way people think, desire, hope and act. How might language and history adopt modes
of persuasion that anchor democratic life in a commitment to economic equality, social justice
and a broad shared vision? The challenge we face under a fascism buoyed by a savage
neoliberalism is to ask and act on what language, memory and education as the practice of
freedom might mean in a democracy. What work can they perform, how can hope be nourished by
collective action and the ongoing struggle to create a broad-based democratic socialist
movement? What work has to be done to "imagine a politics in which empowerment can grow and
public freedom thrive without violence?" 68 What institutions have to
be defended and fought for if the spirit of a radical democracy is to return to view and
survive?
"... In recent weeks, a totally disoriented left has been widely exhorted to unify around a masked vanguard calling itself Antifa, for anti-fascist. Hooded and dressed in black, Antifa is essentially a variation of the Black Bloc, familiar for introducing violence into peaceful demonstrations in many countries. Imported from Europe, the label Antifa sounds more political. It also serves the purpose of stigmatizing those it attacks as "fascists". ..."
"... Bray's "enlightening contribution" is to a tell a flattering version of the Antifa story to a generation whose dualistic, Holocaust-centered view of history has largely deprived them of both the factual and the analytical tools to judge multidimensional events such as the growth of fascism. Bray presents today's Antifa as though it were the glorious legitimate heir to every noble cause since abolitionism. But there were no anti-fascists before fascism, and the label "Antifa" by no means applies to all the many adversaries of fascism. ..."
"... The implicit claim to carry on the tradition of the International Brigades who fought in Spain against Franco is nothing other than a form of innocence by association. Since we must revere the heroes of the Spanish Civil War, some of that esteem is supposed to rub off on their self-designated heirs. Unfortunately, there are no veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade still alive to point to the difference between a vast organized defense against invading fascist armies and skirmishes on the Berkeley campus. As for the Anarchists of Catalonia, the patent on anarchism ran out a long time ago, and anyone is free to market his own generic. ..."
"... Since historic fascism no longer exists, Bray's Antifa have broadened their notion of "fascism" to include anything that violates the current Identity Politics canon: from "patriarchy" (a pre-fascist attitude to put it mildly) to "transphobia" (decidedly a post-fascist problem). ..."
"... The masked militants of Antifa seem to be more inspired by Batman than by Marx or even by Bakunin. ..."
"... The main technique is guilt by association. High on the list of mortal sins is criticism of the European Union, which is associated with "nationalism" which is associated with "fascism" which is associated with "anti-Semitism", hinting at a penchant for genocide. This coincides perfectly with the official policy of the EU and EU governments, but Antifa uses much harsher language. ..."
"... The moral of this story is simple. Self-appointed radical revolutionaries can be the most useful thought police for the neoliberal war party. ..."
"... In reality, immigration is a complex subject, with many aspects that can lead to reasonable compromise. But to polarize the issue misses the chances for compromise. By making mass immigration the litmus test of whether or not one is fascist, Antifa intimidation impedes reasonable discussion. Without discussion, without readiness to listen to all viewpoints, the issue will simply divide the population into two camps, for and against. And who will win such a confrontation? ..."
"... The idea that the way to shut someone up is to punch him in the jaw is as American as Hollywood movies. It is also typical of the gang war that prevails in certain parts of Los Angeles. Banding together with others "like us" to fight against gangs of "them" for control of turf is characteristic of young men in uncertain circumstances. The search for a cause can involve endowing such conduct with a political purpose: either fascist or antifascist. For disoriented youth, this is an alternative to joining the U.S. Marines. ..."
"... American Antifa looks very much like a middle class wedding between Identity Politics and gang warfare. Mark Bray (page 175) quotes his DC Antifa source as implying that the motive of would-be fascists is to side with "the most powerful kid in the block" and will retreat if scared. Our gang is tougher than your gang. ..."
"... In the United States, the worst thing about Antifa is the effort to lead the disoriented American left into a wild goose chase, tracking down imaginary "fascists" instead of getting together openly to work out a coherent positive program. The United States has more than its share of weird individuals, of gratuitous aggression, of crazy ideas, and tracking down these marginal characters, whether alone or in groups, is a huge distraction. The truly dangerous people in the United States are safely ensconced in Wall Street, in Washington Think Tanks, in the executive suites of the sprawling military industry, not to mention the editorial offices of some of the mainstream media currently adopting a benevolent attitude toward "anti-fascists" simply because they are useful in focusing on the maverick Trump instead of themselves. ..."
"... Antifa USA, by defining "resistance to fascism" as resistance to lost causes – the Confederacy, white supremacists and for that matter Donald Trump – is actually distracting from resistance to the ruling neoliberal establishment, which is also opposed to the Confederacy and white supremacists and has already largely managed to capture Trump by its implacable campaign of denigration. That ruling establishment, which in its insatiable foreign wars and introduction of police state methods, has successfully used popular "resistance to Trump" to make him even worse than he already was. ..."
– Ennio Flaiano, Italian writer and co-author of Federico Fellini's greatest film scripts.
In recent weeks, a totally disoriented left has been widely exhorted to unify around a masked
vanguard calling itself Antifa, for anti-fascist. Hooded and dressed in black, Antifa is essentially
a variation of the Black Bloc, familiar for introducing violence into peaceful demonstrations in
many countries. Imported from Europe, the label Antifa sounds more political. It also serves the
purpose of stigmatizing those it attacks as "fascists".
Despite its imported European name, Antifa is basically just another example of America's steady
descent into violence.
Historical Pretensions
Antifa first came to prominence from its role in reversing Berkeley's proud "free speech" tradition
by preventing right wing personalities from speaking there. But its moment of glory was its clash
with rightwingers in Charlottesville on August 12, largely because Trump commented that there were
"good people on both sides". With exuberant Schadenfreude, commentators grabbed the opportunity to
condemn the despised President for his "moral equivalence", thereby bestowing a moral blessing on
Antifa.
Charlottesville served as a successful book launching for
Antifa: the Antifascist Handbook , whose author, young academic Mark Bray, is an Antifa
in both theory and practice. The book is "really taking off very fast", rejoiced the publisher, Melville
House. It instantly won acclaim from leading mainstream media such as the New York Times
, The Guardian and NBC, not hitherto known for rushing to review leftwing books, least of
all those by revolutionary anarchists.
The Washington Post welcomed Bray as spokesman for "insurgent activist movements" and
observed that: "The book's most enlightening contribution is on the history of anti-fascist efforts
over the past century, but its most relevant for today is its justification for stifling speech and
clobbering white supremacists."
Bray's "enlightening contribution" is to a tell a flattering version of the Antifa story to a
generation whose dualistic, Holocaust-centered view of history has largely deprived them of both
the factual and the analytical tools to judge multidimensional events such as the growth of fascism.
Bray presents today's Antifa as though it were the glorious legitimate heir to every noble cause
since abolitionism. But there were no anti-fascists before fascism, and the label "Antifa" by no
means applies to all the many adversaries of fascism.
The implicit claim to carry on the tradition of the International Brigades who fought in Spain
against Franco is nothing other than a form of innocence by association. Since we must revere the
heroes of the Spanish Civil War, some of that esteem is supposed to rub off on their self-designated
heirs. Unfortunately, there are no veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade still alive to point to
the difference between a vast organized defense against invading fascist armies and skirmishes on
the Berkeley campus. As for the Anarchists of Catalonia, the patent on anarchism ran out a long time
ago, and anyone is free to market his own generic.
The original Antifascist movement was an effort by the Communist International to cease hostilities
with Europe's Socialist Parties in order to build a common front against the triumphant movements
led by Mussolini and Hitler.
Since Fascism thrived, and Antifa was never a serious adversary, its apologists thrive on the
"nipped in the bud" claim: "if only" Antifascists had beat up the fascist movements early enough,
the latter would have been nipped in the bud. Since reason and debate failed to stop the rise of
fascism, they argue, we must use street violence – which, by the way, failed even more decisively.
This is totally ahistorical. Fascism exalted violence, and violence was its preferred testing
ground. Both Communists and Fascists were fighting in the streets and the atmosphere of violence
helped fascism thrive as a bulwark against Bolshevism, gaining the crucial support of leading capitalists
and militarists in their countries, which brought them to power.
Since historic fascism no longer exists, Bray's Antifa have broadened their notion of "fascism"
to include anything that violates the current Identity Politics canon: from "patriarchy" (a pre-fascist
attitude to put it mildly) to "transphobia" (decidedly a post-fascist problem).
The masked militants of Antifa seem to be more inspired by Batman than by Marx or even by Bakunin.
Storm Troopers of the Neoliberal War Party
Since Mark Bray offers European credentials for current U.S. Antifa, it is appropriate to observe
what Antifa amounts to in Europe today.
In Europe, the tendency takes two forms. Black Bloc activists regularly invade various leftist
demonstrations in order to smash windows and fight the police. These testosterone exhibits are of
minor political significance, other than provoking public calls to strengthen police forces. They
are widely suspected of being influenced by police infiltration.
As an example, last September 23, several dozen black-clad masked ruffians, tearing down posters
and throwing stones, attempted to storm the platform where the flamboyant Jean-Luc Mélenchon was
to address the mass meeting of La France Insoumise , today the leading leftist party in
France. Their unspoken message seemed to be that nobody is revolutionary enough for them. Occasionally,
they do actually spot a random skinhead to beat up. This establishes their credentials as "anti-fascist".
They use these credentials to arrogate to themselves the right to slander others in a sort of
informal self-appointed inquisition.
As prime example, in late 2010, a young woman named Ornella Guyet appeared in Paris seeking work
as a journalist in various leftist periodicals and blogs. She "tried to infiltrate everywhere", according
to the former director of Le Monde diplomatique , Maurice Lemoine, who "always intuitively
distrusted her "when he hired her as an intern.
Viktor Dedaj, who manages one of the main leftist sites in France, Le Grand Soir , was
among those who tried to help her, only to experience an unpleasant surprise a few months later.
Ornella had become a self-appointed inquisitor dedicated to denouncing "conspirationism, confusionism,
anti-Semitism and red-brown" on Internet. This took the form of personal attacks on individuals whom
she judged to be guilty of those sins. What is significant is that all her targets were opposed to
U.S. and NATO aggressive wars in the Middle East.
Indeed, the timing of her crusade coincided with the "regime change" wars that destroyed Libya
and tore apart Syria. The attacks singled out leading critics of those wars.
Viktor Dedaj was on her hit list. So was Michel Collon, close to the Belgian Workers Party, author,
activist and manager of the bilingual site Investig'action. So was François Ruffin, film-maker, editor
of the leftist journal Fakir elected recently to the National Assembly on the list of Mélenchon's
party La France Insoumise . And so on. The list is long.
The targeted personalities are diverse, but all have one thing in common: opposition to aggressive
wars. What's more, so far as I can tell, just about everyone opposed to those wars is on her list.
The main technique is guilt by association. High on the list of mortal sins is criticism of the
European Union, which is associated with "nationalism" which is associated with "fascism" which is
associated with "anti-Semitism", hinting at a penchant for genocide. This coincides perfectly with
the official policy of the EU and EU governments, but Antifa uses much harsher language.
In mid-June 2011, the anti-EU party Union Populaire Républicaine led by François Asselineau
was the object of slanderous insinuations on Antifa internet sites signed by "Marie-Anne Boutoleau"
(a pseudonym for Ornella Guyet). Fearing violence, owners cancelled scheduled UPR meeting places
in Lyon. UPR did a little investigation, discovering that Ornella Guyet was on the speakers list
at a March 2009 Seminar on International Media organized in Paris by the Center for the Study of
International Communications and the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
A surprising association for such a zealous crusader against "red-brown".
In case anyone has doubts, "red-brown" is a term used to smear anyone with generally leftist views
– that is, "red" – with the fascist color "brown". This smear can be based on having the same opinion
as someone on the right, speaking on the same platform with someone on the right, being published
alongside someone on the right, being seen at an anti-war demonstration also attended by someone
on the right, and so on. This is particularly useful for the War Party, since these days, many conservatives
are more opposed to war than leftists who have bought into the "humanitarian war" mantra.
The government doesn't need to repress anti-war gatherings. Antifa does the job.
The Franco-African comedien Dieudonné M'Bala M'Bala, stigmatized for anti-Semitism since 2002
for his TV sketch lampooning an Israeli settler as part of George W. Bush's "Axis of Good", is not
only a target, but serves as a guilty association for anyone who defends his right to free speech
– such as Belgian professor Jean Bricmont, virtually blacklisted in France for trying to get in a
word in favor of free speech during a TV talk show. Dieudonné has been banned from the media, sued
and fined countless times, even sentenced to jail in Belgium, but continues to enjoy a full house
of enthusiastic supporters at his one-man shows, where the main political message is opposition to
war.
Still, accusations of being soft on Dieudonné can have serious effects on individuals in more
precarious positions, since the mere hint of "anti-Semitism" can be a career killer in France. Invitations
are cancelled, publications refused, messages go unanswered.
In April 2016, Ornella Guyet dropped out of sight, amid strong suspicions about her own peculiar
associations.
The moral of this story is simple. Self-appointed radical revolutionaries can be the most useful
thought police for the neoliberal war party.
I am not suggesting that all, or most, Antifa are agents of the establishment. But they can be
manipulated, infiltrated or impersonated precisely because they are self-anointed and usually more
or less disguised.
Silencing Necessary Debate
One who is certainly sincere is Mark Bray, author of The Intifa Handbook . It is clear
where Mark Bray is coming from when he writes (p.36-7): " Hitler's 'final solution' murdered six
million Jews in gas chambers, with firing squads, through hunger an lack of medical treatment in
squalid camps and ghettoes, with beatings, by working them to death, and through suicidal despair.
Approximately two out of every three Jews on the continent were killed, including some of my relatives."
This personal history explains why Mark Bray feels passionately about "fascism". This is perfectly
understandable in one who is haunted by fear that "it can happen again".
However, even the most justifiable emotional concerns do not necessarily contribute to wise counsel.
Violent reactions to fear may seem to be strong and effective when in reality they are morally weak
and practically ineffectual.
We are in a period of great political confusion. Labeling every manifestation of "political incorrectness"
as fascism impedes clarification of debate over issues that very much need to be defined and clarified.
The scarcity of fascists has been compensated by identifying criticism of immigration as fascism.
This identification, in connection with rejection of national borders, derives much of its emotional
force above all from the ancestral fear in the Jewish community of being excluded from the nations
in which they find themselves.
The issue of immigration has different aspects in different places. It is not the same in European
countries as in the United States. There is a basic distinction between immigrants and immigration.
Immigrants are people who deserve consideration. Immigration is a policy that needs to be evaluated.
It should be possible to discuss the policy without being accused of persecuting the people. After
all, trade union leaders have traditionally opposed mass immigration, not out of racism, but because
it can be a deliberate capitalist strategy to bring down wages.
In reality, immigration is a complex subject, with many aspects that can lead to reasonable compromise.
But to polarize the issue misses the chances for compromise. By making mass immigration the litmus
test of whether or not one is fascist, Antifa intimidation impedes reasonable discussion. Without
discussion, without readiness to listen to all viewpoints, the issue will simply divide the population
into two camps, for and against. And who will win such a confrontation?
A recent survey* shows that mass immigration is increasingly unpopular in all European countries.
The complexity of the issue is shown by the fact that in the vast majority of European countries,
most people believe they have a duty to welcome refugees, but disapprove of continued mass immigration.
The official argument that immigration is a good thing is accepted by only 40%, compared to 60% of
all Europeans who believe that "immigration is bad for our country". A left whose principal cause
is open borders will become increasingly unpopular.
Childish Violence
The idea that the way to shut someone up is to punch him in the jaw is as American as Hollywood
movies. It is also typical of the gang war that prevails in certain parts of Los Angeles. Banding
together with others "like us" to fight against gangs of "them" for control of turf is characteristic
of young men in uncertain circumstances. The search for a cause can involve endowing such conduct
with a political purpose: either fascist or antifascist. For disoriented youth, this is an alternative
to joining the U.S. Marines.
American Antifa looks very much like a middle class wedding between Identity Politics and gang
warfare. Mark Bray (page 175) quotes his DC Antifa source as implying that the motive of would-be
fascists is to side with "the most powerful kid in the block" and will retreat if scared. Our gang
is tougher than your gang.
That is also the logic of U.S. imperialism, which habitually declares of its chosen enemies: "All
they understand is force." Although Antifa claim to be radical revolutionaries, their mindset is
perfectly typical the atmosphere of violence which prevails in militarized America.
In another vein, Antifa follows the trend of current Identity Politics excesses that are squelching
free speech in what should be its citadel, academia. Words are considered so dangerous that "safe
spaces" must be established to protect people from them. This extreme vulnerability to injury from
words is strangely linked to tolerance of real physical violence.
Wild Goose Chase
In the United States, the worst thing about Antifa is the effort to lead the disoriented American
left into a wild goose chase, tracking down imaginary "fascists" instead of getting together openly
to work out a coherent positive program. The United States has more than its share of weird individuals,
of gratuitous aggression, of crazy ideas, and tracking down these marginal characters, whether alone
or in groups, is a huge distraction. The truly dangerous people in the United States are safely ensconced
in Wall Street, in Washington Think Tanks, in the executive suites of the sprawling military industry,
not to mention the editorial offices of some of the mainstream media currently adopting a benevolent
attitude toward "anti-fascists" simply because they are useful in focusing on the maverick Trump
instead of themselves.
Antifa USA, by defining "resistance to fascism" as resistance to lost causes – the Confederacy,
white supremacists and for that matter Donald Trump – is actually distracting from resistance to
the ruling neoliberal establishment, which is also opposed to the Confederacy and white supremacists
and has already largely managed to capture Trump by its implacable campaign of denigration. That
ruling establishment, which in its insatiable foreign wars and introduction of police state methods,
has successfully used popular "resistance to Trump" to make him even worse than he already was.
The facile use of the term "fascist" gets in the way of thoughtful identification and definition
of the real enemy of humanity today. In the contemporary chaos, the greatest and most dangerous upheavals
in the world all stem from the same source, which is hard to name, but which we might give the provisional
simplified label of Globalized Imperialism. This amounts to a multifaceted project to reshape the
world to satisfy the demands of financial capitalism, the military industrial complex, United States
ideological vanity and the megalomania of leaders of lesser "Western" powers, notably Israel. It
could be called simply "imperialism", except that it is much vaster and more destructive than the
historic imperialism of previous centuries. It is also much more disguised. And since it bears no
clear label such as "fascism", it is difficult to denounce in simple terms.
The fixation on preventing a form of tyranny that arose over 80 years ago, under very different
circumstances, obstructs recognition of the monstrous tyranny of today. Fighting the previous war
leads to defeat.
Donald Trump is an outsider who will not be let inside. The election of Donald Trump is above
all a grave symptom of the decadence of the American political system, totally ruled by money, lobbies,
the military-industrial complex and corporate media. Their lies are undermining the very basis of
democracy. Antifa has gone on the offensive against the one weapon still in the hands of the people:
the right to free speech and assembly.
Notes.
* "Oů va la démocratie?", une enquęte de la Fondation pour l'innovation politique sous la direction
de Dominique Reynié, (Plon, Paris, 2017).
"... People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly. ..."
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its
truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly
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If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.
Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity
in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into
the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite
power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes
sense
While that talk has many interesting points, it is basically wrong. Fascism is a political
movement centered on political party with far right nationalist political ideology and that use
mobilization of people.
Inverted totalitarism does not use distinct political party and reject mass mobilization for
reaching its goals. That's an important difference.
Notable quotes:
"... ANTIFA defines fascist as, a cult of purity, victimhood, abandonment of liberty, and redemptive violence. Doesn't it sound like they are defining themselves? (Antifa - The Handbook for Antifascists) ..."
Part 1 - Meet the Antifascists - 0:53 Part 2 - Fascism - 8:18 Part 3 - Violence - 20:47 Part 4 - Free Speech -
39:58 Part 5 - There
Is No Peaceful White Nationalism - 53:30
I remember reading in my Abnormal Psychology textbook that in the early 1900s, the
mentally ill in the United States were forcefully sterilized to prevent them from "breeding"
which made me take a step back and realize that I was never once taught this in school and I
was only ever taught that the United States were (almost) always the good guys. Eugenics has
a deep rooted history in America and it's terrifying.
NOT being taught something in school is not automatically insidious and disturbing. BEING
taught something toxic or deflective in school IS automatically insidious and disturbing. In
school I was taught roughly 0.000000000000000001% about things that are and things that have
been.
Hello! I´m from Brazil and your videos have helped me to deal these awful days and,
also, to understand how Bolsonaro supporters think (if this is possible!) Neonazi and
fascists movements were marginal and formed only for small groups in Brazil in last decades,
despite always considered dangerous. Now, these movements have been appeared in pro-bolsonaro
parades and it´s really scare! Much of this video match with it has happened right now
in Brazil!
div> We shouldn't give up on the entire system due to amendable flaws and corruption
(debt-based commercial banks, multinational companies, cheap labor, etc), and attempt to
replace it with a weak and unstable mob rule. People always find a scapegoat, whether it's
another ethnic group, authorities, or smart and prosperous individuals, which escalates the
situation. Class wars are like other wars, and we'd all end up living in tents and flats,
eating powdered crickets and working to death "for the common good" and in order to "end
exploitation". Many countries have a mixed economy regulated and supervised by the state, and
you have a chance to negotiate a proper wage or become an entrepreneur. Social democracies
provide all citizens tax-funded healthcare and university level education, while allowing
competition, and being capable of maintaining peace and order, even if the exact same model
wouldn't work everywhere, and there could be improvements.
> 54:30 fun fact: In 1964 Brazil
suffered a Military Coup backed by the CIA/US. At the time leading to the coup, the
petite-bourgeois that thought themselves "the people" organized some marches. The names of
the marches were something like "March of the Families with God for Liberty", and they
marched bearing several posters accusing the then President Jango of being a communist,
saying that "Brazil wouldn't turn into a Cuba". Brazil was in a decade-long turmoil and the
President at the time decided to take some Nationalization attitudes and whatnot, so he was
obviously accused of being a communist, despite not even being a socialist. So the great fear
of communism was implanted in the Brazilian people's mind via those marches and subsequently,
less then a month later, the Fascist Military Coup was widely accepted as the unfortunate
best solution against communism. Needless to say that TO THE DAY there's a great denial of a
Coup, they created a narrative in which they lead people into believing the Military Junta
really saved Brazil from becoming Cuba. The result of it is that it's 2020 and the Brazilian
President is an Army Captain, his VP is an Army General, and several of his Ministers are
also Generals, during the COVID-19 Pandemic we have an "Operational President" named by the
High Command of the Armed Forces who is a General, and guess what? The President and his
lackeys are AGAIN shouting about the imminent Communist threat, this time forming armed
Paramilitary Groups trained in Ukraine by the Pravyy Sektor. If anyone out there sees this
comment, keep it in mind and save it, for in about 1-2 years we'll be having an unambiguous
Military Dictatorship in Brazil, AGAIN.
cle"> 12:22 "It's important to note
that fascism is not a wholly different government from the one you might know and it did not
end in 1945. For instance, most of these features I described would also, in milder forms,
describe a certain American presidency. That's right. The Reagan administration" *glaces
to date of the video*
So, by the 'textbook definition' of Fascism, pretty much every right-leaning politician in
the U.S and almost every right-wing pundit is a Fascist. Which isn't surprising, considering
how far the overton window has moved rightward and how far right the Democratic party is. You
can probably attribute this shift to how pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist the donor class
is and how that affects the make-up of the political parties.
rticle"> 41:20 just wanted to add
another example that I know a lot about. In France, the only protest that haven't been
repressed by the police are the protests from fascists (La manic pour Tous, Syndicats de
Police, Generation Identitaire). Other protests like the Yellow Vests, Feminist night
marches, strike protests, etc... (we've had a lotta protests in France these past years) are
always repressed. But what I want to talk about is the violence that counter protesters are
facing from the police. We have to be careful not to get hit or hurt by fascists but also be
careful of violence and arrests from the police. The very violent far right organization (and
very very racist) Generation Identitaire got to protest with thousand of policemen to protect
them. My girlfriend and I were asked (forced) to leave because we had a gay flag. The police
in France is extremely violent, and maybe not as much as in other countries such as Chile,
but the violence keeps increasing and it keeps getting more dangerous. As someone who
regularly goes to protests, I consider myself very lucky and very privilege for never getting
badly hurt by a cop. My lungs do suffer the consequence of the constant breathing of lacrymo
gas ahah Anyway, I just wanted to develop an example of another rich European country. (sorry
for English mistakes)
"Every border implies the violence necessary to maintain it..." That's a throw-away line
that had me stopping and thinking like god damn. LeftTube has definitely made me a more
thoughtful person as a whole.
ANTIFA defines fascist as, a cult of purity, victimhood, abandonment of liberty, and
redemptive violence. Doesn't it sound like they are defining themselves? (Antifa - The
Handbook for Antifascists)
I've just started to watch and I'm concerned about that facist checklist. Trump meets
quite a few of the criteria with his response to what's going on at the moment...so it is
somewhat hypocritical that he wants to label antifa as a terrorist organisation when in fact
anti facist movements are not an organisation (as you explained in the beginning). Possibly
another diversion tactic so people don't look at at Trump and his reaction to the
violence.
"... So if you want a recipe for disaster, this is it: Take police cadets, train them in the ways of war, dress and equip them for battle, teach them to see the people they serve not as human beings but as suspects and enemies, and then indoctrinate them into believing that their main priority is to make it home alive at any cost. ..."
"... Republished with permission from the Rutherford Institute . ..."
Police officers are more
likely to be struck by lightning than be held financially accountable for their actions.
-- Law professor Joanna C. Schwartz (paraphrased)
Unfortunately, if you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed,
stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police
officer, and that officer is never held accountable for violating your rights and his oath of
office to serve and protect, never forced to make amends, never told that what he did was
wrong, and never made to change his modus operandi, then you don't live in a constitutional
republic.
You live in a police state.
It doesn't even matter that "
crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for
residents and officers alike," as the New York Times reports.
What matters is whether you're going to make it through a police confrontation alive and
with your health and freedoms intact. For a growing number of Americans, those confrontations
do not end well.
As David O. Brown, the Dallas chief of police, noted: "Sometimes it seems like our young
officers want to get into an athletic event with people they want to arrest. They have a 'don't
retreat' mentality.
They feel like they're warriors and they can't back down when someone is running from them,
no matter how minor the underlying crime is."
Making matters worse, in the cop culture that is America today, the Bill of Rights doesn't
amount to much. Unless, that is, it's the Law
Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBoR), which protects police officers from being
subjected to the kinds of debilitating indignities heaped upon the average citizen.
Most Americans, oblivious about their own rights, aren't even aware that police officers
have their own Bill of Rights. Yet at the same time that our own protections against government
abuses have been reduced to little more than historic window dressing, 14 states have already
adopted LEOBoRs -- written by police unions and being considered by many more states and
Congress -- which provides police officers accused of a crime with special due process rights
and privileges not afforded to the average citizen.
Not only are officers given a 10-day
"cooling-off period" during which they cannot be forced to make any statements about the
incident, but when they are questioned, it must be "for a reasonable length of time, at a
reasonable hour, by only one or two investigators (who must be fellow policemen), and with
plenty of breaks for food and water."
If a department decides to pursue a complaint against an officer, the department must notify
the officer and his union.
The officer must be informed of the complainants, and their
testimony against him, before he is questioned.
During questioning, investigators may not harass, threaten, or promise rewards to the
officer, as interrogators not infrequently do to civilian suspects.
Bathroom breaks are
assured during questioning.
In Maryland, the officer may appeal his case to a "hearing board," whose decision is
binding, before a final decision has been made by his superiors about his discipline. The
hearing board consists of three of the suspected offender's fellow officers.
In some
jurisdictions, the officer may not be disciplined if more than a certain number of days (often
100) have passed since his alleged misconduct, which limits the time for investigation.
Even if the officer is suspended, the department must continue to pay salary and benefits,
as well as the cost of the officer's attorney.
It's a pretty sweet deal if you can get it, I suppose: protection from the courts, immunity
from wrongdoing, paid leave while you're under investigation, and the assurance that you won't
have to spend a dime of your own money in your defense. And yet these LEOBoR epitomize
everything that is wrong with America today.
Once in a while, the system appears to work on the
side of justice , and police officers engaged in wrongdoing are actually charged for
abusing their authority and using excessive force against American citizens.
Yet even in these instances, it's still the American taxpayer who foots the bill.
For example, Baltimore taxpayers have paid roughly
$5.7 million since 2011 over lawsuits stemming from police abuses, with an additional $5.8
million going towards legal fees. If the six Baltimore police officers charged with the
death
of Freddie Gray are convicted, you can rest assured it will be the Baltimore taxpayers who
feel the pinch.
New York taxpayers have shelled out almost $1,130 per year per police officer (there are
34,500 officers in the NYPD) to address charges of misconduct. That translates to
$38 million every year just to clean up after these so-called public servants.
Over a 10-year-period, Oakland, Calif., taxpayers
were made to cough up more than $57 million (curiously enough, the same amount as the
city's deficit back in 2011) in order to settle accounts with alleged victims of police
abuse.
Over 78% of the funds paid out by Denver taxpayers over the course of a decade arose as a
result of alleged abuse or
excessive use of force by the Denver police and sheriff departments. Meanwhile, taxpayers
in Ferguson, Missouri, are being asked to pay
$40 million in compensation -- more than the city's entire budget -- for police officers
treating them "'as if they were war combatants,' using tactics like beating, rubber bullets,
pepper spray, and stun grenades, while the plaintiffs were peacefully protesting, sitting in a
McDonalds, and in one case walking down the street to visit relatives."
That's just a small sampling of the most egregious payouts, but just about every community
-- large and small -- feels the pinch when it comes to compensating victims who have been
subjected to deadly or excessive force by police.
The ones who
rarely ever feel the pinch are the officers accused or convicted of wrongdoing, "even if
they are disciplined or terminated by their department, criminally prosecuted, or even
imprisoned." Indeed, a study published in the NYU Law Review reveals that 99.8% of the monies
paid in settlements and judgments in police misconduct cases never come
out of the officers' own pockets , even when state laws require them to be held liable.
Moreover, these officers rarely ever have to pay for their own legal defense.
For instance, law professor Joanna C. Schwartz references a case in which three Denver
police officers chased and then beat a 16-year-old boy, stomping "on the boy's back while using
a fence for leverage, breaking his ribs and causing him to suffer kidney damage and a lacerated
liver." The cost to Denver taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $885,000. The amount the
officers contributed: 0 .
Kathryn Johnston, 92 years old, was shot and killed during a SWAT team raid that went awry.
Attempting to cover their backs, the officers falsely claimed Johnston's home was the site of a
cocaine sale and went so far as to plant marijuana in the house to support their claim. The
cost to Atlanta taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $4.9 million. The amount the
officers contributed: 0 .
Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, a police officer was convicted of raping a woman in his police
car, in addition to sexually assaulting four other women and girls, physically abusing two
additional women, and kidnapping or falsely imprisoning five men and boys. The cost to the
Albuquerque taxpayers to settle the lawsuit: $1,000,000. The amount the
officer contributed: 0 .
Human Rights Watch notes that taxpayers actually pay three times for
officers who repeatedly commit abuses : "once to cover their salaries while they commit
abuses; next to pay settlements or civil jury awards against officers; and a third time through
payments into police 'defense' funds provided by the cities."
Still, the number of times a police officer is actually held accountable for wrongdoing
while on the job is miniscule compared to the number of times cops are allowed to walk away
with little more than a slap on the wrist.
A large part of the problem can be chalked up to influential police unions and laws
providing for qualified immunity , not to mention these Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of
Rights laws, which allow officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing.
Another part of the problem is rampant cronyism among government bureaucrats: those deciding
whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the
job all belong
to the same system , all with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous
code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.
Most of all, what we're dealing with is systemic corruption that protects wrongdoing and
recasts it in a noble light. However, there is nothing noble about government agents who kick,
punch, shoot and kill defenseless individuals. There is nothing just about police officers
rendered largely immune from prosecution for wrongdoing. There is nothing democratic about the
word of a government agent being given greater weight in court than that of the average
citizen. And no good can come about when the average citizen has no real means of defense
against a system that is weighted in favor of government bureaucrats.
So if you want a recipe for disaster, this is it: Take police cadets, train them in the
ways of war, dress and equip them for battle, teach them to see the people they serve not as
human beings but as suspects and enemies, and then indoctrinate them into believing that their
main priority is to make it home alive at any cost. While you're at it,
spend more time drilling them on how to use a gun (58 hours) and employ defensive tactics
(49 hours) than on how to calm a situation before resorting to force (8 hours).
Then, once they're hyped up on their own authority and the power of the badge and their gun,
throw in a few court rulings suggesting that security takes precedence over individual rights,
set it against a backdrop of endless wars and militarized law enforcement, and then add to the
mix a populace distracted by entertainment, out of touch with the workings of their government,
and more inclined to let a few sorry souls suffer injustice than challenge the status quo or
appear unpatriotic.
That's not to discount the many honorable police officers working thankless jobs across the
country in order to serve and protect their fellow citizens, but there can be no denying that,
as journalist Michael Daly acknowledges, there is a troublesome "
cop culture that tends to dehumanize or at least objectify suspected lawbreakers of
whatever race. The instant you are deemed a candidate for arrest, you become not so much a
person as a 'perp.'"
Older cops are equally troubled by this shift in how police are being trained to view
Americans -- as things, not people. Daly had a veteran police officer join him to review the
video footage of 43-year-old Eric Garner crying out and struggling to breathe as cops held him
in a chokehold. (In yet another example of how the legal system and the police protect their
own, no police officers were charged for Garner's death.) Daly describes the veteran officer's
reaction to the footage, which as Daly points out, "
constitutes a moral indictment not so much of what the police did but of what the police
did not do":
"I don't see anyone in that video saying, 'Look, we got to ease up,'" says the veteran
officer. "Where's the human side of you in that you've got a guy saying, 'I can't breathe?'"
The veteran officer goes on, "Somebody needs to say, 'Stop it!' That's what's missing here
was a voice of reason. The only voice we're hearing is of Eric Garner." The veteran officer
believes Garner might have survived had anybody heeded his pleas. "He could have had a
chance," says the officer, who is black. "But
you got to believe he's a human being first . A human being saying, 'I can't breathe.'"
As I point out in my new book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People , when all is said and done, the various problems
we're facing today -- militarized police, police shootings of unarmed people, the electronic
concentration camp being erected around us, SWAT team raids, etc. -- can be attributed to the
fact that our government and its agents have ceased to see us as humans first.
Then again, perhaps we are just as much to blame for this sorry state of affairs. After all,
if we want to be treated like human beings -- with dignity and worth -- then we need to start
treating those around us in the same manner. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned in a speech given
exactly one year to the day before he was killed: "We must rapidly begin the shift from a
'thing-oriented'
society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and
property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism,
materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
Looks like antifa members is Maoists not Fascists.
Notable quotes:
"... Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook ..."
"... These people are self-defeating morons, yes, but they still have the potential to do great damage ..."
"... Last night, here in Washington, the unrest they helped fuel saw a church lit on fire, LaFayette Park near the White House set ablaze, the AFL-CIO building attacked, and the Lincoln Memorial defaced. ..."
Back in 2018, my friend Zachary Yost suffered his way through Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook , a primer on the group
written by (but of course!) Dartmouth lecturer Mark Bray. What he found was a chillingly lucid call to revolution that subordinated
all else to the goal of overthrowing capitalism and the "Far Right." So free speech, for example, is dispensable, valuable only to
the extent that it enables the coming flames.
Yost writes:
By the time he's finished, Bray has thrown everything and the kitchen sink into the category of fascist ideologies that must
be targeted, ranging from whiteness to "ableism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, nationalism, transphobia, class rule, and many
others." Though cloaked in calls to stop oppression, Bray's book at its core makes the case for the exercise of raw, unbridled
power. Under this revolutionary ideology, no dissent can be tolerated. There can be no live and let live -- it is all or nothing.
In fairness, Antifa is a wide and somewhat amorphous umbrella, some of whose members may not subscribe to everything Bray says.
But what the more committed among them seem to understand is that, come lawlessness, power will flow naturally to he who has the
most muscle, he who's most willing to pick up a brick and throw it, at the expense of the poor and vulnerable. Remember that tonight
when we inevitably see more violence in the streets. Senselessness is the point. Preying on the innocent is the goal.
Remember after Charlottesville when some on social media compared these guys to the American soldiers who fought the Nazis at
Normandy? I don't want to hear another word about that. Antifa may stand for antifascist, but Yost's piece makes it clear that they're
fascist to their marrow. And as with many latter-day fascists and extremists, Antifa are simultaneously cogent at the manifesto level
and utterly delusional as to likely outcomes. They aren't going to overthrow capitalism or Donald Trump. They may, however, affect
the election in five months, with the most likely beneficiary the president they so despise.
These people are self-defeating morons, yes, but they still have the potential to do great damage.
Last night, here in Washington, the unrest they helped fuel saw a church lit on fire, LaFayette Park near the White House
set ablaze, the AFL-CIO building attacked, and the Lincoln Memorial defaced.
This is how a Franco ends up in power: because even churches are being targeted, even the moderate leftists aren't safe. Bully
people long enough and they long for a bully of their own. That Antifa has desecrated the protests over George Floyd's death this
way is appalling and I wish them nothing but the worst.
Matt Purple is a senior editor at The American Conservative .
I can picture anarchists setting fire to Minneapolis, but I was always under the clear impression that ANTIFA was really, really,
focused on outing neo-nazis, punching marchers in the face, and deplatforming the ALT-RIGHT. God's work! Why in the world would
they torch Popeyes?
One of the Fox news affiliate stations had reported looking at the paper work for people arrested in their city and said that
80% of the people arrested were from in state. That was after both Trump and Barr had claimed they were almost all from out of
state. If they lied about that what reason is there to believe that the rest of their claims are true? What evidence is there
other than a report of a pallet of brick (how do you unload it with out a forklift?) being left some where what evidence is there
that all of this is co-ordinated and not just random thugs? Why is the assumption that they are left leaning or tied to the Democratic
party? At least one of the people caught breaking windows, carrying an umbrella and masked was an off duty police officer which
generally lean to the right. I know a 25 year old man was arrested for burning a court house. The young tend to lean left but
also tend to act irrationally with out a cause. Is there any actual evidence to point to this being Antifa or are we just supposed
to take POTUS's word for it?
Trump and Barr merely picked up on claims from the governor of MN and mayor of Minneapolis. They did not originate the claim that
the rioters were from out-of-state.
Uh, the assumption that they are left-leaning comes from the fact that they spray-paint left-leaning things, and shout left-leaning
things.
I haven't heard anyone claim that they are tied to the Democratic Party, but many Democratic Party politicians have avoided
condemning them, and many Democratic Party-backing commentators/journalists have openly defended them.
The NYC Police Dept. reports that they have in their possession communications among Antifa units making detailed plans for
riots in places like NYC days before the riots occurred.
Something like a thousand people have been arrested now in these riots. How many of them have been identified as right-wing
or right-leaning? I don't know of a single one. You don't think these lefty Dem mayors and the MSM would be parading any evidence
they had of right-leaning rioters?
The Minnesota Freedom Fund is also being funded by politically correct Hollywood leftists. If Minneapolis really is a right-wing
insurrection highly disguised, it's fooled the woke crowd unmercifully.
"The destruction of businesses we're witnessing across the US is not mere
opportunism by looters. It plays a critical role in antifa and BLM
ideology"
Grouping Black Lives Matter together with Anti-Fa is a good propaganda effort, but those groups have different focuses. Anti-Fa
is a reaction to the neo-Nazis, but it is also home to a lot of anarchists.
Black Lives Matter is focused on African American rights and an opposition to police brutality. If you look at their web site,
it is all about civil rights both in the U.S. and internationally. They also have a stated agenda of supporting LGBTQ rights.
It's hard to find any ideology in favor of looting. In fact, they are on-record in support of minority-owned (capitalist) businesses
and economic development.
Fascism is an ideology that presuppose mass mobilization (often of the base of previous
humiliation and current difficulties) by an ultranationalist party with populist program. Just
being ultranationalist is not enough. If element of mass mobilization is absent this is also not
a fascism.
Notable quotes:
"... The same administration provoked similar ill-conceived and unhelpful monographs on Fascism from Cass Sunstein ( Can it Happen Here? ), Madeleine Albright ( Fascism: A Warning ), and Harvard duo Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt ( How Democracies Die ). All of these individuals are Jews, and this is not a coincidence. In fact, since the production of Leon Trotsky's Fascism: What it is and How to Fight It (compiled between 1922 and 1933) and the Frankfurt School's project on the "Authoritarian Personality," Jews have been at the forefront of paving the cultural, as well as political, path to Antifa activity. ..."
"... They do so by bastardising public understanding of the nature of Fascist politics, thereby shaping "anti-Fascism" as a vehicle for the undermining of the White nation. When it comes to Fascism, "Jews know it when they see it," a pronouncement we are all encouraged to accept without question. ..."
"... His lack of education and reading in the subject is therefore apparently more than compensated for in the fact he is emotionally distressed by it. Right. ..."
"... Stanley, Sunstein, Levitsky, Ziblatt, and Albright have produced quite typical examples of Jewish propaganda disguised as "anti-Fascist" literature. The key features of such works are invariably a vague definition of Fascism, an attempt to relate "warnings" to some aspect of contemporary politics, melodramatic admonitions about a putative future violent catastrophe that must be avoided, and maudlin appeals to personal family history and "emotional baggage." ..."
"... The family, the acknowledgement of heterosexuality as culturally and biologically normative and preferential, the desirability of mono-ethnic cultures, and the acknowledgement of inequality among human beings are reframed in this kind of "warning literature" as inherently Fascistic. ..."
"... Fascism's unforgivable sin was its spot-on critique of the failure of liberal democracy, which, it argued, was the inevitable result of its corruption by capitalism. ..."
"... In this way, fascism is the thinking person's version of Marxism, stripped of the latter's absurd mismeasures of human nature. Fascism restored the traditional fabric of society, placing the needs of the national community above the selfish whims of the individual. In so doing it gave to otherwise alienated individuals the sense of common purpose and connection to others that are so vital to mental health. ..."
"... And only a strong authoritarian state can claim and effectively wield the power necessary to undo the damage that capitalism does ..."
"... No wonder the mortal adversaries, western imperialism and Soviet communism, were so terrified of this existential challenge to their oppressive systems that they made temporary common cause of ruthlessly annihilating Germany in history's most destructive war. ..."
"... Fascism is the cry of the lower middle class who do not understand how things work or where they came from. It is an urban tryharder phenomenon. Very short attention spans. ..."
"... George Orwell understood this: he was tolerant but realistic, and "conservative" in a natural way, all the time grasping the nature of Capitalism, that man needs to be set free not governed by others. Liberal Democracy is just a means to stablise government instead of civil wars. ..."
"... Vulture Capitalism and Marxist Socialism have the same elite masters and revolting against it in the interest of the people. ..."
"... Paul Gottfried's Fascism: the Career of a Concept. Although Jewish, Prof Gottfried is a paleoconservative and his books are always carefully written. His work on Fascism is probably the best recent work on the subject. I don't know why Dr Joyce didn't mention it. ..."
"... Interesting (and alarming) essay by Dr.. Joyce. Alarming because the sheer relentlessness and vindictiveness of these people is matched only by the vacuity, shallowness and spite of their ostensible "intellectual" product. ..."
Concluding one of America's more infamous obscenity trials in 1964, Justice Potter Stewart
absolved a controversial French motion picture with an opinion that has since passed into
common parlance: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I
understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed
in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it , and the motion picture
involved in this case is not that."
The opinion was celebrated at the time as a victory for
freedom of expression, and paved the way for a later deluge of Western cultural degradation. Of
greater significance, however, is the fact that almost 60 years later "I know it when I see it"
has become a political philosophy in its own right, adopted and pursued by a radical Left
intent on curtailing that very same freedom by claiming an exclusive and unaccountable ability
to define Fascism. This was the starkest message from TheBurkean 's
unprecedented recent Irish
Antifa Project , which was designed to infiltrate and expose self-styled Antifa networks in
mainstream Irish academia and politics.
In my view, the most predictable revelation from the Irish Antifa Project was the extent of
historical and cultural ignorance among the profiled activists. None of the intellectually and
professionally mediocre individuals exposed by The Burkean appeared capable of
articulating what Fascism was, or is alleged to be today. Fascism instead seems to have been
adopted by these non-entities as a vague catch-all for anything touching upon capitalism,
conservatism, religion, or tradition. Equally vague are the proposed activist methodologies of
these individuals, which range from the compiling of databases with the names of those deemed
to be Fascists, to tentative but deniable support for violence. With the exception of a small
number of fanatical Jews like Trinity College student Jacob
Woolf , "anti-Fascism" has evidently been adopted by the majority of those concerned as a
kind of half-hearted virtue signaling hobby or political side gig, albeit one with sinister
potential.
Unfortunately, the problems posed by an uninformed, unaccountable, and unhinged
"anti-Fascist" radical Left aren't helped by the fact confusion about the nature of Fascism is
endemic in society as a whole. There are essentially three traditions when it comes to
explaining Fascism. One can be found within Fascism itself, and demonstrates how self-defined
Fascists see themselves. This material is overwhelmingly historical. Another tradition can be
found in contemporary mainstream academia and, although biased, it is at least academic in
style, serious, and relatively comprehensive. The work of the late Roger Griffin is perhaps the best available
in the English language in terms of this tradition, and is also largely concerned with
history.
The third tradition, on the other hand, is popular, highly politicised, always concerned
with contemporary politics, and is abridged to the point of being a pop-Left caricature of
serious studies of Fascism. It is particularly problematic because it has tremendous traction
among the masses and, despite being propaganda for extremist politics of its own sort, always
presents itself as objective and neutral.
The individuals profiled by The Burkean are unquestionably disciples of the latter
tradition, a recent example of which is Jason Stanley's How Fascism Works: The Politics of
Us and Them (2018). Stanley, a Jewish professor at Yale whose background is in language
and epistemology and not history or politics, hasn't published any peer-reviewed material on
Fascism or anti-Fascism, but his 2018 book proved a moderate publishing sensation because it
represented a thinly veiled attack on the Trump administration.
The same administration
provoked similar ill-conceived and unhelpful monographs on Fascism from Cass Sunstein ( Can
it Happen Here? ), Madeleine Albright ( Fascism: A Warning ), and Harvard duo
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt ( How Democracies Die ). All of these individuals
are Jews, and this is not a coincidence. In fact, since the production of Leon Trotsky's
Fascism: What it is and How to Fight It (compiled between 1922 and 1933) and the
Frankfurt School's project on the "Authoritarian Personality," Jews have been at the forefront
of paving the cultural, as well as political, path to Antifa activity.
They do so by bastardising public understanding of the nature of Fascist politics, thereby shaping
"anti-Fascism" as a vehicle for the undermining of the White nation. When it comes to Fascism,
"Jews know it when they see it," a pronouncement we are all encouraged to accept without
question.
Jewish Definitions of Fascism
A common theme in influential books like Stanley's, destined for a modicum of success in the
paperback mass market thanks to dramatic titles and relentless marketing, is their incredibly
-- and deliberately -- vague definition of Fascism. These Jewish activists know this, of
course, but they push ahead regardless. Stanley, for example, excuses the gaps and logical
leaps inherent in his dubious study by arguing that "generalization is necessary in the current
moment." But if he is defining the "current moment" as Fascist under his generalized
definition, isn't he simply using generalization to excuse the same generalization? Isn't this
tantamount to saying to his readers: "The present moment is so obviously Fascist that we really
don't need to define Fascism"?
Such considerations don't slow Stanley down for a second, and this celebrated Yale professor
slips off the hook to pronounce, even more unhelpfully, "I have chosen the label "Fascism" for
ultranationalism of some variety." What variety? What's his definition of
"ultranationalism"?
It doesn't matter. What is clear in texts like Stanley's is that you aren't here to be
encouraged to think or ask questions, but to absorb a discourse and accept a dogma. The
authority behind such demands stems predominantly from emotional blackmail -- Stanley cashes in
his card as the son of "Holocaust survivors," and explains that "My family background has
saddled me with difficult emotional baggage. But it also, crucially, prepared me to write this
book."
His lack of education and reading in the subject is therefore apparently more than
compensated for in the fact he is emotionally distressed by it. Right.
... ... ...
Conclusion
Stanley, Sunstein, Levitsky, Ziblatt, and Albright have produced quite typical examples of
Jewish propaganda disguised as "anti-Fascist" literature. The key features of such works are
invariably a vague definition of Fascism, an attempt to relate "warnings" to some aspect of
contemporary politics, melodramatic admonitions about a putative future violent catastrophe
that must be avoided, and maudlin appeals to personal family history and "emotional baggage."
Underlying the surface veneer, these works are highly focussed efforts to pathologise aspects
of White culture and politics deemed oppositional to Jewish interests. These efforts, and their
framing, are quite obviously derived from Cultural Marxism, especially Adorno's work with the
Frankfurt School on The Authoritarian Personality , and from earlier forms of Jewish
activism witnessed from the end of the 19th century and culminating in Weimar Germany (e.g. the
work of Magnus Hirschfeld).
The family, the acknowledgement of heterosexuality as culturally
and biologically normative and preferential, the desirability of mono-ethnic cultures, and the
acknowledgement of inequality among human beings are reframed in this kind of "warning
literature" as inherently Fascistic.
It is very worrying that our culture has bequeathed a great deal of respect and legitimacy
to Jewish intellectuals, especially in relation to the subject of Fascism. We have allowed them
to assert that "they know it when they see it." The fundamental crisis of our civilization is
that they see it everywhere, and they won't rest until this phantom of their paranoia, and us
with it, are abolished.
Notes
[1] J. Whittam, Fascist Italy , (New York: Manchester University Press, 1995), 81-2.
[2] See, for example,
S. Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Political
Propaganda (1940).
Fascism's unforgivable sin was its spot-on critique of the failure of liberal democracy,
which, it argued, was the inevitable result of its corruption by capitalism. Eighteenth
century liberalism broke the power of absolutism but in time it devolved into a reactionary
movement, redirected specifically to defuse the popular revolutionary socialism of the
nineteenth century, which Germany revived.
The elephant in the liberal living room is the embarrassing reality that capitalist
society is organized on the exploitation of one class by another. Fascism spoke the
inconvenient truth that the ideals of the Enlightenment – equality, individuality,
democracy – must collapse into institutionalized injustice under the all-pervasive
directive of the primacy of the private accumulation of capital over all other concerns.
In this way, fascism is the thinking person's version of Marxism, stripped of the latter's
absurd mismeasures of human nature. Fascism restored the traditional fabric of society,
placing the needs of the national community above the selfish whims of the individual. In so
doing it gave to otherwise alienated individuals the sense of common purpose and connection
to others that are so vital to mental health.
And only a strong authoritarian state can claim and effectively wield the power necessary to undo the damage that
capitalism does and to contend with the many domestic and foreign adversaries which a truly class-free social revolution
inevitable creates.
No wonder the mortal adversaries, western imperialism and Soviet communism, were so
terrified of this existential challenge to their oppressive systems that they made temporary
common cause of ruthlessly annihilating Germany in history's most destructive war.
This is one of the best written, most informative and useful articles ever published here.
But the photograph of Madelaine Albright in particular should have been accompanied by some
sort of warning. "Hideous crone" understates the horror.
@Observator You
lost me at "strong authoritarian State". Which human monkeys were those? How is the already
strong authoritarian State bad but if only a new set of talking human monkeys is
"recognized", that will make everything better and different?
Fascism is the cry of the lower middle class who do not understand how things work or
where they came from. It is an urban tryharder phenomenon. Very short attention
spans.
George Orwell understood this: he was tolerant but realistic, and "conservative" in a
natural way, all the time grasping the nature of Capitalism, that man needs to be set free
not governed by others. Liberal Democracy is just a means to stablise government instead of
civil wars.
Personal liberty and private order are much more important and effective than grasping
schemes.
@obvious "Hitler"
is realizing that Vulture Capitalism and Marxist Socialism have the same elite masters and
revolting against it in the interest of the people.
@Pheasant True,
and he makes no mention of Paul Gottfried's Fascism: the Career of a Concept. Although
Jewish, Prof Gottfried is a paleoconservative and his books are always carefully written. His
work on Fascism is probably the best recent work on the subject. I don't know why Dr Joyce
didn't mention it.
Interesting (and alarming) essay by Dr.. Joyce. Alarming because the sheer relentlessness and
vindictiveness of these people is matched only by the vacuity, shallowness and spite of their
ostensible "intellectual" product.
A few thoughts
1. Actual real Fascism is of course dead as a doornail, and has been since the 1950s at
the absolute latest. The word "fascist" is simply a bogeyman, used by Jews and their
playthings to frighten the public, to sell books, and to denote whatever naughty thing they
don't happen to like at the moment -- as Dr. Joyce shows. (So-called "Islamo-fascism" is, if
possible, even funnier as a name-calling stunt, and more mistaken, than calling Trump a
fascist.)
2. In macro-historical terms, the only reason we pay any attention at all to real fascism
is that it ended in a massive train-wreck, as so many things do (who fusses over the far more
impact-laden bloodbaths of Timur the Lame these days?). But unluckily, since the Jews' ox got
gored as well in the general wreckage, the Owners Of All Megaphones will never ever shut up
about it. That's all this really ever is, innit.
3. Again in macro-historical terms, what Fascism really was, in the broadest sense, was
simply one among several rather crude and clumsy attempts made in the early Twentieth Century
to make some sort of sense out of the confusing, and very very recent, transformation of
economic, political and industrial terms brought about by the sudden onset of the Machine
Age. In the same way that it was the unknown effects of the Machine Age which made the Great
War such a vaster cataclysm than previous wars, the Machine Age rattled every single bar in
every single cage of the European order. Fascism was only one of the rather brutish attempts
to navigate the new terrain. (to be continued)
4. We no longer worry about fascism, or have to deal with it, for two reasons. One, it was
decisively defeated militarily and discredited ideologically; and two (and more importantly),
we no longer live in the Machine Age! We moved very quickly into the
Technological/Information Age, and from there into the Immigration/Industrial Outsourcing
Age. Fascism was an attempt to solve the problems of undernourished semi-literate White men
with large families who lived in urban slums and who worked in giant factories full of
deafening machinery. That political constituency has ceased to exist.
5. Centuries from now, the Peruvian robot historians will tell a very different story
about the Second World War, which was of course the apotheosis and endgame of fascism, than
the story we tell ourselves now -- or rather, allow the Jews to tell for us, when they aren't
screaming it at us and drilling it in with sleep-deprivation techniques.
Levels of apportionment can be argued over, but it's certainly true that the Jews bore
substantial responsibility for the actions and circumstances that led to the war. It could be
argued that one of its chief architects was none other than Henry Morgenthau. In any event,
the robots will view the early career of Hitler as a sort of premature German version of
Gandhi -- Hitler kicked the Jewish Empire out of Germany, and got the Germans out from under
the Jewish yoke, in the same way that Gandhi kicked the British Empire out of India. But the
Jewish Empire (which did and does exist in Europe although not on maps, controlling
institutions rather than territory, yet making war and peace just like other nations all the
same) did not go quietly, and instead mustered its British, American and Soviet satrapies to
pursue proxy revenge. The Hitler regime of course then degenerated through its own failures
into madness, incompetence, stupidity and evil, but the ball was already in play.
The point of bringing this up is the role of Jewish vindictiveness in keeping Fascism
afloat as a zombie all-purpose threat to all and sundry. The "threat of fascist evil" is
simply the threat of a nation or people getting the zany unacceptable notion into their heads
that their country might after all be better off without Jews in charge.
And that calamity cannot of course even be thought about or spoken of, much less
implemented.
A pretty silly rant, but some point might worth your attention...
Notable quotes:
"... I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded ..."
"... Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament, Yatsenyuk, became prime minister. ..."
Meanwhile, what is going to happen to assorted fascisms? Eric Hobsbawm showed us in
Age of Extremes how the key to the fascist right was always mass mobilization: "Fascists
were the revolutionaries of the counter-revolution".
We may be heading further than mere, crude neofascism. Call it Hybrid Neofascism. Their
political stars bow to global market imperatives while switching political competition to the
cultural arena.
That's what true "illiberalism" is all about: the mix between neoliberalism –
unrestricted capital mobility, Central Bank diktats – and political authoritarianism.
Here's where we find Trump, Modi and Bolsonaro.
...Even if neoliberalism was dead, and it's not, the world is still encumbered with its
corpse – to paraphrase Nietzsche a propos of God.
And even as a triple catastrophe – sanitary, social and climatic – is now
unequivocal, the ruling matrix – starring the Masters of the Universe managing the
financial casino – won't stop resisting any drive towards change.
... Realpolitik once again points to a post-Lockdown turbo-capitalist framework, where the
illiberalism of the 1% – with fascistic elements – and naked turbo-financialization
are boosted by reinforced exploitation of an exhausted and now largely unemployed
workforce.
Post-Lockdown turbo-capitalism is once again reasserting itself after four decades of
Thatcherization, or – to be polite – hardcore neoliberalism. Progressive forces
still don't have the ammunition to revert the logic of extremely high profits for the ruling
classes – EU governance included – and for large global corporations as well.
-- ALIEN -- , 2 minutes ago
Allowing the continued uncontrolled exploitation of planetary resources will lead to global
ecosystem collapse, killing most humans.
Cheap Chinese Crap , 10 minutes ago
Good God, it 's like this guy is giving a seminar in technocratic buzzword salad
recognition.
"It takes someone of Marx's caliber to build a full-fledged, 21st century eco-socialist
ideology, and capable of long-term, sustained mobilization. Aux armes, citoyens."
Aux armes, indeed. But not to erect an oligarchy of self-appointed experts to rule us with
an iron hand. I rather prefer the idea of pulling them off their comfy, government-compensated
sinecures and dragging them down into the mud with everyone else.
Anyone who thinks they are better qualified to run your life than you yourself is an enemy
of the Enlightenment. Away with them all.
Leguran , 1 hour ago
Something worthwhile to note is missing among Pepe's carnage....
What has happened is that
every imaginable organized group from doctors to pilots to lawyers, to farmers, to pharma
companies, etc. has carved out a special slice of the economy especially for themselves.
In
Feudal times rivers could not be navigated because cockroach lords would charge fees to use the
rivers. That is exactly the same arrangement today but instead of using force of arms, laws are
used. Our economy is choking on all these impediments.
mtumba , 2 hours ago
I agree that we need a revolution, and that the .01% globalist "elites" have proven to be
not only craven, arrogant and greedy - but also stupid beyond redemption.
But I don't believe Marxist Social/Communism is the answer, as it has proven to always fail, as it is at complete odds
with human nature. It drains creativity and productivity because they aren't rewarded, and it rewards laziness and inertia, because the absolute minimum of effort
results in the barest level needed to survive, which - oddly - is enough for many.
I think it would be great to give actual capitalism a try, with extremely limited govt - a
govt that ONLY provides for the common defense and enforcement of contract laws and protection
against crimes of violence and property theft. NOT crony-capitalism that takes command over the
resources of a nation's klepotcratic govt by the .01% richest and their sycophantic bottom
feeder lawyers, lobbyists, corrupt politicians and other enablers.
Snout the First , 3 hours ago
That was sure a lot of words, needlessly making something simple difficult. Here's what it
all boils down to:
- Who do you want setting prices? The market or a central planner?
- What percent of the economy do you want the government to own or control?
- What percent of your annual income do you want the government to take? Some small amount
to be used for valid purposes, the rest to be pissed away against your better interests?
PKKA , 3 hours ago
Protests and Maidan open up fabulous opportunities for protest leaders. Chocolate oligarch
Poroshenko became president. The little-known leader of the party faction in the parliament,
Yatsenyuk, became prime minister.
You know that on the project of an epic wall between Ukraine
and Russia, Yatsenyuk stole $ 1 billion but did not build a wall. A moron with a certificate
from a psycho hospital Andrei Parubiy became the speaker of parliament. You did not know that
Parubiy had a certificate of moronity from a psycho hospital? Now you know. Boxer Vitali
Klitschko became mayor of Kiev. Vitaly pronounces the words in syllables and wrinkles his
forehead for a long time before expressing a thought. You can even physically hear the creak of
gears as they spin and creak in Klitschko's head. Do you know what rabble passed in the
Ukrainian parliament? Bandits, crooks, nazis, morons, thieves and idiots! So the protests open
up fabulous career opportunities and enrichment!
play_arrow
Phillyguy , 4 hours ago
The American public has a front row seat, watching US economic decline. This process has
been ongoing since the mid 1970's, as corporate profits slumped. In response the ruling elite
enacted a series of Neo-liberal economic policies- multiple tax cuts for the wealthy, attacks
on the poor and labor, job outsourcing, financial de-regulation, lack of spending on public and
private infrastructure and spending $ trillions of taxpayer money on the Pentagon and strategic
debacles in Afghanistan (longest war in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. In total,
these policies have been a disaster for the average American family.
The ruling elite are well aware of American economic decline, accelerated by the Coronavirus
pandemic. Fascism comes to the fore when capitalism breaks down, and under extreme conditions,
the ruling elite use fascism as an ideological rationale to harness state power- Legislature
and police, to maintain class structure and wealth distribution. Western capitalism is
incapable of reversing its economic decline and as a result, we are seeing fascism reemerging
in the US, EU and Brazil. Donald Trump is the face of American fascism. Michael Parenti
provides an excellent historical analysis of fascism. See: Michael Parenti- Functions of
Fascism (Real History) 1 of 4 Jan 27, 2008; Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Bc4KJx2Ao
Vigilante , 4 hours ago
How come 'fascist' Trump is being attacked 24/7 by the Deep State though?
They should be on his side if your assertions are correct
Fascism resides mostly on the Left end of the spectrum...and 'Woke' capital is throwing its
lot with the 'progressives' these days
bshirley1968 , 4 hours ago
It's your perception he is being attacked. Dude, wake up.
The best the deep state has to run against Trump is Joe Biden? They are that stupid? They
are that weak? If they are that stupid and weak, how can they be a conceivable, real
threat.
You are being played. You imagine there are good guys that you can trust......and that is
why you are being played.
HomeOfTheHypocrite , 3 hours ago
The ruling class is currently divided between those who are ready to prepare fascism and
those who want to continue on with neoliberalism. Trump represents one faction of the ruling
class. His political opponents in the Deep State represent another. None of them have any
genuine concern for the fate of the American worker. Trump, if judged by his actions and not
his words, is nothing but a charlatan who mouths populist phrases while appointing billionaire
aristocrats to political positions and lavishing investment bankers with trillions of tax
dollars.
CatInTheHat , 2 hours ago
This is the problem with both sides cult followers: the insanity behind the idea that these
elite somehow have their hands tied behind their backs as they ALL move is toward fascism.
The 2 party system is a ONE party right wing fascist one. Trump is merely a figure head.
People listen to what a politician says and NOT what he does behind their backs.
Trump is 1000% Zionazi just like the rest of them
HomeOfTheHypocrite , 2 hours ago
"basically it looks alot like the age old battle between fascism and communism"
Perhaps on the streets, but not within the ruling class. The ruling class, including the
Democrats, are utterly opposed to communism or socialism. Every Democratic congressperson with
maybe one exception stood and applauded Trump's anti-socialist rants during his State of the
Union addresses. Nancy Pelosi: "We're capitalist and that's just the way it is." Elizabeth
Warren (supposedly a radical): "I'm capitalist to my bones."
"Let's say for example these protesters managed to organize well enough to stage a coup
d'etat and take over - what next ?"
There's little chance of that. They are completely disorganized and lack any sort of
political program. But, if you're giving me the task of developing a political program for
them, I'll try to offer some suggestions that could be accomplished without a Pinochet or
Stalin-style bloodletting.
1. Busting up the monopolies and cartels 2. Raising taxes on the rich 3. A government jobs program to combat unemployment 4. A massive curtailment of the military budget 5. A massive curtailment of the policing and prison budget 6. Free government healthcare (without banning private-sector healthcare)
The first three of these political tasks were accomplished in the US in the 1930s without
the need for "black ops, gulags, secret police, and all the rest of it." Major policy changes
have not always required mass repression. But they do require a serious enough political party
to disassociate itself entirely from the ruling class Democrats and Republicans. During the 30s
there was a significant rise in various populist and socialist parties. Much of FDR's policies
and statements were a response to the threat they posed to established power. There is a famous
quote where he talks about having to "throw a few of these [millionaires] to the wolves" in
order to save America from the crackpot ideas of the "communists" and "Huey Longians."
I completely share your concern related to the use of repression to implement social and
economic policies. Neither the fascists nor the communists have a thing to offer a free people
so long as they rely on tyranny to enforce their program. Above all democracy and the natural
rights of individuals must be preserved.
Jedclampetisdead , 5 hours ago
If this country has any chance, we have to execute the Zionist bankers and their minions
new game , 5 hours ago
What is and will be: Corporate Fascism.
I defy anyone to explain other wise.
Go to the World Economic Forum web page and meet your masters.
Billionaires shaping YOUR future with their fortunes from corporations.
Their wealth was had by joint ventures with bought and paid for politicians and lobbyist
crafted legislation to maximize their wealth. This fakdemic absolutely consolidates more
wealth
to fewer corporations by design. Serf and kings/queens. The club personified by immense
wealth disparity.
In a continuing process, the social scoring via digital systems will limit freedoms to state
approved corporate diktats
that clamp like a boot to the neck. **** here, 6 tissue sections and recycled bug **** for
food.
brave new gatsy world right now with the roll out out of 3 pronged vaccine controlling your
brains emotions.
It is all so obvious to anyone with an ability to see two steps into the future. navigate
the future accordingly.
They are in control, the first denial that must be removed to see clearly the next step. sad
but true.
One very plausible hypothesis is that coronavirus will probably "militarizes the United States even more than 9/11" So the escape
from a lab could be orgnized by the same forces which did 9/11 and anthrax attack.
Notable quotes:
"... Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus ..."
"... And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago. ..."
"... in my understanding of biological warfare, no country used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation level. ..."
"... As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony. And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like PNAC looking for a new American century. ..."
"... And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015. ..."
"... I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far. So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen. ..."
"... first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their basic philosophy of life. And then secondly -- ..."
"... No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone to war? ..."
"... Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted, warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US. ..."
Kevin Barrett:
Truth Jihad Radio
is often
the best place to go for the most important stories that the mainstream won't cover. Today I'm talking to
Meryl Nass
. She's an expert who has written a very important article
about how the propaganda push by very suspicious scientists to claim that Covid-19 couldn't possibly be bioweaponized is a red flag
that everybody should be paying attention to.
But you won't see anything about this in the corporate controlled mainstream Mockingbird media. So please help this kind of material
continue to come to light, by subscribing to
DrKevinBarrett at Patreon.com
.
Welcome to Truth Jihad Radio. I'm Kevin Barrett searching fearlessly for truth in all of the most forbidden places, bringing on people
who are also going to those kinds of places. And sometimes I find genuine experts on various subjects. And we have one of those with
us today, Meryl Nass. She is definitely one of the go-to experts on biological warfare related topics. Yet for some reason, the mainstream
media isn't going to her. I wonder why that would be. Maybe because the things she wrote about the anthrax attacks back in 2001 were
a little bit too truthful. Anyway, she's got some very interesting posts up now at
her anthrax vaccine blog
. But first, before we jump into that, let
me just say that when I say she's an expert: She has consulted for the World Bank. She's testified to Congress. She diagnosed Zimbabwe's
1978 anthrax epidemic as an episode of biological warfare. She's consulted for Cuba's Ministry of Health on its optic and peripheral
neuropathy epidemic, and on and on. So she has a pretty good, solid basis for her views.
And she recently posted what I thought was a critically important piece "
Why are some of the
US' top scientists making a specious argument about the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2?
" pointing out, why is this that the top
U.S. scientists are being trumpeted all over the media, making a specious argument about the natural origin of Sars CoV-2. So why are
they, Meryl? Why is it that they're telling us this could not possibly be a bioweapon, and yet obviously it could?
Meryl Nass:
Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Maybe we should go back and explain what I'm aware of that happened.
Sometime in late February, a group of scientists, which included the former head of the National Science Foundation and a former top
person at CDC, as well as a bunch of other people, many of whom had worked in the biological defense / biological warfare area -- possibly
all of them had -- published
a very short statement
in
The Lancet
saying they wanted to stand with the Chinese public health officials and scientists and point out that rumors
about the unnatural origin of coronavirus were a conspiracy theory and should be dismissed.
They didn't provide evidence, but they made this very strong statement in the top medical journal in the world,
The Lancet
. And so, OK. I have to say that the first author -- and it was alphabetical, so this is the first author alphabetically who signed
that -- is someone that I was told about 27 years ago when I consulted in Cuba, when they had a very severe epidemic of blindness and
other neurologic symptoms. And it turned out it was due to cyanide.
There were two. They were the first in 100 years, I think, in the Western Hemisphere. And if I remember correctly, this was a long
time ago, about 150 or more Cubans died, mostly small children, as a result of the Dengue epidemics. So I thought, that's interesting
that this bio-warrior is signing a statement saying that the core idea that the coronavirus might be due to a biological warfare construct
should be dismissed outright as a conspiracy theory.
Kevin Barrett:
Wow. What a coincidence, that that would be the guy who would do that. You say he's the first author alphabetically?
Meryl Nass:
Yes.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, we can figure out who that is then.
Meryl Nass:
A group of five scientists, and I knew of several of them. I've been in contact with at least one of them in the
past, and they too were sort of biological defense, biological warfare people.
Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks
with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried
to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced
illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus
.
So that's an odd group of different things that you might be researching and writing about. But oddly enough, a couple of these scientists
have chosen that obscure group of things that are somewhat unrelated to each other to comment about. And so these five scientists wrote
a piece in Nature Medicine which claimed to have found the scientific linchpin to be able to make the argument that the new coronavirus
is a natural occurrence. And the argument they made was that had it been constructed in the lab, it would have used the particular backbone
that laboratorians know about. But because it didn't have that backbone, it couldn't possibly be a lab construct.
The problem with that argument is basically it was a straw man argument. They said, well, if I were going to make the novel coronavirus,
I would have made it this way. But because it isn't made that way, it's not a lab construct. Of course, you can make the novel coronavirus
a lot of different ways. And I pointed out three different ways one might have come up with a novel coronavirus that weren't using the
method they suggested.
And I've gotten confirmation. I'm a physician, I'm not a scientist, but I did work in a lab. I went to M.I.T.. So I do know biology,
although I am not well versed in modern genetic engineering. But I do know a lot about how biological weapons used to be made, how they
were made before and during World War 2 and afterwards.
And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period
around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the
last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago.
So I then looked at the connections between the first group of scientists who had published in
The Lancet
and the second group
that had published in
Nature Medicine
and found that well, for example, that the person I mentioned before who had been to Cuba
and looked at the Aedes mosquitoes, even though that person is now of the retirement age, is a member of the institute of one of the
second authors. And I saw other connections between these two groups.
Kevin Barrett:
Sounds like the usual suspects.
Meryl Nass:
Yes, exactly. It seemed that the second group, anyway, the guys who were trotted out to provide the last word
on all these other controversial medical subjects had been again trotted out to provide the last word. Then I thought, who else is talking
about this? And when I looked that up, I found the head of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, an MD-Ph.D, cited the work of these five scientists
to say basically now we've proven that this is a natural occurrence and everyone can forget about the conspiracy theory. And he further
said if you're if you're concerned about what you read about coronavirus, just go to the FEMA website where they are telling you what
is a rumor and what isn't. So I thought, well, that's interesting that the policy makers or the people who pull the strings are able
to pull Francis Collins' strings and get him to comment on this, again agreeing with an argument that he must have known to be specious.
Kevin Barrett:
You don't have to comment on this, but this sure reminds me of what's been going on post-9/11, with first the
ridiculous FEMA report on the so-called collapses of the Trade Center towers and then the NIST reports culminating in the most absurd
one of all, the NIST report on Building 7. Throughout that whole process, the usual suspect so-called scientists were putting out utter
baloney and rubber stamping it, and all the officials were rubber stamping it mindlessly, and any independent voices speaking common
sense and truth were marginalized.
Meryl Nass:
Yes. So that is of course what's happening here. And it's very helpful, it seems, to be able to identify them
as this same group, the same group who can be used over and over and over again over decades to whitewash what the system wants whitewashed.
And then you look at their grants. Ugh! Some of these people are making unbelievable grants.
Kevin Barrett:
They're probably flying on Epstein's Lolita Express and things like that, too.
Meryl Nass:
That I did not look up.
Kevin Barrett:
I wouldn't be surprised, anyway.
Meryl Nass:
There is a lot of money flowing through their laboratories. So anyway, the final point I made was that every scientist
who signed these two documents and then Francis Collins has had something to do with biological defense. If you're a top scientist in
the U.S. government, you are asked to look into pandemics and the risk that they could be due to a biological weapon. And so as far
as I could tell, virtually all these people have had some background in looking at these things. And they're all old. They all remember
the days before the last three decades of genetic engineering and they all must realize, if they have any competence as scientists,
that there are other ways to create biological agents, microorganisms. And so for them to all have signed this, knowing that, just makes
you wonder -- why did they do this?
They presumably did it because they had some sense that it was a lab organism. Perhaps it was a lab escape and perhaps they were
trying to protect the whole enterprise of biological defense, which is a multibillion dollar yearly industry that feeds many, many people,
including themselves.
Kevin Barrett:
I would argue that's a relatively innocent explanation. There are worse ones than that.
Meryl Nass:
The interesting thing is that all these countries do research together. So China, US, (former) Soviet Union, Ukraine
All different countries send people to labs in other countries to work on micro-organisms. So you can put your finger on people from
many different countries who were working on bat coronaviruses in labs around the world. And this could have been a lab escape from
many different places. I mean, it could have been a deliberate attack. But
in my understanding of biological warfare, no country
used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto
their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation
level.
Kevin Barrett:
Let me just give you a possible opposing argument. John Mearsheimer wrote in, I believe 2015, in
a very famous article about China's
unpeaceful rise
that said, in so many words, the US is stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of trying to contain China's
rise, which is based on its double digit growth averaging out since 1980 or so. And that that growth inevitably is pushing China to
break out of U.S. containment in Asia and become a regional hegemon, which is unacceptable to U.S. decision makers. And more likely,
it will actually "pose global challenges" meaning displace the U.S. as global hegemon as well, simply based on its economic growth,
which now has supposedly slowed to maybe 8 percent. But still, the differential between that and the U.S. and its Western allies is
such that within a decade or two, at the very most, it's a done deal.
As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically
ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony.
And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like
PNAC looking for a new American century.
And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way
to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy
would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015.
I've argued with Ron Unz about this. He he thinks it would have been a U.S. attack designed not to escape China, like previous U.S.
(bio-)attacks on China. But
I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what
it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run
stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us
back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far.
So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is
precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen.
Meryl Nass:
That's a reasonable argument. But the economy is not being totally destroyed. It's just that factories are, closed,
people aren't going to work. Nothing's been destroyed. When we come out of this, China will still have all the factories and we will
have all the monetarists and all the play money. So it seems like China could get its engines going a lot quicker than we can when we
come out of it.
Kevin Barrett:
We won't come out of it.
Meryl Nass:
So if we don't come out of it, then it's not what the neocons chose.
Kevin Barrett:
They don't want to come out of it. They want to wreck global prosperity while the U.S. still has most of the
military hardware.
Meryl Nass:
I'm sorry. I guess I don't understand that.
Kevin Barrett
: Well, OK,
first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme
situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all
out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their
basic philosophy of life. And then secondly --
Meryl Nass:
No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone
to war?
Kevin Barrett
:
Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted,
warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other
guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting
off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current
globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon
agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US.
Meryl Nass:
And is there anything wrong with that? That seems to me a worthy goal.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, actually, yes, I would support bringing back manufacturing. I would support never having sent it to China
in the first place. However, it's in the context of their plan to stop China's rise. And China is just as committed to its rise as these
guys are to stopping it. Which means a lot of danger of war and unpleasantness. And I think this is just the first shot of what's going
to be a long round of war and unpleasantness through the next decade.
Meryl Nass:
Perhaps. Right. We don't know. Another thing I've written is that the whole reason this (pandemic) is (being)
stopped. My theory is that, I've tried to think like a politician -- and I did write this before the lockdown -- which is that what
would have happened once this coronavirus had spread widely in the US, is that had it not been halted, we would have gotten to a point
where the coronavirus had required way more medical facilities, personnel, equipment, etc. than we had, and there would be people dying
without access to any medical care. And I thought that given that in America, based on polls, the one thing Americans want from their
government is a health care system, and that the idea of people dying in the street without being able to get into a hospital was so
beyond the pale for politicians who saw that they would never be re-elected under those circumstances, that they then did everything
they could to stop that from happening. And by the point they decided to do something, the only thing that could be done was a lockdown.
And then finally attempting to get more equipment, supplies and personnel.
Kevin Barrett:
So, yeah, I agree, that's plausible.
Meryl Nass
: That's what happened. And I'm sure everybody is trying to now use this very extraordinary circumstance to their
own benefit in the near and far future.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah, I agree. We'll see. The thing is, if if you were planning this thing, assuming that my scenario and your
scenario are both true, a very small group of people would have unleashed it, and then everybody else would be reacting according to
their own self-interest, including the politicians doing precisely what you described.
Meryl Nass:
Yeah, that's certainly possible.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah. And I'm using as my model for this 9/11, which is what I've studied quite a lot over the past nearly
two decades. And I see parallels here between the two events in that 9/11 was about going to war with Islamic civilization, just as
this seems to be a strike against Chinese civilization -- both occurring in the wake of the Samuel Huntington -- Bernard Lewis claim
that "the clash of civilizations will be the new paradigm for us." And if it hadn't been for 9/11, that probably wouldn't have happened.
There would've been no clash of civilizations per se.
Meryl Nass:
I think, yes, you're right. And yet it looks like China is going to get out of this way more unscathed than we
are.
Kevin Barrett:
That's possible. Of course, you know, "they plot and Allah plots and Allah is the best of plotters." Ron Unz
may be right that some of this may have been unforeseen. And it's also possible that I could be wrong. It could be a coincidence. Sometimes
the coincidence theorists, even the craziest coincidence theorists, can be right once in awhile.
Meryl Nass:
Well, yes, given the fact that there are documented many hundreds of lab escapes of different organisms, going
by what's most likely, that seems to be the most likely explanation.
Kevin Barrett:
Do you think that's what happened with Lyme disease? Willy Burgdorfer, whose name was applied to the spirochete
organism that causes Lyme, is on record, filmed and recorded by Timothy Grey, confessing that he, Burgdorfer not only provided a name
for the organism, but he unleashed it on the world as a U.S. biodefense guy. So a lot of people think Lyme was an external escape. Others
hypothesize there may have been some U.S. versus Soviet element there, because Burgdorfer had a lot of money he was getting from somebody,
and he was flying to places where he might have been meeting with Russians, et cetera. So have you looked into the Lyme issue?
"Barking up a tree is more superstition then evidence unless you are a hunting dog. What about names,
fingerprints, DNA evidence, contact with someone who was actually there and willing to talk? This is the
real world, not superstitious nonsense."
They're exploring hypotheses here, not going to trial. (BTW, the U.S. "government" would tell you you're
full of shit. Things like DNA evidence, fingerprints, etc. are for suckers).
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Harold Smith
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May 30, 2020 at 4:53 am GMT
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from the
Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from
the Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
He's a lawyer, therefore he'll play the devil's advocate – an useful role to validate a legitimate
conclusion.
@ Kevin Barrett
Good on you, Ron Unz and all the cast to pursue the quest for the source of the Cv-19 pandemic and keep the
question of biowarfare alive. An event unequal in human history in its sudden appearance, global reach, social
and economic consequences, with attendant officially approved and orchestrated propaganda and a long chain of
tell-tale "coincidences", must necessarily arouse the suspicion in every thinking person that the Masters of
the Universe are up with their usual tricks of attempting to re-shape the world according to their designs and
goals.
All major historical events have arisen, apart from the rare natural cataclysms, from Man's actions, mostly
the result of a single conspiracy from which, in turn, originate predictable and unpredictable reactions and
other conspiracies. Any plan or scheme to alter the existing status quo starts as a conspiracy whether a band
of professional robbers or politicians; it is in the nature of things that any organizational project or task
involves the co-operation of individuals as a group to achieve a particular aim and, if in the prosecution of
that aim a certain amount of discretion is necessary to have an advantage over the potential opposing side, a
conspiracy takes place. Most of governments' actions are conspiracies and their legitimacy and propriety should
be probed and investigated. To counter that, most (perhaps all) governments erect "official secrets acts" walls
to hide their conspiracies and set up counter-information departments.
This pandemic has risen a conspirational stench because it stinks of malodorous human interference with the
natural order for a purpose unknown, the first characteristic of a conspiracy. The same could be said about the
World Trade Centre incident because the official explanation is at variance with the physics natural order,
hence its conspiracy credentials because the government is openly hiding the true facts, as a conspirator does.
As Barrett has noted (and so have other commenters here at UR) the US is at a cross-roads in its history
where it must set a course of its own making to counter the rise of China as an economic superpower. The US
official policy is to prevent the emergence of any rival power, even a regional one in places where the US has
no legitimate concerns, and China must be hindered, blocked and neutralized. So far, nothing has worked to stop
the Chinese economic juggernaut and the usual solution of going to war is fraught with danger. Yes, the US
could nuke China (as the only military advantage it may have over China) but at a huge cost to itself, both
militarily and reputationally. Besides, facing the opprobrium of the world and a resurgent Russia (which would
not let the opportunity to be wasted) the US would be doomed. Even the clowns and puppets that masquerade as
government in Washington know that the "military solution" is out. Meanwhile, every year China is getting
bigger and better and time is of the essence, as Barrett noted.
What can be done to stop China then? Hybrid warfare (sanctions, blockades, threats, propaganda) is not
working either, but China, for the time being, has an Achilles heel: international trade, in which it depends
for continuing its economic development. If sanctions and threats against China's trading partners don't work,
how about bringing the whole international trade edifice down a la World Trade Centre? If the world global
economy is seriously disrupted, countries won't be able to trade and there goes the Chinese trump card. Enter
Covid-19.
"Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already
pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or
branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected. "
" and examine the environmental samples from the Wuhan Huanan seafood market. Importantly, the market
samples are genetically identical to human SARS-CoV-2 isolates and were therefore most likely from human
sources."
Where did RaTG13 come from?
Was Shi Zhengli engaging in some cover up, alibi [for whom?] constructing when she published her January
23, 2020 paper:
" on January 23, Shi Zhengli released a paper indicating that CoV2 is 96% identical to RaTG13, a strain
which her laboratory had previously isolated from Yunnan bats in 2013. However, outside of her lab, no one
knew about that strain until January 2020." – Yuri Deigin,
medium.com
The fact she revealed RaTG13 as her deus ex machina is somewhat odd, that RaTG13 which was sequenced and
analyzed was not published and not cataloged soon after its discovery in 2013 is, I would think, strange.
And supposedly there is no samples of RaTG13 in the lab. All they have is its sequence in the computer,
though, this perhaps might be normal for lab procedures, which I know nothing about.
RaTG13 is not that close to SARS-CoV-2.
https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
Reports show that pangolins are potentially the intermediate host, but pangolin viruses are 88–98% identical
to SARS-CoV-2. In comparison, civet and racoon dog strains of SARS coronaviruses were 99.8% identical to
SARS-CoV from 2003. In other words, we are talking about a handful of mutations between civet strains,
racoon dog strains and human strains in 2003. Pangolins [strains of CoV2] have over 3000 nucleotide changes,
no way they are the reservoir species.
Alfred
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@Morton's toes
Before inventing a hypothesis about powers and forces and geopolitics forming current events, you really
need a historical analog. If it has never happened before, anywhere, any time, then you are making an argument
which has a form of this time it is different.
How about Lyme Disease? Just look at a map of how it is
spreading and where it started. Humans have lived in this area for many thousands of years – without any such
infection. Don't you think that it is a little suspicious that it should start in the USA and in the 1980's?
TPTB are trying to blame it on "Climate Change". Well, the climate has changed many times in the past.
Anyway, there are areas of the USA that are warmer than New England so why did it not start there?
It is pretty obvious to anyone with the ability to think critically that Lyme Disease was created in the USA
and in a laboratory in New England – a leading research area.
There are two ways viruses mutate, replication and recombination. It seems highly unlikely that Covid 19 was
a naturally occurring replication, hence the support for some kind of man-made virus.
However, it does seem quite possible, even highly probable that this was a mutation by recombination, the
most likely candidate being a mix of bat corona virus and pangolin corona virus.
Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science.
Corvinus
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May 30, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
• 700 Words
@SBaker
"Can we blame it on the virus, even if it was manufactured in the evil labs of the US or China, as has been
convincingly suggested by Ron Unz?"
Suggested, yes. Convincingly? No.
The Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.
January 14, 2020, World Health Organization
There is no evidence that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory.
April 20, 2020, The Conversation
The World Health Organization reiterated that the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 is "natural in
origin." Scientists who are examining the genetic sequences of the virus have assured "again and again that
this virus is natural in origin."
May 1, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a renowned U.S. infectious disease expert, has said that there is no scientific
evidence to back the theory that the coronavirus was made in a Chinese laboratory. "If you look at the
evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, the scientific evidence is very, very strongly
leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," he said.
May 4, 2020, National Geographic
WHO says it has no evidence to support 'speculative' Covid-19 lab theory
May 5, 2020, The Guardian
The British government has not seen any evidence to suggest that the novel coronavirus that causes
COVID-19 was man-made.
May 9, 2020, UK Health Minister Matt Hancock
Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab.
May 12, 2020, Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy
Evidence of COVID's natural origin mounts even as conspiracy theory about Chinese lab refuses to die
May 13, 2020, Cornell Alliance for Science
Mr. Unz can't have his cake and eat it, too. On one hand, he tacitly encourages readers to peddle this "Fake
News" mantra. On the other hand, he latches on to MSM stories that seemingly support his conclusions. He
inferred that we ought to trust ABC News, which cited four separate intelligence sources that a government
report
*existed*
that Covid-19 is a bioweapon. Of course that report "exists". Whether or not
that report constitutes a "smoking gun" in an entirely different matter. But I thought that ANYTHING that comes
from U.S. intelligence ought not to be trusted. Because Deep State. It would appear that those stories which
supports his predisposed narrative, he takes stock in, and for other stories that go against his truth grain,
he vigorously questions their veracity, at best, or totally discards.
Ultimately, a fine number of readers here believe the source he used is part of FAKE NEWS. I would like to
know how Mr. Unz would respond to their repeated accusation that ALL of the mainstream media reporting are
lies. Here is Anon 223 stating that we ought NOT to trust ABC News.
I wouldn't take the ABC news report at face value. Essentially, most of the Federal Government despises
Trump, and want an excuse to make him look bad. Stating that the coronavirus was known since November would
make Trump look bad since he didn't do anything(though he does look bad ). This the same organization that
states continuously that Trump had allied with Russia and that he had a hooker pee on him in a Russian
hotel.
Now, if we go by the assumption that Mr. Unz "carefully reads" several MSM publications, then would it not
be probable that other people also carry out this same course of action? Would not those people be properly
equipped to counter his line of thinking if they underwent a similar process? Or does Mr. Unz possess a unique
skillset they ultimately lack?
"The Global Lockdown is a massive worldwide reset mechanism, deliberately engineered, designed to knock over
the chessboard and scatter the pieces, forcing the players to either start over or to create new, invented
positions on the board"
This statement here personifies the descent into modern anti-intellectualism. This insistence that a
Globalist cabal will destroy the white race once and for all is predicated on the notion that the Deep State is
pulling the strings through a series of coordinated false flags, with high IQ whites being duped along the way
by a complicit media. Proof? Not required. But anyone dare to question this general Alt-Right, Q-driven
narrative, and (whallah) one is deemed a purveyor of Fake News. Hey, no need to critically think when under the
impression that ANY and ALL news from the MSM is doctored, altered, or outright lies.
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Desert Fox
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May 30, 2020 at 1:16 pm GMT
• 100 Words
The coronavirus scam was unleashed to provide trillions to bail out wall street and at the same time bring in
UN Agenda 2030 draconian, diabolical, demonic controls over humanity, using the fake coronavirus scare , which
it a total scam.
Gates and Fauci and all involved in this scam should be arrested for crimes against
humanity!
This virus is man-made, but it is not a bioweapon.
The real weapon was the fake media that is controlled by a handful of people. All the countries that went
into a national lockdown, including Russia, have a media controlled by Zionists.
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2020crazzetrain
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May 30, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
• 100 Words
Great article, Mr. Unz. The US is the consummate propaganda machine!
Mr. Romanoff's
3 part series on Bio-Weapons
, among other things, such as
'The Untold History of the
United States'
on Netflix; opened my eyes to just how diabolical these global technocratic, psychos have
been for as long as I've been alive.
Fort Detrick was likely place of origin for
'the engineered virus'.
"Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science."
Well that makes sense, but you're preaching to the choir.
As we would expect, the problem is the corrupt U.S. "government," which is already publicly blaming the
enemy du jour, China, without any evidence to back up its claims. And the U.S. "government" is making threats
and already taking some action based on those unsupported claims.
It may be of benefit to humanity if some doubt can be immediately cast on the specious claims of the U.S.
"government."
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Robert White
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May 30, 2020 at 3:10 pm GMT
• 400 Words
Real Probability of SARS-2-nCoV-19 being a bioweaponized nCoronavirus imbued with Gain-ofFunction properties,
and Dual Use applications is in fact P=1 given pathogenicity, asymptomatic & undetectable spread, and aged
cohort fatalities in Long Term Care environments.
Epidemiologically, a Six Sigma collapse of the entirety of
all Long Term Care facilities in the world would devastate the infrastructure for Tertiary Care Hospitals
worldwide via spread & vectoring of this deadly man made Pandemic Pathogen.
To assert that SARS-2-nCoV-19 is merely yet another nCoronavirus that has manifested naturally whilst
asserting on the other hand that it could not possibly be a man made bioweaponized nCoronavirus is a lesson in
doublespeak when evidence is not forthcoming for the assertions.
Real scientists are evidenced based via Empiricism proper. Propagandists don't utilize evidenced based
argumentation as that would undermine their task to win hearts & minds one step at a time.
NIST manufactured so-called 'evidence' that was NOT peer-reviewed whatsoever. The bioweaponized SARS-2-nCoV-19
will undergo the same propagandization process utilized for the CIA Controlled Demolition of the Trade Centers
in NYC.
Most researchers continue to neglect mention of the 2014 Cambridge Working Group Call to Action on
Gain-of-Function Dual Use Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in USA Biosafety Level Four laboratories, but it is
key to the historical patterns & USA finance of the global industry of Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in
global BSL-4 laboratories that are primarily funded by USA taxpayers the world over.
Most researchers also fail to mention that the United States of America is a culture of death & extreme text
book Psychopathy via Central Intelligence Agency acts of genocide on a global basis.
The historiography is replete with evidence that the United States of America is funding the lion's share of
Pandemic Pathogen research in BSL-4 labs worldwide, and they are also the most likely & probable culprits for
any & all Pandemic Pathogen outbreaks whether accidental or otherwise intentional.
American is a continent of liars, thieves, and text book Psychopaths helming the political sphere and
obviously lost hegemonic status worldwide 2020. In 2016 we were led to believe that if the USA voted in a true
text book Psychopath like Trump and facilitated a bogus meme to run on like Make America Great Again-MAGA, we
would all live happily ever after until the next round of elections manifested that produced a Democrat
replacement.
Neocons & Republicans always utilize threats of war to finagle their way through terms of corruption whilst
pillaging the financial system globally. Today is no different politically from any other Republican term of
office whereby violence & threats of violence are their only tools of choice.
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Sean
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May 30, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
• 400 Words
'American neoconservatives' can only mean the crypto Zionist Jews of the Israel Lobby, and as they are far more
worried about Israel than America, to credibly propose US neocons as the authors of a bioweapon attack on
China, it is necessary to explain how that would benefit Israel. Or, at least how it might have been calculated
by US neocons to be in the interests of Jewish American Zionist aspirations for Israel. A continuing close
relationship between Israel and America is the prerequisite for all Zionist hopes for the future. I think the
only scenario for neocons attacking China with a bioweapon is they thought it necessary to save Israel from its
own leadership. Last December Netanyahu's son said British diplomats should be "kicked out" of Israel because
of their reference to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel has clearly no fear of anything the
international community says about the West Bank Palestinians. American support is a given and while Trump is
in office Israel formally annexing the West Bank and penning its Palestinian population up in Bantustans is
something American neoconservatives can and will bring about. Unless there is something else Israel is doing
that makes sustaining the pro Israel stance geopolitically impossible.
There is such an obstacle to Trump acquicing in the annexation of the occupied territories: a burgeoning
collaboration between China and Israel. China running the Israeli port that US Navy warships dock at and China
building the world's biggest desalination plant in Israel (supposedly a key ME ally of the US) is not something
that any US president could or would accept. Trump is absolutely going to have to act to counter it, and
because the Netanyahu family will be handsomely paid off by the Chinese (valuing the Israel Lobby as a wedge
against Trump's China trade policy) there is a possibility that Israel annexing the West Bank will be the
begining of the end of the US-Israel, special relationship. It sort of makes sense for the US neoconservatives
worried about Israel to attack China in order to separate it from Israel. However from what I have read the
Israel Lobby is subservient to Israeli politicians.
"... Often the life cycle of protests after a televised police killing of a black person is that local youth come out and begin to self-organize. Some blow off steam, some debate. They develop self-organization and very astute but very local demands. Out of town insurrectionists (antifa, non-ideological nihilists, and right-wing insurrectionists) show up for the circus and are resented by some local factions. Finally, national nonprofits like Black Lives Matter and undefinable organizations like some of the Democratic Party's wings take "leadership," disempowe the youth, who head home, and substitute their demands for those of the youth. ..."
I listened to this colloquy last night betwixt Ingraham and Logan. It supports the statements made just now by the governor of
Minnesota and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul that the rioters the last few nights increasingly are organized, led and
coordinated by people from "out of state" and dressed in black.
Someone pays for the equipping, training, transporting of these anarchist cadres. Who? pl
Thank you for posting the video. "Who is paying" is a very good question.
Joy Reid, hardly a Trump supporter, is shocked: "That Gov. Tim Walls, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin
Carter and now MN attorney general Keith Ellison" are all together saying outside influences are behind the violence and looting
and general agitation. The police are also "contact tracing" those arrested. I think the thread is worth a read:
I soros (oops! meant "suppose") it might be the same group that organized the massive fundraising from out of the country to pay
for Barry Soretoro's first run for the Presidency. No one seemed to care that such fundraising was illegal.
It really must be absolutely galling for our ex POTUS that the Weather Men got the forecast all wrong for election day when
DJT was first put into office.
It's amazing how much money you can get for nihilistic mayhem making a group of young never-do-wells can get so they can travel
and make mayhem.
Funding starts as self-funding or informally croudsourced from friends and relatives, develops into more formal croudsourcing,
particularly of higher-profile (twitter etc) commentators and informal reporters, and sometimes of infrastructure (food, legal,
etc.).
Finally, there sometimes becomes enough structure (not yet), that some big anonymous donors throw in. In New Orleans after
Katrina, Michael Moore was a big anonymous donor. In Occupy Chicago, Lupe Fiasco was. Occupy Wall Street in NYC had probably $250,000
donated at its peak, because people throw money at stuff like that. None of it was earmarked by donors (beyond in-kind, ie warehouse
space). It destroyed OWS because their decision structures weren't equipped to deal with that absurdly large sum of money.
Often the life cycle of protests after a televised police killing of a black person is that local youth come out and begin
to self-organize. Some blow off steam, some debate. They develop self-organization and very astute but very local demands. Out
of town insurrectionists (antifa, non-ideological nihilists, and right-wing insurrectionists) show up for the circus and are resented
by some local factions. Finally, national nonprofits like Black Lives Matter and undefinable organizations like some of the Democratic
Party's wings take "leadership," disempowe the youth, who head home, and substitute their demands for those of the youth.
If these uprisings are remembered to have political content, it is usually the messaging of the national orgs that gets remembered
(eg. body cams after Ferguson).
lysias @ 109
... Here is a fine quote from Wolin's book (page 264) which illustrates the point (please
excuse the length of this quote):
A twofold moral might be drawn from the experience of Athens: that it is self-subverting
for democracy to subordinate its egalitarian convictions to the pursuit of expansive
politics with its corollaries of conquest and domination and the power relationships they
introduce. Few care to argue that, in political terms, democracy at home is advanced or
improved by conquest abroad.
As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed,
imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens. Resources
that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection are
instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, con- sumes the largest percentage of
the nation's annual budget. Moreover, the sheer size and complexity of imperial power and
the expanded role of the military make it difficult to impose fiscal discipline and
accountability. Corruption becomes endemic, not only abroad but at home. The most dangerous
type of corruption for a democracy is measured not in monetary terms alone but in the kind
of ruthless power relations it fosters in domestic politics. As many observers have noted,
politics has become a blood sport with partisanship and ideological fidelity as the
hallmarks. A partisan judiciary is openly declared to be a major priority of a political
party; the efforts to consolidate executive power and to relegate Congress to a supporting
role are to some important degree the retrojection inwards of the imperial thrust.
Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy
and elitism, that experience suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the
tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy and contested, feature
of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise. In the
eyes of contemporary observers, such as Thucydides, as well as later historians, the
advancement of Athenian hegemony de- pended upon a public-spirited, able elite at the helm
and a demos will- ing to accept leadership. Conversely, the downfall of Athens was
attributed to the wiles and vainglory of leaders who managed to whip up popular support for
ill-conceived adventures. As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics
became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite competed to outbid each other by
pro\posing ever wilder schemes of conquest.
In two attempts (411–410 and 404–403) elites, abetted by the Spartans,
succeeded in temporarily abolishing democracy and installing rule by the Few.
...and while I am at it: lysias @ 106
Let's deconstruct what you've said. Even if he resisted arrest (by what degree was he
resisting?) that is not cause for applying deadly force on someone. Clearly he was restrained
and was going no where. Furthermore, the application of restraint should be one that ought
not induce death in someone with a previous health condition. By your rationale, you have no
business of walking the streets if you are not an able-bodied person and that death by
restraint by a police officer is excusable if you happen to be in bad health.
Although you don't explicitly say it, somehow it feels like you are saying that he had it
coming to him when you write "Floyd had a lengthy criminal record." Does that mean just
because he had a lengthy record he deserved to be roughed up like that? This sounds like
victim blaming, which is something commonly done in this country to continue to oppress
people who have no power.
re Norogene | May 30 2020 3:09 utc | 155 "But, of course, you need to protect your country which means maintaining a defense force.
" Yet I cannot think of a single instance of a conflict amerika has gotten into that
wasn't a case of amerika kicking off the action with some particularly egregious act.
eg On the instances I have raised this with amerikans, many have told me they consider
Pearl Harbour to be an instance of amerika being the innocent party, they had no idea that
FDR had instigated a blockade of Japan long before which was starving Japanese people or that
Pearl Harbour wasn't amerikan soil, it was an illegally occupied nation and the Japanese
attack had been careful to only bomb and strafe the occupying force.
No nation needs a defense force if the true will of the citizens of a country was what
steered that nation, since as you said, most humans the world over prefer to live and let
live.
When I worked as a public servant it took me about 5 seconds to suss that those
bureaucrats promoting change didn't have a real interest in change apart from the opportunity
for promotion change can promote.
This is equally true of war, the arseholes arguing for getting into conflicts do so only
for the opportunities for personal benefit conflicts create. Since no war has ever advantaged
the masses it is safe to say left up to the people, no wars would always be their first
preference.
"... You will find in Sheldon Wolin's final book "Democracy Incorporated" an intricate dissection of this precept in the modern form through his analysis of America's decaying trajectory. Thank you for reminding us of this. ..."
"... As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens. Resources that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection are instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, consumes the largest percentage of the nation's annual budget. ..."
"... Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy and elitism, that experience suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy and contested, feature of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise. ..."
"... As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite competed to outbid each other by proposing ever wilder schemes of conquest. ..."
You can't be a Democracy at home and an empire aboard, the violence of empire will always turn against the very idea
of democracy.
Yes, a keen observation of what ultimately undid Athens. You will find in Sheldon Wolin's final book "Democracy Incorporated"
an intricate dissection of this precept in the modern form through his analysis of America's decaying trajectory. Thank you for
reminding us of this.
lysias @ 109
A variety of scholars who study that period would disagree with you: You cannot maintain an empire abroad and democracy at
home. The two principles are diametrically opposite to one another. It's what caused the democracy of Athens (which was limited
to men -- as usual) to ultimately lose its internal cohesion and reason to be. Yes, formally it was incorporated into the Macedonian
empire, but its demise came because Athens' imperial ambitions sapped domestic resources which further contributed to the trend
toward inequality within the society.
Here is a fine quote from Wolin's book (page 264) which illustrates the point (please excuse the length of this quote):
A twofold moral might be drawn from the experience of Athens: that it is self-subverting for democracy to subordinate its egalitarian
convictions to the pursuit of expansive politics with its corollaries of conquest and domination and the power relationships
they introduce. Few care to argue that, in political terms, democracy at home is advanced or improved by conquest abroad.
As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering
inequalities among its citizens. Resources that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection
are instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, consumes the largest percentage of the nation's annual budget.
Moreover, the sheer size and complexity of imperial power and the expanded role of the military make it difficult to impose
fiscal discipline and account- ability. Corruption becomes endemic, not only abroad but at home. The most dangerous type of
corruption for a democracy is measured not in monetary terms alone but in the kind of ruthless power relations it fosters in
domestic politics. As many observers have noted, politics has become a blood sport with partisanship and ideological fidelity
as the hallmarks. A partisan judiciary is openly declared to be a major priority of a political party; the efforts to consolidate
executive power and to relegate Congress to a supporting role are to some important degree the retrojection inwards of the
imperial thrust.
Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy and elitism, that experience
suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy
and contested, feature of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise.
In the eyes of contemporary observers, such as Thucydides, as well as later historians, the advancement of Athenian hegemony
de- pended upon a public-spirited, able elite at the helm and a demos will- ing to accept leadership. Conversely, the downfall
of Athens was attributed to the wiles and vainglory of leaders who managed to whip up popular support for ill-conceived adventures.
As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite
competed to outbid each other by proposing ever wilder schemes of conquest. In two attempts (411–410 and 404–403) elites,
abetted by the Spartans, succeeded in temporarily abolshing democracy and installing rule by the Few.
The administration also took off the gloves with China over U.S. listings by mainland
companies that fail to follow U.S. securities laws. This came after the Commerce Department
finally moved to limit access by Huawei Technologies to high-end silicon chips made with U.S.
lithography machines. The trade war with China is heating up, but a conflict was inevitable and
particularly when it comes to technology.
At the bleeding edge of 7 and 5 nanometer feature size, American tech still rules the world
of semiconductors. In 2018, Qualcomm confirmed its next-generation Snapdragon SoC would be
built at 7 nm. Huawei has already officially announced its first 7nm chip -- the Kirin 980. But
now Huawei is effectively shut out of the best in class of custom-made chips, giving Samsung
and Apple a built-in advantage in handsets and network equipment.
It was no secret that Washington allowed Huawei to use loopholes in last year's blacklist
rules to continue to buy U.S. sourced chips. Now the door is closed, however, as the major
Taiwan foundries led by TSMC will be forced to stop custom production for Huawei, which is
basically out of business in about 90 days when its inventory of chips runs out. But even as
Huawei spirals down, the White House is declaring financial war on dozens of other listed
Chinese firms.
President Donald Trump said
in an interview with Fox Business News that forcing Chinese companies to follow U.S.
accounting norms would likely push them to list in non-U.S. exchanges. Chinese companies that
list their shares in the U.S. have long refused to allow American regulators to inspect their
accounting audits, citing direction from their government -- a practice that market authorities
here have been unwilling or unable to stop.
The attack by the Trump Administration on shoddy financial disclosure at Chinese firms is
long overdue, but comes at a time when the political evolution in China is turning decidedly
authoritarian in nature and against any pretense of market-oriented development. The rising
power of state companies in China parallels the accumulation of power in the hands of Xi
Jinping, who is increasingly seen as a threat to western-oriented business leaders. The trade
tensions with Washington provide a perfect foil to crack down on popular unrest in Hong Kong
and discipline wayward oligarchs.
The latest moves by Beijing to take full control in Hong Kong are part of the more general
retrenchment visible in China. "[P]rivate entrepreneurs are increasingly nervous about their
future," writes Henny Sender in the Financial Times . "In many cases, these
entrepreneurs have U.S. passports or green cards and both children and property in America. To
be paid in U.S. dollars outside China for their companies must look more tempting by the day."
A torrent of western oriented Chinese business leaders is exiting before the door is shut
completely.
The fact is that China's position in U.S. trade has retreated as nations like Mexico and
Vietnam have gained. Mexico is now America's largest trading partner and Vietnam has risen to
11th, reports Qian Wang of Bloomberg News . Meanwhile, China has dropped from 21 percent
of U.S. trade in 2018 to just 18 percent last year. A big part of the shift is due to the
U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact, which is expected to accelerate a return of production to North
America. Sourcing for everything from autos to semiconductors is expected to rotate away from
China in coming years.
China abandoned its decades-old practice of
setting a target for annual economic growth , claiming that it was prioritizing goals such
as stabilizing employment, alleviating poverty and preventing risks in 2020. Many observers
accept the official communist party line that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic made it
almost impossible to fix an expansion rate this year, but in fact the lasting effects of the
2008 financial crisis and the aggressive policies of President Trump have rocked China back on
its heels.
As China becomes increasingly focused inward and with an eye on public security, the
economic situation is likely to deteriorate further. While many observers viewed China's "Belt
& Road" initiative as a sign of confidence and strength, in fact it was Beijing's attempt
to deal with an economic realignment that followed the 2008 crisis. The arrival of President
Trump on the scene further weakened China's already unstable mercantilist economic model, where
non-existent internal demand was supposed to make up for falling global trade flows. Or at
least this was the plan until COVID-19.
"Before the Covid-19 outbreak, many economists were expecting China to set a GDP growth
target of 6% to 6.5% to reflect the gradual slowdown in the pace of expansion over the past few
years," reports Caixin Global . "Growth slid to 6.1% in 2019 from 6.7% in 2018. But the
devastation caused by the coronavirus epidemic -- which saw the economy contract 6.8%
year-on-year in the first quarter -- has thrown those forecasts out of the window."
Out of the window indeed. Instead of presiding over a glorious expansion of the Chinese
sphere of influence in Asia, Xi Jinping is instead left to fight a defensive action
economically and financially. The prospective end of the special status of Hong Kong is
unlikely to have any economic benefits and may actually cause China's problems with massive
internal debt and economic malaise to intensify. Beijing's proposed security law would reduce
Hong Kong's separate legal status and likely bring an end to the separate currency and business
environment.
I honestly don't know if this article is or is not correct... But I wonder...
AmConMag publishes a major anti-China article on most days now. What is happening? What is
the mechanics of this... "phenomenon"?
A place where where Americans opposed to U.S. hegemony because it's harm on everyone
without being overwhelmed by the Neocon acolytes where can we go, anyone ever try to get a
word in on foxnews ?
If you try to reach out to twitter on Tom Cotton or Mike Waltz dismisses you as a
'Chinese govt / Iranian / Russian bot'
You know what, God will judge us and we will all be equal in he eyes of Him
Why should I be afraid. Why should I be silent. And thank you TAC for the opportunity to
post.
I too came here for interesting commentary, - and even better comments... five years ago or
so?
I found the original articles mostly okay, often too verbose, meandering for my taste but
the different point of view made them worthwhile. The readers' comments, now that is
priceless. That brings the real value. That's where we learn. That's where I learn, anyway.
:)
It never occurred to me to message to any politician, I think my voice would be lost in the
cacophony.
The target of my curiosity is that when all these articles start to point in one direction
(like belligerence toward China) how does it happen? Is there a chain of command? It seems
coordinated.
It's possible to be anti-neocon, for their being too ideological, and not pacifist. That is
basically my position.
I agree with most here on Russia and Iran. They are not threats, and in specific cases
should be partners instead. Agree on American imperialism being foolish and often evil. I
believe in a multipolar world as a practical matter. I don't take a soft view of China
however. I believe they do intend to replace nefarious American hegemony with their own
relevant, but equally nefarious, flavor of hegemony. There are few countries in the world
with such a pathological distrust of their own people. I truly believe that country is a
threat that needs to be checked at least for a couple of decades by the rest of the
world.
As to the editorial direction, I think it is merely capitalism. China's perception in
the world is extremely bad lately. I would fully expect the always somewhat Russophile
environment here to seize the moment to say 'see! Russia is not a true threat! It's China!'
RT itself soon after Trump's election I recall posted an article complaining about total
disregard for Chinese election meddling.
You can see when the people holding the leash give a tug on the collar. And it's clear that
the GOP is feeling the need for a warlike political environment.
The most blatant presstitution example, of course, was the National Review, going from
'Never Trump' to full time servicing.
It is also a remarkable attempt to ignore the factual history:
[The Taliban] have outlasted a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war. And
dozens of interviews with Taliban officials and fighters in three countries, as well as
with Afghan and Western officials, illuminated the melding of old and new approaches and
generations that helped them do it.
After 2001, the Taliban reorganized as a decentralized network of fighters and low-level
commanders empowered to recruit and find resources locally while the senior leadership
remained sheltered in neighboring Pakistan.
That is simply wrong. Between the end of 2001 and 2007 there were no Taliban. The movement
had dissolved.
The author later acknowledges that there were no Taliban activity throughout those years.
But the narrative is again skewed:
Many Taliban commanders interviewed for this article said that in the initial months after
the invasion, they could scarcely even dream of a day they might be able to fight off the
U.S. military. But that changed once their leadership regrouped in safe havens provided by
Pakistan's military -- even as the Pakistanis were receiving hundreds of millions of
dollars in American aid.
From that safety, the Taliban planned a longer war of attrition against U.S. and NATO
troops. Starting with more serious territorial assaults in 2007, the insurgents revived and
refined an old blueprint the United States had funded against the Soviets in the same
mountains and terrain -- but now it was deployed against the American military.
Even before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan the Taliban had recognized that they lacked the
capability to run a country. They had managed to make Afghanistan somewhat secure. The
warlords who had fought each other after the Soviet draw down were suppressed and the streets
were again safe. But there was no development, no real education or health system and no
money to create them.
When the U.S. invaded the Taliban dispersed. On December 5 2001 Taliban leader Mullah Omar
resigned and went into hiding within Afghanistan. For one day the Taliban defense minister
Mullah Obaidullah became the new leader. From the
The Secret Life of Mullah Omar by Bette Dam:
The next day, Mullah Obaidullah drove up north to Kandahar's Shah Wali Kot district to meet
with Karzai and his supporters. In what has become known as the "Shah Wali Kot Agreement",
Mullah Obaidullah and the Taliban agreed to lay down their arms and retire to their homes
or join the government. The movement effectively disbanded itself. Karzai agreed, and in a
media appearance the next day, he announced that while al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were
the enemies of Afghanistan, the Taliban were sons of the soil and would effectively receive
amnesty. For the moment, the war was over.
The Taliban fighters went back to their home villages and families. Most stayed in
Afghanistan. Some of the leaders and elder members went back to the tribal regions of
Pakistan where their families had been living as refugees since the Soviet invasion in
1979.
The Taliban did not plan a longer war of attrition - at least not between 2001 and 2006.
The movement had simply ended to exist.
The big question is then why it came back but the New York Times has little to
say about that:
From the start, the insurgents seized on the corruption and abuses of the Afghan government
put in place by the United States, and cast themselves as arbiters of justice and Afghan
tradition -- a powerful part of their continued appeal with many rural Afghans in
particular. With the United States mostly distracted with the war in Iraq, the insurgency
widened its ambitions and territory.
No, the 'corruption and abuses of the Afghan government' were not the reason the Taliban
were reestablished. It were the abuses of the U.S. occupation that recreated them. The
publicly announced amnesty Karzai and Mullah Obaidullah had agreed upon, was ignored by the
U.S. commanders and politicians.
The CIA captured random Afghans as 'Taliban' and brutally tortured them - some to death.
U.S. Special Forces randomly raided private homes and bombed whole villages to rubble. The
brutal warlords, which the Taliban had suppressed, were put back into power. When they wanted
to grab a piece of land they told their U.S. handlers that the owner was a 'Taliban'. The
U.S. troops would then removed that person one way or the other. The behavior of the
occupiers was an affront to every Afghan.
By 2007 Mullah Omar and his helper Jabbar Omari were hiding in Siuray, a district around
twenty miles southeast of Qalat. A large U.S. base was nearby. Bette Dam
writes of the people's mood:
As the population turned against the government due to its corruption and American
atrocities, they began to offer food and clothing to the house-hold for Jabbar Omari and
his mysterious friend.
It was the absurd stupidity and brutality with which the U.S. occupied the country that
gave Afghans the motive to again fight against an occupier or at least to support such a
fight.
At the same time the Pakistani military had come to fear a permanent U.S. presence in its
backyard. It connected the retired Taliban elders with its sponsors in the Gulf region and
organized the logistics for a new insurgency. The Taliban movement was reestablished with new
leadership but under the old name.
The old tribal command networks where again activates and the ranks were filled with newly
disgruntled Afghans. From that point on it was only a question of time until the U.S. would
have to leave just like the Soviets and Brits had to do before them.
By December 2001 the war against the Taliban had ended. During the following five years
the U.S. fought against an imaginary enemy that no longer existed. It was this war on the
wider population that by 2007 created a new insurgency that adopted the old name.
A piece that claims to explain why the Taliban have won the war but ignores the crucial
period between 2001 and 2007 misses the most important point that made the Taliban victory
possible.
The will of the Afghan people to liberate their country from a foreign occupation. Thanks
b for doing a good job in restating the record. IMO, the Outlaw US Empire followed the same
MO as it did in Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines well before them all, all of which were
based on the White Supremacist Settler credo underlying the culture of the US military that
was just called out--again-- in
this very powerful NY Times Editorial , and Iraq was no different either. The
contrast between the Editorial Board and its Newsroom writers is quite stark when their
products are compared--one lies about recent history while the other attempts to educate more
fully about the very sordid past of the most revered federal government institution.
Bombing civilians is recruiting more enemies. Also, in this mistaken adventure the US has
been stupidly allied with and funding the neighboring country (Pakistan) which is supporting
the people (Taliban) who are killing Americans.
General McChrystal's Report to President Obama, Aug 30, 2009:
'Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan. . .and are reportedly
aided by some elements of Pakistan's ISI [Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence ]. .
. .Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including
significant efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is
perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan
people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional
tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India." . . .Simply put,
Pakistan didn't want to be in an Indian sandwich with its mortal enemy on two sides.
President Obama was then in the process of more than tripling the US military strength in
Afghanistan, sending 70,000 more troops to that graveyard of empires (UK, Russia). Three
months later, December 1, 2009 at West Point, Obama gave a rah-rah speech to cadets
including: . . ."Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan
is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan."
This article wants on purpose link taliban to Pakistan..there is no connection between
Talibans and yanks backed Pakistani militias..and there is no pakistani talibans..they want
to hide the truth confusing the people but the truth is that the violent and illegal
occupation of Afghanistan created a strong resistance in an already strong population.The
puppet-method didn't work there and this article is the last (I hope) attempt to give a false
narrative of the events.18 years of war for nothing..what the empire has gained from this
war?nothing.
LuBa--
"what the empire has gained from this war?nothing"
Hmmm, not sure about that. First of all it has kept Russia out of Afghanistan, and
somewhere I read that Afghanistan is very central to controlling Eurasia.
I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was planned before 911 as well, so there must
be some reason for that.
The writer of that NYT piece, Mujib Mashal, studied history (presumably the history of
Afghanistan and western and southern Asia) at Columbia University - O'Bomber's alma mater, I
believe - and in-between working as an NYT intern in Kabul and his current senior
correspondent role, worked for a time with Al Jazeera in Doha. One wonders how much effort
Mashal and other NYT writers with similar backgrounds put into reordering reality to fit
whatever fairy-tale narratives they were taught at Columbia University.
The underlying aim in MM's hit-piece must surely be to set up Pakistan as a target for
criticism. Some sort of narrative arc leading to removing Imran Khan as Prime Minister there
can't be too far away.
Soviet invasion? The Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty signed in December 1978 permitted -
inter alia - military assistance and advice to the Afghani government if requested. Saying
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan is like saying Russia invaded Syria.
Opium production is now seven-fold since the arrival of the empire. It is afflicting
Afghanistan and neighboring countries with addiction all the while paying for CIA
operations.
Mission Accomplished.
Let's not forget the MOAB, we are told was detonated over -- caves?
Millions of dollars earned off-the-books from drug trafficking plus enough product to
carry out narco-aggression against Iran, Russia, China and the 'stans is nothing?
Superb.
The relationship with Pakistan has two aspects : the borders between the countries, imposed
by the British, make no sense, dividing the Pashtun people artificially. The second is that
the US has long used Pakistan as a pawn in the region. This goes back to the foundation of
the country in 1948 and malign US influence in Pakistan has been the major factor in the
country's problems. It is a reminder that there are no known limits to the hypocrisy of the
people running the USA that the links between the Taliban, nurtured under US sponsorship in
Pakistan which was used as a secure base beyond Kabul's writ, and Pakistan are attributed to
Pakistan's initiative.
Another matter which one supposes that the New York Times neglected to mention is that under
US sponsorship since 2001 the Heroin industry, reduced almost to nothing by the Taliban
government has ballooned into the proportions we have grown to expect where US influence is
established. Besides the corpses of those bombed, tortured and shot to death by the
imperialist armies there are millions of victims of the drug trades, ranging from those
killed by death squads in the producing countries, and those in, for example Colombia and
Honduras, victimised by narco governments to the millions of addicts around the world.
Part of the truth of Afghanistan is that the US and its allies have been protecting the
criminal narcotics trade in order to employ its profits for their own evil purposes.
Please allow to add to b 's very good overview another subject: drug planting,
producing and dealing in Afghanistan. The Taliban first were against drugs (religious
reasons), but when they saw that the people were exhausted by the Americans and their corrupt
Afghan friends, and had no more income, they allowed the farmers to plant opium poppy for the
EXPORT. Soon they also realized the profits for themselves (to change into weapons). And so
it happened that Afghanistan became a major producer for the world market. It's an open
question (at least for me) how much international networks with connections to US-people and
US-institutions (like CIA) are involved in this drug dealing business originating in
Afghanistan.
arby | 7 wrote:
I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was planned before 911 as well, so there
must be some reason for that.
Interesting question (more see below)! A few days ago I made some research to a parallel
problem: was "homeland security" also in the development before 9/11? Parallel to the war
against Afghanistan another war was started: against the American people. Under the roof of
'Homeland Security' in the interior; parallel zu 'National Security' as a topic in foreign
politics. Bush jun. appointed Tom Ridge within 28 days, did they have some plans before? I
found some remarks in Edward LIPTON's book, Homeland Security Office (2002), indicating
plannings as early as Dec. 2000 and Jan. 2001. Please also remember that there were anthrax
mailings parallel to 9/11. Please remember that Homeland Security Act has some paragraphs
about defense against bioweapon attacks and has some paragraphs about vaccine, too. Please
remember that early plannings of homeland security had also controlling american people with
the help of lockdowns. That trail was followed during the next years in 'hidden' further
plannings as You may find them here:
Next interesting question: when did THEY begin to focus on the twin towers? WTC area was
public property and administration. Very profitable. Then SIVLERSTEIN bought the WTC7 ground
and started to built and rented it, among others, to CIA. And then THEY were looking just out
of the window to see the twin towers. And then these very pofitable buildings were privatized
- why? And they were insured. That privatization was a very dramatic poker which was won by
SILVERSTEIN, too. Why? Some 'renovation' had to be done of course when SILVERSTEIN took over
the property. I remember that companies included were overseen by one of the Bush sons
(Jebb?), and so on ...
Back to the questions about planning of War against Afghanistan. There should be documents
available (foreign policy planning & military planning) because the background primarily
was (according to my estimation) geopolitical. But there is a greater framework within which
the war against terrorism has to be seen. On the day after 9/11 a document was published for
the first time which had been collected under Bush Sen. in the 1980s: 'Report of the Vice
President's Task Force on Combatting Terrorism'. It says that terrorism follows
overpopulation in undeveloped countries. So we are here within the idea of depopulation, and
realizing that we can look on the Bill & Melinda Gates' Charitable Works as a far more
human version. For further reading three LINKs are given below.
Concluding, I would like to say: unterstanding and commenting the past doesn't help much.
THEY are acting and THEY are planning, day by day. Things only will change if 'we' are
planning and acting, too. And if 'we' want a better world our instruments must be better than
THEIRs.
Soviet invasion? The Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty signed in December 1978 permitted -
inter alia - military assistance and advice to the Afghani government if requested. Saying
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan is like saying Russia invaded Syria.
Posted by: arby | May 26 2020 20:03 utc | 7 I'm pretty sure that attacking Afghanistan was
planned before 911 as well, so there must be some reason for that.
It's called 1) oil pipeline, and 2) heroin for the CIA to finance their "black black"
operations. That's not a typo: there are "black budget" operations not identified in the
Federal budget - and "black black" operations that are financed outside the Federal budget.
No one knows how much that is.
The "official" Black Budget operations are described in a Harvard University document
as:
On March 18, 2019 the Office the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), announced its
request for the largest sum ever, $62.8 billion, for funding U.S. intelligence operations
in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020.1This request spans the classified funding from more than a dozen
agencies that make up the National Intelligence Program (NIP).2 The U.S. Government spends
these funds on data collection, counterintelligence, and covert action.3 The DNI also
requested $21.2 billion for FY 2019 for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) devoted to
intelligence activity in support of U.S. military operations.4 For FY2020, it is likely to
request a similar figure, for a total estimated request of approximately $85 billion for
the "Black Budget," t he U.S. Government's secret military and intelligence expenditures.
Interesting article here that shows how some of this has been done in Asia, Saudi Arabia,
Central America, etc.
Before his arrest, the alleged drug trafficker worked with the CIA and the DEA, received
payments from the government, and, at one point, visited Washington and New York on the
DEA's dime. ,/BLOCKQUOTE
Michael Hudson: Debt, Liberty and "Acts of God"
Posted on
May 26, 2020
by
Yves Smith
Yves here. Michael Hudson recaps the logic of debt jubilees and other forms of debt relief, as practiced in
ancient times, when borrowers through circumstances outside their control were unable to make good. Monarchs
recognized the danger of letting creditors create a permanent underclass.
This is a short, high-level treatment and makes for an easy-to-digest introduction to Hudson's research
and ideas.
Western civilization distinguishes itself from its predecessors in the way it has responded to "acts of
God" disrupting the means of support and leaving debts in their wake.
The great question always has been who will lose under such conditions. Will it be debtors and renters at
the bottom of the economic scale, or creditors and landlords at the top? This age-old confrontation between
creditors and debtors, landlords and tenants over how to deal with the unpaid debts and back rents is at the
economic heart of today's 2020 coronavirus pandemic that has left large and small businesses, farms,
restaurants and neighborhood stores – along with their employees who have been laid off – unable to pay the
rents, mortgages, other debt service and taxes that have accrued.
For thousands of years ancient economies operated on credit during the crop year, with payment falling
due when the harvest was in – typically on the threshing floor. Normally this cycle provided a flow of crops
and corvée labor to the palace and covered the cultivator's spending during the crop year, with interest
owed only when payment was late. But bad harvests, military conflict or simply the normal hardships of life
occasionally prevented this buildup of debt from being paid, threatening citizens with bondage to their
creditors or loss of their land rights.
Mesopotamian palaces had to decide who would bear the loss when drought, flooding, infestation, disease
or military attack disrupted economic activity and prevented the settlement of debts, rents and taxes.
Recognizing that this was an unavoidable fact of life, rulers proclaimed amnesties for taxes and the various
debts that were incurred during the crop year. These acts saved smallholders from having to work off their
debts by personal bondage and ultimately to lose their land.
Classical antiquity, and indeed subsequent Western civilization, rejected such Clean Slates to restore
social balance. Since Roman times it has become normal for creditors to use social misfortune as an
opportunity to gain property and income at the expense of families falling into debt. In the absence of
kings or democratic civic regimes protecting debtor rights and liberty, pro-creditor laws obliged debtors to
lose their land or other means of livelihood to foreclosing creditors, sell it under distress conditions and
fall into bondage to work off their debts, becoming clients or quasi-serfs to their creditors without hope
of recovering their former free status.
Giving priority to creditor claims leads to widespread bankruptcy. At first glance, it seems to violate
our society's ideas of fairness and distributive justice to insist on payment of debt and rent arrears,
threatening to evict debtors from their homes and forfeit whatever property they have if they cannot pay the
rent arrears and other charges without revenue having come in. Bankruptcy proceedings would force businesses
and farms to forfeit what they have invested. It also would force U.S. cities and states to cope with
plunging sales- and income-tax revenue by slashing social services and depleting their pension funds savings
to pay bondholders.
But the West's pro-creditor legal and financial philosophy has long blocked debt relief to renters,
mortgagees and other debtors. Banks, landlords and insurance companies insist that writing down of debts and
rents owed to them by wage-earners and small business is unthinkable. So something has to give: either the
broad economic interest of most of the population, or the interest of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate
(FIRE) sector. Banks claim that non-payment of rent would cause debt defaults and wipe out bank capital.
Insurance companies claim that to make their policy holders whole would bankrupt them. So the insurance
companies, banks, landlords and bondholders insist that labor, industry and the government bear the cost of
arrears that have built up during the economic slowdown, not themselves.[1]
Yet for thousands of years Near Eastern rulers restored viability for their economies by writing down
debts in emergencies, and more or less regularly to relieve the normal creeping backlog of debts. These
Clean Slates extended from Bronze Age Sumer and Babylonia in the 3
rd
millennium BC down to
classical antiquity through the Near East, including the neo-Assyrian, neo-Babylonian and Persian Empires.
Near Eastern Protection of Economic Resilience in the Face of Acts of God
For the palatial economies of Mesopotamia and its neighbors, resilience meant stabilization of fiscal
revenue. Letting private creditors (often officials in the palace's own bureaucracy) demand payment out of
future production threatened to deprive rulers of crop surpluses and other taxes, and corvée labor or even
service in the military. Individual creditors looked to their own advantage, not that of the overall
economy.
To preserve the flow of rents, taxes and basic corvée labor duties and service in the military, Near
Eastern rulers proclaimed Clean Slates that wiped out personal and agrarian debts. That restored normal
economic relations – an idealized
status quo ante
– by rolling back the consequence of debts –
bondage to creditors, and loss of land and its crop yield. From the palace's point of view as tax collector
and seller of many key goods and services, the alternative would have been for debtors to owe their crops,
labor and even liberty to their creditors, not to the palace. So cancelling debts to restore normalcy was
simply pragmatic, not utopian idealism as was once thought.
The pedigree for "act-of-God" rules specifying what obligations need not be paid when serious disruptions
occur goes back to the laws of Hammurabi c. 1750 BC. Their aim was to restore economic normalcy after major
disruptions. §48 of Hammurabi's laws proclaim a debt and tax amnesty for cultivators if Adad the Storm God
has flooded their fields, or if their crops fail as a result of pests or drought. Crops owed as rent or
fiscal payments were freed from having to be paid. So were consumer debts run up during the crop year,
including tabs at the local ale house and advances or loans from individual creditors. The ale woman
likewise was freed from having to pay for the ale she had received from palace or temples for sale during
the crop year.
Whoever leased an animal that died by an act of God was freed from liability to its owner (§266). A
typical such amnesty occurred if the lamb, ox or ass was eaten by a lion, or if an epidemic broke out.
Likewise, traveling merchants who were robbed while on commercial business were cleared of liability if they
swore an oath that they were not responsible for the loss (§103).
It was realized that hardship was so inevitable that debts tended to accrue even under normal conditions.
Every ruler of Hammurabi's dynasty proclaimed a Clean Slate cancelling personal agrarian debts (but not
normal commercial business loans) upon taking the throne, and when military or other disruptions occurred
during their reign. Hammurabi did this on four occasions.[2]
In an epoch when labor was the scarcest resource, a precondition for survival was to prevent rising
indebtedness from enabling creditors to use debt leverage to obtain the labor of debtors and appropriate
their land. Early communities could not afford to let bondage become chronic, or creditors to become a
wealthy class rivaling the power of palace rulers and seeking gains by impoverishing their debtors.
Yet that is precisely what is occurring as today's economy polarizes between creditors and debtors.
_______
[1]
Lawsuits are exploding over the role of insurance companies supposed to protect business
from such interruptions. See Julia Jacobs, "Arts Groups Fight Their Insurers Over Coverage on Virus Losses,"
The New York Times
, May 6, 2020, reports that "insurance companies have issued a torrent of
denials, prompting lawsuits across the country and legislative efforts on the state and federal levels to
force insurers to make payments. The insurance industry has argued that fulfilling all of these requests
would bankrupt the industry."
[2]I provide a detailed history of Clean Slate acts from the Bronze Age down through Biblical times and
the Byzantine Empire in
" and forgive them their debts"
(ISLET 2018).
The historical overlook ignores the function of bankruptcy to create the clean slate. Sure, a few
sentences are thrown in, but somehow completely overlooks entire types of bankruptcy that allow corporate
and individual restructuring to occur and preserve underlying value.
The whole debt jubilee ideas is just so unfair. Access to debt is by and large a privileged position in
the modern world. The rich have access to huge amount of capital at minimal cost while the poor have to pay
outrageous rates to buy a used car or pay for an emergency. To wipe the slate clean is overwhelmingly
beneficial to the rich and connected, while the poor remains renters stuck in wage slavery. And the
aftermath of a general debt jubilee means the poor will have even greater difficulty with accessing credit
to buy housing, durable goods, and things that allow them to build wealth.
There's already a much better solution that actually stimulates the economy and redistributes wealth.
Just give every natural person the same amount of money until the economy gets to where it needs to be. It
can also be channeled through building public goods like free college education and universal free
healthcare and public housing. For everything else, just let bankruptcies happen and clean out natural and
unnatural persons addicted to debt. Then the natural person get their fresh start and the unnatural
corporate persons can die a well deserved death.
You must be joking re bankruptcy.
And you completely misunderstand what Hudson is talking about for our modern day 'Little people' debt
issues. I suggest a far more thorough reading of Hudson.
"why do people say," you ought to go read what the author REALLY means".. as opposed to looking at
what was said?
I think what Astrid says is completely valid.
What about what was said ,doesn't reflect reality?
There is unequal treatment and how much money /credit you have completely changes "what you can get
away with".
Poor people don't go bankrupt they get evicted they go homeless.. their cars are repossessed. They
don't have the money for a lawyer to file bankruptcy papers..
Donald trump "goes bankrupt".. and comes out smiling on the other side
Just give every natural person the same amount of money until the economy gets to where it needs to
be.
Astrid
Yes, Steve Keen's solution. But also, all government privileges for private credit creation should be
abolished to eliminate perverse incentives to go into debt, which include the punishment of legitimate*
saving.
Also, an ongoing Citizen's Dividend, to replace all fiat creation for private interests, is a way, in
addition to saving, for all citizens to build equity for rainy days such as these.
'Just give every natural person the same amount of money until the economy gets to where it needs to
be'
Astrid – a basic income has been discussed but, due to the structures in our tax system and in the
operation of the so called 'Free Market' (a complete inversion of it's original meaning) -- I would think
that income would immediately be taken away by the fire sector interests and be used to balloon up asset
prices.
The fact that the cost of living – food, rent, housing has gone up is not really a natural market force –
(there is no natural market force or some magical invisible hand or some as yet undetermined phenomena to
be discovered) – because the market is man made.
In my view, the heaping on of debt fueled speculation combined with corruption's many companions –
co-joined political capture and tax favored status is driving the fundamental asset inflation which is
making everything so damned expensive – everything that used to make living and doing business less
expensive has been captured by creditors and their co-joined cohorts.
Below is a comment from the mid 1920's – don't know who wrote it
In spite of the ingenious methods devised by statesmen and financiers to get more revenue from large
fortunes, and regardless of whether the maximum sur tax remains at 25% or is raised or lowered, it is
still true that it would be better to stop the speculative incomes at the source, rather than attempt to
recover them after they have passed into the hands of profiteers.
If a man earns his income by producing wealth nothing should be done to hamper him. For has he not given
employment to labor, and has he not produced goods for our consumption? To cripple or burden such a man
means that he is necessarily forced to employ fewer men, and to make less goods, which tends to decrease
wages, unemployment, and increased cost of living.
If, however, a man's income is not made in producing wealth and employing labor, but is due to
speculation, the case is altogether different. The speculator as a speculator, whether his holdings be
mineral lands, forests, power sites, agricultural lands, or city lots, employs no labor and produces no
wealth. He adds nothing to the riches of the country, but merely takes toll from those who do employ
labor and produce wealth.
If part of the speculator's income – no matter how large a part – be taken in taxation, it will not
decrease employment or lessen the production of wealth. Whereas, if the producer's income be taxed it
will tend to limit employment and stop the production of wealth.
Our lawmakers will do well, therefore, to pay less attention to the rate on incomes, and more to the
source from whence they are drawn.
First pass"the need act"
https://www.congress.gov/bill/112-thcongress/house-bill/2990/text
Then, as the US gov't would be able to create money debt free .
They could distribute the money to Everyone . and not just wall street to get that money into
circulation . and drive the economy .. not too much not too little.
I think you are missing who Hudson said the "clean slates" were for. They were not for the big
creditors and rentiers, rather they were for the farmers and average people who had suffered some loss
that made them unable to provide their payments to their creditors and rentiers. It would be as if today,
those people who cannot work because of Covid-19 were forgiven their debts, so that when this pandemic
was over, they could start out fresh. That would be so much more a help to Main Street's economy than
just giving money to the top corporations.
I'm not against your ideas about free education and universal healthcare and I doubt Hudson is against
those either, but there is much more to the economy that just education and healthcare – things like food
production and the manufacturing of necessary items, and Hudson is looking at what has worked
historically.
Ah, Americans! "If there is nothing in it for me, then I'm against it!"
Haven't we had enough of that kind of thinking? Is someone else getting a break from their debt
REALLY going to hurt the rest of Americans? In fact, if it makes American's Main Street economy
stronger, doesn't that actually help all Americans? I hear that kind of thinking all the time when
I talk about forgiving student debt – as though somehow that debt is coming out of THEIR pockets
when it is not.
Too many Americans sound like temporarily distressed billionaires in their attitudes (it's all
about ME) instead of people who want all Americans to succeed.
Justice is justice and Hudson's plan would do nothing for rent slaves while giving houses to
those who used what is, in essence, the public's credit but for private gain to buy them.
Also, rent slaves tend to be poorer than those who "own" their own homes so Hudson's plan is
a form of welfare for the richer rather than a promotion of the general welfare.
In fact, if it makes American's Main Street economy stronger, doesn't that actually help
all Americans?
The Historian
Our focus should be on citizens, i.e. people, not businesses since justice for people is what
ultimately matters. What you are promoting is Main Street trickle-down.
Astrid, please re-read Hudson's article. He has been studying this subject for years and knows what he
is talking about. He deserves a closer read than what you gave him!
"Access to debt is by and large a privileged position in the modern world." While this statement is
narrowly true, in the US it isn't. Subprime debt, debt laddled onto those least able to pay it, was
behind the largest financial collapse in US history (so far) just 12 years ago.
"To wipe the slate clean is overwhelmingly beneficial to the rich and connected, while the poor
remains renters stuck in wage slavery." In a rentier economy, to eliminate the debts would be to
eliminate income streams for the rich and connected, Jerome Powell and Josh Hawley are already worried
about what it means to not bail out the poor. The Democrats can't hear this from the left, maybe when it
becomes Republican policy they will like it, that's typically how they roll.
"And the aftermath of a general debt jubilee means the poor will have even greater difficulty with
accessing credit to buy housing, durable goods, and things that allow them to build wealth." This is a
studiously complete missreading of the point of the article: centralized State action to relieve debtors
of financial burdens and social stigma, to restore their freedom because their freedom is the strength of
the State or civilization.
Finally, read the article, a few paragraphs, yes they include a few sentences too:
"Giving priority to creditor claims leads to widespread bankruptcy. At first glance, it seems to
violate our society's ideas of fairness and distributive justice to insist on payment of debt and rent
arrears, threatening to evict debtors from their homes and forfeit whatever property they have if they
cannot pay the rent arrears and other charges without revenue having come in. Bankruptcy proceedings
would force businesses and farms to forfeit what they have invested. It also would force U.S. cities and
states to cope with plunging sales- and income-tax revenue by slashing social services and depleting
their pension funds savings to pay bondholders.
But the West's pro-creditor legal and financial philosophy has long blocked debt relief to renters,
mortgagees and other debtors. Banks, landlords and insurance companies insist that writing down of debts
and rents owed to them by wage-earners and small business is unthinkable. So something has to give:
either the broad economic interest of most of the population, or the interest of the Finance, Insurance
and Real Estate (FIRE) sector. Banks claim that non-payment of rent would cause debt defaults and wipe
out bank capital. Insurance companies claim that to make their policy holders whole would bankrupt them.
So the insurance companies, banks, landlords and bondholders insist that labor, industry and the
government bear the cost of arrears that have built up during the economic slowdown, not themselves."
And iuris romana led directly to the serfdom and prolonged depression of the "dark ages", as the church
spread roman law throughout Europe. If Hayak had bothered to study history he would have found that the
"road to serfdom" is (to borrow a locution from one of Hayak's acolytes) always and everywhere a result of
extreme laissez faire, particularly heritable debts. For modern incarnations of serfdom, look at India,
Pakistan and Mali.
Dr. Hudson spends much time in China. It would be interesting if he were to comment upon how debt and
default were handled in China during its many different dynasties. For example, how did ancient Chinese
policies compare with those of the ancient Middle East?
Yes, that should tie him up for several lifetimes and ensure he does not assemble a following in the
world today. We can't have these loose cannon revealing a way out of unfairness and inequality, eh?
Debt looks like the solution to every problem when you use an economics that doesn't consider
debt.
The economics of globalisation has always had an Achilles' heel.
In the US, the 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the
debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy as
they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.
Not considering private debt is the Achilles' heel of neoclassical economics.
The neoliberal ideology was just a wrapper, hiding the dodgy, old 1920s neoclassical economics
lurking underneath.
The international elite swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Neoclassical economics, probably the worst economics in the world.
(I bet they drink Karlsburg. – UK joke)
The economics of globalisation has always had an Achilles' heel.
In the US, the 1920s roared with debt based consumption and speculation until it all tipped over into the
debt deflation of the Great Depression. No one realised the problems that were building up in the economy
as they used an economics that doesn't look at private debt, neoclassical economics.
Not considering private debt is the Achilles' heel of neoclassical economics.
Policymakers run the economy on debt until they get a financial crisis.
At 25.30 mins you can see the super imposed private debt-to-GDP ratios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAStZJCKmbU&list=PLmtuEaMvhDZZQLxg24CAiFgZYldtoCR-R&index=6
Policymakers run the economy on debt until they get a financial crisis.
1929 – US
1991 – Japan
2008 – US, UK and Euro-zone
The PBoC saw the Chinese Minsky Moment coming and you can too by looking at the chart above.
In the beginning it had nothing to do with god. It was unquestioned cooperation. I'll give you help and
you can help me later. It was unspoken. It was spontaneous. Ever notice how careful wild animals are? And,
by contrast, how foolish humans are? That's gotta be because god is our scapegoat. Just suppose that it's
because over the millennia of civilization helping each other was standardized, formalized and abstracted
into money. When money accumulated it became wealth itself, replacing the value of a good society. It
became money without social cooperation. It has even become a medium of exchange and trade. Contracts were
substituted for cooperation. Leaving morality and caution out entirely. There's really nothing moral about
turning debt into an "asset" which can be collected by law or bought and sold for a profit. An asset that
must be paid in full after a certain use, plus interest. Debt itself has become dissociated from society. So
now what have we got? We've got a planet being destroyed not by god, but by humans. From now on in it's
gonna be devastation by "act of man". Full tilt. And poetically, there will be few profits available to
"service" debt. It's time to legislate a few things, like good societies to meet the needs of people and
planet alike. No speculating and no profiteering. And no debt transmogrified into assets. Our debt is to the
planet now. And survival. End of sermon.
>> or creditors to become a wealthy class rivaling the power of palace rulers and seeking gains by
impoverishing their debtors.
Does this make the case that a benevolent individual ruler (i.e. a monarch, or dictator, or tyrant) would
have a natural interest in protecting balance between creditor-debtor so as not to have his power
threatened?
Is formal democracy then more vulnerable to allowing creditors to seize the power of state as there is no
counterbalancing interest? It seems to me that what Prof. Hudson is saying could certainly be interpreted
that way. I believe also originally the concept of a tyrant in ancient Greece was synonymous with just
government (cant provide references right now).
Debt and contract amnesties did not only exist in ancient times. See Terry Boughton's "Taming Democracy"
about how the American Revolutionaries understood currency. The early state of Pennsylvania regularly issued
relief, and the Federal Constitution limited states' abilities to break these contracts due to acts of god.
Boughton's book is eye-opening also in terms of how money works.
Notice that Hudson is discussing the kind of debt that was paid on the threshing floor. These were debts
of the working people. Commercial "silver" debts were not cancelled in a clean slate. Trying to write a
concise report above Hudson did not fully spell this out. Take a look at the very first section of his book,
beginning on page ix.
The Overview beginning on page 1 addresses the issue of how "American" all this is. He traces the history
of the Liberty Bell and the torch of the Statue of Liberty back to ancient clean slates. They ring and shine
with freedom from onerous debt. Yes, the huddled masses were yearning to be free; free from debt! On page 5
he quotes Hammurabi's law epilogue, " that the strong might not oppress the weak, that justice might be
dealt to the orphan and widow I write my precious words on my stele To give justice to the oppressed." And
Hudson was just getting warmed up on why a certain would-be king took a whip to the moneychangers in the
temple!
No new class, policy or ideology is going to fix economic degradation over generations destroying the
work ethic. It's a computer-controlled machine that systematically eliminates people from the economy and
pays its owners in ones and zeros, to consume natural resources ever more efficiently. China was just the
contract manufacturor. Nature is responding.
The economic bridge is all about the multiplier effects of operational leverage. Why would anyone
responsible for multiplier effects work for equal pay, and if an entire generation is pissed off at the
corporations catering to it, why would anyone expect anything other than negative multiplier effects. When
individual rights are removed, there are no rights, for anyone.
There's a reason why monetary expansion has been rotated geographically, to consume natural resources,
and why the globalists cling to electronic money in virtual space – fintech. A debt jubilee doesn't change
the inbred behavior of consumerism.
Mussolini then realized something very simple: the human being is not inherently rational.
Reason is something that does not occur naturally to human beings, but is rather something
human beings must learn. Therefore, communism could be defeated in elections and in the
streets if the massification of reason was contained in due time. Hence the crude, irrational
violence of fascism. And it worked: the communists were defeated by violence in Italy, and
Hitler would do the same in the 1932-3 elections (who was leading the persecution of
communists at the time? Future second-in-command Hermann Göring).
If I could sum up fascism and all its different variants in one word, it would be this:
irrationality. Fascism must resort to irrational arguments and narratives in order to
manipulate the masses and gain monopoly of violence and, once its hegemony is secure, resort
to art and aesthetics to keep the consensus, in the sense that political domination must be
presented to the public as a form of art, and not as a field of class struggle. This can be
clearly illustrated by the Nazi chain of command: Hitler (political leader, mastermind),
Göring (violence, armed forces), Goebbels (propaganda) and... Albert Speer, the ideal
Nazi (architect cum military).
Unable to communicate in Arabic and with no relevant experience or appropriate
educational training
Seems rather typical of those making policy, not knowing much about the area they're
assigned to. If a person did know Arabic and had an understanding of the culture they
wouldn't get hired as they'd be viewed with suspicion, suspected of being sympathetic to
Middle Easterners. How and why these neocons can come back into government is puzzling and
one wonders who within the establishment is backing them. Judging by the quotes her father
certainly seems deranged and not someone to be allowed anywhere near any policy making
positions.
Flynn also seems to be a dolt what with his 'worldwide war against radical Islam'. Someone
should clue him in that much of this radical Islam has been created and stoked by the US who
hyped up radical Islam, recruiting and arming them to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. Bin
Laden was there, remember? Flynn, a general, is unaware of this? Islamic jihadists are
America's Foreign Legion and have been used all over the Muslim world, most recently in
Syria. Does this portend war with Iran? Possibly, but perhaps Trump wouldn't want to go it
alone but would want the financial support of other countries. They've probably war-gamed it
to death and found it to be a loser.
This is all noise. Kristol is a MIC prostitute and as such he can't attack Trump who gave MIC
and Israel all what they want
Notable quotes:
"... "A 'Neocon' is neither new or conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell." – Edward Abbey ..."
"... Being an unrepentant Neocon, such as William (Bill) Kristol, means never having to say you're sorry. To qualify, you need to be an ideologue, who also has paid no price for recklessly cheerleading 4,488 U.S. troops to their deaths in the illegal and immoral Iraq War, plus another 32,223 who were seriously wounded (2003-2011). ..."
"... For years, we've heard Kristol on the TV/Cable/Network shows making outrageous statements, like this one: "The war in Iraq could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." (09/18/2001). ..."
"... There was also no mention by the reporter of the possible real reasons that Kristol was dumping on Trump. One could be that during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had trashed Kristol's and the Neocons' support of the Iraq War. ..."
"... And, also Trump has indicated he doesn't have any plans to reignite another of Kristol's favorites schemes – "a Cold War with Russia." These are just two of the reasons the "Neocons, like Kristol, can't stomach Trump," according to the commentator, JP Sottile, of Consortium News. ..."
"... During last year's Democratic presidential primary, Kristol took a swipe at the candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and posted a tweet that said: "#Never Sanders." The popular antiwar candidate responded to Kristol: "Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq War? I make no apologies for opposing it." Sanders then added this zinger: "I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran." ..."
"... The Neocon replied: "I will defend my views on Iraq as you defend yours." Sen. Sanders underscored how Kristol had called for regime change in Iraq as early at 1998; and that Kristol also predicted the conflict would last "only two months;" and that he had repeatedly argued for the Bush-Cheney Gang to send in more troops. As early at 2006, Kristol was urging the US to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?" ..."
"... In a way, Kristol reminded me, in a physical sense, of the late actor Peter Lorre. Whether Kristol has a "Little Man (Napoleon) Complex," or not, I will leave to the experts in the field. All I know for sure is that he's a relentlessly angry, pusher of costly and unnecessary wars. ..."
"... Here is another gem from Kristol: "The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably." (April 28, 2003) And, then there is this whopper from the slippery Neocon: "The Iraqi elections of Jan. 30, 2005 could be a key moment perhaps the key moment so far in vindicating the 'Bush/Cheney Doctrine' as the right response to 9/11." (March 7, 2005) ..."
"A 'Neocon' is neither new or conservative, but old as Babylon
and evil as Hell." – Edward Abbey
Being an unrepentant Neocon, such as William (Bill) Kristol, means never having to say
you're sorry. To qualify, you need to be an ideologue, who also has paid no price for
recklessly cheerleading 4,488 U.S. troops to their deaths in the illegal and immoral Iraq War,
plus another 32,223 who were seriously wounded (2003-2011).
It also helps to have a significant media platform and not to give a good hoot about how
many innocent Iraqis died via the U.S.-led invasion and/or the occupation of that country. (Try
an estimated 655,000.)
By the way, false prophet, Kristol: Our troops found "No" Weapons of Mass Destruction in
Iraq.
Let me formally introduce – William Kristol, age 67, out of New York City, now
Northern Virginia, warmonger extraordinaire, ultra-conservative, and currently editor at large
of Bulwark magazine.
For years, we've heard Kristol on the TV/Cable/Network shows making outrageous
statements, like this one: "The war in Iraq could have terrifically good effects throughout the
Middle East." (09/18/2001).
The other day, May 20, 2020, Kristol was the subject of a puff piece profile in the
Washington Post , by reporter KK Ottesen. The article made no mention of Kristol's
disgusting role in promoting the Iraq War. Instead, he was given the opportunity to rip
President Donald Trump on how he has been mismanaging the coronavirus crisis. (Well, heck,
everybody knows that.)
There was also no mention by the reporter of the possible real reasons that Kristol was
dumping on Trump. One could be that during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had trashed
Kristol's and the Neocons' support of the Iraq War.
And, also Trump has indicated he doesn't have any plans to reignite another of Kristol's
favorites schemes – "a Cold War with Russia." These are just two of the reasons the
"Neocons, like Kristol, can't stomach Trump," according to the commentator, JP Sottile, of
Consortium
News.
The idea that Kristol is some kind of genuine dissenter and is opposing Trump because he's
concerned about the quality of his leadership is pure nonsense. The Washington Post
allowed Kristol to use the paper for this dubious exercise and it has no one to blame but
itself.
During last year's Democratic presidential primary, Kristol took a swipe at the
candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and posted a tweet that said: "#Never Sanders." The popular
antiwar candidate responded to Kristol: "Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish
advocacy of the Iraq War? I make no apologies for opposing it." Sanders then added this zinger:
"I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran."
The Neocon replied: "I will defend my views on Iraq as you defend yours." Sen. Sanders
underscored how Kristol had called for regime change in Iraq as early at 1998; and that Kristol
also predicted the conflict would last "only two months;" and that he had repeatedly argued for
the Bush-Cheney Gang to send in more troops. As early at 2006, Kristol was urging the US to
bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?"
Flashback: The first time I laid eyes on the cunning Neocon, Kristol was at a pro-Iraq War
rally held on the National Mall, on April 12, 2003, in Washington, D.C., G. Gordon Liddy and
the late, ex-U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) were there, along with some other Right Wing
types.
What was really weird about the whole affair was the appearance of that so-called comedian,
Ben Stein. He showed up on a huge video screen endorsing the war. It should have had "a warning
label" on it!
I recall a lady in the modest crowd of about fifty at that event saying of Kristol: "Oh,
look how small he is!" She was right. Kristol is, indeed, on the very short side. I'd say that
he comes in at about 5 ft. 4 or 5 inches. It seems that, as a result of his tiny body frame,
his head appears more massive than it really is. The rally was boring. I didn't stay long.
In a way, Kristol reminded me, in a physical sense, of the late actor Peter Lorre.
Whether Kristol has a "Little Man (Napoleon) Complex," or not, I will leave to the experts in
the field. All I know for sure is that he's a relentlessly angry, pusher of costly and
unnecessary wars.
(During the Iraq War, there were countless protest actions mounted by ten of thousands of
splendid antiwar activists across the country. Many of them were held on the National Mall, and
other sites in our nation's capital.)
Here is another gem from Kristol: "The first two battles of this new era are now over.
The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably." (April 28, 2003)
And, then there is this whopper from the slippery Neocon: "The Iraqi elections of Jan. 30, 2005
could be a key moment perhaps the key moment so far in vindicating the 'Bush/Cheney Doctrine'
as the right response to 9/11." (March 7, 2005)
Of course, it wouldn't be fair to leave out this one from Kristol: "It is much more likely
that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less the same, or improve, in either case,
Republicans will benefit from being the party of victory." (Nov. 30, 2005)
As a result of an onslaught of Kristol's articles and media appearances in support of the
Iraq invasion, the Washington Post 's Richard Cohen dubbed the conflict: "Kristol's
War!" Right on, Mr. Cohen.
The estimated cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayers runs to a high of around $1.7
trillion!
If Kristol has any regrets with respect to his amoral advocacy for the Iraq War (which was
launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang based on a pack of rotten lies) and/or about the staggering US
casualties in Iraq, I have never heard him express them.
If Kristol has any empathy for the innocent Iraqi dead and wounded, the Iraqi women and
children who have suffered and are continuing to suffer from that conflict, along with the tens
of thousands of Iraqi homes that have been destroyed, and also for those 3.8 million Iraqis
made into refugees, then he's kept those kinds of feelings to himself.
(The other amazing thing about Kristol is how he's repeatedly able to get his distorted
views on our televisions and in our newspapers. It's like he has to only press a button and
there he is. It is all so – Orwellian!)
In any event, when the name of William Kristol, the Neocon, is mentioned, I think callous
indifference to human life and suffering.
The next time the Neocon Kristol visits the Arlington National Cemetery, over in Virginia,
to honor our Iraqi War dead, will be his FIRST! Despite all of the above, he continues to argue
for a U.S.-led attack on Iran. Kristol insists: "Invading Iran is not a bad idea!"
If warmongering isn't a Hate Crime and/or a Hate Speech, then maybe it should be. (Peace
Movement, please copy.) That would give the heartless Kristol something to think about when he
advocates for the launching of yet another monstrosity, like the Iraq War.
Bill Hughes is an attorney, author, actor and photographer. His latest book is
Byline
Baltimore . Contact the author. Reprinted from the
Baltimore Post-Examiner with the author's permission.
If Washington lured the Soviet Union into it's demise in Afghanistan, which left that minor
empire in shambles - socially, militarily, economically - it was the nuclear conflagration at
Chernobyl that put the corpse in the ground.....
(Watch the GREAT HBO five-part tragedy on it and you will see that the brutally heroic
response of the Soviets, that saved the Western World at least temporarily, but is the
portrait of self-sacrifice)
What was lost in the Soviets fumbling immediate post-explosion cover-up was the trust of
their Eastern European satellite countries. That doomed that empire. So much military might
was given up in Afghanistan, then on Chernobyl, it was not clear if the Soviets had the
wherewithal to put down the rebellions that spread from Czechoslovakia to East Germany and
beyond.
Covid-19 will do the same to the American Empire.
As its own infrastructure has been laid waste by the COLLASSAL MONEY PIT that is the
Pentagon, its flagrant use of the most valuable energy commodity, oil, to maintain some 4000
bases worldwide, this rickety over-extended upside down version of old Anglo-Dutch trading
empires, will finally collapse.
Loss of trust by the many craven satellites, in America's fractured response, to Covid-19
will put the final nail in its coffin.
A hot-shooting War may come next, but the empire cannot win it.
It would be nice if that were so, but it is very unlikely.
"So tired of reading propaganda."
Is that why you regurgitate it onto forums? Kinda like purging the system, eh?
If you are going to be judging China's economic health by their pollution levels then in
the future you will find yourself convinced that they have never recovered, even when it
becomes inescapably obvious that they have. The fact is that China's pollution levels are
never going back to 2019 levels, but that has nothing to do with their economic
health.
It really never ceases to amaze me how deeply rooted and pervasive the delusions and sense
of exceptionality is in America. It is woven into the thinking, from the lowest levels to the
very top of their thoughts, of even the very most intelligent Americans. It is apparently a
phenomenon that operates at an even deeper level than mass media brainwashing, as it seems it
was just as much a problem in every empire in history. That is, I am sure citizens of the
Roman Empire had the same blinding biases embedded deep below their consciousness. I guess
Marx was entirely correct to say that consciousness arises from material conditions, and
being citizen of an empire must be one of those material conditions that gives rise to this
all-pervasive and unconscious sense of exceptionality.
Go over to EOSDIS Worldview and take a look at satellite photos of China. Simple toggle in
lower left hand corner will take you to photos of same day, earlier years. Or any day in
satellite record.
The skies over China are clear. Chinese industry is not back at work. It may be that China
at 50% or even at 20% is a manufacturing powerhouse compared to a crumbling US. But until
China is back at work the thread so far is about the historical situation six months ago.
Xi used to do elaborately staged state appearances with well planned camera angles,
fabulous lighting, pomp and circumstance. He enjoyed the trappings of power and knew how to
use the trappings of power. Hasn't done that kind of state appearance since January.
China and the US are so different. The citizens of China cannot vote. The population's
movements are micromanaged by the government. This is not the case here (yet). And I hope it
is never the case. I agree with the premise that there are those in our government who are
living in a dream of the past and that is over, unless we want to destroy the world. But
China's government is so repressive. The rules must be obeyed. We seem to be compliant so far
of some of our government officials stepping over the bounds allowed by our Constitution, due
to the fear of C-19 engendered by the deep state (aka the bsmsm). But we will not do that
forever and our government cannot just start shooting big crowds of us as they can and have
done in China. Theirs is all top down rule, which is not the case here. Also, although it is
probably heretical to say this I am glad that the US has many cases of C-19. We will
eventually get herd immunity. IMO, China can lock down as many millions of citizens as they
wish; they cannot stop this virus and as time goes by they will have as many deaths and as
many cases as everybody else. Well, that is off the topic of the article. In the end I agree
that we are fighting weird battles we can never win and we citizens need to keep informing
our government employees that we just want to trade and make money, not threaten companies
and countries and lose money.
Regarding Madeleine Albright: "She also said that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children
through U.S. imposed sanctions was " a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price
is worth it." That is the basic credo of the liberal interventionists."
I think 'liberal interventionist' is a bit too weak for the 'lovely' Ms Albright and her
(in)famous quote.
Instead, let's try, "That is the basic credo of psychopathically sadistic zionist monsters
who exquisitely enjoy the thought of Arab children dying agonizingly slow deaths of
preventable diseases and starvation."
Ah, yes. That's a much more accurate assessment of the situation ..
It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing
country.
So, yes, the West still has a realistic chance of destroying China and inaugurating a new
cycle of capitalist prosperity.
What happens with the "decoupling"/"Pivot to Asia" is that, in the West, there's
a scatological theory [go to 10th paragraph] - of Keynesian origin - that socialism can
only play "catch up" with capitalism, but never surpass it when a "toyotist phase" of
technological innovation comes (this is obviously based on the USSR's case). This theory
states that, if there's innovation in socialism, it is residual and by accident, and that
only in capitalism is significant technological advancement possible. From this, they posit
that, if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" - which is
probably to Brazil or India level.
If China will be able to get out of the "Toyotist Trap" that destroyed the USSR, only time
will tell. Regardless, decoupling is clearly not working, and China is not showing any signs
so far of slowing down. Hence Trump is now embracing a more direct approach.
As for the USA, I've put my big picture opinion about it some days ago, so I won't repeat
myself. Here, it suffices to say that, yes, I believe the USA can continue to survive as an
empire - even if, worst case scenario, in a "byzantine" form. To its favor, it has: 1) the
third largest world population 2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality
arable land (35%), that basically guarantees food security indefinitely (for comparison, the
USSR only had 10% of arable land, and of worse quality) 3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans
(Pacific and Atlantic), plus a direct exit to the Arctic (Alaska and, de facto, Greenland and
Canada) 4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea),
bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily absorbed if
the situation asks to 4) still the financial superpower 5) still a robust "real" economy -
specially if compared to the micro-nations of Western Europe and East-Asia 6) a big fucking
Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power.
I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist
movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only
for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else. The Star-and-Stripes is still
a very strong ideal to the average American, and nobody takes the idea of territory loss for
real. If that happens, though, it would change my equation on the survival of the American
Empire completely.
As for Hong Kong. I watched a video by the chief of the PLA last year (unfortunately, I
watched it on Twitter and don't have the link with me anymore). He was very clear: Hong Kong
does not present an existential threat to China. The greatest existential threat to China
are, by far, Xinjiang and Tibet, followed by Taiwan and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is a
distant fourth place.
With a national election lurking on the horizon we will no doubt be hearing more about
Exceptionalism from various candidates seeking to support the premise that the United
States can interfere in every country on the planet because it is, as the expression goes,
exceptional.
That is correct and that is because it works the majority of Americans are stupid.
Do you see a solution suggested here?
It is also an unfortunate indication that the neoconservatives, pronounced dead after
the election of Trump, are back and resuming their drive to obtain the positions of power
that will permit endless war, starting with Iran.
The neocons never went anywhere. Trump is a minion of the Deep State and staffs his
administration accordingly.
My point is simple and ineluctable, whatever our demerits, our great republic is
supposed to weed out psychopaths like Brennan long before they get as close as he has to
destroying the whole shebang.
Never happens all administrations are full of psychopaths.
Frankly nothing new. Every Empire sought to rule the world and committed a long list of
atrocities in the process. "The empire on which the sun never sets", in reference to the
British Empire (the one currently still ruling the world), comes from Xerxes' "We shall
extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no
land beyond our borders." as he invaded Greece.
That said, a word on the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski Doctrine and their Pentagon world map would be
on point here
A US judge
dismissed a defamation lawsuit by One America News Network against MSNBC over Rachel Maddow's
claims that OAN was "literally" Russian propaganda, ruling that her segment was merely "an
opinion" and "exaggeration." OAN sued the liberal talk show host and MSNBC for defamation,
demanding over $10 million in damages, back in September 2019. The lawsuit was based on the
July 22 episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, where Maddow launched a scathing broadside against
the conservative television network, labeling it "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right
wing news outlet in America" and "really literally paid Russian propaganda."
In the segment, Maddow cited a story by The Daily Beast's Kevin Poulsen about OAN's Kristian
Rouz, who has previously contributed to Sputnik as a freelance author. Toeing the general US
mainstream line on the Russian media, be it Sputnik or RT, Poulsen branded the Russian news
agency "the Kremlin's official propaganda outlet" and said Rouz was once on its
"payroll." Shortly after MSNBC's star talent peddled the claim, OAN rejected the
allegations as "utterly and completely false. " The outlet, which is owned by the
Herring Networks, a small California-based family company, said that it "has never been
paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government," with its only funding
coming from the Herring family.
In their bid to win the case, Maddow herself, MSNBC, Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal
Media did not address the accusation itself - namely, that her claim about OAN was false - but
opted to invoke the First Amendment, insisting that the rant should be protected as free
speech.
Siding
with Maddow, the California district court defined Maddow's show as a mix of "news and
opinions," concluding that the manner in which the progressive host blurted out the
accusations "makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the
contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact." h
The court said that while Maddow "truthfully" related the story by the Daily Beast,
the statement about OAN being funded by the Kremlin was her "opinion" and
"exaggeration" of the said article.
While the legal trick helped Maddow to get off the hook without ever trying to defend her
initial statement, conservative commentators on social media wasted no time in pointing out
that dodging a payout to OAN literally meant admitting that Maddow was not, in fact, news.
Maddow won a lawsuit brought against her because the Judge found her show was "opinion," that is, her show isn't one that
shares actual facts with viewers.https://t.co/T1bgdSfc0P — Essential Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 22, 2020Q
Just like Alex Jones’ defense in his divorce and custody proceedings: “I’m an entertainer”
Biden’s binder full of women (@Wallflowerface) May 22, 2020Q
So if she makes any statement(s) on air about being factual, then don’t we have an excellent appeal? — Mortimer Cinder
Block (@LeonardPGoldst1) May 22, 2020Q
I've long since concluded, there is no president who can withdraw the US from the Forever
Wars. Obama couldn't. Trump can't. Biden/Harris/Oprah/Gabbard/Pence won't.
There are a half-dozen permanent US policies that Americans don't get to vote on, and the
Permawar is one of them.
My God, Buchanan, I am staggered by the arrogance of this column. Where in the name of all
that's holy did you ever get the idea that America has the right to impose on anyone, from
Afghans through to Venezuelans, your (perceived) systems of thought, values and democracy?
How many American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan can even speak the local language?
Understand the local customs? None!!! They swan around in their sunglasses and battle gear
thinking that they are they return of the Terminator and wander why the locals absolutely
hate their collective guts! It's time that you collectively learned that America is NOT the
world's sheriff and that, as Benjamin Franklin said "A man convinced against his will, is of
the same opinion still".
Pat is not entirely wrong -- he hints at the explanation for failure:
"As imperialists, we Americans are conspicuous failures.
Moreover, with us, the national interest inevitably asserts itself."
As Imperialists there has never been anything but the (Elite) "national interest".
In short, these so called "losing" wars have been wars of aggression -- ie "bad" wars.
All Pat's talk of conversion, democracy etc is just so much nonsense.
"While we can defeat our enemies in the air and on the seas and in cyberspace, we cannot
persuade them to embrace secular democracy and its values any more than we can convert them
to Christianity" although they might be better persuaded to convert to Christianity –
traditional Christianity – than to embrace secular democracy and its "values".
Why would anyone want to embrace homosexuality, transgenderism, rad-feminism, opioids,
prozac, inequality, broken homes, mass shootings, mountainous debt, corrupt media, puppet
politicians & the rest of the filth & perversion that passes for "values" in secular
democracies like America or Western Europe?
Indeed, why would anyone in these decadent countries even want to defend these venal
"values", let alone try to spread them around the world like the Chinese plague?
No, "they are not trying to change us" but maybe they should.
As the British and French ultimately found out it costs more to run an empire than to loot
it. So the long retreat ensues. One would have thought that the Americans might have learned
this from history, but no! After all they were "the exceptional people, they stood taller
than the others and saw further." Errrm, no they didn't. Like their forbears they got bogged
down as well getting into debt which was only bailed out by their insistence that they would
not convert the dollar into gold.
Human nature and stupidity has got a long track-record and it isn't going to end anytime
soon.
The writer, and most commenters' are still under the erroneous belief that AMerica goes to
war in places then AMerica wins or loses or wastes lives or kill children. This is the
saddest part of the Yankee war machine: Americans joining the Army because they think theya
re joining the fight to defend the American Dream.
You-all are corporate gunmonkeys, fighting and killing and burning and bombing, not in the
name of freedom or apple pie, but in the name of Gulf Oil, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, JPMorgan,
Monsanto, PHBBillington, whatever Devil Rumsfeld calls his sack of shit these days .
America has not won any war anywhere, even their civil war was mostly just clearing the
land for the banks. That is because it is not America at war, she just supplies the cannon
fodder. And cannons. And radiactive scrapmetal to make bullets to mow down women and children
in the name of Investor Confidence.
But then, that is what your Zionist bible tells you to do, isn't it?
I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude to engage in genocide, so it's
hopeless trying to "win."
If by the US you mean most of the people you may be right. But the people in the US
have no say in the actions of the US government which is controlled by psychopaths.
Afghanistan is hardly even a country as the average American might define one. There's really
nothing to "win"; we only occupy. The infrastructure is primitive so it's not cost effective
to try to take whatever natural resources they may have, if any, so there's nothing they have
that we want. The Taliban were not "ousted". In the face of massive firepower they split up
and scattered; they're still there. After all, the US has been negotiating with them for a
peace deal of some sort hasn't it? "Democracy crusades" is just a propaganda fig leaf to
bamboozle stupid Americans. It's amazing that there's people who actually believe stuff like
that but PT Barnum had it right. "Eventually, we give up and go home". That's because they
live there and we don't. "They apparently have an inexhaustible supply of volunteers" willing
to fight and die. They don't want foreign robo-soldiers pointing guns at them in their own
country. We have our own version, it's called "Remember the Alamo", men who stood their
ground against the odds.
If a country is not willing to do that, and I would hope the United States is not
willing to do that, then they (we) should go home and leave the Afghans to murder each
other without our assistance. If they return to supporting terrorism or go whole hog in
producing opium, perhaps the US should decapitate their entire government and let the next
batch of losers give governing a try. I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude
to engage in genocide, so it's hopeless trying to "win."
The growth in opium cultivation correlates with CIA activities in the area and the $3
billion from American taxpayers which financed Mujahideen 'terrorism' against the Russians
and their local proxies just to avenge the fall of Saigon.
In 1980 Afghanistan accounted for about only 5% of total world heroin production. This was
mainly for the local market and neighbor Iran.
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
ours.
If I may..
another way of looking at this, and I feel a profound respect for the Afghans, and only
wish we were made of the same mettle. If only ((they)) could say of us..
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
(((ours)))).
They are not trying to change ((((us. We))) are trying to change them. And they wish to
remain who they are.
IOW, we white Westerners, have proved willing to surrender and submit to all of it.
Without nary a peep of protest. Even as ((they)) send us around the globe to kill people like
these Afghans, for being slightly inconvenient to their agenda. [And so the CIA can
reconstitute its global heroin trafficking operation$.]
If only history would look back on this epic moment, at the last Death throes of the West,
and say of whitey, that he refused to surrender his values and faith and traditions and tribe
and God, and culture and civilization and honor.. to ((those)) who would pervert his values,
and mock his faith, and trash his traditions, and exterminate his tribe, while mocking his
God, and poisoning his culture, and destroying his civilization and all because at the end of
the day, he had no honor.
These men may be backwater, illiterate villagers,
but at least they have enough mettle and honor, to tell the Beast that they would rather
die killing as many of the Beast's stupid goons as they're able, than ever sacrifice their
sacred honor- or lands or sovereignty, or the destinies of their children – over to the
fiend, which is more than I can say for Western "man".
They are not trying to change us. We are trying to change them. And they wish to remain
who they are.
Would that the Swedish people had a Nano-shred of the blood-honor of an Afghan, Barbara
Spectre would be pounding sand.
Historically, the Afghans are fundamentalist, tribal and impervious to foreign
intervention.
Obviously, there is a great deal we need to learn from them.
What will the Taliban do when we leave?
They will not give up their dream of again ruling the Afghan nation and people. And they
will fight until they have achieved that goal and their idea of victory: dominance.
Um.. Pat. Whose land is it anyways? Is it such a horror that Afghans should be
dominant in Afghanistan ?
The Taliban was welcomed into most of the regions it governed, because they drove out
local war lords who often treated the villager's children as their sex toys, and the foreign
(CIA) opioid growers and traffickers. And it was the Taliban that put an end to all of that.
They're harsh, but they're effective, and that is their land, not ours.
Also, the Taliban offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden, if the West could provide a shred
of proof that he had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. (he didn't ; ) But the West had
zero proof, (as the FBI admits to this day), that they have zero proof that ties Bin Laden to
9/11.
And n0w that we all know 9/11 was an Israeli false flag, intended to use the American
military as their bitch, to burn down 'seven nations in five years' .. that the Jewish
supremacists wanted destroyed, our whole pretext for being over there has been a sham from
day one. Duh.
.
.
.
.
I remember long ago when I had a subscription to National Geographic and this photo came out,
I cut the picture out, and stuck it somewhere to look at- it was so visceral and
haunting.
Leave them alone. I don't care how many Jews at the WSJ demand whitey has to stay and die
for Israel. (Afghanistan is on Iran's border, and that's why we have to stay, to menace all
those anti-Semites over there, trying to gas all the Jews and make soap).
@paranoid
goy I very much doubt if many are joining the military to "defend the American Dream."
Most are more practical and are joining to escape poverty, even if it might cost them their
lives. Recruiters will now be inundated with volunteers since there are no jobs in the covid
depression.
If the neo-con clown car Trump has permitted to run foreign policy since his election gets us
into a war with Iran and/or Venezuela before November, will Pat still be stumping for him, or
will we see the return of non-election-year Pat?
Excellent question Pat! Unfortunately there is no answer, we've been at "forever war"
seemingly forever, and the whole point as Eisenhower so preciently warned us is THE
objective.
The thing is that the Afghan government wasn't supporting terrorism. Rather, it had no
on-going control anywhere except the cities, which made the tribal areas useful hideouts /
bases for a raft of groups.
I well remember the prelude to the invasion where the US was demanding that its government
(which merely happened to be Taliban that year) hand over OBL in 72hrs. The truth was that
the US knew Afghanistan didn't have the capability to do that and it merely wanted to use OBL
as an excuse to invade and continue the encirclement of the old soviet states.
In the weeks before the 2016
presidential election, the most powerful former leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency did everything they could to elect
Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump. President Obama’s former acting CIA chief Michael Morrell published a
full-throated endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed “Putin ha[s] recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting
agent of the Russian Federation,” while George W. Bush’s post-9/11 CIA and NSA Chief, Gen. Michael Hayden, writing in
the Washington Post, refrained from endorsing Clinton outright but echoed Morrell by accusing Trump of being a “useful fool,
some naif, manipulated by Moscow” and sounding “a little bit the conspiratorial Marxist.” Meanwhile, the intelligence community
under James Clapper and John Brennan fed
morsels to both the Obama DOJ and the US media to suggest a Trump/Russia conspiracy and fuel what became the Russiagate
investigation.
In his extraordinary election-advocating Op-Ed, Gen. Hayden, Bush/Cheney’s CIA Chief, candidly explained the reasons for the
CIA’s antipathy for Trump: namely, the GOP candidate’s stated opposition to allowing CIA regime change efforts in Syria to
expand as well as his opposition to arming Ukrainians with lethal weapons to fight Russia (supposedly “pro-Putin” positions
which, we are now all supposed
to forget, Obamalargely
shared).
As has been true since President Harry Truman’s creation of the CIA after World War II, interfering in other countries and
dictating or changing their governments — through campaigns of mass murder, military coups, arming guerrilla groups, the
abolition of democracy, systemic disinformation, and the imposition of savage despots — is regarded as a divine right, inherent
to American exceptionalism. Anyone who questions that or, worse, opposes it and seeks to impede it (as the CIA perceived Trump
was) is of suspect loyalties at best.
The CIA’s antipathy toward Trump continued after his election victory. The agency became the primary
vector for anonymous, illegal leaks designed to depict Trump as a Kremlin agent and/or blackmail victim. It worked to ensure
the leak of the Steele dossier that clouded at least the first two years of Trump’s presidency. It drove the scam Russiagate
conspiracy theories. And before Trump was even inaugurated, open warfare erupted between the president-elect and the agency to
the point where Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer explicitly warned Trump on the Rachel Maddow Show that he was
risking full-on subversion of his presidency by the agency:
Democrats, early in Trump’s presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of Trump’s most devoted enemies, and thus began
viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton
campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to create new foreign
policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal
celebrities by being hired
by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a virtually daily basis, masqueraded
as news.
Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the US" opened up my eyes to how shameful our
history really is. The American Empire is no better then Great Britain, the very power this
country was supposed to rise above.
When a system is fully controlled by the big corporation/money every action and move must
serve it's master. Some are directly related to their immediate interest and some to prevent
any future challenge to it.
"...At CBS, we had been contacted by the CIA, as a matter of fact, by the time I became
the head of the news and public affairs division in 1954 shifts had been established ... I
was told about them and asked if I'd carry on with them...." -- Sid Mickelson, CBS News
President 1954-61, describing Operation Mockingbird
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins, was a NYTimes best-seller about the
methods CIA use to dominate countries in Latin America and in Asia. John Perkins never was
interviewed by Us Media.
"... Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest. ..."
Interesting comparison between the aspirations of De Gaulle and Putin.
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in history
that was past. His policy was to foster friendly relations on equal terms with all parts of
the world, regardless of ideological differences. I think that Putin's concept of a
multipolar world is similar. It is clearly a concept that horrifies the exceptionalists."
Agree with Johnstone.
OlyaPola , May 19, 2020 at 11:55
"Having a sense of history, de Gaulle saw that colonialism had been a moment in
history that was past. "
Mr. de Gaulle like other "leaders" of colonial powers did understand that the moment
of overt coercive relations of colonialism had passed and that colonialism to remain
qualitatively the same, required covert coercive relations facilitated by the complicity of
local "elites" on the basis of perceived self-interest.
The exceptions to such strategies lay within constructs of settler colonialism which were
addressed primarily through warfare – "The United States of America",
Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia, Indonesia, Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia, Mozambique, Angola refer –
to facilitate such future strategies.
"I think that Putin's concept of a multipolar world is similar."
As outlined elsewhere the concept of a multi-polar world is not synonymous with the
concept of colonialism except for the colonialists who consistently seek to encourage such
conflation through myths of we-are-all-in-this-togetherness.
We have a plutocracy which is in bed with corporations, including finance corporations. Our
totalitarianism is not fascism.
Fascism arose to fight finance capital. It was the third way between communism and finance
capitalism.
People keep bandying the word fascism around because it was changed in meaning post ww2
something like conspiracy after JFK was murdered. The meaning was changed to have a negative
reaction in our brains.
Conspiracy is merely people getting together to hatch a plot, or scheme. Fascism was the
putting of the polity over capital.
My columns haven't been very funny recently. This one isn't going to be any funnier. Sorry.
Fascism makes me cranky.
I don't mean the kind of fascism the corporate media and the fake Resistance have been
desperately hyping for the last four years. God help me, but I'm not terribly worried about a
few hundred white-supremacist morons marching around with tiki torches hollering Nazi slogans
at each other, or Jewish-Mexican-American law clerks flashing "OK" signs on TV, or smirking
schoolkids in MAGA hats.
And you know what makes me really cranky? I'll tell you what makes me really cranky. It is
people who publicly project themselves as "anti-authoritarians" and "anti-fascists," or who
have established their "anti-establishment" brands and "dissident" personas on social media, or
even in the corporate media, either zealously cheerleading this totalitarianism or looking away
and saying nothing as it is rolled out by the very authorities and media propagandists they
pretend to oppose. I don't know exactly why, but that stuff makes me particularly cranky.
I'll provide you with a few examples.
The militant "Portland anti-fascists" who the corporate media fell in love with and made
famous for bravely fighting off the Trump-loving Putin-Nazi Menace over the course of the last
four years, as soon as the Corona-Totalitarianism began, did what all true anti-fascists do
when the state goes full-blown fascist no, they did not "smash the state," or "occupy the
streets," or anything like that. They masked-up and started making
vegan hand sanitizer .
Others simply looked away or sat there in silence as we were confined to our homes, and made
to carry "
permission papers " to walk to work or the corner grocery store, and were
beaten and arrested for not "social-distancing," and were otherwise bullied and humiliated
for no justifiable reason whatsoever. (We are talking about a virus, after all, that even the
official medical experts,
e.g., the U.K.'s Chief Medic , admit is more or less harmless to the vast majority of us,
not the Bubonic Fucking Plague or some sort of Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu so spare me the
"we-had-no-choice-but-to-go-totalitarian" rationalization.)
My intent is not merely to mock these people (i.e., these "radical," "anti-establishment"
types who fell into formation and started goose-stepping because the media told them we were
all going to die), but also to use them as a clear example of how official narratives are born
and take hold.
That's somewhat pertinent at the moment, because the "Brave New Normal" official
narrative has been born, but it has not yet taken hold. What happens next will determine
whether it does.
In order to understand how this works, imagine for a moment that you're one of these people
who are normally skeptical of the government and the media, and that you consider yourself an
anti-authoritarian, or at least a friend of the working classes, and now you are beginning to
realize that there is no Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu (just as there were no "WMDs," no "Russian
hackers," no "pee-tape," etc.), and so it dawns on you that you've been behaving like a
hysterical, brainwashed, fascist minion of the very establishment you supposedly oppose or at
the very least like an abject coward.
Imagine how you might feel right now.
You would probably feel pretty foolish, right? And more than a little ashamed of yourself.
So OK, what would do about that? Well, you would have a couple of options.
Option Number One would be admit what you did, apologize to whomever you have to, and try
like hell not to do it again. Not many people are going to choose this option.
Most people are going to choose Option Number Two, which is to desperately try to deny what
they did, or to desperately rationalize what they did (and in many cases are still actively
doing). Now, this is not as easy at it sounds, because doing that means they will have to
continue to believe (or at least pretend to believe) that there is an
Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu which is going to kill hundreds of millions of people the moment we
stop locking everyone down, and forcing them to "social distance," and so on. They will have to
continue to pretend to believe that this Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu exists, even though they
know it doesn't.
And this is where that Orwellian "doublethink"
comes in. People (i.e., these "anti-authoritarians," not to mention the majority of the
"normal" public) are not going to want to face the fact that they've been behaving like a bunch
of fascists (or cowards) for no justifiable reason whatsoever. So, what they are going to do
instead is desperately pretend that their behavior was justified and that the propaganda they
have been swallowing, and regurgitating, was not propaganda, but rather, "the Truth."
In other words, in order to avoid their shame, they are going to do everything in their
power to reify the official narrative and delegitimize anyone attempting to expose it as the
fiction that it is. They are going to join in with the corporate media that are calling us "
extremists ," "
conspiracy theorists ," "
anti-vaxxers ," and other such epithets. They're going to accuse those of us on the Left of
aligning with "
far-Right Republican militias ," and " Boogaloo
accelerationists ," and of being members of the Russian-backed "
Querfront ," and assorted other horrible things meant to scare errant leftists into
line.
Above all, they are going to continue to insist, despite all the evidence to the contrary ,
that we are "under attack" by a "killer virus" which could "strike again at any time," and so
we have to maintain at least some level of totalitarianism and paranoia, or else well, you
know, the terrorists win.
It is this reification of the official narrative by those too ashamed to admit what they did
(and try to determine why they did it), and not the narrative or the propaganda itself, that
will eventually establish the "Brave New Normal" as "reality" (assuming the process works as
smoothly as it did with the "War on Terror," the "War on Populism," and the "Cold War"
narratives). The facts, the data, the "science" won't matter. Reality is consensus reality and
a new consensus is being formed at the moment.
There is still a chance (right now, not months from now) for these people (some of whom are
rather influential) to stand up and say, "Whoops! I screwed up and went all Nazi there for a
bit." But I seriously doubt that is going to happen.
It's much more likely that the Brave New Normal (or some intermittent, scaled-down version
of it) will gradually become our new reality. People will get used to being occasionally
"locked down," and being ordered to wear masks, and not to touch each other, and to standing in
designated circles and boxes, like they got used to the "anti-Terrorism measures," and
believing that Trump is a "Russian asset." The coming economic depression will be blamed on the
Alien-Terrorist-Death-Flu, rather than on the lockdown that caused it.
Millions of people will be condemned to extreme poverty , or debt-enslaved for the rest of
their lives, but they'll be too busy trying to survive to mount any kind of broad
resistance.
The children, of course, won't know any better. They will grow up with their "isolation
boxes," and "protective barriers," and "contact tracing," and they will live in constant
low-grade fear of another killer virus, or terrorist attack, or Russian-backed white
supremacist uprising, or whatever boogeyman might next appear to menace the global capitalist
empire, which, it goes without saying, will be just fine.
Me, I'll probably remain kind of cranky, but I will try to find the humor in it all. Bear
with me that might take a while.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing,
Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory
Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated
Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
On this particular event, I researched COVID-19 a few months ago, before the lockdowns hit my
part of the United States, and realized that it was BS. However, since I am powerless this
had no effect on my day to day life. I didn't have the money to spend a year in a
non-lockdown country, not that many exist, or retreat to some estate in the countryside. I
neither own or control a business or facility that I could defy the lockdowns and keep open.
I still need to have to wear a mask to go grocery shopping or starve.
This was the case with other hoaxes such as WMD, so I am not sure who these things are
aimed out. I also don't know how many proles (who, remember, mostly don't vote) really
believe in them. Since they have no power, it makes no difference if they do or not. Unless
you own or operate a business or something like a church that can be closed by a lockdown
order, the most you can do is avoid wearing the mask that signals your compliance, and even
then they get you if you have to enter a store.
The hoaxes might be aimed at the lower level functionaries, the gym owners, the lower
level administrators, the cops, the inspectors who are still needed to physically enforce the
edicts on the local level. However, even here, there is a collective action problem with
disobedience, its only effective if a mass of them disobey, a lone individual disobeying will
face retaliation.
My intent is not merely to mock these people (i.e., these "radical,"
"anti-establishment" types who fell into formation and started goose-stepping because the
media told them we were all going to die), but also to use them as a clear example of how
official narratives are born and take hold.
Do you read scientific articles? I know you are not a medical doctor or a scientist so no
point asking about your actual experience in dealing with the virus, but you can read. Many
informed and intelligent people have formed their opinion of this epidemics by reading the
reported scientific evidence, experiments, epidemiological modelling, not the media. I have
posted several articles published in top-ranking journals demonstrating the effectiveness of
containment in China (recently a new work has been published with an analysis of the dynamics
in Germany). These articles also offer the data and computer code freely to reproduce the
results or adapt them to other situations.
I don't know where you live and I am sorry that you are experiencing the fascist
apocalypse (obwandiyag, above) while sitting at your desk typing out your pieces. Where I
live in Europe there was a serious epidemics that is now getting under control thanks to the
strategy of containment. There has been no fascist uprising and there have been no
politicians suddenly sig-heiling people into the totalitarian nightmare that you describe. We
are all tired of this shit but as I can see around me nearly all agree that the infections
have to be contained and that the effort to achieve containment has been worth the pain. I
guess to stop pathogens that kill or cause great suffering to people from spreading further
is a humanitarian demand, regardless of the age or health of the victims.
Also, contrary to the nightmarish situation you describe in your country, here politicians
seem to be too eager to come back to their normal routine. They are not looking to perpetuate
a state of emergency, quite on the contrary, scientific committes are advising them to carry
on a bit further (with many postdocs doing to modelling in the background) and de-escalate in
a gradual manner.
But what you describe is truly nightmarish. I see you quote a lot of twitter posts and
other media to susbtantiate your fears. So either you go out and fight the fascists hordes
sig-hailing you into totalitarianism from twitter, or instead you read scientific papers and
calm down.
Don't forget 'Covidiots'. The frontline-worker-lovin', government-narrative-believin'
social-distance welcomin' simpletons are endlessly inventive when it comes to coining
contemptuous nicknames for those who don't buy into their embrace of madness. I am happy to
be able to say I thought the virus was bogus from the first, and said so to anyone who would
listen.
So, now there's a big demographic who stuck paper hearts in their windows the way
gold-star mothers used to advertise that Someone In This House Has Gone To War. A demographic
that clapped like seals every evening at 7:00 PM to show its support for everyone who was
still allowed to do their job. That happily buckled down to a war mentality which excused the
withdrawal of individual rights in favour of the public good. As you suggest, embarrassment
is on the near horizon – what will the reaction be?
The first thing that should happen is that everyone who was in a political leadership
position during this debacle, and went along with it, should be unceremoniously kicked out of
office. The WHO leadership should all be fired. Police chiefs should be invited to resign,
effective immediately. Everyone who willingly went along with this farce and has a
responsibility to more than themselves and their immediate families should be made to
publicly apologize, or wear a paper mask with "I'm an idiot" printed on it in lipstick.
I live in Europe there was a serious epidemics that is now getting under control thanks
to the strategy of containment. There has been no fascist uprising and there have been no
politicians suddenly sig-heiling people into the totalitarian nightmare that you
describe.
Well, in Britain (which is still part of Europe geographically) all protests,
demonstrations and the like have been banned. Local elections have been delayed by one
year.
The virus has been circulating since November and the excess mortality rate over and above
the background rate did not start until after the lockdown commended in March. Part of this
is due to the cancellation of elective surgery for at least three months – no
transplants, much reduced diagnoses of new cancer cases, people with heart attacks and stroke
staying away from hospitals and so on.
There has been a veritable holocaust in care homes – caused by lack of visits from
GPs and a lack of availability of hospital care, and the rush to empty hospitals of older
people back to care homes regardless of whether or not they had the infection. Care homes
were by (emergency) law not permitted to refuse entry.
Every Thursday we are encouraged to spend several minutes of our house arrest going
outdoors and clapping for the National Health Service. It's a bit like a love version of the
Two Minutes of Hate in Nineteen Eighty-Four .
Well done on getting your articles published. That boast does little for the reputation of
these "top ranking publications."
@Levtraro Did you
say, "epidemiological modelling'? You mean, like the epidemiological model that started the
whole jaw-dropping overreaction in the first place? This epidemiological model?
The one that varied by as many as 80,000 deaths over 80 days in subsequent runs without
changing any of the feed parameters? That epidemiological model? Yes, that's the sort of
scientific work that calms me down every time.
It's funny how American-expat-in-Germany Hopkins has generally been a huge supporter of
European democratic socialism, as opposed to the Trumpian or neoliberal America which he
finds so distasteful. And yet, those European countries actually locked down more ruthlessly
than America. In Spain, France and the UK you couldn't even get in your car and drive 50
miles without the risk of being stopped. That was never the case here. Freedom of movement
was never under threat in the U.S. I wonder what he thinks about that.
C. J., whatever hope there is in the US, lies in the fact that the country is not
homogeneous. I don't think most people have yet realized that this was an epidemic in NYC and
nowhere else. There were deaths, but a very small number. Los Angeles County has 11 million
people and ~ 1700 deaths. Not every place is requiring a 'mask' of shame yet. Hopefully, a
few states 'open up' and nothing happens, and then more, and finally if New Yorkers and a few
other places want to cower and cringe for the rest of their lives, they are free to do so.
Example: Florida vs New York (from RT): DeSantis is the Republican Governor of Florida.
Florida has been one of the first states to roll back lockdown orders and allow many
non-essential businesses to reopen.
Many critics in the media predicted that Florida would end up "just like Italy" two weeks
after reopening, DeSantis continued. "Well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that and it
hasn't happened."
New York, with a population of over 19 million, has had over 250,000 cases and more than
28,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Though it has a larger population – 21 million
– and more high-risk elderly residents, Florida has registered just over 47,000 cases
and some 2,000 deaths.
And yet the MSM praises Cuomo to the skys, and lambasts DeSantis. Also, ignored is Cuomo's
decision to empty hospitals of elderly patients and send them back to nursing homes (to
die).
Can't remember where I read that (maybe Taki), but every time I see a picture of these
fools, I laff my ass off, 'cuz, as described, the masks just keep getting BIGGER. Now, even
in my hokey little town of 1,500, well off the beaten-track, idiots are wandering around the
streets and the ONE store wearing plexiglass welding face shields (is that even a THING?
Would've thought welders needed something more substantial, but thereya go). Mostly, we here
don't give a shit, and since there's no business here anyway, nobody was fired or laid off.
Sadly, however, there's no chickens at the hardware store until June.
Guess it'll give me time to build a coop if I can get the relatives to move out before I
hang myself–7 people in a single-wide, and six of them hate me.
Style Advice Please. Don't have a wu-wu virus face mask, so plan to wear girl's panties over
my head when leaving the house with the ears sticking out the leg holes . But am perplexed as
to whether the hash mark should go in the front or the back. Sartorial counsel appreciated as
do not want to look foolish.
The kind where governments declare a global "state of emergency" on account of a virus
with a 0.2% to 1% lethality
Most of the studies are converging on the 0.1% range; any above 0.2% are now unusual
outliers. In the words of Swiss Propaganda Research's "A Swiss Doctor on COVID19" series
(which is the link provided in this essay):
According to data from the best-studied countries and regions, the lethality of Covid19
is on average about 0.2%, which is in the range of a severe influenza (flu) and about
twenty times lower than originally assumed by the WHO.
From the Lethality page:
Covid-19 infection fatality rates (IFR) based on antibody studies
Population-based antibody seroprevalence studies.
Global May 19 12 countries 0.02% – 0.40%
A single case was at 0.4%, Geneva, reporting as of a certain point in April; given that
this is an outlier, I expect that a follow-up done now would report it down in Geneva. Wuhan
reported 0.3%. Gangelt, Germany, 0.25% (small study; early outbreak).
The other nine studies in the meta-analysis average <0.1% deaths to those who
are corona-positive (0.085%; range: 0.02% to 0.17%). Of course, this is Just The Flu
territory, but the Corona-True-Believers still think that's laughable and worthy of derision.
But there it is: <0.1%.
The virus is not going to cause any noticeable full-year mortality rise almost anywhere.
The Panic-induced deaths might, in some places.
in order to avoid their shame, they are going to do everything in their power to reify
the official narrative and delegitimize anyone attempting to expose it as the fiction that
it is. They are going to join in with the corporate media that are calling us "extremists,"
"conspiracy theorists," "anti-vaxxers," and other such epithets.
they are going to continue to insist, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that we
are "under attack" by a "killer virus" which could "strike again at any time,"
What you are describing, and the whole Corona-Reaction phenomenon broadly, is a religious
cult. The Corona Cult.
I have come to understand that only in terms of religion can Corona be understood. A close
look shows Corona fits all the indicators of a cult in the anthropological sense, and vert
well. It is a literal religious cult (as in, non-metaphorical).
"Postmodern Western people don't do religion, don't do religious movements, so people
haven't realized this is what it is."
They're going to accuse those of us on the Left of aligning with "far-Right Republican
militias," and "Boogaloo accelerationists," and of being members of the Russian-backed
"Querfront," and assorted other horrible things meant to scare errant leftists into
line.
This been mirrored on the alt-right, where people like Hunter Wallace at Occidental
Dissent derides anyone who doesn't share his by now weeks-long hyperventillating panic attack
as a muh-freedom-loving-cuck, or a leftist fellow-traveller, or a crazy conspiracy-theorist
(which is funny given that his commentariat seemed to largely consist of knee-jerk false-flag
idiots and flat-earthers).
Every Thursday we are encouraged to spend several minutes of our house arrest going
outdoors and clapping for the National Health Service. It's a bit like a love version of
the Two Minutes of Hate in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Remember our boys bravely fighting on the Malabar Front!
As you implied, it's just a different side of the same coin. If a second-wave hits, people
will be encouraged to go out on their balconies and shout out their hatred for
"covid-deniers" and "anti-vaxxers".
@Levtraro He
lives in Germany. Who have a low incidence of the disease, and so he doesn't get it in his
face like he would in some other countries.
And I swear to god, for like a whole year before the epidemic, he was writing these
"humorous" articles mocking people for thinking that fascism was on the rise.
@Levtraro It's
not going back to normal Even the politicians realize that there's no point in lying to us
that it will. Many small businesses won't return. Men like Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt will
be able to force their autistic view on reality on the rest of us. Just watch CNN for 5
minutes and you'll get a good idea of what the "new normal" is gonna look like. Break through
that denial now. Shit is about to get real, or should I say , virtual. Right now you can't
even tell difference.
did what all true anti-fascists do when the state goes full-blown fascist
Curious, isn't it? These Antifa and other supposed loony lefty groups suddenly are all in
with government totalitarianism. I saw some Maoist-RCP front group counter-picket an
anti-lockdown rally. It tends to confirm my feeling that those groups are infiltrated and run
by government agencies. This certainly was the most successful fear-mongering propaganda
campaign of all time, full-spectrum 24/7 hysteria what with their death counts and all. This
was also a training exercise. They'll analyze how this played out and refine it for the next
time just as 'color revolutions' were refined and turned into a how-to textbook. Any doubt
about there being a next time?
Mr. Hopkins, from this 4th article of yours that I've read, I see you are really going places
with the truth. I'd have probably made an effort to back-read your older stuff, maybe a
couple of columns per day, had I not just seen that you are a lefty, by your own admission.
As one expert on this insanity , blogger/commenter E.H. Hail has noted, this
Panic/anti-Panic divide cuts across normal political divides though.
You bring up the Cold War as some sort of made-up thing like the "War on Terra" and the
"War on Drugs" (my addition), and this War against this "virus of mass destruction", which is
wrong (about the Cold War, not the rest), and it seems GloboCap(TM) is your trademark term
(making no sense – I have not seen Capitalism operating without Big-Gov anywhere in the
world lately, outside the illegal-Mexican run flea markets). However, I will leave that
behind, as you may learn something else as you see some of the behavior you note in the
antifa people and others of the left that you rightly are disgusted by here.
Therefore, I will keep reading your latest, greatest rants, "rants" said in a most
admiring way, and pointing them out to friends and on the Peak Stupidity blog. Can the rest of the
non-hysterical among us on the left and right around the world possibly realize from this
Panic-Fest response what totalitarianism is all about? I mean, before it's too late, that is
– that'd sure be nice. Maybe ideological definitions should be created from scratch out
of this.
I like the 2nd half of this article, in which you explain very well, in my opinion, that
2nd option that people who have been so far wrong on this issue will almost all pick. There
is no way you will get an "I was wrong" admission, much less an apology, from anyone without
the integrity of a Steve Sailer, meaning, well, here on unz, nobody but Steve Sailer. Those
people will be obligated to stick to their original story and do that double-thinking, even
supporting Totalitarianism when they know quite well what it entails. People don't like to be
wrong.
A prediction of mine is that, once it is realized that deaths of old people around the
world will be pretty much the same in 2020 as in other years, along with telling us that this
is because we DID properly LOCKDOWN and SHELTER-IN-PLACE! per Big-Bro's instructions and then
they will bring up "it's baaaack" every so often.
@eD There is
plenty you can do, Ed, by example. Maybe it's my State, in which people are pretty laid back
about this, whatever side they are on, but nobody ever told me to wear a mask, even though I
didn't right up through last week*. I can go into the Target store right now, and if I get
any BS, I'll let myself get pulled out of the store.
It won't happen like that here though, Ed. People are in friendly defiance all over the
place. I suggest you do the same thing. All it takes is 300,000,000 people saying "there is
nothing I can do", to let this shit get worse. It only takes a couple of dozen or so people
in one place – a little too big a crowd for the police to handle without some real
trouble – to lead the rest out of this stupidity.
You read the column – I take this just as seriously as Mr. Hopkins.
.
* I've written about this elsewhere, that, because I promised my wife, I've finally worn
one of these in stores (part-time), on an airliner, and in busy places. This is solely
because she was getting very upset, with a lack of sleep being a factor, with that always
ready phone-infotainment around. It was either start lying to her (I wasn't going to), not go
to stores or travel for work, have us on extremely bad terms, causing grief to the whole
family, or wear it for a while. It's the same stupid blue thing I've kept in my pocket for a
week – yes, it's probably spreading more germs that it filters – I don't
care.
Cheer up, CJ: You can always try to smuggle a pen into the gulag to write your pieces on
toilet paper. Wait! Between the body cavity searches and the lack of toilet paper, you might
not be able to keep calm and carry on, but if you're lucky, they'll give you The Complete
Works of Paul Krugman , and you can use some of that to wipe and some of it to cut out
letters to tell your story.
I guess to stop pathogens that kill or cause great suffering to people from spreading
further is a humanitarian demand, regardless of the age or health of the victims.
I fully agree that the first reaction of a decent health system in an epidemic breakout is
to contain the infection, look after the sick and protect the most vulnerable. Containment
and isolation is the first line of defence when the threat is real or imminent and that has
been learned from the historical record when plagues got out of control and decimated towns
and villages.
This epidemic was first reported by China as of a particularly nasty virulence, easy
transmissibility and causing multi-organ pathologies to such an extent that the Wuhan
epicenter's medical facilities were overwhelmed with victims and had to erect two hospitals
in record time to look after them. Facing a new and, then unknown, threat, the responsible
authorities acted swiftly to isolate the threat, study it and contain it to the regional
source of the virus to protect the rest of the country. As a result of a firm policy of
containment, the rest of China was barely touched by the epidemic, worked as normal and the
number of deaths for the most populated country on Earth was limited to under 4,000. It
worked, saved many lives and the Chinese economy only suffered a short hiccup.
While China was in the throes of a potential calamity because of its population's high
density, almost all other countries, except its most immediate neighbours, looked on (many in
the US with glee), made jokes about the Chan-virus and the ruling elites did nothing to
protect their respective peoples. When it hit them, all they could do was to blame China and,
too late, followed the Chinese way when the horse had already bolted. What makes this
tragically farcical is that the US think-tanks, wheeler-dealers and medical experts had
recently "gamed" such scenario in their computer modelling exercise Event 201, almost
coincidentally with the beginning of the, still undetected, infections, which were reported
later. That delay in taking firm and drastic action to effectively prevent infestation led
eventually to high mortality in the densely populated countries of Western Europe (namely
Spain, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland and UK) and New York. Amongst all that callous
inefficiency there are some "miraculous" exceptions, such as Australia ( casual lockdown, 24
million, only 100 dead) and New Zealand, almost untouched by the coronavirus.
So, timely and systematic containment and isolation as the first defence for the
protection of the people works and enables the country to resume normal life again within a
short time (look at China's full-steam ahead for weeks now). It was a very efficient short
and sharp treatment of a public health issue. In some other countries, particularly the US,
it become a heartless political game of point-scoring, the people being the ball to kick
around the field.
When the post-morten is done (but even now some lobertarians are already claiming the
fictional SS, the "Sweden Success") the political football game will be replayed with unruly
vigour instead of having a hard-headed look at the disaster and its lessons and how a public
health issue was transformed into a political one, or was it the other way around? A
political scheme of sorts transformed into a public health issue to serve as cover for some
ulterior purpose as I suspect.
I have no doubts that the CV-19 is a real danger for any unprotected population and
reports from the coalface about the victims' suffering are a sobering reminder of our
mortality, therefore the measures, if taken by the health authorities for the welfare of the
people, are legitimate and deserving our approval. But the politicization of a disaster for a
hidden agenda is another matter altogether and Hopkins is right to highlight the totalitarian
facet lurking behind the promoters of the pandemic, whether the source of it or the
opportunistic gain of function from it.
Karens and Cucks. That's who these things are aimed at: obese dim-witted middle-aged
she-beasts whose sexual value has gone through zero and who want to scold the world and the
beta-males who are 'head' of their households.
The Karens buy in immediately because it gives them social power; the cucks are cucked and
so are largely irrelevant (except to the extent that their beta-ness prevents them from
offering a counterbalance).
The net effect on the household is that the kids get – via Karen – the
worldview of retards like Sanjay .Gupta and Dr Phil.
The net effect on society is that finger-wagging fat 40-something women becomes a norm
outside of middle-school classrooms (it's been a norm inside classrooms for a generation,
which is why kids can't read despite spending $15k of public funds per student per year).
This is why I refer to CNN etc as HousewifeTV . Like women's magazines, it has less
intellectual content than Dora the Explorer – but stupid obese 40-something
women lap it up. (Stupid obese 40-something men are also a waste of space, but they're benign
by comparison – because nobody cares if you tell them to fuck off).
@Levtraro"Many informed and intelligent people have formed their opinion of this epidemics by
reading the reported scientific evidence, experiments, epidemiological modelling, not the
media."
I applaud you for reading the scientific literature rather than getting your information
from the MSM.
However, something fishy is going on in the world of science. If this goes on much longer,
I will no longer refer to it as "the world of science."
One of the contributors to the flawed study is quoted as having said, " people felt this
had to be communicated quickly." This is shocking and absolutely unacceptable. These guys
should be dismissed and facing criminal charges. People panicked over these kind of reports.
They can almost be justified because if the virus could have done all the things reputable
scientists were attributing to it, we were dealing with something the nature of which we'd
never dealt with before. "There's no doubt after reading [the NEJM] paper that
asymptomatic transmission is occurring," Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told journalists. "This study lays the question
to rest." Heads need to roll.
It is interesting to me you mention studies demonstrating the efficacy of the Chinese
lockdowns after the lockdowns took place. Shouldn't we have had those studies in hand
beforehand , and isn't there a possibility, in this new more lax climate of releasing
results without peer review or complete disclosure (a la Moderna and others) of "covering
their posteriors" to avoid admission of failure and cowardice?
You think the containment measures saved us, not that the virus's virulence was hyped. (
NBhttps://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6490/489.full
. "These findings explain the rapid geographic spread of SARS-CoV-2 and indicate that
containment of this virus will be particularly challenging." The virus appears to have
already spread throughout the world before containment measures were enacted. Do we care
about that when we evaluate the effectiveness of the containment measures?)
I would just like to ask: How sure are you this is not all because you fit the category
Mr. Hopkins describes here, "In other words, in order to avoid their shame, they are
going to do everything in their power to reify the official narrative and delegitimize anyone
attempting to expose it as the fiction that it is. "?
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government
is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is
the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force." ~ Ayn
Rand
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the
illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just
take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs
out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater. " Frank Zappa
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of
tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." William Pitt the Younger, former British prime
minister
"Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle
is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own
foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case
could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the
government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not
the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils?
Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad
paintings and statues and from hearing bad music?" Ludwig Von Mises
"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be
allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." Thomas Jefferson
"When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you
have The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. The two
enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the
chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
Thomas Jefferson
"When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither." Thomas
Jefferson
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of
their innate criminal nature." onebornfree
@obwandiyag I
noted that. Those pieces mocking the Russiagate-Nazi-Putin-Fascist hysteria were very funny
indeed. But now he is yelling that the fascist regime is here because of the virus. It's kind
of second order funny.
@Marshall Lentini
There's no purpose in arguing with those people. As said in the comment just above yours,
they're a cult and facts have no grip on cultists.
@Marshall Lentini
The studies are no correlational. Read them to correct your error. I posted a cool set of
top-notch research in another comment on this thread. Normally these articles are behind a
paywall but publishing houses are letting all of them free for everyone to read.
@Hail I have
revised (and asked Ron Unz to revise) the "0.2% – 1% lethality" cited in my original
text to read "0.2% – 0.6% lethality" to reflect a low/high range of estimates, from the
Swiss Propaganda Research data on the low end to the revised Imperial College IFR on the high
end. Because so many people are jumping down each other's throats with numbers, I thought
both ends of the range should be sourced.
@Parfois1 Thanks
for your thoughtful reply to my comment. I agree there is substantial risk of opportunistic
state aggrandizement due to the pandemics. But state-apparatchiks are nearly always looking
for aggrandizement opportunities, especially in the USA where apparatchiks think they are
exceptional, like to meddle in other people's businesses, go on pontificating incessantly,
and essentially work for powerful minorities.
Yes C.J, Bolshevism and its evil twin Fascism have come to America. It has come openly
through the Democrat Party Governors who are using the current scamdemic and the gullibility
of well over half the population to destroy their state economies. It has come covertly
through a president who promised to return America to its former glory days by draining the
swamp, but instead has refilled it and gone along with every insider policy there is. A
president who is now promising forced vaccinations via our military and "others"(UN
troops?).
So get ready America, hell is coming to breakfast
@onebornfree "The
two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with
the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the
first." Thomas Jefferson
Lockdown the entire Federal government to the "chains of the constitution", plus all local
and state governments NOW!
" Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to
willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of
the United States.For the purpose of Section 242, acts under "color of law" include acts not
only done by federal, state, or local officials within the their lawful authority, but also
acts done beyond the bounds of that official's lawful authority, if the acts are done while
the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official
duties . ".
Leftotards are just waking up to the realization that they are the Billionaire Establishments
Bxtch. These Antifa / anti-facist idiots are the useful idiots of the Billionaire funded
Democratic party., and also their warped and pampered college professors.
What drives these fools is their need of a UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME period !!! none of these
idiots give a rats arse about fascism as most dont even know what it is, else they wouldnt
cry for Totalitarian Communism.
"What if the government has it wrong -- on the medicine and the law?
What if face masks can't stop the COVID-19 virus? What if quarantining the healthy makes
no medical sense? What if staying at home for months reduces immunity?
What if more people have been infected with the virus in their homes than outside
them?
What if there are as many credible scientists and physicians who disagree with the
government as those who agree with it?
What if the government chooses to listen only to scientists and physicians who would tell
it what it wanted to hear? What if the government silences scientists and physicians, and
even fires one, who attempt to tell it what it didn't want to hear?
What if the government wants to stoke fear in the populace because mass fear produces mass
compliance? What if individual fear reduces individual immunity?
What if a healthy immunity gets stronger when challenged? What if a pampered immunity gets
weaker when challenged? What if we all pass germs and viruses -- that we don't even know we
have -- on to others all the time, but their immune systems repel what we pass on to
them?
What if the COVID-19 virus has run its course and run into natural immunities? What if
many folks have had symptom-free episodes with many viruses and are now immune from them?
What if the government refuses to understand this because it undermines the government's
power to control us? . What if -- when the pandemic is over -- folks sue the government
for its destruction of life, liberty and property only to learn that the government gave
itself immunity from such lawsuits? What if -- when the pandemic is over -- the government
refuses to acknowledge its end? "
I am not sure how anything is going to play out at this point, but I will make two
observations
1. People don't like being played, or made fools of. Maybe most of them will pretend they
weren't completely suckered, same as after 9/11, but maybe a critical mass of anger is
building.
2. I begin conversations with every mask wearing moron by commenting "I liked social
distancing better under its original name – segregation. But let us practise standing
apart, or in Afrikaans, apartheid." Then I follow up with pointing out any mask is
contaminated once you take it off, so, go work on radioactives, or something. The point is,
no rational argument is going to work with the hysterical little girls pretending to be
adults.
I'd say this has no relevance to what I said, but first it would have to make some normal
sense. To be extra clear: that "lockdowns" stopped the spread of this virus is an
assertion , and one disproved by Sweden and Belarus.
Somehow the two facts of a) two-week or greater incubation period and b) delayed or
"adequate" response by various nations do not add up in the covidiot's mind to "the virus was
already running its course by the time of lockdowns", because it's better for you to play
chicken and the egg since you've already committed to the melodrama of coronamania. It's hard
admitting one was wrong, especially when the price tag isn't presented right away.
I posted a cool set of top-notch research in another comment on this thread.
Indeed, I've looked at each these top-notch articles. But let me start with the
first.
The title of the first top-notch article is The lockdowns worked -- but what comes
next? . Now I'm unaware of any other field but Coronavirus Studies in which it's
acceptable simply to announce , rather than propose , the thing which an
alleged research paper is supposed to examine and substantiate. But when it comes to the
rona, the rules (like that pesky one about correlation not implying causation) go out the
window.
The second line is: The world is holding its breath. I'm also not aware of any
other field which permits a cheap, moralistic tagline in its papers to preface alleged
research. This is, of course, a huge red flag which you're not supposed to question. "A
specter is haunting Europe "
(Well, technically the second line is: Science's COVID-19 coverage is supported by the
Pulitzer Center – very gracious of them to mention, and pretty much tipping their
hand as far as their motives. Ever looked at the Board of Directors at Pulitzer? Lots of NYT
"assistant managing editors".)
The rest is more of the same – a mix of petitio principii, moralism, bad metaphors,
and ominous assumptions about how civilization should work in the opinion of this "Kai
Kupferschmidt". Here's a charming example of the totally non-fascist, un-totalitarian "model"
supported by your author:
For now, the most likely scenario is one of easing social distancing measures when it's
possible, then clamping down again when infections climb back up, a "suppress and lift"
strategy that both Singapore and Hong Kong are pursuing. Whether that approach can strike
the right balance between keeping the virus at bay and easing discontent and economic
damage remains to be seen.
What you're doing here is passing off opinion pieces as research, while ignoring the
mountain of actual research that the opposition have been doing in the meantime as lunatics
like you preach never-ending cycles of lock-and-lift, or excuse me, "suppress and lift", as
Herr Kupferschmidt would have it.
But that's all immaterial to me. I do not care about research. I am totally comfortable
with a ~1%, even a 5% death rate affecting the elderly and grossly infirm. I don't care about
R or any other variable. I care about not having to wear masks or stand in boxes or read
moralistic tripe like this that ham-handedly tries to justify it. I am not interested in
"research" whose aim is my bondage to prophylactic theater, as someone here put it –
not that any of what you're offering qualifies as anything other than sunk cost fallacy
propaganda, in my book.
Smoking kills 8 million people per year in the world (plus many more millions of addicts).
Have they forbidden tobacco? No.
Alcoholism kills 3 millions people per year in the world. Have they forbidden alcohol?
No.
(these numbers according to WHO).
"Covid-19", with all the fraudulent data, have killed (sure?) 331.000 people up to this
date. What have they done? All what Mr. Chopkins have said (i.e. shutting down the world's
economy, taking out our freedom, and much more).
In other words: they don't freaking care about our health. Why is that so difficult to
understand for people?
I live here in PA, where the new normal resistance is real. The cops for the most part are
looking the other way, except in Philadelphia. My local Amish hardware store was thankfully
mask free zone. There is no social distancing at the ag auctions, nor are there masks.
Someone (a pissed off Democrat no less) told me a "Karen" was at the Monday hay auction
snapping pictures, and the auctioneer had people escort him out. Who'd a thunk the Amish and
Mennonites leading the big old FU to Tommy Wolf and his freak health secretary? Those two
clowns might just give Trump PA in the fall.
Could we quit the constant libeling of "muh fascism?" Fascism was just an objectively more
decent system than what we have now. At least those leaders made some attempt to benefit
their people. Our current anarcho-tyrannical capitalist-socialist order squeezes us like rags
to get the last drop of shekel from our crushed souls. You also cannot ignore the
undercurrent of child abuse by our elites. The Fascists were quite moral and kind in
comparison.
@Adam Smith This
whole Covid 19 thing has been a giant Pain in the Ass to everyone. Unfortunately it is too
real to ignore. What bothers me is the whining by folks like Mr. Hopkins, who failed to speak
up about the Patriot Act and the complaints by the intelligence depts because Apple security
is too tight, or countless intrusions by our government masking anti-terrorism activities or
any number of wasted political investigations, the list is endless. We are as close to
Fascism and Totalitarianism as we have ever been. Lets face the fact that our government is
no better than the countless regimes we have criticized over the years. We are a screwed up
nation that has drifted so far from the constitution, that we no longer resemble the United
States of America.
05 Apr 2020 Dr. Fauci revealed his fears of a 'surprise outbreak' back in 2017 and warned
the upcoming Trump administration would face 'challenges' with infectious diseases in a
Georgetown speech
In his speech titled 'Pandemic Preparedness in the Next Administration,' Dr. Fauci told
attendees at Georgetown University in January 2017 that the upcoming presidential
administration would face 'challenges' with infectious diseases.
@Phaeton This is
where all of the fake numbers are coming from in this Plandemic.
Nov 4, 2019 Event 201 Pandemic Exercise: Segment 4, Communications Discussion and Epilogue
Video
Event 201 is a pandemic tabletop exercise hosted by The Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Security. The exercise illustrated the pandemic preparedness efforts needed to diminish the
large-scale economic and societal consequences of a severe pandemic.
* I've written about this elsewhere, that, because I promised my wife, I've finally worn
one of these in stores (part-time), on an airliner, and in busy places. This is solely
because she was getting very upset, with a lack of sleep being a factor, with that always
ready phone-infotainment around.
Collectively failing to stand up to our wives for the past 60 years is what got us into
this mess. We've somehow managed to normalize hysterics.
A couple days ago Brattleboro, Vermont made wearing masks in stores mandatory for customers.
A lady at the select board meeting said masks need to be normalized, "Because it's just such
a simple visible sign that people are being safe in our community."
Vermonters are natural jackbooted hippies and are really getting off on covid-19.
I wish Judy Chicago were alive to design these masks.
Brattleboro, population 12,000, had ten fatal opioid overdoses in 2019 and four in April
2020. There have been three deaths in the whole county due to covid-19. Two were from
NYC.
Andrew Sullivan had a post about Pepys in 1665, a year of plague in London. He recounts
Pepys living life to the full -- working, partying, womanizing -- while whole families drop
dead around him. Pepys lists off dozens of people in his day to day life dying while he
himself does nothing, or very little, to "stay safe." His morale was never better.
Sullivan then concludes his piece, "And today, in the richest country on Earth, with
medical technology beyond Pepys's wildest imagination, and a plague killing a tiny fraction
of the population, some are wielding weapons in public to protest being asked to stay at home
for a few more weeks and keep a social distance. Please. Get a grip."
See Pepys didn't stay home, wear a mask, or keep social distance. And he was fine, while a
quarter of London's population died. So objecting to being forced to do those things is
foolish since almost nobody knows anybody who's died from this "pandemic."
The other nine studies in the meta-analysis average <0.1% deaths to those who are
corona-positive (0.085%; range: 0.02% to 0.17%). Of course, this is Just The Flu territory,
but the Corona-True-Believers still think that's laughable and worthy of derision. But
there it is: <0.1%.
Well, now we know. So what was it all about? Was it a genuine mistake – or was it a
bio-weapon that fizzled (but still delivered the anti-Chinese pre-prepared media frenzy).
Probably the latter. Recent CIA projects are more successful at raising media frenzies
than delivering results (for example: full MSM and Western government support for the
miserable Venezuelan coup attempt).
@onebornfree Yo,
onebornfree,
Did you cash your free-shit-from-the-guv check like all the rest of us unscrupulous $1200
whores (used to be $20 whores but there has been considerable inflation since that magic
year, 1913)?
" and those complaining about being out of work were people whose work is 'largely useless.'"
It's not the being out of work part that's actually the problem. It's the being broke
part, which is a consequence of the being out of work part, that sucks.
@nsa "Did you
cash your free-shit-from-the-guv check like all the rest of us unscrupulous $1200 whores "
Sorry to disappoint – I don't take "free", "shut up and be a good slave", fake money
from governments. I make my own way [barely] and got off the slave plantation gravy train to
hell a long time ago.
@Kratoklastes I
think you can ditch the obesity correlation.
Maybe what you are noticing is that the gen-x children of 70s and 80s single moms are
often man hating bitches or self hating faggots. Divorce on demand has consequences, such as
an instinct to blame men for everything possible.
*my use of 'faggots' is in the gen-x vernacular to mean a wimpy little sissy
@onebornfree See,
I think your questions are very good, but it's like asking a 27-year-old fat woman with a BA
degree what she'd think if it could be shown that there had been no gas chambers at Dakau.
The question is an aggressive challenge to her weak brain cells and is, therefore, a crime.
What if the moral history of the twentieth century were the exact opposite of what we were
all taught? What if unpasteurized milk is better for you? What if the substantive content of
modern life adds up to a negative number?
The problem with conversion is that you have to admit that everything you think you know
is incorrect.
Hopkins can't make the connection between belittling the "white-nationalist morons" and this
"new normal" he now decries. What did you think was gonna happen in America once white people
were kicked to the curb?
I'm a proud supporter of those white men who put their lives and reputations on the line
in Charlottesville to stand up for my people. Our "new normal" happened many years ago,
with
• gay marriage
• "hate" speech
• socialized medicine inc. federally-funded abortions
• central and fractional banking
• taxation slavery
• the enforced associations and affirmative action of civil rights
Our nation was founded on the voting rights of white male landowners. Everything since
then is abnormal.
@obwandiyag One
certainly can't reproach you inconsistency in disingenuousness. It is pretty much obvious to
everyone except you that the fascism the author is seeing rising and the fascism he dismisses
as a fantasy are distinct.
something fishy is going on in the world of science.
Scientists are for sale as they are usually on one payroll or another. Interested parties
shop around for ones that will say what they want them to say. Sure there's independent ones
and those who report the facts but the waters get muddied and the average person doesn't know
whose word to trust. Ditto with so-called studies which often have a predetermined outcome
according to those financing them. Lots of academic corruption and fraud goes on. Don't take
what the folks in white lab coats tell you as gospel but match it up against your own common
sense. Just look at the history of the harmful quack nonsense the 'experts' of the day have
promoted in the past hundred years or so.
@Achmed E. Newman
""because I promised my wife, I've finally worn one of these in stores (part-time), on an
airliner, and in busy places. This is solely because she was getting very upset,""
@onebornfree"What if we all pass germs and viruses -- that we don't even know we have -- on to others
all the time, but their immune systems repel what we pass on to them?"
This one isn't a "what if" but a known and important fact about our amazing world. We are
slathered in bacteria, viruses, and many, many other micro- and macro- organisms. At one time
I was even able to see several species of benign lice on my skin and the skin of others,
without using a magnifying glass or microscope. If I recall correctly, there are at least
seven species of these Not only are they not harmful, they are helpful. They live on dried,
dead skin, among other things.
That's the general case, friends. The bacteria and viruses surrounding us are not usually
detrimental. We must have them around. They are a part of the general good health of the
planet and all living things.
The viruses are absolutely fascinating. They play a role in the evolution of life on
planet earth we are only beginning to fathom. It is a form of madness to think they are all
pathogenic. Overwhelmingly they are not.
The viruses can't be eradicated the way we eradicated small pox, for example.
I have my own theory about this mess, which I hold only with remorse. We only know about
it because we looked for it. We wouldn't have observed anything out of the ordinary this year
based on the epidemiological distributions and incidences of sicknesses and deaths. There's
nothing wrong with looking around and discovering new things, but this is clearly not a realm
readily usable for forming immediate public policy, especially not drastic and unprecedented
public policy.
Everyone who played a part in making this into immediate, drastic and unprecedented public
policy needs to be held accountable. We need a very thorough review of the interplay of these
multiple factors, and a good house cleaning is in order. I don't know what I will do if once
more I see us refusing to admit our mistakes, but even worse will be refusing to learn from
them.
As always, these two steps are the only way forward. I can't believe we in the USA are
failing in this area. It seemed to me it was here, if anywhere, our form of society had an
advantage. (Well, maybe not the politicians, but in business, make a big mistake and in the
USA, you're out. That was not a bad thing. The others in business saw the mistake, avoided
it, learned and went on.)
@Anonymous The
Face Mask "Study" that was released in the New England Journal of Medicine has now been
DEBUNKED as a FRAUD and as garbage even by the Scientists who put it out -- they've admitted
this now. However, you probably haven't heard this because the Mainslime Media has ignored it
and is still using it to cause us to be forced to wear these insanely stupid Masks.
As you say this is whole thing is "too real to ignore" -- but the reason it is? Because it
is a complete and total pre-planned "Elite" FRAUD on the Peons, to strip them of all rights
and impoverish them, being hoisted on a Cold Virus the NWO ChiComs released that is about as
bad as a Seasonal Flu. People need to wake up–especially supposedly intelligent people
who come to this site and publish articles and comments. Here is the retraction of the phony
"Study" used to Face Mask us all (never done as to a Cold Virus– as even Dr. Fauci said
on TV–because it does nothing –might even make you sick .):
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/paper-non-symptomatic-patient-transmitting-coronavirus-wrong
@onebornfree The
reason for ordering/coercing Face Mask wearing by the Public has now been DEBUNKED as a
FRAUD! The actual Scientists have admitted it was total and complete garbage. The Mainslime
Media, no surprise, is ignoring this and still using the debunked "study" that was published
in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 30th– the CDC used it to reverse the
ALWAYS applied standard based on Science that wearing in mass Face Masks by the Public does
NOTHING as to a Cold Virus. Here is the article as to the what happened:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/paper-non-symptomatic-patient-transmitting-coronavirus-wrong
We know that Corona is a giant with feel of the softest clay you can find, but that's just
on the facts and the science. Corona-Alternative-Facts just don't care.
Is the Corona With Feet of Clay defeated by a thousand small acts by nobodies doing
friendly defiance?
Such as, declining to take those extra few steps to avoid someone. Walking in a
straight line as a dissident act .
While on the subject. Please, Corona-Believers, no more of that halting entirely to keep
well out of the way, followed by glowering at the other person as he passes; that's just
bizarre. The Corona Halt-and-Stare.
Covid-19 is really Rohrschach-19. It seems that the "panic" went both ways. One one side the
extreme hysteric reaction with the "lockdown" of healthy people, the theatrics of the
authorities and media with a disease that apparently kills mostly people over 80, but on the
other hand also the protesters about "fascist takeover" and "totalitarianism". Look, it
wasn't that bad, as far as totalitarianism goes. Except perhaps in North Korea, no one was
shot. Maybe with Bill Gates' vaccine things will get worse, but, so far, it wasn't that bad.
I think the "Transdemic", i.e. pretending that transexuals are "women" and all the craziness
about "anti-racism" is much worse.
Now, for those who had a small business, yes, it was bad, and being locked at home for
weeks has not been fun (also, rather pointless). But in Germany, where I believe the author
lives, the lockdown has been quite light, and while many places closed there was never a
prohibition to be outside. Even masks were only used later on and only in supermarkets,
shops, etc. So, while inconvenient, it was not really Nazi Germany II.
Anyway, it's a quite strange situation really, and I wonder what will happen next, my
impression is that people are becoming more cynical and will not accept a "second wave"
lockdown, which makes me think if either there is a great conspiracy, or our elites are
really dumb and incompetent. Or maybe it's both things? Like in the title of that book, a
"conspiracy of dunces". They are evil and Machiavellic but they are also a bit dumb.
With 30% already immune, the next wave, if any, will be minor, at most.
[Studies] show that there is enough immunity to make sure that a second wave – if
any – is mild.
A "second wave" CAN be created artificially created by the media by hyper focus on a few
stories (much like the original wave; it was another foretold-apocalypse-washout as proved by
the easy handling of the whole thing in Stay-Open Sweden).
The media cannot keep its Corona Cocaine Binge, and its ongoing CoronaBloodlust, going
for months on end. But it may well get a "second wind" at it, when the "second wave" of
Corona cases comes in the fall. A CoronaPanic Second Wave .
I'll tell you what would be ironic, is if the Nov. 2020 presidential election ends up
being a referendum on Corona Shutdowns:
Yes Corona Shutdowns: BIDEN
No Corona Shutdowns: TRUMP
This scenario seems at once so crazy as to be laughable, and yet also plausible to
actually happen. Somehow both at the same time. God help us.
I'm not sure how realistic this exact scenario looks now. Does anyone care about Biden
anymore? Would he really position himself as the Pro-Shutdowns guy if the media begins
artificially creating a second panic wave?
@Blip Blop I
can't "agree-button" at you yet but I completely agree with you. I live in Spain and this is
complete madness. I see so many kids wearing masks, that I would get depressed if it weren't
because I see other parents avoiding all this stuff, which give me hope. Today I saw a
pregnant woman wearing a mask, and I have wondered if this unborn human being is suffering
because of her (of course she is probably thinking that she is doing the best for him/her).
Here in my country masks have been mandatory everywhere in public areas (unless you can
keep the famous 2 meters with others) since yesterday, but people have used them for almost
two months already.
@Dumbo Of course,
I say this if this is just an exception, but if this really becomes the "new normal", then
it's not good. And in fact I think this was just a "laboratory", in preparation for something
worse later on
@Levtraro Third
order funny is that you two can't tell the difference. He's essentially mocking hysterical
reactions to two seperate hoaxes that reify already existing authoritarianism.
@Levtraro Tired
of the "Models" and Statistics of all the NWO bought off "Experts" funded by Gates Foundation
and Rockefeller -- all of them are little more than Prostitutes/Whores.
I have actually hired "Experts" for decades -- who pays them and funds their "grants" etc.
directly effects their "opinions". You can literally get them to "Model" whatever and testify
to anything–for $$$ -- grant or otherwise– and I am talking about World Class
Credentialed "Experts". This is the REALITY -- if you argue otherwise you are either an
Agenda driven partisan, ignorant or have never dealt with them.
As the other person stated above -- "Expert" Neal Ferguson has been completely discredited
(boffing the Married Leftist "Activist" proved he totally did not believe in the "Social
Distancing" garbage either -- it appears in NO infectious disease Textbook and no one in the
Field has ever taught it) -- this TOTAL BS of claiming the lock downs worked in
periodicals/magazines run by them? Please peddle it elsewhere! -- We in fact know they don't
work -- you don't Quarantine Healthy People -- and in some cases, thankfully proving this,
the timing showed that the lock downs clearly could not have been the reason for downturns
(California etc. -- clearly Herd Immunity was already in play one of the greatest Scientists
ever in the past as to Small Pox and other pandemics stated they should not be used, do some
research?) -- what people like Ferguson do is put themselves in a position so that regardless
of what happens they can claim they are right. Funny how that works? His "Models" were
garbage–the actual data he used as "garbage in" has now been analyzed and, yes, it was
garbage.
So we have the same networked "Experts" now covering for themselves and Ferguson, and
putting out, in their own Magazines/Periodicals they control, what you then cite in your
comment -- it is all CYA BS -- peddle it elsewhere.
Here is another example of the "Experts" at work. On January 30th the New England Journal
of Medicine published a "Study" that claimed, unlike any Cold Virus EVER, this one was
different– that there were "asymptomatic spreaders" -- the "Study" was then used by the
CDC to put out the "wear Face Masks" change of position directive (Dr. Fauci also used it as
he had previously said publicly on TV they were useless– which they have always been
known to be in the past .). It is still being used to this day to order and coerce the
wearing of Face Masks. Problem? It was a total and complete FRAUD.
Even the Scientists who actually did it have now admitted it was "FLAWED" and total
garbage. Unfortunately, the NWO Globalist Media and "Experts" are still using it to justify
forcing the Face Mask wearing and resulting fear mongering. They need to arrest Ferguson for
what he did and start really penalizing these "Experts" who are nothing but Agenda driven
shills. Here is the retraction as to the phony "flawed" Study:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/paper-non-symptomatic-patient-transmitting-coronavirus-wrong
@Getaclue I had
to think about it a bit, but you've got a point. That flawed study did promote face mask
wearing in public even though there is not a word in it about face masks or ordering/coercing
their wearing.
(There's a picture with a Chinese-looking woman who is wearing a face mask at the top of
the page.)
The NEJM is an interesting publication. I believe it serves an important function within
the medical community but it is important not to take its reports as authoritative or
necessarily even scientific.
Before the results were debunked the studious would have noticed how very small the sample
size was. Am I right to see there were less than ten people in that group, and that one
woman– one woman!– was at the heart of the "evidence." Wow. This was used to
support a novel (for the USA) public policy affecting millions and millions of people.
Also note the irreplaceable genius of our hero and savior Dr. Anthony Fauci as he is
quoted at the end of the article. He still believes asymptomatic transmission occurs even
after the slender thread of evidence upon which that belief might have been supported has
been kicked out from under him. He obviously didn't need scientific support in the first
place– he has an agenda.
It is lucky I am a nobody in nowhereville and will never be anywhere near these creeps. I
don't think I could restrain myself if I had any opportunity whatsoever to, um, commit a
terrible violent crime. (Can I admit this? My posts are moderated and if this offends, please
feel free to delete that one part. Please allow me to say the rest.)
The World Health Organization (WHO) says healthy people don't need to wear face masks to
prevent the spread of the coronavirus, and masks should only be for those who are sick,
their caretakers and health care workers.
In guidance released by WHO Monday, the United Nations public health agency said "there
is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy
persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent
them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19."
WHO said the use of medical masks among the general public could create a false sense of
security and cause people to ignore social distancing measures and hygiene practices.
Currently in the U.S., the overwhelming majority of states have issued stay-at-home orders
to stop the spread of the virus, and federal guidance advises citizens to stay home and not
gather in groups of more than ten through April 30.
This is from late March before the CDC changed its tune.
The CDC currently states that healthy people do not need to wear face masks unless they
are caring for someone who is ill with the new coronavirus.
So, it appears the WHO and the CDC are indeed fascist as is noted that they are in
agreement with the fascists at this venue.
Also, nothing is more fascist than the government ordering slave wage peasants back into
filthy disease-infested slaughterhouses (slaughterhouses are incubators for COVFEFE-19 --
they are America's wet markets) under the aegis of the Defense Protection Act.
@Bragadocious
Sweden is more "left" than Germany, France or the UK. They didn't lock down anyone. The UK
government is more "right" than any UK government since John Major was PM.
The notion that the US government, or Trump for that matter, isn't authoritarian, is
absurd. Presidents, by nature of the position, are authoritarian. The same goes for
legislative bodies. The only issue is whether you recognize the authority they exert.
In other words: they don't freaking care about our health. Why is that so difficult to
understand for people?
I'm sure that was rhetorical, but I'll answer it anyway. People (in general) don't
understand because they are stupid. Profoundly and probably irreversibly stupid, compounded
exponentially by a media propaganda barrage praising the retards for their great
intelligence. When more than half the total US population has an IQ below 100, yet thinks
itself brilliant because the talking heads on MSNBC tell them so, the CoronaCaust is the
logical outcome really.
I'd bet my favorite dog that significantly fewer than 50% could adequately explain the
germ theory of disease, infectious pathogens, or the human microbiome. They could, however,
expound interminably on the glories of Beyonkey's latest autotuned hit or point out how you
are a racist for noticing the facts in evidence that they pretend not to see.
Given the dysgenic trends in human reproductive rates compounded by modern medicine
enabling every retard to survive and reproduce, we should all get ourselves very used to
being governed by the irrational terrors of simpletons.
@Biff Probably
not what R.C. is referring to, but my definition would be an economy free of the
international banking cartel and its big casinos like Wall Street.
Perhaps it is the aspect of paranioa that makes it apt
You remind me of an absurd TV special years ago that played audio of some wiretapped guys
theorizing that ATF was out to get them and their guns. The underlying video was of their
guns, stolen, in an ATF warehouse . The lead-in narration discussed how paranoid these
crazy gun nuts had been. They now sat in concrete and steel cages, their guns taken, gleeful
psyop tool mocking their wiretapped concerns as 'paranoid' for being 100% correct regarding a
threat which was active at the time they expressed concern that it might be happening
.
In other words, pretty much the same psyop that media ran on you successfully re the Mt.
Carmel invasion and massacre, assuming you're sincere. Associating paranoia with them is
beyond ignorant. They had an irrational/delusional fear that they were going to be persecuted
worse than they were?
A good column overall, Mr. Hopkins, but what is going on now is not "real fascism". Real
fascists would have taken care of the usurious bankers by now, not given them more money to
f*ck us over.
@450.org"Also, nothing is more fascist than the government ordering slave wage peasants back into
filthy disease-infested slaughterhouses (slaughterhouses are incubators for COVFEFE-19 --
they are America's wet markets) under the aegis of the Defense Protection Act."
I happen to agree with you here, and am offended if you think I or most people commenting
against you would disagree. The gov't shouldn't be able to order people to work any more than
the gov't should be able to order people not to work.
"I can't believe how many CDC and WHO employees are on here advocating no face
mask."
You can't believe– or understand– but that's because you are not paying close
attention. And that's a shame.
Do you see the CDC and WHO were advocating no face mask for the reason there was no
evidence of their being effective? Do you see the CDC and WHO changed and began advocating
face masks when very slim evidence which turned out to be faulty emerged? Do you see the CDC
and WHO have not reversed their position now we are again in the situation of there being no
evidence of the effectiveness of face masks?
@Hail Good news,
The Atlantic just laid off 68 employees due to lack of advertising revenue. Noticed my local
newspaper is half the size it was in February due to lack of advertising pages.
@Yusef End of
February I asked 2 Drs about wearing a mask when flying. One said don't wear a mask or worry.
The other said as long as you're not in the international terminal near the Chinese airlines
sections, don't wear a mask or worry.
@eD There are
things that regular people can do to fight the the new abnormal. I still offer my hand to
anyone who is willing to take it. I go for my daily walks in a group of two or three without
keeping any social distancing and I argue my case with any cop who tells me that I am
disobeying the law, reminding him that we are in the same side against the crooks, the
cowards, the fools, the freaks and the tyrants who are trying to mould us into obedient
slaves. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I should clearly state that I sensed the
totalitarianism of the American government around thirty years ago and left the United States
on a one way ticket to a third world whose virtue is a government that is weak enough not to
overpower its society.
Resistance should be primarily in your mind. While I would not blame anyone for avoiding a
confrontation with American mad dog policemen, having watched with horror how four of those
brutes attacked retired ex long time CIA high official Mr. Ray McGovern when he asked the
senators in charge of vetting Gina Haspel a legitimate question only to be attacked by these
senseless brutes, dragged out the room and pulled down to the floor suffering a dislocated
shoulder, I would not allow myself to admonish American citizens for avoiding any attempt at
talking reason to these goons in blue uniforms. But I think that you will have won at least a
half victory if you simply play the routine without making yourself hostage to the fear
mongering and by clearly stating to your company that you are wearing the mask for the sake
of putting the gullible at ease.
Unless the United States moves into a system of decentralisation with more empowerment to
the state and local communities, the Fascist clutches of the federal government backed by the
technocracy will keep whittling away at the freedoms of the citizens dooming them to a life
of slavery.
@Stan d Mute As
you said, it was retorical. I have to say that I am extremely surprised to see how irrational
people can be, though. Because it is not only that they are ignorant about a topic, which is
something normal. It is that you can't argue with them. And I am not talking only about
people who watch mainstream media, but also many people from the so-called alternative world.
Just an example: yesterday a relative was worried because her friends had "attacked" her
in a Whatsapp group (because in person most of them are a cowards who wouldn't say anything)
for criticizing the measure of making masks mandatory in all Spanish public places if we
can't have a separation of 2 meters. They were all defending that all people should wear
masks in public, doesn't matter if you are alone in the street (strangely enough, none of
them talk about Sweden and Iceland). THIS IS THE LEVEL in the country where I live. These
people are attacking people without knowing, as you say, even the most elemental knowledge of
mainstream immunology. If they, instead of watching news 24/7, would have read a couple of
chapters of any good book about this topic, they would see, at least, some of the lies
regarding vaccines (I feel like crying everytime someone confuses "treatment" with
"prevention").
The last sentence in your comment is quite scary. For some reason I have recalled about
one of the stories about what happened to Laozi. I copy this fragment from Wikipedia (yeah, I
know ): "The third story in Sima Qian states that Laozi grew weary of the moral decay of life
in Chengzhou and noted the kingdom's decline. He ventured west to live as a hermit in the
unsettled frontier at the age of 80."
I wonder what he would do if he would see the unbelievably decline of today.
To be honest, the only thing that give me hope today is seeing young people, around 16-20,
completely ignoring the social distancing and masking psyop.
Me, being a cynic and all – I thought the way trade worked in the real world (not
the one described by well paid economists) was a multi step process
1) target developing country by undermining their core farming, self sustaining activity
and export industries through cheap importation of grains and crops and other goods –
thus making it impossible for locals to survive through their own industry
2) simultaneous loans (investment) to the country (economic aid) and corruption of
political leaders designed to enable step three
3) Whence said country is indebted – force country to export whatever (mineral)
wealth onto a glutted market to pay back its debts – this is easily done as the labor
component is ripe for the picking/ fleecing
4) crush the country into economic austerity for as long as it takes to enslave its
citizens and grab everything of value from the country
5) pretend that the IMF etc did such a great job – but the countries people
(victims) or government did not do enough and must take care of themselves better
I think that you covered the Standard Operation Procedure here in better detail than I
could. I would only add to point 2) that the bankers will go to these local leaders and show
them how to hide their money and help them set up accounts in a place like the Caymans as part
of the service.
And if that economist wants to find where all of Africa's wealth is going, he might want to
start in the City of London and New York first.
This neocons is definitely past her shelf live. But MIC still controls the US foreign policy,
and this is that's why she is able to publish yet another second rate book.
One of the disasters that she endorsed was the Iraq war. Although not as enthusiastic about
launching an illegal, aggressive war as Sen. Hillary Clinton, Albright said at the time: "I
personally felt the war was justified on the basis of Saddam's decade-long refusal to comply
with UN Security Council resolutions on WMD." When pressed on America's alleged
indispensability, she allowed: "Vietnam clearly was a terrible disaster. The war in Iraq was a
terrible disaster. I do think that we have misunderstood the Middle East." Yet such admissions
don't appear to have tempered her enthusiasm for Washington's meddling around the globe.
She does run away from her flip answer to journalist Lesley Stahl's question about the death
of a half million Iraqi children due to sanctions: "we think the price is worth it." Albright
even claims that the Clinton administration came to recognize the human cost of sanctions and
moved to better targeted "smart" penalties. Yet there is nothing smart about America's current
economic war on Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea.
Moreover, she did not retreat from the assumption that U.S. policymakers are entitled to
decide on the life and death of foreigners. She might doubt in retrospect that the price was
worth it. But she still believes that decision was for her and other Clinton administration
officials to make.
This mindset has made the U.S. government anathema to many around the globe. Why do "they"
hate us? Because of officials like Albright. These days even the Europeans loath Washington. No
doubt, she would be horrified to be lumped with President Donald Trump and some of his aides,
such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but they all are swimming in hubris. Albright is simply
more polite when dealing with representatives of wealthy industrialized countries. In contrast,
Trump and Pompeo are ever ready to insult them as well.
Nor does she appear to retreat from the hubris she constantly expressed in other forms. For
instance, while declaring the U.S. to be "the indispensable nation," she also claimed: "We
stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here
to all of us." That assertion was bad enough when she made it in 1998. After Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Syria, and more it is positively ludicrous. Overweening arrogance among foreign
policy elites has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, while killing
hundreds of thousands of foreigners and ravaging foreign nations.
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However, it is not just those overseas for whom Albright has contempt. In 1992 she
famously queried Colin Powell: "What's the use of having this superb military you're always
talking about if we can't use it?" Never mind the lives of those who volunteered to defend
America. For her, they were just gambit pawns to be sacrificed in whatever global chess game
she was playing at the time. Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed: "I
thought I would have an aneurysm." Having served in Vietnam, he knew what it was like to lose
soldiers in combat. Anyone who has family in the military, as I do, cannot help but react
similarly.
A decade later she was asked about her comment. She responded: "what I thought was that we
had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our
military effectively again." A strange claim, since shortly before George H. W. Bush had sent
American military personnel into a limited war against Iraq, while avoiding an interminable
guerrilla war and attempt at nation-building. She well represented the sofa samurai who
dominate Washington policy-making.
Even worse, however, in 1997 she said to Gen. Hugh Shelton, also JCS chairman: "I know I
shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the
world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee
that Saddam could shoot it down?" He appeared to react rather like Powell, indicating that it
could be done as soon as she was ready to fly.
Albright is intelligent and has a fascinating family background. But she should be kept
far away from American foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a
Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he
is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
The reason why the U.S. Government must be prosecuted for its war-crimes
against Iraq is that they are so horrific and there are so many of them, and international law
crumbles until they become prosecuted and severely punished for what they did. We therefore now
have internationally a lawless world (or "World Order") in which "Might makes right," and in
which there is really no effective international law, at all. This is merely gangster "law,"
ruling on an international level. It is what Hitler and his Axis of fascist imperialists had
imposed upon the world until the Allies -- U.S. under FDR, UK under Churchill, and U.S.S.R.
under Stalin -- defeated it, and established the United Nations. Furthermore, America's leaders deceived the American public into
perpetrating this invasion and occupation, of a foreign country (Iraq) that had never
threatened the United States; and, so, this invasion and subsequent military occupation
constitutes the very epitome of "aggressive war" -- unwarranted and illegal international
aggression. (Hitler, similarly to George W. Bush, would never have been able to obtain the
support of his people to invade if he had not lied, or "deceived," them, into invading and
militarily occupying foreign countries that had never threatened Germany, such as Belgium,
Poland and Czechoslovakia. This -- Hitler's lie-based aggressions -- was the core
of what the Nazis were hung for, and yet America now does it.)
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial
in 1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of
aggression. There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world.
The invasion violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution
#1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush,
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State
Condoleez[z]a Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Take, for example, Condoleezza Rice, who famously warned
"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." (That warning was one of the most
effective lies in order to deceive the
American public into invading Iraq, because President Bush had had no real evidence, at all,
that there still remained any WMD in Iraq after the U.N. had destroyed them all, and left Iraq
in 1998 -- and he knew this; he was informed of this; he knew that he had no real evidence,
at all: he offered none; it was all mere
lies .)
So, the Nuremberg precedent definitely does apply against George W, Bush and his
partners-in-crime, just as it did against Hitler and his henchmen and allies.
The seriousness of this international war crime is not as severe as those of the Nazis were,
but nonetheless is comparable to it .
On 15 March 2018, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies headlined at Alternet "The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq" and wrote that
"our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4
million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion," and linked to solid evidence, backing up their
estimate.
On 29 September 2015, I headlined "GALLUP: 'Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest
Populations in the World'," and linked to Gallup's survey of 1,000 individuals in each of
148 countries around the world, which found that Iraq had the highest "Negative Experience
Score." That score includes "sadness," "physical pain," "anger," and other types of misery --
and Iraq, after America's invasion, has scored the highest in the entire world, on it, and in
the following years has likewise scored at or near the highest on "Negative Experience Score."
For example: in the latest, the 2019, Gallup "Global
Emotions Report" , Iraq scores fourth from the top on "Negative Experience Score," after
(in order from the worst) Chad, Niger, and Sierra Leone. (Gallup has been doing these surveys
ever since 2005, but the first one that was published under that title was the 2015 report,
which summarized the 2014 surveys' findings.) Of course, prior to America's invasion, there had
been America's 1990 war against Iraq and the U.S. regime's leadership and imposition of U.N.
sanctions (which likewise were based largely on U.S.-regime-backed lies , though not totally on lies like
the 2003 invasion was), which caused massive misery in that country; and, therefore, not all of
the misery in Iraq which showed up in the 2015 Global Emotions Report was due to only
the 2003 invasion and subsequent military occupation of that country. But almost all of
it was, and is. And all of it was based on America's rulers lying to the public in order to win
the public's acceptance of their evil plans and invasions against a country that had never
posed any threat whatsoever to Americans -- people residing in America . Furthermore, it is
also perhaps relevant that the 2012
"World Happiness Report" shows Iraq at the very bottom of the list of countries (on page 55
of that report) regarding "Average Net Affect by Country," meaning that Iraqis were the most
zombified of all 156 nationalities surveyed. Other traumatized countries were immediately above
Iraq on that list. On "Average Negative Affect," only "Palestinian Territories" scored higher
than Iraq (page 52). After America's invasion based entirely on lies, Iraq is a wrecked
country, which still remains under the U.S. regime's boot, as the following will document:
Bush's successors, Obama and Trump, failed to press for Bush's trial on these vast crimes,
even though the American people had ourselves become enormously victimized by them, though far
less so than Iraqis were. Instead, Bush's successors have become accessories after the fact, by
this failure to press for prosecution of him and his henchmen regarding this grave matter. In
fact, the "Defense One" site bannered on 26 September 2018, "US Official: We May Cut Support for Iraq If New Government Seats
Pro-Iran Politicians" , and opened with "The Trump administration may decrease U.S.
military support or other assistance to Iraq if its new government puts Iranian-aligned
politicians in any 'significant positions of responsibility,' a senior administration official
told reporters late last week." The way that the U.S. regime has brought 'democracy' to Iraq is
by threatening to withdraw its protection of the stooge-rulers that it had helped to place into
power there, unless those stooges do the U.S. dictators' bidding, against Iraq's neighbor Iran.
This specific American dictator, Trump, is demanding that majority-Shiite Iraq be run by
stooges who favor, instead, America's fundamentalist-Sunni allies, such as the Saud family who
own Saudi Arabia and who hate and loathe Shiites and Iran. The U.S. dictatorship insists
that Iraq, which the U.S. conquered, serve America's anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian
policy-objectives. "The U.S. threat, to withhold aid if Iran-aligned politicians occupy any
ministerial position, is an escalation of Washington's demands on Baghdad." The article went on
to quote a "senior administration official" as asserting that, "if Iran exerts a tremendous
amount of influence, or a significant amount of influence over the Iraqi government, it's going
to be difficult for us to continue to invest." Get the euphemisms there! This article said that
"the Trump administration has made constraining Iran's influence in the region a cornerstone of
their foreign policy." So, this hostility toward Iran must be reflected in Iraq's policies,
too. It's not enough that Trump wants to destroy Iran like Bush has destroyed Iraq; Trump
demands that Iraq participate in that crime, against Iraq's own neighbor. This article said
that, "There have also been protests against 'U.S. meddling' in the formation of a new Iraqi
government, singling out Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk for working to prevent parties
close to Iran from obtaining power." McGurk is the rabidly neconservative
former high G.W. Bush Administration official, and higher Obama Administration official, who
remained as Trump's top official on his policy to force Iraq to cooperate with America's
efforts to conquer Iran. Trump's evil is Obama's evil, and is Bush's evil. It is bipartisan
evil, no matter which Party is in power. Though Trump doesn't like either the Bushes or Obamas,
all of them are in the same evil policy-boat. America's Deep State
remains the same, no matter whom it places into the position of nominal power. The regime
remains the same, regardless.
On April 29th, the whistleblowing former UK Ambassador Craig Murray wrote :
Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led
destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen. Nobody even knows how
many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under
10% of the total. To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict
engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of. Some were killed
by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient
tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by
bombing.
You then have to add all those who died directly as a result of the destruction of
national infrastructure. Iraq lost in the destruction 60% of its potable drinking water, 75%
of its medical facilities and 80% of its electricity. This caused millions of deaths, as did
displacement. We are only of course talking about deaths, not maiming.
UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this?
How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international
war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?
Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges
against Tony Blair's UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the
actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the
national security of the invader, was ignored, and the
conclusion was that "the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the
Statute" (which was only
"Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians" and which ignored the real
crime, which was "aggressive war" or "the crime of
aggression" -- the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg). Furthermore, no charges
whatsoever against the U.S. Government (the world's most frequent and most heinous violator of
international law) were considered. In other words: the International Criminal Court is
subordinate to, instead of applicable to, the U.S. regime. Just like Adolf Hitler had
repeatedly made clear that, to him, all nations except Germany were dispensable and only
Germany wasn't, Barack Obama repeatedly said that "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation" ,
which likewise means that every other nation is "dispensable." The criminal
International Criminal Court accepts this, and yet expects to be respected.
The U.S. regime did "regime change" to Iraq in 2003, and to
Ukraine in 2014 , and tried to do it to Syria since 2009 , and to Yemen since 2015, and to Venezuela since
2012, and to Iran since 2017 -- just to
mention some of the examples. And, though the Nuremberg precedent certainly applies,
it's not enforced. In principle, then, Hitler has posthumously won WW II.
Hitler must be smiling, now. FDR must be rolling in his grave.
The only way to address this problem, if there won't be prosecutions against the 'duly
elected' (Deep-State-approved and enabled) national leaders and appointees, would be
governmental seizure and nationalization of the assets that are outright owned or else
controlled by America's Deep State. Ultimately, the Government-officials who are s'elected' and
appointed to run the American Government have been and are representing not the American people
but instead represent the billionaires who
fund those officials' and former officials' careers . In a democracy, those individuals --
the financial enablers of those politicians' s'electoral' success -- would be dispossessed of
all their assets, and then prosecuted for the crimes that were perpetrated by the public
officials whom they had participated in (significantly funded and propagandized for) placing
into power. (For example, both
Parties' Presidential nominees are unqualified to serve in any public office in a
democracy.)
Democracy cannot function with a
systematically lied-to public . Nor can it function if the responsible governmental
officials are effectively immune from prosecution for their 'legal' crimes, or if the financial
string-pullers behind the scenes can safely pull those strings. In America right now,
both of those conditions
pertain, and, as a result, democracy is impossible . There are only two ways to address
this problem, and one of them would start by prosecuting George W. Bush.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .
"An obvious explanation was the ongoing Covid-19 epidemic."
That was just the convenient excuse. Every little totalitarian, like very humongous
totalitarian, knows to never let a crisis go to waste. And that goes double for a fake crisis
or an overblown crisis or managed crisis.
Globalist Totalitarianism – which could make the USSR at its worst seem almost
pastoral – intends to murder all populist opposition. Globalist Totalitarianism is much
more Brave New World than it is 1984. Globalist Totalitarianism intends for large swaths of
the hoi polloi to have easy access to becoming stoned, because the doped are very easy to
control in ways that matter to billionaires. Globalist Totalitarianism requires Sexual
Revolution in all its facets, because that too makes multitudes easy slaves to control.
Globalist Totalitarianism requires total control of mass media, big tech, big pharma, food
production and distribution. If the masses keep avoiding the propaganda, they can be starved
into submission and denied medicines. They even can be weeded out, their numbers cut
significantly, by illnesses created in labs owned and operated by the Globalists.
Historic nationalities, ethnicities, and folk cultures have no meaning, no rights, before
Globalist Totalitarianism. Masses of humans – slaves to the economic desires of the
Empire's Elites – are moved around the Empire as its Elites desire, both to produce
cheap labor and to disrupt, implode, any entity that could become more than a minor irritant
to the Empire's Elites.
Globalist Totalitarianism has been erected upon the frame created by the British Empire,
which created the nascent forms of globalist corporatism right down to corporations owning
entire nations and sub-continents: see the East India Company.
Selling political influence through family members is THE legal form of corruption. Hunter
Biden and Christopher Heinz' BHR Capital, with no experience in China or any track record
of success, quickly raised up to $1.5 billion from the Bank of China shortly after Hunter
Biden's trip aboard Air Force 2 to China with his father. While this isn't a case of
outsourcing U.S. manufacturing, it is a present-day reminder of how the political and
economic elites in both China and the U.S. collude together for their own financial gains.
Sure but then, why ignore the much more recent examples like the Trump girl being granted
trademarks by China after her father became President? After.
My point is that the author only detracts from an somewhat informative article by
showing his partisan biases.
The idea that one political party in the U.S. has been less deferential to China than
the other is laughable. When there is a buck to be made, that buck will be made.
Case in point. America has a surveillance state but it refuses to use it to save lives.
Instead, it uses it to save Wall Street and protect the extractive elite from any TRUE REAL
threat. I relish the notion of this virus running rampant across America until it ravages,
and decimates actually, the Praetorian Guard Class, the managerial class if you will, that
licks the ass of the extractive elite for some bread crust, discarded steak fat and a Tesla.
I want to see them truly suffer for their sins.
After weeks cooped up at home following governors' orders to contain the coronavirus
outbreak, U.S. residents appear eager to get moving again. As more states began to relax
restrictions, about 25 million more people ventured outside their homes on an average day
last week than during the preceding six weeks, a New York Times analysis of cellphone
data found .
In nearly every part of the country, the share of people staying home dropped, in some
places by nearly 11 percentage points.
As the death toll from this pandemic rises in America with no end in sight, Wall Street,
as reflected in the DJIA, doesn't even blink and actually cheers. It doesn't get any sicker
than that. Wall Street sees the carnage as an opportunity to make more profit off of death
and the extractive elite see it as an opportunity to concentrate wealth even further and rid
the world of burdensome useless eaters. It's sick. It's sadistic. It's malevolent. It's evil.
It's our reality.
Burr, who is best known to Americans in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Intel
Committee, reportedly turned over his phone to agents after they executed a search warrant on
his home in the Washington area.
The seizure is a sign of a "significant escalation" in the investigation, the paper
said.
The seizure represents a significant escalation in the investigation into whether Burr
violated a law preventing members of Congress from trading on insider information they have
gleaned from their official work.
To obtain a search warrant, federal agents and prosecutors must persuade a judge they have
probable cause to believe a crime has been committed. The law enforcement official said the
Justice Department is examining Burr's communications with his broker.
Such a warrant being served on a sitting U.S. senator would require approval from the
highest ranks of the Justice Department and is a step that would not be taken lightly. Kerri
Kupec, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment.
A second law enforcement official said FBI agents served a warrant in recent days on Apple
to obtain information from Burr's iCloud account and said agents used data obtained from the
California-based company as part of the evidence used to obtain the warrant for the senator's
phone.
Notably, the leak - which reads like something the NYT or WaPo would ordinarily publish -
follows a federal judge's decision to try and stop the DoJ from dismissing the charges against
former Trump NSA Michael Flynn.
Was this 'leak' really intended to show the public that the DoJ remains non-partisan in the
Trump era? We wouldn't be surprised. But the fact remains: If these senators broke the law,
they will almost certainly face charges.
Of course, Burr wasn't the only lawmaker to get caught up in the scandal:
Others who have come under fire for stock sales include Rep Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and
James Inhofe (R-Okla.) as well as - what's this? - powerful California Democrat Dianne
Feinstein.
FDR warned his son before his death of his understanding of the British takeover of American
foreign policy, but still could not reverse this agenda. His son recounted his father's ominous
insight:
"You know, any number of times the men in the State Department have tried to conceal
messages to me, delay them, hold them up somehow, just because some of those career diplomats
over there aren't in accord with what they know I think. They should be working for Winston.
As a matter of fact, a lot of the time, they are [working for Churchill]. Stop to think of
'em: any number of 'em are convinced that the way for America to conduct its foreign policy
is to find out what the British are doing and then copy that!" I was told six years ago, to
clean out that State Department. It's like the British Foreign Office ."
Before being fired from Truman's cabinet for his advocacy of US-Russia friendship during the
Cold War, Wallace stated:
"American fascism" which has come to be known in recent years as the Deep State. "Fascism
in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for
war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and
using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races,
creeds and classes."
In his 1946 Soviet Asia Mission , Wallace said " Before the blood of our boys is scarcely
dry on the field of battle, these enemies of peace try to lay the foundation for World War
III. These people must not succeed in their foul enterprise. We must offset their poison by
following the policies of Roosevelt in cultivating the friendship of Russia in peace as well
as in war."
[Iraq] will have to borrow a lot of money most likely from the IMF. The money may come
with U.S. conditions.
BM: Hmm. Iraq has a big pile of problems on its hands, but the way the "answer" is worded
seems rather USA-flavoured, as though Iraq borrowing from the IMF is even remotely viable
politically, given that would automatically make its other political problems far more
intractible. Does not sound like a "Bernhard" statement to me. may come with U.S.
conditions.??? Is that what is commonly referred to as an "understatement"?
Piotr: Actually, this is a HUGE blunder in the article. I have only one data point:
Trump administration threatened to freeze 35 billions on Iraqi funds in American banks if
Iraq completes the expulsion of American forces. One f...d up thing in Iraq is the failure of
restoring electricity production, and the dependence on Iranian electricity and Iranian gas
for the power station. As we know, it is much cheaper to build power stations that run on
natural gas than on crude or coal, and the fuel costs are lower, so it seems that Americans
blocked the most economic solutions to the problem. And as a bonus (for Americans), the
failures in electricity supplies were a major motivation in riots that caused government
crisis.
This there is no problem with IMF borrowing money to Iraq or not, but the direct
dependency on USA that can give the access to Iraq's money or not. Extremely colonial
dependency, without using "international tools" like IMF.
75 years ago Germany surrendered to allied forces finally ending the ravages of the Second
World War.
Today, as the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of this victory, why not think very
seriously about finally winning that war once and for all?
If you're confused by this statement, then you might want to sit down and take a deep breath
before reading on. Within the next 12 minutes, you will likely discover a disturbing fact which
may frighten you a little bit: The allies never actually won World War II
Now please don't get me wrong. I am eternally thankful for the immortal souls who gave their
lives to put down the fascist machine during those bleak years but the fact is that a certain
something wasn't resolved on the 9th of May, 1945 which has a lot to do with the slow
re-emergence of a new form of fascism during the second half of the 20th century and the
renewed danger of a global bankers' dictatorship which the world faces again today.
It is my contention that it is only when we find the courage to really look at this problem
with sober eyes, that we will be able to truly honor our courageous forebears who devoted their
lives to winning a peace for their children, grandchildren and humanity more broadly.
The
Ugly Truth of WWII
I'll stop beating around the Bush now and just say it: Adolph Hitler or Benito Mussolini
were never "their own men".
The machines they led were never fully under their sovereign control and the financing they
used as fuel in their effort to dominate the world did not come from the Banks of Italy or
Germany. The technologies they used in petrochemicals, rubber, and computing didn't come from
Germany or Italy, and the governing scientific ideology of eugenics that drove so many of the
horrors of Germany's racial purification practices never originated in the minds of German
thinkers or from German institutions.
Were it not for a powerful network of financiers and industrialists of the 1920s-1940s with
names such as Rockefeller, Warburg, Montague Norman, Osborn, Morgan, Harriman or Dulles, then
it can safely be said that fascism would never have been possible as a "solution" to the
economic woes of the post-WWI order. To prove this point, let us take the strange case of
Prescott Bush as a useful entry point.
The patriarch of the same Bush dynasty that gave the world two disastrous American
presidents (and nearly a third had Donald Trump not annihilated Jeb at the last minute in 2016)
made a name for himself funding Nazism alongside his business partners Averell Harrimen and
Averell's younger brother E. Roland Harriman (the latter who was to recruit Prescott to Skull
and Bones while both studying at Yale). Not only did Prescott, acting as director of Brown
Brothers Harriman, provide valuable loans to keep the bankrupt Nazi party afloat during
Hitler's loss of support in 1932 when the German population voted into office the anti-Fascist
General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor, but was even found guilty for "Trading with the
enemy" as director of Union Banking Corporation in 1942!
That's right! As demonstrated in the 1992 Unauthorized Biography of
George Bush , eleven months after America entered WWII, the Federal Government naturally
conducted an investigation of all Nazi banking operations in the USA and wondered why Prescott
continued to direct a bank which was so deeply enmeshed with Fritz Thyssen's Bank voor Handel
en Scheepvart of the Netherlands. Thyssen for those who are un-aware is the German industrial
magnate famous for writing the book "I Paid Hitler".
The bank itself was tied to a German combine called Steel Works of the German Steel Trust which
controlled 50.8% of Nazi Germany's pig iron, 41.4% of its universal plate, 38.5% of its
galvanized steel, 45.5% of its pipes and 35% of its explosives. Under Vesting Order 248,
the U.S. federal government seized all of Prescott's properties on October 22, 1942.
The U.S.-German Steel combine was only one small part of a broader operation as
Rockefeller's Standard Oil had created a new international cartel alongside IG Farben (the
fourth largest company in the world) in 1929 under the Young Plan . Owen Young was a JP
Morgan asset who headed General Electric and instituted a German debt repayment plan in 1928
that gave rise to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and consolidated an international
cartel of industrialists and financiers on behalf of the City of London and Wall Street. The
largest of these cartels saw Henry Ford's German operations merging with IG Farben, Dupont
industries, Britain's Shell and Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The 1928 cartel agreement also made
it possible for Standard Oil to pass off all patents and technologies for the creation of
synthetic gasoline from coal to IG Farben thus allowing Germany to rise from producing merely
300 000 tons of natural petroleum in 1934 to an incredible 6.5 million tons (85% of its total)
during WWII! Had this patent/technology transfer not taken place, it is a fact that the modern
mechanized warfare that characterized WWII could never have occurred.
Two years before the Young Plan began, JP Morgan had already
given a $100 million loan to Mussolini's newly established fascist regime in Italy- with
Democratic Party kingmaker Thomas Lamont playing the role of Prescott Bush in Wall Street's
Italian operation. It wasn't only JP Morgan who loved Mussolini's brand of corporate fascism,
but Time Magazine's Henry Luce
unapologetically gushed over Il Duce putting Mussolini on the cover of Time eight times
between 1923 and 1943 while relentlessly promoting fascism as the "economic miracle solution
for America" (which he also did in his other two magazines Fortune and Life). Many desperate
Americans, still traumatized from the long and painful depression begun in 1929, had
increasingly embraced the poisonous idea that an American fascism would put food on the table
and finally find help them find work.
A few words should be said of Brown Brothers Harriman.
Bush's Nazi bank itself was the spawn of an earlier 1931 merger which took place between
Montagu Norman's family bank (Brown Brothers) and Harriman, Bush and Co. Montague Norman was
the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, leader of the Anglo-German Fellowship
Trust and controller of Germany's Hjalmar Schacht (Reichsbank president from 1923-1930 and
Minister of Economy from 1934-1937). Norman was also the primary controller of the Bank of
International Settlements (BIS) from its creation in 1930 throughout the entirety of
WWII.
The Central Bank of Central Banks
Although the BIS was established under the Young Plan and nominally steered by Schacht as a
mechanism for debt repayments from WWI, the Swiss-based "Central Bank of Central Banks" was the
key mechanism for international financiers to fund the Nazi machine. The fact that the BIS was
under the total control of Montagu Norman was revealed by Dutch Central Banker Johan Beyen
who said "Norman's prestige was overwhelming. As the apostle of central bank cooperation,
he made the central banker into a kind of arch-priest of monetary religion. The BIS was, in
fact, his creation."
The founding members of the Board included the private central banks of Britain, France,
Germany, Italy and Belgium as well as a coterie of 3 private American banks (JP Morgan, First
National of Chicago, and First National of New York). The three American banks merged after the
war and are today known as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.
In its founding constitution, the BIS, its directors and staff were given immunity from all
sovereign national laws and not even authorities in Switzerland were permitted to enter its
premises.
This story was conveyed powerfully in a 1998 History Channel documentary entitled Banking
with Hitler.
A Word on Eugenics
Nazi support in the build up to, and during WWII didn't end with finance and industrial
might, but extended to the governing scientific ideology of the third Reich: Eugenics (aka: the
science of Social Darwinism as developed by Thomas Huxley's X Club associate Herbert Spencer
and Darwin's cousin sir Francis Galton decades earlier). In 1932, New York hosted the Third
Eugenics Conference co-sponsored by William Draper Jr (JP Morgan banker, head of General Motors
and leading figure of Dillon Read and co) and the Harriman family. This conference brought
together leading eugenicists from around the world who came to study America's successful
application of eugenics laws which had begun in 1907 under the enthusiastic patronage of
Theodore Roosevelt. Hiding behind the respectable veneer of "science" these high priests of
science discussed the new age of "directed evolution of man" which would soon be made possible
under a global scientific dictatorship.
Speaking at the conference, leading British Fascist Fairfield Osborn said that eugenics:
"aids and encourages the survival and multiplication of the fittest; indirectly, it would
check and discourage the multiplication of the unfitted. As to the latter, in the United States
alone, it is widely recognized that there are millions of people who are acting as dragnets or
sheet anchors on the progress of the ship of state While some highly competent people are
unemployed, the mass of unemployment is among the less competent, who are first selected for
suspension, while the few highly competent people are retained because they are still
indispensable. In nature, these less-fitted individuals would gradually disappear, but in
civilization, we are keeping them in the community in the hopes that in brighter days, they may
all find employment. This is only another instance of humane civilization going directly
against the order of nature and encouraging the survival of the un-fittest".
The dark days of the great depression were good years for bigotry and ignorance as eugenics
laws were applied to two Canadian provinces ,
and widely spread across Europe and America with 30 U.S. states applying eugenics laws to
sterilize the unfit. Eugenics' successful growth was due in large measure to the fierce
financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the science magazine Nature which had been
created in 1865 by T.H. Huxley's X Club. The Rockefeller Foundation went onto fund
German eugenics and most specifically the rising star of human improvement Joseph
Mengele.
The Nazi Frankenstein Monster is Aborted
Describing his January 29, 1935 meeting with Hitler, Round Table controller Lord Lothian
quoted the Fuhrer's vision for Aryan co-direction of the New World Order saying:
"Germany, England, France, Italy, America and Scandinavia should arrive at some agreement
whereby they would prevent their nationals from assisting in the industrializing of countries
such as China, and India. It is suicidal to promote the establishment in the agricultural
countries of Asia of manufacturing industries"
While it is obvious that much more can be said on the topic, the Fascist machine didn't
fully behave the way the Dr. Frankensteins in London wished, as Hitler began to realize that
his powerful military machine gave Germany the power to lead the New World Order rather than
play second fiddle as mere enforcers on behalf of their Anglo masters in Britain. While many
London and Wall Street oligarchs were willing to adapt to this new reality, a decision was made
to abort the plan, and try to fight another day.
To do this a scandal was concocted to justify the abdication of
pro-Nazi King Edward VIII in 1936 and an appeasing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was
replaced with Winston Churchill in 1940. While Sir Winston was a life long racist,
eugenicist and even
Mussolini-admirer, he was first and foremost a devout British Imperialist and as such would
fight tooth and nail to save the prestige of the Empire if it were threatened. Which he
did.
The Fascists vs Franklin Roosevelt
Within America itself, the pro-fascist Wall Street establishment had been loosing a war that
began the day anti-fascist President Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Not only had their
attempted February 1933
assassination failed , their 1934 coup d'etat plans
were also thwarted by a patriotic General named Smedley Darlington Butler. To make matters
worse, their efforts to keep America out of the war in the hopes of co-leading the New World
Order alongside Germany, France and Italy was also falling apart. A As I outlined in my recent
article
How to Crush a Bankers' Dictatorship , between 1933-1939, FDR had imposed sweeping reforms
on the banking sector, thwarted a major attempt to create a global Bankers' dictatorship under
the Bank of International Settlements, and mobilized a broad recovery under the New Deal.
By 1941, Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor polarized the American psyche so deeply that
resisting America's entry into WWII as Wall Street's American Liberty League had been doing up
until then, became political suicide. Wall Street's corporatist organizations were called out
by FDR during a powerful
1938 speech as the president reminded the Congress of the true nature of fascism:
"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state
itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or by any other controlling private power Among us today a concentration of private
power without equal in history is growing. This concentration is seriously impairing the
economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and
capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the
people of the nation as a whole."
While America's entry into WWII proved a decisive factor in the destruction of the fascist
machine,
the dream shared by Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace and many of FDR's closest allies
across America, Canada, Europe, China and Russia for a world governed by large-scale
development, and win-win cooperation did not come to pass.
Even though FDR's ally Harry Dexter White led in the fight to shut down the Bank of
International Settlements during the July 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the passage of White's
resolutions to dissolve BIS and audit its books were never put into action. While White,
who was to become the first head of the IMF, defended FDR's program to create a new
anti-imperial system of finance, Fabian
Society leader, and devout eugenicist John Maynard Keynes
defended the Bank and pushed instead to redefine the post-war system around a one world
currency called the Bancor, controlled by the Bank of England and BIS.
The Fascist
Resurgence in the Post-War World
By the end of 1945, the Truman Doctrine and
Anglo-American "special relationship" replaced
FDR's anti-colonial vision, while an anti-communist witch hunt turned America into a
fascist police state under FBI surveillance. Everyone friendly to Russia was targeted for
destruction and the first to feel that targeting were FDR's close allies Henry Wallace and
Harry Dexter White whose 1948 death while campaigning for Wallace's presidential bid put an end
to anti-colonialists running the IMF.
In the decades after WWII, those same financiers who brought the world fascism went straight
back to work infiltrating FDR's Bretton Woods Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank,
turning them from tools of development, into tools of enslavement. This process was fully
exposed in the 2004 book Confessions of an
Economic Hit man by John Perkins.
The European banking houses representing the old nobility of the empire continued through
this reconquering of the west without punishment. By 1971, the man whom Perkins exposed as the
chief economic hit man George Schultz, orchestrated the removal of the U.S. dollar from the
Gold-reserve, fixed exchange rate system director of the Office of Management of Budget and in
the same year, the
Rothschild Inter-Alpha Group of banks was created to usher in a new age of globalization.
This 1971 floating of the dollar ushered in a new paradigm of consumerism, post-industrialism,
and de-regulation which transformed the once productive western nations into speculative
"post-truth" basket cases convinced that casino principles, bubbles and windmills were
substitutes for agro-industrial economic practices.
So here we are in 2020 celebrating victory over fascism.
The children and grandchildren of those heroes of 1945 now find themselves attached to the
biggest financial collapse in history with $1.5 quadrillion of fictitious capital ripe to
explode under a new global hyperinflation akin to that which destroyed
Weimar in 1923 , but this time global. The Bank of International Settlements that should
have been dissolved in 1945 today controls the Financial Stability Board and thus regulates the
world derivatives trade which has become the weapon of mass destruction that has been triggered
to unleash more chaos upon the world than Hitler could have ever dreamed.
The saving grace today is that the anti-fascist spirit of Franklin Roosevelt is alive in the
form of modern anti-imperialists Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and a growing array of nations
united under the umbrella of the New Deal of the 21st Century which has come
to be called the "Belt and Road Initiative".
Had Prescott's grandson Jeb (or Prescott's spiritual grand daughter Hillary) found
themselves in the position of President of the USA at this moment, it is unlikely that I would
be writing this now, as I'm fairly certain WWIII would have already been launched. However,
with President Trump having successfully survived nearly four years of Deep State subversion,
and having called repeatedly for a positive alliance with Russia and China, a chance still
exists to take the types of emergency actions needed at this moment of existential crisis to do
what FDR had always intended, and win World War II.
"... Pretty near stopped reading right there. IMF and World Bank are primary tools of imposing empire on the rest of the world. There is no reason to pay the slightest attention to any of their predictions, except to keep up with what is this week's propaganda. ..."
"... with the neoliberal reforms of 1975-1997, the IMF quickly rose in importance. Mexico's bankruptcy of the mid-1980s was just the prelude. Then the USSR dissolved, and the IMF suddenly took the WB's place as the capitalist spearhead in the Third World. It's prestige spiked through the roof with the subjugation of Russia (Yeltsin Era), Latin America (specially Argentina and Brazil) and others. When the Asian Tigers crisis broke out (1997), the IMF gained police power, which only rose its importance as a capitalist instrument of hegemony. By 2001 - when the Asian Tigers crisis was essentially over - the IMF basically became sacrosanct, a fact of life of capitalism, a status it still enjoys in the present. ..."
"... IMF's accidental rise to power - coupled with the decline of the World Bank - is a very strong evidence and a poetic illustration of the metamorphosis of the American Empire from an industrial-financial superpower (i.e. a capitalist superpower) to a strictly financial superpower. ..."
"... YES to that. IMF is the imperialist tool of enslavement. It is the entry point for private capital hoarders to prise loose the fabric of social cohesion and turn the threads into rope to bind the people to repay national debt. What did Joe Biden do in Ukraine? He arranged US and IMF loans to the government, stole a larger chunk of the deposit through his son and other vectors via the Burisma board etc as he slinked off back home. Then tried the same in China where he was perhaps ensnared in a compromise sting. In all cases the public repays the debt to the IMF or USA. ..."
>Gita Gopinath, the super-smart Director of the IMF's Research Department,
Pretty near stopped reading right there. IMF and World Bank are primary tools of imposing
empire on the rest of the world. There is no reason to pay the slightest attention to any of
their predictions, except to keep up with what is this week's propaganda.
Posted by: Trailer Trash | May 9 2020 18:41 utc | 20
Same. Maybe the crazies are right, is b even here anymore?
@ Posted by: Trailer Trash | May 9 2020 18:41 utc | 20
The history of the IMF is a curious one. It was one of the many international post-war
institutions created in 1944-45, during the world peace hysteria that accompanied the Cold
War.
Initially, though, it was expected that the IMF would play, at best, a very peripheral
role. It should be, in theory, just a fund to be used in exceptional circumstances, for very
tiny problems. Maybe some basket case in Africa would need a couple billions to fix itself
someday, but nothing more than that. It was definitely not taken seriously, and was just a
footnote in the long list of newly founded international institutions.
The capitalist star of the show during the High Cold War (1945-1975) was the World Bank,
more specifically, its infrastructure investment branch, the IBRD.
However, with the neoliberal reforms of 1975-1997, the IMF quickly rose in importance.
Mexico's bankruptcy of the mid-1980s was just the prelude. Then the USSR dissolved, and the
IMF suddenly took the WB's place as the capitalist spearhead in the Third World. It's
prestige spiked through the roof with the subjugation of Russia (Yeltsin Era), Latin America
(specially Argentina and Brazil) and others. When the Asian Tigers crisis broke out (1997),
the IMF gained police power, which only rose its importance as a capitalist instrument of
hegemony. By 2001 - when the Asian Tigers crisis was essentially over - the IMF basically
became sacrosanct, a fact of life of capitalism, a status it still enjoys in the present.
IMF's accidental rise to power - coupled with the decline of the World Bank - is a very
strong evidence and a poetic illustration of the metamorphosis of the American Empire from an
industrial-financial superpower (i.e. a capitalist superpower) to a strictly financial
superpower.
YES to that. IMF is the imperialist tool of enslavement. It is the entry point for private
capital hoarders to prise loose the fabric of social cohesion and turn the threads into rope
to bind the people to repay national debt. What did Joe Biden do in Ukraine? He arranged US
and IMF loans to the government, stole a larger chunk of the deposit through his son and
other vectors via the Burisma board etc as he slinked off back home. Then tried the same in
China where he was perhaps ensnared in a compromise sting. In all cases the public repays the
debt to the IMF or USA.
The IMF employs connivers in the service of global private finance. Some might call them
super-smart but 'criminally smart' would be a better term.
"The level of corruption inherent in the current setup (first adopted in Soviet NEP --
New Economic Policy) is tremendous, as the party has absolute political power and controls
the major economic and financial areas while the entrepreneurs try to bribe state officials
to get the leverage and/or enrich themselves at the state expense or bypass the
bureaucratic limitations/inefficiencies imposed by the state, or offload some costs. So
mafia style relationship between party officials and entrepreneurs is not an aberration, it
is a norm. And periodic "purges" of corrupt Party officials do not solve the problem.
Ecological problems in China are just one side effect of this."
As many noted, corruption in USA is in some sense smaller, because a lot of corrupted
activities are legalized. Sorry for pasting a large quote from NYT
"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Ms. Kelly, an aide to Mr. Christie, wrote in
an email to officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the
bridge.
Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, called the communication "an admirably concise
email."
She went on to write that "the evidence the jury heard no doubt shows wrongdoing --
deception, corruption, abuse of power."
"But the federal fraud statutes at issue do not criminalize all such conduct," she wrote.
"Under settled precedent, the officials could violate those laws only if an object of their
dishonesty was to obtain the Port Authority's money or property."
And, she wrote, "the realignment of the toll lanes was an exercise of regulatory power --
something this court has already held fails to meet the statutes' property requirement."
It is not the first time that the justices have shown their skepticism of public
corruption cases. In 2016, it unanimously overturned the conviction of Bob McDonnell, a
former governor of Virginia who was accused of accepting luxury products, loans and vacations
from a business executive in return for arranging meetings and urging underlings to consider
the executive's requests.
--------------------
A quarter of American GDP goes for defense and health care. Both areas are a veritable swamp
of greed, rapacious overpricing, peddling unneeded products etc. And it is not like the
remaining 75% is an oasis of honesty. An average terminal cancer patient has a better
percentage of healthy cells.
The OPCW is claimed to be an independent agency but we know that it suppressed the results of
its own engineers when it reported that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged
chemical attack in Douma. The former head of the agency has publicly asserted that when John
Bolton demanded that he step down, he added, "We know where your children live." The US has a
history of corruption and intimidation. Any investigation would result in finding China
responsible just as Russia was found to be responsible for the airliner that was shot down
over Ukraine.
"... When the people who made fake claims about Iraq's WMD, about Russiagate, about Iran's danger, are claiming that the thing isn't manmade, then either it's not manmade or it's US-made and the claim is a lie (what we expect from US intelligence agencies) and a cover-up. ..."
In many Ways, Trump reminds me of a Hitler/Stalin admirer. He demands certain results; if you
don't supply them, at least Trump will just fire you instead of having you shot or sent to
the Gulag -- Evidence of the many IG firings as
this article notes .
The daily lies and bald-faced propaganda is at the point where many are aware but still
all too many remain oblivious or are Brown Shirts in all but outward appearance. Pompeo would
be a perfect example of a clone if Hitler had a PR spokesperson spewing lies daily for the
press & public to digest without any thinking. Imagine Hitler with Twitter.
None of the above is meant to denigrate; rather, it's to put them into proper perspective.
I invite barflies to click here
and just look at the headlines of the posted news items--that site's biggest failing was to
omit similar criticism of Obama, Clinton, and D-Party pukes in general, although that doesn't
render today's headlines false.
Will the coming Great Depression 2.0 be global or confined to NATO nations? As with the
first Great Depression, it will be restricted to being Trans-Atlantic for that's where the
dollar zone and Neoliberalism overlap. The emerging dollar-free Eurasian trade zone
Many of Goering's quotes are very accurate as to human nature. US took in Nazi and
Japanese scientists. It wouldn't have left the propaganda behind. Goering's quote about
taking people to war - nazi's were obviously very good at it as the Germans fought until the
very end. US peasants will likely do the same.
The anti China crap filling the MSM is anglosphere in origin. Five eyes, the anglosphere
intel and propaganda warriors will be in it up to their eyeballs.
When the people who made fake claims about Iraq's WMD, about Russiagate, about Iran's
danger, are claiming that the thing isn't manmade, then either it's not manmade or it's
US-made and the claim is a lie (what we expect from US intelligence agencies) and a
cover-up. That said, odds are on the former, as far as I'm concerned. The absolutely
sure thing is that it's not the Chinese who crafted it.
As a general rule, extreme economic decline is almost always followed by extreme
international conflict. Sometimes, these disasters can be attributed to the human survival
imperative and the desire to accumulate resources during crisis. But most often, war amid
fiscal distress is usually a means for the political and financial elite to distract the masses
away from their empty wallets and empty stomachs.
War galvanizes societies, usually under false pretenses . I'm not talking about superficial
"police actions" or absurd crusades to "spread democracy" to Third World enclaves that don't
want it. No, I'm talking about REAL war: war that threatens the fabric of a culture, war that
tumbles violently across people's doorsteps. The reality of near-total annihilation is what
oligarchs use to avoid blame for economic distress while molding nations and populations.
Because of the very predictable correlation between financial catastrophe and military
conflagration, it makes quite a bit of sense for Americans today to be concerned. Never before
in history has our country been so close to full-spectrum economic collapse, the kind that
kills currencies and simultaneously plunges hundreds of millions of people into poverty. It is
a collapse that has progressed thanks to the deliberate efforts of international financiers and
central banks. It only follows that the mind-boggling scale of the situation would "require" a
grand distraction to match.
It is difficult to predict what form this distraction will take and where it will begin,
primarily because the elites have so many options. The Mideast is certainly an ever-looming
possibility. Iran is a viable catalyst. Syria is not entirely off the table. Saudi Arabia and
Israel are now essentially working together, forming a strange alliance that could promise
considerable turmoil -- even without the aid of the United States. Plenty of Americans still
fear the Al Qaeda bogeyman, and a terrorist attack is not hard to fabricate. However, when I
look at the shift of economic power and military deployment, the potential danger areas appear
to be growing not only in the dry deserts of Syria and Iran, but also in the politically
volatile waters of the East China Sea.
China is THE key to any outright implosion of the U.S. monetary system. Other countries,
like Saudi Arabia, may play a part; but ultimately it will be China that deals the decisive
blow against the dollar's world reserve status. China's dollar and Treasury bond holdings could
be used as a weapon to trigger a global sell-off of dollar-denominated assets. China has
stopped future increases of dollar forex holdings, and has cut the use of the dollar in
bilateral trade agreements with multiple countries. Oil-producing nations are shifting
alliances to China because it is now the world's largest consumer of petroleum. And, China has
clearly been preparing for this eventuality for years. So, given these circumstances, how can
the U.S. government conceive of confrontation with the East? Challenging one's creditors to a
duel does not usually end well. At the very least, it would be economic suicide. But perhaps
that is the point. Perhaps America is meant to make this seemingly idiotic leap.
Here are just some of the signs of a buildup to conflict...
Currency Wars And Shooting Wars
In March 2009, U.S. military and intelligence officials gathered to participate in a
simulated war game , a hypothetical economic struggle between the United States and
China.
The conclusions of the war game were ominous. The participants determined that there was no
way for the United States to win in an economic battle with China. The Chinese had a
counterstrategy to every U.S. effort and an ace up their sleeve – namely, their U.S.
dollar reserves, which they could use as a monetary neutron bomb, a chain reaction that would
result in the abandonment of the dollar by exporters around the world . They also found that
China has been quietly accumulating hard assets (including land and gold) across globe, using
sovereign wealth funds, government-controlled front companies, and private equity funds to make
the purchases. China could use these tangible assets as a hedge to protect against the eventual
devaluation of its U.S. dollar and Treasury holdings, meaning the losses on its remaining U.S.
financial investments was acceptable should it decide to crush the dollar.
The natural response of those skeptical of the war game and its findings is to claim that
the American military would be the ultimate trump card and probable response to a Chinese
economic threat. Of course, China's relationship with Russia suggests a possible alliance
against such an action and would definitely negate the use of nuclear weapons (unless the
elites plan nuclear Armageddon). That said, it is highly likely that the U.S. government would
respond with military action to a Chinese dollar dump, not unlike Germany's rise to
militarization and totalitarianism after the hyperinflationary implosion of the mark. The idea
that anyone except the internationalists could "win" such a venture, though, is foolish.
I would suggest that this may actually be the plan of globalists in the United States and
their counterparts in Asia and Europe. China's rise to financial prominence is not due to its
economic prowess. In fact, China is ripe with poor fiscal judgment calls and infrastructure
projects that have gone nowhere. But what China does have on its side are massive capital
inflows from global banks and corporations, mainly based in the United States and the European
Union. And, it has help in the spread of its currency (the Yuan) from entities like JPMorgan
Chase and Co. The International Monetary Fund is seeking to include China in its global basket
currency, the SDR, which would give China even more leverage to use in breaking the dollar's
reserve status. Corporate financiers and central bankers have made it more
than possible for China to kill the dollar , which they openly suggest is a "good thing."
Is it possible that the war game scenarios carried out by the Pentagon and elitist
think-tanks like the RAND Corporation were not meant to prevent a war with China, but to ensure
one takes place?
The Senkaku Islands
Every terrible war has a trigger point, an event that history books later claim "started it
all." For the Spanish-American War, it was the bombing of the USS Maine. For World War I it was
the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. For U.S. involvement in World War I,
it was the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-Boat. For U.S. involvement in World War II,
it was the attack on Pearl Harbor. For Vietnam, it was the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (I recommend
readers look into the hidden history behind all of these events). While the initial outbreak of
war always appears to be spontaneous, the reality is that most wars are planned far in
advance.
As evidence indicates, China has been deliberately positioned to levy an economic blow
against the United States. Our government is fully aware what the results of that attack will
be, considering they have gamed the scenario multiple times. And, by RAND Corporation's own
admission, China and the United States have been preparing for physical confrontation for some
time, centered on the concept of pre-emptive strikes
. Meaning, the response both sides have exclusively trained for in the event of confrontation
is to attack the other first!
The seemingly simple and petty dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea
actually provides a perfect environment for the pre-emptive powder keg to explode.
China has recently declared an "air defense zone" that extends over the islands, which Japan
has already claimed as its own. China, South Korea and the United States have all moved to defy
this defense zone. South Korea has even extended its own air defense zone to
overlap China's .
China has responded with warnings that its military aircraft will now monitor the region and
demands that other nations provide it with civilian airline flight paths. China has also stated
that it plans to
create MORE arbitrary defense zones in the near future.
The U.S. government under Barack Obama has long planned a military shift into the Pacific,
which is meant specifically to counter China's increased presence. It's almost as if the White
House knew a confrontation was coming .
China, with its limited navy, has focused more of its energy and funding into advanced
missile technologies -- including "ship killers," which fly too low and fast to be detected
with current radar. This is the same strategy of cheap compact precision warfare being adopted
by countries like Syria and Iran, and it is designed specifically to disrupt tradition American
military tactics.
Currently, very little diplomatic headway has been made or attempted in regards to the
Senkaku Islands. The culmination of various ingredients so far makes for a sour stew.
All that is required now is that one trigger event -- that one ironic "twist of fate" that
mainstream historians love so much, the spark that lights the fuse. China could suddenly sell a
mass quantity of U.S. Treasuries, perhaps in response to the renewed debt debate next spring.
The United States could use pre-emption to take down a Chinese military plane or submarine. A
random missile could destroy a passenger airliner traveling through the defense zone, and both
sides could blame each other. The point is nothing good could come from the escalation over
Senkaku.
Why Is War Useful?
What could possibly be gained by fomenting a war between the United States and China? What
could possibly be gained by throwing America's economy, the supposed "goose that lays the
golden eggs", to the fiscal wolves? As stated earlier, distraction is paramount, and fear is
valuable political and social capital.
Global financiers created the circumstances that have led to America's probable economic
demise, but they don't want to be blamed for it. War provides the perfect cover for monetary
collapse, and a war with China might become the cover to end all covers. The resulting fiscal
damage and the terror Americans would face could be overwhelming. Activists who question the
legitimacy of the U.S. government and its actions, once considered champions of free speech,
could easily be labeled "treasonous" during wartime by authorities and the frightened masses.
(If the government is willing to use the Internal Revenue Service against us today, just think
about who it will send after us during the chaos of a losing war tomorrow.) A lockdown of civil
liberties could be instituted behind the fog of this national panic.
Primarily, war tends to influence the masses to agree to more centralization, to relinquish
their rights in the name of the "greater good", and to accept less transparency in government
and more power in the hands of fewer people. Most important, though, is war's usefulness as a
philosophical manipulation after the dust has settled.
After nearly every war of the 20 th and 21 st century, the subsequent
propaganda implies one message in particular: National sovereignty, or nationalism, is the
cause of all our problems. The establishment then claims that there is only one solution that
will solve these problems: globalization.
This article by Andrew Hunter , the chairman of the Australian Fabian Society, is exactly
the kind of narrative I expect to hear if conflict arises between the United States and
China.
National identity and sovereignty are the scapegoats, and the Fabians (globalist
propagandists) are quick to point a finger. Their assertion is that nation states should no
longer exist, borders should be erased and a one-world economic system and government should be
founded. Only then will war and financial strife end. Who will be in charge of this
interdependent one world utopia? I'll give you three guesses...
The Fabians, of course, make no mention of global bankers and their instigation of nearly
every war and depression for the past 100 years; and these are invariably the same people that
will end up in positions of authority if globalization comes to fruition. What the majority of
people do not yet understand is that globalists have no loyalties to any particular country,
and they are perfectly willing to sacrifice governments, economies, even entire cultures, in
the pursuit of their "ideal society". "Order out of chaos" is their motto, after all. The
bottom line is that a war between China and the United States will not be caused by national
sovereignty. Rather, it will be caused by elitists looking for a way to END national
sovereignty. That's why such a hypothetical conflict, a conflict that has been gamed by think
tanks for years, is likely to be forced into reality.
@FB
Soooo your proof that I am a troll is that I didn't spell a German to Russian to English
borrow word correctly and capitalized it on a website comment board? And your follow-up slam
dunk is that I am new to the site. To really take it to the next level of critical thinking,
you throw in some ad hominim attacks and deny my education? Move over Sherlock Holmes, we got
a real sleuth here.
My diploma number is 107732 0012900, awarded on June 5th, 2019 and signed by
Шестопал Е. Б. and
Байков А. А.. My thesis was titled: "Russia
in sub-Saharan Africa: Approaches, Interests and a New Frontier for Cooperation with China"
so yeah actually I know quite a bit about Russia's relationship with China. You're welcome to
read it. You'd find my recommendations in the conclusion would not go over well at the CIA.
That I took intelligence analysis courses from the likes of Andrey Bezrukov would not make me
a shoo-in either. Anyway, I assumed this crowd didn't require a lengthy numbering of
America's crimes as a preface to holding an opinion about Russia.
hey never cared about being in some sort of 'club' to begin with international relations
isn't junior high, which one would expect a 'graduate' of international relations to
know
That is funny that you say that because that is *exactly* the impression that I got from
my diplomacy classes. It was like 24/7 LARP set to The Emperor's New Clothes. I am not
talking about the attitude toward the Putin or the Russian government – that was
surprisingly neutral and refreshingly open to discussion – just about how politics are
conducted in general. It was astonishingly – by my admittedly cynical standards –
juvenile. I cannot even imagine how asinine diplomacy and political wheeling and dealing in
the West must be, as they take it all deadly serious in Russia.
All Russia ever cared about was having normal relations friendly if possible, but on
equal footing the entire tone of your fantasy is straight out of the '90s only deluded
Washington hacks still dream that we are living in the '90s
That is true. I don't think Russia is still the 90's. I wasn't here in the 90's anyway, so
I cannot even make that comparison. What I said is that, from my observation and experience,
the people who are still in charge are the same who forged their careers in the 90's and that
their thinking has evolved only in response to betrayals by the US, not due to any
fundamental problem with how the US operates. Russia is fine to play by the rules set out be
Washington, but they are eternally bewildered that those rules only apply to them because
otherwise they would be forced to swallow the truths of Lenin and Marx. For professors
arriving in late model black Mercedes driven by chauffeurs, that would be awkward. For
Russian elites, it is the fact that the game is rigged against them which is the problem, not
the game itself.
Russia needs a depositor credit union type local banking system.
These types of banks are called "gyro or giro" banking. When you take out a loan, you are
borrowing existing money. The bank does not hypothecate new money into existence.
The movie "It's a wonderful life" is a battle between two types of banking, the Gyro Bank,
vs Hypothecation Bank.
Gyro banking has been subsumed by the more dishonest Hypothecation methods that usurers
prefer. Gyro banks like U.S. Savings and Loans, and their equivalents around the world, have
slowly disappeared. In U.S. it was the (((usual suspects))) that were responsible for
S&L's disappearing.
Gryo banking has another nemesis, and that is money origination. If a national-state
creates new money debt free, then laboring savers will eventually have a "pile o money" to
loan out. Without debt free from Treasury, then laboring savers will be storing money that
at-source originated as a hypothecation event elsewhere in the banking system.
In other words, it is not enough to have a Gyro saving bank, the "credit" origination
problem elsewhere hasn't been dealt with.
One of Saker's points is that Putin did not listen to Stolypin Group's Sergei Glaziev and
instead is listening to economic liberals like Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina . The Stolypin
group is on-point, and yet they have been marginalized. Why?
Liberalism's swan song is seductive, and one of its tenets is that you need to borrow
"credit" on international markets to then buy "international goods." Another tenet is that
you can get rich and become an Oligarch too, and live a life of blowing snow up your nose,
and having hooker's galore living the life on another's labor is usury magic that works.
A national state does not need to borrow credit, when it can make its own. The only time a
national state needs to borrow another countries money type, or international banker money
like Federal Reserve Notes, is to acquire something your nation doesn't have . say
petroleum.
In Russia's case, its economy can be almost completely autarkial, and hence liberalism's
swan song is BS, and Putin hasn't gotten the memo. Putin doesn't understand economy, or has
purposefully ignored Glazyev for some reason.
Saker is correct, Russia would be doing much better if Putin had listened to Glazyev Much
better means an economy probably two or three times what it is now, and the six'th column
would be nowhere to be found.
The money power is never trivial, and it informs just about everything else in a
civilization. I feel the same as Saker, I like Putin but Putin has failed spectacularly by
not understanding how money works, and falling for economic Liberalism's swan song.
Hitler had somebody like Glazyev. His name was Reinhardt, and because Reinhardt was
nationalist and illiberal, Germany's economy was able to take off and had a large measure of
autarky.
Germany spent debt free "labor certificates" into the economy per Reinhardt (and later
Schact's) method.
They are not only making the election over resentment against the Russian-speaking
population, but the fact that many are Jewish.
I find it amazing to see someone who is Jewish, like George Soros, allying with
anti-Semitic and even neo-Nazi movements in Latvia, Estonia, and most recently, of course,
Ukraine. It's an irony that you could not have anticipated deductively. If you had written
this plot in a futuristic novel twenty years ago, no one would have believed that politics
could turn more on national and linguistic identity politics than economic self-interest. The
issue is whether you are Latvian or are Russian-Jewish, not whether you want to untax
yourself and make? Voting is along ethnic lines, not whether Latvians really want to be
forced to emigrate to find work instead of making Latvia what it could have been: an
successful economy free of debt. Everybody could have gotten their homes free instead of
giving real estate only to the kleptocrats.
@Mefobills
> "I find it amazing to see someone who is Jewish, like George Soros, allying with
anti-Semitic and even neo-Nazi movements in Latvia, Estonia, and most recently, of course,
Ukraine."
What is anti-semitic about Ukrainian nationalists? What is Nazi about them? They lick
Kolomoyski's ass. They elect Zelenski the Jewish clown. They are fine with their women's
whoring themselves in the universities and in Poland. What gives?
> "Voting is along ethnic lines, not whether Latvians really want to be forced to
emigrate to find work instead of making Latvia what it could have been: an successful economy
free of debt."
One word: NazBol. Not popular. I guess, we'll die then. Because nationalists would rather
lick Negros' anuses than be racist. Our nations are retarded, suicidal, and worship a Jew on
a cross, would you expect a sense of self-preservation of them?
Our race in its current state is far more boring than the Muslims. You have no kings, no
leaders, no politics, no parties. Only Christianity. You cannot act, you cannot think when
your skull's content has rotted away, and Christianity has taken the brain's place.
Part 1: The Obama Administration and the Muslim Brotherhood at Home
Introduction
Under a misguided illusion that Islamists can be regarded as moderates worthy of partnership
with democracies and other civilized states in the war against jihadism, the Barack Obama
administration has undertaken a series high-stakes, ideologically-driven and naive policy
gambits driven by the U.S. president's dangerous sympathy for Islam. In and of itself such a
sympathy is not necessarily a problem if it is moderate and indirectly influences a few,
non-strategic policies. However, when it becomes the ideological foundation for U.S. foreign
policy and strategy across the Muslim world, it is downright dangerous and a potentially
catastrophic miscalculation. The upshot of Obama's miscalculation has been the simultaneous
destabilization of whole regions of the world, the weakening of key allies, the alienation of
potential ones, and the possibility that for the first time since World War Two the West and
Eurasia will be riven by violence, terrorism and war.
The catastrophic failure of Obama's pro-Islamic foreign policy is shaping the perceptions
and calculus of friends, enemies, foes, and 'frenemies' alike. For great powers, his policies
offer risks and opportunities but, more importantly, they demand a complete re-thinking of what
U.S. foreign policy goals are and a rapid policy response to the picture that comes out of such
re-thinking. This has become especially true when it comes to the single great power the
expanse of which stretches along the most of the Muslim world's northern periphery –
Russia. Therefore, Moscow is in the grips of a major revamping and reinvigoration of its
foreign policy activity along its southern periphery. In each case the need to do so can be
reasonably argue to have been necessitated by American mistakes and failures–from South
and Central Asia in the east to North Africa in the west.
Here I will focus on the most recent cases of the Arab Spring and demonstrate that the Obama
administration has attempted to make alliances with Islamists as a buffer against global
jihadism and a battering ram for destroying secular authoritarian regimes in the Muslim world
despised by many liberals and the left, despite their use as a bulwark against radical
political Islam. In three key cases of the so-called Arab Spring–Egypt, Libya, and
Syria–the Obama administration has supported the radical global Islamist organization,
the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). The Egyptian case is well-known and will not be discussed
here.
The pro-MB policy has been a fundamental miscalculation for several reasons. First, it
assumed that democratic, moderately Islamic states led by the MB would follow secular
authoritarian regimes. Instead, as the short-lived MB regime in Egypt demonstrated, an Islamist
MB regime is no better and likely much worse than secular, even military-led regimes. The rise
of Islamist authoritarianism after the fall of secular regimes is even better demonstrated by
the upper hand that jihadist totalitarian groups have in the chaos of post-secular regimes
across those parts of the Muslim world thrown into chaos with the help of U.S. policy.
Second, it assumed an impermeable line between the global Islamist revolutionary movement,
led by groups such as the MB and Hizb ut-Tahrir Islami (HTI), and the global jihadi
revolutionary movement, led by the Islamic State or IS (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) and Al Qa`ida (AQ).
The former type of group is often a half-way house for radicalized Muslims heading towards the
path of jihad. Like their jihadi counterparts, the MB and other radical Islamist revolutionary
groups favor a global caliphate based on the rule of Shariah law. The difference lies in the
strategies and tactics for getting there. By backing the MB, the U.S. facilitated jihadi
agitation and propaganda, recruiting, and arms acquisition fueling the global jihadi
revolutionary movement.
Part 1: The Obama Administration and the Muslim Brotherhood at Home
There is a logic President Obama's policy bias in favor of the MB. President Obama's
biographical and radical leftist background lends him a great pro-Muslim feeling that often
attains absurd proportions. After all, he spent many of his most formative childhood years in
Indonesia, went to a madrassah school there, and stated in his autobiography that the most
beautiful sound he ever heard is the Islamic azan or call to prayer. The president
apparently believes that Islam and Muslims have been an instrumental part of America since its
founding. In his 2009 Cairo speech, which the administration claimed sparked the MB-led
Egyptian revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak in September 2012, President Obama claimed to
"know" that "Islam has always been a part of America's story"
(www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09). In a 2010
speech marking the end of Ramadan, Obama asserted: "Islam has always been part of America"
(www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/08/11/statement-president-occasion-ramadan). In
February 2015 he stated: "Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its
founding" (
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obama-islam-has-been-woven-fabric-our-country-its-founding
). In short, President Obama has a bias in favor of Islam–indeed, a hyper-empathy that
goes over the line into fantasy. Given these realities, it might be expected that this
sentiment would be reflected in the American President's foreign policy. In fact, it is.
There is now a boat load of evidence that the Obama administration has brought in officials
and advisors from radical Muslim circles–in particular those from groups fronting for, or
tied to the MB–who espouse Islamist, anti-semitic, and anti-American points of view
similar to those MB proposes. Until Hillary Clinton's resignation as US Secretary of State, MB
links connected two high-ranking Obama administration officials: Clinton's chief of staff Huma
Abedin and current special assistant to the National Security Council Chief of Staff for the
military's Islamic chaplain program Mehdi K. Alhassani. The specific link is the Muslim World
League (MWL), indicted for financing Al Qa`ida (AQ) front groups. MWL successor groups have
been officially designated terrorist organizations by both the State Department and the United
Nations (Aaron Klein, "White House aide linked to al-Qaida funder," Counter Jihad Report
, 9 May 2014, http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/mehdi-k-alhassani/
).
A link between these two and MB is the Muslim Student Association (MSA) with branches in
hundreds of universities across America. The nationwide umbrella organization MSA has extensive
proven ties to the MB ("The Muslim Students Association and and the Jihadi Network," Terrorism
Awareness Project, 2008 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/MSA%20and%20Jihad%20Network%20v5b-1.pdf
). The MSA's official anthem restates MB's credo:
Huma worked with Abdullah Omar Naseef on the editorial board of her father's Saudi-financed
think tank, the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). Huma was there from 2002-2008,
and Naseef was there from December 2002 – December 2003. Naseef left the JMMA editorial
board at a time when various charities led by Naseef's MWL were declared illegal terrorism
fronts worldwide, including by the U.S. and U.N. Naseef is still the MWL's secretary-general.
Huma's mother, Saleha, is the editor of the IMMA's Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA),
the publication of Syed's institute (
http://shoebat.com/2014/05/03/distribution-list-smoking-gun-benghazi-email-included-muslim-brotherhood-agent/
). Its latest issue (Vol. 35, Issue 4, 2015) features the lead article "Muslims in Western
Media: New Zealand Newspapers' Construction of 2006 Terror Plot at Heathrow Airport and
Beyond," a study of alleged Islamophobia, in which the institute specializes ( www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjmm20/current ).
Saleha Abedin is also a MWL representative.
The MWL and its various offshoots, including the International Islamic Relief Organization
(IIRO) and Al Haramain, have been accused of having terrorist ties. Al Haramain was declared a
terror-financing front organization by the U.S. and U.N. with direct ties to Osama bin Laden
and banned both in the U.S. and worldwide. The Anti-Defamation League accuses the MWL of
proselytizing a "fundamentalist interpretation of Islam around the world through a large
network of charities and affiliated organizations" and notes that "several of its affiliated
groups and individuals have been linked to terror-related activity." In 2003, U.S. News and
World Report documented "a blizzard of Wahhabist literature" accompanied MWL's donations (
http://shoebat.com/2014/05/03/distribution-list-smoking-gun-benghazi-email-included-muslim-brotherhood-agent/
).
Both Abedin and Alhassani were links in the Obama's administration's strategic
communications (propaganda) operation to pin the 11 September 2012 Bengazi attack that killed
the US ambassador to Libya and three CIA operatives on an Internet film instead of an AQ
affiliate's attack. In an email obtained under a Judicial Watch lawsuit sent to Alhassani and
other officials from Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser for strategic
communication sent an email to Alhassani and several other administration officials three days
after the three days after the Benghazi attack indicating the need to "underscore that these
protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy." Another email
indicates that US Ambassador to the UN Susana Rice was prepped on the Saturday before her
Sunday tour of talk shows where she repeated the video story and other elements cantained in
the email's talking points (See p. 14 of the PDF of several documents at, http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1919_production-4-17-14.pdf#page=14
).
An Egyptian newspaper claimed in December 2012 that six Muslims in particular have direct
ties to the MB or are even MB members. Four are adiminstration officials or semi-officials, and
three of these deserve scrutiny: assistant secretary for policy development at the Homeland
Security Department (HSD) Arif Alikhan; HSD Advisory Council member Mohammed Elibiary; and U.S.
special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference Rashad Hussain ( www.investigativeproject.org/3608/dawud-walid-the-quran-and-jews
and Ahmed Shawki, "A man and 6 of the Brotherhood in the White House!," Rose El-Youssef, 22
December 2012,
www.rosa-magazine.com/News/3444/%D8%B1%D8%AC%D9%84%D9%886-%D8%A5%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%89-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%B6
). To be sure, the Egyptian article appears to be overstated in claiming these persons' MB
membership. The piece was likely part of a strategic communications operation carried out by
opponents of the MB regime that overthrew Mubarak and backed the post-MB Egyptian government of
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi counter-revolution. Nevertheless, the Obama administration's
appointment of these officials or plenipotentiaries as well as several other Muslim-American
leaders -- in particular, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) president Imam Mohamed Magid
and and Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) co-founder Salam al-Marayati -- is disturbing
given their indirect MB associations and MB-like Islamist political and theological views.
The biggest knock against DHS assistant secretary for policy development Arif Alikhan has
been the endorsement by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of his appointment.
CAIR has defended terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah as liberation movements.
It also was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas terrorism funding case, and several of
its former officials have been convicted of terrorism-related charges. A lesser rap is that
Alikhan attended a fundraiser for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) just days before his
appointment. MPAC has a similar history of defending Hamas (
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/07/new-dhs-official-linked-to-muslim-public-affairs-council-which-calls-hizballah-a-liberation-movement
). The Egyptian publication claimed that Alikhan is a founder of the World Islamic Organization
(WIO), which it characterizes as a Brotherhood "subsidiary" ( www.investigativeproject.org/3869/egyptian-magazine-muslim-brotherhood-infiltrates#
). These indictments of Alikhan seem less than convincing as evidence of MB ties.
The funding for Elibiary's own community organizing activity has been shrouded in secrecy.
He is co-founder, president and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation (FJF), founded in
November 2002 "to promote government relations and "interfaith community relations for the
organized Texas Muslim community." The IRS revoked the FJF's nonprofit status in May 2010 for
failure to file the requisite forms that would have revealed its source of funding. Moreover,
his FJF has never filed a Texas Franchise Tax Public Information Report. He also has ties to
CAIR. The North Texas Islamic Council (NTIC) or Texas Islamic Council (TIC) is a FJF affiliate,
and Elibiary is a registered NTIV agent for the NTIC. One of the NTIC's directors is H.
Mustafaa Carroll, who is the executive director of CAIR's Houston chapter. Elibiary has
described the writings of Qutb, the chief ideologist of the MB and a major source for global
Islamist and jihadist revolutionaries alike, as having ""the potential for a strong spiritual
rebirth that's truly ecumenical allowing all faiths practiced in America to enrich us and
motivate us to serve God better by serving our fellow man more" ( www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/712.pdf
).
According to an investigation by the Washington Free Beacon, Elibiary was at the center of a
scandal involving the "inappropriate disclosure of sensitive law enforcement documents"
resulting from his access to DHS's secure HS-SLIC system, according to a DHS letter. The case
has been "shrouded in mystery, with various officials providing unclear and at times
contradictory answers about whether DHS ever properly investigated." The allegation was that
Elibiary "inappropriately accessed classified documents from a secure site and may have
attempted to pass them to reporters." As part of his role on the HSAC, Elibiary "was provided
access to a network containing sensitive but unclassified information," according to the July
2014 DHS letter U.S. congressman Louis Gohmert (Republican from Texas). DHS claimed that its
2011 investigation "found no credible information" that Elibiary "disclosed or sought to
disclose 'For Official Use Only' information to members of the media." Nor did DHS "find any
indication that he sought to disclose any other internal OHS [Office of Homeland Security]
information to anyone apart from official use of information within the scope of his role for
the Homeland Security Advisory Council," according to the letter states.
However, DHS's denials are contradicted by documents obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act by Judicial Watch, which indicate that there was never a proper investigation
into Elibiary's actions. In a September 2013 letter DHS informed Judicial Watch in fact that it
could not find investigation records connected to the matter. This conflicting information
suggests a cover up of the fact that there was no investigation, as congressman Gohmert notes,
and that Elibiary was let go from the HSAC to lock in the cover up. Terrorism expert Patrick
Poole concluded that any DHS investigation that might have occurred was "phony," since it
failed to contact him and his source, which led to the first public allegations of Elibiary's
misuse of documents. "(W)hen DHS couldn't provide a single email or document in response to the
Judicial Watch FOIA to prove this investigation ever took place, the jig was up," Poole noted (
http://freebeacon.com/issues/controversial-dhs-adviser-let-go-amid-allegations-of-cover-up/
; see also www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/mohamed-elibiary-homeland-security/
).
President Obama's originally appointed Rashad Hussain as his special envoy to the
Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). In February 2015 Hussain was promoted to the
position of director of the U.S. State Department's Center for Strategic Counterterrorism
Communications
(www.jewsnews.co.il/2015/02/26/obama-appoints-muslim-brotherhood-linked-muslim-to-head-center-for-strategic-counterterrorism-communications/).
Hussain previously served on Critical Islamic Reflections program organizing committee with the
founder of Zaytuna College, Imam Zaid Shakir ( http://www.yale.edu/cir/2004/about.html ).
Shakir's co-founder is Hamza Yusuf, who has said that jihadist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman,
convicted in the Al Qa`ida conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks in the 1990s, was tried
unjustly ( www.investigativeproject.org/2778/ipt-profiles-hamza-yusuf
).
Speaking at a MSA conference in 2004 Hussain condemned the U.S. Justice Department for
"politically motivated persecutions" in prosecuting the soon-to-be convicted terrorism
supporter Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida computer engineering professor. He also
called the legal process "sad commentary on our legal system," "a travesty of justice," and
"atrocious"
(www.politico.com/story/2010/02/islam-envoy-retreats-on-terror-talk-033210#ixzz0g5R9A5gl). One
wonders what legal system Hussain would prefer to the American system of justice. In 2006 the
good professor pleaded guilty to one count of "(c)onspiracy to make or receive contributions of
funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian jihadist organization,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a U.S. State Department 'Specially Designated Terrorist
organization'" and was sentenced to 57 months in prison
(www.investigativeproject.org/profile/100/sami-al-arian). The judge in the case said there was
evidence that Al-Arian served on PIJ's governing board. Al-Arian successfully had lied about
his ties to the terrorist group for ten years. For his part, Hussain lied in 2006 about the
fact that he made the noted 2004 remarks condemning the Justice Department for 'persecutions',
only to be forced to admit he had lied after being subjected to media scrutiny in the wake of
his appointment. (www.investigativeproject.org/1809/how-are-these-not-considered-lies).
According to the watchdog group Global Mulsim Brotherhood Watch, Hussain has a long record of
attending MB-tied conferences, including a May 2009 conference organized by MB-tied groups like
the MSA
(www.globalmbwatch.com/2010/02/20/breaking-news-rashad-hussain-admits-making-controversial-comments-and-asking-for-deletion/).
In addition such to appointments, Obama administration grant-giving has rewarded radical
Muslims, including open anti-Semites. Director of the Michigan branch of MB front group CAIR,
Dawud Walid, has traveled abroad at least twice on U.S State Department funds, using a 2010
trip to Mali to criticize America's treatment of Muslims after 9/11. But it gets worse. In a 25
May 2012 sermon at the Islamic Organization of North America mosque in Warren, Michigan, Walid
asked rhetorically: "Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah?" Walid answered: "They are
the Jews, they are the Jews." He also has stated: "One of the greatest social ills facing
American today is Islamophobia, and anti-Muslim bigotry. And if you trace the organizations and
the main advocates and activists in Islamophobia in America, you will see that all those
organizations are pro-Israeli occupation organizations and activists." Walid's anti-American
bias is reflected in his view that the 2009 shooting death of a Detroit imam was unjust,
despite the imam's refusal of police orders to lay down his weapon and surrender and his fire
at police first ( www.investigativeproject.org/3608/dawud-walid-the-quran-and-jews
).
Obama's ties to Muslims with anti-American and radical leanings predate his election to the
presidency. The Obama campaign's Muslim outreach adviser Mazen Asbahi was forced to resign in
August 2008 after Wall Street Journal article unmasked his indirect radical and MB ties. In
2000, Asbahi served on the board of the Islamic investment fund Allied Assets Advisors Fund
(AAAF), a Delaware-registered trust. Asbahi also has been a frequent speaker before several
U.S.-based groups that scholars associate with the MB. AAAF is a subsidiary of the North
American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which receives funding from the government of Saudi Arabia and
holds the title to many U.S. mosques in the U.S. NAIT promotes fundamentalist Islam compatible
with both the ideology of MB and Saudi Arabian Wahhabism. Other AAAF board members at the time
included one Jamal Sayid, the imam at a fundamentalist mosque in Illinois the Bridgeview Mosque
in Bridgeview, Ill., outside Chicago. Sayid served on the AAAF board until 2005. The Justice
Department designated the imam an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 racketeering trial of
several alleged Hamas fund-raisers, which ended in a mistrial. Sayid has been identified as a
leading Hamas member in numerous news reports since 1993.
(www.wsj.com/articles/SB121797906741214995 and
http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2008/08/06/breaking-news-obama-advisor-resigns-after-wall-street-journal-report/
). Asbahi reportedly has connections to two other MB-linked organizations, the Institute For
Social Policy And Understanding and SA Consulting. One of the latter's three managers is Omer
Totonji, the apparent son of Iraqi-born U.S. Muslim Brotherhood founder Ahmed Totonji
(www.globalmbwatch.com/2008/08/01/breaking-news-obama-top-muslim-adviser-part-of-two-more-organizations-tied-to-us-muslim-brotherhood/).
The White House's 'go to' imam is Mahomed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA), to which Asbahi also has ties
(www.globalmbwatch.com/2008/08/01/breaking-news-obama-top-muslim-adviser-part-of-two-more-organizations-tied-to-us-muslim-brotherhood/).
Although Magid has been involved in outreach to Jews at the US Holocaust Museum and the gay
community, he has also awarded an American Muslim who has verbally attacked Jews on an Islamist
ideo-theological basis. Magid is often invited to attend administration speeches on US Middle
East policy at the State Department, has advised the FBI and the Justice Department to
criminalize defamation of Islam, and is a member of the Department of Homeland Security's
Countering Violent Extremism Working Group. He also advises other federal agencies. In 2012
Magid's ISNA organized a "Diversity Forum" at which Magid gave a diversity award to CAIR
Michigan branch director Dawud Walid, just weeks after Walid's sermon at the Islamic
Organization of America (IOA) mosque in Warren, Michigan, in which he claimed Jews had incurred
the wrath of Allah (www.investigativeproject.org/3608/dawud-walid-the-quran-and-jews and
https://pjmedia.com/blog/obamas-shariah-czar-mohamed-magid-hands-diversity-award-to-jew-hater-dawud-walid
).
Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) co-founder and director Salam al-Marayati is a frequent
White House visitor and administration consultant
(www.mpac.org/programs/government-relations.php). Marayati has said that Israel should have
been added to the "suspect list" for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ( http://theblacksphere.net/2013/04/devout-muslims-in-key-positions-in-the-white-house/
). MPAC has stated Muslims should be "confronting a nation of cowards," speaking of the United
States in the words of former U.S. Attorney General (
www.mpac.org/programs/government-relations/ferguson-confronting-a-nation-of-cowards.php ).
Marayati's MPAC spokeswoman in 2007, one Edina Lekovic, was editor of Al-Talib: The Muslim
News Magazine at UCLA , for its July 1999 issue which praised Osama bin Laden as a
"glorious mujahed" and in 2007 lied on national television about it, for which she was later
fully exposed by Investigative Project director Stephen Emerson
(www.investigativeproject.org/293/ms-lekovica-dozen-printing-mistakes). By the early 2000s, if
not much during Ms Lekovic's years at UCLA, the UCLA MSA was engaged in Islamist and
anti-Semitic propaganda and agitation, including support for the publication
(www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/MSA%20and%20Jihad%20Network%20v5b-1.pdf). CAIR was
affiliated with the university paper, with its southern California chapter's director sitting
on Al-Talib 's editorial board
(www.investigativeproject.org/271/mpac-cair-and-praising-osama-bin-laden). The UCLA MSA was
also intimately involved with the newspaper's publishing and protest activity attacking Jews
(www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/MSA%20and%20Jihad%20Network%20v5b-1.pdf and www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/06/cairs-legal-tribulations
).
Given all of the above, it is certainly not unreasonable to suspect that President Obama's
Cairo speech was intended to lend support to the world's most powerful MB branch -- that in
Egypt. The Obama administration's warm support for Egypt's MB-led revolution and short-lived
regime and cold shoulder to Gen. Sisi's government is well-known and speaks for itself.
Part 2: The Obama Administration and the MB Abroad
Abroad, President Obama's sympathy for semi-Islamist, MB-like elements at home was soon
reflected in his foreign policy. In 2011 Obama issued a secret directive called Presidential
Study Directive-11, or PSD-11, which, according to the Washington Times, outlined a strategy
for backing the Muslim Brotherhood across the Middle East as a strategy for supporting reform
and blocking jihadism's advances in the region (
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/3/inside-the-ring-muslim-brotherhood-has-obamas-secr/
).
It appears to have been the foundation of the Obama administration's overall strategy in the
Middle East and North Africa and the war against jihadism. It would be evident in the
administration's policy failures in Egypt, Libya, Iraq, and Syria. Those failures would
influence U.S. relations with allies and competitors, especially the other major powers in the
region – Russia and Turkey – putting them on a collision course as they attempted a
region in free-fall collapse as a result, for the most part, of American policies.
Egypt
The Obama administration first encouraged the MB-led overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's secular
Arab nationalist regime in Egypt, and then openly supported the new MB 'democracy.' Thus, the
U.S. was backing the overthrow of the leader who had repressed the MB in the wake of the
assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in October 1981, in which the some MB members
were involved but not the main actors. Thus, President Obama invited MB leader and new Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi to the White House, a strong endorsement from any U.S. president. After
President Obama's November 2012 meeting with the MB's now Egyptian President Morsi, Obama told
his aides that he "sensed an engineer's precision with surprisingly little ideology"
(www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/middleeast/egypt-leader-and-obama-forge-link-in-gaza-deal.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&src=un&feedurl=http:/json8.nytimes.com/pages/world/middleeast/index.jsonp&pagewanted=all&).
This was at a time when the Israeli incursion in Gaza was at its peak and Egyptian MB officials
were issuing the most harsh and sometimes jihadist and racist statements in relation to Israel
and Jews. Just days before Obama met with Morsi, the latter declared in Cairo's Al-Azhar
mosque: "The leaders of Egypt are enraged and are moving to prevent the aggression on the
people of Palestine in Gaza. We in Egypt stand with Gaza," he said. "[W]e are with them in one
trench, that he who hits them, hits us; that this blood which flows from their children, it, it
is like the blood flowing from the bodies of our children and our sons, may this never happen."
At the same time, the chairman of Morsi's Freedom and Justice Party, Saad Katatni was making
threats of jihad against Israel: "We are with you (Gaza) in your jihad. We have come here to
send a message from here to the Zionist entity, to the Zionist enemy. And we say to them, Egypt
is no longer. Egypt is no longer after the revolution a strategic treasure for you. Egypt was
and still is a strategic treasury for our brothers in Palestine; a strategic treasure for Gaza;
a strategic treasure for all the oppressed"
(www.investigativeproject.org/3827/obama-administration-oversells-morsi).
MB officials and its official website in fact issued a series of anti-Semitic and jihadi
calls. During one MB-organized protest at the time, preacher Muhammad Ragab called on Muslims
"to raise the banner of jihad against the tyrannical, invading and wicked sons of apes and pigs
[i.e., the Jews], and to unite against the enemies of Allah." MB website articles described
"Zionists" as "apes and pigs," "scum of the earth," "prophet murderers," or "infidels." For
example, MB General Guide Dr. Muhammad Badi issued various jihidist and anti-Semitic calls and
motifs, including a quote of the hadith of "the rocks and the trees" – a well-known
Islamic antisemitic motif–also found in Hamas's founding charter–according to which
the Muslims will fight and kill the Jews before the Day of Judgment. The MB also repeatedly
thanked God for the deaths of Israeli civilians during the killed by rockets
(www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6836.htm).
The Obama administration has never criticized the Egyptian MB or any other MB branch for
pro-Hamas and pro-jihad rhetoric whether from Morsi, Katatni, or their 'ikhwan' associates. In
addition, he nor any U.S. official ever threatened sanctions as the new MB regime allowed
Islamist elements to attack Coptic Christians, and he was reluctant to support the overthrow of
the MB regime and the return to power of the now military-backed Arab nationalist rule under
Gen. Sisi.
Indeed, when confronted by a journalist on the issue, then State Department spokeswoman and
architect of State's remarkably similarly failed Ukraine policy, Victoria Nuland responded:
"Well, I'm obviously not, from this podium, going to characterize the Egyptian view, nor am I
going to speak for them and characterize our private diplomatic conversations. We all agree on
the need to de-escalate this conflict, and the question is for everybody to use their influence
that they have to try to get there"
(www.investigativeproject.org/3827/obama-administration-oversells-morsi). This pro-MB policy
orientation was mirrored in the events in Libya and elsewhere that soon followed.
Libya
The administration then directly intervened to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi regime in
Libya–another country with a considerable MB presence–in violation of a UN
resolution limiting NATO action to establishing a no-fly zone backed by Russia by its
abstention in the UN Security Council vote. The overthrow of Qaddafi first led to minimal
change after elections and eventually anarchy and a civil war, which rages to this day. The
parliamentary elections of July 2012 saw National Transition Council president Mustafa Abdul
Jalil's party take the most votes, but Jalil represented limited change having been the
economic advisor of Qaddafi's son. The elections also provided an opening for the MB, which
finished in second place. But these elections failed in strengthening regime or consolidating
democracy, and the country soon melted down into civil war, with jihadi elements supplementing
the Islamist trend represented by the MB.
The Obama administration pattern of supporting MB and, unwittingly through it, jihadi
elements such as AQ first emerged in Libya in 2011. In the words of the Citizens' Commission on
Benghazi (CCB) -- founded in September 2013 and including among its members former US
Congressman Peter Hoekstra and numerous former CIA and military officers -- the Obama
administration "switched sides in the war on terrorism" ( www.aim.org/benghazi/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CCB-Interim-Report-4-22-2014.pdf
). CCB member and former CIA officer Clare Lopez concludes that "the Qaddafi opposition was led
by the Muslim Brotherhood and the fighting militia was dominated by al-Qaida. That's who we
helped" ( http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/mustafa-abdul-jalil/
).
A December 2015 FOIA release of emails of then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton show
that from the outset of protests in Libya the Obama administration was aware of AQ's presence
in the U.S. backed opposition and anti-Qaddafi rebels' war crimes and had sent special ops
trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of the protests, and concerned regarding oil access
for Western firms, Qaddafi's gold and silver reserves and his plans for a gold-backed currency
that might weaken Western currencies. Thus, Clinton's unofficial advisor and envoy to the
region, Sidney Blumenthal refers in one email to "an extremely sensitive source" who confirmed
that British, French, and Egyptian special ops forces were training the Libyan rebels along the
Egyptian-Libyan border and in Benghazi's suburbs within a month of the first ant-Qaddafi
protests which began in Benghazi in mid-February 2011. By March 27 what was repeatedly being
referred to as a popular revolt involved foreign agents "overseeing the transfer of weapons and
supplies to the rebels" of the National Libyan Council (NLC) opposition front, including "a
seemingly endless supply of AK47 assault rifles and ammunition." Blumenthal then notes that
"radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa'ida in the Islamic
Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its military command." Moreover, Blumenthal
reported to her that "one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily
execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting." The commander was using a
label–'foreign mercenaries'–used by opposition forces for the black Libyans favored
under his regime and apparently was not referring to the Western special forces training and
backing the rebels, whose atrocities of Libyan blacks were well-documented at the time by human
rights groups the U.S. government often cites. Furthermore, Blumenthal states that the stories
of Qaddafi's forces engaging in mass rape and his distributing Viagra to encourage them were
only rumors, and yet these rumors became a charge leveled officially by Clinton in a State
Department statement, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice at the UN itself, and numerous Western
officials and media. The claims were shown in July 2011 by Amnesty International to have been
very likely false and initiated by the rebels (
www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-reveal-true-motive-for-libya-intervention/
with links to original sources). The above-mentioned CCB investigation, based on interviews
with sources in U.S. intelligence agencies and the military, concludes that the U.S.
facilitated delivery of weapons and military support to Libyan rebels from the MB who were
linked to AQ, including the AQ cell that undertook the Bengazi consulate attack that killed
U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three CIA operatives.( www.aim.org/benghazi/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CCB-Interim-Report-4-22-2014.pdf
).
A New York Times investigation confirms the interpretation supported by the recently
disclosed documents and CCB investigation. Secretary of State Clinton, whose ear Huma Abedin
had, provided the pivotal support convincing the president first to back a UN resolution on a
no-fly zone and disabling Qaddafi's command and control. Clinton also led the push inside the
administration to upgrade from that policy to one of pursuing a rebel victory and a strategy of
letting its allies supply weapons to the rebels and knowingly and willfully exceed the UN
resolution's legal writ. Almost immediately after the UN resolution's adoption and well before
Qadaffi was killed, the U.S. was providing assistance that went far beyond that necessary to
secure a no-fly zone. According to former CIA Director, General David Petraeus, the United
States was then already providing "a continuing supply of precision munitions, combat search
and, and surveillance." Throughout spring 2011, the Obama administration looked the other way
as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates supplied the rebels with lethal weapons, according to the
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, and Clinton knew and was ostensibly "concerned that
Qatar, in particular, was sending arms only to militias from the city of Misurata and select
Islamist brigades." The State Department's Libya policy adviser Daniel Shapiro acknowledged to
the NYT that the goal no longer was enforcing a no-fly zone but "winning" and "winning quickly
enough," the latter goal perhaps connected with U.S. domestic politics and the presidential
election little more than a year away. US State Department's Policy Planning Director
Anne-Marie Slaughter confirmed in the NYT article that the U.S. "did not try to protect
civilians on Qaddafi's side" (Jo Becker and Scott Shane, "The Libya Gamble, Part 1: Hillary
Clinton's 'Soft Power' and a Dictator's Fall," New York Times , 27 February 2016,
www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?emc=edit_th_20160228&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=59962778&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2ASituation%20Report&_r=0).
Clinton was unusually interested–on "the activist side"–in having the U.S. take
part, if a clandestine part in the supply of weapons to "secular" Libyan rebels "to counter
Qatar" and the threat of lost influence. However, senior military officials, such as NATO's
supreme allied commander, Adm. James G. Stavridis and Obama's national security adviser Tom
Donilon warned that there were signs, "flickers." of Al Qaeda within the opposition and the
administration would not be able to ensure that weapons would not fall into Islamist
extremists's hands. This was a 'flicker' of the tragedies in Benghazi and Syria yet to
come(Becker and Scott Shane, "The Libya Gamble, Part 1: Hillary Clinton's 'Soft Power' and a
Dictator's Fall").
The CCB and the NYT also concluded that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi had communicated to
the U.S. his willingness to resign and depart from Libya and that the U.S. facilitated the
delivery of arms to Libyan MB rebels tied to AQ in the person of its North African affiliate,
AQ in Maghreb or AQIM. Moreover, the investigation found that the U.S. ignored Libyan leader
Muammar Qaddafi's called for a truce and expressed a readiness to abdicate shortly after the
2011 Libyan revolt began but was ignored or rebuffed by U.S. officials leading to "extensive
loss of life (including four Americans), chaos, and detrimental outcomes for U.S. national
security objectives across the region" ( www.aim.org/benghazi/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CCB-Interim-Report-4-22-2014.pdf
). There was another plan supported by State Department policy planning director Slaughter to
have Qaddafi step down in favor of one his sons, but this was also rejected by Clinton in favor
of supporting the rebels to victory and violating international law established by the UN
resolution (Becker and Scott Shane, "The Libya Gamble, Part 1: Hillary Clinton's 'Soft Power'
and a Dictator's Fall").
The CCB's broader conclusions about the Islamist revolution in U.S. counter-jihadism policy
is backed up by revelations from other newly disclosed documents regarding the debacle in
Syria. The Obama administration's MB policy in Libya–which was already getting out of
control and would turn Libya into a failed state, a jihadi and in particular IS stronghold, and
a main source of Europe's refugee deluge–would be applied to Syria as well with even more
disastrous results. Documents show that the U.S. administration was well aware that no later
than October 2012 weapons of the formerly Qaddafi-led Lybian army were being sent from Libyan
MB and AQ rebels to the increasingly jhadist-dominated Syrian opposition.
Obama, the MB, and Jihadists in Syria
When the Syrian revolt began in Daraa on March 18, 2011, the Syrian MB only existed abroad,
having been exiled by Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father and predecessor. However, its support
abroad translated into strength in the original opposition alliance, the Syrian National
Council (Oct. 2, 2011-Nov. 11, 2012) or SNC, backed and 'weaponized,' literally speaking, by
the West, Turkey, and the Arabs. Turkey and Qatar sponsored the Syrian MB's strong
representation on the SNC, though traditionally different Syrian MB factions have had ties in
Saudi Arabia and Iraq as well and more radical Salafists were stronger at home in 2011-2013 in
contrast to the MB's dominance in Syria from 1979-1982
(www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2014/01/syria-muslim-brotherhood-past-present.html#). At a
conference hosted by Turkey in Istanbul in October 2011, the Syrian MB became a co-founder of
the SNC, which it came to dominate politically if not numerically ( http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=48370
). Exiled Syrian MB members comprise a quarter of the SNC's 310 members, and the MB constitutes
the most cohesive, well-organized and influential bloc within the SNC. Moreover, another
Islamist group within the SNC, the 'Group of 74' consists of former MB members ( http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=48370
; http://carnegie-mec.org/publications/?fa=48334
; and www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/more-divisions-among-syrian-opposition
).
The MB is far more clever and deceptive than some other Islamist and all jihadist groups. It
attempts to portray a moderate face and join alliances that function as fronts for its activity
and vehicles for its rise to power. Thus, the SNC platform professed the goal of creating a
full-fledged democracy, with full individual and groups rights and freedoms, elections, and the
separation of powers ( http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=48370
). It also allowed more moderate SNC leaders to assume the mantle of leadership to present a
moderate face to foreign sponsors. This is openly acknowledged by MB leaders in the SNC. Former
Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadr el-Din Bayanouni, the SNC's fourth most powerful leader,
stated that SNC Chairman Burhan Ghalioun was chosen because he "is accepted in the West and at
home and, to prevent the regime from capitalizing on the presence of an Islamist at the top of
the SNC" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk6KTU1zoTE
). In 2012 liberal members began resigning from the council precisely because they saw it
functioning as a liberal front for the MB ( http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/03/14/200546.html
). One of the SNC's few secular members claimed in February 2012 that more than half of the
council consisted of Islamists ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-syria-opposition-idUKTRE81G0VM20120217
).
The SNC joined the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces when the
coalition was founded in November 2012 but withdrew from it in January 2014 when the latter
agreed to enter into talks on a ceasefire and peaceful transition sponsored by the West and
Russia in Geneva. By then both the council and the coalition had been long overtaken by the
Al-Qa`ida-tied Jabhat al-Nusrah and other such groups as well as by the Islamic State (IS). The
National Council is also heavily influenced by the MB. Its first president (November 2012-April
2103), Moaz al-Khatib, was the former imam of the historical Sunni Umayyad Mosque, a converted
Christian church which houses the remains of St. John the Baptist and is situated in the heart
of old Damascus. One of his two vice presidents was Suheir Atassi, ostensibly a secularist, and
Khatib has at times promised equal rights for Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites, Christians and Kurds
alike, prompting optimism in the West at the time that he could be a strong counter to the
growing jihadization of the Free Syria Army (FSA). However, Katib is a MB sympathizer if not
clandestine operative, a declared follower of the MB's chief theologian Yusuf al-Qardawi, whom
he calls "our great imam." In accordance with Islamist taqqiya -- the right to lie to
non-Muslims in order to further the Islamic cause -- when communicating in Arabic, Katib's
statements become more radical. He has supported the establishment of a Shariah-law based
stated and his Darbuna.net website has included articles, including some of his own,
which express anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and anti-Shia views ( http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/11/14/islamist-in-chief/
). Moreover, Katib has demonstrated just how much the differences between Islamist groups such
as the MB and jihadists groups like AQ and IS are differences over strategy and tactics, not
the goal of restoring the caliphate and globalizing radical Islamic influence if not rule. He
has also called on the U.S. to reconsider its 2012 decision to declare the AQ-allied Jabhat
al-Nusrah as a terrorist organization, refusing to denounce JN and emphasizing its value as an
ally in the struggle against the Assad regime
(www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/1212/For-newly-recognized-Syrian-rebel-coalition-a-first-dispute-with-US-video
and http://www.sharnoffsglobalviews.com/assad-opposition-094/
).
It is important to remember that the dividing lines between secular and Islamist groups such
as the MB and even moreso those between Islamist groups like the MB and jihadi groups like AQ
and IS on the ground in Syria are fluid and porous. The events in Libya demonstrated the
dangers of these intersections, and now failed results would be repeated inside the Syria
opposition with support for 'moderates' and Islamists leading to support for jihadists.
Recently disclosed U.S. government documents reveal the extent to which -- already by at
least mid-2012 -- the Obama administration along with its European and Sunni allies were
supplying financial, weapons, and training support to the SNC in its efforts to overthrow the
Baathist and Alawite-led regime of Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, the documents show that the
weapons were not only going to the MB-dominated SNC but also to the Al Qa`ida (AQ) Iraqi
affiliate, the forerunner to ISIS. In fact, an August 2012 Defense Department/Defense
Information Agency (DIA) document, which would have been based on data from the preceding
months up to a year before mid-2012, emphasized that Salafists, in particular MB and AQ's
affiliate in Iraq 'Al Qaida in Iraq' or AQI already dominated the Syrian opposition forces. The
same document undermines the neo-con argument that if the U.S. had intervened in Syria early
on– say, in 2011 -- there would have been little opportunity for jihadi groups like AQI
and IS to dominate the forces fighting the Assad regime. But already in early 2012 if not
sooner, elements from AQ's group in the region, AQI, immediately moved from Iraq to back the
opposition in Syria, AQI already had been present in Syria for years as part of its operations
in Iraq. Moreover, its strongholds were in the eastern regions of Iraq, and the religious and
tribal leaders there came out strongly in support for the opposition to Syria's secular regime
(
www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
). Therefore, AQI would have had no trouble recruiting for the fight against Assad regardless
of Western actions. One needs only recall the already existing AQI presence and the open desert
terrain and porous border between western Iraq and eastern Syria.
One DoD/DIA document states that weapons were being sent from the port of Bengazi, Libya to
the ports of Banias and Borj Islam in Syria beginning from October 2011–that is, before
the SNC was even founded, meaning Western support actually began quite early on
(www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/pgs-1-3-2-3-from-jw-v-dod-and-state-14-812/). The
document is heavily redacted (blacked out) and does not indicate who organized the weapons
shipments. However, the detailed knowledge of the reasons why specific ports were selected and
specific ships used suggests that U.S. intelligence, likely the CIA, organized the shipments.
The document states: " The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic
transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able
to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo " ( www.judicialwatch.org/document-archive/pgs-1-3-2-3-from-jw-v-dod-and-state-14-812/
). This shows that U.S. intelligence was already on the ground before October 2011. Moreover,
this demonstrates that early Western actions in the form of supplying weapons especially, only
strengthened AQI's recruitment and development potential both in Iraq and Syria, helping to
produce the Islamic State. I include extended excerpts from the most relevant newly released
documents at the end of this article. One document warned of "dire consequences," most of which
are blacked out, but one potential consequence is not redacted: the "renewing facilitation of
terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena" (
www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
).
The interpretation that the Obama administration intentionally or unintentionally aided and
abetted AQ and the rise of its successor organization ISIS (IS) is supported by the U.S.
administration's second-ranking official. On 2 October 2015 U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden
let the cat out of the big when he was asked the question–"In retrospect do you believe
the United States should have acted earlier in Syria, and if not why is now the right
moment?"– at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Biden
answered:
The answer is 'no' for 2 reasons. One, the idea of identifying a moderate middle has been
a chase America has been engaged in for a long time. We Americans think in every country in
transition there is a Thomas Jefferson hiding beside some rock – or a James Madison
beyond one sand dune. The fact of the matter is the ability to identify a moderate middle in
Syria was – there was no moderate middle because the moderate middle are made up of
shopkeepers, not soldiers – they are made up of people who in fact have ordinary elements
of the middle class of that country. And what happened was – and history will record this
because I'm finding that former administration officials, as soon as they leave write books
which I think is inappropriate, but anyway, (laughs) no I'm serious – I do think it's
inappropriate at least , you know, give the guy a chance to get out of office. And what my
constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies – our allies in the region were
our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends – and I have the greatest
relationship with Erdogan, which I just spent a lot of time with – the Saudis, the
Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially
have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and
tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad except that the
people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis
coming from other parts of the world . Now you think I'm exaggerating – take a look.
Where did all of this go? So now what's happening? All of a sudden everybody's awakened because
this outfit called ISIL which was Al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out
of Iraq, found open space in territory in eastern Syria, work with Al Nusra who we declared a
terrorist group early on and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So
what happened? Now all of a sudden – I don't want to be too facetious – but they
had seen the Lord. Now we have – the President's been able to put together a coalition of
our Sunni neighbors ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrXkm4FImvc&feature=youtu.be&t=1h31m57s
).
This illegal activity is at least one if not the main reason behind the Obama
administration's deception of the American people regarding the murder of US ambassador to
Libya Christopher Stevens and three CIA agents in September 2012 in Benghazi. Indeed, the
above-mentioned document and other recently released DoD documents confirm that within hours of
the attack, the entire US government, including those who were at the forefront in claiming the
incident was a political demonstration that took place in reaction to a film denigrating
Islam–President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and US National
Security advisor (then US rep to the UN) Susan Rice–was in fact a carefully planned
terrorist attack carried out by an AQ affiliate in Libya and facilitated by the U.S.
president's favorite Islamist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also dominant
within the 'moderate' wing of the Syrian opposition and Free Syrian Army. Indeed, the recent
congressional hearings into the Benghazi terrorist attack demonstrated that within a day of the
attack Clinton told her daughter and the Egyptian ambassador to the US that it was a terrorist
attack carried out by a AQ affiliate as described in the document not by a 'demonstration'
protesting film as she told the American people and the relatives of the the CIA agents killed
in the attack.
At the same time, the military and intelligence communities are in virtual mutiny over the
Obama administration's failure to recognize the growing IS and overall jihadi threat and the
risk of growing that threat by continuing the failed MB and other policies the administration
pursues in the MENA region. The military's policy revolt underscores the fact and gravity of
the policy to supply weapons to Syria's MB- and eventually jihadist-infested 'moderate'
opposition to the Assad regime. In a January 2016 London Review of Books article, investigative
journalist Seymour M. Hersh uncovered major dissent and opposition within the Pentagon's Joint
Chiefs of Staff (JCS) over Obama's policy of supplying weapons to MB elements in Syria. Hersh
found: "Barack Obama's repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and
that there are 'moderate' rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him" – has in recent
years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers
on the Pentagon's Joint Staff. Moreover, the Pentagon critics' opposition centered on the
administration's unwarranted "fixation on Assad's primary ally, Vladimir Putin." Another less
likely accurate aspect of their critique holds that "Obama is captive to Cold War thinking
about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries
share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington,
they believe that Islamic State must be stopped" ( www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
).
In my view, Obama is captive to anything but 'Cold War thinking.' Rather, he is willing
prisoner of his excessive sympathy for Islam, to his MB strategy, and to his perhaps/perhaps
not unconscious association of Putin with the dreaded Republican and conservative white male so
detested by the Democratic Party and American left from which the president hails. That
association has been unintentionally reinforced by Putin's attempt to wear the mantle of
defender of traditional values, Christianity and, as strange as it may seem to come, Western
civilization. However, Hersh's other findings are well-taken.
According to Hersh, the top brass's resistance began in summer of 2013–more than a
year since the CIA, the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar began to ship guns and goods from Libya via
Turkey and sea to Syria for Assad's toppling. A joint JCS-DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency)
"highly classified," "all-source" intelligence estimate foresaw that the Assad regime's fall
would bring chaos and very possibly Syria's takeover by jihadists was occurring in much of
Libya. Hersh's source, a former JCS senior adviser, said the report "took a dim view of the
Obama administration's insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel
groups." The assessment designated Turkey a "major impediment" to the policy since Ankara had
"co-opted" the "covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad,"
which "had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of
the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State." Moderates had "evaporated" and
the Free Syrian Army was "a rump group stationed at an airbase in Turkey." The estimate
concluded, according to Hersh and his source, that "there was no viable 'moderate' opposition
to Assad, and the US was arming extremists" ( www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
).
DIA Director (2012-14) Lieutenant General Michael Flynn confirmed that his agency had sent a
steady stream of warnings to the "civilian leadership" about the "dire consequences of toppling
Assad" and the jihadists' control of the opposition. Turkey was not working hard enough to stem
the flow of foreign fighters and weapons across its border and "was looking the other way when
it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria," Flynn says. "If the American public
saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go
ballistic" Flynn told Hersh. But the DIA's analysis, he says, "got enormous pushback" from the
Obama administration: "I felt that they did not want to hear the truth." Hersh's former JCS
adviser concurred, saying: "Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and
actually having a negative impact." "The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be
replaced by fundamentalists. The administration's policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad
to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say
Assad's got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better.
It's the 'anybody else is better' issue that the JCS had with Obama's policy" ( www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
).
In September 2015 more than 50 intelligence analysts at the U.S. military's Central Command
lodged a formal complaint that their reports on IS and AQ affiliate 'Jabhat al-Nusrah' or
JN–some of which were briefed to the president–were being altered inappropriately
by senior Pentagon officials. In some cases, "key elements of intelligence reports were
removed" in order to alter their thrust. The CENTCOMM analysts' complaint was sent in July to
the Defense Department and sparked a DoD inspector general's investigation
(www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html).
This was likely done in response to explicit requests or at least implicit signaling coming
from White House officials on what and what is not politically correct in the president's mind.
Thus, the analysts' complaint alleges that the reports were altered to depict the jihadi groups
as weaker than analysts had assessed in an attempt by CENTCOM officials to adhere to the Obama
administration's line that the U.S. is winning the battle against ISIS and JN
(www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html).
This would correlate with the motive behind the Bengazi coverup as well, as the terrorist
attack occurred at the peak of the 2012 presidential campaign when the president was stumping
on slogans that he had destroyed AQ.
Perhaps in response to the growing tensions, President Obama threw the intelligence agencies
under the bus in September 2014 days after the US authorized itself to begin bombing Syria. He
claimed that it was the intelligence agencies who "underestimated what was taking place in
Syria" – a euphemism for the growing power of IS. He did this in August
(www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/09/statement-president-iraq) and again in
September ( http://thehill.com/policy/defense/219123-obama-intel-underestimated-isis
and http://time.com/3442254/obama-u-s-intelligence-isis/
). In turn, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has begun an investigation
and hearings on the intel redactions
(www.nationalreview.com/article/424000/house-investigates-alleged-doctoring-isis-intel-joel-gehrke),
and Obama's former DIA chief, General Michael Flynn, has urged that the investigation begin "at
the top" (
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/24/former-obama-dia-chief-intel-probe-should-focus-on-white-house/
and http://thehill.com/policy/defense/219123-obama-intel-underestimated-isis ).
But matters in the Obama administration are even worse. After illegally running guns to AQ
and then IS and thereby strengthening history's greatest terrorist threat emanating from a
non-state actor, the administration facilitated IS's financing by failing to bomb both the
IS-controlled oil wells and the hundred-long truck convoys that transported the oil to market
across the open desert in open daylight. Although in October 2014 a U.S. State Department,
deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Julieta Valls Noyes, claimed the
sale of IS fuel was one of the US's "principal concerns" and air strikes against them were "a
viable option", nothing was ever done
(www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-on-isis-us-planning-to-bomb-oil-pipelines-to-halt-jihadists-funding-9813980.html).
According to former Obama administration CIA director Mike Morell's statement on November 24th,
the administration refused to bomb oil wells which IS took control of because of the potential
environmental damage (
www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/11/25/obamas-former-cia-director-reveals-real-reason-admin-declined-to-hit-islamic-state-oil-wells/
).
One reason claimed for not attacking the truck convoys was that the drivers of the trucks
ferrying oil from Mosul, Iraq to the Turkish border for sale–more about NATO member
Turkey's role below–were not IS members but rather civilians. Only after Russia's
military intervention and bombing of the IS oil convoys, along with France's doing the same
after the November 13th Paris attacks, did the U.S. carry out its first sorties against the IS
oil convoys on 17 November 2015. In advance of the first U.S. attack on the convoys, U.S.
forces dropped leaflets warning the truck drivers (and any mujahedin accompanying them) of the
impending raid (
www.wsj.com/articles/french-airstrikes-in-syria-may-have-missed-islamic-state-1447685772 ).
It remains unclear how the U.S. knew the drivers were not IS members, whether this is in fact
true, whether this necessarily exonerates them, and whether it is possible to defeat an
extremist insurgency under such legal structures.
However, the perfidy of Obama's MB policy was far greater than simply the usual political
correctness and naivete`of the president and his milieu or the resulting policy failures in
Egypt, Libya Syria and Iraq. By looking the other way and even facilitating the flow of weapons
to rebels, the Obama administration was flirting with violating U.S. anti-terrorism laws. The
administration persisted in funneling arms to MB and other 'moderate' elements, when it was
obvious to any moderately informed analyst that it would be impossible to control the flow of
weapons in the murky circles and dark networks essence of frequently intersecting Islamist and
jihadist organizations.
The administration's main partner in this gambit–NATO member Turkey–would raise
similar and even more troubling issues.
Part 3: Obama's America, Erdogan's Turkey and the 'War Against' Jihadism in Syria and
Iraq is forthcoming later in March .
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and security apparatus organized into regional commands that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy. ..."
"... The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization. ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
"... Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness. ..."
"... The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy. And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America, $17.5 billion is set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace. ..."
"... To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over. ..."
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming
obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World
countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70
nations –
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United
States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the
name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that
300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then
called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite
decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for
presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any
other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's
military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as
though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as
aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it
frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect
a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the
details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
Uncle Volodya says, "Ignorance is always correctable.
But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?"
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of
anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by
the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
―
Issac Asimov
There's a prejudice against making fun of the mad that spans all cultures, all ethnicities; mock the mentally ill
at your peril, for some fair-minded citizen will surely intervene. Possibly many, enough to make you take to your
heels, because those who were born without the ability to reason, or had it and lost it, are perhaps God's most
innocent children. There are few compensations for being born half-a-bubble off plumb, but one of them is
anti-mockery armor. Having a laugh at the expense of the lunatic is bad form; something only dicks do, because it's
cheap and easy.
That's what must be preventing Dmitry Rogozin from roaring with laughter; from falling helplessly to his knees and
collapsing, wheezing, onto his side. If someone smart says something stupid, they are fair game. But laughing when
someone whose openly-stated beliefs suggest they are suffering from dementia is inappropriate. His dilemma is both
obvious, and acute – what to do?
First, some background; who is Dmitry Rogozin? A former Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the Russian
Federation's defense industries, he also served as his country's Ambassador to NATO. He has degrees in philosophy and
technology, and currently serves as the Russian Federation's Special Representative on Missile Defense. He is also
the Director of Roscosmos, the Russian state's Space Industry. Some have talked him up as a possible replacement for
Vladimir Putin, as President of the Russian Federation, but it is in his latter capacity, head of Roscosmos, that we
are most interested today. He knows more about rockets than that they are pointy at one end and have fire at the
other, if you get my drift.
A bit more background, and then I promise we can begin to tie things together; I think I can also promise you are
going to laugh. Not because you're a dick. But I think you will find you do have to kind of snicker. Just be careful
who hears you, okay? It's not as much of an insult if people don't know.
Most who have any understanding of space or rockets or satellites have heard of the
RD-180
.
But in case there are some readers who have never heard of it, it is the Russian Federation's workhorse rocket
engine. Its first flight was 20 years ago, but it was built on the shoulders of the
RD-170
, which has been in service since 1985, making it a Soviet
project. The RD-180 is essentially a two-combustion-chamber RD-170, which has four and remains the most powerful
rocket engine in the world. The RD-180 is used by the United States in its Atlas space vehicles.
For some time, that was a fairly comfortable arrangement. The USA made fun of Russia whenever it wanted to feel
superior, just as it's always done, and made the occasional ideological stab at 'establishing freedom and democracy'
by changing out its leader, but the Russian people were not particularly cooperative, and there were some problems
getting a credible 'liberal opposition' started; even now, the best candidate still seems to be Alexey Navalny, who
is kind of the granite canoe of opposition figures – not particularly well-known, nasty rather than compelling,
spiteful as a balked four-year-old.
But then American ideologues in the US Department of State decided the time was ripe for a coup in Ukraine, and
almost overnight, the United States and Russia were overt enemies. The United States, under Barack Obama,
imposed
sanctions designed to wreck the Russian economy
, in the hope that despairing Russians would throw Putin out of
office. America's European allies went along for the ride, and trade between Russia and its former trade partners and
associates in Europe and the USA mostly dried up.
Not rocket engines, though. America made an exception for those, and continued to buy and stockpile RD-180's. The
very suggestion that RD-180 engines might go on the sanctions list – US Federal Claims Court Judge Susan Braden
postulated that funds used to purchase rocket engines
might end up in Rogozin's pocket
(he being head of the Space Program, and all), and he was under US sanctions – moved the Commander of the United
States Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center to note that without RD-180 engines, the Atlas program
would have to be grounded
.
All this is by way of highlighting a certain vulnerability. Of course, observers remarked, the United States is a
major technological power – it could easily produce such engines itself. So, why didn't it, inquiring minds wanted to
know.
Enter United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tony Bruno, with what reporters described as a 'novel explanation'. Thanks
much for the link, Patient Observer. The United States buys
Russian
rocket engines
to subsidize the Russian space industry
, so that fired rocket scientists will not pack up the wife and kiddies
and their few pitiful belongings, and depart for Iran or North Korea. You know; countries that
really
hate
the United States. I swear I am not making that up. Look:
"The United States is buying Russian rocket engines not because of any problems with its domestic engine
engineering programmes, but to subsidize Russian rocket scientists and to prevent them from seeking employment in
Iran or North Korea, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno has intimated.
"The [US government] asked us to buy [Russian engines] at the end of the Cold War in order to keep the Russian
Rocket Scientists from ending up in North Korea and Iran," Bruno tweeted, responding to a question about what
motivates ULA to continue buying the Russian-made RD-180s."
Sadly, I had no Rogozin-like qualms about being thought a dick. I snorted what I was drinking (chocolate milk, I
think) all over my hand, and gurgled with mirth for a good 20 seconds. Holy Moley – what a retarded explanation! How
long did he grope for that, spluttering like Joe Biden trying to remember what office he is currently running for?
Jeebus Cripes, the United States has
no control at all
over what rocket scientists are paid in the Russian
Federation – what do they imagine prevents Putin The Diktator from just pocketing all the money himself, or spending
it on sticky buns to feed to Rogozin, and throwing a few fish heads to the rocket scientists? Do they really believe
some sort of symbiotic relationship exists between Russia's rocket scientists and the US Treasury Department?
Really
? Have things actually gotten that far down the road to Simple? I tell you, I kind of felt a little sorry
for Tony 'Lightning Rod' Bruno. But more sorry for his family, who has to go out and find him when he's wandering in
the park with no pants on again, you know. Humanitarian concerns.
"Under RD AMROSS, Pratt & Whitney is licensed to produce the RD-180 in the United States. Originally,
production of the RD-180 in the US was scheduled to begin in 2008, but this did not happen. According to a 2005 GAO
Assessment of Selected Major Weapon Programs, Pratt & Whitney planned to start building the engine in the United
States with a first military launch by 2012. This, too, did not happen. In 2014, the Defense Department estimated
that it would require approximately $1 billion and five years to begin US domestic manufacture of the RD-180 engine."
Well, no wonder! It's a lot cheaper to slip some bucks to starving Russian rocket scientists than spend a Billion
simoleons on a Pratt & Whitney program that will take
five years
(!!!) minimum to set up before it even
starts producing an engine the Russians have been making for 20 years, and gave Pratt & Whitney the plans for. Seen
in that light, it makes a weird kind of sense, dunnit? Minus the altruism and violins, of course.
Right about then, I made a second discovery that shook the fuzz off my fundament.
Tony Bruno did not make that
shit up
. No, indeedy. It would have been simpler, and I have to say a bit more comforting, to assume Tony Bruno
is the locus of American retardation. But he isn't; the poor bastard was just repeating an American doctrinal
political talking-point.
Behold
!
"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the US government worried about the possible consequences of lots of
Russian rocket designers getting fired. What if they ended up working for regimes like Iran or North Korea?"
Pretty much word-for-word what poor Tony Bruno said. And that was posted 5 years ago.
But who cares, right? Just some wiggy space-nerd site.
Oh, but wait.
Look at his reference
. It's from NASA.
And it does indeed include the paragraph he quoted.
"Moreover, several on the Space Council, as well as others in the Bush Administration, saw another reason to
engage the post-Soviets in a cooperative space venture: as a way to help hold the Russian nation together at a time
when the Russian economy was faltering and its society was reeling. In the words of Brian Dailey, Albrecht's
sucessor, "If we did not do something in this time of social chaos in Russia, then there would be potentially a
hemorrhaging of technology 'away from Russia' to countries who may not have a more peaceful intention behind the
use of those technologies."
I'm not sure how reliable that is – the Americans still insist, in it, that they landed on the moon, and it points
out that
Dan Quayle
was head of the National Space Council, dear Lord, have mercy. But it's NASA! There was
apparently a school of thought, prevalent in American politics, that America
had to support the Russian economy
,
for fear of its technological proteges high-siding it for Dangerville. Neither North Korea or Iran are mentioned by
name, but they would certainly be easy to infer from the description.
So we could draw one of two conclusions; either (1) Obama was a witless tool who did not read that historical
imperative (probably had his nose in a healthy-greens cookbook, some shit like that) and blundered ahead with a plan
to wreck the Russian economy, loosing a torrent of Russian rocket scientists into a cynical Murka-hatin' world, or
(2) Obama was a genius who applied sanctions with a surgeon's delicacy, avoiding sanctions on the Russian space
program. Although he did apply sanctions directly on its..umm director. Okay, let's go with (1).
Anyway, it's kind of odd, I guess you'd say, to hear that same Brian Dailey, he who blubbered sympathetically (or
so history records) "We have to do something in this time of social chaos in Russia"
say
this:
"The meeting was actually more or less a signing
ceremony, a large event, so to speak, but it was one that was obviously going to be reaching into some very hard
winds that would prevent us from really moving forward. That's a rather obtuse way of saying that we were having
serious problems with the Russians. They wanted a lot of money for doing these things. They wanted to charge us a lot
of money to hook up, and we didn't believe that since this was a government-to-government activity, that money should
be appropriately involved, and it was the intention of the two Presidents to put something together that would be
funded by their respective governments rather than us trying to fund something for Russia."
Say what? You had to do something for the Russian economy without money? Tell me more.
"
At that point, Dan had got very upset with the
Russians and proceeded to tell them that we were not going to do business with Semenov directly, but our opposite
number was Yuri Koptev, and that he ought to start learning how to work with U.S. industry, and that we were not
going to pay for this particular activity and we were not going to be blackmailed into paying them, so to speak, and
insisted that this be taken off the table and we proceed to find ways of making this happen, not ways to slow it down
or charge us for any kind of cooperative activities like this.
"
This all had to do with cooperation on some sort of docking system for the Mir Space Station, nothing to do with
the RD-180, but I think you can see why I would be a bit skeptical regarding Project Payola for the Russian rocket
scientists.
You might be getting a tingly feeling – call it a suspicion – that the USA is kind of pulling our leg on the idea
that it can make a superior multi-chamber rocket engine any time it feels like it, and is just buying the RD-180 on
long-ago government orders to cut the Russians a break. You might suspect the RD-180 is actually a pretty good
engine, but the United States can't make it for that kind of money, and perhaps can't make it at all. I know! Let's
ask
United Launch Alliance
, that company that Tony Bruno is the CEO of.
"The Atlas launch vehicle's main booster engine, the RD-180, has demonstrated consistent performance with
predictable environments over the past decade. The RD-180 has substantially contributed to the established a record
of high reliability on Atlas launch vehicles since its debut on the Atlas III in May of 2000."
You don't say. Tell me more.
"In the early 1990s the closed cycle, LOx rich, staged combustion technology rumored to exist in Russia was
originally sought out by General Dynamics because engines of this kind would be able to provide a dramatic
performance increase over available U.S. rocket technology. Unlike its rocket building counterparts in the United
States, Europe, China, and Japan, Russia was able to master a unique LOx rich closed cycle combustion technology
which delivered a 25% performance increase."
But but I read the George H.W. Bush administration urged America to buy Russian rocket engines because they heard
a rumor there was a suitcase sale on at the Energomash company store. And that, you know, the scientists might be
planning a little trip.
"NPO Energomash, the leading designer of engines in Russia, had gone through hundreds of designs, each an
improvement on the last, to harness the power of LOx rich combustion. This required a very careful approach to how
the fuel is burned in the preburner so that the temperature field is uniform. It also required improvements in
materials and production techniques. They found a way to take the chamber pressures to new limits while protecting
the internal components from fire risks. This required a new class of high temperature resistant stainless steel
invented to cope with the risks of the LOx rich environment."
Oh, seriously, c'mon – is it as good as all that?
"The demonstrated performance established during this process was beyond anything achieved in the United
States. The RD-180 reaches chamber pressures up to 3,722psia which was more than double the chamber pressures
achieved by comparable U.S. engines. Exposure to Russian design philosophy and the success of a high performance
engine made U.S. engine designers question their own methods. This dual sided cross-cultural engineering approach
which has persisted through the life of the RD-180 program adds depth to the understanding of engine capability and
operational characteristics."
Okay, thanks, company that Tony Bruno is the CEO of. Good to know it wasn't just charity.
The EU should reconsider its 'all or nothing' approach on sanctions imposed on Russia for
its role in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, as well as its annexation of Crimea, a
new report from the International Crisis Group suggests. The Brussels-based think tank calls
for the easing of certain sanctions in exchange for Russian progress towards peace in
Ukraine.
"Inflexible sanctions are less likely to change behaviour," said Olga Oliker, Europe
and Central Asia programme director. "Because of that, we urge considering an approach that
would allow for the lifting of some sanctions in exchange for some progress, with a clear
intent to reverse that rollback of sanctions if the progress itself is reversed."
.A major roadblock in the implementation of the Minsk deal has been the sequence of
events supposed to bring an end to the conflict that has so far claimed more than 13,000
lives.
Kyiv wants to first regain control over its border with Russia before local elections
in the war-torn region can be held, while Moscow believes that elections must come
first
####
Door. Horse. Barn. Bolted.
The Intentional Critics Grope is yet again a $/€ short in the reality department.
You would think the Editor Gotev (the last two paras by him) would mention that the Minsk
agreement clearly states elections come first and that Kiev has singularly refuse the other
conditions of the agreement, but that really would be asking too much. From a professional
journalist.
It's the same shit we got with the US-North Korea 4 point nuclear agreement where
de-nuclearization of the region is the final stage yet it didn't take Washington and
ball-licking corporate media to parrot 'denuclearization' as the first point as suddently
decided by the Ovum Orifice.*
They try it on again about every six months, just to see if the Russian negotiators have
changed and if the new ones are dimwitted. I'm sure it is crystal clear to the Kremlin that
if it gave Ukraine back exclusive control of the border, it would (a) call up troops and set
up a cordon to make it impossible for eastern Ukraine to be reinforced, and (b) launch an
all-out military push to re-take the breakaway regions. The west would then shout "Safe!!!",
and the game would be over – Ukraine is (almost) whole again, praise Jeebus. There
would be a propaganda storm that Russia was 'trying to meddle in the peace process' while
Kuh-yiv rooted out and either imprisoned or executed all the 'rebel' leaders, and the west
– probably the USA – would provide 'peacekeepers' to give Ukraine time to restore
its complete control over the DNR and LPR. Then, presto! no elections required, we are all
happy Ukrainians!
They knew 'inflexible sanctions were less likely to change behaviors' when they first
agreed to impose them – but they were showing their belly to Washington, and don't know
how to stop now. Serves them right if they are losing revenue and market share.
I don't think Russia is very interested, beyond polite diplomatic raising of the eyebrows, in
relaxing of sanctions under conditions the EU is careful to highlight could be reapplied in a
trice, as soon as anyone was upset with Russia's performance. Because that moment would be
literally only a moment away. The UK can be counted on to register blistering outrage at the
drop of a hat, and while its influence on the EU will soon be limited, dogs-in-the-manger
like Poland can always be relied upon to throw themselves about in an ecstasy of victimhood.
It would be impossible to set up any sort of dependable supply chain, as the interval between
orders would never be known with any degree of certainty. Fuck the EU. Russia is better off
to press on as it has been doing. The EU has to buy oil and gas from Russia because the
logistics and price of American supplies make them economically non-competitive, and best to
just leave it there. The EU will bitch, but it will continue to buy, whereas any other
commerce would be subject to theatrical hissy fits.
"... The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic. ..."
"... Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us. ..."
"... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
"... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
For brevity, I always post that our IC (Intelligence Community) is masterful in shaping
U.S. public opinion and causing problems for targeted countries but terrible in collecting
and analyzing Intel that would benefit the U.S. The truth of course, is more complicated.
There is a remnant that is doing their jobs properly but is shut out from higher level
offices. But I cannot give long disclaimers at the start of my posts, (I'm not talking about
the men and women ...) where 50 words later I finally start to make my point. It's boring,
sounds insincere, and defensive.
This is yet another effective defense mechanism that protects the troublemakers in our IC
bureaucracy.
1. The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton
thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic.
2. These rogues get to use the remaining good people as human shields.
3. They know their customers, it gives the politicians a way to turn themselves into
wartime leaders rather than having to answer for their shortcomings.
Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that
we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us.
/div> Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even
more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The
American public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially
Sinophobia, Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are
easily banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America
can win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when,
normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas,
what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT
industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.
Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill , May 1 2020 13:46 utc |
13
Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so
the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The American
public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially Sinophobia,
Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are easily
banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America can
win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when,
normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas,
what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT
industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.
Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill | May 1 2020 13:46 utc |
13
I think there is very good intelligence in the US. so much data is collected and there are
many analysts to go over the data and present their forecasts. The World Factbook is an
example of collected intelligence made available to the unwashed masses.
what you are thinking is that this information should be used to your benefit. that is
where it goes wrong. the big players are able to access and exploit that mass of data and use
it to their benefit.
Billmon used to say that this is a feature, not a bug.
"Not precluded" are also a Fort Detrick origin and contagion taken to Wuhan by the US
military, staying at a hotel where most of the first cluster of patients was identified. So
why wouldn't you always mention both in the same breath?
First hollywood movie I am aware of that deals with pandemics and has Fort Detrick front and
center was "Outbreak" 1995. In this film, the "Expert" played by D. Huffman uncovers a plot
by a rogue 2 star general sitting on the serum from another outbreak years ago, and how he
witheld this information and the serum to "protect their bioweapon". There is also a very
overt background sub-plot about Dod and CDC being at odds.
DoD is not listed in the credits for Outbreak. Many of the scenes are supposed to take
place in CDC and Fort Detrick.
--
Last hollywood movie was "Contagion" 2011. In this film, which pretty much anticipates
Covid-19 madness but with an actually scary virus, the "Expert" in charge tells the DHS man
that "Nature has already weaponized them!".
So this lie about the little bitty part "function gain" man-made mutations being the
critical bit for "weaponizing" viruses is turned on its head. It was "Nature" after all. A
wet market, you know.
Contagion does list DoD in its credits. Vincent C. Oglivie as US DoD Liason and Project
Officer.
Just some 'fun' trivia for us to while away our lives. Remember that consipirational
thought is abberational thought. Have a shot of Victory Gin and relex!
"... Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S. recourse to using force. ..."
"... After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further" into the future than others. ..."
It was 22 years ago when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly declared the
United States to be the "indispensable nation": "If we have to use force, it is because we are
America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries
into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."
In a recent
interview with The New York T imes, Albright sounded much less sure of her old
position: "There's nothing in the definition of indispensable that says "alone." It means that
the United States needs to be engaged with its partners. And people's backgrounds make a
difference." Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was
both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S.
recourse to using force.
After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and
foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look
back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further"
into the future than others. Not only are we no better than other countries at
anticipating and preparing for future dangers, but judging from the country's lack of
preparedness for a pandemic we are actually far behind many of the countries that we have
presumed to "lead." It is impossible to square our official self-congratulatory rhetoric with
the reality of a government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from disaster.
Blobsters are simply prostitute to the military industrial complex. No honesty, no courage required (Courage is replaced with
arrogance in most cases.) Pompeo is a vivid example of this creatures of Washington swamp.
Notable quotes:
"... historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses. ..."
"... In French and (I think) most other romance languages, the words for courtier and courtesan are the same. Something to think about. ..."
On the other hand, though, historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the
battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons
pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual
and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses.
The heart of the American exceptionalism in question is American hubris. It is based on the
assumption that we are better than the rest of the world, and that this superiority both
entitles and obligates us to take on an outsized role in the world.
In our current foreign
policy debates, the phrase "American exceptionalism" has served as a shorthand for justifying
and celebrating U.S. dominance, and when necessary it has served as a blanket excuse for U.S.
wrongdoing. Seongjong Song defined it in an 2015 article
for The Korean Journal of International Studies this way: "American exceptionalism is the
belief that the US is "qualitatively different" from all other nations." In practice, that has
meant that the U.S. does not consider itself to be bound by the same rules that apply to other
states, and it reserves the right to interfere whenever and wherever it wishes.
American exceptionalism has been used in our political debates as an ideological purity test
to determine whether certain political leaders are sufficiently supportive of an activist and
interventionist foreign policy. The main purpose of invoking American exceptionalism in foreign
policy debate has been to denigrate less hawkish policy views as unpatriotic and beyond the
pale. The phrase was often used as a partisan cudgel in the previous decade as the Obama
administration's critics tried to cast doubt on the former president's acceptance of this idea,
but in the years since then it has become a rallying point for devotees of U.S. primacy
regardless of party. There was an explosion in the use of the phrase in just the first few
years of the 2010s compared with the previous decades. Song cited a study that showed this
massive increase:
Exceptionalist discourse is on the rise in American politics. Terrence McCoy (2012) found
that the term "American exceptionalism" appeared in US publications 457 times between 1980
and 2000, climbing to 2,558 times in the 2000s and 4,172 times in 2010-12.
The more that U.S. policies have proved "American exceptionalism" to be a pernicious myth at
odds with reality, the more we have heard the phrase used to defend those policies. Republican
hawks began the decade by accusing Obama of not believing in this "exceptionalism," and some
Democratic hawks closed it out by
"reclaiming" the idea on behalf of their own discredited foreign policy vision. There may
be differences in emphasis between the two camps, but there is a consensus that the U.S. has
special rights and privileges that other nations cannot have. That has translated into waging
unnecessary wars, assuming excessive overseas burdens, and trampling on the rights of other
states, and all the while congratulating ourselves on how virtuous we are for doing all of
it.
The contemporary version of American exceptionalism is tied up inextricably with the belief
that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation." According to this view, without U.S. "leadership"
other countries will be unable or unwilling to respond to major international problems and
threats. We have seen just how divorced from reality that belief is in just the last few
months. There has been no meaningful U.S. leadership in response to the pandemic, but for the
most part our allies have managed on their own fairly well. In the absence of U.S.
"leadership," many other countries have demonstrated that they haven't really needed the U.S.
Our "indispensability" is a story that we like to tell ourselves, but it isn't true. Not only
are we no longer indispensable, but as Micah Zenko pointed out
many years ago, we never were.
The numerous foreign misadventures of the US military since 1989 are far from a humiliating
military defeat, they are more of an embarassment for the ruling elites. Take for example
Afganistan - how many soldiers did the US army lose there in 18 years? 2500? That's nothing
compared to the strength and resources available to the Pentagon.
Societal collapse? I admit the living standards of the average working class Joe fell
dramatically compared to the 90's, but you are far from a societal collapse. It won't happen
as long as the US Dollar is the world currency. Believe me :)
The dollars days are numbered. You can't degrade a fiat currency by endless printing with
reckless abandon and expect that the other nations of the planet will retain any trust that
the scrip will remain a reliable store of value.
BTW Afghanistan is an unmitigated DISASTER. The "hyperpower" cannot impose its will on one
of the most backward and impoverised nations on the planet. Heck the Soviets did better in
their day, and they had to face a billion-dollar-a-year foreign-backed insurgency funded by
US & Saudi, and backed to the hilt by Pakistan. By comparison, the Taliban have NO allies
and no foreign funding, yet try as they might, neither the US nor its feckless puppet regime
in Kabul can succeed in grinding them down.
Hmmm... I wouldn't. Who would fight whom? Or would it be a free for all Mad Max style?
You Americans have this weird fascination with the apocalyptic. Seriously, just look at
your movies - each year Hollywood dishes out at least half a dozen blockbusters dealing with
societal collapse - be it due to an alien invasion, zombie plague, impact event or something
else...
I admit, you have problems. The middle class is getting poorer each year, mass imigration
from the southern side of your continent is tearing apart the social fabric and your elite
got richer and more arrogant sice they embraced globalisation in the 90's. But this doesn't
mean that the country is heading towards a civil war.
Well .... I'm not even American so I feel I can look at this somewhat More objectively than a
hardcore blue or red stater. Still hard to tell whether covid will put a wrench in the
trajectory or accelerate it. And if you want apocalypticism, go see Rod.
Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan -- how many more humiliating military defeats will
it take for Americans to realize that they are anything but exceptional?
Americans view killing foreign men, women, and children as a successful endeavor of their
efforts to fight for freedom. American also are not bothered if their soldiers torture and
rape foreign men, women and children. So these wars are not seen as failures but successes,
even if actual geopolitical goals are not realized.
"You won't. It always takes a humiliating military defeat or a societal collapse to reevalute
such myths."
I would go a bit further and say that Americans won't reevaluate those myths until they
personally feel the pain from those things and they blame their pain on the government that
caused them. So much of our current policies are guided by the principal of making sure that
Americans do not feel the pain of their government's actions. We eliminated the draft so most
Americans have no skin in the game regarding military conflicts (not to mention no war taxes,
no goods rationing, etc.). We have come to expect bottomless economic "stimulus," borrowed
from our children's future labor, so we feel minimal pain from the poor preparation for the
pandemic. Bread and circuses have proven to be powerful manipulation tools indeed.
The US is remarkably insular, in large part because it is a mostly self-sufficient (or used
to be) nation-continent, but the hubristic idea of exceptionalism also makes us resistant to
good ideas invented elsewhere.
As concerns COVID-19, I have a number of physicians in my family, and it's only on March
16th that they awakened to the crisis, a week after France officially announced it was going
into lockdown or after London basically became a ghost town. One of them even took her kids
to Disneyland around that time, something that seemed the height of irresponsibility to us at
the time. Thus obliviousness is not just a feature of the Trump administration. The lone
exception is tech companies, perhaps because they are more globalized than most, but the
Washington policy navel-gazing circle-jerk is mostly oblivious to the West Coast.
Now the idea that some crises can only be solved with US leadership is not without merit.
Just because we cannot solve all doesn't mean there aren't some important categories where
our military might and logistic prowess carry the day. That COVID-19 would prove to be an
especially tough challenge for the US was entirely predictable. From our fractured
decision-making due to federalism, our abysmally inefficient health-care system with its huge
swathes of uninsured, our ideology of free market solutions to everything, and our polarized
and ineffectual legislature, made this crisis almost tailor-made to expose the fault-lines in
our brittle society in the worst possible light.
I don't think we need to ape the Chinese, but certainly we need to look outward for a
change, shed our not-invented-here mentality and look at how South Korea or New Zealand
succeeded where we failed, despite having a fraction of our resources.
What military might which has not been able to win any war that it started ever? What
logistic prowess that cannot make PPEs for at least the healthcare workers, not to mention
toilet paper for the people?
I would love to see all our political leaders (and their media friends) respond to the
observations by Mr. Bacevich and Mr. Larison. Of course, I agree with both of them. Perhaps
this economic crisis combined with the pandemic will finally break america. It's a shame it
has come to this. Must we endure economic collapse, starvation, and the corruption / looting
by the wealthy in order to finally stop caring about imaginary threats half way around the
world? I suspect the answer is yes. Americans will never abandon their arrogance until they
are laid low by something.
"A wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him,
but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed
him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me."
"Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born."
Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture."
"No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass."
Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well."
"No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both
food and drink to me."
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless, even
though you refute every one of my imputations."
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny."
**************************
For a few more years, the US will have absolute power over other people and we will use
that power in an absolutely corrupt way at the behest of our overlords in Riyadh and
Jerusalem. When retribution finally comes our way, no one will shed a tear for us.
The US has long been a myth-making factory for the population. The average American has a
pretty rough life. Generally strapped with debt (mortgage, cars), working a dead-end job with
little protection should you lose it. But people are tribal and can get their sense of
self-worth from the tribe. So to be constantly told you are "exceptional" and part of the
"greatest nation the world has ever known" can cover up a lot of pain in real life. See New
England Patriots fans or LSU Tigers fans.
So while being so exceptional, you get to spend hours trying to figure out which Obamacare
policy won't cost so much that it takes up all of your extra monthly cash while
simultaneously leaving you thousands in debt if you actually needed to use it.
I tend to think the psychological decomposition is on-going. Americans know that something is
terribly wrong, but they can't seem to put their collective finger on it. The Trump vote was
a big signal that folks know something is wrong. The hope was that Trump could fix it, but he
just knew something was wrong too. He didn't know how to fix it, but at least he is willing
to talk about it.
But I don't see how you right the ship. What's wrong is that what got us to be a wealthy
powerful country today isn't what is going to keep us that way going forward. That's very
hard for people at all levels of society to understand and accept.
So I expect a continued devolution. Where it gets increasingly "real ugly" for a lot of
people, while a lot of us continue to do fairly well. You have to have a lot of hope your
kids can make it too.
Americans know that something is terribly wrong and getting worse by the day and by the
crisis, but they seems to think that tribal solutions are the answer.
So true. An eye opening set of essays goes to the hart of this: Deer Hunting with Jesus:
Dispatches from America's Class War Paperback by Joe Bageant.
However, that book hasn't received the same fame and traction as this other one (and I am
looking at you TAC and Rod Dreher as well): Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture
in Crisis by J. D. Vance and this is because in the first the author focuses on the system as
the one that produces certain results while on the other the author puts more weight on
individual choices, the darling idea of conservatives, the lifting oneself by bootstraps, the
American success story of rags to riches...
Opium is not native to China. The reason that the British pushed opium on China, in spite of
the strenuous objections of the Chinese governments and officials of the time, is because
before the Opium Wars, trade with China was causing a worldwide shortage of silver. Silver
was about the only thing that non-Chinese had that Chinese wanted. Until opium.
In fact, at least one Chinse official wrote Queen Victoria a letter to the effect that
opium is forbidden in Great Britain, so why are you trying to push it on us here?
"The coronavirus pandemic is a curse. It should also serve as an opportunity, Americans at
long last realizing that they are not God's agents. Out of suffering and loss, humility and
self-awareness might emerge. We can only hope."
Laugh. ohhh you guys need to stop. The virus is not an indication that God is denying an
exceptional role for the US. A star athlete is exceptional and may even be fascinating.
However,
the reality remains that in order to stay exceptional, fascinating and "indispensable"
---- there are things that athelete must do and and there are things that athelete must avoid
doing.
We have engaged in a lot of things we should avoid and neglected some matters that would
be helpful in maintaining our own health and care --- damaging our exceptional
performance.
Jesse Owens and the Bolt, Usain bolt don't participate in every event and they don't run
in every race all the time . . .
It simply is unsustainable.
I of course reject all the whining bout how we, the US, are not exceptional --- and while
dispensable, or value on the planet remains vital.
"value"? more like "impact"... and "vital"? For about 100 years China was an object of
history rather than subject, no biggie. The World would need a breather with a bit of hiatus
concerning the US.
If the virus is not gods curse then the equally foolish notion that Americans are gods agents
ought to be rejected as well. I think you have misunderstood the context of the reference to
gods.
Two constitutional amendment movements must come out of this crisis:
1) Large metropolitan areas must be detached from the states in which they reside. It is
beyond tragic to see civilised people, with deep roots and traditional values, come under the
tyranny of brutal marxist regimes - as we see in so many places from Virginia to NY to
Pennsylvania to Illinois. We have giant colonies of government dependents and cube-dwellers,
which are being used by the Left as vote plantations. The governments they produce are then
inflicted on normal decent innocent people who just happen to live within the same state
lines. This can't be allowed to continue.
2) Anybody (like Bill Gates) who engages in planning or promoting policies that would treat
humans as livestock (e.g., by tracking them with implanted micro-chips) should be charged
with crimes against humanity.
It would be an uphill battle to achieve these goals, but if we do not start right away, the
next crisis could be used by the Left to impose their sick vicious perverted social
engineering programme - which would mean the end of human civilisation and of the human race
as we know it.
Who would want to implant chips in people who willingly pay hundreds of dollars for a
portable device that facilitates tracking the owner?
As far as separating metropolitan areas from surrounding rural areas, it would exacerbate
a problem that is already developing. The structure of Congress is already weighted toward
rural states. Anything that increases that advantage will mean that more people are governed
by fewer people. That's not going to make the US a more stable country.
The readership of TAC are predominantly committed Leftists.
This comment appears to have touched a nerve.
These measures would impede implementation of The Agenda.
Excellent.
While there are certainly leftists (like myself) among TAC readership, the thing that
distinguishes most TAC readers from folks like yourself is that we reside on the left side of
the sanity/insanity divide.
The commenters here seem to feel these two ideas are crazy:
1) Civilised people should not be placed under the power of people they view as primitive
bloodthirsty degenerates.
2) Human beings should not be treated as livestock - tracked and managed by a post-human
ruling class.
If The Left believes these ideas are insane, we have a big problem.
That is confirmation that the chasm between Western Civilisation and the marxist ideology is
absolutely unbridgeable. There is zero overlap - zero common ground. [In fact, the two are so
far apart that one can't see the other with a telescope on a clear day.]
We need to be moving toward some form of separation - whether that means a peaceful partition
like the Soviet Union in the early nineties, a loose confederation like the British
Commonwealth, or maybe a defence/foreign policy alliance based on the NATO model.
"Sane people have crazy ideas. Crazy people have sane ideas."
It's gonna be tough to sell that one.
Are you really just saying that we should submit to an insane ideology because the people
promoting it are just the coolest, most fabulous people ever?
The normal humans are not buying that garbage.
That's why marxism always turns to extreme violence.
Socialism cannot compete, so it must conquer. It cannot persuade, so it must coerce and
terrorise.
Every time I see the "the Left" used as the subject of a sentence, it always seems to follow
that the writer does not know what he's talking about, and probably does not know any actual
leftists who think or do what the writer is claiming they think or do. When you build straw
men from information you get on Fox News, you're not likely to get much more than ill-founded
generalizations.
Any time you see a comment that repeats "the Left/Liberals/Democrats believe X" and "the
Right/Conservatives/Republicans believe Y" you can bet that it will not be insightful.
"... These seeming paradoxes illustrate that the idea of totalitarianism is a useless tool in assessing the decency of governance in any twenty-first-century state. If we are to survive in this brave new world, in which technology makes it ever easier for governments to manipulate individual decisions, but in which we also demand that the state take an ever-larger role in ensuring our safety from ourselves, we must acknowledge that the Manichean worldview implied in the term totalitarianism is an outdated relic of the Cold War. ..."
Last Thursday, Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman issued a
warning in the New
York Times . "The pandemic will eventually end," he wrote, "but democracy, once lost, may never come back. And we're much closer
to losing our democracy than many people realize." Citing the Wisconsin election debacle -- the Supreme Court ruled that voters would
have to vote in person, risking their health -- Krugman argued that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are using the crisis for
their own, authoritarian ends.
This is the perennial critique of Trump: that he is a totalitarian at heart and, if given the chance, 'would want to establish
total control over society.'
Krugman is not alone. As early as last month, when cases of COVID-19 first began to surge in the United States, Masha Gessen
wrote in the New Yorker that the virus was fueling "Trump's autocratic instincts." They argued, "We have long known
that Trump has totalitarian instincts . . . the coronavirus has brought us a step closer." This is indeed the once and future critique
of the Trump presidency: that Trump is a totalitarian at heart and, if given the chance, "would want to establish total control over
a mobilized society." A few days ago, Salon
published an article arguing that the president is using the virus to prepare "the ground for a totalitarian dictatorship." Even
Meghan McCain, as unlikely a person as any to agree with Gessen,
indicated recently that Trump has "always been a sort of totalitarian president" and that he might use the virus to "play on
the American public's fears in a draconian way and possibly do something akin to the Patriot Act."
These critiques make ample use of the term totalitarianism -- "that most horrible of inventions of the twentieth century," in
Gessen's summation . They and other commentators also use it to describe Fidel Castro's Cuba to Vladimir Putin's Russia, which
Gessen left in 2013. As right-wing populism has surged around the world in recent years, the term has had something of a renaissance.
Hannah Arendt's 1951 classic The Origins of Totalitarianism became a best seller again after
Donald Trump's election in November 2016.
This uptick in the term's use runs counter to the trend among historians, for whom the idea of totalitarianism carries increasingly
little weight. Many of us see the term primarily as polemical, used more to discredit governments than to offer meaningful analyses
of them. Scholars often prefer the much broader term authoritarianism, which denotes any form of government that concentrates political
power in the hands of an unaccountable elite. But the fact that historians who study such governments eschew the term totalitarianism,
even as it enjoys wide public currency, points not only to a disconnect between the academy and the general public, but also to a
problem that Americans have in thinking about dictatorship. And it underscores our collective uncertainty about the proper role of
government in crises such as these.
Historians increasingly see the term totalitarian as polemical, used more to discredit governments than to offer meaningful
analyses of them.
The terms totalitarian and totalitarianism have a winding history. In 1922 King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy appointed Benito
Mussolini, leader of the Italian fascist party, as prime minister. In subsequent years, Mussolini established an authoritarian government
that provided a roadmap for other twentieth century dictators, including Adolf Hitler, and made the term fascist an enduring descriptor
of right-wing authoritarianism. A year after Mussolini's appointment, Giovanni Amendola, a journalist and politician opposed to fascism,
used the term totalitario , or totalitarian, to describe how the fascists presented two largely identical party lists at
a local election, thereby preserving the form of competitive democracy (i.e., offering voters a choice), while, in reality, gutting
it. Other writers soon took up the idea and it became a more generic descriptor of the fascist state's dictatorial powers. Mussolini
himself eventually adopted the term to characterize his government, writing that it described a regime of "all within the state,
none outside the state, none against the state." In the next two decades, the terms began to circulate internationally. Amendola
used them in 1925 to compare Mussolini's government and the young Soviet regime in Moscow. Academics in the English-speaking world
began to employ them in the 1920s and '30s in similar comparative contexts.
In a sign of how much the meaning of the words drifted, however, those who later adopted them into political philosophy did not
necessarily consider fascist Italy to have been totalitarian. Hannah Arendt, for instance, dismissed Mussolini's movement: "The true
goal of Fascism was only to seize power and establish the Fascist 'elite' as uncontested ruler over the country." Even now, scholars
point to the survival of pre-fascist government and bureaucratic structures, as well as lower levels of terror and violence directed
against the populace, as evidence that Mussolini's Italy was not genuinely totalitarian.
Instead, Arendt considered totalitarianism to be a way of understanding fundamental similarities between Stalinism and Hitlerism,
despite their diametrical opposition on the political spectrum. This archetypal comparison remains the bedrock of studies of totalitarian
dictatorship. In Origins of Totalitarianism , Arendt laid out what she saw as its internal dynamic:
Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to
its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating
and terrorizing human beings from within.
This state of affairs, which Arendt diagnosed as the result of an increasingly atomized society, bears a striking resemblance
to the state described in George Orwell's 1984 (another bestseller in the Trump era). Airstrip One, as Orwell renamed Great
Britain, is dominated by an omniscient Big Brother who sees, hears, and knows all. Through a reform of language, Airstrip One even
tries to make it impossible to think illegal thoughts. Newspeak, it is hoped, "shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because
there will be no words in which to express it." Orwell and Arendt considered the obliteration of the private and internal life of
individuals to be the ne plus ultra of totalitarian rule.
Of course, what Arendt and Orwell described are systems of government that have never actually existed. Neither Nazism nor Stalinism
succeeded in controlling or dominating its citizens from within. Moreover, while later scholarship has partially borne out Arendt's
analysis of National Socialism, her understanding of Stalinist rule has proved less insightful.
The other classic account of totalitarianism is Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy , published in 1956 by Carl Friedrich
and Zbigniew Brzezinski. In it, the political scientists developed a six-point list of criteria by which to recognize totalitarianism:
it has an "elaborate ideology," relies on a mass party, uses terror, claims a monopoly on communication as well as on violence, and
controls the economy. Like Arendt, Friedrich and Brzezinski believed totalitarianism to be a new phenomenon -- to take Gessen's words,
an invention of the twentieth century. Their goal was to understand structural similarities between different modern dictatorships.
Even Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union -- the two archetypal examples -- were so different that historians wonder if their
comparison as totalitarian really yields interesting insights.
While scholars critiqued Friedrich and Brzezinski's model -- for example, its one-size-fits-all list fails to appreciate these
regimes' dynamism -- the debate over the usefulness of the term totalitarianism continued. In the decades since, historians and political
scientists have gone back and forth, defining the concept in new ways and showing how those definitions fail in one way or another.
But, at base, these definitions have typically assumed, in the words of historian Ian Kershaw, a "total claim" made on the part
of the totalitarian state over those it rules. That is, Arendt's basic characterization -- that totalitarian regimes aspire to total
control over the public, private, and internal lives of their citizens -- continues to inform scholarly debate.
Arendt's, I would venture, is also the term's folk definition: that is, in people's minds, totalitarianism distinguishes a subset
of authoritarian regimes that seek to (and perhaps even sometimes succeed at) dominating the individual in every conceivable way.
China's new social credit score, which curtails the rights of people who engage in so-called antisocial behaviors, is a current example
of this sort of thing. It is also a clear illustration of the role technology plays in totalitarian fantasies. But China's government
also has many other characteristics, such as a market economy, that traditional understandings of totalitarianism explicitly reject.
This pared-down definition of totalitarianism is still only of dubious utility. Even Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union --
the two archetypal examples -- were so different that historians wonder if their comparison as "totalitarian" really yields interesting
insights. Studies of everyday life in both countries have underscored the limits of the totalitarian model. These revisionist histories,
in the words of Soviet historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, "introduced into Soviet history the notions of bureaucratic and professional
interest groups and institutional and center-periphery conflict, and they were particularly successful at demonstrating inputs from
middle levels of the administrative hierarchy and professional groups. They were alert to what would now be called questions of agency."
Similarly nuanced approaches to Nazism have uncovered ways power worked within the regime that throw the totalitarian hypothesis
into doubt.
In my own area of research, Germany after World War II, totalitarianism plays a fraught role. During the Cold War and its immediate
aftermath, politicians, journalists, and scholars all painted East Germany as a totalitarian government on par with the Nazi state.
But that characterization is simply wrong. For instance, the East German and Nazi secret police forces, the Stasi and the Gestapo,
functioned in fundamentally different ways. The Gestapo was a relatively small organization that relied on thousands of spontaneous
denunciations. It practiced brutal torture and was embedded in a system of extralegal justice that was responsible for the murder
of hundreds of thousands of German citizens (not to mention the millions more killed in the Holocaust). The Stasi was quite different.
It employed a vast bureaucracy -- three times larger than the Gestapo in a population four times smaller -- and cultivated an even
larger network of collaborators. Around 5 percent of East Germans are estimated to have worked for the Stasi at some point, blurring
the lines between persecutors and persecuted. Against those unlucky enough to wind up in a Stasi prison, the secret police employed
methods of psychological torture. But it never induced the same level of terror as did the Gestapo. Nor was it responsible for anywhere
near the same number of deaths. For most East Germans, the Stasi's presence was more of a nuisance -- a "scratchy undershirt," historian
Paul Betts argues.
Of course, the Stasi's ubiquity and its vast surveillance apparatus have equally been taken as proof that the totalitarian hypothesis
does indeed apply to East Germany. But there is ample evidence that East Germans enjoyed robust private lives, along with a sense
of individual self. East Germans wrote millions of petitions to their government, for instance, complaining about everything from
vacations to apartments. They showed up to quiz members of parliament about government policy. When the regime tried to outlaw public
nudity in the 1950s, as historian Josie McLellan has described, East Germans disobeyed, protested, and eventually forced the government
to relent. Kristen Ghodsee, among others, has
contended
that in many ways life was better for women in Eastern Bloc countries than in the West. And the dictatorship never tried to bring
the Protestant Church, to which millions of East Germans belonged, under its full control. My
own research
reveals that gay liberation activists were able to pressure the dictatorship to make significant policy changes.
In short, whatever criteria one uses to define totalitarianism, East Germany does not fit. It was a dictatorship, but certainly
not a totalitarian one. In fact, the classification of East Germany has proved such a nettlesome problem, it has spawned a veritable
cottage industry of neologisms. Scholars describe it, variously, as a welfare dictatorship, a participatory dictatorship, a thoroughly
dominated society, a modern dictatorship, a tutelary state, and a late totalitarian patriarchal and surveillance state.
If the obliteration of the wall between public and private is the defining characteristic of totalitarianism, can any contemporary
society be described as other than totalitarian?
This brings us back to current usage. The problem is that the term totalitarian fulfills two quite different purposes. The first,
as just discussed, is taxonomic: for scholars, it has helped frame an effort to understand the nature of various twentieth-century
regimes. And in this function, it finally seems to be reaching the end of its useful life.
But the term's other purpose is ideological and pejorative, the outgrowth of a Cold War desire to classify fascist and communist
dictatorships as essentially the same phenomenon. To catalog a state as totalitarian it to say it is radically other, sealed off
from the liberal, capitalist, democratic order that we take to be normal. When we call a state totalitarian, we are saying that its
goals are of a categorically different sort than those of our own government -- that it seeks, as Gessen suggests, to destroy human
dignity.
The ideological work that the term totalitarian performs is significant, providing a sleight-of-hand by which to both condemn
foreign regimes and deflect criticism of the regime at home. By claiming that dictatorship and democracy are not simply opposed but
categorically different, it disables us from recognizing the democratic parts of dictatorial rule and the authoritarian aspects of
democratic rule, and thus renders us less capable of effectively diagnosing problems in our own society.
We love to denounce foreign dictatorships. George W. Bush invented the "
Axis of Evil ," for example, to provide a ready
supply of villains. These "totalitarian" regimes -- Iran, Iraq, and North Korea -- we were told, all threatened our freedoms. But
the grouping was always nonsensical, as the regimes bore few similarities to one another. While Iran, in particular, is authoritarian,
it also bears hallmarks of pluralistic democracy. Pointing out the latter does not diminish the former -- rather it helps us understand
how and why the Islamic Republic has shown such tenacity and staying power. To simply call such regimes totalitarian not only misses
the point, but also whitewashes American complicity in creating and propping up authoritarian regimes -- Iran not least of all. Indeed,
the United States supported a number of the past century's most brutal right-wing dictatorships.
Moreover, by thinking of totalitarianism as something that happens elsewhere, in illiberal, undemocratic places, we ignore the
ways in which our government can and has behaved in authoritarian ways within our own country. Black Americans experienced conditions
of dictatorial rule in the Jim Crow South and under slavery, to name but the most prominent examples.
The language of totalitarianism thus obscures how dictatorship and democracy exist on the same spectrum. It is imperative that
we come to a clearer understanding of the fact that hybrid forms of government exist which combine elements of both. These managed
democracies, to take political theorist Sheldon Wolin's term -- from Putin's Russia, to Viktor Orbán's Hungary, to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's
Turkey -- have hallmarks of democratic republics and use a combination of new and old methods to enforce something akin
to one-party rule. These states are certainly not totalitarian, but neither are they democracies.
Likewise, the Republican Party's efforts to manage U.S. democracy through gerrymandering and voter suppression is similar to Putin's,
Orbán's, and Erdoğan's tactics of securing political power. Its strategies push the republic further toward the authoritarian end
of the political spectrum. And, indeed, the sophisticated data-mining techniques of
Cambridge Analytica , which assisted
the 2016 Trump campaign to manipulate voter choices, would have made the Stasi, the Gestapo, or the NKVD green with envy.
In fact, if the obliteration of the wall between public and private is the defining characteristic of totalitarianism, can any
contemporary society be described as anything other than totalitarian? What, after all, does agency mean in a world in which Facebook
aspires to know what we want before we know it ourselves or in a country in which the NSA collects vast troves of data on our own
citizens? To my mind, totalitarianism's usefulness as a distinctive category of government simply evaporates when we begin to look
at all the ways in which technology has compromised individual privacy and agency in the twenty-first century.
Fear of totalitarianism gives the right cover to denounce measures to control the virus: if freedom means freedom from government,
then the worst government is one that makes a total claim on its citizens, even in the interest of saving them from a plague.
Use of the term also prevents us from thinking productively about COVID-19 and how governments ought to respond to it. For a state
of quarantine necessarily forces everyone to give up -- whether voluntarily or no -- their rights of movement, assembly, and, to
some extent, expression. It requires the private choices individuals make -- whether to have friends over for dinner, go on a morning
jog, or buy groceries -- to become public in painful and sometimes even embarrassing ways. Technology companies are
starting to employ their products' tracking features to trace the virus's spread, an application that many
worry
poses an unacceptable breach of privacy.
Yet, the destruction of the private sphere in the interest of the public good is precisely what theorists tell us lies at the
heart of totalitarianism. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben made precisely this point,
arguing recently that the extraordinary
response to COVID-19 is totalitarian: "The disproportionate reaction . . . is quite blatant. It is almost as if with terrorism exhausted
as a cause for exceptional measures, the invention of an epidemic offered the ideal pretext for scaling them up beyond any limitation."
Of course, we now know the measures the Italian government introduced went neither far nor fast enough. Now there are over 160,000
confirmed cases in Italy and over 20,000 confirmed deaths from the virus.
The confusion the idea of totalitarianism sows over responses in the United States has also been evident since last month. On
March 22, right-wing commentator Andrew Napolitano
asserted
that measures to combat COVID-19 were motivated by "totalitarian impulses." Meanwhile, state officials have been busy
postponing primary
elections, a measure that under normal circumstances would undoubtedly be denounced as totalitarian in nature.
If we are going to arrive at a more sophisticated answer to the question of how to govern democratically in the twenty-first century,
we must begin by acknowledging that all modern governments attempt to control and influence the lives of their citizens, and all
governments make use of exceptional powers to combat crises. The problem with the idea of totalitarianism is that it makes no accommodation
for the reasons behind such exercise of coercive power.
It is, of course, quite right to worry about Donald Trump's response to the virus. His dilly-dallying, his narcissism, and his
inability to take responsibility for anything may
cost
one hundred thousand or more lives. Commentators like Krugman are correct, insofar as Trump and his cronies are indeed trying to
use the crisis to cement their authority. But the ways they are going about it are not totalitarian in any sense of the word. In
fact, the idea of totalitarianism, as commentators such as Napolitano reveal, gives the radical right cover to denounce measures
to control the virus. It is the last stage in the late-twentieth-century neoliberal critique of government: if freedom is only ever
freedom from government interference, then the worst form of government is that which makes a total claim on its citizens, even in
the interest of saving them from a plague. Thinking in terms of totalitarianism -- instead of the broader and more flexible term
authoritarianism -- leads one into such frustrating mental thickets, in which democratic policies can plausibly be denounced as totalitarian.
These seeming paradoxes illustrate that the idea of totalitarianism is a useless tool in assessing the decency of governance
in any twenty-first-century state. If we are to survive in this brave new world, in which technology makes it ever easier for governments
to manipulate individual decisions, but in which we also demand that the state take an ever-larger role in ensuring our safety from
ourselves, we must acknowledge that the Manichean worldview implied in the term totalitarianism is an outdated relic of the Cold
War.
"... I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect, international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English Language then it can say anything and do anything. ..."
"... The power of the United States is rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. ..."
"... Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas about human inequality. ..."
... is that akin to the portion of a George Carlin comedy sketch ?
"From 1778 to 1871, the United States government
entered into more than 500 treaties with
the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated
in some way or outright broken by the US government,
while at least one treaty was violated
or broken by Native American tribes."
The EU rapprochement with Iran is all about the huge market the EU wants. Their interest in
the JCPOA was always about Iran developing, and the EU benefiting for its trade and
investment potential.
Crippling Iran again with snapback sanctions certainly would end Iran-EU relations for a
decade or longer.
With the EU economy in the toilet due to the pandemic, now more than ever the EU needs
Iran free of sanctions, not laden with crippling new ones.
Only one country benefits from the economic strangulation of Iran--Israel.
In these times of memory holes, sometimes it pays to remember:
As much as I'd like to be optimistic that justice might actually be served for both
Epstein and his myriad clients/co-conspirators, I think the powers-that-be will again
squash this - or liquidate Epstein - before things get out of hand for them.
The American justice system has been corrupted in much the same way the political
system has been, and it's primary objective is to protect the rulers from the common
folk, not to actually deliver true justice.
I'll watch with anticipation, but I haven't had any satisfaction from either a
political or justice perspective since at least the 2000 coup d'etat, so I won't hold my
breath this time.
Economist Michael Hudson explains how American imperialism has created a global free lunch,
where the US makes foreign countries pay for its wars, and even their own military
occupation.
This is part of Tom's description of the Article on Pompeo, Esper and the gang of 1986
(west pointers). They are well embedded. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a
distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the
Trumpian moment.
In case you missed it the first time, I repeat this link from the beginning of April,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176686/tomgram%3A_danny_sjursen%2C_trump%27s_own_military_mafia_/
-----------------
Red Ryder | Apr 27 2020 17:07 utc | 14
One addition there. The EU lost "market share" in Iran due to US sanctions. (As
they did with Russia). What they would like to do is to get it back. (France was one
of the bigger losers)
Before any aggression, the United States want Iran to be hermetically sealed with sanction
just like Iraq was before our invasion. Everybody knows the US's intentions because we've
seen it before. There will be NO domestic support for war on Iran as Americans die due to
no public healthcare and massive unemployment and poverty. Iran and the Middle East view a
war on Iran as an Israeli wet dream. Israel is viewed as the intellectual author of
aggression against Iran, and Iran will respond appropriately. So, is AIPAC willing to get
Israel destroyed? Is AIPAC on a suicide mission? Looks that way.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are de facto allies aiming to carve up the entire Middle East
between them. Forget about Sunni / Shia / Hebrew, that is a manufactured excuse to war for
resources (oil first, then water).
Proof? Mutual "enemies" (oil-rich Iran and Syria, which is the nexus for pipelines) and
mutual ally (Uncle Sam). Also not a single complaint from Israel over the $100b US-Saudi
Arms deal. As to Palestine, that is a human rights issue and has no weight because water is
not recognized as a strategic resource (yet).
I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect,
international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English
Language then it can say anything and do anything.
"The Iranians are not helping the Palestinians one iota. They are splitting the
opposition."
Glasshopper@29
Whoever has been helping Hezbollah has been helping the Palestinians. And whoever has
been holding Syria together, despite the pressure of the imperialists and their sunni-state
puppets, has also been helping the Palestinians by bringing some kind of balance into
regional power calculations.
It is imperative that Iran continues not only to provide political support to the
Palestinian cause but to democratise the Gulf, to the extent of bringing about the demise
of the autocracies, and the Arabian world generally.
Israel has already exerted its maximum influence. The power of the United States is
rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class
fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. (There will be no war to
divert attention from the crisis.) And Israel will be left to solve its own problems as its
'allies' find themselves increasingly pre-occupied with real problems.
Supporting Israel and building it up as an imperialist base has been part of an era in
which the empire was hegemonic and thus able to define international events in terms of
domestic politics.
That era has ended. The USA is still powerful but it is no longer anything more than one
of the major participants in geopolitical competition. Even to maintain its position it is
going to have to do, what other powers have done and concentrate its resources on its real
needs.
Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the
tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas
about human inequality. Israel has one choice, to divest itself of its fascist
government and its fascistic culture and seek accommodation within the neighbourhood or to
wither away as its population emigrates leaving only the committed fascists to play with
Armageddon.
Long before that happens the imperialists will have taken its weapons away from it.
It may very well be the case that the ordinary Iranian is no more committed to fighting
on behalf of Palestinians than the average American is committed to risking all, or
anything, for the sake of Israel. But Iran's commitment to Palestine is a powerful
political statement and one that counters the divisive tactics of the wahhabis and their
imperial friends. Iran has taken up the mantle that Nasser briefly wore, in the vanguard of
a muslim and Arab nationalist movement. This makes it very difficult for the sunni tyrants
actually to commit forces to defend Israel or attack Iran. Their duplicity is a measure of
their own weakness.
Does anyone imagine that the pro-Israeli policies pursued by the Sauds are actually
popular? The Gulf and Saudi policies of sucking up to Israel are far more damaging to them
than Iran's stance is to it.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018.
This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA in
detail:
Iran should sign a peace deal with the Israelis.
Posted by: Glasshopper | Apr 27 2020 16:42 utc | 8
Some people should stick to what they do well, like hopping on glass. A simple
observation: peace deal with "the Israelis" is not possible. Gulfie princes tried. No
cigar. They genuinely tried to be nice with Israel, out of "anti-Semitic delusion that Jews
control USA". I conjecture that Glasshopper made a similar assumption -- why would Iran
consider a "peace deal with the Israelis" if its direct conflict is with USA (and the
Gulfies)? How it would help them unless "Jews control USA"?
As a mental experiment, let Grasshopper sketch a putative "deal with Israelis". Kushner
plan?
@70 BraveNewWorld, you haven't added up the numbers correctly. Take China, Russia and Iran
out of the equation leaves you with five (including the EU as a whole, which is not a
given). Take the USA out as well and it doesn't matter how sycophantic the Europeans are,
Pompeo can only muster four votes.
And he needs five to refer the issue to the UNSC.
That's why Pompous wants to waddle his way back in: no matter which way he looks at
this, without the USA sitting at the table he is one-short.
Actually, I've just read the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 and neither has any mention of
a "majority vote" requirement for a referral to the UNSC for a vote on "snapping back"
sanctions. It appears that any one JCPOA participant can refer the issue of alleged
non-compliance to the UNSC, provided that they first exhaust the Joint Commission dispute
mechanism.
But I do note this in the JCPOA (my bold): "Upon receipt of the notification from the
complaining participant, as described above, including a description of the good-faith
efforts the participant made to exhaust the dispute resolution process specified in this
JCPOA , the UN Security Council, in accordance with its procedures, shall vote on a
resolution to continue the sanctions lifting"
Seems to me that there is a procedural "out" there for the UN Secretariat i.e. it may
use that highlighted section to decide that the participant is a vexatious litigant whose
participation in the Joint Commission was not in good faith, ergo, the UN can refuse to
even take receipt of the complaint.
Everything else then becomes moot.
The USA would raise merry-hell, sure, it would. But that would be no more outrageous a
ploy by the UN than was the USA's own argument that it can have its cake and eat it
too.
After all, if a participant to the JCPOA referred its complaint to the UNSC without
first going through the Joint Commission then it is a given that the UNSC is under no
obligation to receive that complaint. No question.
So why can't the UNSC also refuse to accept a complaint when it is clear that the
complainant has not gone through the Joint Commission process in "good faith"?
One for the lawyers and ambassadors to argue, I would suggest, but it is not a given
that the USA can ram this through even if everyone were to agree that it were still a
participant in the JCPOA.
@61 Arch: "This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA
in detail"
Arch, the crux of that CRS legal paper boils down to this:
.."under current domestic law, the President may possess authority to terminate U.S.
participation in the JCPOA and to re-impose U.S. sanctions on Iran, either through
executive order or by declining to renew statutory waivers"..
All the other fluff in that paper is inconsequential compared to this question posed by
that quote: can the US claim to be half-pregnant?
I suspect not.
Note that at the time the CRS paper was written (May 2018) it did have a valid point
i.e. while Trump *had* refused to re-certify Iranian compliance, he had *not* reimposed US
sanctions on Iran, and so the CRS paper could credibly argue that Trump wasn't pregnant, he
just talking dirty to the Congress.
But that was then, and this is now, and - as b points out - Executive Order 13846 is the
smoking gun because in it Trump is OFFICIALLY stating that he has decided to " cease the
participation of the United States in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ".
That EO is clearly the killing blow to Pompeo's nonsense, and even the CRS legal paper
you linked to would agree.
As I see it, the historical problem with European fascism has been that when push comes to
shove the knife comes out and its either give in to enforced collaboration or take a
stabbing, it's your choice. Even if that means helping murder millions of your neighbours
or being murdered. As Celan said "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland."
The US has been enforcing a morally sanitised Disney Adult version of this old world
order since at least the 2003 Supreme Crime of Aggression against Iraq. Sooner or later as
this global pandemic, political, and financial crisis unfolds, the US leaders will be
forced to choose whether or not the UN is a viable vehicle through which to continue the
elite lunatic project for planetary full spectrum dominance of 21st C financial and
military affairs.
So I reckon the Pentagon at some point either gets to finally execute the long awaited
'Operation Conquer Persia' or the politicians and their chickenhawk ideologues will back
off again and continue the death by a thousand cuts of the last 40 years. I'd probably bet
the latter but that's the trouble with genuine psychopaths, push comes to shove they will
go for it if they think they'll get away with it.
This last 2 decades has been like watching a reality TV series about a fat drunken
psychopath with a bloody knife going around and stabbing people at a party, but now the
psycho is starting to stagger and everyone in the house is watchful trying to keep their
distance. House rules are that anyone starts an actual fight to the death with the psycho
then everyone dies!
I more or less trust that if we ever get there, a multipolar world order won't collapse
into outright fascism but we're closer to collapse every year, especially from this year
on, and most especially in the Persian Gulf.
In current US political system, it is not necessary to propose a valid claim, or proposal
or argument - they intend to act from a position of authority. They know where you live.
"... The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world. ..."
"... Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order ..."
More than 10 years ago, the columnist Charles Krauthammer
asserted that American
"decline is a choice," and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it. Yet looking back over the last decade, it has become
increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want.
The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after
the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves
into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently
husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world.
There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world's hegemonic power. America
had no near-peer rivals; it was at the height of its influence across most of the globe. That status, however, was always a transitory
one, and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for
influence. While America remains the most powerful state in the world, it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago. And there can
be no recapturing what was lost.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book,
Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order . They make a strong case for distinguishing between the
old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part. As they put it, "global international order is not
synonymous with American hegemony." They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is often simply
called the "liberal international order": political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism. The first
involves the protection of rights, the second open economic exchange, and the third the form of international order that recognizes
legally equal sovereign states. Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the "liberal international order" tend to
assume that all three come as a "package deal," but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not
have to coexist.
While the authors are quite critical of Trump's foreign policy, they don't pin the decline of the old order solely on him. They
argue that hegemonic unraveling takes place when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and "more states can compete when
it comes to providing economic, security, diplomatic, and other goods." The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the
last 20 years, much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence. The authors make a persuasive
case that the "exit" from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time.
Many defenders of U.S. hegemony insist that the "liberal international order" depends on it. That has never made much sense. For
one, the continued maintenance of American hegemony frequently conflicts with the rules of international order. The hegemon reserves
the right to interfere anywhere it wants, and tramples on the sovereignty and legal rights of other states as it sees fit. In practice,
the U.S. has frequently acted as more of a rogue in its efforts to "enforce" order than many of the states it likes to condemn. The
most vocal defenders of U.S. hegemony are unsurprisingly some of the biggest opponents of international law -- at least when it gets
in their way. Cooley and Nexon make a very important observation related to this in their discussion of the role of revisionist powers
in the world today:
But the key point is that we need to be extremely careful that we don't conflate "revisionism" with opposition to the United
States. The desire to undermine hegemony and replace it with a multipolar system entails revisionism with respect to the distribution
of power, but it may or may not be revisionist with respect to various elements of international architecture or infrastructure.
The core of the book is a survey of three different sources for the unraveling of U.S. hegemony: major powers, weaker states,
and transnational "counter-order" movements. Cooley and Nexon trace how Russia and China have become increasingly effective at wielding
influence over many smaller states through patronage and the creation of parallel institutions and projects such as the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They discuss
a number of weaker states that have begun hedging their bets by seeking patronage from these major powers as well as the U.S. Where
once America had a "near monopoly" on such patronage, this has ceased to be the case. They also track the role of "counter-order"
movements, especially nationalist and populist groups, in bringing pressure to bear on their national governments and cooperating
across borders to challenge international institutions. Finally, they spell out how the U.S. itself has contributed to the erosion
of its own position through reckless policies dating back at least to the invasion of Iraq.
The conventional response to the unraveling of America's hegemony here at home has been either a retreat into nostalgia with simplistic
paeans to the wonders of the "liberal international order" that ignore the failures of that earlier era or an intensified commitment
to hard-power dominance in the form of ever-increasing military budgets (or some combination of the two). Cooley and Nexon contend
that the Trump administration has opted for the second of these responses. Citing the president's emphasis on maintaining military
dominance and his support for exorbitant military spending, they say "it suggests an approach to hegemony more dependent upon military
instruments, and thus on the ability (and willingness) of the United States to continue extremely high defense spending. It depends
on the wager that the United States both can and should substitute raw military power for its hegemonic infrastructure." That not
only points to what Barry Posen has
called "illiberal hegemony,"
but also leads to a foreign policy that is even more militarized and unchecked by international law.
Cooley and Nexon make a compelling observation about how Trump's demand for more allied military spending differs from normal
calls for burden-sharing. Normally, burden-sharing advocates call on allies to spend more so the U.S. can spend less. But that isn't
Trump's position at all. His administration pressures allied governments to increase their spending, while showing no desire to curtail
the Pentagon budget:
Retrenchment entails some combination of shedding international security commitments and shifting defense burdens onto allies
and partners. This allows the retrenching power, in principle, to redirect military spending toward domestic priorities, particularly
those critical to long-term productivity and economic growth. In the current American context, this means making long-overdue
investments in transportation infrastructure, increasing educational spending to develop human capital, and ramping up support
for research and development. This rationale makes substantially less sense if retrenchment policies do not produce reductions
in defense spending–which is why Trump's aggressive, public, and coercive push for burden sharing seems odd. Recall that Trump
and his supporters want, and have already implemented, increases in the military budget. There is no indication that the Trump
administration would change defense spending if, for example, Germany or South Korea increased their own military spending or
more heavily subsidized American bases.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how misguided our priorities as a nation have been. There is now a chance to change course,
but that will require our leaders to shift their thinking. U.S. hegemony is already on its way out; now Americans need to decide
what our role in the world will look like afterwards. Warmed-over platitudes about "leadership" won't suffice and throwing more money
at the Pentagon is a dead end. The way forward is a strategy of retrenchment, restraint, and renewal.
Yeah. US just happened to decline, a completely natural process, some universal constant, like gravity of which we have no control.
No. A decadent US population, informed by clueless media, put in charge incompetent and self-serving leaders, who made a series
of very poor choices for the nation, but financially beneficial for themselves.
And thus our betrayed America's version of the White Man's Burden. It's sad to think our children having to endure living in a
world where they aren't called to die in God-forsaken hellholes for reasons that have nothing to do with this nation's core principles.
Sad!
Lol. Sort of. Except the very oligarchs you speak of, on both sides, set the stage for all of it.
This is the inevitable result of voting as a right, ans they knew it. Universal suffrage is a tool of control, not liberty.
The oligarchs are really just like other Americans, who got their hands on a whole lot of money. I have no doubt the rest of the
population would behave like oligarchs if given the same resources.
We don't have universal suffrage and voting is no where named as a right in the Constitution. The most it has to say is that voting
can not be denied to people based on their membership in certain classes, nor limited based on the payment of a tax.
"it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want."
It isn't "irrespective of". It is because of what they wanted. They wanted and aggressively pushed for US foreign policy
to serve the narrow regional interests of client states like Israel and Saudi Arabia. They got what they wanted, in spades, and
now America's geopolitical and economic fortunes are in a tail-spin.
If America had ignored these people, with their stupid interventionism, their almost blatant service of foreign interests by
demanding "no daylight" with "allies" who did nothing but suck our blood, we would have been far better off. We would have been
far better able to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. It's impossible not to think ruefully of the trillions
we wasted on Middle East wars and other interventions, money now so badly needed here at home.
The US will pursue a similar path to Israel. Advantage is relative. Rather than repair the US economy it is simpler to destroy
those of one's rivals. I see war as the only attractive option for the US elite as that is the only area where they still enjoy
clear superiority (or believe they do, same thing policy-wise.)
Cooley and Nevon's book appears to be a good read - I will put it on my 'to read so buy' book list. China is the next hegemon
- this is inevitable due to design. As time goes by during this 'coronavirus pandemic' I have been waiting to hear a politician,
any politician, assert that they will support legislation to require 'essential supply lines' to be returned to the U.S. Aside
from 'murmurs', not a 'lucid' peep. Just 'sue china' legislation, or smoke and mirrors blame on those within the U.S. via the
media or politicians. This is just embarrassing and surreal.
The priority should be to bring these supply lines back to the U.S. [i.e., medical]. Too hell if I am going to be forced to
pay for 'Obamacare' or 'Medicare For All' like a Russian Serf, to the Corporations [vassals] of China [Tatars] - enforced by their
'Eunuchs', greedy politicians in Washington. {Eunuchs were castrated lackies of Emperors]. Yet Chinese slave labour on these medical
products, including pharmaceutical ingredients, and precious metals for parts for the Department of Defense, keep profit margins
very high.
Because of their cowardice one must ask: Why increase defense spending on any project - or be concerned with Iran or Venezuela
or Russia or keeping NATO afloat? Allowing China to continue to be the 'sole source' provider of essential goods is just asking
for another scenario like the one before us. If so, I am convinced that my country is nothing more than a 'dead carcass' being
ripped apart by 'Corporate Vassals of China'. This, of course, includes the Tech Companies as well.
China does not have ideal geography to be world hegemon.
For one thing, it is too easy to prevent any ships from leaving the South China Sea.
The fact that China has not gone to war with anyone since 1953, except for two sharp but short border conflicts in 1962 and
1979, should tell you something. Contrast with the peace-loving liberal democracy of the United States.
The answer of course is a functional international system--environmental protection, world health, a transparent financial system,
world court, and policing. All agreed on by at least the major players which makes it costly for others not to participate.
With good reason many 'mistrust' this int'l system given the threat to sovereignty of a country, most importantly the freedom
of its citizens. An int'l system is asymmetrical, a radical 're-distribution' program that preys on citizens of the 'pseudo-wealthy'
west. The United States will be, post-Corona Virus, potentially $30T in debt. Yet they contribute the most to the WHO. The largest
contribution to the UN comes from the United States. This fact seems to rebut your 'costly for others not to participate'.
The Paris Agreement, like the UN and WHO, will rely on most of the funds coming from the U.S. and redistributed to other countries.
And this will further destroy the standard of living in this country to the degree of crashing the economy. The expected Utopian
Outcome for this so-called 'One-World' order will be a great disappointment to those that advocate for it. Because, after all,
it is nothing more than a Utopian dream gambling on the cohesive nature of different demographic groups combined with significant
reduction in freedoms for all - based on flawed models, including so-called 'man made global warming' models. To define the Demographic
is use in the context of my response: does not = race; it equals culture. Right now this is being demonstrated in the super state
of the EU. There can be no harmony in a world like this. It is like forcing a 'square peg' into a 'round hole'.
And who are these major players? The Eunuch Politicians in Washington and Western Europe? What are their priorities? Their
wallets or their constituents? And I do not mean in a parental way. That is not the role of government.
Viewed from a global perspective at this time, there is a decline in American power and influence, but the vanity of politicians
prevents them from seeing it and they don't want to let go.
The British government makes the same mistakes as it clings to an imaginary "prestige" as a world power - a power that vanished
in 1914.
After Eden was removed as PM post-Suez the new PM Harold McMillan came in and was honest with the British ppl in explaining their
new role in the world, just 10-15 years after the triumph of WW2 a UK Prime Minister had the courage to tell the British people
that they were no longer at the top table, that the age of Empire was over and to put in place the policies required to remove
the burden of empire from Britain and adjust to its new role in the world. Do you see an American politician with the capability
to tell some uncomfortable home truths to the American people and still win an election?
i think that is why voters elected Trump. The citizens of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin have lived the decline of the
United States. At least under trump there have been no new wars but the withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan NATO, Japan, Korea needs
to occur with the Military-Industrial-Media Complex kicking and screaming.with each step. Also ending sanctions on Iran, Cuba,
North Korea and Venezuela.
We are in Japan because it allows us to patrol the sea lanes which is vital for our economy and it gives us a large force ready
to respond in case of Chinese or North Korean aggression. The Status of Forces Agreement and other treaties with Japan stipulate
what percentage of costs are born by Japan.
Allowing Japan to destroy consumer electronics, damage steel and automotive is vital to our economy? Could we not patrol the sea
lanes if we wanted to from Guam? Is not freedom of the sea just as vital to Japan, Europe and India? How is China or North Korea
the aggressor when Japan, Korea and Taiwan have been client states of China with the US thousands of miles away?
Imperialism has bankrupt the United States just as it did Europe. The time has come to end these treaties.
Ultra protectionism, retreat to our island and no one can find us, 'make America great again' I dare say, thinking is naive and
unrealistic.
America wil be poorer, weaker, and more vulnerable if it tried to only make its own goods and had to rely on only its own labor.
Trade is profit and profit is the ability to develop, build, and defend what we have. Where do the profits go is the question.
Who loses in the trade is another question. Does the benefit from the former outweigh the latter?
I don't see Japanese trade as making much of a dent in employment rates. The profits go to the Japanese state and industry,
who are important counterweights to Chinese ambitions in Asia, a mutual interest. So, the costs are few, and the profits are used
in significant measure to mutual benefit.
The liberal hegemon is dead, yes our imperialism is dead even if it doesn't know it, but it is essential to remain strategically
involved in the world around us. Even if we stop playing the game, the world around us does not. Did Russia have the luxury of
turning into a turtle after the Cold War? No. Nations, which are all wolves, smell weakness. Yet the Trumpian right wants to hide,
put its finger in its ear, and pretend that everything will be fine it seems.
What are these withdrawals from Iraq & Afghanistan you speak of? They just have not happened, like not even a little bit, so tired
of people pushing this completely false narrative as if it is true, just maddening. A democracy cannot function if people exist
in their own worlds with their own facts that are just not true
The Brits after WW2 offer a lesson here. Hurt badly by WW1, their whole system began teetering as that illusion of the "natural
superiority" of the British took massive hits in the various colonies of the Empire. By exposing the ordinariness of the administrators
and soldiers, it encouraged revolt (see Gandhi in India). But WW2 arguably devastated the UK. It's "win" over Germany was Pyrrhic,
as it needed both the USSR and the USA , and each took a chunk of prestige and of the "hegemon". George VI recognized this, and
British politicians encouraged the shift from Empire to Commonwealth. (Which, if they had never involved themselves in the EU
beyond trade and had kept up the Commonwealth as it was intended, would have been a better path than what they did, IMHO.) Nevertheless,
they handled it better than I think we will.
As Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."
But to get there, we have a lot of nonsense -- damned nonsense - - to overcome.
Excellent review and outlook on an encouraging transition from the compulsion of hegemony within a generally agreeable paradigm
of economic liberalism (rules-based international markets).
Well this present regime is actively smashing "international organizations" constructed largely by the Americans after WW2. This
makes it even easier for the Chinese to fill the vacuum we have created. It would be better to hold them in a Western biased "international
organization"
All indications are that ship has sailed. Will there be hegemons? Yes, but more than one. The US will not be the only hegemon
and the COVID-19 helped the world see the emperor has no clothes.
I think that's the likely course, unless the US remains especially incompetent in ensuring that China isn't the one cleaning up
at all the empire liquidation sales.
No nation should be entrusted with anything like the power the US has had.
Until they start shooting down our airliners, sinking our cruise ships, attacking our Naval Bases, and invading their neighbors
and committing genocide against people of other races and religions.
Then, the doves will wake up and realize that the Big Stick is what kept us safe afterall.
You mean fight people who actually threaten us rather than attack people because we dream up scenarios where it's possible or
we just don't like them? I'll take that over preemptive genocide.
If we focused on actual defense 9/11 would not have happened. We ignored Al Qaeda despite the fact the bombed us multiple times
because we were too busy bombing Serbia, blowing up their TV stations and expanding NATO to gobble up former Russian Republics.
The United States routinely ignores any international laws, whenever it sees fit. Anyway, the idea that United States hegemony
is obligatory because muh international order is an argument from consequences.
Lol, America Is what's in the rear view, not just our status as the sole superpower.
People better get ready, this empire is getting ready to collapse.
Meh, people better get ready, we're getting ready to muddle along for the next several decades.
The American state is way too tasty a prize. No one is going to dismantle it, and people will unite against any threat that
has the potential to. Eventually someone will figure out a Bernie/Trump fusion and that person will be our Peron or Putin. Radical
leftists will be crushed by the police if they try anything, and the white nationalists will all be in prison.
We're somewhere between Argentina and Russia heading forward.
Sell the empire. Ignore the Middle East outside of the oil trade lanes. Reorient our trade networks on SE Asia, India, and Latin
America - no more feeding China. End of hostile moves towards Russia - let Europe reconcile with Russia. Fully support multipolar
world order.
Militarily we don't need the plodding battleship of a force we have now. No need to occupy whole countries with 'boots on the
ground'. Maintain top notch special forces, advisor and coordination programs with allies, and anything useful for blowing up
Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles.
Lots of good ideas here. Would trading with India involve a "reorient[ation]?" (I don't know.) That is to say, would still trading
with India mean that we have to maintain our current naval position, or would that still be consistent with some sort of drawdown?
Or are you saying that since India is not a hostile force, we would not have to worry about it? Or does is that problem met with
the "anything useful for blowing up Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles." Conceivably, China could
increase its presence in the Indian Ocean to create problems, no? Overall, agree with a lot of it--I'm just curious about the
logistics.
India in the longer term could ostensibly do much of what China does for us now trade wise. Needs to finish developing its infrastructure
and its manufacturing tech. SE Asia and Mexico are closer short term.
I think due to the commercial value of the seas our navy is our most cost effective means of force projection. Patrolling the
Persian Gulf means we have our thumb on the number one petroleum artery. I would focus more on cost effective means to deny China
(and Chinese trade) access to the seas in the event of tension. Carriers are expensive targets when subs and strategic missile
emplacements can inspire even more fear due to unpredictability. But yes we still need bases and partnerships throughout the Indian
and Pacific Oceans. China can roam around in peacetime as it wishes, what matters is that it stays totally bottled up in port,
along with its maritime trade, in a conflict.
Allow these places to run up trade surpluses with us rather than China.
I think Mr. Larison is on the right track. However, even if the logic of abandoning the Liberal International Order (LIO) is accepted--and
the LIO most certainly should be abandoned--the entire story or narrative of post-World War II America narrative must be either
abandoned or refashioned. It seems that the LIO functions as some sort of purpose for American citizens, and a higher-level theology
for those who work in the United States Government, especially those who are involved in foreign policy making. Countering or
reshaping the narrative of United States foreign policy and its link with domestic policy will be a challenge, but one that needs
to be taken up, and taken up successfully. In personal conversations with those who support the LIO, they seem to take [my] criticisms
of the LIO as some sort of ad hominem attack. This reaction is obviously illogical, but it is one that those who see the
wisdom of abandoning the LIO must tactically and tactfully counter. Regrettably, supporting the LIO is conflated with being an
American, or conflated with the raison d'etre of the existence of the United States. Many think the abandonment of the
LIO cannot rationally be replaced and will necessarily be replaced with some sort of nihilism or the most cynical form of "realism,"
of which they mistakenly believe they possess understanding. For a start, reforming the educational system, insofar as it not
already dominated by incorrect-but-fashionable far-leftist ideas that advocate a narrative of American history and purpose as
false as it is pernicious, would seem to necessary. Many children grow into adulthood falsely thinking maintaining the LIO is
their responsibility. It is, at root, a theological sickness.
I hope it is over. To hell with the Europeans who have made a national sport of mocking Americans and all things America, while
we risk nuclear war on their behalf. Let them face Putin and the Islamic invasion on their own - those problems are Europe's,
not ours.
The United States is ramping up for the "Great Final War' with both Russia and China. Throw in Iran, Syria, North Korea etc. as
an afterthought. The U.S. will bring the temple down on itself rather than give up the goal of 'Full Spectrum Dominance'.that
it has been pursuing since the end of WWII.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon may think the glory days are coming to an end, but I don't think Trump and the neocons got the
memo yet. I see no evidence of any intent to change.
There is no "international order." That's just rhetoric that is useful for certain economic interests. A world without american
hegemony will be divided and filled with conflict. Globalization can't work politically.
" What better way to achieve that than to blame it all on China? "
The premise of fingering China arises from the fact that this is primarily about China
[duh]:
• The initial rapid viral spread occurred in the Chinese city of Wuhan;
• A Wuhan bio-lab had the expertise to engineer such enhanced viruses;
• Authorities allowed viral carriers to fly to other regions of the world.
To then spin a conspicuously strained counter-narrative that denies these three key facts
and instead tacitly or directly blames the United States as the primary culprit for the
current world viral pandemic is clear evidence of a Chinese sponsored redirection campaign;
or else voluntary promoters of such propaganda efforts are surely dedicated fascists.
Since the term " fascist " is nowadays often used as a rather nebulous term of
slander, I want to emphasize that I am using it correctly here, and not maliciously, because
it is consistent with key attributes of the original Fascism in Italy, under Mussolini, as
well as somewhat later and concurrently in Germany, under Hitler, so I will provide my
definition of the term below.
On the basis of these characteristics, I maintain that the world's two most fascist
countries (both the government and a prevailing attitude of its people) are both Israel and
China. Therefore, people who glorify these countries and eagerly support their actions, as is
evident on this site, should at least be honest and understand that they are essentially
fascists in this regard. My use of the term here is thus merely a straightforward political
appellation.
Five Key Characteristic Elements of and Criteria for State Fascism
• Hyper-Nationalism, State Worship, Dynastic and Cultural Glory
• Cult of Militaristic Strength and Desired Territorial Conquests
• Historically Rooted in Basic Socialist Principles and Revolution
• Strongly Authoritarian Behavioral Control of the Entire Population
• Pursuit of Corporatist Economics with State Guidance of Business
If challenged, I would be happy to provide specific examples. There may be a few countries
that fulfill only some of these five attributes or that follow all or most of them to a
weaker extent (Turkey, Russia, Iran, Ukraine), but Israel and China clearly reflect all these
five characteristics most strongly.
So readers should consider whether their strong support of Israel or China (or both) is
something they can feel proud of or not. There is no serious question that the aforementioned
aspects tend to make a government operate more efficiently, if allowed to remain
unchallenged, which may be the primary goal.
@Been_there_done_that Another characteristic of fascism is "rebirth". The appeal of
fascism to the mass of discontent people is in pointing out that the prevailing bourgeois
society/economy is the source of the nation's weakness and corruption.
Fascists use the 5 traits you outlined to redirect people's anger and frustration into
hope and belief in their promise to act as midwives in the birth of a new nation/civilization
that embodies the people's true and essential character. The Phoenix rising out of the flames
is a fitting symbol of their party. This promise of rebirth has a deep appeal to the human
psyche, one that goes back to our earliest agricultural roots. It is Archetypal.
If ever there was a time, it's now. Oil has bottomed out. They can top off the national
reserves on the cheap and profit when their war sends prices up again. Maybe it's why The
Orange Goober has ordered the Navy to "shoot down" any Iranian boats that
harass/approach/rudely gesture at US ships.
Ritter's article worries me. There is now a sales argument for war: "don't worry about oil
prices going sky high, Iran can't use that weapon against us now!".
You over excitable little Iran war-monkeys really should take time out of your busy
war-monkey daily-schedules to learn something about the topography of Iran and it's defensive
and offensive military capabilities.
It would certainly save everyone else from having to listen to you being wrong yet
again.
You're on the right track. There's a huge supply glut as all forms of storage are mostly
filled as proven by the negative WTI pricing. Global demand is still being destroyed. War in
the Persian Gulf region will further destroy demand; and since very little oil's being
shipped from there, the supply glut won't be used up anytime soon--certainly not quickly
enough to see a sharp rebound in oil price. The crucial point is domestic US refineries have
cut back their runs as their margins are even thinner than before, plus demand destruction is
still occurring, thus the domestic storage glut. The wife and I jested last night if we only
had a rail spur we could order up a couple of tank cars full of unleaded at the current very
distressed price and be set for a longtime.
As The
Saker notes in his latest , Trump must make the voting public look everywhere except at
him and Congress, the bellowing at Iran being part of that entire theatre. Yes, a mistake
could have very negative consequences for the USN and all US assets in the region as well as
Occupied Palestine--the overall underlying dynamic hasn't changed since Trump broke the Iran
Nuclear Treaty. Too add further insult to Trump and Pompeo, Iran's doing a
much better job at containing COVID-19 than the Outlaw US Empire :
"The US pandemic death toll is this week heading above 50,000 compared with Iran's figure
of 5,300. Considering the respective population numbers of 330 and 80 million that suggests
Iran is doing a much better job at containing the virus. On a per-capita basis, according to
publicly available data, Iran's mortality rate is less than half that of the US.
"This is while the US has sanctioned Iran to the hilt. American sanctions – arguably
illegal under international law – have hit Iran's ability to import medical supplies to
cope with COVID-19 and other fatal diseases, yet Iran through its own resources is evidently
managing the crisis much better than the US."
As with the Tar Baby, the more wrestling the Outlaw US Empire does the weaker it gets.
They can't invade. That's your own moronic straw-man. And yes, it would further cut supply
and prices would go up. The current bottom is due to overproduction but so long as
civilization cranks along the oil gets used eventually.
Patrick forgot that Full spectrum Dominance is still the driving force of the USA foreign
policy. And that will not change. So this is just a wishful thinking.
And after persevering for four decades, we prevailed.
What, then, did we do with our epochal victory?
We alienated Russia by moving our NATO military alliance into the Baltic and Black Seas. We
launched bloody, costly crusades for democracy in the Middle East that, invariably, failed. We
exported a huge slice of our manufacturing capacity and economic independence to a coddled
China.
Historically, blunders of such magnitude have undone great powers.
Even before COVID-19, Americans had begun to realize the folly of decades of mindless
interventionism over matters irrelevant to our vital interests. "Unsustainable" was the word
commonly associated with our foreign policy.
But if our foreign policy was unsustainable during President Trump's economic boom, with
unemployment at record lows and a bull market to rival the Roaring '20s, can an interventionist
foreign policy be sustained after the losses of this major depression we have induced to kill
the pandemic?
If the Democrats win in November, we know their priorities: national health insurance,
carbon taxes, the Green New Deal, open borders, amnesty, reparations and wealth redistribution
to reduce social and economic inequality -- an agenda costing trillions of dollars.
And Democrats will be looking at the defense budget as a slush fund to finance this new
progressive era.
If the Republicans win, given the influence of hawks and neocons among the party elite,
interventionism may get another run in the yard.
Having been exposed as naive beyond belief for their indulgence of China from the Bush I
days to 2016, some Republicans are looking to make amends by casting China in the Soviet role
in Cold War II.
There is talk on Capitol Hill of refusing to pay off U.S. bonds that Beijing holds and of
suing China for the damages done by the coronavirus, as China failed to alert the world the
pathogen was loose.
Americans should think long and hard before defaulting on U.S. government debt and consider
the consequences if we open a door to claims against sovereign nations for past sins.
Iraq was invaded in 2003 to force it to give up illicit weapons of mass destruction it did
not have. Baghdad could have a case in international court against America for the unprovoked
war waged against that country.
While the U.S. appears determined to bring back manufacturing -- especially of products
critical to the health, safety and defense of our nation -- there seems to be no stomach among
the public for a war with China.
But again, with the democracy crusades now repudiated, what is America's cause, what is
America's mission in the world?
... ... ...
To borrow from the title of historian Walter A. McDougall's classic work,
America's future is as a promised land, not a crusader state.
Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder of TAC and the author of Nixon's White House
Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
"... Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild once said "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply." ..."
"... Unfortunately that system of control is evident in today's society. Special interests have been behind every US president including Trump. ..."
"... Trump is following his marching orders to big oil interests including his authorized theft of Syrian oil. ..."
"... Trump has given more support to Israel than any of his predecessors, which to the Pentagon is another important agenda. Israel is an important US ally in the Middle East besides Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... Trump first trip as President was to Saudi Arabia to sell more weapons, which is business as usual for the arms industry. ..."
"... "We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with" ..."
"... "these events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail." ..."
"... 'War is a Racket.' ..."
"... "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents" ..."
"... "This conjunction, of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry, is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognise the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." ..."
"... (who was the emperor's private army by default is similar to Presidents relationship with the Military-Industrial Complex) ..."
"... "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces" ..."
"... "For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. ..."
"... Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." ..."
"... TruTV's 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura' ..."
"... "About a month after I was elected governor, I was requested into the basement of the capital to be interviewed by 23 members of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, they were very formal, there was governor, sir and all that, but they put me in a chair and they were in a big half-moon around me, and I said to them, look before I answer any of your questions, I want to know what are you doing here? because in the CIA mission statement, it says that they are not operational inside the United States of America. Well, they wouldn't really give me an answer on that and then I said I want to go around the room and I want each one of you to tell me your name and what you do, half of them wouldn't. Now isn't that bizarre, I'm the governor and these guys wouldn't answer questions from me. Then they started questioning me and it was all about how I got elected. You know what was the most bizarre thing about it was? There was every array of person you could imagine, young people, old people, all nationalities and that's what really got to me. These were people you would see every day. They look like your neighbors." ..."
"... Presidents come and go, and even the parties in power change, but the main political direction does not change, That's why, in the grand scheme of things, we don't care who's the head of the United States, we know more or less what's going to happen. And so, in this regard, even if we wanted to, it wouldn't make sense for us to interfere ..."
"... Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild once said "I care not what puppet is placed on the
throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls
Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money
supply."
Unfortunately that system of control is evident in today's society. Special interests
have been behind every US president including Trump.
Trump is following his marching orders to big oil interests including his authorized
theft of Syrian oil.
Trump has given more support to Israel than any of his predecessors, which to the
Pentagon is another important agenda. Israel is an important US ally in the Middle East besides
Saudi Arabia.
Trump first trip as President was to Saudi Arabia to sell more weapons, which is
business as usual for the arms industry.
There is a power structure that sets the rules of the game in Washington. The
Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) has an agenda and that is war. A US led war in the Middle
East with Iran is increasingly coming close to reality. It would affect Syria, Lebanon and the
Palestinians.
At some point, the war will reach Latin America targeting Venezuela because of its oil
reserves since Trump likes the "oil". As of now, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador are in chaos due to
new US-backed fascistic governments that re-established neoliberal economic policies which will
lead to the impoverishment of the masses.
The U.S. military has over 800 bases ranging from torture sites to drone hubs in over 70
countries. US tensions are more intense that in any period of time with Iran, Syria and
Hezbollah as Trump signed off on a new defense budget worth $738 billion including funds for
his new Space Force. Despite the fact that the Democrats are still angry over their election
defeat to Trump and are still pushing the Russia collusion hoax and now the farcical
impeachment scandal, but when it comes to foreign policy, both Democrats and Republicans are
unified with the same war agenda. The Trump administration continues its regime change
operations despite the fact that Trump said no more regime change wars when he was a candidate
in 2016. "We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we
shouldn't be involved with"
Fast-forward to 2019, Trump's CIA and others from his administration such as Eliot Abrams, a
Reagan-era neocon was given the green-light to conduct another regime change operation with a
nobody named Juan Guaido leading the Venezuelan opposition against the Maduro government which
failed. Bolivia on the other hand was a success for Washington which was planned the day Evo
Morales was elected President of Bolivia and was allied with Washington's adversaries in Latin
America including Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Brazil (before Balsonaro of course). Trump
continued the pentagon's agenda when he praised the new fascist Bolivian regime who forced
Morales from power with Washington's approval of course. Trump even threatened Nicaragua and
Venezuela with new attempts of regime change when he said that "these events send a strong
signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of
the people will always prevail." In other words, Trump is not in charge.
US Presidents do have some room to make decisions concerning domestic issues such as taxes
or healthcare, but when it comes to foreign policy, its a different story. It's not a
conspiracy theory.
Many people in power has told the world who is really in charge from politicians, Wall
Street bankers to military generals. In a 1935 speech by a Marine General Smedley titled
'War is a Racket.'
A veteran in the Spanish-American War who rose through the ranks during the course of his
career. From 1898 until his retirement in 1931 he was part of numerous interventions all around
the world. Butler was also the most decorated Marine ever with two Medals of Honor added to his
resume. He said the following:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and
especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought
light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make
Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it
that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al
Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I
operated on three continents"
He was
correct. General Butler could have given notorious gangsters such as Al Capone a few lessons in
how to run a business empire. Then in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made it clear who
had the real power inside Washington in a farewell address he gave to the American public.
Eisenhower issued a stark warning on the dangers of the MIC posed to humanity.
Here is a part of the speech:
"This conjunction, of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry, is
new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even
spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal
government. We recognise the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes."
Eisenhower seemed like he was not in agreement with the deep state's decision to drop the
atomic bombs during World War II, perhaps he was cornered by the growing power of the deep
state. A comparison between the Roman Empire and America today is uncanny. In Rome for example,
choosing an emperor was made difficult by the ruling elite, political debates dominated how new
emperors were selected by old emperors, the senate, those who were influential and the
Praetorian Guard which is today's version of the Military-Industrial Complex.
The political and industrial heavyweights and its intelligence agencies select the best two
candidates from the only two political parties who are bought and paid for by corporate and
political interests make the important decisions. The Praetorian Guard (who was the
emperor's private army by default is similar to Presidents relationship with the
Military-Industrial Complex) had dominated the election process for the next century or so
resulting in targeted assassinations of several emperors they did not want in power before
Rome's collapse. They were assassinations and attempted assassinations on US presidents
resulting in four deaths, the most notable assassination in the 20th century was President John
F. Kennedy who wanted to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces" gave a speech on April
27th, 1961 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, many believe, including myself, that
it was the speech that eventually got him killed:
"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that
relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration
instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free
choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted
vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient
machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political
operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined.
Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed,
no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no
democracy would ever hope or wish to match."
The " tightly knit, highly efficient machine " Kennedy spoke about directs U.S.
presidents to authorize wars or a covert operations to topple foreign governments. Kennedy
exposed that fact and followed that same fate as those emperors in Rome. Even in Domestic
politics, the U.S. government deep state apparatus is in control as the former Governor of
Minnesota Jesse Ventura , who is also a former Navy Seal, actor and professional wrestler who
now has his own show on RT news called 'The World According to Jesse'
admitted on TruTV's 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura' on how the CIA interrogated
him shortly after he became governor:
"About a month after I was elected governor, I was requested into the basement of the
capital to be interviewed by 23 members of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, they
were very formal, there was governor, sir and all that, but they put me in a chair and they
were in a big half-moon around me, and I said to them, look before I answer any of your
questions, I want to know what are you doing here? because in the CIA mission statement, it
says that they are not operational inside the United States of America. Well, they wouldn't
really give me an answer on that and then I said I want to go around the room and I want each
one of you to tell me your name and what you do, half of them wouldn't. Now isn't that
bizarre, I'm the governor and these guys wouldn't answer questions from me. Then they started
questioning me and it was all about how I got elected. You know what was the most bizarre
thing about it was? There was every array of person you could imagine, young people, old
people, all nationalities and that's what really got to me. These were people you would see
every day. They look like your neighbors."
The US president including all elected congress members are all bought and paid for by the
arms industry, major corporations, bankers, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the media and a handful of
lobbyists with the Israel lobby being the most powerful. Trump is no exception. He will follow
the road given to him by those who are in charge and he will continue the path to a world war,
an agenda that been long in the making. One of America's favorite enemies, Russian President
Vladimir Putin was interviewed by Megan Kelly of NBC news in 2017 and was asked about
the so-called Russian collusion conspiracy theory and he said the following:
Presidents come and go, and even the parties in power change, but the main political
direction does not change, That's why, in the grand scheme of things, we don't care who's the
head of the United States, we know more or less what's going to happen. And so, in this regard,
even if we wanted to, it wouldn't make sense for us to interfere
Whether Trump wants war or even peace, it won't matter, he will do the right thing, for the
deep state that is.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published.
He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The
Roosevelt has been ravaged by the coronavirus. As of Tuesday, 589 cases of COVID-19 were
reported from a crew of 4,800. Four thousand sailors in Guam are in various stages of a 14-day
isolation period in hotels and spare rooms across the island.
But it is not just the Roosevelt. Every U.S. warship -- carriers, cruisers, frigates,
destroyers, subs -- has cramped quarters conducive to the spread of the coronavirus.
How many of these vessels will soon be doubling as hospital ships?
The same question might also be asked of the U.S. Army and Marine barracks in South Korea,
Japan, Australia and Okinawa.
There are allegations that the coronavirus did not originate in the Wuhan "wet market" where
bats are sold for food but instead escaped through a horrible blunder in a Chinese bioweapons
laboratory a few miles away.
Whatever the truth, the Wuhan virus appears to have become the most effective means of
disabling U.S. hard and soft power that we have encountered in many a decade.
Of those 10,000 Peace Corp volunteers, and scores of thousands of other Americans who have
been repatriated home, how many of these "soft power" soldiers will be going back after they
have been out of their host country for 18 months?
Will this pandemic prove the decisive factor in America's retreat from global hegemony?
With the U.S. budget deficit for 2020 originally set at $1 trillion, now triple that, there
is going to be a hard reckoning for the allocation of our diminished resources after the nation
reopens.
And policing the planet is likely to be seen as yesterday's priority, and a primary
candidate for discard.
Well, if the epidemic does lead to a more restrained foreign policy, that would be the
silver lining in this awfully dark cloud. It might well end up saving more lives than are
lost in the epidemic, too.
"American collusion with kleptocracy comes at a terrible
cost for the rest of the world. All of the stolen money, all of those evaded tax dollars sunk
into Central Park penthouses and Nevada shell companies, might otherwise fund health care and
infrastructure. (A report from the anti-poverty group One has argued that 3.6 million deaths
each year can be attributed to this sort of resource siphoning.)
Thievery tramples the possibilities of workable markets and credible democracy. It fuels
suspicions that the whole idea of liberal capitalism is a hypocritical sham: While the world is
plundered, self-righteous Americans get rich off their complicity with the crooks.
The Founders were concerned that venality would become standard procedure, and it has. Long
before suspicion mounted about the loyalties of Donald Trump, large swaths of the American
elite -- lawyers, lobbyists, real-estate brokers, politicians in state capitals who enabled the
creation of shell companies -- had already proved themselves to be reliable servants of a
rapacious global plutocracy.
"Richard Palmer was right: The looting elites of the former Soviet Union were far from rogue
profiteers. They augured a kleptocratic habit that would soon become widespread.
One bitter truth about the Russia scandal is that by the time Vladimir Putin attempted to
influence the shape of our country, it was already bending in the direction of his."
"... The recent tale of Israeli-American Michael Kadar, who has been credited with many of early 2017's nearly two thousand bomb scares targeting Jewish community centers and synagogues worldwide, is illustrative. ..."
"... The court in Tel Aviv convicted Kadar on counts including "extortion, disseminating hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting threats against community centers, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines, and airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark." It claimed that "As a result of 142 telephone calls to airports and airlines, in which he said bombs had been planted in passenger planes or they would come under attack, aircraft were forced to make emergency landings and fighter planes were scrambled." ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Even though distracted by the havoc resulting from the coronavirus, the United States and
much of Europe is engaged in a frenzied search for anti-Semitism and anti-Semites so that what
the media and chattering class are regarding as the greatest of all crimes and criminals can
finally be extirpated completely. To be sure, there have recently been some horrific instances
of ethnically or religiously motivated attacks on synagogues and individual Jews, but, as is
often the case, however, quite a lot of the story is either pure spin or politically motivated.
A Jewish student walking on a college campus who walks by protesters objecting to Israel's
behavior can claim to feel threatened and the incident is recorded as anti-Semitism, for
example, and slurs written on the sides of buildings or grave stones, not necessarily the work
of Jew-haters, are similarly categorized. In
one case in Israel in 2017, the two street swastika artists were Jews.
Weaponizing one point of view inevitably limits the ability of contrary views to be heard.
The downside is, of course, that the frenzy that has resulted in the criminalization of free
expression relating in any but a positive way to the activity of Jewish groups. It has also
included the acceptance of the dishonest definition that any criticism of Israel is ipso facto
anti-Semitism, giving that nation a carte blanche in terms of its brutal treatment of its
neighbors and even of its non-Jewish citizens.
Jewish dominated Hollywood and the entertainment media have helped to create the
anti-Semitism frenzy and continue to give the public regular doses of the holocaust story.
Currently there are a number of television shows that depict in one form or another the
persecution of Jews. Hunters on Amazon is about Jewish Americans tracking and killing
suspected former Nazis living in New York City in the 1970s. The Plot to Destroy
America on HBO is a retro history tale about how a Charles Lindbergh/Henry Ford regime
installs a fascist government in the 1930s. One critic describes
the televisual revenge feast "as one paranoid Jewish fantasy after another advocating murder as
the solution to what they perceive as the problem of anti-Semitism."
But, as always, nothing is quite so simple as such a black and white portrayal where there
are evil Nazis and Jewish victims who are always justified when they seek revenge. First of
all, as has been demonstrated ,
many recent so-called anti-Semitic attacks on Jews involve easily recognizable Hasidic Jews and
are actually based on community tensions as established neighborhoods are experiencing dramatic
changes with the newcomers using pressure tactics to force out existing residents. And after
the Hasidim take over a town or neighborhood, they defund local schools to support their own
private academies and frequently engage in large scale welfare and other social services fraud
to permit them to spend all their days studying the Talmud, which, inter alia teaches
that gentiles are no better than beasts fit only to serve Jews.
The recent concentration of coronavirus in Orthodox neighborhoods in New York as well as the
eruption of measles cases last year have been attributed to the unwillingness of some
conservative Jews to submit to vaccinations and normal hygienic practices. They also have
persisted in illegal large gatherings at weddings and religious ceremonies, spreading the
coronavirus within their own communities and also to outsiders with whom they have contact.
Regularly exposing anti-Semitism is regarded as a good thing by many Jewish groups because
the state of perpetual victimization that it supports enables them to obtain special benefits
that might otherwise be considered excessive in a pluralistic democracy. Holocaust education in
schools is now mandatory in many jurisdictions and more than 90% of discretionary Department of
Homeland Security funding goes to Jewish organizations. Jewish organizations are
now lining up to get what they choose to believe is their share of Coronavirus emergency
funding.
Claims of increasing anti-Semitism, and the citation of the so-called holocaust, are like
having a perpetual money machine that regularly disgorges reparations from the Europeans as
well as billions of dollars per year from the U.S. Treasury. Holocaust and anti-Semitism
manufactured guilt are undoubtedly contributing factors to the subservient relationship that
the United States enjoys with the state of Israel, most recently manifested in the U.S.
Department of Defense's gift of one million surgical masks
to the Israel Defense Force in spite of there being a shortage of the masks in the United
States (note how the story
was edited after it first appeared by the Jerusalem Post to conceal the U.S. role
but it still has the original email address and the photo cites the Department of Defense).
And then there is the issue of Jewish power, which is discussed regularly by Jews themselves
but is verboten to gentiles. Jews wield hugely disproportionate power in all the Anglophone
states as well as in France and parts of Eastern Europe and even in Latin America. If
anti-Semitism is as rampant as has often been claimed it is odd that there are so many Jews
prominent in politics and the professions, most especially financial services and the media.
Either anti-Semitism is not really "surging" or the actual anti-Semities have proven to be
particularly incompetent in making their case.
Further muddying the waters, there have been a number of instances in which Jews have
themselves been responsible for what have been claimed to be anti-Semitic incidents. There has
also been credible speculation that some of the incidents have been false flags staged by the
Israeli government itself, presumably acting through its intelligence services. The objective
would be to create sympathy among the public in Europe and the U.S. for Israel and to
encourage
diaspora emigration to the Jewish state. The recent tale of Israeli-American Michael
Kadar, who has been credited with many of early 2017's nearly two thousand bomb scares
targeting Jewish community centers and synagogues worldwide, is illustrative.
Kadar, who holds both Israeli and American nationality, was arrested in Ashkelon
Israel on March 2017 by Israeli police in response to the investigation carried out by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kadar's American address was in New Lenox Illinois but he
actually resided in Israel. Kadar's defense was that he had a brain tumor that caused autism
and was not responsible for his actions, but he was found to be fit for trial and was
sentenced
to 10 years in prison in June 2017. He was apparently subsequently quietly released from
prison and returned to Illinois in
mid-2018. In August 2019 he was
arrested for violation of parole on a firearms and drugs offense.
The court in Tel Aviv convicted Kadar on counts including "extortion, disseminating
hoaxes in order to spread panic, money laundering and computer hacking over bomb and shooting
threats against community centers, schools, shopping malls, police stations, airlines, and
airports in North America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Denmark." It claimed
that "As a result of 142 telephone calls to airports and airlines, in which he said bombs had
been planted in passenger planes or they would come under attack, aircraft were forced to make
emergency landings and fighter planes were scrambled."
It was also claimed
by the court that Kadar had gotten involved with the so-called restricted access "dark web"
to make threats for money. He reportedly earned $240,000 equivalent worth of the digital
currency Bitcoin. Kadar has reportedly refused to reveal the password to his Bitcoin wallet and
its value is believed to have increased to more than $1 million.
The tale borders on the bizarre and right from the beginning there were
many inconsistencies in both the Department of Justice case and in terms of Kadar's
biography and vital statistics. After his arrest and conviction, many of his public, private
and social networking records were either deleted or changed, suggesting that a high-level
cover-up was underway.
Most significant, the criminal
complaint against Kadar included details of the phone calls that were not at all consistent
with the case that he had acted alone. The threats were made using what is referred to as
spoofing telephone services, used by marketers to hide the caller's true number and identify,
but the three cell phone numbers identified by the Department of Justice to make the spoofed
calls were all U.S.-based and one of them was linked to a Jewish Chabad religious leader and
one to the Church of Scientology's counter-intelligence chief in California. In addition, some
of the calls were made when Kadar was in transit between Illinois and Israel, suggesting that
he had not initiated the calls.
DOJ's criminal complaint also included information that the threat caller was a woman who
had "a distinct speech impediment." Michael Kadar's mother has a distinct speech impediment.
Oddly enough she has not been identified in any public documents and the Israelis claimed that
Michael was disguising his voice, but she is believed to be Dr. Tamar Kadar, who resided in
Ashkelon at the same address as Michael. Dr. Kadar is a chemical weapons researcher at the
Mossad-linked Israel Institute for Biological Research ("IIBR").
Michael appears to have U.S. birthright citizenship because he was born in Bethesda in 1990
while his mother was a visiting researcher at the U.S. Army Military Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). While Dr. Kadar was at USAMRIID, anthrax went missing from the
Army's lab and may have been subsequently used in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks inside the
U.S., which resulted in the deaths of five people. The FBI subsequently accused two USAMRIID
researchers of the theft, but one was exonerated and the other committed suicide, closing the
investigation.
So, there are some interesting issues raised by the Michael Kadar case. First of all, he
appears to have been the fall guy for what may have been a Mossad directed false-flag operation
actually run by his mother, who is herself an expert on biological weapons and works at an
Israeli intelligence lab. Second, the objective of the operation may have been to create an
impression that anti-Semitism is dramatically increasing, which ipso facto generates a
positive perception of Israel and encourages foreign Jews to emigrate to the Jewish state. And
third, there appears to have been a cover-up orchestrated by the Israeli and U.S. governments,
evident in the disappearance of both official and non-official records, while Michael has been
quietly released from prison and is enjoying his payoff of one million dollars in bitcoins. As
always, whenever something involves promoting the interests of the state of Israel, the deeper
one digs the more sordid the tale becomes.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected] .
Good piece of work Dr. Giraldi. A few things about this case of the Kadars. Basically Israel
refused to cooperate with the FBI at the beginning and resisted giving up the kid.
Furthermore, the FBI was told to "back off" by higher ups in the agency and let Israel handle
it. So the results are what you would expect with a false flag.
The anthrax case still has legs. Bruce Irvins was the microbiologist at Detrick you are
referring to. He was never charged and they never proved he was involved and the FBI could
not place him in any of the spots they wanted. He had some issues and the FBI gang banged him
looking for a patsy. Dr. Hatfill was the "original" Person of Interest whom the Jewish
controlled media followed around and they ruined his life. He sued the FBI and won a lot of
money.
The FBI appeared to intentionally mess up the anthrax samples. Reviews by the National
Academy of Science rocked the idiots at the FBI and they concluded Irvins was not involved.
The real kicker to all of this is that the FBI leader of the investigation was Robert
Mueller! The same Mueller who spent almost 3 years chasing Russian spies well knowing that it
was lie.
And finally who sealed the files so no one could ever come up with the real perpetrators
..Obama!
Antisemitism is pro-Israel, the Nazis included (shipping jews to Palestine).
For some reason I know exactly what a neonazi looks like, how he behaves, how he talks,
how he thinks and even how he feels. But I never met one. Where does this 'knowledge' come
from?
I happen to remember some television that I have seen as a child. Most people don't and
are living in a fantasy world with fantasy enemies and fantasy friends and take it for
reality.
"Further muddying the waters, there have been a number of instances in which Jews have
themselves been responsible for what have been claimed to be anti-Semitic incidents."
There have been so many such incidents over the years that when a synagogue or cemetery
gets spray-painted with swastikas, the default presumption for any subsequent investigation
is automatically "inside-job".
The stereotypical perpetrator would tend to be a deranged student residing at the campus
Hillel House, majoring in film studies or some other flakey college program.
Years ago there was a case of a San Francisco synagogue on fire. After the arsonist, a
Jew, was caught and confessed, the tenor of the response was that one had to feel sorry for
him because he needed help.
In light of such incidents there has even been a visual meme out there: Hey Rabbi
Watcha Doin'?! (See Google Images)
Getting a patsy to do the dirty work is significantly more effective in provoking outrage
and sympathy. Though last year's attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, during Yom Kippur
services in early October was highly suspicious, media reports managed to suppress those
aspects and instead generated a victimhood-card bonanza that lasted for weeks.
The German population was easily bamboozled. Prominent Jewish representatives publicly
demanded more stringent laws against "anti-semitism", as recently re-defined, and
parliamentarians duly obliged.
News that had not been much reported about, but was circulating at the outset in
alternative media:
• Mentally deranged perpetrator, who had shared his views on an Internet chat group,
expressed his desire to attack Muslims and Antifa.
• Anonymous "handler / minder" in California offered to pay him half a bitcoin to
redirect his attack toward the synagogue instead.
• Synagogue had just recently been equipped with elaborate security system installed
by Israeli company to withstand shooting and bombing attacks.
• Local police, which normally would provide security outside, during holiday
services, were conspicuously absent during that time, and slow to respond (likely stand-down
orders from above).
• Perpetrator filmed his rampage, which he broadcast in real-time as a live stream
video online (wanting to emulate an earlier attack in New Zealand), enabling his handlers to
monitor the shooting spree while in progress.
• After his mission failed, frustrated perpetrator "spilled the beans" in real-time
and cussed out the Californian bitcoin payer, who had apparently set him up to be framed, as
probably being a Jew.
Of course, by design, the securely locked synagogue door easily withstood the shooting
attack with multiple exterior bullet holes into its wooden exterior. Everybody in the world
probably saw that part.
I was born in Argentina, 1950. There was a populist nationalist government then, strongly
disliked by the US. It included a whole spectrum, right to left. It assisted together with
the Vatican the rescuing of Nazi criminals that settled in the country. There was an
antisemitic movement headed by a provocateur, Juan Guillermo Kelly for name. Jews emigrated
to Israel. In the 80s he made public he was a Mossad agent
@vot
tak How can Jews be a 'colonial occupation force' in any nation that is English-speaking
and has not totally rejected the political and cultural heritage of WASP Empire?
Anglo-Saxon Puritanism was a Judaizing heresy. When the Anglo-Saxon Puritans won their
revolution, they cemented Modern English culture as one twined with Jewish ideas and ideals.
Archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell cemented that doubly by allying with Jewish bankers on the
Continent. From the mid-1600s, Jews have been the defining bankers of English Empire, of WASP
Empire. And bankers are always the opposite of outsiders. Bankers own and eventually come to
control fully.
Anglo-Zionist Empire has existed since at least Oliver Cromwell.
As in the case of the Mossad asset Jeff Epstein, who was running a child-rape assembly line
on his 'Orgy Island' and on his 'Lolita Express,' to ensnare weakling politicians,
video-taping them in the process of raping young girls–and boys–then use that to
blackmail them into becoming an enthusiastic supporter of Israel, the one lead that was never
pursued was, "How many other Epstein's are out there, doing their slimy business for Israel?"
The same could be asked of this 'Mikey' Kadar terrorist, who I'm sure has plenty of
accomplices world-wide, still phoning in threats or maybe spray-painting Jew cemeteries with
the dreaded Nazi Swastika.
This terrorist does about one year in prison, then is set free and off to the USA he runs?
If his name had been Mohammed or he was a skin-headed nationalist, he'd be in prison for the
rest of his life, but since he's from that class of those Chosen by G-d, he gets a
pass.
There was an antisemitic movement headed by a provocateur, Juan Guillermo Kelly
Very interesting information. I did a quick search and the only info I found was this wiki
entry in Spanish.
I used google translate to convert to English.
Do you have any sources that confirm his alleged affiliation with Mossad?
[Hide MORE]
From a young age he was a member of the Nationalist Liberation Alliance. Until then, it
was led by Juan Queraltó and had a clear anti-Semitic profile that Kelly fought
against. The group went on to become a shock force of Peronism.
During the bombing of Plaza de Mayo, when a group of military personnel opposed to the
government of Juan Domingo Perón attempted to assassinate him and carry out a coup
d'état, several squadrons of aircraft belonging to Naval Aviation, bombarded and
machine-gunned them with anti-aircraft ammunition, Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada, as well
as the CGT building, Kelly, aided by the Nationalist Liberation Alliance, dueled with the
Marines responsible for the attack. [2]
After the self-proclaimed liberating revolution dictatorship was established, after a
bombardment of the headquarters of his organization, located in San Martín and
Corrientes Avenue in Buenos Aires. On September 21, the coup armed forces received from
Córdoba the order to eliminate that focus of resistance in the heart of the city of
Buenos Aires and advanced on it with cannons and two Sherman tanks, sending an emissary to
surrender. The cannons and tanks fired and some fifty men, led by Guillermo Patricio Kelly,
surrendered. Those who remained inside died under the rubble of the three-story building,
destroyed with gunshots. The number of deaths that some raise to more than 400 is unknown.
[3] After that, he was arrested by the dictatorship and transferred to the Río
Gallegos prison, where one night in 1957 he starred in a film escape along with John William
Cooke, Jorge Antonio and Héctor Cámpora and other political prisoners managed
to escape, after which he applied for political asylum in Chile, but this was denied. When he
was about to be sent to Argentina, he escaped again, this time dressed as a woman, [required
appointment] to Venezuela where Perón was. When he left Chile for Caracas, he used a
new identity: he was "Doctor Vargas, psychoanalyst".
When on January 26, 1958, the newspaper El Nacional titled "Perón led the
repression against the Venezuelan people," he identified him, along with Kelly, as "National
Security torture consultants" and published Perón's fraternal letters to the head of
that body.
When the revolution broke out in Venezuela, Perón was another of the insurgents'
objectives, along with his collaborators, among whom was Kelly, and they had to take refuge
in the Embassy of the Dominican Republic. Outside, more than a thousand people were shaking
the entrance gate. They had already been locked up for two days, and people were still
outside. All the Argentines looked askance at Kelly. "They are going to kill us all because
of this one," they growled. There were several who wanted to kick him out and someone raised
the motion: to vote if he should withdraw. It was not necessary: Kelly decided
to face up. He only asked for two conditions: that he be given a pair of dark glasses and a
hat. He also asked for silver. When he walked out of the embassy and mixed with the crowd, no
one could recognize him. In the midst of the seizure, Kelly made contact with two CIA agents:
-- The Communists are going to enter the embassy and they are going to kill Perón. And
if they kill him, the entire continent is communicated – he warned them. Finally, the
United States prepared to rescue him, interceding with the revolutionary government to clear
the area and facilitate his departure to the Dominican Republic. [4]
Kelly was stoned from the Caracas airport, obtained refuge in Haiti and, after a turbulent
stay in which he was imprisoned, [5] crossed the border to the Dominican Republic, where he
remained for a few days. He returned to Argentina in 1958 with the passport that he stole
from Roberto Galán and after six months he was arrested and transferred again to the
Ushuaia prison. [6]
Throughout his life he was imprisoned for almost eight years. In 1966 he occupied the
headquarters of the PJ National Coordinating Board for a few hours, from where he launched a
violent proclamation against union leader Augusto Vandor. [appointment required]
In 1981, in the midst of a military dictatorship, he denounced the theft of $ 60 million
from Argentina, 10% of that debt belonging to General Suárez Mason, considering him a
"murderer of the people." According to Kelly, Mason is involved in the YPF emptying in the
1980s. He also said that the military man worked as a mercenary training mercenary troops to
fight in the Caribbean, which received money from the Nord high command, who was accused of
murdering the brother and two nephews of former President Arturo Frondizi. Also involved in
this robbery was former judge Pedro Narvaez who fled to Rio de Janeiro and then to Spain. [7]
[8]
In 1983, he gained notoriety after formulating a series of complaints related to the P-2
Lodge, the YPF dismissal and the murder of Fernando Branca, in addition to filing a criminal
complaint against Emilio Massera. Shortly thereafter, in August of that year, Kelly was
kidnapped and severely beaten by a gang led by Aníbal Gordon, who claimed to have
acted on the orders of the last military dictator Reynaldo Bignone and the Army Corps I.
In 1991, during the presidency of Carlos Menem, he was the host of an ATC program called
Sin Concesiones, in which he maintained that it would reveal "where the children of the
´Noble Ladies´ come from", alluding to the children adopted by the director from
the Clarín newspaper, Ernestina Herrera de Noble. After a meeting between Herrera de
Noble, Héctor Magnetto and Carlos Menem held at the Quinta de Olivos on Thursday, May
2, 1991, Clarín and the government agreed on Kelly's air release at ATC in exchange
for the air output of the program of the journalist Liliana López Foresi, Magazine 13,
Journalism with an opinion, in which Menem was severely criticized. [9] [10] [11] [12]
On the subject of Herrera de Noble's children, Kelly wrote a book published by Arkel
Publishing in 1993 titled Noble: Imperio Corrupto. Only 200 copies were published, although
the author gave several of them to public libraries in the United States. [13]
He died on July 1, 2005 at 8:30 am, a victim of terminal cancer at the German Hospital in
the City of Buenos Aires. [14] [15]
Very much so. Because it helps direct our attention to something very important.
Though they're good at infiltration, subversion, betrayal, destruction and death, they're
no good at social-managment.
Who's "they"?
I refer to them as Jewish Supremacy Inc. (JSI).
It's a distinction worth making because it separates them from Jews who don't hate Whites
and aren't obsessed with being Jewish.
They're out there, however small their numbers might be.
After all, Gilad Atzmon's not the only one.
It's also worth pointing out that JSI gets lots of help from three other groups who aren't
Jewish at all. In fact they're White.
1. the cynical, self-centered whores of opportunity who will do anything to protect their
own materialistic, narcissistic trough.
2. the incurably gullible, pathologically naive Whites from Left-wingy Multi-Culties to
Right-wing Christian Zionists.
3. the perfectly indifferent who walk around with that stroked out look on their face from
watching too much ESPN and Pornhub.
The rest of us are freedom-lovers, or TUR readers/commenters or potential TUR
readers/commenters.
Meaning they'd be open to what the actual readers/commenters have to say and won't fly off
the handle with a knee-jerk reaction before springing into fight or flight mode.
In short, this boils down to a battle of
Dogma versus Pragma
.
What's the difference?
Pragma is open to exposing its ideas to a process of continuous feedback and correction
for the purpose of improving the quality of its social-management
Excuse me, but this is comical. There is no other group in America and the entire West who
are more protected and more privileged than Jews. While White Gentiles are routinely
attacked, beaten to a pulp, raped, and brutally murdered by Blacks, Hispanics, Pakis, Arabs,
in Europe and America, just for having the temerity to walk outside in countries built by
their White ancestors. How does a painted swastika equate with rape-torture murders of the
Christian-Newsom Knoxville Horror? And if you think the Christian-Newsom murders are a rare
crime in America, you are living under a rock. And lest we forget the Christian-Newsom
Murders nor the Wichita Massacre murders were labeled "hate crimes." Despite thousands upon
thousands of Black on White and other nonwhite on White attacks, rapes, murders in this
country, you can bet the house that no one in Washington has voiced concerns over the
violence being perpetrated on White Gentiles daily in America. America is indeed a racist
country and Whites experience that racism every single day.
Remember a couple years ago when someone was calling bomb threats to Jewish Community
Centers? Remember that they found out it was some Jewish guy in a Tel Aviv basement calling
in the bomb threats. Of course at first the (((media))) went through their spiel about how
anti-Semitism was on the rise in America, and then once we all found out that the perpetrator
was a Jewish guy in Israel, ( I believe a dual citizen at that) the (((media))) dropped this
case quicker than you could claim some NY/NJ rabbis were selling body organs.
Most of these hate crime HOAXES are simply Jews and/or Blacks drawing swastikas, hanging a
nooses in a locker, or some other ridiculous and downright childish act that in no way even
if done by a White racist who hates Jews and Blacks, equates to a Mississippi girl named
Jessica Chambers being burned alive, a 12 year old white male being burned alive with a blow
torch by an adult black female in Texas, etc., etc. The fact of the matter is that "hate
crimes" against nonwhites and Jews are downright rare in America, ( not talking about HOAXES
here) and there is no way that a crayon drawing of a swastika or hanging a noose in someone's
locker can be linked as the same as someone dying a horrific and brutal death like the White
victims I listed. IF we lived in a TRULY just and decent country, EVERYONE out there,
regardless of color, creed or religion would recognize that we need to stop all the hate and
violence directed at White Gentiles before moving on to worrying about crayon drawings.
Remember when Noel Ignatiev the Jewish professor stated we need to "abolish Whiteness?" Now
imagine a White professor stating that we need to "abolish Jewishness in America?" Can you
imagine what would have happened to that guy? Is it possible for a Jew in America/Canada or
Europe to be fired from his or here job for making racist or inflammatory remarks about
Whites?
The story of Michael Kadar is reminiscent of the tale of another criminal young male with
dual Israeli US citizenship, Samuel Sheinbein.
Sheinbein and a colleague murdered, dismembered and burnt a fellow high school classmate,
the hispanic Fredo Enrique Tello, Jr., in September, 1997. Sheinbein fled to Israel and in a
long drawn out court battle, Sheinbein's requested extradition to the State of Maryland to
stand trial was refused by Israel's supreme court.
You can read the whole sordid story in Wikipedia including how Sheinbaum was killed in a
shootout with the guards who were escorting him from one prison to another.
@Jake
Here we go with the WASP thing again. A minority of descendants of the Angles were Puritans,
and even fewer Saxons were Puritans. There were also Norse Puritans, Norman Puritans and
Briton Puritans. All Puritans were minorities. Many "Protestant" Churches, including the
Anglican Church, considered Puritans dissenters, verging on heretics, and not really
Protestants beyond protesting the Church of Rome. Knox's Presbyterians had a lot in common
with Puritans as did Dutch Protestants, and there were a lot of Dutch who moved to East
Anglia. Some became Puritans. It's silly to refer to it at it being "Anglo-Saxon Puritans" as
not all were Angles or Saxons. They were Puritans who happened to be Angles, Saxons and
others. WASP is even sillier. Are there Brown, Yellow, or Red Anglo-Saxons?
Cromwell seized power because the Stuarts were unpopular for many reasons, and as with
every revolution, a minority with zealotry seizes power from an apathetic majority. Sure he
turned to the Jewish Amsterdam bankers, who were already funding the Dutch Empire, including
New Amsterdam, but who else would have helped? The Puritans were vehemently anti Catholic and
would have never turned there. They were also vehemently anti-Muslim, so the Ottomans were
out. The Jews were it by elimination.
As for the culture. The culture of the elite is seldom the culture of the general
population.
The "Anglo-Saxons" were more than happy to restore the Stuarts after Cromwell, as long as
they were Protestants. The installation of King Billy, replacing James, was due to James
having converted to Catholicism and the fear of his imposing it on the country.
It was under William and Mary that the newly, created by Parliament, Bank of England was
taken over by Jewish bankers. The same minority Puritan Parliament that restored the Stuarts
and sponsored the overthrow of James.
Posted by b on April 8, 2020 at 7:43 UTC | Permalink
The Jpost article that b links to says that a million masks from China (donated by the US
Department of Defense) arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night. But Israel should have already
had two million masks if this report from last weekend is correct: The shipment will include two million masks, landing in Israel on Monday morning, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-april-4-2020/
So that appears to be three million masks from China, plus those seized from American
hospitals. Or are they fiddling the figures and pretending that those seized masks were
legally purchased in China?
It appears that Mossad and others have recently acquired about two surgical masks per
Israeli:
"5 April 2020,
(...)Last week, the Health Ministry said that security services and government ministries had
managed to obtain 27 ventilators and a hoard of other medical equipment from abroad.
Hebrew media reported that the Mossad intelligence service, which has been tasked with
securing medical equipment from abroad from unspecified countries amid worldwide shortages,
helped obtain 25,000 N95 respiratory masks , 20,000 virus test kits, 10 million
surgical masks , and 700 overalls for ambulance workers who usually carry out the initial
testing for the virus.
One million masks for the IDF.
Eat your heart out US Theodore Roosevelt and Guam.
US sailors right at the bottom of the Pentagon's priorities, thats for sure.
American military?.
Have one duty - die as required for Israel.
Including death by coronavirus by looks of things.....
More fool them.
Bloody hell. The Pentagon procures a million masks from China, then gives them to Israel -
when US doctors are running low in almost every city - not to mention that the military
itself has soaring coronavirus cases it can't handle.
You gotta know some rich Jewish corporate billionaire was behind that crap and Kushner was
just the conduit to get Trump to agree to it - probably in exchange for a big donation to
Trump's campaign.
If there was ever a country that deserved to be on the end of a US bombing campaign - it's
Israel - a racist, fanatical. colonialist, fascist, illegal terrorist state. Zionists - the
biggest scumbags on the planet. But instead the US bombs everyone else Israel doesn't
like.
But cheer up. Israel is a doomed nation. There is no way they can continue their path
forever, historically speaking. I suspect they won't exist within another fifty years.
They'll either be annihilated by their own nuclear weapons, or transformed into a bi-national
state that is no longer primarily Jewish. And I don't particularly care which.
The U.S. government's efforts to clean up Cold War-era waste from nuclear research and bomb
making at federal sites around the country has lumbered along for decades, often at a pace
that watchdogs and other critics say threatens public health and the environment.
Now, fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic is resulting in more challenges as the
nation's only underground repository for nuclear waste finished ramping down operations
Wednesday to keep workers safe.
Over more than 20 years, tons of waste have been stashed deep in the salt caverns that
make up the southern New Mexico site. Until recently, several shipments a week of special
boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with
plutonium and other radioactive elements were being trucked to the remote facility from South
Carolina, Idaho and other spots.
That's all but grinding to a halt.
Shipments to the desert outpost will be limited for the foreseeable future while work at
the country's national laboratories and defense sites shift to only those operations
considered "mission critical."
Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant warned state regulators in a letter Tuesday
that more time would be needed for inspections and audits and that work would be curtailed or
shifts would be staggered to ensure workers keep their distance from one another.
BTW, the Al Quds Post (aka Jerusalem Post to Zionists) has changed the headline on that
article to "Israel brings 1 million masks from China for IDF soldiers" Looks like the "New
York Purchasing and Logistics Division" is part of the Israeli Ministry Of War All The Time.
So the original was a nice story but fake news. Since there was no correction attached to the
new version, it could be that Washington/Tel Aviv reckoned that this was a step to far even
for Trump and the new version is the fake news.
- This news simply confirms again that the US, under Trump, has become more corrupt. But this
is a development that already started years, decades ago before Trump became president.
I think the possibility should be considered that Trump just made preexisting corruption
more visible rather than adding significantly to it. There are elaborate protocols and
circuitous speech that professional politicians learn to use to obfuscate the corruption and
make their own participation in that corruption seem not only acceptable but necessary or
even in the public interest. Trump is either ignorant of these protocols or he just doesn't
care.
Even with all this help (of which most go to the military sector), the Isreali economy can
barely keep itself afloat:
[...] inequality of income and wealth is huge in Israel, the second worst in the 36 nation
OECD group. The relative poverty rate for Haredim and Arabs (25% of the population) is near
50%, and even for other Israelis, it is higher than the OECD average. The gap in median
wage levels from skilled to unskilled; from Haredim/Arabs to others is huge - and yet the
former will constitute 50% of the population by 2060.
And this mask fiasco is the lesser problem for the American working class right now. A
significant portion of its people
is going hungry . That magic USD 1,200 check is not coming soon:
"the checks are not in the mail."
And the problem isn't just in the USA. The periphery of Western Civilization is also going
to suffer:
Germany's economy will shrink almost 10 per cent in the three months to June, according to
the country's top economic research institutes, the sharpest decline since quarterly
national accounts began in 1970 and double the size of the biggest drop in the 2008
financial crisis.
The shutdown of vast swaths of economic activity to contain the spread of the pandemic
is knocking 1.5 percentage points off French growth for every two weeks that it continues,
the Banque de France warned on Wednesday.
After more than three weeks in lockdown, French economic output is expected to have
fallen by the sharpest rate since the second world war, the central bank said, forecasting
that gross domestic product contracted 6 per cent in the first three months of the
year.
Get everyone you know to read "Against Our Better Judgment" by Alison Weir. Absolutely the
best short, supereasy read to open eyes of those who are unaware that they are unaware, I
promise. If you can afford to, buy copies to give away.
Very brief, "b", but one of your best posts. This is an unmitigated outrage. The arrogance of
the ruling class knows no bounds, and they are acting with impunity. Seems the ruling class
doesn't even care anymore how widely known it is that the US has little sovereignty.
The stock market became completely parathitic semi-criminal way to redistribute the wealth up.
Important fact: "SEC research found that many corporate executives
sell significant amounts of their own shares after their companies announce stock
buybacks, Yahoo Finance reports." ...And who gets the privilege to PAY for those bailouts – YOU. The U.S.
Taxpayer.
Notable quotes:
"... "The explosion of corporate debt in recent years will become problematic during the next bear market. As the deterioration in asset prices increases, many companies will be unable to refinance their debt, or worse, forced to liquidate. With the current debt-to-GDP ratio at historic highs, it is unlikely this will end mildly." ..."
"... while earnings per share have risen by over 270% since the beginning of 2009; revenue growth has barely eclipsed 60%." ..."
"... the real beneficiaries of share purchases are insiders where changes in compensation structures have become heavily dependent on stock-based compensation. Insiders regularly liquidate shares that were "given" to them as part of their overall compensation structure to convert them into actual wealth. ..."
"... "Corporate executives give several reasons for stock buybacks but none of them has close to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority of their pay and in the short-term buybacks drive up stock prices." ..."
"... SEC research found that many corporate executives sell significant amounts of their own shares after their companies announce stock buybacks, Yahoo Finance reports. ..."
"... The misuse, and abuse, of share buybacks to manipulate earnings and reward insiders clearly became problematic . ..."
"... Furthermore, share repurchases are the "least best" use of company's liquid cash . Instead of using cash to expand production, increase sales, acquire competitors, make capital expenditures, or buy into new products or services, which could provide a long-term benefit. Instead, the cash was used for a one-time boost to earnings on a per-share basis. ..."
"... "Perhaps no other industry illustrates the awkward position that corporate America finds itself in more than airlines. Major airlines spent $19 billion repurchasing their own shares over the last three years. Now, with the coronavirus virtually paralyzing the global travel industry, these companies are in deep financial trouble and looking to the federal government to bail them out ." – The New York Times ..."
"... Corporate buybacks have been the largest source of demand the last few years. 75% of announced buyback programs have been cancelled. So who is the incremental buyer with Boomers retiring in droves who hold the majority of wealth? ..."
"... Without that $4 trillion in stock buybacks, not to mention the $4 trillion in liquidity from the Federal Reserve, the stock market would not have been able to rise as much as it did over the last decade. ..."
Since the passage of "tax cuts," in late 2017, the surge in corporate share buybacks has
become a point of much debate. I previously wrote that
stock buybacks were setting records over the past couple of years. Jeffery Marcus of TP Analytics, recently
confirmed the same:
"U.S. firms have been the biggest incremental buyer of stocks in each of the past four
years, with their net purchases exceeding $2 trillion – Federal Reserve data on fund
flows compiled by Goldman Sachs showed."
"For much of the last decade, companies buying their own shares have accounted for all net
purchases. The total amount of stock bought back by companies since the 2008 crisis even
exceeds the Federal Reserve's spending on buying bonds over the same period as part of
quantitative easing. Both pushed up asset prices."
In other words, between the Federal Reserve injecting a massive amount of liquidity into the
financial markets, and corporations buying back their own shares, there have been effectively
no other real buyers in the market.
Of course, as a corporation, you can't spend all of your cash buying back shares, so with
near-zero interest rates, debt became the most logical option. As shown below, much of the debt
taken on by corporations was not used for mergers, acquisitions, or capital expenditures, but
the funding of share repurchases and dividend issuance.
Unsurprisingly, when you are issuing that much debt for share repurchases, there is a
correlation with asset prices. Interestingly, we
warned previously:
"The explosion of corporate debt in recent years will become problematic during the next
bear market. As the deterioration in asset prices increases, many companies will be unable to
refinance their debt, or worse, forced to liquidate. With the current debt-to-GDP ratio at
historic highs, it is unlikely this will end mildly."
While that warning fell mostly on "dear ears," the debt is now being bailed out by the Fed
through every possible monetary program imaginable.
No, Buybacks Are Not Shareholder
Friendly
Let's clear something up. Buybacks are NOT shareholder-friendly. The reason that companies spent billions on buybacks is to increase bottom-line earnings per
share, which provides the "illusion" of increasing profitability to support higher share
prices. Since revenue growth has remained extremely weak since the financial crisis, companies
have become dependent on inflating earnings on a "per share" basis by reducing
the denominator.
"As the chart below shows, while earnings per share have risen by over 270% since the
beginning of 2009; revenue growth has barely eclipsed 60%."
Yes, share purchases can be good for current shareholders if the stock price rises. Still,
the real beneficiaries of share purchases are insiders where changes in compensation structures
have become heavily dependent on stock-based compensation. Insiders regularly liquidate shares
that were "given" to them as part of their overall compensation structure to convert them into
actual wealth. Via the Financial Times:
"Corporate executives give several reasons for stock buybacks but none of them has close
to the explanatory power of this simple truth: Stock-based instruments make up the majority
of their pay and in the short-term buybacks drive up stock prices."
That statement was supported by a study from the Securities & Exchange Commission which
found the same issues:
SEC research found that many corporate executives
sell significant amounts of their own shares after their companies announce stock
buybacks, Yahoo Finance reports.
Not surprisingly, as corporate share buybacks are hitting record highs, so was corporate
insider selling. The misuse, and abuse, of share buybacks to manipulate earnings and reward insiders clearly
became problematic .
Furthermore, share repurchases are the "least best" use of company's liquid cash . Instead
of using cash to expand production, increase sales, acquire competitors, make capital
expenditures, or buy into new products or services, which could provide a long-term benefit.
Instead, the cash was used for a one-time boost to earnings on a per-share basis.
Now, all the companies that spent years issuing debt, and burning their cash, to buy back
debt are now begging the Government for a bailout.
"Perhaps no other industry illustrates the awkward position that corporate America finds
itself in more than airlines. Major airlines spent $19 billion repurchasing their own shares
over the last three years. Now, with the coronavirus virtually paralyzing the global travel
industry, these companies are in deep financial trouble and looking to the federal government
to bail them out ." – The New York Times
And who gets the privilege to PAY for those bailouts – YOU. The U.S.
Taxpayer.
Loss Of Support
As we warned previously, when CEO's become concerned about their business, the first thing
they will do is begin to cut back, or eliminate, stock buyback programs. To wit:
"CEO's make decisions on how they use their cash. If concerns of a recession persist, it
is likely to push companies to become more conservative on the use of their cash, rather than
continuing to repurchase shares. If that source of market liquidity fades, the market will
have a much tougher time maintaining current levels, or going higher."
Yes, companies are indeed reacting to the "coronavirus" pandemic currently. However, they
were already in the process of cutting back on repurchases in 2019. As noted recently by
Jeffery Marcus:
"Birinyi Associates, the leading firm that does research on buybacks, shows below that
announced buybacks have declined significantly in 2019 ' it's the biggest drop to start a
year since 2009.'"
This is also because cash balances fell sharply, as corporations loaded-up on debt.
As the impact of the "economic shutdown" deepens, corporations are scrambling to protect
their coffers. As noted on Friday, 75% of announced buyback programs have been cancelled.
Corporate buybacks have been the largest source of demand the last few years. 75% of
announced buyback programs have been cancelled. So who is the incremental buyer with Boomers
retiring in droves who hold the majority of wealth?pic.twitter.com/1IlRrruxDX
Greg's tweet has a complete table, but here is the relevant chart. There is a tremendous
amount of support being extracted.
Do not dismiss the data lightly.
The chart below is the S&P 500 Buyback Index versus the Total Return index. Following
the financial crisis, as companies began to lever up their balance sheets to increase stock
buybacks. There was a marked outperformance by those companies leading up to the crisis.
However, while corporate buybacks have accounted for the majority of net purchases of
equities in the market, the benefit of pushing asset prices higher, outside of the brief moment
in 2018 when tax cuts were implemented, allowing for repatriation of cash, performance has
waned. Now, those companies which engaged in leveraging up their balance sheet to engage in
repurchases shares are significantly underperforming the total return index.
Without that $4 trillion in stock buybacks, not to mention the $4 trillion in liquidity from
the Federal Reserve, the stock market would not have been able to rise as much as it did over
the last decade.
Conclusion
As I stated, CEO's make decisions on how they use their cash. With the economy shut down,
layoffs in the millions, and no clear visibility about the economic recovery post-pandemic,
companies are going to become vastly more conservative on the use of their cash.
Given that source of market liquidity is now gone, the market will have a much tougher time
maintaining current levels, much less going higher. As noted by the Financial Times:
"The rebound in equities has sparked optimism that we may be past the worst. However, we
still believe it is too early to the call the bottom. From a positioning perspective we still
believe there hasn't been a full capitulation.
Hedge funds and risk-parity funds have reduced their equity exposure considerably. But
institutional active funds and passive products have room for further outflows. The fiscal
bill passed by the US government also allows individuals to withdraw up to $100k from their
401k, without penalty. We believe this could result in over $50bn of further outflows from
the retail community. As well, over 50 companies in the S&P 500 have already suspended
their share repurchase programs, which accounted for over 25% of buybacks in 2019. We believe
the slowdown in buybacks could result in $300bn of lost inflows in the next two quarters."
–
HSBC
Be careful.
The bear market isn't over yet... not by a long shot.
"... Modernizing our strategic nuclear forces is a top priority for the @DeptofDefense and the @POTUS to protect the American people and our allies. ..."
"... As a pandemic ravages the nation, a sad illustration of wildly misplaced priorities ..."
You entirely miss the point that the "money" you describe is fiat currency, mostly in
digital form, which is entirely under the control of the Central Banks that have the
ability to create infinite amounts of it . Digital/paper fiat has no intrinsic value, it
is fungible by decree, because governments require that you accept this "legal tender" for
goods and services.
The ability to create infinite money provides those in charge with almost infinite power;
digital fiat currency provides the banksters with the ability to manipulate/rig all markets,
fund endless war (see All Wars are
Bankers Wars ), control the media and educational systems, etc etc. That is the hidden
function of Central Banks. As a famous Rothschild once said, "Give me control of a nation's
money and I care not who makes it's laws"
The COVID-19 pandemic very conveniently happened to come along at a time when the credit
markets were imploding, requiring the exponential growth of the fiat currencies (which had
reached the end of their always limited life-spans and had entered into a crack-up boom).
What a great excuse to openly move into producing trillions and trillions of dollars (much,
much more to come). In the US, the Treasury has essentially merged with the Federal Reserve;
the "bail outs" will be used to provide endless interest free money to the banks, which will
then loan the money to the small businesses (at 5.75% interest) being destroyed by the
shutdowns. See, the system is working!
The banks HAD to move into an exponential growth phase of its currencies in order to
prevent the collapse of the Western financial system. The growth of fiat/debt-based currency
is now similar to the exponential growth of the coronavirus. This is a hyperinflationary
event that will lead to the abandonment of the dollar as the global reserve currency.
US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian
lives
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General
Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter
@RealScottRitter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer.
He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf War, and
from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.
When it comes to saving American lives, sanctions are not an
obstacle to the provision of life-saving medical equipment. Ramping up sanctions on struggling Iran is okay however – which goes
to show the US price tag on human life. It was a sight that warmed the heart of even the most cynical American opponent of Vladimir
Putin's Russia -- a giant An-124 aircraft, loaded with boxes of desperately needed medical supplies, being offloaded at JFK Airport.
When President Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart on March 31, he mentioned America's need for life-saving medical
supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Two days later the AN-124 arrived in New York.
As the aircraft was being unloaded, however, it became clear that at least some of the equipment being offloaded had been delivered
in violation of existing US sanctions. Boxes clearly marked as containing Aventa-M ventilators, produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering
Plant (UPZ), could be seen. For weeks now President Trump has made an issue about the need for ventilators in the US to provide life-saving
care for stricken Americans.
There was just one problem -- the manufacturer of the Aventa-M, UPZ, is a subsidiary of Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies
(KRET) which, along with its parent holding company ROSTEC, has been under US sanctions since 2014. Complicating matters further
is the fact that the shipment of medical supplies was paid in part by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a Russian sovereign
wealth fund which, like ROSTEC, was placed on the US lending blacklist in 2014 following Russia's intervention in Crimea. Half of
the Russian aid shipment was paid for by the US State Department, and the other half by RDIF.
According to a State Department spokesperson, the sanctions against RDIF do not apply to purchases of medical equipment. KRET,
however, is in the strictest SDN (Specially Designated Persons) sanctions
list , which means US citizens and permanent residents
are prohibited from doing business with it. So while the letter of the sanctions may not have been violated, the spirit certainly
has been.
One only need talk to the embattled Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, to understand the difficulty in trying to purchase
much-needed medical equipment during a global pandemic where everyone else is trying to do the same. New York has been competing
with several other states to purchase much-needed ventilators from China. "It's like being on eBay" , Cuomo recently told
the press, with 50 states bidding against one another, driving the price up. The issue became even more complicated when the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, entered the bidding war. "They big-footed us" , Cuomo said, driving the price per ventilator
up to $25,000. "We're going broke."
Cuomo estimates that New York will need upwards of 40,000 ventilators to be able to handle the influx of stricken patients when
the outbreak hits its peak. At the moment, New York has 17,000 ventilators available -- including 2,500 on order from China -- and
Cuomo doesn't expect any more. "We're on our own." Plans are in place to begin imposing a triage system to prioritize ventilator
availability if and when the current stockpile is exhausted. These plans include the issuance of an emergency waiver that permits
health care providers to take a patient off a ventilator to make it available for another patient deemed to be more "viable"
-- that is, who has a greater expectation of surviving the disease.
Cuomo's predicament is being played out around the world, in places like Italy, Spain -- and Iran, where the outbreak of coronavirus
has hit particularly hard. The difference, however, is that while the US, Italy and Spain are able to scour the global market in
search of life-saving medical supplies, Iran is not. US sanctions targeting the Iranian financial system, ostensibly imposed to prevent
"money laundering" by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command, which has been heavily sanctioned by the US over the years,
have made it virtually impossible for Iran to pay for humanitarian supplies needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
As bad as it is for Governor Cuomo, at least he can enter a bidding war for medical supplies. Iran can't even get its foot in
the door, and it is costing lives. Making matters worse, at a time when the international community is pleading for the US to ease
sanctions so Iran can better cope with an outbreak that is taking a life every ten minutes, the US instead doubled down, further
tightening its death grip on the Iranian economy.
The global coronavirus pandemic will eventually end, and when it does there will be an accounting for how nations behaved. Nations
like Russia and China have been repeatedly vilified in the US media for any number of reasons -- even the Russian aid shipment containing
the sanctioned ventilators has been dismissed as a "propaganda ploy." What, then, do you call the US' blatant disregard
for select human lives?
The callous indifference displayed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials to the suffering of the Iranian people
by increasing sanctions at a time when the situation cries out for them to be lifted in order to save lives, when contrasted to the
ease in which US sanctions on Russia are ignored when life-saving medical equipment is needed, drives home the point that, as far
as the US is concerned, human life only matters when it is an American one. That might play well among American voters (it shouldn't),
but for the rest of the world it is a clear sign that hypocrisy, not humanitarianism, is the word that will define the US going forward.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that entering a financial relationship with RDIF is prosecutable
under the US sanctions regime. In reality, RDIF is under sectoral sanctions that only apply to certain interactions, which, according
to a State Department spokesperson, do not include purchases of medical equipment. The article has been changed accordingly.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
I realise few will since amerikans are 100% exceptionalist right up to their last breath but
please read the best article by far on masks & respirators cleaning issues esp such ones
as 'steam' cleaning are on this link I posted earlier.
It is written by Dr John Campbell who has been writing on this virus for several months.
My brother the retired journo recommended him to me in early February, so naturally I have
been assiduous in ignoring the bloke for that reason, combined with the fact Campbell is an
englander, but he has put together an excellent piece on masks & respirators, one which
uses y'know those pesky fact things to support his statements about assorted items efficacy,
longevity and ability to be cleaned. With respirators 95% & above he recommends having
several and rotating them so that they cop 4-5 days down time which should be enough time for
the virus to kark it of its own accord.
I don't believe for a moment that will stop the continual spouting of uninformed claptrap,
but I tried.
As we noted just a few weeks ago, two Senators -- Kelly Loeffler from Georgia and Richard
Burr from North Carolina, both of whom were publicly trying to play down the risks associated
with COVID-19 -- were quietly
engaging in stock trades that suggested they had a different viewpoint (while five
different Senators sold stock during this period, only Loeffler's and Burr's look particularly
suspicious). Burr's stock sell-off was revealed first, and got the most attention, in part
because he's also the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and was getting classified
briefings about COVID-19. The latest news on that front is that
the Justice Department has supposedly opened an investigation :
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr sold off a large amount of stocks
before the coronavirus market crash, and now the Justice Department is looking into his
statements around this time period, NPR can report.
Others have reported that the FBI has
been in contact with Burr. That doesn't mean much for now, and the investigation may turn
up nothing. But it's worth noting that it's happening.
The other Senator, Kelly Loeffler, has some more bad news, as
new reports suggest even more stock trading that at least looks suspicious. As was noted in
the original report, Loeffler had sold off a bunch of retail stock, and bought into a company
that does videoconferencing. The original reports suggest that she sold off somewhere between
$1.3 million and $3.1 million in stock right before the US economy went south. Turns out it was
way more. The new report shows that she
also sold off nearly $19 million in stock of Intercontinental Exchange, the company
that owns the New York Stock Exchange. It is worth noting that Loeffler's husband is the chair
and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, and the sales took place between February 26th and March
11th. That means at least some of those sales were happening while she was insisting that
the US had
everything under control .
Perhaps even more damning, though? Beyond buying into a videoconferencing software company,
Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, also purchased a bunch of stock in DuPont, a major
supplier of the personal protective gear that hospitals are all now desperate for:
Sprecher bought $206,774 in chemical giant DuPont de Nemours in four transactions in
late February and early March. DuPont has performed poorly on Wall Street lately, but the
company is a major supplier of desperately needed personal protective gear as the global
pandemic strains hospital and first responders.
So, to recap: they sold somewhere in the range of $20 million worth of mostly stock market
and retail companies -- and bought into videoconferencing and protective health gear. All while
telling the public that the government she's a part of has everything under control.
Americans are facing "A Spring Unlike Any Before." So warned a front-page headline in the
March 13th New York Times .
That headline, however hyperbolic, was all too apt. The coming of spring has always promised
relief from the discomforts of winter. Yet, far too often, it also brings its own calamities
and afflictions.
According to the poet T.S.
Eliot, "April is the cruelest month." Yet while April has certainly delivered its share of
cataclysms
, March and May haven't lagged far
behind. In fact, cruelty has seldom been a respecter of seasons. The infamous influenza
epidemic of 1918 , frequently cited as a possible
analogue to our current crisis, began in the spring of that year, but lasted well into
1919.
That said, something about the coronavirus pandemic does seem to set this particular spring
apart. At one level, that something is the collective panic now sweeping virtually the entire
country. President Trump's grotesque ineptitude and
tone-deafness have only fed that panic. And in their eagerness to hold Trump himself
responsible for the pandemic, as if he were the bat that first transmitted
the disease to a human being, his critics magnify further a growing sense of events spinning
out of control.
Yet to heap the blame for this crisis on Trump alone (though he certainly deserves plenty of
blame) is to miss its deeper significance. Deferred for far too long, Judgment Day may at long
last have arrived for the national security state.
ORIGINS OF A COLOSSUS
That state within a state's origins date from the early days of the Cold War. Its ostensible
purpose has been to keep Americans safe and so, by extension, to guarantee our freedoms. From
the 1950s through the 1980s, keeping us safe provided a seemingly adequate justification for
maintaining a sprawling military establishment along with a panoply of "intelligence" agencies
-- the CIA, the DIA, the NRO, the NSA -- all engaged in secret activities hidden from public
view. From time to time, the scope, prerogatives, and actions of that conglomeration of
agencies attracted brief critical attention -- the Cuban Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, the
Vietnam War of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the Iran-Contra affair during the presidency of
Ronald Reagan being prime examples. Yet at no time did such failures come anywhere close to
jeopardizing its existence.
Indeed, even when the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War removed the
original justification for its creation, the entire apparatus persisted. With the Soviet Empire
gone, Russia in a state of disarray, and communism having lost its appeal as an alternative to
democratic capitalism, the managers of the national security state wasted no time in
identifying new threats and new missions.
The new threats included autocrats like Panama's Manuel Noriega and Iraq's Saddam Hussein,
once deemed valuable American assets, but now, their usefulness gone, classified as dangers to
be eliminated. Prominent among the new missions was a sudden urge to repair broken places like
the Balkans, Haiti, and Somalia, with American power deployed under the aegis of "humanitarian
intervention" and pursuant to a "responsibility to protect." In this way, in the first decade
of the post-Cold War era, the national security state kept itself busy. While the results
achieved, to put it politely, were mixed at best, the costs incurred appeared tolerable. In
sum, the entire apparatus remained impervious to serious scrutiny.
During that decade, however, both the organs of national security and the American public
began taking increased notice of what was called "anti-American terrorism" -- and not without
reason. In 1993, Islamic fundamentalists detonated a bomb in a parking garage of New York's
World Trade Center
. In 1996, terrorists obliterated an apartment building
used to house US military personnel in Saudi Arabia. Two years later, the US embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania were blown
up and, in 2000, suicide bombers nearly sank the USS Cole , a Navy destroyer
making a port call in Aden at the tip of the Arabian peninsula. To each of these increasingly
brazen attacks, all occurring during the administration of President Bill Clinton, the national
security state responded ineffectually .
Then, of course, came September 11, 2001. Orchestrated by Osama bin Laden and carried out by
19 suicidal al-Qaeda operatives, this act of mass murder inflicted incalculable harm on the
United States. In its wake, it became common to say that "9/11 changed everything."
In fact, however, remarkably little changed. Despite its 17 intelligence agencies, the
national security state failed utterly to anticipate and thwart that devastating attack on the
nation's political and financial capitals. Yet apart from minor adjustments -- primarily
expanding surveillance efforts at home and abroad -- those outfits mostly kept doing what they
had been doing, even as their leaders evaded accountability. After Pearl Harbor, at least, one
admiral and one general were fired . After
9/11, no one lost his or her job. At the upper echelons of the national security state, the
wagons were circled and a consensus quickly formed: No one had screwed up.
Once President George W. Bush identified an " Axis of Evil "
(Iraq, Iran, and North Korea), three nations that had had nothing whatsoever to do with the
9/11 attacks, as the primary target for his administration's "Global War on Terrorism," it
became clear that no wholesale reevaluation of national security policy was going to occur. The
Pentagon and the Intelligence Community, along with their sprawling support network of
profit-minded contractors, could breathe easy. All of them would get ever more money. That went
without saying. Meanwhile, the underlying premise of US policy since the immediate aftermath of
World War II -- that projecting hard power globally would keep Americans safe -- remained
sacrosanct.
Viewed from this perspective, the sequence of events that followed was probably
overdetermined. In late 2001, US forces invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban regime, and
set out to install a political order more agreeable to Washington. In early 2003, with the
mission in Afghanistan still anything but complete, US forces set out to do the same in Iraq.
Both of those undertakings have dragged on, in one fashion or another, without coming remotely
close to success. Today, the military undertaking launched in 2001 continues, even if it no
longer has a name or an agreed-upon purpose.
Nonetheless, at the upper echelons of the national security state, the consensus forged
after 9/11 remains firmly in place: No one screws up. In Washington, the conviction that
projecting hard power keeps Americans safe likewise remains sacrosanct.
In the nearly two decades since 9/11, willingness to challenge this paradigm has rarely
extended beyond non-conforming publications like TomDispatch . Until Donald Trump came along, rare was the
ambitious politician of either political party who dared say aloud what Trump himself has
repeatedly said -- that, as he calls them, the "
ridiculous endless wars " launched in response to 9/11 represent the height of folly.
Astonishingly enough, within the political establishment that point has still not sunk in.
So, in 2020, as in 2016, the likely Democratic nominee for president will be someone who vigorously
supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Imagine, if you will, Democrats in 1880 nominating not a
former union general (as they did) but a former confederate who, 20 years before, had advocated
secession. Back then, some sins were unforgivable. Today, politicians of both parties practice
self-absolution and get away with it.
THE REAL THREAT
Note, however, the parallel narrative that has unfolded alongside those post-9/11 wars.
Taken seriously, that narrative exposes the utter irrelevance of the national security state as
currently constituted. The coronavirus pandemic will doubtless prove to be a significant
learning experience. Here is one lesson that Americans cannot afford to overlook.
Presidents now routinely request and Congress routinely appropriates
more than a trillion dollars annually to satisfy the national security state's supposed
needs. Even so, Americans today do not feel safe and, to a degree without precedent, they are
being denied the exercise of basic everyday freedoms. Judged by this standard, the apparatus
created to keep them safe and free has failed. In the face of a pandemic, nature's version of
an act of true terror, that failure, the consequences of which Americans will suffer through
for months to come, should be seen as definitive.
But wait, some will object: Don't we find ourselves in uncharted waters? Is this really the
moment to rush to judgment? In fact, judgment is long overdue.
While the menace posed by the coronavirus may differ in scope, it does not differ
substantively from the myriad other perils that Americans have endured since the national
security state wandered off on its quixotic quest to pacify Afghanistan and Iraq and purge the
planet of terrorists. Since 9/11, a partial
roster of those perils would include: Hurricane Katrina (2005), Hurricane Sandy (2012),
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (2017), and massive wildfires that have devastated vast
stretches of the West Coast on virtually an annual basis. The cumulative cost of such events
exceeds a half-trillion dollars. Together, they have taken the lives of several thousand more
people than were lost in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Earlier generations might have written all of these off as acts of God. Today, we know
better. As with blaming Trump, blaming God won't do. Human activities, ranging from the
hubristic
reengineering of rivers like the Mississippi to the effects of climate change stemming from
the use of fossil fuels, have substantially exacerbated such "natural" catastrophes.
And unlike faraway autocrats or terrorist organizations, such phenomena, from
extreme-weather events to pandemics, directly and immediately threaten the safety and wellbeing
of the American people. Don't tell the Central Intelligence Agency or the Joint Chiefs of Staff
but the principal threats to our collective wellbeing are right here where we live.
Apart from modest belated
efforts at mitigation, the existing national security state is about as pertinent to
addressing such threats as President Trump's
cheery expectations that the coronavirus will simply evaporate once warmer weather appears.
Terror has indeed arrived on our shores and it has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or ISIS or
Iranian-backed militias. Americans are terrorized because it has now become apparent that our
government, whether out of negligence or stupidity, has left them exposed to dangers that truly
put life and liberty at risk. As it happens, all these years in which the national security
state has been preoccupied with projecting hard power abroad have left us naked and vulnerable
right here at home.
Protecting Americans where they live ought to be the national security priority of our time.
The existing national security state is incapable of fulfilling that imperative, while its
leaders, fixated on waging distant wars, have yet to even accept that they have a
responsibility to do so.
Worst of all, even in this election year, no one on the national political scene appears to
recognize the danger now fully at hand.
"These officials "failed us" in the same way that our media "fails us": they serve the
interests of the EMPIRE-FIRST Deep State."
Yuppp. Our error is to assume all 17 intelligence agencies; the presstitudes; and US
"leadership" exist to serve the American people. And so, yes, they "fail" the people. But, from the point of view of the controllers of those agencies and of those "leaders",
they hardly ever fail !!!
While the people argue over virulent minutae, they are once again helping themselves to
the US Treasury.... Trillions of USDs.... LOL
".... was then told to STOP TESTING...... A medical person would not try to suppress testing.
That would be a "management decision" and its the Nation Security Council that was running
the show (and which had classified all discussions related to virus preparations)...."
Thanks for reminding us of Dr Chu's story. What if the US leadership:
Knew the coronavirus was already out in the wild in the US by Sep 2019;
Decided to set up China to be the "origin" to be blamed;
Realized that a "pandemic" can be the cover for kicking the table over to do the Great
Financial Reset;
"... "Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending coronavirus epidemic should be investigated and prosecuted for insider trading," ..."
"... "Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks." ..."
"... "stomach churning," ..."
"... "For a public servant it's pretty hard to imagine many things more immoral than doing this," ..."
"... "Richard Burr had critical information that might have helped the people he is sworn to protect. But he hid that information and helped only himself." ..."
"... "If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move is to adjust your stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public interest," ..."
"... "calling for immediate investigations" ..."
"... "for possible violations of the STOCK Act and insider trading laws." ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
In a rare moment of bipartisanship, commenters from all sides have demanded swift punishment for US
senators who dumped stock after classified Covid-19 briefings. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has called
for criminal prosecution.
As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has received daily
briefings on the threat posed by Covid-19 since January. Burr insisted to the public that America was
ready to handle the virus, but sold up to $1.5 million in stocks on February 13, less than a week
before the stock market nosedived, according to Senate
filings
. Immediately before the sale, Burr wrote an
op-ed
assuring Americans that their government is
"better prepared than ever
" to handle
the virus.
After the sale, NPR
reported
that he told a closed-door meeting of North Carolina business leaders that the virus
actually posed a threat
"akin to the 1918 pandemic."
Burr does not dispute the NPR report.
In a tweet on Saturday, former 2020 presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called for
criminal investigations.
"Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending
coronavirus epidemic should be investigated and prosecuted for insider trading,"
she wrote.
"Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks."
Congress/staff who dumped stocks after private briefings on impending
coronavirus epidemic should be investigated & prosecuted for insider trading (the STOCK Act). It
is illegal & abuse of power. Members of Congress should not be allowed to own stocks.
https://t.co/rbVfJxrk3r
Burr was not the only lawmaker on Capitol Hill to take precautions, it was reported. Fellow
Intelligence Committee member Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and her husband sold off more than a
million dollars of shares in a biotech company five days later, while Oklahoma's Jim Inhofe (R) made a
smaller sale around the same time. Both say their sales were routine.
Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Georgia) attended a Senate Health Committee briefing on the outbreak on
January 24. The very same day, she began offloading stock, dropping between $1.2 and $3.1 million in
shares over the following weeks. The companies whose stock she sold included airlines, retail outlets,
and Chinese tech firm Tencent.
She did, however, invest in cloud technology company Oracle, and Citrix, a teleworking company
whose value has increased by nearly a third last week, as social distancing measures forced more and
more Americans to work from home. All of Loeffler's transactions were made with her husband, Jeff
Sprecher, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) and Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) have joined the clamor of
voices demanding punishment. Ocasio-Cortez
described
the sales as
"stomach churning,"
while Omar reached across the aisle to side
with Fox News' Tucker Carlson in calling for Burr's resignation.
"For a public servant it's pretty hard to imagine many things more immoral than doing this,"
Carlson said during a Friday night monolog.
"Richard Burr had critical information that might have
helped the people he is sworn to protect. But he hid that information and helped only himself."
As of Saturday, there are nearly 25,000 cases of Covid-19 in the US, with the death toll heading
towards 300. Now both sides of the political aisle seem united in disgust at the apparent profiteering
of Burr, Loeffler, and Feinstein.
Right-wing news outlet Breitbart
savaged
Burr for voting against the STOCK Act in 2012, a piece of legislation that would have
barred members of Congress from using non-public information to profit on the stock market. At the
same time, a host of Democratic figures - including former presidential candidates
Andrew Yang
and
Kirsten Gillibrand
- weighed in with their own criticism too.
"If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move is to adjust your
stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public interest,"
Yang
tweeted on Friday.
If you find out about a nation-threatening pandemic and your first move
is to adjust your stock portfolio you should probably not be in a job that serves the public
interest.
Watchdog group Common Cause has filed complaints with the Justice Department, the Securities and
Exchange Commission and the Senate Ethics Committee
"calling for immediate investigations"
of
Burr, Loeffler, Feinstein and Inhofe
"for possible violations of the STOCK Act and insider trading
laws."
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
who make profits as well. I cannot remember exactly when insider trading for
them became legal but it should be no surprise to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention
that they're ALL doing it. That is one reason, at least in my semi-educated opinion, they did
not go after Trump for emoluments during Shampeachment, because THEY ALL DO IT.
That goes all the way to the White House, no doubt.
I don't mean Argentina vs China, or anything like that.
I mean where both sides have a lot of money, or power, or both.
Today's coronavirus black swan, like 9/11, has all the characteristics of a trauma-based
mass-mind-control op.
Not only do I agree, but I think it's so obvious that it's exasperating that, after all
we've been through, it even needs to be pointed out. But it does.
It has already been used to demonize China in the same way 9/11 was used to demonize
Islam: Just as we were supposed to hate the crazy suicidal Muslims yearning for harems of
afterlife virgins, we are now supposed to feel disgust for Chinese slurpers of bat soup.
Here I respectfully disagree.
What Jewish Supremacy Inc. did after September 11th was,
1. Blame Islam
2. Shame Americans* for Blaming Islam
A better example of control through crazy-making would be impossible to imagine.
And it's exactly what they're doing now.
1. Blame China
2. Shame Americans for Blaming China
*or anyone else who refused or refuses to bow before the alter of Politically Correct
Identity Politics (two tools essential to Full Spectrum Dominance).
As we have already seen, the consequences are immense.
Because if that kind of crazy-making is effective it's totally demoralizing. As learned
helplessness sets in people won't even defend themselves. As happened in Italy, and not just
Italy.
But there are other discernible patterns well worth pointing out.
1. Destroy The Evidence
2. Control The Narrative
3. Enforce The Law (on anyone looking for evidence to question the narrative)
Victimize – Blame Victim – Play Victim
Demonize Dissent and Pathologize Opposition
And all ending in what I've come to call the Supremacist Waltz
What makes a supremacist is not just making claims ("Our Superiority Is Absolute", or "We
are the Chosen") or demands. No. It's that they have the power to effectuate the demands that
support their claims.
And what are the demands they have the power to effectuate?
1. to be placed above criticism
2. loved unconditionally
3. blindly obeyed
It's The Rule of Man over The Rule of Law
It's a Culture of Blind Obedience over a Culture of Individual Conscience
It's Tyranny over Freedom
Hence The Great Replacement, accompanied by chants and taunts like "We Will Replace
You!"
In other words, Full Spectrum Dominance.
But, there's a snake in this garden.
The kind of power they're interested in is fundamentally destablizing.
All top down authoritarian power destablizes social-institutions.
From the point of view of cultural history this is exactly why cultures emerged in the
Western world that promoted democratic forms of governance. Because authoritarians cultures are
ultimately so extraordinarily destructive and unsustainable. Like this one is. Isn't it
obvious?
And, from the point of view of the bottom line, prolonged and profound social instability
disrupts and even halts economic activity.
When that happens there's no alternative.
This is why civilization itself was created. Because any civilization's primary objective is
and must be the circumnavigation of the use of force.
This is why what we're really witnessing is nothing less than
The Pyrrhic Victory of Jewish Supremacy Inc.
Because JSI's rise to power has been in direct proportion to the collapse of the very
social-institutions that power controls. Pride Before The Fall, indeed.
And the reason is easy to see and devoid of any complexity or glamour.
JSI is no good at social-management.
And make no mistake about it, social-management is at its core an adaptational strategy, as
are our social-institutions.
So, if we blow this, we're in no position to laugh at the dinosaurs for getting themselves
extinct.
After all, they lasted a lot longer than we have so far.
Assuming the human race has a chance (in itself rather doubtful) perhaps its time to turn
their words against them and say,
Treason Against Jewish Supremacy Inc. Is Loyalty To Humanity
Do we really need to ask them for permission to care about our children's future?
R ussia and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an oil price war that has sent shockwaves around
the world, causing the price of oil to tumble and threatening the financial stability, and even
viability, of major international oil companies.
On the surface, this conflict appears to be a fight between two of the world's largest
producers of oil over market share. This may, in fact, be the motive driving Saudi Arabia,
which reacted to Russia's refusal to reduce its level of oil production by slashing the price
it charged per barrel of oil and threatening to increase its oil production, thereby flooding
the global market with cheap oil in an effort to attract customers away from competitors.
Russia's motives appear to be far different -- its target isn't Saudi Arabia, but rather
American shale oil. After absorbing American sanctions that targeted the Russian energy sector,
and working with global partners (including Saudi Arabia) to keep oil prices stable by reducing
oil production even as the United States increased the amount of shale oil it sold on the world
market, Russia had had enough. The advent of the Coronavirus global pandemic had significantly
reduced the demand for oil around the world, stressing the American shale producers.
Russia had been preparing for the eventuality of oil-based economic warfare with the United
States. With U.S. shale producers knocked back on their heels, Russia viewed the time as being
ripe to strike back. Russia's goal is simple: to make American shale oil producers "
share the pain ".
The United States has been slapping sanctions on Russia for more
than six years, ever since Russia took control (and later annexed) the Crimean Peninsula and
threw its weight behind Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The first sanctions were issued
on March 6, 2014, through Executive
Order 13660 , targeting "persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean
region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine that undermine democratic
processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty,
and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets."
The most
recent round of sanctions was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on February 18,
2020, by sanctioning Rosneft Trading S.A., a Swiss-incorporated, Russian-owned oil brokerage
firm, for operating in Venezuela's oil sector. The U.S. also recently targeted the Russian
Nord Stream 2
and
Turk Stream gas pipeline projects.
Russia had been signaling its displeasure over U.S. sanctions from the very beginning. In
July 2014, Russian President Vladimir
Putin warned that U.S. sanctions were "driving into a corner" relations between the two
countries, threatening the "the long-term national interests of the U.S. government and
people." Russia opted to ride out U.S. sanctions, in hopes that there might be a change of
administrations following the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Russian President Vladimir
Putin made it clear that he hoped the U.S. might elect someone whose policies would be more
friendly toward Russia, and that once the field of candidates narrowed down to a choice between
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Putin favored
Trump .
"Yes, I did," Putin remarked after the election, during a joint press conference with
President Trump following a summit in Helsinki in July 2018. "Yes, I did. Because he talked
about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."
Putin's comments only reinforced the opinions of those who embraced allegations of Russian
interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election as fact and concluded that Putin had some
sort of hold over Trump. Trump's continuous praise of Putin's leadership style only reinforced
these concerns.
Even before he was inaugurated, Trump singled out Putin's refusal to respond in kind to
President Obama's levying of sanctions based upon the assessment of the U.S. intelligence
community that Russia had interfered in the election. "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)
– I always knew he was very smart!"
Trump Tweeted . Trump viewed the Obama sanctions as an effort
to sabotage any chance of a Trump administration repairing relations with Russia, and
interpreted Putin's refusal to engage, despite being pressured to do so by the Russian
Parliament and Foreign Ministry, as a recognition of the same.
This sense of providing political space in the face of domestic pressure worked both ways.
In January 2018, Putin tried to shield his relationship with President Trump by calling the
release of a list containing some 200 names of persons close to the Russian government by the
U.S. Treasury Department as a hostile and "stupid"
move .
"Ordinary Russian citizens, employees and entire industries are behind each of those people
and companies," Putin remarked. "So all 146 million people have essentially been put on this
list. What is the point of this? I don't understand."
From the Russian perspective, the list highlighted the reality that the U.S. viewed the
entire Russian government as an enemy and is a byproduct of the "political paranoia" on the
part of U.S. lawmakers. The consequences of this, senior Russian officials warned, "will be
toxic and undermine prospects for cooperation for years ahead."
While President Trump entered office fully intending to "
get along with Russia ," including the possibility of
relaxing the Obama-era sanctions , the reality of U.S.-Russian relations, especially as
viewed from Congress, has been the strengthening of the Obama sanctions regime. These
sanctions, strengthened over time by new measures signed off by Trump, have had a negative
impact on the Russian economy,
slowing growth and
driving away foreign investment .
While Putin continued to show constraint in the face of these mounting sanctions, the recent
targeting of Russia's energy sector represented a bridge too far. When Saudi pressure to cut
oil production rates coincided with a global reduction in the demand for oil brought on by the
Coronavirus crisis, Russia struck.
The timing of the Russian action is curious, especially given the amount of speculation that
there was some sort of personal relationship between Trump and Putin that the Russian leader
sought to preserve and carry over into a potential second term. But Putin had, for some
time now, been signaling that his patience with Trump had run its course. When speaking to
the press in June 2019 about the state of U.S.-Russian relations, Putin noted that "They
(our relations) are going downhill, they are getting worse and worse," adding that "The current
[i.e., Trump] administration has approved, in my opinion, several dozen decisions on sanctions
against Russia in recent years."
By launching an oil price war on the eve of the American Presidential campaign season, Putin
has sent as strong a signal as possible that he no longer views Trump as an asset, if in fact
he ever did. Putin had hoped Trump could usher in positive change in the trajectory of
relations between the two nations; this clearly had not happened. Instead, in the words of
close Putin ally Igor Sechin , the chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft, the U.S.
was using its considerable energy resources as a political weapon, ushering in an era of "power
colonialism" that sought to expand U.S. oil production and market share at the expense of other
nations.
From Russia's perspective, the growth in U.S. oil production -- which doubled in output from
2011 until 2019 -- and the emergence of the U.S. as a net exporter of oil, was directly linked
to the suppression of oil export capability in nations such as Venezuela and Iran through the
imposition of sanctions. While this could be tolerated when the target was a third party, once
the U.S. set its sanctioning practices on Russian energy, the die was cast.
If the goal of the Russian-driven price war is to make U.S. shale companies "share the
pain," they have already succeeded. A similar price war, initiated by Saudi Arabia in 2014 for
the express purpose of suppressing U.S. shale oil production, failed, but only because
investors were willing to prop up the stricken shale producers with massive loans and infusion
of capital. For shale oil producers, who use an expensive methodology of extraction known as
"fracking," to be economically viable, the breakeven price of oil
per barrel needs to be between $40 and $60 dollars. This was the price range the Saudi's
were hoping to sustain when they proposed the cuts in oil production that Russia rejected.
The U.S. shale oil producers, saddled by massive debt and high operational expenses, will
suffer greatly in any sustained oil price war. Already, with the price of oil down to below $35
per barrel,
there is talk of bankruptcy and massive job layoffs -- none of which bode well for Trump in
the coming election.
It's clear that Russia has no intention of backing off anytime soon. According to
the Russian Finance Ministry , said on Russia could weather oil prices of $25-30 per barrel
for between six and ten years. One thing is for certain -- U.S. shale oil companies cannot.
In a sign that the Trump administration might be waking up to the reality of the predicament
it faces, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin quietly met with Russia's Ambassador to the U.S.,
Anatoly Antonov. According to a read out from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the two discussed economic sanctions, the Venezuelan economy, and the potential for "trade
and investment." Mnuchin, the Russians noted, emphasized the "importance of orderly energy
markets."
Russia is unlikely to fold anytime soon. As Admiral Josh Painter, a character in Tom
Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October," famously said , "Russians don't take a dump without
a plan."
Russia didn't enter its current course of action on a whim. Its goals are clearly stated --
to defeat U.S. shale oil -- and the costs of this effort, both economically and politically (up
to and including having Trump lose the 2020 Presidential election) have all been calculated and
considered in advance. The Russian Bear can only be toyed with for so long without generating a
response. We now know what that response is; when the Empire strikes back, it hits hard.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books,
including his forthcoming, Scorpion King:
America's Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump (2020).
The neocons trying to control Trump are going to have a hard time this year because of the
election. Trump knows his people voted for him because of his promises to get the troops back
home. Of course the neocons want to build up more and more troops in Iraq or even split Iraq
into 3 different countries. The Iraqi and Iranian leaders with the Syrians to a lesser degree
will try to take advantage of Trump's dilemma. The Kurds are involved also. This is all
explored by Pam Ho
How Much Do You Suck (To lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein)
- The US knows it "influence" is waning and tries to "carve out" a sunni "rump state" in
North-West Iraq. First the US fights ISIS in that same area/region from the year 2014 onwards
and now they are supposed to fight in FAVOUR of the sunnis/ISIS ?
"US seeking to carve out Sunni state as its influence in Iraq wanes"
"If Iraqis were there and if Iraqi military forces were there, I would say it's probably
not a good idea to position yourself with Kataib Hezbollah in the wake of a strike that
killed Americans and coalition members," he told a Pentagon news briefing."
Despite Trump the Iraq policy transcends his administration and will continue in some form in
the future. There will be a continued presence in some form and in some part of the country.
Our beloved ally in the region demands our presence.
They smartly keep the presence small with no draft remembering that is what took them out
of Nam. An angry draft worthy populace, a counter culture disillusioned with the murder of
their liberal anti war leadership by the state, and ample media coverage of the war
carnage.
All of that is long gone, and even with the age of internet reporting the populace has
been bought off with entertainment, amazon, porn, and bullshit.
Parallel is IMO very interesting, Wehrmacht occupying Ukraine and US occupying Iraq. In
both cases there was minority that welcomed occupier with open arms, wanting to oppress
majority of own country folks due to earlier grievances. In both cases, invader didn't want
to bother with using that minority to own goals, as they saw them all as inferior race. And
invader was in both cases more interested in conquering more powerful neighbor to the
east.
Irony is that, if Nazi Germany/US didn't look at Ukraine/Iraq people as inferior race they
could use them for own goal to fight Russia/Iran. But, dumb as they are, they stuck all those
Ukrainians into camps(lot of them sympathizers to Germany/rabidly against Russia)/ disbanding
ex. Saddam's army and made kernel of future anti US force into region, not to mention Kurdish
question.
"Later on January 9, former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United
States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the
move.
According to a statement released by his office at the time, Abdul-Mahdi "requested that
delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament's decision for
the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq" in a phone call with US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo."
US in response moved to a few bases they intended to occupy and give the two finger salute
to Iraq. Trump threatened sanctions and theft of Iraq's oil money which is in the US.
Pentagon now moving patriots in.
Question to b @53: ... it was a non-binding resolution.
It's "non-binding" on USA only because the Prime Minister conducts foreign policy and
there's no current written basing agreement between Iraq and USA that can be terminated. The
resolution demands that the Prime Minister arrange for the departure of US troops.
The resolution is binding on the Prime Minister because it was a valid vote in
accordance with Iraqi Parliamentary procedure.
USA refused to discuss leaving Iraq and claimed that the Parliamentary vote was
"non-binding" because it was unrepresentative (USA got their Sunni and Kurd sympathizers to
boycott the vote). But Parliament still had a quorum, so the vote is legal and binding.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Is it enforceable?
USA/NATO are very unlikely to leaving willingly. We are seeing the start of a civil war in
Iraq because most Sunnis and Kurds support USA/NATO remaining while Shia want USA/NATO to
leave.
just start with the first lie and go from their... usa / uk lied the world into going to war
on iraq... and from their the lies just keep on getting stacked.. if you can't acknowledge
the first lie, you probably are incapable of recognizing all the other lies that have been
thrown on the same bullshit pile... one big pile of lies and bullshite - a specialty of the
exceptional country..
@ 63 question.. you like this usa style bullshit that buys politicians in iraq and when that
doesn't work, they go on to the next attempt at installing a politician willing to agree to
their bullshite? interesting bullshit concept of democracy if you ask me... everything has a
price tag and honour is something you can pick up at the grocery store... right..
Trump does not have a party with the program that at least pretends to pursue "socialism for a given ethnic group". He is
more far right nationalist then national socialist. But to the extent neoliberalism can be viewed as neofascism Trump is
neo-fascist, he definitly can be called a "national neoliberal."
Notable quotes:
"... I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as Sanders -- to head its ticket. ..."
"... Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again" slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false state of mythical past national glory ..."
"... The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have before in this column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the term. ..."
"... Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. ..."
"... An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups. ..."
"... Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth, however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles. ..."
"... Neoliberalism , by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of trade unions. ..."
"... Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age . ..."
Now that the Michigan Democratic primary is over and Joe Biden has been
declared the
winner , it's time to read the handwriting on the political wall: Biden will be the
Democratic nominee for president, and Bernie Sanders will be the runner-up once again come the
party's convention in July. Sanders might influence the party's platform, but platforms are
never binding for the nominee. Sanders has lost, and so have his many progressive supporters,
myself included.
I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic
candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL
quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party
establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as
Sanders -- to head its ticket.
Funded by wealthy donors, run by Beltway insiders and aided and abetted by a corporate media
dedicated to promoting the notion that Sanders was "
unelectable ," the Democratic Party never welcomed Sanders as a legitimate contender. Not
in 2016 and not in 2020. In several instances, it even resorted to some good old-fashioned
red-baiting
to frighten voters; the party is, after all, a capitalist institution. Working and middle-class
families support the Democrats largely because they have no other place to go on Election Day
besides the completely corrupt and craven GOP.
Now we are left with Donald Trump and Biden to duke it out in the fall. Yes, it has come to
that.
In terms of campaign rhetoric and party policies, the general election campaign will be a
battle for America's past far more than it will be a contest for its future. The battle will be
fueled on both sides by narratives and visions that are illusory, regressive and, in important
respects, downright dangerous.
Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again"
slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try
to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false
state of mythical past national glory that ignores our deeply entrenched history of patriarchal
white supremacy and brutal class domination.
The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have
before in this
column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the
term.
As the celebrated Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1935 , fascism
"is a historic phase of capitalism the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive and most
treacherous form of capitalism." Trumpism, along with its international analogs in Brazil,
India and Western Europe, neatly accords with Brecht's theory.
Trumpism similarly meets the definition of fascism offered by Robert Paxton in his classic
2004 study, "
The Anatomy of Fascism ":
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation
with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy,
and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy
but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues
with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing
and external expansion.
Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great
writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism :
A cult of traditionalism.
The rejection of modernism.
A cult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
The view that disagreement or opposition is treasonous.
A fear of difference. Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of
humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups.
An obsession with the plots and machinations of the movement's identified enemies.
A requirement that the movement's enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak,
conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity and homophobia.
A selective populism, relying on chauvinist definitions of "the people" that the movement
claims to represent.
Heavy usage of "newspeak" and an impoverished discourse of elementary syntax and
resistance to complex and critical reasoning.
Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with
fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug
mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's
Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth,
however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles.
To grasp what neoliberalism means, it's necessary to understand that it does not refer to a
revival of the liberalism of the New Deal and New Society programs of the 1930s and 1960s. That
brand of liberalism advocated the active intervention of the federal government in the economy
to mitigate the harshest effects of private enterprise through such programs as Social
Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Medicare, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. That brand of liberalism imposed high taxes on the wealthy and
significantly mitigated income inequality in America.
Neoliberalism
, by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for
deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade
agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of
trade unions.
Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had
embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender
than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies
based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the
Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age .
As transformational a politician as Barack Obama was in terms of race, he too pursued a
predominantly neoliberal agenda. The Affordable Care Act, Obama's singular domestic legislative
achievement, is a perfect example of neoliberal private-public collaboration that left intact a
health industry dominated by for-profit drug manufacturers and rapacious insurance companies,
rather than setting the stage for Medicare for All, as championed by Sanders.
Biden never tires of reminding any audience willing to put up with his gaffes, verbal ticks
and miscues that he served as Obama's vice president. Those ties are likely to remain the
centerpiece of his campaign, as he promises a return to the civility of the Obama era and a
restoration of America's standing in the world.
History, however, only moves forward. As charming and comforting as Biden's imagery of the
past may be, it is, like Trump's darker outlook, a mirage. If Trump has taught us anything
worthwhile, it is that the past cannot be replicated, no matter how much we might wish
otherwise.
"... Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. ..."
Now that the Michigan Democratic primary is over and Joe Biden has been
declared the
winner , it's time to read the handwriting on the political wall: Biden will be the
Democratic nominee for president, and Bernie Sanders will be the runner-up once again come the
party's convention in July. Sanders might influence the party's platform, but platforms are
never binding for the nominee. Sanders has lost, and so have his many progressive supporters,
myself included.
I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic
candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL
quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party
establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as
Sanders -- to head its ticket.
Funded by wealthy donors, run by Beltway insiders and aided and abetted by a corporate media
dedicated to promoting the notion that Sanders was "
unelectable ," the Democratic Party never welcomed Sanders as a legitimate contender. Not
in 2016 and not in 2020. In several instances, it even resorted to some good old-fashioned
red-baiting
to frighten voters; the party is, after all, a capitalist institution. Working and middle-class
families support the Democrats largely because they have no other place to go on Election Day
besides the completely corrupt and craven GOP.
Now we are left with Donald Trump and Biden to duke it out in the fall. Yes, it has come to
that.
In terms of campaign rhetoric and party policies, the general election campaign will be a
battle for America's past far more than it will be a contest for its future. The battle will be
fueled on both sides by narratives and visions that are illusory, regressive and, in important
respects, downright dangerous.
Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again"
slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try
to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false
state of mythical past national glory that ignores our deeply entrenched history of patriarchal
white supremacy and brutal class domination.
The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have
before in this
column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the
term.
As the celebrated Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1935 , fascism
"is a historic phase of capitalism the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive and most
treacherous form of capitalism." Trumpism, along with its international analogs in Brazil,
India and Western Europe, neatly accords with Brecht's theory.
Trumpism similarly meets the definition of fascism offered by Robert Paxton in his classic
2004 study, "
The Anatomy of Fascism ":
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation
with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy,
and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy
but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues
with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing
and external expansion.
Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great
writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism :
A cult of traditionalism.
The rejection of modernism.
A cult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
The view that disagreement or opposition is treasonous.
A fear of difference. Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of
humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups.
An obsession with the plots and machinations of the movement's identified enemies.
A requirement that the movement's enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak,
conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity and homophobia.
A selective populism, relying on chauvinist definitions of "the people" that the movement
claims to represent.
Heavy usage of "newspeak" and an impoverished discourse of elementary syntax and
resistance to complex and critical reasoning.
Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with
fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug
mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's
Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth,
however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles.
To grasp what neoliberalism means, it's necessary to understand that it does not refer to a
revival of the liberalism of the New Deal and New Society programs of the 1930s and 1960s. That
brand of liberalism advocated the active intervention of the federal government in the economy
to mitigate the harshest effects of private enterprise through such programs as Social
Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Medicare, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. That brand of liberalism imposed high taxes on the wealthy and
significantly mitigated income inequality in America.
Neoliberalism
, by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for
deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade
agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of
trade unions.
Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had
embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender
than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies
based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the
Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age .
As transformational a politician as Barack Obama was in terms of race, he too pursued a
predominantly neoliberal agenda. The Affordable Care Act, Obama's singular domestic legislative
achievement, is a perfect example of neoliberal private-public collaboration that left intact a
health industry dominated by for-profit drug manufacturers and rapacious insurance companies,
rather than setting the stage for Medicare for All, as championed by Sanders.
Biden never tires of reminding any audience willing to put up with his gaffes, verbal ticks
and miscues that he served as Obama's vice president. Those ties are likely to remain the
centerpiece of his campaign, as he promises a return to the civility of the Obama era and a
restoration of America's standing in the world.
History, however, only moves forward. As charming and comforting as Biden's imagery of the
past may be, it is, like Trump's darker outlook, a mirage. If Trump has taught us anything
worthwhile, it is that the past cannot be replicated, no matter how much we might wish
otherwise.
Looks like DNC run a pretty sophisticated smear campaign against Sanders ...
Notable quotes:
"... It really isn't about who the candidates are – hurtful as that may sound to some in our identity-saturated times. It is about what the candidate might try to do once in office. In truth, the very fact that nowadays we are allowed to focus on identity to our heart's content should be warning enough that the establishment is only too keen for us to exhaust our energies in promoting divisions based on those identities ..."
"... The Republican and Democratic leaderships are there to ensure that, before a candidate gets selected to compete in the parties' name, he or she has proven they are power-friendly. Two candidates, each vetted for obedience to power. ..."
The Democratic presidential nomination race is a fascinating case study in how power works
– not least, because the Democratic party leaders are visibly contriving to impose one
candidate, Joe Biden, as the party's nominee, even as it becomes clear that he is no longer
mentally equipped to run a local table tennis club let alone the world's most powerful
nation.
Biden's campaign is a reminder that power is indivisible. Donald Trump or Joe Biden for
president – it doesn't matter to the power-establishment. An egomaniacal man-child
(Trump), representing the billionaires, or an elder suffering rapid neurological degeneration
(Biden), representing the billionaires, are equally useful to power. A woman will do too, or a
person of colour. The establishment is no longer worried about who stands on stage
– so long as that person is not a Bernie Sanders in the US, or a Jeremy Corbyn in the
UK.
It really isn't about who the candidates are – hurtful as that may sound to some in
our identity-saturated times. It is about what the candidate might try to do once in office. In
truth, the very fact that nowadays we are allowed to focus on identity to our heart's content
should be warning enough that the establishment is only too keen for us to exhaust our energies
in promoting divisions based on those identities. What concerns it far more is that we might
overcome those divisions and unify against it, withdrawing our consent from an establishment
committed to endless asset-stripping of our societies and the planet.
Neither Biden nor Trump will obstruct the establishment, because they are at its very heart.
The Republican and Democratic leaderships are there to ensure that, before a candidate gets
selected to compete in the parties' name, he or she has proven they are power-friendly. Two
candidates, each vetted for obedience to power.
Although a pretty face or a way with words are desirable, incapacity and incompetence are no
barrier to qualifying, as the two white men groomed by their respective parties demonstrate.
Both have proved they will favour the establishment, both will pursue near-enough the
same policies , both are committed to the status quo, both have demonstrated their
indifference to the future of life on Earth. What separates the candidates is not real
substance, but presentation styles – the creation of the appearance of difference, of
choice.
Policing the debate
The subtle dynamics of how the Democratic nomination race is being rigged are interesting.
Especially revealing are the ways the Democratic leadership protects establishment power by
policing the terms of debate: what can be said, and what can be thought; who gets to speak and
whose voices are misrepresented or demonised. Manipulation of language is key.
As I pointed out in my previous post , the
establishment's power derives from its invisibility. Scrutiny is kryptonite to
power.
The only way we can interrogate power is through language, and the only way we can
communicate our conclusions to others is through words – as I am doing right now. And
therefore our strength – our ability to awaken ourselves from the trance of power –
must be subverted by the establishment, transformed into our Achilles' heel, a weakness.
The treatment of Bernie Sanders and his supporters by the Democratic establishment –
and those who eagerly repeat its talking points – neatly illustrates how this can be done
in manifold ways.
Remember this all started back in 2016, when Sanders committed the unforgivable sin of
challenging the Democratic leadership's right simply to anoint Hillary Clinton as the party's
presidential candidate. In those days, the fault line was obvious and neat: Bernie was a man,
Clinton a woman. She would be the first woman president. The only party members who might wish
to deny her that historic moment, and back Sanders instead, had to be misogynist men. They were
supposedly venting their anti-women grudge against Clinton, who in turn was presented to women
as a symbol of their oppression by men.
And so was born a meme: the "Bernie Bros". It rapidly became shorthand for suggesting
– contrary to all evidence
– that Sanders' candidacy appealed chiefly to angry, entitled white men. In fact, as
Sanders' 2020 run has amply demonstrated, support for him has been more diverse than for the
many other Democratic candidates who sought the nomination.
So important what @ewarren is saying to @maddow about the
dangerous, threatening, ugly faction among the Bernie supporters. Sanders either cannot or
will not control them. pic.twitter.com/LYDXlLJ7bi
How contrived the 2016 identity-fuelled contest was should have been clear, had anyone been
allowed to point that fact out. This wasn't really about the Democratic leadership respecting
Clinton's identity as a woman. It was about them paying lip service to her identity as a
woman, while actually promoting her because she was a reliable warmonger
and
Wall Street functionary . She was useful to power.
If the debate had really been driven by identity politics, Sanders had a winning card too:
he is Jewish. That meant he could be the United States' first Jewish president. In a fair
identity fight, it would have been a draw between the two. The decision about who should
represent the Democratic party would then have had to be decided based on policies, not
identity. But party leaders did not want Clinton's actual policies, or her political history,
being put under the microscope for very obvious reasons.
Weaponisation of identity
The weaponisation of identity politics is even more transparent in 2020. Sanders is still
Jewish, but his main opponent, Joe Biden, really is simply a privileged white man. Were the
Clinton format to be followed again by Democratic officials, Sanders would enjoy an identity
politics trump card. And yet Sanders is still being presented as just another white male
candidate , no different from Biden.
(We could take this argument even further and note that the other candidate who no one,
least of all the Democratic leadership, ever mentions as still in the race is Tulsi
Gabbard, a woman of colour. The Democratic party has worked hard to make her as
invisible as possible in the primaries because, of all the candidates, she is the most
vocal and articulate opponent of foreign wars. That has deprived her of the chance to raise
funds and win delegates.)
. @DanaPerino I'm not quite sure why
you're telling FOX viewers that Elizabeth Warren is the last female candidate in the Dem
primary. Is it because you believe a fake indigenous woman of color is "real" and the real
indigenous woman of color in this race is fake? pic.twitter.com/VKCxy2JzFe
Sanders' Jewish identity isn't celebrated because he isn't useful to the
power-establishment. What's far more important to them – and should be to us too –
are his policies, which might limit their power to wage war, exploit workers and trash the
planet.
But it is not just that Democratic Party leaders are ignoring Sanders' Jewish identity. They
are also again actively using identity politics against him, and in many different
ways.
The 'black' establishment?
Bernie Sanders' supporters have been complaining for some time – based on mounting
evidence – that the Democratic leadership is far from neutral between Sanders and Biden.
Because it has a vested interest in the outcome, and because it is the part of the
power-establishment, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is exercising its influence in
favour of Biden. And because power prefers darkness, the DNC is doing its best to exercise that
power behind the scenes, out of sight – at least, unseen by those who still rely on the
"mainstream" corporate media, which is also part of the power-establishment. As should be clear
to anyone watching, the nomination proceedings are being controlled to give Biden every
advantage and to obstruct Sanders.
But the Democratic leadership is not only dismissing out of hand these very justified
complaints from Bernie Sanders' supporters but also turning these complaints against them, as
further evidence of their – and his – illegitimacy. A new way of doing this emerged
in the immediate wake of Biden winning South Carolina on the back of strong support from older
black voters – Biden's first state win and a launchpad for his Super Tuesday bid a few
days later.
It was given perfect expression from Symone Sanders, who despite her surname is actually a
senior adviser to Biden's campaign. She is also black. This is what she wrote: "People who keep
referring to Black voters as 'the establishment' are tone deaf and have obviously learned
nothing."
People who keep referring to Black voters as "the establishment" are tone deaf and have
obviously learned nothing.
-- Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) March 3,
2020
Her reference to generic "people" was understood precisely by both sides of the debate as
code for those "Bernie Bros". Now, it seems, Bernie Sanders' supporters are not simply
misogynists, they are potential recruits to the Ku Klux Klan.
The tweet went viral, even though in the fiercely contested back-and-forth below her tweet
no one could produce a single example of anyone actually saying anything like the sentiment
ascribed by Symone Sanders to "Bernie Bros". But then, tackling bigotry was not her real goal.
This wasn't meant to be a reflection on a real-world talking-point by Bernie supporters. It was
high-level gaslighting by a senior Democratic party official of the party's own voters.
Survival of the fittest smear
What Symone Sanders was really trying to do was conceal power – the fact that the DNC
is seeking to impose its chosen candidate on party members. As occurred during the confected
women-men, Clinton vs "Bernie Bros" confrontation, Symone Sanders was field-testing a similar
narrative management tool as part of the establishment's efforts to hone it for improved
effect. The establishment has learnt – through a kind of survival of the fittest smear
– that divide-and-rule identity politics is the perfect way to shield its influence as it
favours a status-quo candidate (Biden or Clinton) over a candidate seen as a threat to its
power (Sanders).
In her tweet, Symone Sanders showed exactly how the power elite seeks to obscure its toxic
role in our societies. She neatly conflated "the establishment" – of which she is a very
small, but well-paid component – with ordinary "black voters". Her message is this:
should you try to criticise the establishment (which has inordinate power to damage lives and
destroy the planet) we will demonise you, making it seem that you are really attacking black
people (who in the vast majority of cases – though Symone Sanders is a notable exception
– wield no power at all).
Symone Sanders has recruited her own blackness and South Carolina's "black voters" as a ring
of steel to protect the establishment. Cynically, she has turned poor black people, as well as
the tens of thousands of people (presumably black and white) who liked her tweet, into human
shields for the establishment.
It sounds a lot uglier put like that. But it has rapidly become a Biden talking-point, as we
can see here:
NEW: @JoeBiden responds to @berniesanders
saying the "establishment" is trying to defeat him.
"The establishment are all those hardworking, middle class people, those African Americans
they are the establishment!" @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/43Q2Nci5sS
The DNC's wider strategy is to confer on Biden exclusive rights to speak for black voters
(despite his
inglorious record on
civil rights issues) and, further, to strip Sanders and his senior black advisers of any
right to do so. When Sanders protests about this, or about racist behaviour from the Biden
camp, Biden's supporters come out in force and often abusively, though of course no one is
upbraiding them for their ugly, violent language. Here is the famous former tennis player
Martina Navratilova showing that maybe we should be talking about "Biden Bros":
Sanders is starting to really piss me off. Just shut this kind of crap down and debate the
issues. This is not it.
This kind of special pleading by the establishment for the establishment –
using those sections of it, such as Symone Sanders, that can tap into the identity politics
zeitgeist – is far more common than you might imagine. The approach is being
constantly refined, often using social media as the ultimate focus group. Symone Sanders'
successful conflation of the establishment with "black voters" follows earlier, clumsier
efforts by the establishment to protect its interests against Sanders that proved far less
effective.
Remember how last autumn the billionaire-owned corporate media tried to tell us that it was
unkind to
criticise billionaires – that they had feelings too and that speaking harshly about
them was "dehumanising". Again it was aimed at Sanders, who had just commented that in a
properly ordered world billionaires simply wouldn't exist. It was an obvious point: allowing a
handful of people to control almost all the planet's wealth was not only depriving the rest of
us of that wealth (and harming the planet) but it gave those few billionaires way too much
power. They could buy all the media, our channels of communication, and most of the politicians
to ringfence their financial interests, gradually eroding even the most minimal democratic
protections.
That campaign died a quick death because few of us are actually brainwashed enough to accept
the idea that a handful of billionaires share an identity that needs protecting – from
us! Most of us are still connected enough to the real world to understand that billionaires are
more than capable of looking out for their own interests, without our helping them by imposing
on ourselves a vow of silence.
But one cannot fault the power-establishment for being constantly inventive in the search
for new ways to stifle our criticisms of the way it unilaterally exercises its power. The
Democratic nomination race is testing such ingenuity to the limits. Here's a new rule against
"hateful conduct" on Twitter, where Biden's neurological deficit is being subjected to much
critical scrutiny through the sharing of dozens of
videos of embarrassing Biden "senior moments".
Twitter expanding its hateful conduct rules "to include language that dehumanizes on the
basis of age, disability or disease." https://t.co/KmWGaNAG9Z
Yes, disability and age are identities too. And so, on the pretext of protecting and
respecting those identities, social media can now be scrubbed of anything and anyone trying to
highlight the mental deficiencies of an old man who might soon be given the nuclear codes and
would be responsible for waging wars in the name of Americans. Twitter is full of comments
denouncing as "ableist" anyone who tries to highlight how the Democratic leadership is foisting
a cognitively challenged Biden on to the party.
Maybe the Dem insiders are all wrong, but it's true that they are saying it. Some are
saying it out loud, including Castro at the debate and Booker here: https://t.co/0lbi7RFRqG
None of this is to overlook the fact that another variation of identity politics has been
weaponised against Sanders: that of failing to be an "American" patriot. Again illustrating how
closely the Democratic and Republican leaderships' interests align, the question of who is a
patriot – and who is really working for the "Russians" – has been at the heart of
both parties' campaigns, though for different reasons.
Trump has been subjected to endless, evidence-free claims that he is a secret "Russian
agent" in a concerted effort to control his original isolationist foreign policy impulses that
might have stripped the establishment – and its military-industrial wing – of the
right to wage wars of aggression, and revive the Cold War, wherever it believes a profit can be
made under cover of "humanitarian intervention". Trump partly inoculated himself against these
criticisms, at least among supporters, with his "Make America Great Again" slogan, and partly
by learning – painfully for such an egotist – that his presidential role was to
rubber-stamp decisions made elsewhere about waging wars and projecting US power.
I'm just amazed by this tweet, which has been tweeted plenty. Did @_nalexander and all the people
liking this not know that Mueller laid out in the indictments of a number of Russians and in
his report their help on social media to Sanders and Trump. Help Sanders has acknowledged
https://t.co/vuc0lmvvKP
Bernie Sanders has faced similar smear
efforts by the establishment, including by the DNC's last failed presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton – in his case, painting him as a "Russian asset". ("Asset" is a way to
suggest collusion with the Kremlin based on even more flimsy evidence than is needed to accuse
someone of being an agent.) In fact, in a world where identity politics wasn't simply a tool to
be weaponised by the establishment, there would be real trepidation about engaging in this kind
of invective against a Jewish socialist.
One of the far-right's favourite antisemitic tropes – promoted ever since the
publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion more than 100 years ago – is that
Jewish "Bolsheviks" are involved in an
international conspiracy to subvert the countries they live in. We have reached the point
now that the corporate media are happy to recycle evidence-free claims,
cited by the Washington Post, from anonymous "US officials" and US intelligence agencies
reinventing a US version of the Protocols against Sanders. And these smears have elicited not a
word of criticism from the Democratic leadership nor from the usual antisemitism watchdogs that
are so ready to let rip over the slightest signs of what they claim to be antisemitism on the
left.
But the urgency of dealing with Sanders may be the reason normal conventions have been
discarded. Sanders isn't a loud-mouth egotist like Trump. A vote for Trump is a vote for the
establishment, if for one of its number who pretends to be against the establishment. Trump has
been largely tamed in time for a second term. By contrast, Sanders, like Corbyn in the UK, is
more dangerous because he may resist the efforts to domesticate him, and because if he is
allowed any significant measure of political success – such as becoming a candidate for
president – it may inspire others to follow in his footsteps. The system might start to
throw up more anomalies, more AOCs and more Ilhan Omars.
So Sanders is now being cast, like Trump, as a puppet of the Kremlin, not a true American.
And because he made the serious mistake of indulging the "Russiagate" smears when they were
used against Trump, Sanders now has little defence against their redeployment against him. And
given that, by the impoverished standards of US political culture, he is considered an extreme
leftist, it has been easy to conflate his democratic socialism with Communism, and then
conflate his supposed Communism with acting on behalf of the Kremlin (which, of course, ignores
the fact that Russia long ago abandoned Communism).
Sen. Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell this to Putin -- the American people, whether
Republicans, Democrats, independents are sick and tired of seeing Russia and other countries
interfering in our elections." pic.twitter.com/ejcP7YVFlt
There is a final use of weaponised identity politics that the Democratic establishment would
dearly love to use against Sanders, if they need to and can get away with it. It is the most
toxic brand – and therefore the most effective – of the identity-based smears, and
it has been extensively field-tested in the
UK against Jeremy Corbyn to great success. The DNC would like to denounce Sanders as an
antisemite.
In fact, only one thing has held them back till now: the fact that Sanders is Jewish. That
may not prove an insuperable obstacle, but it does make it much harder to make the accusation
look credible. The other identity-based smears had been a second-best, a make-do until a way
could be found to unleash the antisemitism smear.
The establishment has been
testing the waters with implied accusations of antisemitism against Sanders for a while,
but their chances were given a fillip recently when Sanders refused to participate in the
annual jamboree of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent lobby group
whose primary mission is to ringfence Israel from criticism in the US. Both the Republican and
Democratic establishments turn out in force to the AIPAC conference, and in the past the event
has attracted keynote speeches from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
But Sanders has refused to attend for decades and maintained that stance this month, even
though he is a candidate for the Democratic nomination. In the last primaries debate, Sanders
justified his decision by rightly
calling Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a "racist" and by describing AIPAC as
providing a platform "for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights".
Trump's Vice-President, Mike Pence,
responded that Sanders supported "Israel's enemies" and, if elected, would be the "most
anti-Israel president in the history of this nation" – all coded suggestions that Sanders
is antisemitic.
But that's Mike Pence. More useful criticism came from billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who is
himself Jewish and was until last week posing as a Democrat to try to win the party's
nomination. Bloomberg accused Sanders of using dehumanising language against a bunch of
inclusive identities that, he improbably suggested, AIPAC represents. He
claimed :
"This is a gathering of 20,000 Israel supporters of every religious denomination,
ethnicity, faith, color, sexual identity and political party. Calling it a racist platform is
an attempt to discredit those voices, intimidate people from coming here, and weaken the
US-Israel relationship."
Where might this head? At the AIPAC conference last week we were given a foretaste. Ephraim
Mirvis, the chief rabbi of the UK and a friend to
Conservative government leader Boris Johnson, was warmly greeted by delegates, including
leading members of the Democratic establishment. He boasted that he and other Jewish leaders in
the UK had managed to damage Jeremy Corbyn's electoral chances by suggesting that he was an
antisemite over his support, like Sanders, for Palestinian rights.
His own treatment of Corbyn, he argued, offered a model for US Jewish organisations to
replicate against any leadership contender who might pose similar trouble for Israel, leaving
it for his audience to pick up the not-so-subtle hint about who needed to be subjected to
character assassination.
WATCH: "Today I issue a call to the Jews of America, please take a leaf out of our book
and please speak with one voice."
The Chief Rabbi speaking to the 18,000 delegates gathered at the @AIPAC General Session at their Policy
Conference in Washington DC pic.twitter.com/BOkan9RA2O
For anyone who isn't wilfully blind, the last few months have exposed the establishment
playbook: it will use identity politics to divide those who might otherwise find a united voice
and a common cause.
There is nothing wrong with celebrating one's identity, especially if it is under threat,
maligned or marginalised. But having an attachment to an identity is no excuse for allowing it
to be coopted by billionaires, by the powerful, by nuclear-armed states oppressing other
people, by political parties or by the corporate media, so that they can weaponise it to
prevent the weak, the poor, the marginalised from being represented.
It is time for us to wake up to the tricks, the deceptions, the manipulations of the strong
that exploit our weaknesses – and make us yet weaker still. It's time to stop being a
patsy for the establishment. Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jonathan Cook
"... How is it that Warren pulling out of the race is a victory for patriarchy and sexism, but Amy Klobuchar pulling out of the race is not causing grief and angst? We Midwesterners just don't get enough respect–and melodrama. ..."
"... She and her dead-end supporters are giving a good run at being the most pathetic story in a primary that includes Zombie Joe Biden ..."
"Why Elizabeth Warren lost" [Ryan Cooper, The Week].
In a press conference discussing her campaign's end, Warren said that she had not
decided yet whether to endorse anyone. "I need some space around this," she said.
Astonishing and amazing that Warren, claiming to be a "progressive", did not immediately
endorse Sanders, especially when the alternative is the hapless "Senator from MBNA", Joe
Biden. Warren also repeatedly refused to endorse Bernie in 2016, a time when the early and
enthusiastic support of a prominent woman with progressive credentials would have really
helped and perhaps been decisive in the race against Hillary Clinton.
Sanders is the best shot at a progressive US president we have seen in a century, yet
Warren apparently needs time to cogitate on the matter for some reason. I hope whatever she
ultimately gets for herself is worth it.
Bernie held out on endorsing Hillary until she signed on to his free college plan. What
concession will Warren demand? Something for the people or something for herself? Force
Bernie to make his taxes more regressive? She's a joke.
Let's suppose that the one unchangeable goal of the Democratic Party establishment is that
Bernie Sanders must not be the party's 2020 nominee. Any other realistic candidate will do,
but it must not be Bernie. Let's also suppose that by the time of the party's convention Vice
President Bden's weaknesses and unfitness have become so evident that the party simply can't
put him forward as its nominee.
Suppose that Senator Warren sees that and thinks of herself as a realistic choice for the
party to replace Biden. A veneer of leftishness, but no real threat to Wall Street. I suspect
that her entertaining that hope may explain why since suspending her campaign Senator Warren
has criticized the idea of Vice President Biden being the party's nominee, but has had
nothing favorable to say about Senator Sanders.
"You cried yesterday because you can't be POTUS then went on CNN and trashed Bernie AGAIN
(when has he ever trashed you?) by way of his supporters. BOO-HOO. You should have focused
your attention on the factory floor (working women) not the glass ceiling.
Politics is a nasty game which you have proven to be expert at. You have earned every
criticism in whatever form it comes, frankly. But because you can't be POTUS this time, you
will take your ball and go home, so there! with the emotional maturity of a 5 year old.
How is it that Warren pulling out of the race is a victory for patriarchy and sexism,
but Amy Klobuchar pulling out of the race is not causing grief and angst? We Midwesterners
just don't get enough respect–and melodrama.
Do we truly have to hear that Warren scared people because she is too competent?
(Shades of Most Qualified Hillary.) Lying about being a Native American has a whiff of
incompetence, but I'm just persnickety.
And should we collectively be pointing out that Political Sainthood, once reserved for
John McCain, now has been bestowed on Elizabeth Warren, who is starting to be inebriated with
her own scent of sanctity? In short: McCain, Warren, all maverick-y all the time.
On a positive note, is it possible that focusing on what white upper-middle-class
people want, which is the status quo, kale salads, and more brunches, is somehow not a viable
path to the presidency? As mentioned above, Warren started to slide when she announced Plans
that involved means-testing health care and means-testing day care. At least she refrained
from issuing leaf-blowers to all of us.
She and her dead-end supporters are giving a good run at being the most pathetic story in
a primary that includes Zombie Joe Biden.
Just mind-bogglingly entitled upper and upper
middle class trash. I regret ever thinking of voting for her, I regret ever hearing her name,
and I look forward to the day she endorses someone so I never have to think about her
again.
The person who read her Twitter mentions for her was on Twitter begging for Venmo
donations for, I guess, her emotional trauma. Christ I hate these people.
In 1995, Gloria Steinem, spoke of making @BernieSanders an "honorary woman" because his
advocacy for women was so strong then, and has continued strong over the decades.
exactly. Look at the prime examples of how Biden treats women in the public sphere:
treating Anita Hill like crap and nuzzling random women. And N.O.W. wants Warren to endorse
Biden? Sheesh.
And Warren wonders why she didn't get the votes. Does Warren think being a women per se
means only she is capable of going something for women. How childish.
Because when Sanders jawboned Amazon into raising wages, none of the workers who got the
raised were women.
That's because to the PMC feminists of NOW -- another NGO to euthanize given how poorly
they have performed as measured by their stated goals -- only PMC women are truly
women. The working class is an undifferentiated mass without individual identities. That is,
in fact, what the Bernie Bro " meme conveys. No female supporter of Sanders can
possibly be a real woman, and even more revealing, Sanders supporters are coded male by
default, a patriarchal semiotic that would drive NOW and its ilk, er, bananas in any other
context.
So sellout by Clinton of the Democratic Party to Wall Street proved to be durable and
sustainable...
Bernie again behaves like a sheep dog with no intention to win... "Let's be friends" is not a
viable strategy...
Notable quotes:
"... the same character traits that make him an honorable politician also make him fundamentally unsuited for the difficult task of waging a successful outsider campaign for the nomination of a major political party. ..."
"... Why hasn't Sara Nelson, head of the Flight Attendants' Union, endorsed Bernie? (Personally I have always thought she'd be a good VP.) ..."
"... Robinson is dreaming if he thinks Non-Profit Industrial Complex entities like EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood will lift a finger to help Sanders, or busines unionists like Randi Weingarten. To his credit, though, Ady Barkan switched immediately. External support, though is correct: IIRC, there are plenty of union locals to be had; the Culinary Workers should be only the first. ..."
"... "Corporate Lobbyists Control the Rules at the DNC" [ ReadSludge ]. "Among the 447 total voting DNC members, who make up the majority of 771 superdelegates, there are scores of corporate lobbyists and consultants -- including many of the 75 at-large DNC members, who were not individually elected . ..."
"... The 32-member DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee contains the following 20 individuals: a health insurance board member co-chair, three surrogates for presidential campaigns (two for Bloomberg, one for Biden), four current corporate lobbyists, two former corporate lobbyists, six corporate consultants, and four corporate lawyers." ..."
"... "Joe Biden is a friend of mine" is the 2020-updated version of "enough about the damn e-mails, already". No amount of ground-level organizing can make up for a candidate willing to publicly overlook what should be high-office-disqualifying fundamental character traits in his opponents out of "niceness". ..."
"... It's easy to do a post Super Tuesday defeat analysis of Sanders but remember, everything seems to work before SC where I think the Democrats fixed the election and the same holds for Super Tuesday. ..."
Sanders (D)(1): "Bernie Sanders needs to find the killer instinct" [Matthew Walther,
The Week ].
I've heard Useful Idiots, Dead Pundits, and the inimitable Jimmy Dore all make the same point,
but Walther's prose makes the point most forcefully (as prose often does). The situation:
There is no greater contrast imaginable than the one between the popular (and frequently
exaggerated) image of so-called "Bernie bros" and the almost painfully conciliatory instincts
of the man they support.
This was fully in evidence on Wednesday afternoon when Sanders responded to arguably the
worst defeat of his political career by chatting with journalists about how " disgusted "
he is at unspecified online comments directed at Elizabeth Warren and her supporters and what
a " decent
guy " Joe Biden is.
He did this despite the fact that Warren, with the connivance of debate moderators,
recently called him a sexist in front of an audience of millions, effectively announcing that
she had no interest in making even a tacit alliance with the only other progressive candidate
in the race and, one imagines, despite thinking that the former vice president's record on
virtually everything -- finance, health care, race relations, the environment, foreign policy
-- should render him ineligible for office.
It should go without saying that offering these pleasantries will do Sanders few if any
favors.
Lambert here: This is a Presidential primary, not the Senate floor. There is no comity.
Walther then gives a list of possible scorched earth tactics to use against Biden; we could all
make such a list. But then:
Sanders's benevolent disposition does him credit. But the same character traits that
make him an honorable politician also make him fundamentally unsuited for the difficult task
of waging a successful outsider campaign for the nomination of a major political
party.
Corbyn had the same problem...
Sanders really must not let Biden and the Democrat Establishment off the hook. He seems to
have poor judgment about his friends. Warren was no "friend." And neither is Joe Biden.
He should forget those false friends, go into the next debate, and slice Joe Biden off at
the knees. Trump would. And will, if Sander loses.
His canvassers and more importantly his millions of small donors deserve no less. The race
and the debate is now between two people, and only one can emerge the winner. Sanders needs to
decide if he wants to be that person, and then do
what it takes . (If the outcome of the Sanders campaign is a left that is a permanently
institutionalized force, distinct from liberal Democrats, I would regard that as a net
positive. If that is Sanders' ultimate goal, then fine. He's not going to achieve that goal by
being nice to Joe Biden. Quite the reverse.)
UPDATE Sanders (D)(2): "Time To Fight Harder Than We've Ever Fought Before" [Nathan J.
Robinson, Current
Affairs ].
"Biden now has some formidable advantages going forward: Democrats who no longer see him as
a failed or risky bet will finally endorse and campaign for him. He will find it easier to
raise money. He will have "momentum." Bloomberg's exit will bring him new voters.
Sanders may find upcoming states even harder to win than the Super Tuesday contests. But the
one thing that would guarantee a Sanders loss is giving up and going home, which is exactly
what Joe Biden hopes we will now do."
Here follows a laundry list of tactics. Then: "The real thing Bernie needs in order to win,
though, is external support. Labor unions, activists, lawmakers, anyone with a public platform:
We need to be pressuring them to endorse Bernie.
Why hasn't Sara Nelson, head of the Flight Attendants' Union, endorsed Bernie?
(Personally I have always thought she'd be a good VP.)
Now that Elizabeth Warren is clearly not going to win, will organizations like the Working
Families Party and EMILY's List and people like AFT president Randi Weingarten and Medicare For
All advocate Ady Barkan switch and endorse Sanders?
Where is the Sierra Club, SEIU (Bernie, after all, was one of the first national figures to
push Fight for $15), the UAW, Planned Parenthood? Many progressive organizations have been
sitting out the race because Warren was in it."
Good ideas in general, but Robinson is dreaming if he thinks Non-Profit Industrial
Complex entities like EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood will lift a finger to help Sanders,
or busines unionists like Randi Weingarten. To his credit, though, Ady Barkan switched
immediately. External support, though is correct: IIRC, there are plenty of union locals to be
had; the Culinary Workers should be only the first.
Warren (D)(1): "Why Elizabeth Warren lost" [Ryan Cooper, The Week ]. "Starting in
November, however, she started a long decline that continued through January, when she started
losing primaries . So what happened in November?
It is hard to pin down exactly what is happening in such a chaotic race, but Warren's
campaign certainly made a number of strategic errors. One important factor was surely that
Warren started backing away from Medicare-for-all, selling instead a bizarre two-step plan.
The idea supposedly was to pass universal Medicare with two different bills, one in her
first year as president and one in the third year. Given how difficult it is to pass anything
through Congress, and that there could easily be fewer Democrats in 2023 than in 2021, it was a
baffling decision. Worse, Warren then released a plan for financing Medicare-for-all that was
simply terrible.
Rather than levying a new progressive tax, she would turn existing employer contributions to
private health insurance plans into a tax on employers, which would gradually converge to an
average for all businesses but the smallest. The clear objective here was to claim that she
would pay for it without levying any new taxes on the middle or working classes. But because
those employer payments are still part of labor compensation, it is ultimately workers who pay
them -- making Warren's plan a horribly regressive head tax (that is, an equal dollar tax on
almost all workers regardless of income).
All that infuriated the left, and struck directly at Warren's branding as the candidate of
technical competence. It suggested her commitment to universal Medicare was not as strong as
she claimed, and that she would push classic centrist-style Rube Goldberg policies rather than
clean, fair ones. (Her child care plan, with its complicated means-testing system, had a
similar defect).
Claiming her plan was the only one not to raise taxes on the middle class was simply
dishonest. In sum, this was a classic failed straddle that alienated the left but gained no
support among anti-universal health care voters. More speculatively, this kind of hesitation
and backtracking may have turned off many voters." • On #MedicareForAll, called it here on
"pay for" ; and here on "transition." Warren's plans should not have been well-received,
and they were not. I'm only amazed that these really technical arguments penetrated the media
(let along the voters).
Warren (D)(2): "Warren Urged by National Organization for Women Not to Endorse Sanders: He
Has 'Done Next to Nothing for Women'" [
Newsweek ]. • Establishment really pulling out all the stops.
* * *
"Why Southern Democrats Saved Biden" [Mara Gay, New York
Times ]. (Gay was the lone member of the Times Editorial Board to endorse Sanders
.) "Through Southern eyes, this election is not about policy or personality. It's about
something much darker. Not long ago, these Americans lived under violent, anti-democratic
governments. Now, many there say they see in President Trump and his supporters the same
hostility and zeal for authoritarianism that marked life under Jim Crow .
They were deeply skeptical that a democratic socialist like Mr. Sanders could unseat Mr.
Trump. They liked Ms. Warren, but, burned by Hillary Clinton's loss, were worried that too many
of their fellow Americans wouldn't vote for a woman."
Well worth a read. At the same time, it's not clear why the Democrat Establishment hands
control over the nomination to the political establishment in states they will never win in the
general; the "firewall" in 2016 didn't work out all that well, after all. As for Jim Crow, we
might do well to remember that Obama destroyed a generation of Black wealth his miserably
inadequate response to the foreclosure crisis, and his pathetic stimulus package kept Black
unemployment high for years longer than it should have been. And sowed the dragon's teeth of
authoritarian reaction as well.
"Corporate Lobbyists Control the Rules at the DNC" [ ReadSludge
]. "Among the 447 total voting DNC members, who make up the majority of 771 superdelegates,
there are scores of corporate lobbyists and consultants -- including many of the 75 at-large
DNC members, who were not individually elected .
The 32-member DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee contains the following 20 individuals: a
health insurance board member co-chair, three surrogates for presidential campaigns (two for
Bloomberg, one for Biden), four current corporate lobbyists, two former corporate lobbyists,
six corporate consultants, and four corporate lawyers."
"Joe Biden is a friend of mine" is the 2020-updated version of "enough about the damn
e-mails, already". No amount of ground-level organizing can make up for a candidate willing to
publicly overlook what should be high-office-disqualifying fundamental character traits in his
opponents out of "niceness".
That's fine, but if his organization is then put at the disposal of Joe Biden, I don't see
how the organization survives. (That's why the DNC cheating meme* is important; it provides the
moral cover to get out of that loyalty oath (which the Sanders campaign certainly should have
had its lawyers take a look at)).
NOTE * Iowa, Texas, and California have all had major voting screw-ups, all of which
impacted Sanders voters disproportionately. The campaign should sue. They have the money.)
I once met an union organizer and he said he could go back to any site he had worked and be
on friendly terms with everyone. Bernie is thinking like an organizer. I think that making this
about Social Security is his best bet. It demolishes Biden in a way that makes the election
about the American people.
he needs to go after biden on the issues in a much more forceful manner than he typically
does, with lots and lots of specifics. did i mention lots of specifics? and lots of pointed
references to biden's past positions, and a focus on pinning him down on his position now. he
needs to ask questions biden will not be prepared for with easy scripted responses.
Perhaps if Sanders can keep successfully baiting Biden with hooks baited with Biden's own
past statements over and over and over again, that Sanders can then go on to practice some very
well disguised passive-aggressive pointing/not-pointing to Biden's mental condition by asking
Biden at every opportunity: " don't you remember that, Joe? You remember saying that, don't you
Joe? Don't you remember when you said that, Joe?"
Except 70% of Women according to Stanford finding these kind of confrontations distressing
to very distressing. Tricky. One changes emotions by using emotions so the trick here is
"allowing" Biden to act deranged and expressing sorrow over it. For 70% of guys they won't get
the emotional content, but will understand the logic of the questions and lack of answers. It
can be done, Bill Clinton and Obama were very good at this. Look you want to be president you
got to play the game at the highest level. Good practice for dealing with trump.
Timing was right for both Obama and Clinton. After the GFC voters would have gone for any
Democrat because Republicans were toxic. Similarly, it was fortuitous for Clinton because Perot
was running and he quit the race a couple of months before the election.
Obama got loads and loads of money from Wall Street. Neither of these guys would stand a
chance in an election year when the economy was doing well.
It's easy to do a post Super Tuesday defeat analysis of Sanders but remember, everything
seems to work before SC where I think the Democrats fixed the election and the same holds for
Super Tuesday.
I didn't see anyone pointing out that Bernie had to be confrontational when he seems to be
winning.
Wait. How many days ago was the field of candidates wide open?
If Bernard does not roast Biden on Social Security I will be disappointed. If Smokin' Joe
doesn't lash out with his typical aplomb, I'll be disappointed. I'm saving myself up
for bigger disappointments.
I'll be happy with the Vermont interpretation of Huey Long. I'm glad that people are finally
noticing we have one Socialist Senator.
Idea for an 'own the slur' bumper sticker: "I'm tickled pink by Bernie" -- Although I don't
know how the post-dial-up-modem crowd might misinterpret that?
I support Bernie because Bernie supports the polices I think we need to save the country:
M4A, GND,$15/hr min, free college, etc. To me, being an FDR Dem like Bernie is the moderate
position, we've done it before, we know it works. Biden's support of neoliberal polices that
have wrecked America is the extreme position.
But the DNC does not support FDR's Democracy. They have ended up to the right of Ronald
Reagan. Pelosi could have pushed a M4A bill but did not. Pelosi could have pushed any number of
polices to show how Trump is failing the working and middle class, but she did not.
So if Bernie is not picked for the general, I no longer have a reason to support the Dems,
and will stay home. Actually, I will probably not stay home, I will work to get Dems out of
office, and in general, work to burn the party to the ground. Why? Because it is in the way,
and does not support the working class or the middle class.
The Dem party has to decide – do they really support the working and middle class or
not. Because only Bernie supports those polices, and the rest of the Dems running for President
do not.
. In the spirit of charity, we should give credit where it's due: Warren really did become
the "
unity candidate " that she always proclaimed herself to be. She displayed an astounding
capacity to bring together a polarized country around their shared distaste for her
candidacy.
Compiling a complete discography of Warren's detractors would be an impossible feat, but for
the sake of partisan schadenfreude, we should briefly revisit the greatest hits. These include
the Native American tribal leaders who weren't particularly fond of a wealthy white Harvard
professor claiming their ethnicity for personal gain (even co-authoring a cooking guide titled
The Pow Wow Chow Native American Cookbook ), the Bernie Sanders supporters infuriated
by Warren's cynical attempts to paint their candidate as a woman-hating misogynist,
police unions offended by Warren's
open dishonesty about violence in law enforcement, religious conservatives who found her
contemptuous dismissal of anyone with traditionalist views of sexual morality to be in
profoundly bad taste, and pro-lifers (who still comprise
34 percent of the Democratic electorate ) for whom Warren's
radically pro-abortion policy objectives were unconscionable.
It's worth noting, of course, that this is just a small slice of the groups that found
Warren enormously unlikeable. The senator's casual-at-best relationship with the truth (
listing herself as as "woman of color" in Harvard's faculty listing,
claiming that she was fired from a teaching position for being pregnant,
refusing to admit that her various spending plans would require raising taxes on the middle
class, and so on) probably didn't help. And shockingly, her painfully contrived attempts at
catering to the woke activist base (vocal
support for reparations,
pledging to let a transgender child pick her secretary of education,
endorsing affirmative action for non-binary people) paired with her technocratically
manicured professorial wonkiness -- she's got a plan for that! -- never caught fire in the
blue-collar neighborhoods in the Midwest and South.
... ... ...
Senator Warren, we hardly knew ye.
Nate Hochman is an undergraduate student at Colorado College and a Young Voices
contributor. You can follow him at Twitter
@njhochman .
@Wally by not
dropping out and endorsing him b/f ST, after poor showing in the first 3 contests made it
clear she had no substantial and broad enough base.
My sense this morning is that Bernie might need her to get the nomination, and Biden might
need her as VP to win the election.
"... If you are holding out hope that Bernie can slay the dragon of the existing system at its belladonna roots, then be my guest. I see too many people spending their hope on Elizabeth Warren, which will only serve to suck power away from Bernie, who is the ONLY Democratic candidate movie that has the potential to actually INSPIRE voters, just as Trump does. Bernie deserves credit too for actually CHANGING the nature of the campaign conversation and who just MIGHT even begin to change it at the national level, assuming that time, tide and tyranny allow him four years safe passage to reach his pending retirement. ..."
"... In any case, after a year of endless media barrage, it is rather late now for the gods to intervene. All I would hope is that a few more of us can open our eyes to see past the silly "lesser of two evils" and "#votebluenomatterwho" memes, to the reality of how every one of these candidates serve as puppets to SOME specific mix of master control forces and thus make our choice in THAT more realistic light, rather than thinking that any of them offer "real" independent solutions or that any of their "heroic" feet are NOT already embedded knee, waist or neck-deep in the Big Muddy river of our dissolute illusions of Democracy. ..."
As people march off to the polls today to pick their
favorite political actor of the year, I hear precious few voices openly asking what seem to me
to be obvious questions, like WHO produced the movie that is their candidacy? Who directed it?
Who wrote the script? Who are the investors that will be expecting to see returns on their
investment, if their movie and their best actor should somehow win? And how far do the networks
of wealth, influence and control extend beyond those public faces inside the campaign? None of
these questions strike me as tangential; rather they are all essential.
Let's imagine for a moment that one of these actors can somehow out-thespian Trump once on
stage which is HIGHLY unlikely – even for folksy Bernie – UNLESS he can somehow win
himself 100% DNC buy-in and 24/7 mainstream "BLUE" media support. But assuming that he (or some
"brokered" candidate) wins, it will still be their production teams (along with their extended
networks) who will be making their presence felt on Day One of any new presidency. These are
the people who will be calling in the favors and calling the shots.
I recall how moved I was by Obama's 2008 election. I was buoyed with hope, because I did not
understand then what I understand now – that NO candidate can exist as an independent
entity, disconnected from the apparatus and networks that support and produce the narratives
that advance them and their agendas. I also recall the day that Obama entered the White House
and instantly handed the keys to the economy (and the recovery) back to Geithner, Summers and
Rubin – the same trio that had helped destroy it just a year earlier. And he did this at
the same moment he was filling his cabinet with the very people "suggested" in that famous
leaked letter from the CEO of Citibank. My hope departed in genie smoke at that moment, to be
followed by eight years of spineless smooth talk and wobbly action, except where the agendas of
Wall Street and pompous Empire were concerned.
Do you see how this works? The game is essentially rigged from the start by virtue of who is
allowed to enter the race, what can and what can't be said by them and by who the media is told
to shine their light on, and who to avoid. Candidates can, of course, say pretty much anything
they want (short of "Building 7, WTF!!" of course) in hopes it will spark a reaction that the
media can seize upon.
But just based on words, we know that NONE of these happy belief clowns will forcefully
oppose existing "Regime Change" plans for Venezuela, Bolivia and Syria. We know that NONE of
them will stand up to Israel – or to a Congress that is, almost to a person, in the
pocket of Israel. We know too that NONE of them will bring more than an angry flyswatter to the
battle with Wall Street or the corporations. We further know that NONE of them will do more
than make modest cuts to military spending or god forbid, call out the secret state's fiscally
unaccountable black budget operations, which by now reach into at least the 30 trillions.
Personally, I'm not FOR any candidate simply because I cannot UNSEE what it has taken me 12
years to get into focus; namely, how everyone of them are compromised by a SYSTEM that talks a
lot about FIXING what's broken, but which is simply INCAPABLE of delivering anything other than
what has been pre-ordained and decreed by the global order of oligarchs, which exists as the
"ghost in the machine" that ultimately controls every part of the political "STATE" – at
high, middle, low and especially at DEEP levels.
I will say in defense of Bernie that his production team early-on made the very unique
decision to crowd-source the campaign's costs. That was a PROFOUND decision, which has paid off
for him and which may well buy him a certain level of lubricated control over what is to come,
even though the significance of that decision is not well appreciated because the DNC and the
MSM simply refuse to discuss it in any depth.
Warren was TRYING to play the populist "people's campaign" game too, until last week when
she must have been startled awake by the "Ghost of Reagan's Past" and decided to take the money
and run as a Hillary proxy which (big surprise) was what she was all along anyway.
Let me just say this about Joe Biden. From his initial announcement, I never felt he was in
his right mind. He seems rather to be teetering on the edge of senility and fast on his way
into dementia. Also, the man has openly sold his soul so many times in his career that we
shouldn't at this point expect any unbought (or even lucid) thought to ever again escape his
remarkably loose lips. Joe might have run with the old skool Dems when he was a big deal on the
Delaware streets, but now, like Bloomberg and Romney, he's just another Republican in a pricey
blue suit.
I understand how people are feeling stressed, obsessed and desperate to get rid of Donald
Trump. It's just that until we take a collective step back and see things at the level from
which they actually operate and NOT at the level from which we are TOLD they operate, then we
will never be successful in turning our public discourse around or in beginning to identify and
eliminate the fascist and anti-human agendas that we associate with Trump, but which actually
lie behind the subservient to power policies and preferences of BOTH parties.
If you are holding out hope that Bernie can slay the dragon of the existing system at
its belladonna roots, then be my guest. I see too many people spending their hope on Elizabeth
Warren, which will only serve to suck power away from Bernie, who is the ONLY Democratic
candidate movie that has the potential to actually INSPIRE voters, just as Trump does. Bernie
deserves credit too for actually CHANGING the nature of the campaign conversation and who just
MIGHT even begin to change it at the national level, assuming that time, tide and tyranny allow
him four years safe passage to reach his pending retirement.
In any case, after a year of endless media barrage, it is rather late now for the gods
to intervene. All I would hope is that a few more of us can open our eyes to see past the silly
"lesser of two evils" and "#votebluenomatterwho" memes, to the reality of how every one of
these candidates serve as puppets to SOME specific mix of master control forces and thus make
our choice in THAT more realistic light, rather than thinking that any of them offer "real"
independent solutions or that any of their "heroic" feet are NOT already embedded knee, waist
or neck-deep in the Big Muddy river of our dissolute illusions of Democracy.
– Yet Another Useful Idiot.
Mark Petrakis is a long-time theater, event and media producer based in San Francisco. He first
broke molds with his Cobra Lounge vaudeville shows of the 90's, hosted by his alter-ego,
Spoonman. Concurrently, he took to tech when the scent was still utopian, building the first
official websites for Burning Man, the Residents and multiple other local arts groups of the
era. He worked as a consultant to a variety of corps and orgs, including 10 years with the
Institute for the Future. He is co-founder of both long-running Anon Salon monthly gatherings
and Sea of Dream NYE spectacles. Read other articles by Mark .
"... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not billing patients for coronavirus testing, according to Business Insider . "But there are other charges you might have to pay, depending on your insurance plan, or lack thereof," Business Insider noted. "A hospital stay in itself could be costly and you would likely have to pay for tests for other viruses or conditions." ..."
"... Congress needs to immediately pass a bill appropriating funding to cover 100% of the cost of all coronavirus testing & care within the United States. We will not have a chance at containing it otherwise. @tedlieu - as my rep, can you please ensure this is brought up? ..."
"... In the case of the Wucinskis, Kliff reported that "the ambulance company that transported [them] charged the family $2,598 for taking them to the hospital." ..."
"... Last week, the Miami Herald reported that Osmel Martinez Azcue "received a notice from his insurance company about a claim for $3,270" after he visited a local hospital fearing that he contracted coronavirus during a work trip to China. ..."
"... Did anyone expect the unconscionable greed of capitalism to cease when a public health crisis emerges? This is just testing for the virus, wait until a vaccine has been developed so expensive that the majority of the US populace can not afford it at all and people are dropping like flies. Wall Street, never-the-less, will continue to have its heydays ..."
"... The very idea that the defense and "Homeland" security budgets are bloated and additional funding approved year after year but the citizens of this country are not afforded 100% health coverage In a time of global health crisis that could become a pandemic. ..."
"Huge surprise medical bills [are] going to make sure people with symptoms don't get tested. That is bad for everyone." by
Jake Johnson, staff writer Public health
advocates, experts, and others are demanding that the federal government cover coronavirus testing and all related costs after several
reports detailed how Americans in recent weeks have been saddled with exorbitant bills following medical evaluations.
Sarah Kliff of the New York Times
reported Saturday
that Pennsylvania native Frank Wucinski "found a pile of medical bills" totaling $3,918 waiting for him and his three-year-old daughter
after they were released from government-mandated quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar, California.
"My question is why are we being charged for these stays, if they were mandatory and we had no choice in the matter?" asked Wucinski,
who was evacuated by the U.S. government last month from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
"I assumed it was all being paid for," Wucinski told the Times . "We didn't have a choice. When the bills showed up, it was just
a pit in my stomach, like, 'How do I pay for this?'"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not billing patients for coronavirus testing,
according
to Business Insider . "But there are other charges you might have to pay, depending on your insurance plan, or lack thereof,"
Business Insider noted. "A hospital stay in itself could be costly and you would likely have to pay for tests for other viruses or
conditions."
Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, told the Times that
"the most important rule of public health is to gain the cooperation of the population."
"There are legal, moral, and public health reasons not to charge the patients,"
Gostin said.
Congress needs to immediately pass a bill appropriating funding to cover 100% of the cost of all coronavirus testing & care
within the United States. We will not have a chance at containing it otherwise.
@tedlieu - as my rep, can you please ensure this
is brought up?
In the case of the Wucinskis, Kliff reported that "the ambulance company that transported [them] charged the family $2,598
for taking them to the hospital."
"An additional $90 in charges came from radiologists who read the patients' X-ray scans and do not work for the hospital," Kliff
noted.
The CDC declined to respond when Kliff asked whether the federal government would cover the costs for patients like the Wucinskis.
The Intercept 's Robert Mackey
wrote
last Friday that the Wucinskis' situation spotlights "how the American government's response to a public health emergency, like trying
to contain a potential coronavirus epidemic, could be handicapped by relying on a system built around private hospitals and for-profit
health insurance providers."
We should be doing everything we can to encourage people with
#COVIDー19 symptoms to come forward.
Huge surprise medical bills is going to make sure people with symptoms don't get tested. That is bad for everyone, regardless
of if you are insured. https://t.co/KOUKTSFVzD
Play this tape to the end and you find people not going to the hospital even if they're really sick. The federal government
needs to announce that they'll pay for all of these bills https://t.co/HfyBFBXhja
Last week, the Miami Herald reported
that Osmel Martinez Azcue "received a notice from his insurance company about a claim for $3,270" after he visited a local hospital
fearing that he contracted coronavirus during a work trip to China.
"He went to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he said he was placed in a closed-off room," according to the Herald . "Nurses
in protective white suits sprayed some kind of disinfectant smoke under the door before entering, Azcue said. Then hospital staff
members told him he'd need a CT scan to screen for coronavirus, but Azcue said he asked for a flu test first."
Azcue tested positive for the flu and was discharged. "Azcue's experience shows the potential cost of testing for a disease
that epidemiologists fear may develop into a public health crisis in the U.S.," the Herald noted.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, highlighted Azcue's case in a tweet last Friday.
"The coronavirus reminds us that we are all in this together," Sanders wrote. "We cannot allow Americans to skip doctor's visits
over outrageous bills. Everyone should get the medical care they need without opening their wallet -- as a matter of justice and
public health."
Last week, as Common Dreams
reported , Sanders argued that the coronavirus outbreak demonstrates the urgent need for Medicare for All.
The coronavirus reminds us that we are all in this together. We cannot allow Americans to skip doctor's visits over outrageous
bills.
Everyone should get the medical care they need without opening their wallet -- as a matter of justice and public health.
https://t.co/c4WQMDESHU
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S.
surged by more than two
dozen over the weekend, bringing the total to 89 as the Trump administration continues to
publicly downplay the severity of the outbreak.
Dr. Matt McCarthy, a staff physician at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital,
said
in an appearance on CNBC 's "Squawk Box" Monday morning that testing for the coronavirus is still not widely available.
"Before I came here this morning, I was in the emergency room seeing patients," McCarthy said. "I still do not have a rapid
diagnostic test available to me."
"I'm here to tell you, right now, at one of the busiest hospitals in the country, I don't have it at my finger tips," added
McCarthy. "I still have to make my case, plead to test people. This is not good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United
States. There are going to be hundreds by middle of week. There's going to be thousands by next week. And this is a testing issue."
Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.
Did anyone expect the unconscionable greed of capitalism to cease when a public health crisis emerges? This is just testing
for the virus, wait until a vaccine has been developed so expensive that the majority of the US populace can not afford it at
all and people are dropping like flies. Wall Street, never-the-less, will continue to have its heydays
A wall street bank or private predator may own your emergency room. A surprise bill may await your emergency treatment above
insurance payments or in some instances all of the bill.
An effort was made recently in congress to stop surprise billings but enough dems joined repubs to kill it. More important
to keep campaign dollars flowing than keep people alive.
fernSmerl 12h I know emergency rooms are being purchased by organizations like Tenet (because they are some of
the most expensive levels of care) and M.D.s provided by large agencies. I'm not as up on this as I should be but a friend of
mine tells me that some of this is illegal. I have received bills that were later discharged by challenge. This is worth investigating
further. Atlasoldie 11h Hmmmm A virus that
overwhelmingly kills the elderly and/or those with pre-exisitng conditions.
Sounds like a medical insurance companies wet dream. As well as .gov social security/medicare wet dream.
The very idea that the defense and "Homeland" security budgets are bloated and additional funding approved year after year
but the citizens of this country are not afforded 100% health coverage In a time of global health crisis that could become a pandemic.
And as has been stated, the unconscionable idea suggested that a possible vaccine (a long way away or perhaps not developed at
all) might not be affordable to the workers who pay the taxes that fund the government? That's insane.
Another example of "American Exceptionalism." China doesn't charge its coronavirus patients, neither does South Korea. I guess
they are simply backward countries.
I own my own home after years of hard work paying it off. It's the only thing of value, besides my old truck, that I have.
If I get the virus, I will stay home and try to treat it the best I can. I can't afford to go to the hospital and pay thousands in
medical bills, with the chance that they'll come after my possessions. America, the land of the _______. Fill in the blank. (Hint:
it's no longer free).
There are other ways to protect your home. Homesteading or living trust. I'm not good at this but I know there are ways to
do it. Hopefully, it would never come to that but outcomes are not certain even with treatment in this case.
As someone
who lost a mother at 5 years old I can sympathize with your grief in losing a daughter-in-law and especially seeing her four children
orphaned. However, I think you miss the point here: This is about we becoming a society invested in each others welfare and not a
company town that commodifies everything including the health and well being of us all.
As a revision it is better but flawed. It is a cost containment bill based on the same research as the republican plan with global
budgets and block grants.
Edited: I encourage you to read this: -ttps://www.rand.org/blog/2018/10/misconceptions-about-medicare-for-all.html Giovanna-Lepore10h oldie:
Part D
Higher education is not free but they do need to become free for the students and payed by us as a society.
Part D is a scam, a Republican scam also supported by corporate democrats because of its profit motive and its privatization
Medicare only covers 80% and does not cover eye and dental care and older folks especially need these services. Medicaid helps but there are limits and one cannot necessarily use it where one needs to go.
Expanded, Improved Medicare For All is a vast improvement. because it covers everyone in one big pool and, therefore, much more dignified
than the rob Paul to pay peter system we have.
Social Security too can be improved. Why should it simply be based on the income of the person which means that a person working
in a low paying job in a capitalist system gone wild with greed will often work until they die.
Pell grants can be eliminated when we have what the French have: publicly supported education for everyone.
The demise of unions certainly did not help but it was part of the long strategy of the Right to privatize everything to the enrichment
of the few.
The overall competence that Canada is handling this outbreak, compared to the USA, is stark. First world (Canada) versus third-world
(USA). Testing is practically available for free, to any suspect person, sick or not, as Toronto alone can run 1000 tests a day and
have results in 4 hours. That is far more than all the US's capacity for 330 million people.
I wonder how long before Canada closes its borders to USAns? Me and my wife (both in a vulnerable age/medical group) should seriously
consider fleeing to my brother's place in Toronto as the first announced cases in Pittsburgh are probably only days away. What about
our poor cat though? We could try to smuggle her across the border, but she is a loud and talkative kitty
Don't want to discourage anyone from any protective measures – but the
"low down" from my veggie store today was that a lot of health professionals
shop there and they think it's being hyped by media. Did get this from my NJ Sen. Menendez –
Center for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC)
There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being
exposed to this virus. However, everyday preventive actions can help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases:
Wash your hands often
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
Stay home when you are sick.
Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
For more information : htps://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/prevention-treatment.html
How it spreads : The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person. It may be possible that a person can get
COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their
eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads. [Read more.] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/transmission.html )
Symptoms : For confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases, reported illnesses have ranged from mild symptoms to
severe illness and death. Symptoms can include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.
Don't want to discourage anyone from any protective measures – but the
"low down" from my veggie store today was that a lot of health professionals
shop there and they think it's being hyped by media.
I agree it is being hyped by the media to the point of being fear mongering. At the same time it is being ignored by the administration to such an extent that really little almost nothing is being done. At some point the two together will create an even bigger problem.
It is like the old adage: "Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you." Each over/under reach in considering the reality of the situation has its own problem, which multiply when combined. Every morning when I wake up I say a little atheistic prayer to myself before I get out of bed: "Another day and for better or
worse...".
Well, two reported here in Florida tonight. One in my county, one in the county next door. And more of the "we already knew, but told you late". One person checked into the hospital on Wednesday. We hear it Monday night.
Both were ignored far a long time it seems, and 84 in particular are being watched (roommates, friends, hospital workers not alerted
for several days, the usual). But no one knows every place they had been since becoming infected.
Oh, and they have tested a handful of people. No worry?
I can't see anyway that this level of incompetency is an accident. Spring break is just starting usually a 100's of thousand tourist
bonanza.
So the question is do they want to kill us, or just keep us in fear?
I think the later. But the end result is a crap shoot. So once again, it is a gamble with our lives.
The business of America is business. Sometimes that can go too far and this is one of those times. Making money from the loss,
distress, harm and suffering of others is perverse beyond belief.
Former DNC chairman who gave Hillary Clinton debate questions in advance during the 2016
election, exclaimed on Fox News that Biden's victory was "the most impressive 72 hours
I've ever seen in U.S. politics," and told another analyst to "
go to hell " for suggesting that the Democratic establishment was once again working to
manipulate a nominee into frontrunner status.
The Democrats are in chaos and melting down on live TV.
Donna Brazile just told the @GOPChairwoman to "go to hell"
when asked about the chaos.
... Although it cannot be assumed that all her voters would have gravitated to Sanders,
certainly some would have, and with an extra ten points Bernie would have won some states he
lost. If she departs after coming in third in her home state, that will help Sanders going
forward.
Sanders performed well below the polling. Polls had him competitive in Virginia, where he
was crushed by Biden. Polls showed him winning Texas, whereas that turned into a close
race.
I knew Elizabeth Warren when I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a
right-wing Reaganite. And the University of Pennsylvania had the most progressive law
school curriculum in the country. And this is Elizabeth Warren.
And I taught a first year class called income security. Elizabeth Warren said "there is
no more ridiculous idea than national healthcare". That's the Elizabeth Warren I knew. She
was in her 30s at this time.
She was the henchwoman of the right-wing takeover to destroy the left-wing curriculum. I
taught Worker's Rights, I taught the National Labor Rights Act, which doesn't exist
anymore, for the most part, it's not taught in any law school in the United States, I
taught Income Security, and I taught Jurisprudence. Elizabeth was against all those things.
I don't really know Elizabeth Warren personally, I just know her as a right-wing
Republican. And somehow or another, God came out of the heavens and turned her into a
Democrat, probably at the very moment that Derrick Bell stepped down from Harvard because
he would not work anymore until they hired an African-American woman.
Now she couldn't pretend she was Black, so she pretended she was African. She was Native
American. That's not what we call people who are Native Americans, because they're First
Nations people. Apaches and Cherokees were nations. There's no such thing as a Native
American. Elizabeth checked that box just as Derrick Bell was stepping down. She goes to
Massachusetts and she becomes a Democrat.
There is no more [of a] relentless, ruthless, nihilist that I have ever met in my entire
life. Not Elizabeth Warren. She's right up there with Donald Trump. So I can't really
support her. She did succeed in destroying that progressive curriculum. And that
progressive curriculum is, you know, it's one of those life things that you hold onto,
right? So I don't trust Elizabeth Warren as far as I can throw her.
She has no policy, she doesn't understand imperialism, and she has said she's a
capitalist. What she really is is a technocrat who clawed her way to Harvard. I mean,
that's where you want to end up, right? If you're a law professor, you want to be at
Harvard. Ok, she did that. She succeeded.
But as President of the United States I wouldn't even dream of supporting her. Because
Bernie Sanders, whatever you think of him, like me, was chaining himself to schools to
[de]segregate them. Was protesting against the Vietnam war. There are people who have held
onto values for a lifetime, and those, Slavoj, are the people I trust.
Presumably Sanders always has known about Warren's record (it's never been obscure for
anyone who took a few minutes to look; years ago when I focused on Wall Street and
participated at the econoblogs I always knew she was a fraud), yet he's always helped
propagate the fraud that she's some kind of "progressive". Same as he's always lied about
Russiagate (he certainly knows it's a lie).
So according to the party line, Sanders wanted Warren to run in 2016 and only ran himself
after she demurred. This can only mean he preferred for her to act as the sheepdog for
Hillary, since he certainly knew she was no "progressive".
The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN! Even the fact
that Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race was devastating to Bernie and allowed Sleepy Joe to
unthinkably win Massachusetts. It was a perfect storm, with many good states remaining for
Joe!
20 minutes later, Trump tweeted that it was " So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the
race ," as she has "Zero chance of even coming close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly."
"So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will he ever speak to her again? She cost him
Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!"
So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race. She has Zero chance of even coming
close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly. So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will
he ever speak to her again? She cost him Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!
Three hours later, Trump tweeted: " Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie
Sanders would have EASILY won Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas , not to mention various other
states. Our modern day Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go
down as the all time great SPOILER! "
Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie Sanders would have EASILY won
Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, not to mention various other states. Our modern day
Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go down as the all time
great SPOILER!
Warren is a Reagan Republican. She was a Republican until she was 47 years old, which
means she lived through the Reagan years thinking 'this is fine'. She only switched in the
middle of the 1990s when the GOP had gone so far off the deep end that Clinton's center-right
New Democrats better represented her Reaganite views. She claims it was because of abuse by
banks, which doesn't make sense, since by that point it was the Democrats leading the charge
on bank deregulation.
She isn't a leftist, by any definition.
She built a reputation because of the very narrow range of finance issues she's
actually good on (the CFPB is the cornerstone of her entire progressive reputation). And in
this election she hasn't been a candidate of the left. She's run on the veneer that she is,
but like a snake she's been shedding that pretense over time, backing away from any and every
progressive policy position. Her base is white suburbanite professionals, especially women
who want to see one of their own be president.
The Warren-Sanders divide perfectly illustrates everything Marx ever wrote about the
dangers of Liberals. They aren't the Left's friend. When the revolution comes, they'll be the
first to be shot.
Benjamin: Ronald Reagan famously used to be a Democrat, lots of people forget that. He went
Republican in 1962.
Lots of people also don't know or realize how extremely likeable Reagan was as a person
when he was young, much more so for most people than Kennedy ever was or could ever be (the
Kennedy family was/is as nasty as any).
I got this link a few US election ago, Reagan was still a Democrat at this point in time:
"What's My Line -
Ronald Reagan (1953)" , it's only three and a half minutes long.
Elizabeth Warren really hurt Sanders tonight and she's getting no delegates cause her
percentages are under 15% (except in her own state that she's losing IN 3RD PLACE)! If she
had gotten out of the race Bernie would be sweeping everything for Progressives!
It's like Warren took a sledgehammer to the Progressive Movement and said: If I can't lead
it to the White House, then neither will YOU Bernie Sanders!
That's how selfish she was this week.
Thank goodness Sanders might still be able to get a majority, because BIDEN IS THE
TITANIC. Biden cannot be the Nominee, he's a walking disaster and Trump will crush him!
Thats a good one. The anunaki wouldn't even shit on Warren. The ancient south American
Indians would have found a fitting sacrifice for her type of lying, sleaze.
I have seen that
video and watch most of his posts as he has a sharp enquiring mind. Most importantly he is
comfortable to be challenged.
I discovered Robert Temple and the science of geopolymers
through one of his references.
I just can't be sympathetic with Bernie and his voters tonight. Remember how Bernie came out
to support Tulsi Gabbard when she was having such a hard time with the establishment? Neither
do I. Remember how Bernie's supporters made sure Bernie would speak the truth about
russiagate, or they weren't going to support him? Neither do I. Remember how Bernie made it
clear in every debate and every interview that the choice is endless war or medicare for all?
He didn't. Watching someone with a few leftist atoms in him being defeated in State after
State by a warmongering sociopath who belongs in a hospice with bars on the windows, is like
watching what he deserves.
People who casually tell you that Bernie is for the Empire--and not for the repair of
society-- are people trafficking in lies.
I encourage everyone to look at Bernie with a critical eye and decide for yourself.
Bernie has a history of deference to the Democratic Party and Democratic Party leaders.
All of whom are 100% pro-Empire.
'Nice guy' Bernie doesn't do anything that threatens the establishment. HE promises
revolutionary change - but that has NEVER come just from establishment Parties via the
ballot box. It has come from independent Movements.
When Bernie talks about Empire matters, he generally obfuscates or reinforces
pro-Empire narratives (like Russiagate's McCarthyism).
Anyone in political life for any length of time (like Bernie) must know that USA
is EMPIRE-FIRST. Empire priorities (military and intelligence focus; 'weaponized' liberalism;
neoliberal graft; dollar hegemony; Jihadis as a proxy army; etc.) dictate the limits of
domestic politics.
Bernie's quixotic insurgency was doomed to fail unless Bernie attacked the Democratic
Party's connection to Empire and use of identity politics to divide and conquer. Oh, and
Bernie would have to threaten to leave the Democratic Party -- but then would become the
independent Movement that Bernie and the Democratic Party have tried so hard to prevent!
No matter who comes away with the nomination, it has to be asked "was any of this process
legitimate?". We know from a plethora of examples that US elections are not fair. They border
on meaningless most of the time. The DNC's doubly so, having argued in court they have no duty
to be fair.
Any result, then, you could safely assume was contrived, for one reason or another.
If the Buttigieg-Klobuchar-Biden gambit works, we end up with Trump vs. Biden. And,
realistically, that means a second Trump term.
Biden is possibly senile and definitely creepy . Watching him shuffle and stutter
through a Presidential campaign would be almost cruel.
Politically, he has all of Hillary's weaknesses, being a big-time establishment type with a
pro-war record, without even the "I have a vagina" card to play.
He'll get massacred.
Is that the plan?
There's more than enough signs that Trump has abandoned all the policies that made him any
kind of threat to the political establishment. Four years on: no wars ended, no walls built, no
swamp drained. Just more of the same. He's an idiot who talked big and got co-opted. It
happens.
The Senate and other institutions might talk about Trump being a criminal or an idiot or a
"Nazi", but the reality is he's barely perceptibly different from any other POTUS this side of
JFK.
#TheResistance was a puppet show. A weak game played for toy money. When it really counts,
they're all in it together. Biden getting on the ticket would be a public admittance of that.
It would mean the DNC is effectively throwing the fight. Trump is a son of a bitch, but he's
their son of a bitch. And that's much better than even the idea of President
Bernie.
Does it really matter?
Empire of kaos will never move one inch to change the status quo.
The quaisi fascist state that most western /antlantacist nations have become it will make no
difference
Gianbattista Vico"Their will always be an elite class" Punto e basta.
Name me one politico that made any difference to we the sheeple in the modern era.
If someone were to mention FDR I will scream.
Aldo Moro got murdered by the deep state for only suggesting to make a pact with Berlinguer
the head of Il Partito Communista Italiano.
re ... Your house foreclosed upon by shady bank: naked capitalism, .0001% paid on interest
savings: naked capitalism, poor wages: naked capitalism, dangerous workplace: naked
capitalism, etc. ...
"naked capitalism" is not a clear description. Consider using "predatory capitalism",
which clearly describes what it is.
Here's the Wiki dictionary definition:
Predatory--
1. relating to or denoting an animal or animals preying naturally on others.
synonyms: predacious, carnivorous, hunting, raptorial, ravening;
Example: "predatory birds".
2. seeking to exploit or oppress others.
synonyms: exploitative, wolfish, rapacious, greedy, acquisitive, avaricious
Example: "I could see a predatory gleam in his eyes"
Note where the word comes from:
The Latin "praedator", in English meaning "plunderer".
And "plunderer" helps the reader understand and perhaps recognize what is happening.
For everyone puzzling over Warren's actions and intentions, this should help -- a lot.
Woke Wonk Elizabeth Warren's Foreign Policy Team is Stacked With Pro-War Swamp
Creatures
Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal – 2-26-20
"With her new list of foreign policy advisors, Warren unveiled a cast of pro-war think
tankers, Cold Warriors and corporate careerists united in support of the Beltway consensus.
So much for 'big, structural change'."
"... Biden and Warren are both enthusiastic supporters of neocon foreign policy which is in line with their phony support for the working class. What happened to Warren's glittering M4A plan? It turned back into a pumpkin didn't it? It was all smoke and mirrors. No surprise if you know her history. ..."
"... Imperial Borg Assimilation ..."
"... The Foreign Policy Establishment ..."
"... Warren is an establishment social climber. She took off the mask and her true colors shone through when she viciously attacked Bernie Sanders as a misogynist. Yet still many people surrounding the Sander's campaign support Warren. Why is that? Big money on the left supports her, that's why. That big money also pays a lot of salaries in the liberal political job market. Have you heard of the The Democracy Alliance ? ..."
"... Why do so many liberals or even progressives dislike Tulsi and are so eager to see her gone? Propaganda from the media. The media for a year has relentlessly promoted Red Baiting towards Tulsi because Tulsi challenges the "Washington Consensus" (unfettered elite rule over America and the world with an iron fist). ..."
"... Everyone in the pro-Israel lobby (myself included) is already talking about how to make sure that Tulsi Gabbard's campaign is over before it even gets off the ground -- If you're going to bet on a Dem candidate, look elsewhere. ..."
"... There are many reasons behind that. The main reason though is Tulsi trying to stop war. The Neocons and Saudis have been pushing American politicians, celebrities, media owners, think tanks, foundations and so on for years -- to destroy Syria. Supposedly because Syria is close allies with Iran. ..."
As I was checking the news earlier today
I noticed that the coronavirus had killed another top government official in Iran, bringing the total to 3. Or at
least the 3 they have released info on. There's a chance it's worse among the Iranian leadership but they don't
want to cause a panic. I checked the Twitterverse after that for my daily dose of madness and surprisingly kept
seeing people ask rhetorically:
Why is Tulsi Gabbard still in the
primary race?
Turns out that Amy "She Hulk" Klobuchar
had dropped out of the primary race apparently to suck up to Joe Biden for a VP slot. And so had Pete "Honestly
I'm Not Annoying" Buttigigieididisjjd. This of course should surprise no one since the threat of Bernie Sanders to
the financial criminal syndicates greasing the palms of practically all politicians and media to do their bidding
have seen the writing on the wall. They realize they need candidates to drop out in order to coalesce centrist
votes around one or two to stop what they perceive to be a huge problem for them in Bernie Sanders.
... ... ...
Biden and Warren are both enthusiastic
supporters of neocon foreign policy which is in line with their phony support for the working class. What happened
to Warren's glittering M4A plan? It turned back into a pumpkin didn't it? It was all smoke and mirrors. No
surprise if you know her history.
Did you see her on Pod Save America regaling us with how much she believes in
crippling countries by sanctions if they dare to resist the racist
Imperial Borg Assimilation
Machine
aka
The Foreign Policy Establishment
?
That doesn't sound woke to me Miss Thang
.
Warren is an establishment social
climber. She took off the mask and her true colors shone through when she viciously attacked Bernie Sanders as a
misogynist. Yet still many people surrounding the Sander's campaign support Warren. Why is that? Big money on the
left supports her, that's why. That big money also pays a lot of salaries in the liberal political job market.
Have you heard of the
The Democracy Alliance
?
The Democracy Alliance is a
semi-anonymous donor network funded primarily by none other than Democratic mega-donor George Soros. Since its
inception in 2005, it is estimated the Alliance has injected over $500 million to Democratic causes. While it
isn't typical that they would endorse a candidate outright, they focus more on formulating a catalog of
organizations and PACs that they recommend the network of about 100 or so millionaires and billionaires invest
in. Democracy Alliance almost literally have their hands in every major left-leaning institution you have (and
haven't) heard of -- John Podesta and Neera Tanden's Center for American Progress, David Brock's Media Matters,
Center for Popular Democracy, Demos (we'll come back to this one), and the Working Families Party. All of these
organizations are listed on the Alliance's website as recommended investments for it's members; and invest they
do. Here's the rub: Democracy Alliance's membership isn't made entirely public -- but we know enough that alot
of the people that have sat in the highest levels of that organization have an affinity for Elizabeth Warren.
... ... ...
Why do so many liberals or even
progressives dislike Tulsi and are so eager to see her gone? Propaganda from the media. The media for a year has
relentlessly promoted Red Baiting towards Tulsi because Tulsi challenges the "Washington Consensus" (unfettered
elite rule over America and the world with an iron fist).
That is why we got this from Jacob Wohl
after Tulsi declared her candidacy last year:
Everyone in the pro-Israel lobby
(myself included) is already talking about how to make sure that Tulsi Gabbard's campaign is over before it
even gets off the ground -- If you're going to bet on a Dem candidate, look elsewhere.
There are many reasons behind that. The
main reason though is Tulsi trying to stop war. The Neocons and Saudis have been pushing American politicians,
celebrities, media owners, think tanks, foundations and so on for years -- to destroy Syria. Supposedly because
Syria is close allies with Iran.
But they are not the only ones who want
Syria destroyed. Other reasons may have to do with massive profits at stake. A natural gas survey team from Norway
some years ago discovered that Syria has the largest
untapped deposits of natural gas in the world
. After that secret discovery became known by various powerful
people
plans were drawn up to split
up the profits after the destruction of the Syrian government. But after Syria
asked Russia for help that changed their plans.
She is not having our country
become a plaything for rich a-holes who use the lives and limbs of service members for their greedy
scams. Because of that the idle rich sociopaths ruling America with their political and media henchmen
went after Tulsi with a full barrage of lies
, media blackouts, and massive amounts of propaganda --
all to stop her message from getting out so they can create a false image of her in people's minds.
Everything and anything they can throw at her, they do.
There are two politicians whom
they fear. Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Which is why Bernie Sanders has unsurprisingly been trying
to stay out of the foreign policy debate, or he even goes along with the establishment for the most part.
He saw what they unleashed against Tulsi. He knows from long experience that propaganda works on a lot of
people. The financial elites are not naive though, they probably believe he is going along with their
ridiculous foreign policy as a political strategy -- until he gains more power. They fear that if he gains
that power he will, like Tulsi, not go along with their imperial stormtrooper agenda.
It took a rabid nationalist like Donald Trump to end the war in Afghanistan , whereas
faithful neoliberal Barack Obama kept the war around because it provided "markets" for weapons
corporations.
This is like a new gangster who takes control of a neighborhood and reduces the required
weekly protection payment. Hurray For Less Extortion!
Hey Bernie, how about throw away the JCPOA, restore normal diplomatic and commercial
relations, and apologize for 40 years of economic warfare?
But that will never happen, because the Dummycrat policy is to destroy Iran for the crime
of existence. How is it the Bernie people don't notice that Bernie always caucuses with the
Dummycrats in Congress and is running on the Dummycrat ticket? We are supposed to believe
that someone elected on the Dummycrat ticket won't follow Dummycrat party polices?
We are supposed to believe that someone elected on the Dummycrat ticket won't follow
Dummycrat party polices?
The way American electoral politics works, Sanders doesn't really have a choice except to
try and steal the Democratic party's ballot line. An independent bid would split the left
vote and make it impossible to win the general election, which is winner take all.
At least that's what his supporters say. I think there's a grain of truth there. If Bernie
wants to win, and not merely be a protest candidate, he has to take the ballot line of the
party with the most left-wing voters, and that's not the Republican party.
In the mid-1980s, Rony Brauman, who, at the time, was the president of the leading
humanitarian organization Médecins sans Frontières, established a new human
rights group called Liberté sans Frontières. For the inaugural colloquium,
Brauman invited a number of speakers, among them Peter Bauer, a recently retired professor from
the London School of Economics. Bauer was an odd choice given that he was a staunch defender of
European colonialism; he had once responded to a student pamphlet that accused the British of
taking "the rubber from Malaya, the tea from India, [and] raw materials from all over the
world," by arguing that actually "the British took the rubber to Malaya and the tea to India."
Far from the West causing Third World poverty, Bauer maintained that "contacts with the West"
had been the primary agents of the colonies' material progress.
Bauer hammered on this point at the colloquium, claiming that indigenous Amazonians were
among the poorest people in the world precisely because they enjoyed the fewest "external
contacts." Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, he continued, showed proof of the
economic benefits such contacts brought. "Whatever one thinks of colonialism it can't be held
responsible for Third World poverty," he argued.
In her illuminating new book, "The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of
Neoliberalism," Jessica Whyte recounts this story only to ask why Brauman, a leading
humanitarian activist, invited Bauer -- whom The Economist had described as being as hostile to
foreign aid as Friedrich Hayek had been to socialism -- to deliver a talk during the opening
event for a new human rights organization. Her response is multifaceted, but, as she traces the
parallel histories of neoliberalism and human rights, it becomes clear that the two projects
are not necessarily antithetical, and actually have more in common than one might think.
Clickhereto read long excerpts from "The Morals of the Market" at Google
Books.
Indeed, Liberté sans Frontières went on to play a central role in
delegitimizing Third World accounts of economic exploitation. The organization incessantly
challenged the accusations that Europe's opulence was based on colonial plunder and that the
world economic system made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And while it may have been more
outspoken in its critique of Third Worldism than more prominent rights groups, it was in no way
an outlier. Whyte reveals that in the eyes of organizations such as Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch, for instance, the major culprit for the woes of postcolonial states was
neither Europe nor the international economic order but rather corrupt and ruthless Third World
dictators who violated the rights of their populations as they undermined the development of a
free economy. This approach coincides neatly with neoliberal thought.
Whyte contends that we cannot understand why human rights and neoliberalism flourished
together if we view neoliberalism as an exclusively economic doctrine that favors
privatization, deregulation, and unfettered free markets over public institutions and
government. Although she strives to distinguish herself from thinkers like Wendy Brown and
Michel Foucault, she ends up following their footsteps by emphasizing the moral dimension of
neoliberal thought: the idea that a competitive market was not "simply a more efficient means
of distributing resources; it was the basic institution of a moral and 'civilised' society, and
a necessary support for individual rights."
She exposes how neoliberal ideas informed the intense struggle over the meaning of "human
rights," and chronicles how Western rights groups and neoliberals ultimately adopted a similar
interpretation, one that emphasizes individual freedoms at the expense of collective and
economic rights. This interpretation was, moreover, in direct opposition to many newly
independent postcolonial leaders.
Whyte describes, for instance, how just prior to the adoption of the two 1966 human rights
covenants -- the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of
independent Ghana, coined the term "neo-colonialism" to refer to a series of mechanisms that
perpetuate colonial patterns of exploitation in the wake of formal independence. Nkrumah
"argued that the achievement of formal sovereignty had neither freed former colonies from the
unequal economic relations of the colonial period nor given them political control over their
own territories," thus preventing these states from securing the basic rights of their
inhabitants. A "state in the grip of neo-colonialism," he wrote, "is not master of its own
destiny."
Nkrumah thought that only when postcolonial states fully controlled their natural resources
would they be able to invest in the population's well-being. In the meantime, neo-colonial
economic arrangements were denying African states the ability to provide adequate education and
health care as well as other economic and social rights to their populations, thus revealing
how these economic arrangements were welded in a Gordian knot with international politics. Any
attempt to understand one without the other provided a distorted picture of reality.
Such combining of the economy with the political, however, was anathema to neoliberal
thought. In 1927, exactly three decades before Ghana's new leader led his country to
independence, Hayek's mentor, economist Ludwig von Mises, had already argued that colonialism
took advantage of the superior weaponry of the "white race" to subjugate, rob, and enslave
weaker peoples. But Mises was careful to distinguish colonial oppression from the economic
goals of a competitive market, noting that Britain was different since its form of colonialism
pursued "grand commercial objectives." Similarly, the British economist Lionel Robbins
separated the benign economic sphere from the merciless political one, writing in the 1930s
that "[n]ot capitalism, but the anarchic political organization of the world is the root
disease of our civilization."
These thinkers set the tone for many neoliberal economists who have since defined colonial
imperialism as a phenomenon of politics, not capitalism, while casting the market as a realm of
mutually beneficial, free, peaceful exchange. In this view, it is the political realm that
engenders violence and coercion, not the economic sphere. Yet, during the period of
decolonization neoliberals also understood that they needed to introduce moral justifications
for the ongoing economic exploitation of former colonies. Realizing that human rights were
rapidly becoming the new lingua franca of global moral speak, Whyte suggests that they, like
Nkrumah, began mobilizing rights talk -- except that neoliberals deployed it as a weapon
against states who tried to gain control over their country's natural resources as well as a
shield from any kind of criticism directed toward their vision of a capitalist market.
Their relation to the state was complicated, but was not really different from the one
espoused by their liberal predecessors. Neoliberal thinkers understood that states are
necessary to enforce labor discipline and to protect corporate interests, embracing states that
served as handmaidens to competitive markets. If, however, a state undermined the separation of
political sovereignty from economic ownership or became attuned to the demands of its people to
nationalize resources, that state would inevitably be perceived as a foe. The solution was to
set limits on the state's exercise of sovereignty. As Friedrich Hayek, the author of "The Road
to Serfdom," put it, the "taming of the savage" must be followed by the "taming of the
state."
Shaping the state so that it advances a neoliberal economic model can, however, be a brutal
undertaking, and the consequences are likely to generate considerable suffering for large
segments of the population. Freed from any commitment to popular sovereignty and economic
self-determination, the language of liberal human rights offered neoliberals a means to
legitimize transformative interventions that would subject states to the dictates of
international markets. This is why a conception of human rights, one very different from the
notion of rights advanced by Nkrumah, was needed.
In Whyte's historical analysis the free-market ideologues accordingly adopted a lexicon of
rights that buttressed the neoliberal state, while simultaneously pathologizing mass politics
as a threat to individual freedoms. In a nutshell, neoliberal economists realized that human
rights could play a vital role in the dissemination of their ideology, providing, in Whyte's
words, "competitive markets with a moral and legal foundation."
At about the same time that neoliberalism became hegemonic, human rights organizations began
sprouting in the international arena. By the early 1970s, Amnesty International and the
International Commission of Jurists were already active in numerous countries around the globe,
and Americas Watch (a precursor to Human Rights Watch) had just been established. According to
Samuel Moyn, a professor of history at Yale and author of the best seller "The Last Utopia," it
was precisely during this period that human rights first achieved global prominence. That
Western human rights organizations gained influence during the period of neoliberal
entrenchment is, Whyte argues, not coincidental.
Although Whyte emphasizes the writings of leading neoliberal thinkers, a slightly more
nuanced approach would have framed these developments as the reflection of a conjunctural
moment, whereby the rise of neoliberalism and of human rights NGOs was itself part of numerous
economic, social, and cultural shifts. Chile serves as a good example of this conjuncture,
revealing how a combination of historical circumstances led neoliberal economics and a certain
conception of human rights to merge.
Notwithstanding the bloody takeover, the extrajudicial executions, the disappearances and
wholesale torture of thousands of dissidents, Hayek's response to Pinochet's 1973 coup was that
"the world shall come to regard the recovery of Chile as one of the great economic miracles of
our time." Milton Friedman, a key figure in the Chicago School, later echoed this assessment,
describing Chile as an economic and political "miracle." The two Nobel Prize winners were not
detached observers, having provided advice to Pinochet on how to privatize state services such
as education, health care, and social security, and it was Friedman's former students, the
"Chicago Boys," who occupied central positions within the authoritarian regime, ensuring that
these ideas became policy.
What is arguably even more surprising is the reaction of human rights organizations to the
bloody coup in Chile. Whyte acknowledges that Naomi Klein covered much of this ground in "The
Shock Doctrine," where she details how Amnesty International obscured the relationship between
neoliberal "shock therapy" and political violence. Characterizing the Southern Cone as a
"laboratory" for both neoliberalism and grassroots human rights activism, Klein argued that, in
its commitment to impartiality, Amnesty occluded the reasons for the torture and killing, and
thereby "helped the Chicago School ideology to escape from its first bloody laboratory
virtually unscathed." While Whyte concurs with Klein's assessment, she has a slightly different
point to make.
To do so, she shows how Samuel Moyn contested Klein's claim that the human rights movement
was complicit in the rise of neoliberalism; he argued that the "chronological coincidence of
human rights and neoliberalism" is "unsubstantiated" and that the so-called "Chilean miracle"
is just as much due to the country's "left's own failures." Moyn's comment, Whyte cogently
observes, "raises the question of why, in the period of neoliberal ascendancy, international
human rights organisations flourished, largely escaping the repression that was pursued so
furiously against leftists, trade unionists, rural organizers and indigenous people in
countries such as Chile."
She points out that the CIA-trained National Intelligence Directorate had instructions to
carry out the "total extermination of Marxism," but in an effort to present Chile as a modern
civilized nation, the junta did not disavow the language of human rights, and at the height of
the repression allowed overseas human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and
the International Commission of Jurists to enter the country, giving them extensive freedom of
movement.
Whyte explains that in focusing their attention on state violence while upholding the market
as a realm of freedom and voluntary cooperation, human rights NGOs strengthened the great
neoliberal dichotomy between coercive politics and free and peaceful markets. Allende's
government had challenged the myth of the market as a realm of voluntary, non-coercive, and
mutually beneficial relations, and the Chilean leader paid for it with his life. By contrast,
the junta with the Chicago Boys' aid sought to uphold this myth, while using the state both to
enhance a neoliberal economic order and to decimate collective political resistance. Whyte
acknowledges that in challenging the junta's torturous means, human rights NGOs arguably helped
restrain the worst of its violence, but they did so at the cost of abandoning the economy as a
site of political contestation.
Whyte's claim is not simply that the human rights NGOs dealt with political violence in
isolation from the country's economic transformations, as Klein had argued. Rather, she shows
that the gap between Amnesty's version of human rights and the version espoused by postcolonial
leaders, like Nkrumah, was wide. Indeed, Amnesty International invoked human rights in a way
that had little in common with Nkrumah's program of economic self-determination, and the
organization was even hostile to the violent anti-colonial struggles promoted by UN diplomats
from postcolonial societies during the same period. The story of human rights and neoliberalism
in Chile is not, as Whyte convincingly shows, simply a story of the massive human rights
violations carried out in order to allow for market reforms, or of the new human rights NGOs
that contested the junta's violence. It is also the story of the institutionalization of a
conservative and market-driven vision of neoliberal human rights, one that highlights
individual rights while preserving the inequalities of capitalism by protecting the market from
the intrusions of "the masses."
Expanding Whyte's analysis to the present moment (the book focuses on the years between 1947
and 1987) while thinking of the relation between neoliberalism and human rights as part of a
historical conjuncture, it becomes manifest that many if not most human rights NGOs operating
today have been shaped by this legacy. One of its expressions is that rights groups rarely
represent "the masses" in any formal or informal capacity. Consider Human Rights Watch, whose
longstanding executive director Kenneth Roth oversees an annual budget of over $75 million and
a staff of roughly 400 people. In four years' time, Roth will outstrip Robert Mugabe's 30-year
tenure in office; while Roth has dedicated most of his adult life struggling against social
wrongs, he has never had to compete in elections to secure his post. Indeed, due to the
corporate structure of his organization the only constituency to which he is accountable are
Human Rights Watch's board members and donors -- those who benefit from neoliberal economic
arrangements -- rather than the people whose rights the NGO defends or, needless to say, the
"masses." Moreover, Human Rights Watch is not exceptional within the rights-world, and even
though rights organizations across the globe say they are interested in what the "people want,"
sovereignty of the people in any meaningful sense, wherein the people can control the decisions
that affect their lives most, is not really on the agenda.
Undoubtedly, Human Rights Watch has shed light on some of the most horrendous state crimes
carried out across the globe over the past several decades. Exposing egregious violations is
not an easy task and is a particularly important endeavor in our post-truth era. However,
truth-telling, in and of itself, is not a political strategy. Even if exposing violations is
conceived of as a component of a broader political mobilization, the truths that NGOs like
Human Rights Watch have been revealing are blinkered. Given that they interpret human rights in
an extremely narrow way, one that aligns quite neatly with neoliberal thought, their strategy
therefore fails to provide tools for those invested in introducing profound and truly
transformative social change.
From the get-go, most Western human rights NGOs had been attuned to Cold War politics and
refrained from advocating for economic and social rights for decades, inventing numerous
reasons to justify this stance: from the claim that the right to education and health care were
not basic human rights like freedom of speech and freedom from torture, to the assertion that
economic and social rights lacked a precise definition, thus rendering them difficult to
campaign for. It took close to a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ongoing
campaigning of Third World activists for the leading human rights organizations to acknowledge
that economic and social rights, such as the right to health care, education, and social
security, were indeed human rights, rights that they should dedicate at least some of its
resources to fight for. But even today, almost 20 years after their integration within Human
Rights Watch's agenda, the resources allocated to the protection of these rights is relatively
small, and the way that the organization strives to secure them is deeply skewed by the
neoliberal view that politics and markets are separate realms and that human rights work should
avoid interference with the capitalist structure of competitive markets. Wittingly or not,
organizations like Human Rights Watch have not only bolstered the neoliberal imagination, but
have produced a specific arsenal of human rights that shapes social struggles in a way that
weakens those who aim to advance a more egalitarian political horizon.
Several years ago, Roth tried to justify Human Rights Watch's approach, claiming that the
issues it deals with are determined by its "methodology," and that the "essence of that
methodology [ ] is not the ability to mobilize people in the streets, to engage in litigation,
to press for broad national plans, or to provide technical assistance. Rather, the core of our
methodology is our ability to investigate, expose, and shame." The hallmark of human rights
work, in his view, is uncovering discrimination, while the unequal arrangement of the local and
international economy leading to discrimination are beyond the organization's purview. Not
unlike the neoliberal thinkers discussed in Whyte's book, Human Rights Watch limits its
activism to formal equality, adopting a form of inquiry that ignores and ultimately disavows
the structural context, which effectively undercuts forms of collective struggle.
Returning to Rony Brauman and the creation of Liberté sans Frontières, toward
the end of the book Whyte recounts how in a 2015 interview he understood things differently
than he had in the mid-1980s. "I see myself and the small group that I brought together as a
kind of symptom of the rise of neoliberalism [ ] We had the conviction that we were a kind of
intellectual vanguard, but no," he laughed, "we were just following the rising tendency."
Whyte suggests that this assessment is, if anything, too modest: rather than being a
symptom, the humanitarians who founded Liberté sans Frontières explicitly
mobilized the language of human rights in order to contest the vision of substantive equality
that defined the Third Worldist project. Brauman and his organization benefited from the
neo-colonial economic arrangements and, she notes,
were not powerless companions of the rising neoliberals, but active, enthusiastic and
influential fellow travellers. Their distinctive contribution was to pioneer a distinctly
neoliberal human rights discourse, for which a competitive market order accompanied by a
liberal institutional structure was truly the last utopia.
The destructive legacy that Whyte so eloquently describes suggests that the convergence
between neoliberals and rights practitioners has defanged human rights from any truly
emancipatory potential. Formal rights without the redistribution of wealth and the
democratization of economic power, as we have learned not only from the ongoing struggles of
postcolonial states but also from the growing inequality in the Global North, simply do not
lead to justice. So if the objectives of a utopian imagination include equitable distribution
of resources and actual sovereignty of the people, we urgently need a new vocabulary of
resistance and novel methods of struggle.
Mr.
Fish / Truthdig
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the product of ancient ethnic hatreds. It is the tragic clash
between two peoples with claims to the same land. It is a manufactured conflict, the outcome of a
100-year-old colonial occupation by
Zionists
and later Israel, backed by the British, the United States and other major imperial powers. This project
is about the ongoing seizure of Palestinian land by the colonizers. It is about the rendering of the
Palestinians as non-people, writing them out of the historical narrative as if they never existed and
denying them basic human rights. Yet to state these incontrovertible facts of Jewish colonization --
supported by innumerable official reports and public and private communiques and statements, along with
historical records and events -- sees Israel's defenders level charges of anti-Semitism and racism.
Rashid Khalidi
, the
Edward Said
professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, in his book "
The
Hundred Years' War on Palestine
: A History of Settler Colonization and Resistance, 1917-2017" has
meticulously documented this long project of colonization of Palestine. His exhaustive research, which
includes internal, private communications between the early Zionists and Israeli leadership, leaves no
doubt that the Jewish colonizers were acutely aware from the start that the Palestinian people had to be
subjugated and removed to create the Jewish state. The Jewish leadership was also acutely aware that its
intentions had to be masked behind euphemisms, the patina of biblical legitimacy by Jews to a land that
had been Muslim since the seventh century, platitudes about human and democratic rights, the supposed
benefits of colonization to the colonized and a mendacious call for democracy and peaceful co-existence
with those targeted for destruction.
"This is a unique colonialism that we've been subjected to where they have no use for us," Khalidi
quotes Said as having written. "The best Palestinian for them," Said wrote, "is either dead or gone. It's
not that they want to exploit us, or that they need to keep us there in the way of Algeria or South
Africa as a subclass."
Zionism was birthed from the evils of anti-Semitism. It was a response to the discrimination and
violence inflicted on Jews, especially during the savage
pogroms
in Russia and Eastern Europe in the
late 19th century and early 20th century that left thousands dead. The Zionist leader Theodor Herzl in
1896 published "Der Judenstaat," or "The Jewish State," in which he warned that Jews were not safe in
Europe, a warning that within a few decades proved terrifyingly prescient with the rise of German
fascism.
Britain's support of a Jewish homeland was always colored by anti-Semitism. The 1917 decision by the
British Cabinet, as stated in the
Balfour Declaration
, to
support "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" was a principal part of
a misguided endeavor based on anti-Semitic tropes. It was undertaken by the ruling British elites to
unite "international Jewry" -- including officials of Jewish descent in senior positions in the new
Bolshevik state in Russia -- behind Britain's flagging military campaign in World War I. The British
leaders were convinced that Jews secretly controlled the U.S. financial system. American Jews, once
promised a homeland in Palestine, would, they thought, bring the United States into the war and help
finance the war effort. To add to these bizarre anti-Semitic canards, the British believed that Jews and
Dönmes -- or "crypto-Jews" whose ancestors had converted to Christianity but who continued to practice the
rituals of Judaism in secret -- controlled the Turkish government. If the Zionists were given a homeland
in Palestine, the British believed, the Jews and Dönmes would turn on the Turkish regime, which was
allied with Germany in the war, and the Turkish government would collapse. World Jewry, the British were
convinced, was the key to winning the war.
"With 'Great Jewry' against us," warned Britain's Sir
Mark Sykes
, who with the French diplomat François
Georges-Picot created the secret treaty that carved up the
Ottoman Empire
between Britain and France,
there would be no possibility of victory. Zionism, Sykes said, was a powerful global subterranean force
that was "atmospheric, international, cosmopolitan, subconscious and unwritten, nay often unspoken."
The British elites, including Foreign Secretary
Arthur Balfour
, also believed that Jews could never be assimilated in British society and it was
better for them to emigrate. It is telling that the only Jewish member of Prime Minister David Lloyd
George's government, Edwin Montagu, vehemently opposed the Balfour Declaration. He argued that it would
encourage states to expel its Jews. "Palestine will become the world's ghetto," he warned.
This turned out to be the case after World War II when hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, many
rendered stateless, had nowhere to go but Palestine. Often, their communities had been destroyed during
the war or their homes and land had been confiscated. Those Jews who returned to countries like Poland
found they had nowhere to live and were often victims of discrimination as well as postwar anti-Semitic
attacks and even massacres.
The European powers dealt with the Jewish refugee crisis by shipping victims of the Holocaust to the
Middle East. So, while leading Zionists understood that they had to uproot and displace Arabs to
establish a homeland, they were also acutely aware that they were not wanted in the countries from which
they had fled or been expelled. The Zionists and their supporters may have mouthed slogans such as "a
land without a people for a people without a land" in speaking of Palestine, but, as the political
philosopher Hannah Arendt observed, European powers were attempting to deal with the crime carried out
against Jews in Europe by committing another crime, one against Palestinians. It was a recipe for endless
conflict, especially since giving the Palestinians under occupation full democratic rights would risk
loss of control of Israel by the Jews.
Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the godfather of the right-wing ideology that has dominated Israel since 1977, an
ideology openly embraced by Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and
Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote bluntly in 1923: "Every native population in the world resists colonists as
long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is
what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a
solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of 'Palestine' into the 'Land
of Israel.' "
This kind of public honesty, Khalidi notes, was rare among leading Zionists. Most of the Zionist
leaders "protested the innocent purity of their aims and deceived their Western listeners, and perhaps
themselves, with fairy tales about their benign intentions toward the Arab inhabitants of Palestine," he
writes. The Zionists -- in a situation similar to that of today's supporters of Israel -- were aware it
would be fatal to acknowledge that the creation of a Jewish homeland required the expulsion of the Arab
majority. Such an admission would cause the colonizers to lose the world's sympathy. But among themselves
the Zionists clearly understood that the use of armed force against the Arab majority was essential for
the colonial project to succeed. "Zionist colonization can proceed and develop only under the
protection of a power that is independent of the native population -- behind an iron wall, which the
native population cannot breach," Jabotinsky wrote.
The Jewish colonizers knew they needed an imperial patron to succeed and survive. Their first patron
was Britain, which sent 100,000 troops to crush the Palestinian revolt of the 1930s and armed and trained
Jewish militias known as the Haganah. The savage repression of that revolt included wholesale executions
and aerial bombardment and left 10% of the adult male Arab population killed, wounded, imprisoned or
exiled. The Zionists' second patron became the United States, which now, generations later, provides
more than $3 billion a year
to Israel. Israel,
despite the myth of self-reliance it peddles about itself, would not be able to maintain its Palestinian
colonies but for its imperial benefactors. This is why the
boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
frightens Israel. It is also why I support the BDS
movement.
The early Zionists bought up huge tracts of fertile Palestinian land and drove out the indigenous
inhabitants. They subsidized European Jewish settlers sent to Palestine, where 94% of the inhabitants
were Arabs. They created organizations such as the Jewish Colonization Association, later called the
Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, to administer the Zionist project.
But, as Khalidi writes, "once colonialism took on a bad odor in the post-World War II era of
decolonization, the colonial origins and practice of Zionism and Israel were whitewashed and conveniently
forgotten in Israel and the West. In fact, Zionism -- for two decades the coddled step-child of British
colonialism -- rebranded itself as an anticolonial movement."
"Today, the conflict that was engendered by this classic nineteenth-century European colonial venture
in a non-European land, supported from 1917 onward by the greatest Western imperial power of its age, is
rarely described in such unvarnished terms," Khalidi writes. "Indeed, those who analyze not only Israeli
settlement efforts in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, but the entire
Zionist enterprise from the perspective of its colonial settler origins and nature are often vilified.
Many cannot accept the contradiction inherent in the idea that although Zionism undoubtedly succeeded in
creating a thriving national entity in Israel, its roots are as a colonial settler project (as are those
of other modern countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Nor can they accept
that it would not have succeeded but for the support of the great imperial powers, Britain and later the
United States. Zionism, therefore, could be and was both a national and a colonial settler movement at
one and the same time."
One of the central tenets of the Zionist and Israeli colonization is the denial of an authentic,
independent Palestinian identity. During the British control of Palestine, the population was officially
divided between Jews and "non-Jews." "There were no such thing as Palestinians they did not exist,"
onetime Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir quipped. This erasure, which requires an egregious act of
historical amnesia, is what the Israeli sociologist
Baruch Kimmerling
called the "politicide" of the Palestinian people. Khalidi writes, "The surest way to eradicate a
people's right to their land is to deny their historical connection to it."
The creation of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948, was achieved by the Haganah and other Jewish
groups through the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and massacres that spread terror among the
Palestinian population. The Haganah, trained and armed by the British, swiftly seized most of Palestine.
It emptied West Jerusalem and cities such as Haifa and Jaffa, along with numerous towns and villages, of
their Arab inhabitants. Palestinians call this moment in their history the Nakba, or the Catastrophe.
"By the summer of 1949, the Palestinian polity had been devastated and most of its society uprooted,"
Khalidi writes. "Some 80 percent of the Arab population of the territory that at war's end became the new
state of Israel had been forced from their homes and lost their lands and property. At least 720,000 of
the 1.3 million Palestinians were made refugees. Thanks to this violent transformation, Israel controlled
78 percent of the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, and now ruled over the 160,000 Palestinian
Arabs who had been able to remain, barely one-fifth of the prewar Arab population."
Since 1948, Palestinians have heroically mounted one resistance effort after another, all unleashing
disproportionate Israeli reprisals and a demonization of the Palestinians as terrorists. But this
resistance has also forced the world to recognize the presence of Palestinians, despite the feverish
efforts of Israel, the United States and many Arab regimes to remove them from historical consciousness.
The repeated revolts, as Said noted, gave the Palestinians the right to tell their own story, the
"permission to narrate."
The colonial project has poisoned Israel, as feared by its most prescient leaders, including Moshe
Dayan and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a right-wing Jewish extremist in 1995.
Israel is an apartheid state that rivals and often surpasses the onetime savagery and racism of apartheid
South Africa. Its democracy -- which was always exclusively for Jews -- has been hijacked by extremists,
including current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have implemented racial laws that were once
championed mainly by marginalized fanatics such as
Meir Kahane
. The Israeli public is
infected with racism. "Death to Arabs" is a popular chant at Israeli soccer matches. Jewish mobs and
vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such as Im Tirtzu, carry out indiscriminate acts
of vandalism and violence against dissidents, Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and the hapless African
immigrants who live crammed into the slums of Tel Aviv. Israel has promulgated a series of discriminatory
laws against non-Jews that eerily resemble the racist
Nuremberg Laws
that disenfranchised Jews in Nazi Germany. The Communities Acceptance Law permits exclusively Jewish
towns in Israel's Galilee region to bar applicants for residency on the basis of "suitability to the
community's fundamental outlook." The late Uri Avnery, a left-wing politician and journalist, wrote that
"Israel's very existence is threatened by fascism."
In recent years, up to 1 million Israelis have
left to live in
the United States
, many of them among Israel's most enlightened and educated citizens. Within Israel,
human rights campaigners, intellectuals and journalists -- Israeli and Palestinian -- have found themselves
vilified as traitors in government-sponsored smear campaigns, placed under state surveillance and
subjected to arbitrary arrests. The Israeli educational system, starting in primary school, is an
indoctrination machine for the military. The Israeli army periodically unleashes massive assaults with
its air force, artillery and mechanized units on the largely defenseless 1.85 million Palestinians in
Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinian dead and wounded. Israel runs the
Saharonim detention camp
in the Negev Desert, one of the largest detention centers in the world,
where African immigrants can be held for up to three years without trial.
The great Jewish scholar Yeshayahu Leibowitz, whom
Isaiah Berlin
called "the conscience of Israel,"
saw the mortal danger to Israel of its colonial project. He warned that if Israel did not separate church
and state and end its colonial occupation of the Palestinians it would give rise to a corrupt rabbinate
that would warp Judaism into a fascistic cult. "Religious nationalism is to religion what National
Socialism was to socialism," said Leibowitz, who died in 1994. He saw that the blind veneration of the
military, especially after the 1967 war in which Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, would
result in the degeneration of the Jewish society and the death of democracy.
"Our situation will deteriorate to that of a second Vietnam [a reference to the war waged by the
United States in the 1970s], to a war in constant escalation without prospect of ultimate resolution,"
Leibowitz wrote. He foresaw that "the Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators,
inspectors, officials, and police -- mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5
million to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this
implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every
colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would have to suppress Arab
insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab
Quislings
on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has
been until now a people's army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation,
degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in
other nations."
The Zionists could never have colonized the Palestinians without the backing of Western imperial
powers whose motives were tainted by anti-Semitism. Many of the Jews who fled to Israel would not have
done so but for the virulent European anti-Semitism that by the end of World War II saw 6 million Jews
murdered. Israel was all that many impoverished and stateless survivors, robbed of their national rights,
communities, homes and often most of their relatives, had left. It became the tragic fate of the
Palestinians, who had no role in the European pogroms or the Holocaust, to be sacrificed on the altar of
hate.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani rejected on Sunday a Taliban demand for the release of 5,000
prisoners as a condition for talks with Afghanistan's government and civilians –
included in a deal between the United States and the Islamist militants.
"The government of Afghanistan has made no commitment to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners,"
Ghani told reporters in Kabul, a day after the deal was signed in Qatar to start a
political settlement aimed at ending the United States' longest war.[.]
was the Afghan government not a party to the negotiations? Strange!
It was a stalemate, in which Afghan government held power over central towns and mujahidins
over part of provinces. Neither can defeat each other. This stalemate was ruptured by the
collapse of the USSR.
Afghanistan
Now that the Americans have been defeated in Afghanistan perhaps they'll go back with a more
critical eye to look at what happened in the Afghan-Soviet war against the mujaheddin. The
Soviet Union decided to withdraw because it had reached a stalemate but the communist
government managed to soldier on for three more years, and it was the collapse of the Soviet
Union for financial reasons that resulted in funds being cutoff to the communist government
that in turn led to the collapse of the government, so the Soviet Union was not brought
down/defeated by the mujaheddin.
Will coronavirus lead to the collapse of the Washington establishment? I don't know if it
will but the descendants of the mujaheddin will no doubt claim responsibility for the defeat
of the United States if it occurs.
Yet again, Washington demonstrates that it doesn't really understand war.
"... not only did Warren botch the rollout, her plans were bad, and were seen as bad. ..."
"... "Elizabeth Warren cries and tries to regain ground with voters" [Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe ]. The deck: "Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, her ideological soulmate, rolls along, tears-free." Ouch. ..."
"... IMO it was her later waffling, insincerity, and backtracking on M4A that caused progressives to realize not only that she was not committed to solving the most important issue identified by Dem voters, but that she may not have a fire in her belly to address the nation's other urgent crises and would likely accommodate to powerful interests in Obama-esque fashion. ..."
"... Trump as the not-Democrat has such an edge among the disaffected who are still angry enough to vote ..."
"... I think that I can answer that. Jimmy Dore put out a 5-minute video showing her in action. A protestor heckled her in front of a meeting and she went into deer-in-spotlight mode and shut down. In the end she had to be rescued by Ayanna Pressley and I was thinking – "She really wants to debate Trump? Will she shut down then too?". (Some language) ..."
Warren (D)(1): "What is happening with Elizabeth Warren?" [Chris Cilizza,
CNN ].
"Less than two months ago, it looked as though Elizabeth Warren might just run away with the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination
. Then that Warren wave hit a wall. Starting right around mid-October, Warren's numbers not only stopped moving upward but also
began trending down
Add it all up and there's plenty of reason to believe that Warren's full-fledged support for Medicare for All -- coupled with
her less-than-successful attempts to defend that position in the last two debates -- led to her current reduced status in the
race."
If this were true, Sanders should drop as well. I think Cilizza should give consideration to the idea that not only did Warren
botch the rollout, her plans were bad, and were seen as bad.
"Elizabeth Warren cries and tries to regain ground with voters" [Joan Vennochi,
Boston Globe ]. The deck: "Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, her ideological soulmate, rolls along, tears-free." Ouch.
More: "According to the Des Moines Register, "after a long pause and with tears in her eyes, the senator from Massachusetts said
'yeah,' before telling the story of the divorce from her first husband," and how painful it was to tell her mother that her marriage
was over.
To showcase the significance of the encounter, Warren tweeted out a clip."
Dead Lord. You don't tweet out your own tears to show sincerity. Have somebody else do it! Isn't anybody on her staff protecting
her?
I think Cilizza should give consideration to the idea that not only did Warren botch the rollout, her plans were bad,
and were seen as bad.
The establishment is trying mightily to salvage something useful from Warren's surprisingly rapid decline in the polls, constantly
pushing the refrain that M4A was somehow the kiss of death for her.
In fact, she rose to prominence by riding on Sanders policies like Medicare for All, canceling student debt, and free
college. "I'm with Bernie" was her frequent reply on several policy issues, and she co-sponsored Sanders' Medicare for All Senate
bill to great effect on her own "progressive" cred.
IMO it was her later waffling, insincerity, and backtracking on M4A that caused progressives to realize not only that she
was not committed to solving the most important issue identified by Dem voters, but that she may not have a fire in her belly
to address the nation's other urgent crises and would likely accommodate to powerful interests in Obama-esque fashion.
Six years wait for the ACA to piss almost everyone off.
Trump as the not-Democrat has such an edge among the disaffected who are still angry enough to vote. Especially since
the whole and only DNC message will be 'you can't possibly vote for Trump!!!'
I think that I can answer that. Jimmy Dore put out a 5-minute video showing her in action. A protestor heckled her in front
of a meeting and she went into deer-in-spotlight mode and shut down. In the end she had to be rescued by Ayanna Pressley and I
was thinking – "She really wants to debate Trump? Will she shut down then too?". (Some language)
"... Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes ..."
"There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold."
– William Shakespeare
Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to
see whether this volatile black cloud floating amongst us will breakout into a thunderstorm of nuclear war or harmlessly pass us
by. The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters back and forth at the whim of one man.
It is only normal then, that during such times of crisis, we find ourselves trying to analyze and predict the thoughts and motives
of just this one person. The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a true hero for his fellow countrymen and undeniably an
essential key figure in combating terrorism in Southwest Asia, was a terrible crime, an abhorrently repugnant provocation. It was
meant to cause an apoplectic fervour, it was meant to make us who desire peace, lose our minds in indignation. And therefore, that
is exactly what we should not do.
In order to assess such situations, we cannot lose sight of the whole picture, and righteous indignation unfortunately causes
the opposite to occur. Our focus becomes narrower and narrower to the point where we can only see or react moment to moment with
what is right in front of our face. We are reduced to an obsession of twitter feeds, news blips and the doublespeak of 'official
government statements'.
Thus, before we may find firm ground to stand on regarding the situation of today, we must first have an understanding as to what
caused the United States to enter into an endless campaign of regime-change warfare after WWII, or as former Chief of Special Operations
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Col. Prouty stated, three decades of the Indochina war.
An Internal Shifting of Chess Pieces in the Shadows
It is interesting timing that on Sept 2, 1945, the very day that WWII ended, Ho Chi Minh would announce the independence of Indochina.
That on the very day that one of the most destructive wars to ever occur in history ended, another long war was declared at its doorstep.
Churchill would announce his "Iron Curtain" against communism on March 5th, 1946, and there was no turning back at that point. The
world had a mere 6 months to recover before it would be embroiled in another terrible war, except for the French, who would go to
war against the Viet Minh opponents in French Indochina only days after WWII was over.
In a previous paper I wrote titled
"On Churchill's Sinews
of Peace" , I went over a major re-organisation of the American government and its foreign intelligence bureau on the onset of
Truman's de facto presidency. Recall that there was an attempted military coup d'état, which was
exposed by General Butler in a public address in 1933,
against the Presidency of FDR who was only inaugurated that year. One could say that there was a very marked disapproval from shadowy
corners for how Roosevelt would organise the government.
One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously existing foreign intelligence bureau
that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared
over. The OSS would be replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence purge and the
internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows. In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National
Security Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended function was to serve as
the President's principal arm for coordinating national security, foreign policies and policies among various government agencies.
" In 1955, I was designated to establish an office of special operations in compliance with National Security Council (NSC)
Directive #5412 of March 15, 1954. This NSC Directive for the first time in the history of the United States defined covert operations
and assigned that role to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform such missions , provided they had been directed to do so
by the NSC, and further ordered active-duty Armed Forces personnel to avoid such operations. At the same time, the Armed Forces
were directed to "provide the military support of the clandestine operations of the CIA" as an official function . "
What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence bureau with the military, and that the
foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the
President, as we will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC's policies.
An Inheritance of Secret Wars
" There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. "
– Sun Tzu
On January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States. Along with inheriting the responsibility
of the welfare of the country and its people, he was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.
JFK was disliked from the onset by the CIA and certain corridors of the Pentagon, they knew where he stood on foreign matters
and that it would be in direct conflict for what they had been working towards for nearly 15 years. Kennedy would inherit the CIA
secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration's
March 1960 approval of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach operations) to a 3,000
man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office.
This was a massive change in plans that was determined by neither President Eisenhower, who warned at the end of his term of the
military industrial complex as a loose cannon, nor President Kennedy, but rather the foreign intelligence bureau who has never been
subject to election or judgement by the people. It shows the level of hostility that Kennedy encountered as soon as he entered office,
and the limitations of a President's power when he does not hold support from these intelligence and military quarters.
Within three months into JFK's term, Operation Bay of Pigs (April 17th to 20th 1961) was scheduled. As the popular revisionist
history goes; JFK refused to provide air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade and the land invasion was a calamitous failure and a
decisive victory for Castro's Cuba. It was indeed an embarrassment for President Kennedy who had to take public responsibility for
the failure, however, it was not an embarrassment because of his questionable competence as a leader. It was an embarrassment because,
had he not taken public responsibility, he would have had to explain the real reason why it failed. That the CIA and military were
against him and that he did not have control over them. If Kennedy were to admit such a thing, he would have lost all credibility
as a President in his own country and internationally, and would have put the people of the United States in immediate danger amidst
a Cold War.
What really occurred was that there was a cancellation of the essential pre-dawn airstrike, by the Cuban Exile Brigade bombers
from Nicaragua, to destroy Castro's last three combat jets. This airstrike was ordered by Kennedy himself. Kennedy was always against
an American invasion of Cuba, and striking Castro's last jets by the Cuban Exile Brigade would have limited Castro's threat, without
the U.S. directly supporting a regime change operation within Cuba. This went fully against the CIA's plan for Cuba.
Kennedy's order for the airstrike on Castro's jets would be cancelled by Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge
Bundy, four hours before the Exile Brigade's B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua, Kennedy was not brought into this decision. In
addition, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, the man in charge of the Bay of Pigs operation was unbelievably out
of the country on the day of the landings.
Col. Prouty, who was Chief of Special Operations during this time, elaborates on this situation:
" Everyone connected with the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion knew that the policy dictated by NSC 5412, positively prohibited
the utilization of active-duty military personnel in covert operations. At no time was an "air cover" position written into the
official invasion plan The "air cover" story that has been created is incorrect. "
As a result, JFK who well understood the source of this fiasco, set up a Cuban Study Group the day after and charged it with the
responsibility of determining the cause for the failure of the operation. The study group, consisting of Allen Dulles, Gen. Maxwell
Taylor, Adm. Arleigh Burke and Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the only member JFK could trust), concluded that the failure was
due to Bundy's telephone call to General Cabell (who was also CIA Deputy Director) that cancelled the President's air strike order.
Kennedy had them.
Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay of Pigs op was a failure because
of the CIA's intervention into the President's orders. This allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum
#55 on June 28th, 1961, which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Prouty
states,
" When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert
operation business. This proved to be one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy's coffin. "
If this was not enough of a slap in the face to the CIA, Kennedy forced the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy
Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell.
In Oct 1962, Kennedy was informed that Cuba had offensive Soviet missiles 90 miles from American shores. Soviet ships with more
missiles were on their way towards Cuba but ended up turning around last minute. Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret
deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev, which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. Criticisms
of JFK being soft on communism began to stir.
NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy, was released on Oct 11th, 1963, and outlined a policy decision " to withdraw 1,000
military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963 " and further stated that " It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of
U.S. personnel [including the CIA and military] by 1965. " The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S.
TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY '65. Kennedy was winning the game and the American people.
This was to be the final nail in Kennedy's coffin.
Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not just be seen as a tragic loss but,
more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful military coup d'état that it was and is . The CIA showed what lengths
it was ready to go to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District Attorney of New Orleans
at the time, Jim Garrison's
book . And the excellently
researched Oliver Stone movie "JFK")
Through the Looking Glass
On Nov. 26th 1963, a full four days after Kennedy's murder, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of
Kennedy's policy under #263. And on March 4th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War
and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.
The Vietnam War, or more accurately the Indochina War, would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy's death, lasting a total
of 20 years for Americans.
Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would involve the world would begin full force
on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold
War. A war that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees the toppling of Russia
and China. Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam Hussein was being backed
by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979.
It had been understood far in advance by the CIA and US military that the toppling of sovereignty in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran
needed to occur before Russia and China could be taken over. Such war tactics were formulaic after 3 decades of counterinsurgency
against the CIA fueled "communist-insurgency" of Indochina. This is how today's terrorist-inspired insurgency functions, as a perfect
CIA formula for an endless bloodbath.
Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign
and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie
Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly
to 'pay the price' .
Therefore, when a drone stroke occurs assassinating an Iranian Maj. Gen., even if the U.S. President takes onus on it, I would
not be so quick as to believe that that is necessarily the case, or the full story. Just as I would not take the statements of President
Rouhani accepting responsibility for the Iranian military shooting down 'by accident' the Boeing 737-800 plane which contained 176
civilians, who were mostly Iranian, as something that can be relegated to criminal negligence, but rather that there is very likely
something else going on here.
I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked, draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad
to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a
compromised situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a simple matter that the President
alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing.
One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC as "terrorist" occurring in April
2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC
at the time. This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001 AUMF, where the US military
can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani's
assassination and Bolton went so far as to tweet "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran." Bolton has also made it
no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible impeachment trial.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown
conference recently, but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that
though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.", his training under the CIA was
the very opposite, stating " I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses. (long
pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. "
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country.
And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position
to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes .
". . . the CIA holds no allegiance to any country." But they sure kiss the *** of the financial sociopaths who write their
paychecks and finance the black ops.
Fletcher Prouty's book The Secret Team is a must read... he was on the inside and watched the formation of the permanent team
established in the late 50s that assumed the power of the president.
Look at who the OSS recruited - Ivy League Skull and Bones types from rich families that made their fortunes in often questionable
ventures.
If you're the patriarch of some super wealthy family wouldn't you be thrilled to have younger family members working for the
nation's intelligence agencies? Sort of the ultimate in 'inside information'. Plus these families had experience in things like
drug smuggling, human trafficking and anything else you can imagine..... While the Brits started the opium trade with China, Americans
jumped right in bringing opium from Turkey.
Didn't take long before the now CIA became owned by the families whose members staffed it.
One major aspect pertaining American involvment in Veitnam was something like 90% of the rubber produced Globally came from
the region.
It is more diverse now, being 3rd, with the association revealing that in 2017, Vietnam earned US$2.3 billion from export of
1.4 million tonnes of natural rubber, up 36% in value and 11.4% in volume year on year.
Rockfellers formed the OSS then the CIA which is the brute force for the CFR which they also run and own. The bankers run y
our country and bought and blackmailed all your politicians... Only buttplug and pedo's get to be in charge now folks.... and
some 9th circle witches of course...
So the person who saves Syria from occupation by IGIL is a terrorist ? Just a few years ago, CNN praised #Iran 's Qassem #Soleimani for defeating
ISIS.
Just a few years ago, CNN was praising Qassem
#Soleimani for being
the driving force behind the defeat of ISIS. Today they call him a "terrorist" and expect
you to believe them.
The USA is an imperial country. And wars is how empire is sustained and expanded. Bacevich does not even mention this
fact.
Notable quotes:
"... While perfunctory congressional hearings may yet occur, a meaningful response -- one that would demand accountability, for example -- is about as likely as a bipartisan resolution to the impeachment crisis. ..."
"... This implicit willingness to write off a costly, unwinnable, and arguably unnecessary war should itself prompt sober reflection. What we have here is a demonstration of how pervasive and deeply rooted American militarism has become. ..."
"... we have become a nation given to misusing military power, abusing American soldiers, and averting our gaze from the results. ..."
"... The impeachment hearings were probably the reason the WaPo published when it did. After all, the article tells us little that any semi-sentient observer hasn't known for over a decade now. ..."
"... Then, today, we have another American trooper killed in Afghanistan, with many Afghans. Then, we have Trump, jutting his jaw out, as usual, to show how tough he is and...by golly, how tough America is. How patriotic! Damn it! Rah rah. He pardons and receives a war criminal at the white house, one of those Seals that murdered Afghans. ..."
"... By military standards, there is supposed to be rules of engagement and punishment for outright breaking of such rules. But no, Trump is one ignorant, cold dude and the misery in numerous US invaded nations means nothing to this bum with a title and money ..."
"... Were our senior government leaders more familiar with military service, especially as front line soldiers, they might have been less inclined to dawdle in these matters, agree with obfuscated results for political reasons, and waste so much effort. ..."
The Afghanistan Papers could have been the start of redemption, but it's all been subsumed
by impeachment and an uninterested public.
....
While perfunctory congressional hearings may yet occur, a meaningful response -- one
that would demand accountability, for example -- is about as likely as a bipartisan resolution
to the impeachment crisis.
This implicit willingness to write off a costly, unwinnable, and arguably unnecessary war
should itself prompt sober reflection. What we have here is a demonstration of how pervasive
and deeply rooted American militarism has become.
Take seriously the speechifying heard on the floor of the House of Representatives in recent
days and you'll be reassured that the United States remains a nation of laws, with Democrats
and Republicans alike affirming their determination to defend our democracy and preserve the
Constitution, even while disagreeing on what that might require at present.
Take seriously the contents of the Afghanistan Papers and you'll reach a different
conclusion: we have become a nation given to misusing military power, abusing American
soldiers, and averting our gaze from the results. U.S. military expenditures and the Pentagon's
array of foreign bases far exceed those of any other nation on the planet. In our willingness
to use force, we (along with Israel) lead the pack. Putative adversaries such as China and
Russia are models of self-restraint by comparison. And when it comes to cumulative body count,
the United States is in a league of its own.
Yet since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, U.S. forces have rarely
accomplished the purposes for which they are committed, the Pentagon concealing failure by
downsizing its purposes. Afghanistan offers a good example. What began as Operation Enduring
Freedom has become in all but name Operation Decent Interval, the aim being to disengage in a
manner that will appear responsible, if only for a few years until the bottom falls out.
So the real significance of the Post 's Afghanistan Papers is this: t hey invite
Americans to contemplate a particularly vivid example what our misplaced infatuation with
military power produces. Sadly, it appears evident that we will refuse the invitation. Don't
blame Trump for this particular example of Washington's egregious irresponsibility.
Andrew Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new
book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory ,will
be published next month.
The impeachment hearings were probably the reason the WaPo published when it did. After all,
the article tells us little that any semi-sentient observer hasn't known for over a decade
now.
Anyway, nobody likes a bipartisan fiasco that cannot be neatly blamed on Team R (or Team
D).
Then, today, we have another American trooper killed in Afghanistan, with many Afghans.
Then, we have Trump, jutting his jaw out, as usual, to show how tough he is and...by golly,
how tough America is. How patriotic! Damn it! Rah rah.
He pardons and receives a war criminal at the white house, one of those Seals that murdered
Afghans.
By military standards, there is supposed to be rules of engagement and punishment for
outright breaking of such rules. But no, Trump is one ignorant, cold dude and the misery in
numerous US invaded nations means nothing to this bum with a title and money. What a joke
this nations foreign policy is and the ignorant, don't care American people have become. Like
never before. There were years when people actually talked about subjects. Not now, if you
mention the weather they cower and look pained. The old days really were better.
One example aside from the above: compare President Kennedy to Trump. What a riot...
Well, these documents are highly unsurprising. Everybody has known the facts for a long time.
Everybody also knows that the US "government" will not change its ways. Its sole purpose and
mission is to obliterate everything except Israel, and these documents are evidence of
massive SUCCESS in its mission, not evidence of failure.
Were our senior government leaders more familiar with military service, especially as front
line soldiers, they might have been less inclined to dawdle in these matters, agree with
obfuscated results for political reasons, and waste so much effort.
This is also to say that misleading documents and briefings from the military about
progress in Afghanistan, while contemptible, did not cause the strategic failure.
Contemporary reports from the press and other agencies indicated the effort was not working
out plainly to anyone who wanted to pay attention. Our political leaders chose to ignore the
truth for political gain.
A more realistic temperament chastened by experience would have been more inclined to
criticize and make corrections, and summon the courage to cut our losses rather than crow
ignominiously about "cutting and running." Few such temperaments, it seems at least, make it
to the top thee days.
Pompeo has just four terms in the House of Representives befor getting postions of Director of CIA (whichsuggests previous involvement
with CIA) and then paradoxically the head of the State Department, He retired from the alry in the rank of comptain and never participated
in any battles. He serves only in Germany, and this can be classified as a chickenhawk. He never performed any dyplomatic duries in
hs life and a large part of his adult life (1998-2006) was a greddy military contractor.
1. It mentions
that it aimed at "deterring future Iranian attack plans". This however is very vague. Future is not the same as imminent which is
the time based test required under international law. (1)
2. Overall, the statement places far greater emphasis on past activities and violations allegedly commuted by Suleimani. As such
the killing appears far more retaliatory for past acts than anticipatory for imminent self defense.
3. The notion that Suleimani was "actively developing plans" is curious both from a semantic and military standpoint. Is it sufficient
to meet the test of mecessity and proportionality?
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders of society the
situation would become much worse. Because they have neither the sense of reality, nor common
sense. For them, the words and speeches are more important than the actual social laws and the
dominant trends, the dominant social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of
the intellectuals is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to
do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of society as they
wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under conditions that are not present
now are not feasible in the future. Therefore they are not able to act even at the level of
current leaders of the society, which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social
pressures, by the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals
are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it wrong. that makes
them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while in reality being sophisticated
professional idiots.
Orchestration of military escalation in 2015 In 2015, Soleimani started to gather
support from various sources in order to combat the newly resurgent ISIL and rebel groups which
were both successful in taking large swathes of territory away from Assad's forces. He was
reportedly the main architect of the joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with
Assad and Hezbollah. In 2015, Soleimani started to gather support from various sources in order
to combat the newly resurgent ISIL and rebel groups which were both successful in taking large
swathes of territory away from Assad's forces. He was reportedly the main architect of the
joint intervention involving Russia as a new partner with Assad and Hezbollah. [47][48][49][50]
According to
Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to explain to his
Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be turned into
victory – with Russia's help. Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first step in
planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and forged a new
According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of Syria to
explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad could be
turned into victory – with Russia's help. Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was the first
step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war and
forged a new According to Reuters, at a meeting in Moscow in July, Soleimani unfurled a map of
Syria to explain to his Russian hosts how a series of defeats for President Bashar al-Assad
could be turned into victory – with Russia's help.
Qasem Soleimani's visit to Moscow was
the first step in planning for a Russian military intervention that has reshaped the Syrian war
and forged a new Iran–Russia
alliance in support of the Syrian (and Iraqi) governments. Iran's supreme leader, Ali
Khamenei also sent a senior envoy to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin. "Putin reportedly
told [a senior Iranian envoy] 'Okay we will intervene. Send Qassem Soleimani.'" General
Soleimani went to explain the map of the theatre and coordinate the strategic escalation of
military forces in Syria. [49]
Soleimani had a decisive impact on the theater of operations, which led to a strong
advance in southern Aleppo with the government and allied forces re-capturing two military
bases and dozens of towns and villages in a matter of weeks. There was also a series of major
advances
towards Kuweiris air-base to the north-east. [57] By mid-November,
the Syrian army and its allies had gained ground in southern areas of Aleppo Governorate,
capturing numerous rebel strongholds. Soleimani was reported to have personally led the drive
deep into the southern Aleppo countryside where many towns and villages fell into government
hands. He reportedly commanded the Syrian Arab Army's 4th Mechanized Division, Hezbollah,
Harakat Al-Nujaba (Iraqi), Kata'ib Hezbollah (Iraqi), Liwaa Abu Fadl Al-Abbas (Iraqi), and
Firqa Fatayyemoun (Afghan/Iranian volunteers). [58]
In early February 2016, backed by Russian and Syrian air force airstrikes, the 4th
Mechanized Division – in close coordination with Hezbollah, the National Defense Forces
(NDF), Kata'eb Hezbollah, and Harakat Al-Nujaba – launched an offensive in Aleppo
Governorate's northern countryside, [59] which eventually
broke the three-year siege of Nubl and Al-Zahraa
and cut off the rebels' main supply route from Turkey. According to a senior, non-Syrian
security source close to Damascus, Iranian fighters played a crucial role in the conflict.
"Qassem Soleimani is there in the same area", he said. [60] In December 2016,
new photos emerged of Soleimani at the Citadel of Aleppo , though the exact
date of the photos is unknown. [61][62]
... ... ...
In 2014, Qasem Soleimani was in the Iraqi city of Amirli , to work with the Iraqi forces to push
back militants from ISIL. [68][69] According to the
Los Angeles
Times , which reported that Amirli was the first town to successfully withstand an
ISIS invasion, it was secured thanks to "an unusual partnership of Iraqi and Kurdish
soldiers, Iranian-backed Shiite militias and U.S. warplanes". The U.S. acted as a force
multiplier for a number of Iranian-backed armed groups – at the same time that was
present on the battlefield. [70][71]
Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani prays in the Syrian desert during
a local pro-government offensive in 2017
A senior Iraqi official told the BBC that when the city of Mosul fell, the rapid reaction
of Iran, rather than American bombing, was what prevented a more widespread collapse.
[11] Qasem
Soleimani also seems to have been instrumental in planning the operation to relieve
Amirli in Saladin
Governorate, where ISIL had laid siege to an important city. [66]
In fact the Quds force operatives under Soleimani's command seem to have been deeply involved
with not only the Iraqi army and Shi'ite militias but also the Kurdish in the Battle of Amirli ,
[72] not only
providing liaisons for intelligence-sharing but also the supply of arms and munitions in
addition to "providing expertise". [73]
In the operation
to liberate Jurf Al Sakhar , he was reportedly "present on the battlefield". Some Shia
militia commanders described Soleimani as "fearless" – one pointing out that the
Iranian general never wears a flak jacket , even on the front lines.
[74]
In November 2014, Shi'ite and Kurdish forces under Soleimani's command pushed ISIS out of
Iraqi villages of Jalawla
and Saadia, in the Diyala Governorate . [67]
Soleimani played an integral role in the organisation and planning of the crucial
operation to retake the city of Tikrit in Iraq
from ISIS. The city of Tikrit rests on the left bank of the Tigris river and is the largest
and most important city between Baghdad and Mosul, giving it a high strategic value. The city
fell to ISIS during 2014 when ISIS made immense gains in northern and central Iraq. After its
capture, ISIL's massacre at Camp Speicher led to
1,600 to 1,700 deaths of Iraqi Army cadets and soldiers. After months of careful preparation
and intelligence gathering an offensive to encircle and capture Tikrit was launched in early
March 2015. [76]
ark Hannah
observes that a bipartisan foreign policy consensus stifles legitimate debate and that it
is antithetical to democratic politics:
In 1948, after bowing out of a bid to defeat Democratic President Harry Truman, Sen.
Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) declared, "We must stop politics at the water's edge." In other
words, we should confine our disagreements to domestic policy and project unity to our
foreign friends and foes. But that unity was merely a product of the geopolitical realities
at the dawn of the Cold War. More often, an elite consensus feeds stale policy, allows bad
ideas to go unchallenged and narrows the range of new proposals welcomed as legitimate.
There's a word that describes a politically powerful person making a high-minded exhortation
to "stop politics." That word is not "democracy."
There is no tradition of -- nor enduring allegiance to -- bipartisan consensus in
America's international relations. Nor should there be.
Americans have always been divided on foreign policy questions, and it is only when there is
a sufficiently grave external threat or there is a concerted effort to impose a particular view
that those divisions recede temporarily. These divisions will always resurface because our
country is too large and too diverse for our population to reach a settled consensus for very
long. When there is a consensus among politicians and foreign policy professionals, it masks
these divisions and frequently fails to represent the views of large numbers of Americans. The
existence of such a consensus is not a case of politics "stopping at the water's edge." It is
the establishment of a particular set of assumptions about U.S. power and its role in the world
that define the boundaries of what is acceptable in foreign policy debate.
The bipartisan consensus that most of our political leaders subscribe to and reinforce is
made first in Washington and then handed down to the country. It has been and continues to be
very much a top-down process in which the public is offered a limited menu of options, and they
are then told that even most of those options are unworkable. Once they are created, consensus
views become excessively rigid, and the policies informed by them lag behind changing
circumstances. That produces inadequate and unrealistic policies because new and unconventional
ideas are discouraged or dismissed out of hand because they do not follow consensus
assumptions. Like any working set of ideas, consensus views may start out being timely and
appropriate for their circumstances, but when they settle and harden into an idol they become
an impediment to informed and effective policymaking.
For example, the goal of North Korea policy across multiple administrations was to prevent
North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons and then to pressure North Korea into giving up the
weapons that it had obtained. Perversely, the first policy contributed directly to its own
failure by driving North Korea to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to test its first
nuclear device, and then the last two administrations have tried in vain to reverse that
outcome. North Korea's denuclearization has been a consistent U.S. goal under presidents from
both parties, but repeated failure has not yet forced our leaders to adapt and try something
else. Everything else related to North Korea has been held hostage to this wild goose chase of
seeking complete denuclearization that will never happen. The bipartisan consensus doesn't just
enshrine mistaken assumptions as wisdom, but it actively fights against those that try to make
the consensus more responsive to contemporary realities.
Defenders of the bipartisan consensus discourage and penalize analysts and writers that
diverge too much from it on the assumption that the consensus is somehow integral to
maintaining U.S. security. Instead of recognizing the rigidity of the consensus as a weakness
that leads to repeated failures, defenders of the consensus see rejection of consensus
assumptions as the real danger. This is what leads to ritual denunciations of "isolationists"
and "appeasement" and "being soft" on this or that government. Adherence to consensus
assumptions also means never having to say you're sorry for any costly policy failures that
they produce. One reason why there is no real accountability in foreign policy is that
adherents of the bipartisan consensus never penalize their own for causing debacles overseas,
so that even the authors of the greatest crimes and blunders are gradually rehabilitated and
feted as wise men and women. When so many of the same people with the same assumptions are
permitted to set policy, we should expect to see one failure after another, and sure enough
that is what we have had for decades.
One of the things that many advocates of restraint have talked about in recent years is
the need to democratize U.S. foreign policy. That not only means holding the government
accountable for what it does and insisting on Congress' role in matters of war, but it also
means accepting a much wider range of views on how the U.S. should be acting in the world. It
would mean actually forging a consensus that is much more representative of what Americans want
our government to be doing in the world.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC,
where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York
Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox
Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The
Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA.
Follow him on Twitter .
'We came, we saw, he died' -- Hillary Clinton smirked when she said it. She had no idea how many
people that would apply to.
A fighter loyal to the Libyan internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) fires a heavy machine gun.
(MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP via Getty Images)
Libya's ongoing destruction belongs to Hillary Clinton more than anyone else. It was she who pushed President Barack Obama
to launch his splendid little war, backing the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in the name of protecting Libya's civilians.
When later asked about Gaddafi's death, she cackled and exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died."
Alas, his was not the last
death in that conflict, which has flared anew, turning Libya into a real-life
Game of Thrones
. An artificial
country already suffering from deep regional divisions, Libya has been further torn apart by political and religious
differences. One commander fighting on behalf of the Government of National Accord (GNA), Salem Bin Ismail, told the BBC:
"We have had chaos since 2011."
Arrayed against the weak unity government is the former Gaddafi general, U.S. citizen, and one-time CIA adjunct Khalifa
Haftar. For years, the two sides have appeared to be in relative military balance, but a who's who of meddlesome outsiders
has turned the conflict into an international affair. The latest playbook features Egypt, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates, and Russia supporting Haftar, while Italy, Qatar, and Turkey are with the unity government.
In April, Haftar launched an offensive to seize Tripoli. It faltered until Russian mercenaries made an appearance in
September, bringing Haftar to the gates of Tripoli. He apparently is also employing Sudanese mercenaries, though not with
their nation's backing. Now Turkey plans to introduce troops to bolster the official government.
Washington's position is at best confused. It officially recognizes the GNA. When Haftar started his offensive,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement urging "the immediate halt to these military operations." However,
President Donald Trump then initiated a friendly phone call to Haftar "to discuss ongoing counterterrorism efforts and the
need to achieve peace and stability in Libya," according to the White House. More incongruously, "The president recognized
Field Marshal Haftar's significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources, and the two discussed a
shared vision for Libya's transition to a stable, democratic political system." The State Department recently urged both
sides to step back. However, Haftar continues to advance, and just days ago captured the coastal city of Sirte.
In recent years, Libya had been of little concern to the U.S. It was an oil producer, but Gaddafi had as much incentive
to sell the oil as did King Idris I, whom Gaddafi and other members of the "Free Officers Movement" ousted. Gaddafi
carefully balanced interests in Libya's complex tribal society and kept the military weak over fears of another coup. He
was a geopolitical troublemaker, supporting a variety of insurgent and terrorist groups. But he steadily lost influence,
alienating virtually every African and Middle Eastern government.
Of greatest concern to Washington, Libyan agents organized terrorist attacks against the U.S. -- bombing an American
airliner and a Berlin disco frequented by American soldiers -- leading to economic sanctions and military retaliation.
However, those days were long over by 2011. Eight years before, in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gaddafi
repudiated terrorism and ended his missile and nuclear programs in a deal with the U.S. and Europe. He was feted in
European capitals. His government served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council from 2008 to 2009. American
officials congratulated him for his assistance against terrorism and discussed possible assistance in return. All seemed
forgiven.
Then in 2011, the Arab Spring engulfed Libya, as people rose against Gaddafi's rule. He responded with force to
reestablish control. However, Western advocates of regime change warned that genocide was possible and pushed for
intervention under United Nations auspices. In explaining his decision to intervene, Obama stated: "We knew that if we
waited one more day, Benghazi could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the
conscience of the world." Russia and China went along with a resolution authorizing "all necessary measures to prevent the
killing of civilians."
In fact, the fears were fraudulent. Gaddafi was no angel, but he hadn't targeted civilians, and his florid rhetoric,
cited by critics, only attacked those who had taken up arms. He even promised amnesty to those who abandoned their weapons.
With no civilians to protect, NATO, led by the U.S., bombed Libyan government forces and installations and backed the
insurgents' offensive. It was not a humanitarian intervention, but a lengthy, costly, low-tech, regime-change war, mostly
at Libyan expense. Obama claimed: "We had a unique ability to stop the violence." Instead his administration ensured that
the initial civil war would drag on for months -- and the larger struggle ultimately for years.
On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was discovered hiding in a culvert in Sirte. He was beaten, sodomized with a bayonet, shot,
and killed. That essentially ended the first phase of the extended Libyan civil war. Gaddafi had done much to earn his
fate, but his death led to an entirely new set of problems.
A low level insurgency continued, led by former Gaddafi followers. Proposals either to disband militia forces or
integrate them into the National Transitional Council (NTC) military went unfulfilled, and this developed into the
conflict's second phase. Elections delivered fragmented results, as ideological, religious, and other divisions ran deep.
Militias were accused of misusing government funds, employing violence, and kidnapping and assassinating their opponents.
Islamist groups increasingly attempted to impose religious rule. Violence and insecurity worsened.
In February 2014, Haftar challenged the General National Congress (GNC). Hostilities broadly evolved between the
GNC/GNA, backed by several militias, which controlled Tripoli and much of the country's west, and the Tobruk-based House of
Representatives, which was supported by Haftar and his Libyan National Army. Multiple domestic factions, forces, and
militias also were involved. Among them was the Islamic State, which murdered Egyptian Coptic (Christian) laborers.
The African Union and the United Nations promoted various peace initiatives. However, other governments fueled
hostilities. Most notable now is the potential entry of Turkish troops.
In mid-December, Turkey's parliament approved an agreement to provide equipment, military training, technical aid, and
intelligence. (The Erdogan government also controversially set maritime boundaries with Libya that conflict with other
claims, most notably from Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel.) Ankara introduced some members of the dwindling Syrian
insurgents once aligned against the Assad regime to Libya and raised the possibility of adding its "quick reaction force"
to the fight.
At the end of last month, the Erdogan government introduced, and parliament approved, legislation to authorize the
deployment of combat forces. President Erdogan criticized nations that backed a "putschist general" and "warlord" and
promised to support the GNA "much more effectively." While noting that Turkey doesn't "go where we are not invited"
(except, apparently, Syria), Erdogan added that "since now there is an invitation [from the GNA], we will accept it."
But Haftar refused to back down. Last week, he called on "men and women, soldiers and civilians, to defend our land and
our honor." He continued: "We accept the challenge and declare jihad and a call to arms."
Turkish legislator Ismet Yilmaz supported the intervention and warned that the conflict might "spread instability to
Turkey." More likely the intervention is a grab for energy, since Ankara has devoted significant resources of late to
exploring the Eastern Mediterranean for oil and gas. Libya has oil deposits, of course, which could be exploited under a
friendly government. Perhaps most important, Ankara wants to ensure that its interests are respected in the Eastern
Mediterranean.
However, direct intervention is an extraordinarily dangerous step. It puts Turkey in the line of fire, as in Syria.
Ankara's forces could clash with those of Russia, which maintains the merest veneer of deniability over its role in Libya.
And other powers -- Egypt, perhaps, or the UAE -- might ramp up their involvement in an effort to thwart Erdogan's plans.
In response, the U.S. attempted to warn Turkey against intervening. "External military intervention threatens prospects
for resolving the conflict," said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus with no hint of irony. Congress might go
further: some of its members have already proposed sanctioning Russia for the introduction of mercenaries, and Ankara has
few friends left on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless it is rather late for Washington to cry foul. Its claim to essentially a
monopoly on Mideast meddling can only be seen as risible by other powers.
The Arab League has also criticized "foreign interference." In a resolution passed in late December, the group expressed
"serious concern over the military escalation further aggravating the situation in Libya and which threatens the security
and stability of neighboring countries and the entire region." However, Arab League is no less hypocritical. Egypt, the
UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all deeply involved in the conflict, are members of the league. And no one would be
surprised if some or all of them decided to expand their participation in the fighting. Egyptian president Abdel Fatah
al-Sisi insisted: "We will not allow anyone to control Libya. It is a matter of Egyptian national security."
Although the fighting is less intense than in, say, Syria, combat has gone high-tech. According to the
Washington
Post
: "Eight months into Libya's worst spasm of violence in eight years, the conflict is being fought increasingly by
weaponized drones." ISIS is one of the few beneficiaries of these years of fighting. GNA-allied militias that once
cooperated with the U.S. and other states in counterterrorism are now focused on Haftar, allowing militants to revive, set
up desert camps, and organize attacks. Washington still employs drones, but they rely on accurate intelligence, best
gathered on the ground, and even then well-directed hits are no substitute for local ground operations.
The losers are the Libyan people. The fighting has resulted in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees.
Divisions, even among tribes, are growing. The future looks ever dimmer. Fathi Bashagha, the GNA interior minister,
lamented: "Every day we are burying young people who should be helping us build Libya." Absent a major change, many more
will be buried in the future.
Yet the air of unreality surrounding the conflict remains. In late December, President Trump met with al-Sisi and,
according to the White House, the two "rejected foreign exploitation and agreed that parties must take urgent steps to
resolve the conflict before Libyans lose control to foreign actors." However, the latter already happened -- nine years ago
when America first intervened.
The Obama administration did not plan to ruin Libya for a generation. But its decision to take on another people's fight
has resulted in catastrophe. Hillary Clinton's malignant gift keeps on giving. Such is the cost of America's promiscuous
war-making.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan
and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
In view of event of Jan 7 it looks like Geraldo Rivera had the point. He beautifully cut the
neocon jerk by reminding him the role of the US intelligence agencies in unleashing Iraq war
FOX News correspondent Geraldo Rivera debated "Fox & Friends" hosts Brian Kilmeade and
Steve Doocy Friday about the assassination of Iranian special forces General Qassim al
Soleimani in Iraq, warning of dire consequences if Iran chooses to retaliate and telling
Kilmeade: "You, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like."
"Your arrogance is exactly what's wrong with the region," Geraldo said. "You're not a
front-line fighter that has to go back into Iraq again."
GERALDO RIVERA: We thought that when the de-escalation at the embassy happened a couple of
days ago that was the end of this chapter. The U.S., with it's firmness, had won the victory.
It wasn't going to be Benghazi, it wasn't going to be Tehran from 1980. We won that technical
victory.
Now we have taken this huge military escalation. Now I fear the worst. You're going to see
the U.S. markets go crazy today. You're going to see the price of oil spiking today. This is
a very, very big deal.
BRIAN KILMEADE: I don't know if you heard, this isn't about his resume of blood and death,
it was about what was next. That's what you're missing.
STEVE DOOCY: According to the Secretary of Defense.
GERALDO RIVERA: By what credible source can you predict what the next Iranian move will
be?
BRIAN KILMEADE: Secretary fo State and American intelligence provided that material.
GERALDO RIVERA: They've been excellent. They've been excellent, the U.S. intelligence has
been excellent since 2003 when we invaded Iraq, disrupted the entire region for no real
reason. Don't for a minute start cheering this on, what we have done, what we have unleashed
--
BRIAN KILMEADE: I will cheer it on. I am elated.
GERALDO RIVERA: Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like.
BRIAN KILMEADE: That is not true, and don't even say that.
GERALDO RIVERA: If President Trump wanted a de-escalation --
BRIAN KILMEADE: Let them kill us for another 15 years?
GERALDO RIVERA: If President Trump wanted a de-escalation and to bring our troops
home--
BRIAN KILMEADE: What about the 700 Americans who are dead, should they not be happy?
GERALDO RIVERA: What about the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died since 2003? You
have to start seeing. What the hell are we doing in Baghdad in the first place? Why are we
there?
BRIAN KILMEADE: So you're blaming President Bush for the maniacal killing of Saddam
Hussein?
GERALDO RIVERA: I am blaming President Bush in 2003 for the fake weapons of mass
destruction that never existed and the con-job that drove us into that war.
Bolton is a typical "Full Spectrum Dominance" hawk, a breed of chickenhawks that recently
proliferated in Washinton corridors of power and which are fed by MIC.
Notable quotes:
"... the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself predicated on a lie. ..."
"... The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC) interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were pushing for a strong stance. But representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings, the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists. ..."
"... The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these meetings were "largely incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official claimed. ..."
"... This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC targets throughout the Middle East. ..."
President Trump's decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani back in January took the United
States to the brink of war with Iran.
Trump and his advisors contend that Soleimani's death was necessary to protect American
lives, pointing to a continuum of events that began on December 27, when a rocket attack on an
American base in Iraq killed a civilian translator. That in turn prompted U.S. airstrikes
against a pro-Iranian militia, Khati'ab Hezbollah, which America blamed for the attack.
Khati'ab Hezbollah then stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in protest. This reportedly
triggered the assassination of Soleimani and a subsequent Iranian retaliatory missile strike on
an American base in Iraq. The logic of this continuum appears consistent except for one
important fact -- it is all predicated on a lie.
On the night of December 27, a pickup truck modified
to carry a launchpad capable of firing 36 107mm Russian-made rockets was used in an attack
on a U.S. military compound located at the K-1 Airbase in Iraq's Kirkuk Province. A total of 20
rockets were loaded onto the vehicle, but only 14 were fired. Some of the rockets struck an
ammunition dump on the base, setting off a series of secondary explosions. When the smoke and
dust cleared, a civilian interpreter was dead and
several other personnel , including four American servicemen and two Iraqi military, were
wounded. The attack appeared timed to
disrupt a major Iraqi military operation targeting insurgents affiliated with ISIS.
The area around K-1 is populated by Sunni Arabs, and has long been considered a bastion of
ISIS ideology, even if the organization itself
was declared defeated inside Iraq back in 2017 by then-prime minister Haider al Abadi. The
Iraqi counterterrorism forces based at K-1 consider the area around the base an ISIS sanctuary
so dangerous that they only enter in large numbers.
For their part, the Iraqis had been warning their U.S. counterparts for more than a month
that ISIS was planning attacks on K-1. One such report, delivered on November 6, using
intelligence dating back to October, was quite specific: "ISIS terrorists have endeavored to
target K-1 base in Kirkuk district by indirect fire (Katyusha rockets)."
Another report, dated December 25, warned that ISIS was attempting to seize territory to the
northeast of K-1. The Iraqis were so concerned that on December 27, the day of the attack, they
requested that the U.S. keep functional its
tethered aerostat-based Persistent Threat Detection System (PTSD) -- a high-tech
reconnaissance balloon equipped with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance
intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and communications in support of U.S. and
Iraqi forces.
Instead, the U.S. took the PTSD down for maintenance, allowing the attackers to approach
unobserved.
The Iraqi military officials at K-1 immediately suspected ISIS as the culprit behind the
attack. Their logic was twofold. First, ISIS had been engaged in nearly daily attacks in the
area for over a year, launching rockets, firing small arms, and planting roadside bombs.
Second, according
to the Iraqis , "The villages near here are Turkmen and Arab. There is sympathy with Daesh
[i.e., ISIS] there."
As transparent as the Iraqis had been with the U.S. about their belief that ISIS was behind
the attack, the U.S. was equally opaque with the Iraqis regarding whom it believed was the
culprit. The U.S. took custody of the rocket launcher, all surviving ordnance, and all warhead
fragments from the scene.
U.S. intelligence analysts viewed the attack on K-1 as part of a continuum of attacks
against U.S. bases in Iraq since early November 2019. The first attack took place on November
9,
against the joint U.S.-Iraqi base at Qayarrah , and was very similar to the one that
occurred against K-1 -- some 31 107mm rockets were fired from a pickup truck modified to carry
a rocket launchpad. As with K-1, the forces located in Qayarrah were engaged in ongoing
operations targeting ISIS, and the territory around the base was considered sympathetic to
ISIS. The Iraqi government attributed the attack to unspecified "terrorist" groups.
The U.S., however, attributed the attacks to Khati'ab Hezbollah, a Shia militia incorporated
with the Popular Mobilization Organization (PMO), a pro-Iranian umbrella organization that had
been incorporated into the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. The PMO
blamed the U.S. for a series of drone strikes against its facilities throughout the summer
of 2019.
The feeling among the American analysts was that the PMO attacked the bases as a form of
retaliation.
The U.S.
launched a series of airstrikes against Khati'ab Hezbollah bases and command posts in Iraq
and Syria on December 29, near the Iraqi city of al-Qaim. These attacks were carried out
unilaterally, without any effort to coordinate with America's Iraqi counterparts or seek
approval from the Iraqi government.
Khati'ab Hezbollah units had seized al-Qaim from ISIS in November 2017, and then crossed
into Syria, where they defeated ISIS fighters dug in around the Syrian town of al-Bukamal. They
were continuing to secure this strategic border crossing when they were bombed on December
29.
Left unsaid by the U.S. was the fact that the al-Bukamal-al Qaim border crossing was seen as
a crucial "land bridge," connecting Iran with Syria via Iraq. Throughout the summer of
2019, the U.S. had been watching as Iranian engineers, working with Khati'ab Hezbollah,
constructed a sprawling base that straddled both Iraq and Syria. It was this base, and not
Khati'ab Hezbollah per se, that was the reason for the American airstrike. The objective in
this attack was to degrade Iranian capability in the region; the K-1 attack was just an excuse,
one based on the lie that Khati'ab Hezbollah, and not ISIS, had carried it out.
The U.S. had long condemned what it called Iran's "malign intentions" when it came to its
activities in Iraq and Syria. But there is a world of difference between employing tools of
diplomacy to counter Iranian regional actions and going kinetic. One of the reasons the U.S.
has been able to justify attacking Iranian-affiliated targets, such as the al-Bukamal-al-Qaim
complex and Qassem Soleimani, is that the Iranian entity associated with both -- the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC -- has been designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO), and as such military attacks against it are seen as an extension of the
ongoing war on terror. Yet the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself
predicated on a lie.
The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security
adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC)
interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a
unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were
pushing for a strong stance. But
representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings,
the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that
if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from
responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists.
The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put
forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed
policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these
meetings were "largely
incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official
claimed.
After the Pentagon "informally" requested that the NSC change the memoranda to accurately
reflect its position, and were denied, the issue was bumped up to Undersecretary of Defense
John Rood. He then formally requested that the memoranda be corrected. Such a request was
unprecedented in recent memory, a former official noted. Regardless, the NSC did not budge, and
the original memoranda remained as the official records of the meetings in question.
This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty
led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC
targets throughout the Middle East. The rocket attack against K-1 was attributed to an
Iranian proxy -- Khati'ab Hezbollah -- even though there was reason to believe the attack was
carried out by ISIS. This was a cover so IRGC-affiliated facilities in al-Bakumal and al-Qaim,
which had nothing to do with the attack, could be bombed. Everything to do with Iran's alleged
"malign intent." The U.S. embassy was then attacked. Soleimani killed. The American base at
al-Assad was bombarded by Iranian missiles. America and Iran were on the brink of war.
All because of a lie.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, most
recently, Deal of the Century: How Iran
Blocked the West's Road to War (2018).
Iran hawks never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it.
Notable quotes:
"... And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that "new deal" and demanding more? ..."
Daniel
Larison Two Iran hawks from the Senate, Bob Menendez and Lindse Graham, are
proposing a "new deal" that is guaranteed to be a non-starter with Iran:
Essentially, their idea is that the United States would offer a new nuclear deal to both
Iran and the gulf states at the same time. The first part would be an agreement to ensure
that Iran and the gulf states have access to nuclear fuel for civilian energy purposes,
guaranteed by the international community in perpetuity. In exchange, both Iran and the gulf
states would swear off nuclear fuel enrichment inside their own countries forever.
Iran is never going to accept any agreement that requires them to give up domestic
enrichment. As far as they are concerned, they are entitled to this under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and they regard it as a matter of their national rights that they keep it. Insisting on
"zero enrichment" is what made it impossible to reach an agreement with Iran for the better
part of a decade, and it was only when the Obama administration understood this and compromised
to allow Iran to enrich under tight restrictions that the negotiations could move forward.
Demanding "zero enrichment" today in 2020 amounts to rejecting that compromise and returning to
a bankrupt approach that drove Iran to build tens of thousands of centrifuges. As a proposal
for negotiations, it is dead on arrival, and Menendez and Graham must know that. Iran hawks
never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it. They want to make a bogus offer in
the hopes that it will be rejected so that they can use the rejection to justify more
aggressive measures.
The identity of the authors of the plan is a giveaway that the offer is not a serious
diplomatic proposal. Graham is one of the most incorrigible hard-liners on Iran, and Menendez
is probably the most hawkish Democratic senator in office today. Among other things, Menendez
has been a
booster of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the deranged cult of Iranian exiles
that has been buying the support of American politicians and officials for years. Graham has
never seen a diplomatic agreement that he didn't want to destroy. When hard-liners talk about
making a "deal," they always mean that they want to demand the other side's surrender.
Another giveaway that this is not a serious proposal is the fact that they want this
imaginary agreement submitted as a treaty:
That final deal would be designated as a treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate, to give Iran
confidence that a new president won't just pull out (like President Trump did on President
Barack Obama's nuclear deal).
This is silly for many reasons. The Senate doesn't ratify treaties nowadays, so any "new
deal" submitted as a treaty would never be ratified. As the current president has shown, it
doesn't matter if a treaty has been ratified by the Senate. Presidents can and do withdraw from
ratified treaties if they want to, and the fact that it is a ratified treaty doesn't prevent
them from doing this. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty, which was ratified
88-2 in 1972. Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty just last year. The INF Treaty had been
ratified with a
93-5 vote. The hawkish complaint that the JCPOA wasn't submitted as a treaty was, as usual,
made in bad faith. There was no chance that the JCPOA would have been ratified, and even if it
had been that ratification would not have protected it from being tossed aside by Trump.
Insisting on making any new agreement a treaty is just another way of announcing that they have
no interest in a diplomatic solution.
Menendez and Graham want to make the obstacles to diplomacy so great that negotiations
between the U.S. and Iran can't resume. It isn't a serious proposal, and it shouldn't be taken
seriously.
And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied
scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that
"new deal" and demanding more?
"... Although corporations are legally a person (see history below), they are in fact an entity. The sole goal of that entity is
profit. There is no corporate conscience. ..."
"... Perhaps it would be useful to look at the nature of our global expansion. The global expanse of US military bases is well-known,
but its actual territorial empire is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools. Abby Martin interviews history
Professor Daniel Immerwahr about his new book, ' How To Hide An Empire ,' where he documents the story of our "Greater United States."
This is worth the 40 minute watch...I learned several new things. One more long clip. However this one is fine to just listen to as
you do things. This is a wonderful interview with Noam Chomsky. The man exudes wisdom. ..."
"... The oligarchy has been with us since perhaps the tribal origins of our species, but the corporation is a newer phenomenon.
A faceless, soulless profit machine. Ironically it is the 14th amendment which is used to justify corporate person-hood. ..."
"... Corporations aren't specifically mentioned in the 14th Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution. But going back to the
earliest years of the republic, when the Bank of the United States brought the first corporate rights case before the Supreme Court,
U.S. corporations have sought many of the same rights guaranteed to individuals, including the rights to own property, enter into contracts,
and to sue and be sued just like individuals. ..."
"... But it wasn't until the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the Court appeared to grant a corporation
the same rights as an individual under the 14th Amendment ..."
"... The United States is home to five of the world's 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent
of total arms sales by the world's 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data. Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest
defense contractor in the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through deals with governments all over
the world. The company drew public scrutiny after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 boys
and 11 adults. Lockheed's revenue from the U.S. government alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and the Environmental
Protection Agency, combined. ..."
"... http://news.nidokidos.org/military-spending-20-companies-profiting-the-m... For a list of the 20 companies profiting most off
war... https://themindunleashed.com/2019/03/20-companies-profiting-war.html ..."
"... Capitalism, militarism and imperialism are disastrously intertwined ..."
"... Corporations are Religions Yes they are. They have ethics, goals, and priests. They have a god who determines everything "The
Invisible Hand". They believe themselves to be superior to the state. They have cult garb, or are we not going to pretend that there's
corporate dress codes, right down to the things you can wear on special days of the week. They determine what you can eat, drink and
read. If you say something wrong, they feel within their rights to punish you because they OWN the medium that you used to spread ideas.
OF course they don't own your thoughts... those belong to the OTHER god. ..."
Chris Hedges often says "The corporate coup is complete". Sadly I think he is correct. So this week I thought it might be interesting
to explore the techniques which are used here at home and abroad. The oligarchs' corporate control is global, but different strategies
are employed in various scenarios. Just thinking about the recent regime changes promoted by the US in this hemisphere...
The current attempts at the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Cuban, and Iranian coups are primarily conducted
using economic sanctions
.
The US doesn't even lie about past coups. They recently
released a report about the 1953
CIA led coup against Iran detailing the strategies. Here at home it is a compliant media and a new array of corporate laws designed
to protect and further enrich that spell the corporate capture of our culture and society. So let's begin by looking at the nature
of corporations...
The following 2.5 hour documentary from 2004 features commentary from Chris, Noam, Naomi, and many others you know. It has some
great old footage. It is best watched on a television so you have a bigger screen. (This clip is on the encore+ youtube channel and
does have commercials which you can skip after 5 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg
Based on Joel Bakan's bestseller The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power , this 26-award-winning
documentary explores a corporation's inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures.
One hundred
and fifty years ago, a corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic, and pervasive presence
in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, a corporation is today's dominant
institution.
Charting the rise of such an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals, the documentary also recounts
victories against this apparently invincible force.
Although corporations are legally a person (see history below), they are in fact an entity. The sole goal of that entity is
profit. There is no corporate conscience. Some of the CEO's in the film discuss how all the people in the corporations are against
pollution and so on, but by law stockholder profit must be the objective. Now these entities are global operations with no loyalty
to their country of origin.
Perhaps it would be useful to look at the nature of our global expansion. The global expanse of US military bases is well-known,
but its actual territorial empire is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools. Abby Martin interviews
history Professor Daniel Immerwahr about his new book, ' How To Hide An Empire ,' where he documents the story of our
"Greater United States." This is worth the 40 minute watch...I learned several new things. One more long clip. However this one is
fine to just listen to as you do things. This is a wonderful interview with Noam Chomsky. The man exudes wisdom.
So much of this conversation touches on today's topic of our corporate capture. Amy interviewed Ed Snowden this week... (video or text)
This is a system, the first system in history, that bore witness to everything. Every border you crossed, every purchase you
make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friends you keep, article you write, site you visit and subject line
you type was now in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards were not. And I felt, despite what the
law said, that this was something that the public ought to know.
The oligarchy has been with us since perhaps the tribal origins of our species, but the corporation is a newer phenomenon.
A faceless, soulless profit machine. Ironically it is the 14th amendment which is used to justify corporate person-hood.
Corporations aren't specifically mentioned in the 14th Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution. But going back
to the earliest years of the republic, when the Bank of the United States brought the first corporate rights case before the Supreme
Court, U.S. corporations have sought many of the same rights guaranteed to individuals, including the rights to own property,
enter into contracts, and to sue and be sued just like individuals.
But it wasn't until the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the Court appeared to grant a corporation
the same rights as an individual under the 14th Amendment
More recently in 2010 (Citizens United v. FEC): In the run up to the 2008 election, the Federal Elections Commission blocked the
conservative nonprofit Citizens United from airing a film about Hillary Clinton based on a law barring companies from using their
funds for "electioneering communications" within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The organization sued, arguing
that, because people's campaign donations are a protected form of speech (see Buckley v. Valeo) and corporations and people enjoy
the same legal rights, the government can't limit a corporation's independent political donations. The Supreme Court agreed. The
Citizens United ruling may be the most sweeping expansion of corporate personhood to date.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/how-supreme-court-turned-co...
Do they really believe this is how we think?
More than just using the courts, corporations are knee deep in creating favorable laws, not just by lobbying, but by actually
writing legislation to feed the politicians that they own and control, especially at the state level.
Through ALEC, Global Corporations Are Scheming to Rewrite YOUR Rights and Boost THEIR Revenue. Through the corporate-funded
American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state
laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit
huge corporations.
In ALEC's own words, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.
DO YOU? Numerous resources to help us expose ALEC are provided below. We have also created links to detailed discussions of key
issues...
There is very little effort to hide the blatant corruption. People seem to accept this behavior as business as usual, after all
it is.
Part of the current ALEC legislative agenda involves stifling protests.
I think it started in Texas...
A bill making its way through the Texas legislature would make protesting pipelines a third-degree felony, the same as attempted
murder.
H.B. 3557, which is under consideration in the state Senate after passing the state House earlier this month, ups penalties for
interfering in energy infrastructure construction by making the protests a felony. Sentences would range from two to 10 years.
Lawmakers in Wisconsin introduced a bill on September 5 designed to chill protests around oil and gas pipelines and other energy
infrastructure in the state by imposing harsh criminal penalties for trespassing on or damaging the property of a broad range
of "energy providers."
Senate Bill 386 echoes similar "critical infrastructure protection" model bills pushed out by the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC) and the Council of State Governments over the last two years to prevent future protests like the one against the
Dakota Access Pipeline.
And Chris was on the evening RT news this week discussing how the US empire is striking back against leaders who help their own
people rather than our global corporations.
Financially, the cost of these wars is immense: more than $6 trillion dollars. The cost of these wars is just one element of
the $1.2 trillion the US government spends annually on wars and war making. Half of each dollar paid in federal income tax
goes towards some form or consequence of war . While the results of such spending are not hard to foresee or understand:
a cyclical and dependent relationship between the Pentagon, weapons industry and Congress, the creation of a whole new class of
worker and wealth distribution is not so understood or noticed, but exists and is especially malignant.
This is a ghastly redistribution of wealth, perhaps unlike any known in modern human history, certainly not in American history.
As taxpayers send trillions to Washington. DC, that money flows to the men and women that remotely oversee, manage and staff the
wars that kill and destroy millions of lives overseas and at home. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees and civilian contractors
servicing the wars take home six figure annual salaries allowing them second homes, luxury cars and plastic surgery, while veterans
put guns in their mouths, refugees die in capsized boats and as many as four million nameless souls scream silently in death.
These AUMFs (Authorization for Use of Military Force) and the wars have provided tens of thousands of recruits to international
terror groups; mass profits to the weapons industry and those that service it; promotions to generals and admirals, with
corporate board seats upon retirement ; and a perpetual and endless supply of bloody shirts for politicians to wave via
an unquestioning and obsequious corporate media to stoke compliant anger and malleable fear. What is hard to imagine, impossible
even, is anyone else who has benefited from these wars.
The United States is home to five of the world's 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent
of total arms sales by the world's 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data. Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest
defense contractor in the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through deals with governments all
over the world. The company drew public scrutiny after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing
40 boys and 11 adults. Lockheed's revenue from the U.S. government alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and
the Environmental Protection Agency, combined.
The obvious industry which was not included nor considered is the fossil fuel industry. Here's another example of mutual corporate
interests.
"Capitalism, militarism and imperialism are disastrously intertwined with the fossil fuel economy .A globalized economy
predicated on growth at any social or environmental costs, carbon dependent international trade, the limitless extraction of natural
resources, and a view of citizens as nothing more than consumers cannot be the basis for tackling climate change .Little wonder
then that the elites have nothing to offer beyond continued militarisation and trust in techno-fixes."
The US military is one of the largest consumers and emitters of carbon-dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in history, according to an
independent analysis of global fuel-buying practices of a "virtually unresearched" government agency.
If the US military were its own country, it would rank 47th between Peru and Portugal in terms of annual fuel purchases, totaling
almost 270,000 barrels of oil bought every day in 2017. In particular, the Air Force is the largest emitter of greenhouse gas
emissions and bought $4.9 billion of fuel in 2017 – nearly double that of the Navy ($2.8 billion).
The fossil fuel giants even try to control the climate talks...
Oil and gas groups were accused Saturday of seeking to influence climate talks in Madrid by paying millions in sponsorship
and sending dozens of lobbyists to delay what scientists say is a necessary and rapid cut in fossil fuel use.
The corporations are so entwined that it is difficult to tell where they begin and end. There's the unity of private prisons and
the war machine. And it's a global scheme...this example from the UK.
One thing is clear: the prison industrial complex and the global war machine are intimately connected. This summer's prison
strike that began in the United States and spread to other countries was the largest in history. It shows more than ever that
prisoners are resisting this penal regime, often at great risk to themselves. The battle to end prison slavery continues.
The 2017 tax bill cut taxes for most Americans, including the middle class, but it heavily benefits the wealthy and corporations
. It slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, and its treatment of "pass-through" entities -- companies organized
as sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, or S corporations -- will translate to an estimated $17 billion in tax savings for
millionaires this year. American corporations are showering their shareholders with stock buybacks, thanks in part to their tax
savings.
Even Robert Jackson Jr., commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Appointed to the SEC in 2017 by President Donald
Trump. Confirmed in January 2018 sees the corporate cuts as absurd.
"We have been to the movie of tax cuts and buybacks before, in the Republican administration during the George W. Bush era.
We enacted a quite substantial tax cut during that period. And studies after that showed very clearly that most corporations use
the funds from that tax cut for buybacks. And here's the kicker. That particular tax cut actually required that companies deploy
the capital for capital expenditures, wage increases and investments in their people. Yet studies showed that, in fact, the companies
use them for buybacks. So we've been to this movie before. And what you're describing to me, that corporations turned around and
took the Trump tax cut and didn't use it in investing in their people or in infrastructure, but instead for other purposes, shouldn't
surprise anybody at all."
So the corporations grow larger, wealthier, more powerful, buying evermore legislative influence along the way. They have crept
into almost every aspect of our lives. Some doctors are beginning to see the influence of big pharma and other corporate interests
are effecting the current practice of medicine.
Gary Fettke is a doctor from Tasmania who has been targeted for promoting a high fat low carb diet...threatened with losing
his medical qualifications. He doesn't pull punches in this presentation discussing the corporate control of big ag/food and big
pharma on medical practice and education. (27 min)
Corporations are Religions
Yes they are. They have ethics, goals, and priests. They have a god who determines everything "The Invisible Hand". They believe
themselves to be superior to the state. They have cult garb, or are we not going to pretend that there's corporate dress codes,
right down to the things you can wear on special days of the week. They determine what you can eat, drink and read. If you say
something wrong, they feel within their rights to punish you because they OWN the medium that you used to spread ideas. OF course
they don't own your thoughts... those belong to the OTHER god.
At least the crazy made up gods that I listen to don't usually
fuck over other human beings for a goddamn percentage. ON the other hand, if a corporation can make a profit, it's REQUIRED to
fuck you over. To do otherwise would be against it's morals. Which it does have, trust us... OH, and corporations get to make
fun of your beliefs, but you CANNOT make fun of theirs. Because that would be heresy against logic and reason.
In a local newspaper showed a couple coming out of a Wal-Mart with their carts piled high with big boxed foreign junk, then
shown cramming their SUV full of said junk. The headline read "Crazy Busy". It pretty much summed up what is wrong with the American
consumer culture. The next day's big headline spotlighted our senator's picture affixed to a LARGE headline boasting "$22 Billion
Submarine Contract Awarded". A good example of of what is wrong with the american war economy.
Thank you for your compilation Lookout! If we can get beyond the headlines, working at grass root and local solutions, maybe
even underground revolution, there may be hope for us. Barter for a better future.
My buddies always say about their mayor..."There's no way we will trade down after this election...but then we do." Perhaps
it is true for more than just their town.
The line running in my head is..."What if they gave a war and nobody came". I want to expand it to..."What if they made cheap
junk no one really wanted and nobody bought it". Or substitute junk food for cheap junk, or...
My point in today's conclusion is much as I try to walk away from corporate culture/control, I really can't totally escape...but
at least I spend most of my time in the open, breathing clean air, surrounded by forest. We do what we can.
Consumerism in our society is a plague, a disease perpetrated upon us by our corporate lords. It has taken over everything
about being an American.
I think the youth are catching on, as they are thrifting more, but they don't understand about food, and that's the rub. Our
youth will be more unhealthy until they understand what corporations are doing to us through food addictions.
We're expecting rain today for most of the day and actually it's just started. The person who will drill our well came by yesterday
and figured out some details. We are behind two other wells, so it will probably be the holiday week when it happens - we'll see.
I can wait til January and hope we do.
Ideas is that new deal of FDR's day had corporate opponents far different than those of today. Sanders does not seem to understand
that the corporations of yesterday, and what worked against them, will not work against the corporations of today. In the early part of the 20th century, corporations were still primarily domestic and local often with charters from the state
where they conducted their primary business, many times all of their business.
Regulation and unions were reasonable anti-dotes to the abuses of these local and domestic corporations. The state still had
some semblance of control over them.
But today corporations are global. They have no allegiance to, or concern for the domestic economy or local people. They do not fear of any anti-dotes that worked for years against domestic or local corporations. Global corporations just leave
and go elsewhere if they don't like the domestic or local situation if they have not managed to completely take over the government.
There is only one reason to incorporate in the first place. That is for the owner(s) of the business to avoid personal liability
or responsibility. The majority of people never understand this idea. Corporate owners are the people who are the genuine personal
responsibility avoiders. Not the poor. The only antidote to corporations these days is the total demise of the corporation and
its similar business entities that dodge personal responsibility. And the state must refuse to allow any such entities to do business.
It is the only way forward. Otherwise nation states will give way to corporate states. Corporate governance is the new feudalism
from which the old feudalism morphed.
Sanders isn't going to advocate doing away with corporate entities or other similar business entities. Nor will any of the
Democratic contenders. They all require corporations to rail against as the basis for their political policy.
...and I've always wondered just how Bernie would dismantle them. However like the impotence of the impeachment, is the impotence
of the primary process.
When the DNC was sued after 2016, they were
exonerated based on the ruling they were a private entity entitled to make rules as the wanted. The primary is so obviously
rigged I can almost guarantee Bernie will not be allowed the nomination, so the question to how he would change corporate control
is really moot.
@Lookout I probably
could get on board with a Sanders campaign if he would run as an Independent. But it is really hard to get on board with him as
a Democrat. If he loses the nomination, he will probably not run as an Independent once again. Once he bailed on an Independent
run last time, I and many others bailed on him. I would support his Independent candidacy just to screw with the Electoral College.
I thought last time an independent candidacy might have thrown the election to the House of Representatives. I could see a Democratically
controlled House voting for him over Trump in a three way EC split if the Democratic candidate took low EC numbers.
But he is so afraid of being tarred with the Nader moniker.
What I said many times on websites last election is that an EC vote is very similar to a Parliamentary Election. And that would
be an interesting change for sure. It would also be a means of having the popular vote winner restored if there is a big enough
margin in the House. And what would be equally cool is that the Senate picks the VP. So you could have President and VP from different
parties.
if Bernie got the nomination, I would vote for him, especially in this imaginary world, if Tulsi was his running mate. Then there
the question about your vote being counted? We'll just have to see what we see and make judgements based on outcomes, IMO.
#4.1 I probably could get on board with
a Sanders campaign if he would run as an Independent. But it is really hard to get on board with him as a Democrat. If he loses
the nomination, he will probably not run as an Independent once again. Once he bailed on an Independent run last time, I and
many others bailed on him. I would support his Independent candidacy just to screw with the Electoral College. I thought last
time an independent candidacy might have thrown the election to the House of Representatives. I could see a Democratically
controlled House voting for him over Trump in a three way EC split if the Democratic candidate took low EC numbers.
But he is so afraid of being tarred with the Nader moniker.
What I said many times on websites last election is that an EC vote is very similar to a Parliamentary Election. And that
would be an interesting change for sure. It would also be a means of having the popular vote winner restored if there is a
big enough margin in the House. And what would be equally cool is that the Senate picks the VP. So you could have President
and VP from different parties.
@Lookout The only
way the Democrats might beat Trump is to have Sanders run as an Independent and prevent Trump from reaching 270. That is a far
better way to beat Trump than impeachment. Would the house vote for the Democrat or an Independent? I guess it would depend on
how Sanders did in the popular vote and EC against his Democratic rival.
#4.1.1 if Bernie got the nomination, I would vote for him, especially in this imaginary world, if Tulsi was his running mate. Then
there the question about your vote being counted? We'll just have to see what we see and make judgements based on outcomes,
IMO.
If it was Hillary "Dewey Cheatem & Howe" Clinton, all bets are off.
#4.1.1.1 The only way the Democrats
might beat Trump is to have Sanders run as an Independent and prevent Trump from reaching 270. That is a far better way to
beat Trump than impeachment. Would the house vote for the Democrat or an Independent? I guess it would depend on how Sanders
did in the popular vote and EC against his Democratic rival.
Good lord.that she did that is unbelievable. Great point. Boycott Fox News, but go on Stern's show. It's going to be fun to
watch how much lower she falls.
MSNBC invited on two former Hillary Clinton aides to criticize Bernie Sanders for taking a "long time to get out of the
race" and that he didn't do "enough" campaigning for her in 2016. pic.twitter.com/6Vsqo0DKZI
@TheOtherMaven They
have to choose from actual EC vote getters. So if she is not the candidate she could not win.
Having Sanders run as an Independent and Warren or Biden run as a Democrat would be a much better strategy to ensure a Trump
loss in the House. Of course it might take some coordination as in asking the voters to vote for the candidate who has the best
chance of beating Trump in certain states. But voters could probably figure that out.
Or a candidate could just withdraw from a state in which the other candidate had a better chance of beating Trump.
Lookout as usual you have done an excellent job of giving me a lot of articles to read and think about this next week.
Of course I need to be loading my car and shutting this place down as I head to the Texas hill country. Will look for an article
about Kinder Morgan and small communities that are fighting the pipeline through their towns. The read was a little hopeful.
Watching the weather and it looks like sunshine and clear skies as I travel. Thanks for all your work in putting this together.
I like to travel on the old roads
I like the way it makes me feel
No destination just the old roads
Somehow it helps the heart to heal.
I hope your road trip is a good one. The less busy tracks are almost meditative....soaking in scenery as the world passes by.
Have fun and be careful.
Lookout as usual you have done an excellent job of giving me a lot of articles to read and think about this next week.
Of course I need to be loading my car and shutting this place down as I head to the Texas hill country. Will look for an
article about Kinder Morgan and small communities that are fighting the pipeline through their towns. The read was a little
hopeful.
Watching the weather and it looks like sunshine and clear skies as I travel. Thanks for all your work in putting this together.
Here are a couple of links to how free markets
help in the corporate takeover. Amazon a corp that has only made a profit by
never paying taxes and accounting fraud. It
became a trillion dollar corp through the use
of monopoly money(stock) it's nothing but the
perfect example of todays "unicorn" corp, i.e.
worth what it is w/out ever making a penny
Corporations can live far beyond a persons lifespan. Corporations can commit homicide and escape execution and justice. Unfortunately,
unions are just as likely to be on the corporations side to get jobs and wages, and bust heads if anything interferes with that.
If we protest we've seen the police ready to use deadly force at the drop of a hat, and get away with it. We get to vote on
candidates that some political club chose for us, and have little incentive to work for the 99%. The gov. has amassed so much
information on us we can't even fathom its depth. We have nowhere left, no unexplored lands out of reach of the government. We
think we own things, but if you think you own a home, see how long it is before the gov. confiscates it if you don't pay your
property taxes.
If I were younger, or a young person asked what to do, I would say.... learn some skill that would make you attractive for
emigrating to another country, because the US looks like it's over. It's people are only here to be exploited. And if Bernie were
to become president I hope he gets a food taster.
run to. No where to hide. As in the U.K., corporations are seeking to to dismantle the NHS and turn it into a for-profit system
like ours. Even as the gilllet-jaune protesters risk life and limb, Macron seeks to install true neoliberalism in France. And
the beat goes on.
Corporations can live far beyond a persons lifespan. Corporations can commit homicide and escape execution and justice.
Look at what chevron did to people in Borapol. I'm sure I spelled this wrong but hopefully people will know what I'm talking
about. They killed lots of people and poisoned their land for decades and the fight over it is still going on. How many decades
more will chevron get to skirt justice? Banks continue to commit fraud and they only get little fines that don't do jack to keep
them from doing it again. Even cities are screwing people. Owe a few dollars on your property taxes and they will take your home
and sell it for pennies on the dollar. How in hell can it be legal to charge people over 600% interest? What happened to usury
rules if that's the correct term.
The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled last week that a prior ruling by an Ecuadorean court that fined Chevron
$9.5 billion in 2011 should be upheld, according to teleSUR, a Latin American news agency. Texaco, which is currently a part of
Chevron, is responsible for what is considered one of the world's largest environmental disasters while it drilled for oil in
the Ecuadorian rainforest from 1964 to 1990.
https://www.ecowatch.com/will-chevron-and-exxon-ever-be-held-responsible...
The legal battle has been tied up in the courts for years. Ecuador's highest court finally upheld the ruling in January
2014, but Chevron refused to pay.
This is another thing that corporations get away with. Contaminating land and then just walking away from it. How many superfund
sites have we had to pay for instead of the ones who created the mess. Just declared bankruptcy and walked away. Corporations
are people? Fine then they should be held as accountable as the people in the lower classes. Fat chance though right?
Weren't people killed by a gas cloud released from the plant? I read something recently that said the case is still going
through the courts. How much money have they spent trying not to spend more?
Byedone just needs to pack it in and drop out already. Today he was defending the republican party after someone said something
about them needing to go away. Joe said that we need another party so one does not get more power than the other. Yeah right,
Joe. It's not like the Pubs are already weilding power they don't have and them dems cowering and supporting them.
Newsweek reporter quit after being censored on the OPCW story.
I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient
to US govt was removed, though it was factually correct.
First frustrate us with gridlock. Then pass bills benefiting the corporate overlords. Then leading up
to elections pass bills like the one against animal cruelty (who doesn't love kitties and puppies?), or propose a bill to consider
regulating cosmetics. This second bipartisan effort is glaringly cynical since no one apparently knows what is in beauty products.
Sanders must have politicians worried for them to attempt something which has managed to go unregulated for so long.
All this bipartisanship is not even up to the level of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's more like wiping at
them with a dirty rag while the ship of state continues to sink. While animal cruelty and cosmetic safety are important issues,
they pale in comparison to the systemic ills America suffers. Our fearless leaders will continue to scratch the surface while
corruption and business as usual continue to fester. These bipartisan laws may look good on a politician's resume, but they won't
really help the 99%.
@snoopydawg
the propaganda to give NATO a raison d'ętre for a pivot to China. This will be doomed to complete failure just as the Russian
pivot has.
But Putin and Xi Jinping are both much too skilled and intelligent to defeat. American WWE trash talkers are completely outclassed
by an 8th dan in judo paired with a Sun Tzu scholar.
Tomoe nage - use your opponent's weight and aggression against him.
"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent
is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he
is unprepared, appear where you are not expected ."
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
@Lookout
What they want is
a controlled collapse. If they can get the US to continue to overspend on war mongering rather than programs of social uplift
the country will rot from the inside.
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
So much more to say really. Had to stop somewhere but as you know the corruption runs deep and is intermixed with the CIA/FBI/MIC
corporate government under which we live.
On we go as best we can!
There is great dignity in the objective truth. Perhaps because it never flows through the contaminated minds of the unworthy.
Corporate charters were initially meant to be for the public good if i'm not mistaken in recall, it was a trade-off for their
privilege to exist. Maybe a movement political leader could highlight this and move the pendulum back to accountability.
Had a conversation with good friend today, a 3M rep, and he was griping about his competitor's shady marketing product practices
apparently lying to manufacturers about the grades and contents of their competing products.
Although Trump decided to call this as "Iran standing down," analysts on both sides can work
the calculus of this test run. I have been suggesting that Iran's cheaper technology is quite
effective and an advantage near their "home court."
The Iranians used a third- or fourth-generation Fateh 110, which was generally given a range
of 300 km. But the Al Assad base is 370 km from the border, so it seems the Iranians squeezed
out some extra range. The fourth generation Fateh 100 carries a 650 kg warhead. Iran certainly
has missiles with more punch. The Quim 1 is essentially a similar missile.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/63ehLAg7mSU
Iran showed that it can put most of Iraq in range of these low-cost missiles should it
become a battleground. The Al Assad base is large and target-rich.
Leaked pictures taken by a Puerto Rican soldier of the damage to the Al-Asad US airbase in
Iraq, after being hit by Iranian missiles.
Meanwhile,
Russia offered Iraq its state-of-the-art S-400 air defense to defend its air space.
Besides the added range, the accuracy looks impressive.
"Some of the locations struck look like the missiles hit dead center," said David Schmerler,
an analyst with the Middlebury Institute.
Numbers and production information relating to the Fateh 110 are currently uncertain, yet
Iranian media sources claim that facilities have been created to mass produce the weapon.
Michael Elleman, director of the Nonproliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme at the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, estimates that Iran has numbers "in the high
hundreds" of the Fateh-110.
Our takeaway is that this night demonstration is hardly a dud and will give Americans some
pause. It shows this key base at Al Assad will be vulnerable. If one night Iran threw a hundred
of these missiles up and aimed them at personnel, things could get ugly fast.
Observers are asking "where was the Patriot defense missile?" The problem is economic. The
cost of each missile is $2.75 million.
A Rand study estimated that a Patriot will need three rounds to take down basic short-range
ballistic missiles like the Fateh-110. That's 30 times more than the cost of Fateh. Iran would
hope the Patriot is wasted on Fatehs and Quims, and they would gladly run that kind of
cost-benefit math all over the region.
"For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap, revenge is a different issue,"
Iran's Fars News Agency quotes Iran's supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying Wednesday. "Military moves like this are not enough. The
Americans' corruption-stirring presence will come to an end."
Winter Watch Takeaway
U.S. vulnerability at Al Assad has now been well demonstrated. If anything -- especially as
more sanctions are being slapped on -- the War Party in Iran will be emboldened to run with
their advantages and do so well before more American troops and aircraft build up in the
theater.
In the language of the American Oligarchy and it's tame and owned presstitutes on the MSM,
any country targeted for destabilisation, destruction and rape – either because it
doesn't do what America tells it do (Russia), because it has rich natural resources or has a
'socialist' state (Venezuela) or because lunatic neo-cons and even more lunatic Christian
Evangelicals (hoping to provoke The End Times ) want it to happen (Syria and Iran) – is
first labelled as a 'regime'.
That's because the word 'regime' is associated with dictatorships and human rights abuses
and establishing a non-compliant country as a 'regime' is the US government's and MSM's first
step at manufacturing public consent for that country's destruction.
Unfortunately if you sit back and talk a cool-headed, factual look at actions and attitudes
that we're told constitute a regime then you have to conclude that America itself is 'a
regime'.
So, here's why America is a regime:
Regimes disobey international law. Like America's habit of blowing up wedding parties
with drones or the illegal presence of its troops in Syria, Iraq and God knows where
else.
Regimes carry out illegal assassination programs – I need say no more here than
Qasem Soleimani.
Regimes use their economic power to bully and impose their will – sanctioning
countries even when they know those sanctions will, for example, be responsible for the death
of 500,000 Iraqi children (the 'price worth paying', remember?).
Regimes renege on international treaties – like Iran nuclear treaty, for
example.
Regimes imprison and hound whistle-blowers – like Chelsea manning and Julian
Assange.
Regimes imprison people. America is the world leader in incarceration. It has 2.2 million
people in its prisons (more than China which has 5 times the US's population), that's 25% of
the world's prison population for 5% of the world's population, Why does America need so many
prisoners? Because it has a massive, prison-based, slave labour business that is hugely
profitable for the oligarchy.
Regimes censor free speech. Just recently, we've seen numerous non-narrative following
journalists and organisations kicked off numerous social media platforms. I didn't see lots
of US senators standing up and saying 'I disagree completely with what you say but I will
fight to the death to preserve your right to say it'. Did you?
Regimes are ruled by cliques. I don't need to tell you that America is kakistocratic
Oligarchy ruled by a tiny group of evil, rich, Old Men, do I?
Regimes keep bad company. Their allies are other 'regimes', and they're often lumped
together by using another favourite presstitute term – 'axis of evil'. America has its
own little axis of evil. It's two main allies are Saudi Arabia – a homophobic, women
hating, head chopping, terrorist financing state currently engaged in a war of genocide
(assisted by the US) in Yemen – and the racist, genocidal undeclared nuclear power
state of Israel.
Regimes commit human rights abuses. Here we could talk about ooh let's think. Last year's
treatment of child refugees from Latin America, the execution of African Americans for
'walking whilst black' by America's militarized, criminal police force or the millions of
dollars in cash and property seized from entirely innocent Americans by that same police
force under 'civil forfeiture' laws or maybe we could mention huge American corporations
getting tax refunds whilst ordinary Americans can't afford decent, effective healthcare.
Regimes finance terrorism. Mmmm .just like America financed terrorists to help destroy
Syria and Libya and invested $5 billion dollars to install another regime – the one of
anti-Semites and Nazis in Ukraine
Yup – America passes the 'sniff test' for Regime status.
If you're sick of being ruled by lying, psychopathic wankers then imagine a world,
much like this one but subtly different where, instead of always getting away with it all
the time, our psychopathic rulers occasionally got what they really, really deserved.
4
hours ago
America's Military is Killing – Americans!
In 2018, Republicans (AND Democrats) voted to cut $23 billion dollars from the budget
for food stamps (42 million Americans currently receive them).
Fats forward to 21 December 2019 and Donald Trump signed off on a US defense budget of a
mind boggling $738 billion dollars.
To put that in context -- the annual US government Education budget is
sround $68 billion dollars.
Did you get that -- $738 billion on defense, $68 billion on education?
That means the government spends more than ten times on preparations to kill people than
it does on preparing children for life in the adult world.
Wow!
How ******* psychotic and death-affirming is that? It gets even worse when you consider
that that $716 billion dollars is only the headline figure – it doesn't include
whatever the Deep State siphons away into black-ops and kick backs. And .America's military
isn't even very good – it's hasn't 'won' a conflict since the second world war, it's
proud (and horrifically expensive) aircraft carriers have been rendered obsolete by Chinese
and Russian hypersonic missiles and its 'cutting edge' weapons are so good (not) that
everyone wants to buy the cheaper and better Russian versions: classic example – the
F-35 jet program will screw $1.5 TRILLION (yes, TRILLION) dollars out of US taxpayers but
but it's a piece of **** plane that doesn't work properly which the Russians laughingly
refer to as 'a flying piano'.
In contrast to America's free money for the military industrial complex defense budget,
China spends $165 billion and Russia spends $61 billion on defense and I don't see anyone
attacking them (well, except America, that is be it only by proxy for now).
Or, put things another way. The United Kingdom spent £110 billion on it's National
Health Service in 2017. That means, if you get sick in England, you can see a doctor for
free. If you need drugs you pay a prescription charge of around $11.50(nothing, if
unemployed, a child or elderly), whatever the market price of the drugs. If you need to see
a consultant or medical specialist, you'll see one for free. If you need an operation,
you'll get one for free. If you need on-going care for a chronic illness, you'll get it for
free.
Fully socialised, free at the point of access, healthcare for all. How good is that?
US citizens could have that, too.
Allowing for the US's larger population, the UK National Health Service transplanted to
America could cost about $650 billion a year. That would still leave $66 billion dollars
left over from the proposed defense budget of $716 billion to finance weapons of death and
destruction -- more than those 'evil Ruskies' spend.
The US has now been at war, somewhere in the world (i.e in someone elses' country where
the US doesn't have any business being) continuously for 28 years. Those 28 years have
coincided with (for the 'ordinary people', anyway) declining living standards, declining
real wages, increased police violence, more repression and surveillance, declining
lifespans, declining educational and health outcomes, more every day misery in other words,
America's military is killing Americans. Oh, and millions of people in far away countries
(although, obviously, those deaths are in far away countries and they are of
brown-skinned people so they don't really count, do they?).
From comments (Is the USA government now a "regime"): In 2018, Republicans (AND Democrats) voted to cut $23 billion dollars from
the budget for food stamps (42 million Americans currently receive them). Regimes disobey international law. Like America's habit of
blowing up wedding parties with drones or the illegal presence of its troops in Syria, Iraq and God knows where else. Regimes carry
out illegal assassination programs – I need say no more here than Qasem Soleimani. Regimes use their economic power to bully and
impose their will – sanctioning countries even when they know those sanctions will, for example, be responsible for the death of
500,000 Iraqi children (the 'price worth paying', remember?). Regimes renege on international treaties – like Iran nuclear treaty,
for example. Regimes imprison and hound whistle-blowers – like Chelsea manning and Julian Assange. Regimes imprison people. America
is the world leader in incarceration. It has 2.2 million people in its prisons (more than China which has 5 times the US's
population), that's 25% of the world's prison population for 5% of the world's population, Why does America need so many prisoners?
Because it has a massive, prison-based, slave labour business that is hugely profitable for the oligarchy.
Regimes censor free speech. Just recently, we've seen numerous non-narrative following journalists and organisations kicked off
numerous social media platforms. I didn't see lots of US senators standing up and saying 'I disagree completely with what you say
but I will fight to the death to preserve your right to say it'. Did you?
Regimes are ruled by cliques. I don't need to tell you that America is kakistocratic Oligarchy ruled by a tiny group of evil,
rich, Old Men, do I?
Regimes keep bad company. Their allies are other 'regimes', and they're often lumped together by using another favourite presstitute
term – 'axis of evil'. America has its own little axis of evil. It's two main allies are Saudi Arabia – a homophobic, women hating,
head chopping, terrorist financing state currently engaged in a war of genocide (assisted by the US) in Yemen – and the racist,
genocidal undeclared nuclear power state of Israel.
Regimes commit human rights abuses. Here we could talk about…ooh…let's think. Last year's treatment of child refugees from Latin
America, the execution of African Americans for 'walking whilst black' by America's militarized, criminal police force or the
millions of dollars in cash and property seized from entirely innocent Americans by that same police force under 'civil forfeiture'
laws or maybe we could mention huge American corporations getting tax refunds whilst ordinary Americans can't afford decent,
effective healthcare.
Regimes finance terrorism. Mmmm….just like America financed terrorists to help destroy Syria and Libya and invested $5 billion
dollars to install another regime – the one of anti-Semites and Nazis in Ukraine…
Highly recommended!
Some comments edited for clarity...
Notable quotes:
"... But after retirement, Smedley Butler changed his tune. ..."
"... "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service... And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers." ..."
"... Smedley Butler's Marine Corps and the military of his day was, in certain ways, a different sort of organization than today's highly professionalized armed forces. History rarely repeats itself, not in a literal sense anyway. Still, there are some disturbing similarities between the careers of Butler and today's generation of forever-war fighters. All of them served repeated tours of duty in (mostly) unsanctioned wars around the world. Butler's conflicts may have stretched west from Haiti across the oceans to China, whereas today's generals mostly lead missions from West Africa east to Central Asia, but both sets of conflicts seemed perpetual in their day and were motivated by barely concealed economic and imperial interests. ..."
"... When Smedley Butler retired in 1931, he was one of three Marine Corps major generals holding a rank just below that of only the Marine commandant and the Army chief of staff. Today, with about 900 generals and admirals currently serving on active duty, including 24 major generals in the Marine Corps alone, and with scores of flag officers retiring annually, not a single one has offered genuine public opposition to almost 19 years worth of ill-advised, remarkably unsuccessful American wars . As for the most senior officers, the 40 four-star generals and admirals whose vocal antimilitarism might make the biggest splash, there are more of them today than there were even at the height of the Vietnam War, although the active military is now about half the size it was then. Adulated as many of them may be, however, not one qualifies as a public critic of today's failing wars. ..."
"... The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson ; Vietnam veteran and onetime West Point history instructor, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich ; and Iraq veteran and Afghan War whistleblower , retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis . All three have proven to be genuine public servants, poignant voices, and -- on some level -- cherished personal mentors. For better or worse, however, none carry the potential clout of a retired senior theater commander or prominent four-star general offering the same critiques. ..."
"... Consider it an irony of sorts that this system first received criticism in our era of forever wars when General David Petraeus, then commanding the highly publicized " surge " in Iraq, had to leave that theater of war in 2007 to serve as the chair of that selection committee. The reason: he wanted to ensure that a twice passed-over colonel, a protégé of his -- future Trump National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster -- earned his star. ..."
"... At the roots of this system lay the obsession of the American officer corps with " professionalization " after the Vietnam War debacle. This first manifested itself in a decision to ditch the citizen-soldier tradition, end the draft, and create an "all-volunteer force." The elimination of conscription, as predicted by critics at the time, created an ever-growing civil-military divide, even as it increased public apathy regarding America's wars by erasing whatever " skin in the game " most citizens had. ..."
"... One group of generals, however, reportedly now does have it out for President Trump -- but not because they're opposed to endless war. Rather, they reportedly think that The Donald doesn't "listen enough to military advice" on, you know, how to wage war forever and a day. ..."
"... That beast, first identified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now on steroids as American commanders in retirement regularly move directly from the military onto the boards of the giant defense contractors, a reality which only contributes to the dearth of Butlers in the military retiree community. For all the corruption of his time, the Pentagon didn't yet exist and the path from the military to, say, United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, or other typical corporate giants of that moment had yet to be normalized for retiring generals and admirals. Imagine what Butler would have had to say about the modern phenomenon of the " revolving door " in Washington. ..."
"... Today, generals don't seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more's the pity... ..."
"... Am I the only one to notice that Hollywood and it's film distributors have gone full bore on "war" productions, glorifying these historical events while using poetic license to rewrite history. Prepping the numbheads. ..."
"... Forget rank. As Mr Sjursen implies, dissidents are no longer allowed in the higher ranks. "They" made sure to fix this as Mr Butler had too much of a mind of his own (US education system also programmed against creative, charismatic thinkers, btw). ..."
"... Today, the "Masters of the Permawars" refer to the international extortion, MIC, racket as "Defending American Interests"! .....With never any explanation to the public/American taxpayer just what "American Interests" the incredible expenditures of American lives, blood, and treasure are being defended! ..."
"... "The Americans follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous." - Jospeh Goebbels ..."
"... The greatest anti-imperialist of our times is Michael Parenti: ..."
"... The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. ..."
"... If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. ..."
There once lived an odd little man - five feet nine inches tall and barely 140 pounds
sopping wet - who rocked the lecture circuit and the nation itself. For all but a few activist
insiders and scholars, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler is now lost to
history. Yet more than a century ago, this strange contradiction
of a man would become a national war hero, celebrated in pulp adventure novels, and then, 30
years later, as one of this country's most prominent antiwar and anti-imperialist
dissidents.
Raised in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and educated in Quaker (pacifist) schools, the son of
an influential congressman, he would end up serving in nearly all of America's " Banana Wars " from 1898 to
1931. Wounded in combat and a rare recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor, he would
retire as the youngest, most decorated major general in the Marines.
A teenage officer and a certified hero during an international intervention in the Chinese
Boxer Rebellion
of 1900, he would later become a constabulary leader of the Haitian gendarme, the police chief
of Philadelphia (while on an approved absence from the military), and a proponent of Marine
Corps football. In more standard fashion, he would serve in battle as well as in what might
today be labeled peacekeeping , counterinsurgency , and
advise-and-assist missions in Cuba, China, the Philippines, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico,
Haiti, France, and China (again). While he showed early signs of skepticism about some of those
imperial campaigns or, as they were sardonically called by critics at the time, " Dollar Diplomacy "
operations -- that is, military campaigns waged on behalf of U.S. corporate business interests
-- until he retired he remained the prototypical loyal Marine.
But after retirement, Smedley Butler changed his tune. He began to blast the
imperialist foreign policy and interventionist bullying in which he'd only recently played such
a prominent part. Eventually, in 1935 during the Great Depression, in what became a classic
passage in his memoir, which he
titled "War Is a Racket," he wrote:
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service... And during
that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall
Street, and for the Bankers."
Seemingly overnight, the famous war hero transformed himself into an equally acclaimed
antiwar speaker and activist in a politically turbulent era. Those were, admittedly, uncommonly
anti-interventionist years, in which veterans and politicians alike promoted what (for America,
at least) had been fringe ideas. This was, after all, the height of what later pro-war
interventionists would pejoratively label American " isolationism ."
Nonetheless, Butler was unique (for that moment and certainly for our own) in his
unapologetic amenability to left-wing domestic politics and materialist critiques of American
militarism. In the last years of his life, he would face increasing criticism from his former
admirer, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the military establishment, and the interventionist
press. This was particularly true after Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany invaded Poland and later
France. Given the severity of the Nazi threat to mankind, hindsight undoubtedly proved Butler's
virulent opposition to U.S. intervention in World War II wrong.
Nevertheless, the long-term erasure of his decade of antiwar and anti-imperialist activism
and the assumption that all his assertions were irrelevant has proven historically deeply
misguided. In the wake of America's brief but bloody entry into the First World War, the
skepticism of Butler (and a significant part of an entire generation of veterans) about
intervention in a new European bloodbath should have been understandable. Above all, however,
his critique of American militarism of an earlier imperial era in the Pacific and in Latin
America remains prescient and all too timely today, especially coming as it did from one of the
most decorated and high-ranking general officers of his time. (In the era of the never-ending
war on terror, such a phenomenon is quite literally inconceivable.)
Smedley Butler's Marine Corps and the military of his day was, in certain ways, a different
sort of organization than today's highly professionalized armed forces. History rarely repeats
itself, not in a literal sense anyway. Still, there are some disturbing similarities between
the careers of Butler and today's generation of
forever-war fighters. All of them served repeated tours of duty in (mostly) unsanctioned
wars around the world. Butler's conflicts may have stretched west from Haiti across the oceans
to China, whereas today's generals mostly lead missions from West Africa east to Central Asia,
but both sets of conflicts seemed perpetual in their day and were motivated by barely concealed
economic and imperial interests.
Nonetheless, whereas this country's imperial campaigns of the first third of the twentieth
century generated a Smedley Butler, the hyper-interventionism of the first decades of this
century hasn't produced a single even faintly comparable figure. Not one. Zero. Zilch. Why that
is matters and illustrates much about the U.S. military establishment and contemporary national
culture, none of it particularly encouraging.
Why No Antiwar Generals
When Smedley Butler retired in 1931, he was one of three Marine Corps major generals holding
a rank just below that of only the Marine commandant and the Army chief of staff. Today, with
about 900 generals and admirals currently serving on active duty, including 24 major
generals in the Marine Corps alone, and with scores of flag officers retiring annually, not a
single one has offered genuine public opposition to almost 19 years worth of ill-advised,
remarkably unsuccessful American wars . As for the most senior officers, the 40 four-star
generals and admirals whose vocal antimilitarism might make the biggest splash, there are
more of them today than
there were even at the height of the Vietnam War, although the active military is now about
half the size it was then. Adulated as many of them may be, however, not one qualifies as a
public critic of today's failing wars.
Instead, the principal patriotic dissent against those terror wars has come from retired
colonels, lieutenant colonels, and occasionally more junior officers (like me), as well as
enlisted service members. Not that there are many of us to speak of either. I consider it
disturbing (and so should you) that I personally know just about every one of the retired
military figures who has spoken out against America's forever wars.
The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff, retired Colonel
Lawrence Wilkerson ;
Vietnam veteran and onetime West Point history instructor, retired Colonel Andrew Bacevich ; and Iraq veteran and
Afghan War
whistleblower , retired Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis . All three have
proven to be genuine public servants, poignant voices, and -- on some level -- cherished
personal mentors. For better or worse, however, none carry the potential clout of a retired
senior theater commander or prominent four-star general offering the same critiques.
Something must account for veteran dissenters topping out at the level of colonel.
Obviously, there are personal reasons why individual officers chose early retirement or didn't
make general or admiral. Still, the system for selecting flag officers should raise at least a
few questions when it comes to the lack of antiwar voices among retired commanders. In fact, a
selection committee of top generals and admirals is appointed each year to choose the next
colonels to earn their first star. And perhaps you won't be surprised to learn that, according
to numerous reports , "the
members of this board are inclined, if not explicitly motivated, to seek candidates in their
own image -- officers whose careers look like theirs." At a minimal level, such a system is
hardly built to foster free thinkers, no less breed potential dissidents.
Consider it an irony of sorts that this system first received
criticism in our era of forever wars when General David Petraeus, then commanding the
highly publicized " surge " in Iraq, had to leave that
theater of war in 2007 to serve as the chair of that selection committee. The reason: he wanted
to ensure that a twice passed-over colonel, a protégé of his -- future Trump
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster -- earned his star.
Mainstream national security analysts reported on this affair at the time as if it were a
major scandal, since most of them were convinced that Petraeus and his vaunted
counterinsurgency or " COINdinista "
protégés and their " new " war-fighting doctrine had the
magic touch that would turn around the failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Petraeus
tried to apply those very tactics twice -- once in each country -- as did acolytes of his
later, and you know the results
of that.
But here's the point: it took an eleventh-hour intervention by America's most acclaimed
general of that moment to get new stars handed out to prominent colonels who had, until then,
been stonewalled by Cold War-bred flag officers because they were promoting different (but also
strangely familiar) tactics in this country's wars. Imagine, then, how likely it would be for
such a leadership system to produce genuine dissenters with stars of any serious sort, no less
a crew of future Smedley Butlers.
At the roots of this system lay the obsession of the American officer corps with "
professionalization
" after the Vietnam War debacle. This first manifested itself in a decision to ditch the
citizen-soldier tradition, end the draft,
and create an "all-volunteer force." The elimination of conscription, as predicted
by critics at the time,
created an ever-growing civil-military divide, even as it increased public apathy regarding
America's wars by erasing whatever " skin in the game " most
citizens had.
More than just helping to squelch civilian antiwar activism, though, the professionalization
of the military, and of the officer corps in particular, ensured that any future Smedley
Butlers would be left in the dust (or in retirement at the level of lieutenant colonel or
colonel) by a system geared to producing faux warrior-monks. Typical of such figures is current
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley. He may speak
gruffly and look like a man with a head of his own, but typically he's turned out to be
just another yes-man
for another
war-power -hungry president.
One group of generals, however,
reportedly now does have it out for President Trump -- but not because they're opposed to
endless war. Rather, they reportedly think that The Donald doesn't "listen enough to military
advice" on, you know, how to wage war forever and a day.
What Would Smedley Butler Think
Today?
In his years of retirement, Smedley Butler regularly focused on the economic component of
America's imperial war policies. He saw clearly that the conflicts he had fought in, the
elections he had helped rig, the coups he had supported, and the constabularies he had formed
and empowered in faraway lands had all served the interests of U.S. corporate investors. Though
less overtly the case today, this still remains a reality in America's post-9/11 conflicts,
even on occasion embarrassingly so (as when the Iraqi ministry of oil was essentially the
only public building protected by American troops as looters tore apart the Iraqi capital,
Baghdad, in the post-invasion chaos of April 2003). Mostly, however, such influence plays out
far more
subtly than that, both
abroad and here at home where those wars help maintain the record profits of the top
weapons makers of the military-industrial complex.
That beast, first identified by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is now on
steroids as American commanders in retirement regularly
move directly from the military onto the boards of the giant defense contractors, a reality
which only contributes to the dearth of Butlers in the military retiree community. For all the
corruption of his time, the Pentagon didn't yet exist and the path from the military to, say,
United Fruit Company, Standard Oil, or other typical corporate giants of that moment had yet to
be normalized for retiring generals and admirals. Imagine what Butler would have had to say
about the modern phenomenon of the "
revolving door " in Washington.
Of course, he served in a very different moment, one in which military funding and troop
levels were still contested in Congress. As a longtime critic of capitalist excesses who wrote
for leftist publications and supported
the Socialist Party candidate in the 1936 presidential elections, Butler would have found
today's
nearly trillion-dollar annual defense budgets beyond belief. What the grizzled former
Marine long ago identified as a treacherous
nexus between warfare and capital "in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses
in lives" seems to have reached its natural end point in the twenty-first century. Case in
point: the record (and still
rising ) "defense" spending of the present moment, including -- to please a president --
the creation of a whole new military service aimed at the full-scale militarization of
space .
Sadly enough, in the age of Trump, as numerous
polls demonstrate, the U.S. military is the only public institution Americans still truly
trust. Under the circumstances, how useful it would be to have a high-ranking, highly
decorated, charismatic retired general in the Butler mold galvanize an apathetic public around
those forever wars of ours. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is practically nil, given the
military system of our moment.
Of course, Butler didn't exactly end his life triumphantly. In late May 1940, having lost 25
pounds due to illness and exhaustion -- and demonized as a leftist, isolationist crank but
still maintaining a whirlwind speaking schedule -- he checked himself into the Philadelphia
Navy Yard Hospital for a "rest." He died there, probably of some sort of cancer, four weeks
later. Working himself to death in his 10-year retirement and second career as a born-again
antiwar activist, however, might just have constituted the very best service that the two-time
Medal of Honor winner could have given the nation he loved to the very end.
Someone of his credibility, character, and candor is needed more than ever today.
Unfortunately, this military generation is unlikely to produce such a figure. In retirement,
Butler himself boldly
confessed that, "like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of
my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I
obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical..."
Today, generals don't seem to have a thought of their own even in retirement. And more's
the pity...
2 minutes ago
Am I the only one to notice that Hollywood and it's film
distributors have gone full bore on "war" productions, glorifying these historical events while
using poetic license to rewrite history. Prepping the numbheads.
14 minutes ago
TULSI GABBARD.
Forget rank. As Mr Sjursen implies, dissidents are no longer allowed in the higher ranks.
"They" made sure to fix this as Mr Butler had too much of a mind of his own (US education
system also programmed against creative, charismatic thinkers, btw).
The US Space Force has been created as part of a plan to disclose the deep state's Secret
Space Program (SSP), which has been active for decades, and which has utilized, and repressed,
advanced technologies that would provide free, unlimited renewable energy, and thus eliminate
hunger and poverty on a planetary scale.
14 minutes ago
What imperialism?
We are spreading freedumb and dumbocracy.
We are saving the world from socialism and communism.
We are energy independent, with innate exceptionalism and #MAGA# will usher in a new era
of American prosperity.
Any and all accusations of USSA imperialism, are made by the "woke" and those jealous of
the greatest Capitalist system in the world.
The swamp is being drained as I speak, and therefore will continue with unwavering
support for my 5x draft dodging, Zionist supporting, multiple times bankrupt, keeper of
broken promises POTUS.
Smedley Butler's book is not worthy of reading once you have the seminal work known as
"The Art Of The Deal"
Sadly enough, in the age of Trump, as numerous
polls demonstrate, the U.S. military is the only public institution
Americans still truly trust. Under the circumstances, how useful it would be
to have a high-ranking, highly decorated, charismatic retired general in the
Butler mold galvanize an apathetic public around those forever wars of ours.
Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is practically nil, given the military
system of our moment.
This is why I feel an oath keeping constitutionally oriented American
general is what we need in power, clear out all 545 criminals in office now,
review their finances (and most of them will roll over on the others) and
punish accordingly, then the lobbyist, how many of them worked against the
country? You know what we do with those.
And then, finally, Hollywood, oh yes I long to see that **** hole burn with
everyone in it.
30 minutes ago
Republicrat: the two faces of the moar war whore.
32 minutes ago
Given the severity of the Nazi threat to mankind
Do tell, from what I've read the Nazis were really only a threat to a few
groups, the rest of us didn't need to worry.
35 minutes ago
Today, the "Masters
of the Permawars" refer to the international extortion, MIC, racket as
"Defending American Interests"! .....With never any explanation to the
public/American taxpayer just what "American Interests" the incredible
expenditures of American lives, blood, and treasure are being defended!
Why are we sending our children out into the hellholes of the world to be
maimed and killed in the fauxjew banksters' quest for world domination.
How stupid can we be!
41 minutes ago
(Edited) "Smedley Butler"... The last
time the UCMJ was actually used before being permanently turned into a "door
stop"!
49 minutes ago
He was correct about our staying out of WWII. Which, BTW,
would have never happened if we had stayed out of WWI.
22 minutes ago
(Edited)
Both wars were about the international fauxjew imposition of debt-money central
bankstering.
Both wars were promulgated by the Financial oligarchyof New York. The communist Red Army
of Russia was funded and supplied by the Financial oligarchyof New York. It was American Financial oligarchythat built the Russian Red Army that vexed the world and created the Cold War.
How many hundreds of millions of goyim were sacrificed to create both the
Russian and the Chinese Satanic behemoths.......and the communist horror that
is now embedded in American academia, publishing, American politics, so-called
news, entertainment, The worldwide Catholic religion, the Pentagon, and the
American deep state.......and more!
How stupid can we be. Every generation has the be dragged, kicking and
screaming, out of the eternal maw of historical ignorance to avoid falling back
into the myriad dark hellholes of history. As we all should know, people who
forget their own history are doomed to repeat it.
53 minutes ago
Today's
General is a robot with with a DNA.
54 minutes ago
All the General Staff is a
bunch of #asskissinglittlechickenshits
57 minutes ago
want to stop senseless
Empire wars>>well do this
War = jobs and profit..we get work "THEY" get the profit.. If we taxed all
war related profit at 99% how many wars would our rulers start? 1 hour ago
Here
is a simple straightforward trading maxim that might apply here: if it works or
is working keep doing it, but if it doesn't work or stops working, then STOP
doing it. There are plenty of people, now poorer, for not adhering to that
simple principle. Where is the Taxpayer's return on investment from the Combat
taking place on their behalf around the globe? 'Nuff said - it isn't working.
It is making a microscopic few richer & all others poorer so STOP doing it.
36 seconds ago We don't have to look far to figure out who they are that are
getting rich off the fauxjew permawars.
How can we be so stupid???
1 hour ago
See also:
TULSI GABBARD
1 hour ago
The main reason you don't see the generals
criticizing is that the current crop have not been in actual long term direct
combat with the enemy and have mostly been bureaucratic paper pushers.
Take the
Marine Major General who is the current commander of CENTCOM. By the time he
got into the Iraq/Afghanistan war he was already a Lieutenant Colonel and far
removed from direct action.
He was only there on and off for a few years. Here
are some of his other career highlights aft as they appear on his official
bio:
2006-07: he served as the Military Secretary to the 33rd and 34th
Commandants of the Marine Corps
2008: he was selected by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to be the
Director of the Chairman's New Administration Transition Team (CNATT)
2009: he reported to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in
Kabul, Afghanistan to serve as the Deputy to the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS)
for Stability. ..... Deputy to the Deputy for Stability ???? WTF is that?
2010: he was assigned as the Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy (J-5) for
the U.S. Central Command
2012: he reported to Headquarters Marine Corps to serve as the Marine Corps
Representative to the Quadrennial Defense Review
In short, these top guys aren't warriors they're bureaucrats so why would we
expect them to be honest brokers of the truth?
51 minutes ago
are U saying
Chesty Puller he's NOT? 1 hour ago
(Edited) The purpose of war is to ensure
that the
Federal Reserve Note remains the world reserve paper currency of choice by
keeping it relevant and in demand across the globe by forcing pesky energy
producing nations to trade with it exclusively.
It is a 49 year old policy created by the private owners of quasi public
institutions called
central banks to ensure they remain the Wizards of Oz
doing gods work conjuring magic paper into existence with a secret
spell known as issuing credit.
How else is a technologically advanced society of billions of people
supposed to function w/out this
divinely inspired paper?
1 hour ago
Goebbels in "Churchill's Lie Factory"
where he said: "The Americans follow the principle that when one lies, one
should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of
looking ridiculous." - Jospeh Goebbels, "Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik,"
12. january 1941, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel
1 hour ago
The greatest
anti-imperialist of our times is Michael Parenti:
Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last
four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous
peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any
serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and political leaders.
When not ignored outright, the subject of imperialism has been sanitized, so
that empires become "commonwealths," and colonies become "territories" or
"dominions" (or, as in the case of Puerto Rico, "commonwealths" too).
Imperialist military interventions become matters of "national defense,"
"national security," and maintaining "stability" in one or another region. In
this book I want to look at imperialism for what it really is.
"Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world
history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while
oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is
seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and
political leaders."
Why would it when they who control academia, media and most of our
politicians are our enemies.
1 hour ago
"The big three are Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of
staff, retired Colonel
Lawrence
Wilkerson ; ..."
Yep, Wilkerson, who leaked Valerie Plame's name, not that it was a leak, to
Novak, and then stood by to watch the grand jury fry Scooter Libby. Wilkerson,
that paragon of moral rectitude. Wilkerson the silent, that *******.
sheesh,
1 hour ago
(Edited)
" A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence
against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was
apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of
defending, have enslaved the people."
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a
standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Governments mean to invade the
rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia,
in order to raise an army upon their ruins." (Rep. Elbridge Gerry of
Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment [I Annals
of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789])
A particularly pernicious example of intra-European
imperialism was the Nazi aggression during World War II, which gave the German
business cartels and the Nazi state an opportunity to plunder the resources and
exploit the labor of occupied Europe, including the slave labor of
concentration camps. - M. PARENTI, Against empire
See Alexander Parvus
1 hour ago
Collapse is the cure. It's
too far gone.
1 hour ago
Russia Wants to 'Jam' F-22 and F-35s in the Middle
East: Report
ZH retards think that the American mic is bad and all other mics are
good or don't exist. That's the power of brainwashing. Humans understand that
war in general is bad, but humans are becoming increasingly rare in this world.
1 hour ago
The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and
in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as
these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people
who have never been mentioned. The really dangerous American fascists are not
those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its
finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in
the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian
way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to
poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never
how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to
deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more
power.
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and
power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million
fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if
we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money
and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most American fascists are
enthusiastically supporting the war effort.
The swamp is bigger than the military alone. Substitute Bureaucrat,
Statesman, or Beltway Bandit for General and Colonel in your writing above and
you've got a whole new article to post that is just as true.
2 hours ago
(Edited) War = jobs and profit..we get work "THEY" get the profit..If we taxed
all war related profit at 99% how many wars would our rulers start?
2 hours ago [edited for clarity]
War is a racket. And nobody loves a
racket more than Financial oligarchy. Americans come close though, that's why Financial oligarchy use them to
project their own rackets and provide protection reprisals.
This is mostly fear mongering as an affective bioengineered virus will create a pandemic, but
the truth is that Anthrax false flag attack after 9/11 was not an accident...
Trump administration beahaves like a completely lawless gang (stealing Syrian oil is one
example. Killing Soleimani is another ) , as for its behaviour on international arena, but I do
not believe they go that far. Even for for such "ruptured" gangster as Pompeo
Notable quotes:
"... Consider that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be affected in such a scenario? ..."
"... "In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies." ..."
"... Additional notes: here , here , here , here , here and here . ..."
Interestingly, in the past, U.S. universities and NGOs went to China
specifically to do illegal biological experimentation, and this was so egregious to Chinese
officials, that forcible removal of these people was the result. Harvard University, one of the
major players in this scandal, stole the DNA samples of hundreds of thousands of Chinese
citizens, left China with those samples, and continued illegal bio-research in the U.S. It is
thought that the U.S. military, which puts a completely different spin on the conversation, had
commissioned the research in China at the time. This is more than suspicious.
The U.S. has, according to this
article at Global Research ,
had a massive biological warfare program since at least the early 1940s, but has used toxic
agents against this country and others since the 1860s . This is no secret, regardless of the
propaganda spread by the government and its partners in criminal bio-weapon research and
production.
As of 1999, the U.S. government had deployed its Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW)
arsenal against the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Vietnam, China, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia,
Cuba, Haitian boat people, and our neighbor Canada according to this article at
Counter Punch . Of course, U.S.
citizens have been used as guinea pigs many times as well, and exposed to toxic germ agents and
deadly chemicals by government.
Keep in mind that this is a short list, as the U.S. is well known for also using proxies to
spread its toxic chemicals and germ agents, such as happened in Iraq and Syria. Since 1999
there have been continued incidences of several different viruses, most of which are presumed
to be
manmade , including the current Coronavirus that is affecting China today.
There is also much evidence of the research and development of race-specific bio-warfare
agents. This is very troubling. One would think, given the idiotic race arguments by
post-modern Marxists, that this would consume the mainstream news, and any participants in
these atrocious race-specific poisons would be outed at every level. That is not happening, but
I believe it is due to obvious reasons, including government cover-up, hypocrisy at all levels,
and leftist agenda driven objectives that would not gain ground with the exposure of this
government-funded anti-race science.
I will say that it is not just the U.S. that is developing and producing bio-warfare agents
and viruses, but many developed countries around the globe do so as well. But the United
States, as is the case in every area of war and killing, is by far the world leader in its
inhuman desire to be able to kill entire populations through biological and chemical warfare
means. Because these agents are extremely dangerous and uncontrollable, and can spread wildly,
the risk to not only isolated populations, but also the entire world is evident. Consider
that a deadly virus created by the U.S. and used against another country was found out and
verified, and in retaliation, that country or others decided to strike back with other toxic
agents against America. Where would this end, and over time, how many billions could be
affected in such a scenario?
All indications point to the fact that the most toxic, poisonous, and deadly viruses ever
known are being created in labs around the world. In the U.S. think of Fort Detrick, Maryland,
Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas, Horn Island, Mississippi, Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, Vigo
Ordinance Plant, Indiana, and many others. Think of the fascist partnerships between this
government and the pharmaceutical industry. Think of the U.S. military installations positioned
all around the globe. Nothing good can come from this, as it is not about finding cures for
disease, or about discovering vaccines, but is done for one reason only, and that is for the
purpose of bio-warfare for mass killing.
The drive to find biological weapons that will sicken and kill millions at a time is not
only a travesty, but is beyond evil. This power is held by the few, but the potential victims
of this madness include everyone on earth. How can such insanity at this level be allowed to
continue? If any issue could ever unite the masses, governments participating in biological and
germ warfare, race-specific killing, and creating viruses with the potential to affect disease
and death worldwide, should cause many to stand together against it. The first step is to
expose that governments, the most likely culprit being the U.S. government, are planting these
viruses purposely to cause great harm. Once that is proven, the unbelievable risk to all will
be known, and then people everywhere should put their divisiveness aside, stand together, and
stop this assault on mankind.
"In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of
experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble
poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole
continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies." ~
George Orwell – 1984
"... In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held
Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what? We're
trying to build a completely new society.' ..."
"... And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their
'minimum level of human development'. ..."
I'd never heard of the Euro-Atlantic Security Leadership Group (EASLG) until today, even though it turns out that one of its members
has the office next door to mine. Its
website says that
it seeks to respond to the challenge of East-West tensions by convening 'former and current officials and experts from a group of
Euro-Atlantic states and the European union to test ideas and develop proposals for improving security in areas of existential common
interest'. It hopes thereby to 'generate trust through dialogue.'
It's hard to object to any of this, but its latest
statement , entitled 'Twelve Steps Toward Greater Security in Ukraine and the Euro-Atlantic Region', doesn't inspire a lot of
confidence. The 'twelve steps' the EASLG proposes to improve security in Eastern Ukraine are generally pretty uninspiring, being
largely of the 'set up a working group to explore' variety, or of such a vaguely aspirational nature as to be almost worthless (e.g.
'Advance reconstruction of Donbas An essential first step is to conduct a credible needs assessment for the Donbas region to inform
a strategy for its social-economic recovery.' Sounds nice, but in reality doesn't amount to a hill of beans).
For the most part, these proposals attempt to treat the symptoms of the war in Ukraine without addressing the root causes. In
a sense, that's fine, as symptoms need treating, but it's sticking plaster when the patient needs some invasive surgery. At the end
of its statement, though, the EASLG does go one step further with 'Step 12: Launch a new national dialogue about identity', saying:
A new, inclusive national dialogue across Ukraine is desirable and could be launched as soon as possible. Efforts should be
made to engage with perspectives from Ukraine's neighbors, especially Poland, Hungary, and Russia. This dialogue should address
themes of history and national memory, language, identity, and minority experience. It should include tolerance and respect for
ethnic and religious minorities in order to increase engagement, inclusiveness, and social cohesion.
This is admirably trendy and woke, but in the Ukrainian context somewhat explosive, as it implicitly challenges the identity politics
of the post-Maidan regime. Unsurprisingly, it's gone down like a lead balloon in Kiev. The notorious website Mirotvorets even
went so far as to add former
German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger to its blacklist of enemies of Ukraine for having had the temerity to sign the EASLG statement
and thus 'taking part in Russia's propaganda events aimed against Ukraine.' Katherine Quinn-Judge of the International Crisis Group
commented on Twitter, 'As the idea of dialogue
becomes more mainstream, backlash to the concept grows fiercer.' 'In Ukraine, prominent pro-Western politicians, civic activists,
and media, have called Step 12 "a provocation" and "dangerous",' she added
Quinn-Judge comes across as generally sympathetic to the Ukrainian narrative about the war in Donbass, endorsing the idea that
it's largely a product of 'Russian aggression'. But she also recognizes that the war has an internal, social dimension which the
Ukrainian government and its elite-level supporters refuse to acknowledge. Consequently, they also reject any sort of dialogue, either
with Russia or with the rebels in Donbass. As Quinn-Judge notes in another Tweet:
An advisor to one of Ukraine's most powerful pol[itician]s told us recently of his concern about talk of dialogue in international
and domestic circles. 'We have all long ago agreed among ourselves. We need to return our territory, and then work with that sick
– sick – population.'
This isn't an isolated example. Quinn-Judge follows up with a couple more similar statements:
Social resentments underpin some opposition to disengagement, for example. An activist in [government-controlled] Shchastye
told me recently that she feared disengagement and the reopening of the bridge linking the isolated town to [rebel-held] Luhansk:
'I don't want all that trash coming over here.'
In 2017, a woman working with frontline families told me why she didn't want reintegration. 'These [the population of rebel-held
Donbass] are people with a minimum level of human development, people raised by their TVs. Okay, so we live together, then what?
We're trying to build a completely new society.'
And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass with their
'minimum level of human development'. You can fiddle with treating Donbass' symptoms as much as you like, ŕ la EASLG,
but unless you tackle this fundamental problem, the disease will keep on ravaging the subject for a long time to come. In due course,
I suggest, the only realistic cure will be to remove the patient entirely from the cause of infection.
All that you have described above is very sad, but not very surprising – which is itself very sad. I think Patrick Armstrong is
right that a lot of the reason Ukraine is not and has never been a functional polity is because much if not most of the population
cannot accept that the right side won WWII.
Contempt and loathing towards the Donbass is a pretty popular feeling amongst Ukrainian svidomy. E.g., one of the two regular
pro-Ukrainian commenters on my blog.
To his credit, he supports severing the Donbass from Ukraine (as one would a gangrenous limb – his metaphor) as opposed to
trying to claw it back. Which is an internally consistent position.
Same guy who doesn't consider Yanukovych as having been overthrown under coup like circumstances, while downplaying Poland's
past subjugation of Rus territory.
In Part I and II we saw how much truth is there in Herr Karlin's claim of being a model of the rrrracially purrrre Rrrrrrrussian
plus some personal views.
Part III (this one) gives a peek into his cultural and upbringing limits, which "qualify" him as an expert of all things Russian,
who speaks on behalf of the People and the Country.
" I left when I was six, in 1994 , so I'm not really the best person to ask this question of – it should probably be directed
to my parents, or even better, the Russian government at the time which had for all intents and purposes ceased paying academics
their salaries.
I went to California for higher education and because its beaches and mountains made for a nice change from the bleakness of
Lancashire.
I returned to Russia because if I like Putler so much, why don't I go back there? Okay, less flippancy. I am Russian, I
do not feel like a foreigner here, I like living in Moscow, added bonus is that I get much higher quality of life for the buck
than in California ."
"I never went to school, don't have any experience with writing in Russian, and have been overexposed to Anglo culture ,
so yes, it's no surprise that my texts will sound strange."
The Russian branch of Carnegie Endowment did a piece on this issue. It mostly fits your ideas, but the author suggests it was
a compromise, short-term solution – what steps can be taken right now, without crossing red lines of either side – but compromise
is unwelcome among both parties. The official Russian reaction was quite cold too.
Upon a quick perusal of the website of the org at issue, Alexey Arbatov and Susan Eisenhower have some kind of affiliation
with it, thus maybe explaining the compromise approach you mention.
This matter brings to mind Trump saying one thing during his presidential bid – only to then bring in people in key positions
who don't agree with what he campaigned on.
In terms of credentials and name status, the likes of Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Cohen and Jim Jatras, are needed in
Trump's admin for the purpose of having a more balanced foreign policy approach that conforms with US interests (not to be necessarily
confused with what neocons and neolibs favor).
Instead, Trump has been top heavy with geopolitical thinking opposites. He possibly thought that having them in would take
some of the criticism away from him.
The arguably ideal admin has both sides of an issue well represented, with the president intelligently deciding what's best.
On the BBC and on other media there are films of Ukrainians attacking a bus with people evacuated from China. These people
even wanted to burn down the hospital where the peoplew were taken (along with other unrelated patients)
This is a sign of a degraded society – attacking people who may or may not be ill!!!
Ukraine will eventually break up
The nationalist agenda is just degrading the society.
-The economy is failing
-People who can, are leaving
-The elected government has no control over the violent people who take to the streets
It's clear Zelensky is a puppet no different to Poroshenko – this destroys the idea that democracy is a good thing.
It's very sad that the EU and the Americans under Obama – empowered these decisive elements and then blame Russia.
Crimea did the right thing leaving Ukraine – Donbass hopefully will follow.
"And there once again you have it – one of the primary causes of the war in Ukraine: the contempt with which the post-Maidan
government and its activist supporters regard a significant portion of their fellow citizens, the 'sick trash' of Donbass"
[ ]
Only them?
[ ]
Yesterday marks yet another milestone on the Ukrainian glorious шлях перемог and long and arduous return to the Family
of the European Nations. The Civil Society ™ of the Ukraine rose as one in the mighty CoronavirusMaidan, against the jackbooted
goons of the crypto-Napoleon (and agent of Putin) Zelensky. Best people from Poltava oblast' (whose ancestors without doubt, welcomed
Swedish Euro-integrators in 1709) and, most important of all, from the Best (Western) Ukrajina, who 6 years ago made the Revolution
of Dignity in Kiev the reality and whom pan Poroshenko called the best part of the Nation, said their firm "Геть вiд Москви!"
to their fellow Ukrainian citizens, evacuated from Wuhan province in China
The Net is choke full of vivid, memorable videos, showing that 6 years after Maidan, the Ukraine now constitute a unified,
эдiна та соборна country. You all, no doubt, already watched these clips, where a brave middle-aged gentleman from the
Western Ukraine, racially pure Ukr, proves his mental acuity by deducing, that crypto-tyrant (and "не лох") Zelensky wants to
settle evacuees in his pristine oblast out of vengeance, because the Best Ukrajina didn't vote for him during the election. Or
a clip about a brave woman from Poltava oblast, suggesting to relocate the Trojan-horse "fellow countrymen" to Chernobol's Zone.
Or even the witty comments and suggestions by the paragons of the Ukrainian Civil Society, " волонтэры ":
Shy and conscientious members of the Ukrainian (national!) intelligentsia had their instincts aligned rrrrrright. When they
learned about that their hospital will be the one receiving the evacuees from Wuhan, the entire medical personell of that Poltava
oblast medical facility rose to their feet and sang "Shenya vmerla". Democracy and localism proved once again the strongest suit
of the pro-European Ukraine, with Ternopol's oblast regional council voting to accept the official statement to the crypto-tyrant
Zelensky, which calls attempts to place evacuees on their Holy land "an act of Genocide of the Ukrainian People" (c)
That's absolutely "normal", predictable reaction of the "racially pure Ukrainians" to their own fellow citizens. Now, Professor,
are you insisting on seeking or even expecting "compromise" with them ? What to do, if after all these years, there is
no such thing as the united Ukrainian political nation?
"Ukraine's democracy is flourishing like never before due to the tireless efforts of grassroots, pro-democracy, civil-society
groups. Many Ukrainians say their country is now firmly set on an irreversible, pro-Western trajectory. Moreover, the country
has also undertaken a top-to-bottom cultural, economic, and political divorce from its former Soviet overlord.
Today, Ukraine is a democratic success story in the making, despite Russia's best efforts to the contrary."
– Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal's foreign
correspondent based in Ukraine
This article fails to mention his most important contribution . He tipped off
Roosevelt that a fascist plot was being prepared to take over the American government "
The Wall Street Putsch, as it's known today, was a plot by a group of right-wing
financiers.
"They thought that they could convince Roosevelt, because he was of their, the patrician
class, they thought that they could convince Roosevelt to relinquish power to basically a
fascist, military-type government," Denton says.
4 hours ago
The US foreign policy was never about Spreading Democracy, it's always about elevating the dictator we can do business
with.
Always.
4 hours ago
Surprisingly, Butlers book The Plot to Seize the White House, where a cabal of bankers sought to use Butler as a front man
to oust FDR getS little to no notice.
Was anyone aware that in 1991 in the Ukraine almost 100% of the population had indoor running
water, but as of 2014 that was down to 87%? I'm talking of the western portion of the Ukraine
here and not the part being attacked by neo-Nazis where it is unsurprising that
infrastructure is being destroyed.
I was curious what happened to the Ukraine's infrastructure since the Soviet Union was
dissolved so I asked some Ukrops what was up. Apparently Putin himself has been sneaking into
the Ukraine at night and stealing the plumbing right out of people's houses. I kid thee not!
Putin did it! Ukrops wouldn't lie about that, would they?
If you think what Putin is doing to America is bad, then just be thankful you are not in
Ukropistan! Over there Putin causes people to stub their toes on the furniture when they get
out of bed to take a leak at night. He tricks people into not bringing their umbrellas on
days that it rains. He even causes babies to foul their diapers right after they were
changed. Putin's evil knows no bounds!
Don't think America is going to Vote in Someone who Defrauded Others with Claims of being
Part Native American.
Maybe Bloomberg may have been Out of Line a few times. A "Horse Faced Lesbian" - what if
it were an accurate description? A "Fat Drunkard" - to someone who is correctly described -
is it really that offensive?
If it were said in an inappropriate context - say for job interviews - we can see the
error; but reading about Warren calling an Male Actor as "Eye Candy" puts her brand of Sexist
Comments in the same Boat.
What was Fauxahontas' Native American Name, anyway?
"Doesn't like Horses"?
This article is war porn that assumes controlling oil fields is power. Instead
Russia is playing the White Knight saving nations from marauding hordes. NBC News is twisting
itself into tighter knots over Syria retaking Idlib Province back from the rebels. Turkey is
threatening to send in its Army.
Strategically a full-blown war between a NATO member Turkey and Russian ally Syria
would surpass the adverse effects of the quarantine of China or the rising temperatures that
are sliding huge glaciers off of Western Antarctica into the sea (if the war engulfs Europe).
The USA remains today in Syria and Iraq to control their oil fields since to Donald Trump it
means more money for the USA. Actually, America's position there is militarily untenable.
Both countries want the US gone. Iran's precision conventional ballistic missiles have
mutually assured destruction with Israel and Saudi Arabia and can destroy US bases there at
will.
When the Wuhan coronavirus engulfs the West, killing the elderly and the ill,
for-profit healthcare will be overwhelmed. With nothing to sell, the global economy stops
dead. There will be a glut of oil and natural gas. If they still have money, the trip to the
grocery store will be Russian Roulette for senior citizens hoping there will be food to live
for another month and not get viral pneumonia. The Doomsday Clock will be at midnight.
American troops will have to find their way home. The forever wars and neoliberalism died
with globalism.
This article sounds like the Russians have just started to go into Iraq but they
were there before the invasion nearly twenty years ago. In fact, in 2007 the US tried to get
the Iraqis to void a contract the Iraqis had with Russia for the massive West Qurna oil field
but that failed as the Iraqis would have been on the hook for all $13 billion in debt they
owed Russia and the US would not help. But there is a military aspect to being rich in
resources – there always is – and for Iraq it is particularly acute.
The Middle East is a rough neighbourhood and any country there has to be strong
enough to defend itself or else be vulnerable. After the invasion the Coalition tried to
organize Iraq so that they had no military but the Iraqi resistance put aid to that idea. But
what would make the Iraqis think hard was when ISIS was marching on Baghdad. The US refused
to use its air power to stop them and refused the Iraqis the use of pilots & paid-for
aircraft training in Texas until the government would fulfill a laundry list of demands. It
was the Russians – and the Iranians -that sent military equipment and specialists that
helped stop ISIS before they got to Baghdad.
More recently the Iraqis had to buy Russian tanks to fight ISIS as the American
tanks they had purchased were being deliberately not being serviced until the Iraqis
fulfilled an American demand. There is a shift now to buy Russian equipment because of
American fickleness with military gear. If that was not enough, the US has never gotten Iraqi
electricity production back to pre-war levles in spite of billions spent. To add insult to
injury, Trump demanded recently that Iraq hand over half of Iraqi oil production to repair
the electrical grid with of course no guarantees that they would ever do the work.
So the long and the short is that there is no trust with the US and Russia is seen
as a more reliable partner – as is China – and that there is no net benefit with
going to the US. And you never know if a second-term Trump might not seize the Iraqi oil
fields if he felt he could get away with it. It is a matter of being reliable-capable and it
seems that the Russians are proving themselves that, hence their success here. Reliability is
vital and cannot be replaced.
Russia has been using soft power in Middle East ever since Peter the Great started
fighting the Ottomans. Ever since the western powers (read: great Britain) always came to the
rescue of turks if Russia had military success, so they seriously used the other alternative:
economical, diplomatic and cultural influence in arab countries.
During the cold war they supported any regime in Middle East opposed to US-Israeli influence
(or downright aggression).
After the cold war the Russian foreign minister, later prime minister Primakov, was an
Arabist by training and personally knew almost every principal actor in Middle East. He is
presumed to be the architect of the current Russian policy (which is a continuation of the
old Soviet policy, which was based on the old Russian Empire policy).
It's a long, long history of using culture, diplomacy, economical help and weapon sales to
have influence in an area important to the Russian security in their southern
sphere.
The US pats itself on the back and always talks about being the worlds "policeman".
The American elite also want it both ways too- to bemoan having to do the police work in the
first place, while also endlessly stressing that the world would go to pieces if her armed
forces were not in foreign lands. Make up your mind please.
It would be very ironic if Russia proves to truly be an effective world "policeman"-
as seems more evidently to be the case.
Propaganda aside, who brings more stability and peace.
In one respect, the war profiteers are the least of the problem. If Space Force and
Nuclear rearmament are just more money boondoggles, while tragic, still survivable. If there
is a faction that actually believes in this stuff as a viable national policy for defense-
and offense- then when reality hits the road as the saying goes, the American psyche might
not survive the impact, let alone the rest of the world.
Americans are shielded from the horrors of war to the nations detriment.
You guys are NOT thinking venally nor strategically enough. The US powers that be,
love to put on this news story of foreign powers eating US cake. It's simply not credible
imho. Post Iraq war in 2003, "W" bush played the same "eating our cake" story out about China
taking Iraq oil for example. There are definitely other arrangements in place beneath the
surface we are never told. Iraq is now US piggbank. It can trade that asset as it desires,
sadly. Stories like this are just smoke.
I am struck by the size of the Russian investment ($20 billion) while the USA has
"invested" nearly 6 trillion (300x) as much in war expenditure in the region.
And this has the Russians bettering the USA in Iraq with their relatively small
strategic investment.
Maybe it is long overdue for the USA political class to reassess how it spends its
citizens' resources in the Middle East.
Bloomberg is revealed as having said in public that all the disposable income of the poor
should be taxed away so that they will not have funds with which to do mischief like buying
fast food or sugary drinks.
Bloomberg described Sanders as a Communist who cannot be elected. In this he was
correct.
Bloomberg was described by Warren as a cold-hearted and insulting man who openly scorns
women, gays and minorities.
Mayor Pete mocked Klobuchar for her inability to remember the name of the president of
Mexico. She asked if he was calling her "stupid."
These six dwarves will probably persist in their quest for the brass ring all the way to the
convention. In the mayhem there, the "winner" will probably have to choose one of the "losers"
to be his VP running mate.
The media is cheering wildly for Warren and saying that she won the debate, but I found her
to be utterly repugnant. She comes across, to me, as even more shrill, harsh, angry and
unlikeable than Clinton did at her worst.
"... We are imperially overstretched and The Blob refuses to see it. Will the next president? ..."
"... The cost of Washington's endless wars fall most heavily on those who suffer under American bombs and drones. Yet the plight of foreigners is rarely mentioned. When asked about a half million Iraqi babies killed by American economic sanctions, then-UN ambassador Madeleine Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it." ..."
"... That was characteristic of Washington's overwhelming hubris. Members of "the Blob," as America's foreign policy elite has been called, believe they are uniquely qualified to run the world. Only they can predict the future, assess humanity's needs, develop solutions. And anyone who resists their dictates deserves his or her terrible fate. ..."
"... The Iraq Body Count has documented between 184,868 and 207,759 deaths in Iraq, but many killings in such a conflict go unreported. IBC suggested doubling its estimate to get a more accurate figure. Even that may be too few. A couple respected though contested surveys figure civilian deaths could top a million. The University of Michigan's Juan Cole defended the methodology: "I believe very large numbers of Iraqi families quietly bury their dead without telling the government of all people anything about it. Another large number of those killed is dumped in the Tigris river by their killers. Not to mention that for substantial periods of time since 2003 it has been dangerous in about half the country just to move around, much less to move around with dead bodies." ..."
"... Nor do casualties stop there. On top of those killed directly, noted the Watson Institute, "War deaths from malnutrition, and a damaged health system and environment likely far outnumber deaths from combat." For instance, in Yemen, the number of civilian dead due to famine, 85,000 by one count, vastly exceeds the number killed in the conflict, perhaps 12,000. A million people are thought to have suffered from cholera, resulting from the destruction of the country's commercial, health, social, and transportation infrastructure. Most of the damage has come from airstrikes by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are backed by U.S. intelligence, munitions, and formerly refueling. ..."
We are imperially overstretched and The Blob refuses to see it. Will the next president?
The cost of Washington's endless wars fall most heavily on those who suffer under American
bombs and drones. Yet the plight of foreigners is rarely mentioned. When asked about a half
million Iraqi babies killed by American economic sanctions, then-UN ambassador Madeleine
Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."
That was characteristic of Washington's overwhelming hubris. Members of "the Blob," as
America's foreign policy elite has been called, believe they are uniquely qualified to run the
world. Only they can predict the future, assess humanity's needs, develop solutions. And anyone
who resists their dictates deserves his or her terrible fate.
No doubt, foreign policy sometimes presents difficult choices. For instance, in World War
II, the U.S. backed tyrannical Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union against monstrous Adolf Hitler's
Nazi Germany. During the Cold War, Washington allied with a variety of authoritarian
regimes.
There was a logic to such decisions. However, those choices also left many policymakers with
moral qualms. Such self-doubt seems to be almost completely absent from the Blob today. Who
among advocates of the Iraq War have acknowledged the horrors they loosed upon the people of
Iraq and its surrounding nations? Most resist taking any responsibility.
First, they simply deny that America is at war. President Barack Obama tried to avoid
invoking the War Powers Act in Libya by arguing that the conflict did not qualify since
Americans weren't doing the shooting. However, Defense Secretary Bob Gates admitted that the
Libyans being targeted probably thought Washington was at war. And the consequences of that
conflict were significant: violent chaos that continues to this day. Moreover, the precedent of
taking out a leader who voluntarily surrendered his missile and nuclear programs could
discourage future dictators from disarming.
Today some war enthusiasts deny that Americans are really fighting in the multiple conflicts
in which they are engaged. Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush and
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose tenures were defined by the disastrous Iraq War,
denounced the very concept of endless wars as a "canard." Yet casualties, though lower than
before, continue with regularity in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.
More importantly, the risks of much larger conflict are real. American troops in Iraq have
to confront Iranian-backed militias, and a recent round of mutual retaliation risked a
full-blown conflict. The Pentagon has maintained forces in Syria for potential use against --
depending on who claims to be directing U.S. policy -- the Islamic State, and, without legal
authority, the Damascus government, Iran, Turkey, and even Moscow. American and Russian troops
recently confronted each other over Syrian oilfields that President Donald Trump ordered seized
-- illegally. The potential for a much broader conflict remains serious.
Second, Washington's permanent War Party dismisses the harm their wars have caused. After
the Obama administration headed to Libya and joined Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen, Samantha
Power, perhaps the most visible advocate of supposedly humanitarian war-making, complained that
Americans were discouraged by the Iraqi imbroglio: "I think there is too much of, 'Oh, look,
this is what intervention has wrought' one has to be careful about overdrawing lessons."
The last two decades of war have had catastrophic consequences. The official costs are high
enough, with the Pentagon having spent $1.55 trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the
Congressional Research Service. A few billion dollars have gone into the anti-ISIS campaign in
Iraq and Syria. Over $113 billion more has been spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan alone,
though with little success, according to multiple reports from the Special Inspector General
for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
And these figures dramatically underestimate the total financial cost. Noted Brown
University's Watson Institute: "Through Fiscal Year 2020, the United States federal government
has spent or obligated $6.4 trillion dollars on the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.
This figure includes: direct Congressional war appropriations; war-related increases to the
Pentagon base budget; veterans care and disability; increases in the homeland security budget;
interest payments on direct war borrowing; foreign assistance spending; and estimated future
obligations for veterans' care." Not included are macroeconomic costs due to the massive
misallocation of valuable resources.
More important has been the human cost. CRS reported about 7,000 dead and 53,000 wounded
among U.S. service personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. The split by conflict was 38 percent/62
percent, respectively. Nearly 400 American military members have died elsewhere since 9/11. A
million or more -- the latest available figures are years out of date -- disability claims have
been filed by U.S. personnel. Suicide rates among the 2.7 million who have served in either
Afghanistan or Iran are higher than among the civilian population.
Also significant are casualties among U.S. contractors: 3,400 dead and 39,000 wounded.
However, the Pentagon's figures may be incomplete: the Watson Institute, with its Cost of War
Project, figures the number of contractor deaths to be more than 8,000, higher than the number
of dead uniformed personnel. Reliance on contractors may be controversial, but they essentially
represent the U.S. government. The death of a contractor in Iraq triggered Washington's strike
on an Iranian-backed militia, which almost sparked war between Tehran and Washington. Several
hundred allied military personnel also have died, along with an estimated 110,000 local
military and police.
Worse has been the civilian toll in those nations that Washington purports to be saving.
American policymakers rarely speak of this cost. After all, they believe "the price is worth
it," to quote Albright. As of November, figured the Watson Institute, 335,000 civilians in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen had died in conflicts featuring U.S. military
operations. Unfortunately, these numbers are low, perhaps dramatically so.
The Iraq Body Count has documented between 184,868 and 207,759 deaths in Iraq, but many
killings in such a conflict go unreported. IBC suggested doubling its estimate to get a more
accurate figure. Even that may be too few. A couple respected though contested surveys figure
civilian deaths could top a million. The University of Michigan's Juan Cole defended the
methodology: "I believe very large numbers of Iraqi families quietly bury their dead without
telling the government of all people anything about it. Another large number of those killed is
dumped in the Tigris river by their killers. Not to mention that for substantial periods of
time since 2003 it has been dangerous in about half the country just to move around, much less
to move around with dead bodies."
Nor do casualties stop there. On top of those killed directly, noted the Watson Institute,
"War deaths from malnutrition, and a damaged health system and environment likely far outnumber
deaths from combat." For instance, in Yemen, the number of civilian dead due to famine, 85,000
by one count, vastly exceeds the number killed in the conflict, perhaps 12,000. A million
people are thought to have suffered from cholera, resulting from the destruction of the
country's commercial, health, social, and transportation infrastructure. Most of the damage has
come from airstrikes by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are backed by U.S.
intelligence, munitions, and formerly refueling.
Explained the Watson Institute: "People living in the war zones have been killed in their
homes, in markets, and on roadways. They have been killed by bombs, bullets, fire, improvised
explosive devices (IEDs), and drones. Civilians die at checkpoints, as they are run off the
road by military vehicles, when they step on a mine or cluster bomb, as they collect wood or
tend to their fields, and when they are kidnapped and executed for purposes of revenge or
intimidation. They are killed by the United States, by its allies, and by insurgents and
sectarians in the civil wars spawned by the invasions."
War is not always avoidable. But since the end of the Cold War, every conflict started by
the U.S. has been one of choice. America only ever had a serious interest at stake in
Afghanistan -- to destroy al-Qaeda after 9/11 and punish the Taliban government. In that case,
however, the U.S. mission should have ended by early 2002, not carried on for nearly two
decades.
American policymakers should stop treating war as a first resort, a panacea for
international conflict and tragedy. Washington is filled with ivory tower warriors. Their
supposedly best intentions have spread chaos and death around the globe. What think this year's
presidential candidates?
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
. He is currently scholar-in-residence with the Centre for Independent Studies in
Sydney.
The White House has denied rumors that Deputy National Security Adviser Victoria Coates is the author of an anonymous New York
Times op-ed and subsequent book criticizing the Trump administration, after Coates was abruptly moved to the Energy Department.
... ... ...
On Monday, Axios reported that Coates role at the NSC was on the chopping block amid rumors she was the author.
A statement from the NSC also said that Coates' move will help "ensure the continued close alignment of energy policy with
national security objectives," and that her new position in the Energy Department will be as a senior adviser to the secretary.
Her new assignment is effective Monday, they said.
"We are enthusiastic about adding Dr. Coates to DOE, where her expertise on the Middle East and national security policy will
be helpful," said Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. "She will play an important role on our team."
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said that he is "sad to lose an important member of our team," but said Coates "will
be a big asset to Secretary Brouillette as he executes the president's energy security policy priorities." -
Fox News
On Tuesday, President Trump said "I know who it is," after a reporter questioned him on anonymous, adding that he won't reveal
the name publicly. 38 minutes ago What was your haftarah, ****?
1 hour ago
By their very natures, homosexuals, and heterosexual females are security risks.
I would sleep better at night knowing they weren't in positions related to the defense of my country.
By all means, y'all keep on spreading that social engineering ********. Eventually, it will kill a whole bunch of people.
1 hour ago
So she keeps her pay grade and pension? **** That.
1 hour ago
So who's spreading the rumor that Coates is Anonymous and why?
1 hour ago
In corporate America they just let you go. It is time that all bureaucrats get the same treatment that the taxpayers
get. Pensions? What at those?
1 hour ago
and "let you go" is defined as a large Security guard walking you back to your office to get your coat and keys and
then watches you drive off the property. not offers you a no show job in the backoffice with full pension and benefits.
2 hours ago
Not sure that having a queer in charge of intelligence is the right way to go. Plenty of fodder for blackmail. History
shows that homos (or fags if that's the preferred name) have more skeletons in their collective closets than 99.9% of normal people.
Most of them are perverts with dark and sordid pasts.
"... Imagine if we substitute the U.S. for Russia and the country "invaded" was Canada, rather than Ukraine, the government overthrown was in Ottawa and not Kiev, and the provinces embroiled in a foreign-backed civil war have been Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rather the provinces of Eastern Ukraine? This report, written in 2016, may make it easier to understand what has been really going on in Ukraine. Clicking on the links is key to understanding the real story. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Versions of this article first appeared on ..."
The impeachment hearings and trial of Donald Trump were filled with talk of Russian
aggression against Ukraine and threats to the United States. But what would it be like if we
switched the roles of Russia and the U.S.?
Imagine if we substitute the U.S. for Russia and the country "invaded" was Canada,
rather than Ukraine, the government overthrown was in Ottawa and not Kiev, and the provinces
embroiled in a foreign-backed civil war have been Nova Scotia and New Brunswick rather the
provinces of Eastern Ukraine? This report, written in 2016, may make it easier to understand
what has been really going on in Ukraine. Clicking on the links is key to understanding the
real story.
T he United States has "invaded" Canada to support the breakaway Maritime provinces that are
resisting a Moscow-engineered violent coup d'etat against the democratically elected
government in Ottawa.
The U.S. move is to protect separatists in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia after Washington
annexed Prince Edwards Island in a quickly arranged referendum .
The Islanders voted over 90 percent in favor of joining
the United States following the Russian-backed coup. Moscow has condemned the referendum as
illega l.
Hard-liners in the U.S. want
Washington to annex all three Maritime provinces, whose fighters are defying the coup in Ottawa
after Moscow installed an unelected prime minister.
Russian-backed Canadian federal troops have
launched so-called "anti-terrorist" operations in the breakaway region to crush the
rebellion, shelling residential areas and killing hundreds of civilians.
The violent coup.
The Canadian army are joined by Russian-supported neofascist battalions that played a crucial role in the
overthrow of the Canadian government. In Halifax, the extremists have burned alive at least 40
pro-U.S. civilians who had taken refugee in a trade union building.
Proof that Russia was behind the overthrow of the elected Canadian prime minister is
contained in a
leaked conversation between Georgiy Yevgenevich Borisenko, foreign ministry chief of
Moscow's North America department, and Alexander Darchiev, the Russian ambassador to
Canada.
According to a transcript of the leaked conversation,
Borisenko discussed who the new Canadian leaders should be six weeks before the coup took
place.
Russia moved to launch the coup when Canada decided
to take a loan package from the IMF that had fewer strings attached than a loan from
Russia.
Russia's Beijing ally was reluctant to back the coup. But this seemed of little concern to
Borisenko who is heard on the tape saying, "Fuck China."
Minister handing out cookies in the square.
Weeks before the coup Borisenko was filmed visiting protestors who had camped out in
Parliament Square in Ottawa demanding the ouster of the prime minister. Borisenko is seen
giving out cakes to
the demonstrators.
The foreign ministers of Russian-allied Belarus and Cuba also marched with the protestors
through the streets of Ottawa against the government. Russian media has portrayed the
unconstitutional change of government an act of "democracy." Russian senators have met in
public with extreme right-wing Canadian coup leaders,
praising their rebellion.
Borisenko said in a speech that Russia had spent $5 billion
over the past decade to "bring democracy" to Canada.
Senator meeting far-right coup leaders.
The money was spent on training "civil society." The use of non-governmental organizations
to overthrow foreign governments that stand in the way of Russia's economic and geo-strategic
interests is well documented, especially in a 1991 Washington Post column,
"Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups ."
The United States has thus moved to ban
Russian NGOs from operating in the country.
The coup took place as protestors violently clashed with police, breaking through barricades
and killing a number of officers. Snipers fired on the police and the crowd from a nearby
building in Parliament Square in which the Russian embassy had set up offices
just a few floors above, according to Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Son Gets Job After Coup
Russian lawmakers
compared President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler for allegedly sending U.S. troops into the
breakaway provinces and for annexing Prince Edward Island in an act of "American aggression."
The Maritimes have had long ties to the U.S. dating back to the American Revolution.
Russia says it has intelligence proving that U.S. tanks have crossed the Maine border into
New Brunswick, but have failed to make the evidence public. They have revealed no satellite
imagery. Russian news media only reports American-backed rebels fighting in the Maritimes, not
American troops.
Washington denies it has invaded but says some American volunteers have entered the Canadian
province to join the fight.
Russia's puppet prime minister now in charge in Ottawa has only offered as proof six American passports of
U.S. soldiers found in New Brunswick.
Son gets job on energy company board after his father's government backs violent coup.
The Maritime Canadian rebels have secured anti-aircraft weapons enabling them to shoot down
a number of Royal Canadian Air Force transport planes.
A Malaysian airlines passenger jet was also shot down over Nova Scotia killing all on board.
Russia has accused President Obama of being behind the incident, charging that the U.S.
provided the anti-aircraft weapon.
Moscow has refused to release any intelligence to support its claim, other than
statements by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Canada's economy is near collapse and is dependent on infusions of Russian aid. This comes
despite a former Russian foreign ministry official being installed as
Canada's finance minister, only receiving Canadian citizenship on her first day on the job.
Despite installing a Russian to run Canada's economy, President Putin told the U.N. General
Assembly that Russia had
"few economic interests" in the country. But Russian agribusiness companies have already
taken stakes in Albertan wheat fields. And Ilya Medvedev, son of Russian Prime Minister
Dmitri Medvedev, as well as a Lavrov family friend
joined the board of Canada's largest oil company just weeks after the coup.
Russia's ultimate aim, beginning with the imposition of sanctions on the U.S., appears to be
a color revolution in Washington to overthrow Obama and install a Russian-friendly American
president.
This is clear from numerous statements by Russian officials and academics. A former Russian
national security advisor whom Putin consults on foreign policy said the United States should be
broken into three countries.
He has also
written that Canada is the stepping stone to the United States and that if the U.S. loses
Canada it will fail to control North America.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent
forThe Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe,Sunday Timesof London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at[email protected]and
followed on Twitter @unjoe .
mary floyd , February 15, 2020 at 13:20
The most important takeaway in this article for me was that the US should be broken into
three separate entities!
That would work well for most Americans. All in all, this is a great piece, Mr. Lauria!
Dao Gen , February 15, 2020 at 02:28
Joe, you are The Truth. The only thing you left out, no doubt for reasons of space and
time, was the immortal statement made by a leading member of the Russian Duma, who said
during a stirring and well-received speech that, “Canada is our crucial first line of
defense against the US. If Canada weren’t there to stop the Americans, we’d have
to fight them right here on our own doorstep.”
A very creative way of making the point. Still do not understand the depth of what often
appears to be heart felt hate for Russia by very powerful and smart people. Remember reading
a comment by Phil Girardi early in the Trump tour when he remarked at the depth of dislike of
Russia within the spook community. He wrote he was surprised and had, I think, been part of
that community.
Eddie S , February 15, 2020 at 14:51
RE: “…depth of dislike of Russia within the spook community”.
While I have no ‘special knowledge’ of the so-called ‘intelligence
community’, there’s a few reasons for this that come to-mind:
— Job preservation. The most obvious. The US wouldn’t need ~80% of those spooks
if there
weren’t big scary Russians/Chinese/Iranians/N.Koreans constantly plotting against
the
peaceful, benevolent US.
— Spooks believe in what is mainly a distractionary ploy by US oligarchs/plutocrats.
These
wealthy interests don’t want to lose some of their wealth to social reforms, so they
constantly
financially support scare-mongering, which some spooks unquestioningly accept.
— The profession tends to attract some of the more paranoid elements in our society,
so
they’re inclined that way by nature/personality.
robert e williamson jr , February 14, 2020 at 17:51
Well one thing for sure we would not be seeing a female anchor on CNN bemoaning the fact
the because of the coronavirus many popular kids toys might not be available here in the U.S.
for the up coming holidays (?).
Yes it did happen, hell I couldn’t make that up.
DARYL , February 14, 2020 at 15:45
…or better yet, substitute Central America for Ukraine, and Panama(canal) for
Crimea, then you have the makings of an even more salient parallel.
Realist , February 14, 2020 at 15:42
The difference is that under your scenario the world would be a smoking heap of
radioactive ashes already as the exceptional nation, unlike the ever cautious Russians, would
have immediately made bombastic threats and then launched military attacks to protect its
“security interests.” (Warring to “protect” security interests has
replaced invasion and occupation to save souls.) Things would have escalated from there to
its predestined thermonuclear climax, as they will in the real world if Uncle Sam
doesn’t get a grip on his uncontrolled aggression, demanding whatever he wants whenever
he wants it at the point of a gun. The world seems to be circling the drain whether or not
Washington is allowed to micromanage the affairs of Russia, China, Iran and every last duchy,
principality and people’s republic in addition to its own monumental mess it calls
domestic affairs. We’ve only got two political parties in this madhouse and they are
both equally bent on destroying civilisation if they can’t rule it all, which seems to
be the only point they agree on. Each party thinks it preferable to allow an obscenely rich
oligarch (what else should we call Trump or Bloomberg?) from the other side to rule rather
than a “communist” like Bernie Sanders or a “naive peacenik” like
Tulsi Gabbard to be elected president. If the space aliens land tomorrow and start recruiting
colonists to populate newly terraformed planets in other solar systems, sign me up. Yeah,
it’s become that absurd down here.
Simply imperial rot and corruption of power on all sides.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans have an exclusive on those qualities.
Mark Thomason , February 14, 2020 at 12:37
This is a useful approach. It needs added to it the language and culture element: as if
the part that wants out of the Moscow coup shares our own language and culture, while the
rest of Canada does not, and the rest of Canada had gone on a spree to suppress that language
and culture. It is hard to find a parallel in Canada to those facts, but it is what happened
in Ukraine.
It is important to understanding to put oneself in the shoes of the other guys. It was
once called walking a mile in the other guy’s moccasins, and given a Native wisdom
attribution.
I posted this on an earlier thread, but it is relevant here.
I have been a working full time in Emergency Medicine for over 20 years. I was a "Flight Surgeon" in the Army. Soldiers are
notorious for playing up any combat related injury in order to qualify for disability and the financial benefits that flow from
being categorized as being disabled. As far as we know, the most serious claimed injuries were "concussions." As a practicing
specialist in Emergency Medicine, I can explain that the diagnosis of "concussion" means, by definition, that no abnormality is
seen on CT scanning of the brain. The diagnosis is made based on the injured person's purely subjective complaints, i.e. whatever
the allegedly injured person says. If the allegedly injured person says the right things, then a physician may call the symptoms
that of a concussion.
So, ultimately, a soldier would be diagnosed with a concussion because the soldier (who has financial benefits to gain) says
so, and a physician does not dispute it.
I have seen hundreds if not thousands of diagnoses of "concussion". That diagnosis does not have to be supported by any specific
findings or even a proper understanding of the diagnosis. It simply has to be entered in the record by a licensed physician. Once
that diagnosis is on the medical record, it is up to subsequent providers to refute that diagnosis if they desire to do so.
This is something subsequent providers are very unlikely to want to dedicate the time and effort required to accomplish. There
is usually no financial or professional incentive to do so – often the opposite. There is no specific test to definitively say
one way or the other if a person had a "concussion". Like PTSD it is a "functional" diagnosis based mainly on subjective symptoms
and not objective test results. This is not to say such things do not exist. They do exist. It is only to say that they can be
faked or misinterpreted and that will happen if there is a financial incentive to do so.
@The Scalpel I'm sure your assessment is accurate, and is symptomatic of a much more general problem affecting the axis of
medicine, insurance, pharma, and state pension systems (military or civilian), not to mention all corporations and agencies to
various degrees.
When doctors' medical opinions are considered sacrosanct and sufficient to secure payouts, excuse time off from work, and add
one's name to the list of medically "made men," they are certain to be pursued like bounty on the high seas. No small number of
doctors are content to play along with this system, as it secures a steady stream of income for them as well. Foreign doctors,
who are often perfectly comfortable with graft and fraud, are especially bad in this regard.
Employers are left with no recourse except to eat the cost of malingering employees and ever swelling pension rolls, which
no employeer can long afford at the micro level and which society itself cannot afford at the macro level.
Another complicating factor is added by the cultural obsession with business efficiency. When the VA scandal broke in 2014,
a lot of people were upset by the thought that veterans were receiving shoddy care and insisted that "more must be done," not
realizing that this very insistance was at the root of the problem. I said at the time that the real lesson here was that the
VA had been "Six-Sigma'ed" by incompetent management who demanded faster claims processing and unrealistic expenditure reductions.
These schizophrenic cultural trends -- viz. , on the one hand, greater and greater demands for doles by an aging and
sickening population; and, on the other hand, the feckless attempts to mitigate the very real unaffordability of this by an oligarchic
business philosophy that knows only how to downsize, offshore, and automate based on a naive reliance on the dubious benefits
of technology -- are going to culminate in an epic breakdown of social functioning over the next decade.
@The Scalpel Perhaps you need to return to medical school for a refresher. A "concussion" may, or may not, be seen as an abnormality,
usually subdural haematoma, on a CT scan. The reason for requesting the CT scan would be from the patient reported complaints,
but also from the objective medical examination for things like pupils and reaction. Radiation is not good for you. If you are
ordering CT scans before examination, you've got it backwards.
There are no causalities you guys over estimate the steadfastness of the US military.
Purple heart = disability cheque.
No one can disprove a concussion.
And that's the real embarrassment that the Pentagon is trying to hide.
These guys (US forces) teach other how to fake PTSD to get on disability. I've seen it countless times in Western armed forces.
Its how I know Iran will never be invaded or even bombed back to the stone age. You have to have balls for that and clearly the
West and Israel have none. (Bush invaded Iraq on the premise of an empty vial; the Iranian counterattack was a legit no-shit missile
attack on US forces and . NOTHING HAPPENED).
As for reality I have colleagues who are so disconnected from international politics that reality (past their 9-5 job) means
nothing. Reality won't kick in until it comes home to bite them in the ass. It's that simple. A programmer who does nothing for
10 years but play games and write software, what does he care about causalities in Iraq? Seriously. For him that was a 20 second
twitter feed which entertained him on his way to work and that's it.
@Curmudgeon Perhaps you have heard the old proverb, "It is best to keep your mouth shut and have people suspect you are ignorant,
than to open it and prove to people that you are ignorant"
A subdural hematoma is (let me say this slowly for you) a sudural hematoma. A concussion is (again slowly) a concussion. They
are two separate diagnoses.
Pretty good chance you don't know what these codes mean. If not, there is this thing called Google. Look it up.
"things like pupils and reaction"
WTF? I think you might be trying to describe testing for pupils being reactive to light (the normal state of affairs.) Abnormally
reactive pupils are not required for the diagnosis of concussion and, in fact, are not usually present.
Radiation is not good for you. If you are ordering CT scans before examination, you've got it backwards.
That, in fact, is all true. What is not true is that I made any sort of suggestion at all to order tests before an exam. You
need to lay off the hash pipe.
FYI:
Concussion: A concussion is a type of brain injury. It is a short loss of normal brain function in response to a head injury.
Concussions are a common type of sports injury. You can also suffer from one if you suffer a blow to the head or hit your head
after a fall. After a concussion, you may have a
headache or neck pain. You may also experience nausea, ringing in your ears, dizziness, or tiredness. You may feel dazed
or not your normal self
All these symptoms are subjective, i.e. they are basically what the patient reports – truthfully or not.
FWIW, I have found the most reliable symptom in diagnosing concussion is short term memory loss. The patient asks the same
question over and over as if he never got an answer.
@The Scalpel I'm well aware of what a CT is, I was doing them more than 40 years ago, likely before you were in med school.
I know what a concussion is, I've had one, and went through the examination. If you actually read my response, I did not say that
every concussion resulted in a subdural haematoma.
Patient reaction includes memory loss. Dizziness is what a patient reports. Of course what patients report is subjective, just
as pain tolerance is, but it doesn't invalidate them.
I never said or implied that you did not know what a CT scan is. I think I get it now. You really are a curmudgeon (as in elderly)
and your cognitive abilities are flagging. I am sorry for being rude earlier. As you may recall, the point being made was that
a simple concussion is not visible on CT scan. A subdural hematoma is visible – as well as many other traumatic brain injuries,
. A concussion is not visible. Subjective complaints are not invalid. They are as honest as the person making the complaint.
@The Scalpel Are you suggesting that The Greatest Fighting Force in the Galaxy in All of History, the military of the world's
Exceptional Nation, is riddled with grifters?
It seems that history is about to repeat. The highwater mark in SEAsia was the helicopters
evacuating the last invaders from Saigon. The highwater mark in the ME is going to be similar
scenes in Iraq.
A final warning has been issued to US troops there – 40 days after Soleimanis
assassination – the Resistance is ready to move, an irresistible force about to meet a
not so immovable object.
Along with Idlib and Allepo its been amazing start to 2020. And its not even spring!
Looking at various indices like median household income and average wage, it seems as if living standards in Russia are substantially
below western European levels and even slightly below central Europe. (Estonia and Poland are consistently slightly higher, Hungary
often a bit lower.) Compared to China, going by the same sources and others, Russian wages are roughly twice as high as China's
That creates separatist movements within the country, including Islamist movements in Muslim-dominated regions.
So their posture is strictly defensive, and probably is not much more than a mild defensive reaction to "Full-spectrum Dominance"
doctrine and the aggressive foreign policy conducted by the USA neocons (which totally dominate NSC and the State Department, as
we saw from Ukrainegate testimonies)
The USA coup d'état in Ukraine actually have a blowback for the USA -- it neutralized influence and political status of Russia
neoliberal fifth column (neoliberal compradors), and if not Putin (who is paradoxically a pro-Western neoliberal; although of "national
neoliberalism" flavor similar to Trumpism ) some of them probably would be now hanging from the lamp posts. They are really hated
by population after hardships, comparable with WWII hardships, imposed on ordinary Russian during Western-enforced neoliberalization
under marionette Yeltsin government and attempt to grab Russian resources for pennies on a dollar. "Marshall plan" for Russia instead
of economic rape would be a much better policy.
I think Obama-Nuland plot to turn Ukraine into the USA vassal state was yet another very dangerous move, which hurts the USA national
security and greatly increased chances of military confrontation with Russia (aka mutual annihilation)
It was worse then a crime, it was a blunder. And now the USA needs to support this vassal with money we do not have.
The role of NSC in militarizing the USA foreign policy is such that it neutralizes any impulses of any US administration (if we
assume they exist) to improve relations with Russia.
Neoliberal Dems now is a second war party which bet on neo-McCarthyism to weaken Trump. They went into the complete status of
psychosis in this area. I view it as a psychotic reaction to the first signs of the collapse of the USA-centered global neoliberal
empire (which will happen anyway independently of Russian moves)
That's actually a very dangerous situation indeed, and I am really afraid that the person who will replace Putin will not have
Putin steel nerves, diplomatic talent, and the affinity with the West. Then what ? another Sarajevo and another war?
With warmongering "raptured" crazies like Mike, "we killed up to 200 Russians" Pompeo, the situation can really become explosive
like before WWI. Again, after Putin leaves the political scene, the Sarajevo incident is easy to stage, especially with such incompetent
marionette of the military-industrial complex like Trump at the helm.
I believe antagonizing Russia was a reckless, very damaging to the USA interest move, the move initiated by Clinton administration
and supported by all subsequent administration as weakening and possibly dismembering Russia is one of the key aspect of Full Spectrum
Dominance doctrine. . And we will pay a huge price for this policy.
See also Professor Stephen Cohen books on the subject.
Why do you pose this as antagonizing either Russsia or Iran? They are somewhat allied, so in fact antagonizing Iran as we are
doing also antagonizes Russia.
Likbez,
The relative economic position of Russia in terms of median income is no different today than it was 30 years ago before Yeltsin,
except for the rise of China. It was behind the European nations to its west, both those that were under its domination and those
that were not, and it still is. So no big deal.
And somehow you have this fantasy that if it were not for Obama-Nuland, Ukrainians would just loooove to be under Russian
domination.
f you think this, you ser both foolish and very ignorant.
likbez February 16, 2020 10:30 pm
And somehow you have this fantasy that if it were not for Obama-Nuland, Ukrainians would just loooove to be under Russian
domination. f you think this, you ser both foolish and very ignorant.
I might well be foolish and ignorant (I am far from being the specialist in the region), but I suspect Ukrainians do prefer
the exchange rate ~8.5 hrivnas to a dollar (before the coup) to the current 25 hrivnas to a dollar.
Especially taking into account stagnant salaries and actual parity of prices in dollars for many types of food (especially
meat), industrial products, and services between the USA and Ukraine.
I recently talked with one Ukrainian woman who told me that the "bribe" (unofficial payments due to low salaries for doctors
and nurses in state clinics) for the child delivery was $1000 in Kiev in 2014 and she gave birth exactly at the time when hrivna
jumped from 8.5 to over 20 per dollar. That was a tragedy for her and her family.
And please remember that the average SS pension in Ukraine is around 1500 hrivna a month (~ $60). So to me, it is completely
unclear how pensioners can survive at all while the government is buying super expensive American weapons "to defend the country
from Russian aggression."
"... Imperialism – the highest stage of capitalism ..."
"... Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Moroccans, Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians, found home in the EU thanks to madame Merkel. ..."
At the moment, the United States has great difficulty in retaining its hegemony in the
Middle East. Its troops have been declared unwanted in Iraq; and in Syria, the US and their
foreign legion of terrorists lose terrain and positions every month. The US has responded to
this with a significant escalation, by deploying more troops and by constant threats against
Iran. At the same time, we have seen strong protest movements in Lebanon, Iraq and
Iran.
When millions of Iraqi took to the streets recently, their main slogan was "THE UNITED
STATES OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST!"
How should one analyze this?
Obviously, there are a lot of social tensions in the Middle East – class based,
ethnic, religious and cultural. The region is a patchwork of conflicts and tensions that not
only goes back hundreds of years, but even a few thousand.
There are always many reasons to rebel against a corrupt upper class, anywhere in the world.
But no rebellion can succeed if it is not based on a realistic and thorough analysis of the
specific conditions in the individual country and region.
Just as in Africa, the borders in the Middle East are arbitrarily drawn. They are the
product of the manipulations of imperialist powers, and only to a lesser extent products of
what the peoples themselves have wanted.
During the era of decolonization, there was a strong, secular pan-Arab movement that wanted to create
a unified Arab world. This movement was influenced by the nationalist and socialist ideas that
had strong popular support at the time.
King Abdallah I
of Jordan envisaged a kingdom that would consist of Jordan, Palestine and Syria. Egypt and
Syria briefly established a union called the United Arab Republic . Gaddafi wanted
to unite Libya, Syria and Egypt in a federation of Arab republics
.
In 1958, a quickly dissolved confederation was established between Jordan and Iraq, called
the Arab Federation
. All these efforts were transient. What remains is the Arab League, which is, after all, not a
state federation and not an alliance. And then of course we have the demand for a Kurdish
state, or something similar consisting of one or more Kurdish mini-states.
Still, the most divisive product of the First World War was the establishment of the state
of Israel on Palestinian soil. During the First World War, Britain's Foreign Minister Arthur
Balfour issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration
, which " view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people."
But what is the basis for all these attempts at creating states? What are the prerequisites
for success or failure?
The imperialist powers divide the world according to the power
relations between them
Lenin gave the best and most durable explanation for this, in his essay Imperialism
– the highest stage of capitalism . There, he explained five basic features of
the era of imperialism:
The concentration of production and capital has developed to such a
high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; The
merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this
"finance capital", of a financial oligarchy; The export of capital as distinguished from the
export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; The formation of international
monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves; The territorial
division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed.
But Lenin also pointed out that capitalist countries are developing unevenly, not least
because of the uneven development of productive forces in the various capitalist countries.
After a while, there arises a discrepancy between how the world is divided and the relative
strength of the imperialist powers. This disparity will eventually force through a
redistribution, a new division of the world based on the new relationship of strength. And, as
Lenin states :
The question is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the
disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the
one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the
other?"
The two world wars were wars that arose because of unevenness in the power relationships
between the imperialist powers. The British Empire was past its heyday and British capitalism
lagged behind in the competition. The United States and Germany were the great powers that had
the largest industrial and technological growth, and eventually this misalignment exploded. Not
once, but twice.
Versailles and Yalta
The victors of the First World War divided the world between themselves at the expense of
the losers. The main losers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia (the Soviet Union) and the
Ottoman Empire. This division was drawn up in the Versailles treaty and the following minor
treaties.
Europe after the Versailles Treaties (Wikipedia)
This map shows how the Ottoman Empire was partitioned:
At the end of World War II, the victorious superpowers met in the city of Yalta on the
Crimean peninsula in the Soviet Union. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin made an agreement on how
Europe should be divided following Germany's imminent defeat. This map shows how it was
envisaged and the two blocs that emerged and became the foundation for the Cold War.
Note that Yugoslavia, created after Versailles in 1919, was maintained and consolidated as
"a country between the blocs". So it is a country that carries in itself the heritage of both
the Versailles- and Yalta agreements.
The fateful change of era when the Soviet Union
fell
In the era of imperialism, there has always been a struggle between various great powers.
The battle has been about markets, access to cheap labor, raw materials, energy, transport
routes and military control. And the imperialist countries divide the world between themselves
according to their strength. But the imperialist powers are developing unevenly.
If a power collapses or loses control over some areas, rivals will compete to fill the void.
Imperialism follows the principle that Aristotle in his Physics called horror vacui – the
fear of empty space.
And that was what happened when the Soviet Union lost the Cold War. In 1991, the Soviet
Union ceased to exist, and soon the Eastern bloc was also history. And thus the balance was
broken, the one that had maintained the old order. And now a huge area was available for
re-division. The weakened Russia barely managed to preserve its own territory, and not at all
the area that just before was controlled by the Soviet Union.
Never has a so large area been open for redivision. It was the result of two horrible
world wars that anew was up for grabs. It could not but lead to war." Pål
Steigan, 1999
"Never has a so large area been open for re-division. It was the result of two horrible
world wars that anew was up for grabs. It could not but lead to war." Map: Countries either
part of the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc or non-aligned (Yugoslavia)
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, both the Yalta and Versailles agreements in reality
collapsed, and opened up the way for a fierce race to control this geopolitical empty
space.
This laid the foundation for the American
Geostrategy for Eurasia , which concentrated on securing control over the vast Eurasian
continent. It is this struggle for redistribution in favor of the United States that has been
the basis for most wars since 1990: Somalia, the Iraq wars, the Balkan wars, Libya, Ukraine,
and Syria.
The United States has been aggressively spearheading this, and the process to expand NATO
eastward and create regime changes in the form of so-called "color revolutions" has been part
of this struggle. The coup in Kiev, the transformation of Ukraine into an American colony with
Nazi elements, and the war in Donbass are also part of this picture. This war will not stop
until Russia is conquered and dismembered, or Russia has put an end to the US offensive.
So, to recapitulate: Because the world is already divided between imperialist powers and
there are no new colonies to conquer, the great powers can only fight for redistribution. What
creates the basis and possibilities for a new division is the uneven development of capitalism.
The forces that are developing faster economically and technologically will demand bigger
markets, more raw materials, more strategic control.
The results of two terrible wars are
again up for grabs
World War I caused perhaps 20 million deaths , as well as at least as many
wounded. World War II caused around 72 million deaths . These are
approximate numbers, and there is still controversy around the exact figures, but we are
talking about this order of magnitude.
The two world wars that ended with the Versailles and Yalta treaties thus caused just below
100 million dead, as well as an incredible number of other suffering and losses.
Since 1991, a low-intensity "world war" has been fought, especially by the US, to conquer
"the void". Donald Trump
recently stated that the United States have waged wars based on lies, which have cost $ 8
trillion ($ 8,000 billion) and millions of people's lives. So the United States' new
distribution of the spoils has not happened peacefully.
"The Rebellion against
Sykes-Picot"
In the debate around the situation in the Middle East, certain people that would like to
appear leftist, radical and anti-imperialist say that it is time to rebel against the
artificial boundaries drawn by the Sykes-Picot and Versailles treaties. And certainly these
borders are artificial and imperialist. But how leftist and anti-imperialist is it to fight for
these boundaries to be revised now?
In reality, it is the United States and Israel that are fighting for a redistribution of the
Middle East. This is the basis underlying Donald Trump's "Deal of the Century", which aims to
bury Palestine forever, and it is stated outright in the new US strategy for partitioning
Iraq.
Again, this is just an updated version of the Zionist Yinon plan that aimed to cantonize the
entire Middle East, with the aim that Israel should have no real opponents and would be able to
dominate the entire region and possibly create a Greater Israel.
It is not the anti-imperialists that are leading the way to overhaul the imperialist borders
from 1919. It is the imperialists. To achieve this, they can often exploit movements that are
initially popular or national, but which then only become tools and proxies in a greater
game.
This has happened so many times in history that it can hardly be counted.
Hitler's Germany exploited Croatian nationalism by using the
Ustaša gangs as proxies. From 1929 to 1945, they killed hundreds of thousands of
Serbs, Jews and Roma people. And their ideological and political descendants carried out an
extremely brutal ethnic cleansing of the Krajina area and forced out more than 200,000 Serbs in
their so-called Operation Storm in 1995.
Hitler also used the extreme Ukrainian nationalists of Stepan Bandera's OUN, and after
Bandera's death, the CIA continued to use them as a fifth column against the Soviet Union.
The US low-intensity war against Iraq, from the Gulf War in 1991 to the Iraq War in 2003,
helped divide the country into enclaves. Iraqi Kurdistan achieved autonomy in the oil-rich
north with the help of a US "no-fly zone". The United States thus created a quasi-state that
was their tool in Iraq.
Undoubtedly, the Kurds in Iraq had been oppressed under Saddam Hussein. But also
undoubtedly, their Iraqi "Kurdistan" became a client state under the thumb of United States.
And there is also no doubt that the no-fly zones were illegal, as UN Secretary General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali
admitted in a conversation with John Pilger .
And now the United States is still using the Kurds in Northern Iraq in its plan to divide
Iraq into three parts. To that end, they are building the world's largest consulate in Erbil.
What they are planning to do, is simply "creating a country".
As is well known, the United States also uses the Kurds in Syria as a pretext to keep 27
percent of the country occupied. It does not help how much the Kurdish militias SDF and PYD
invoke democracy, feminism and communalism; they have ended up pleading for the United States
to maintain the occupation of Northeast Syria.
Preparations for a New World War
Israel and the US are preparing for war against Iran. In this fight, they will develop as
much "progressive" rhetoric as is required to fool people. Real dissatisfaction in the area,
which there is every reason to have, will be magnified and blown out of all proportion. "Social
movements" will be equipped with the latest news in the Israeli and US "riot kits" and receive
training and logistics support, in addition to plenty of cold hard cash.
There may be good reasons to revise the 1919 borders, but in today's situation, such a move
will quickly trigger a major war. Some say that the Kurds are entitled to their own state, and
maybe so. The question is ultimately decided by everyone else, except the Kurds themselves.
The problem is that in today's geopolitical situation, creating a unified Kurdistan will
require that "one" defeats Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. It's hard to see how that can happen
without their allies, not least Russia and China, being drawn into the conflict.
And then we have a new world war on our hands. And in that case, we are not talking about
100 million killed, but maybe ten times as much, or the collapse of civilization as we know it.
The Kurdish question is not worth that much.
This does not mean that one should not fight against oppression and injustice, be it social
and national. One certainly should. But you have to realize that revising the map of the Middle
East is a very dangerous plan and that you run the risk of ending up in very dangerous company.
The alternative to this is to support a political struggle that undermines the hegemony of the
United States and Israel and thereby creates better conditions for future struggles.
It is nothing new that small nations rely on geopolitical situations to achieve some form of
national independence. This was the case, for example, for my home country Norway. It was
France's defeat in the Napoleonic War that caused Denmark to lose the province of Norway to
Sweden in 1814, but at the same time it created space for a separate Norwegian constitution and
internal self rule.
All honor to the Norwegian founding fathers of 1814, but this was decided on the
battlefields in Europe. And again, it was Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War that laid
the geopolitical foundation for the dissolution of the forced union with Sweden almost a
hundred years later, in 1905. (This is very schematically presented and there are many more
details, but there is no doubt that Russia's loss of most of its fleet in the Far East had
created a power vacuum in the west, which was exploitable.)
Therefore, the best thing to do now is not to support the fragmentation of states, but to
support a united front to drive the United States out of the Middle East. The Million Man March
in Baghdad got the ball rolling. There is every reason to build up even more strength behind
it. Only when the United States is out, will the peoples and countries in the region be able to
arrive at peaceful agreements between themselves, which will enable a better future to be
developed.
And in this context, it is an advantage that China develops the "Silk Road" (aka Belt and
Road Initiative), not because China is any nobler than other major powers, but because this
project, at least in the current situation, is non-sectarian, non-exclusive and genuinely
multilateral. The alternative to a monopolistic rule by the United States, with a world police
under Washington's control, is a multipolar world. It grows as we speak.
The days of the Empire are numbered. What this will look like in 20 or 50 years, remains to
be seen.
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George Mc ,
Off topic – but there's nowhere else to put this at the moment:
The BBC was taken aback by leftwing attacks on its general election coverage
No idea what they are talking about. They patiently explained that Corbyn was Hitler. What
more could they do?
Dungroanin ,
Ok roll up the sleeves, time to concentrate. I've had enough of being baited as a judae-
phobe.
The 'Balfour Declaration' – he didn't write it and it was a contract published in
the newspapers within hours of it being inveigled.
Ready?
'Balfour and Lloyd George would have been happy with an unvarnished endorsement of
Zionism. The text that the foreign secretary agreed in August was largely written by Weizmann
and his colleagues:
"His Majesty's Government accept the principle that Palestine should be reconstituted as
the national home of the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the
achievement of this object and will be ready to consider any suggestions on the subject which
the Zionist Organisation may desire to lay before them."
Got that – AUGUST?
Dungroanin ,
The leading figure in that drama was a charismatic chemistry professor from Manchester, Chaim
Weizmann – with his domed head, goatee beard and fierce intellect. Weizmann had gained
an entrée into political circles thanks to CP Scott, the illustrious editor of the
Manchester Guardian, and had then sold his Zionist project to government leaders, including
David Lloyd George when he was chancellor of the exchequer.
Dungroanin ,
Author(s)
Walter Rothschild, Arthur Balfour, Leo Amery, Lord Milner
Signatories
Arthur James Balfour
Recipient
Walter Rothschild
Dungroanin ,
'In due course the blunt phrase about Palestine being "reconstituted as the national home of
the Jewish people" was toned down into "the establishment of a home for the Jewish people in
Palestine" – a more ambiguous formulation which sidestepped for the moment the idea of
a Jewish state. '
Dungroanin ,
'Edwin Montagu, newly appointed as secretary of state for India, was only the third
practising Jew to hold cabinet office. Whereas his cousin, Herbert Samuel (who in 1920 would
become the first high commissioner of Palestine) was a keen supporter of Zionism, Montagu was
an "assimilationist" – one who believed that being Jewish was a matter of religion not
ethnicity. His position was summed up in the cabinet minutes:
Mr Montagu urged strong objections to any declaration in which it was stated that
Palestine was the "national home" of the Jewish people. He regarded the Jews as a religious
community and himself as a Jewish Englishman '
Dungroanin ,
'Montagu considered the proposed Declaration a blatantly anti-Semitic document and claimed
that "most English-born Jews were opposed to Zionism", which he said was being pushed mainly
by "foreign-born Jews" such as Weizmann, who was born in what is now Belarus.'
Dungroanin ,
The other critic of the proposed Declaration was Lord Curzon, a former viceroy of India, who
therefore viewed Palestine within the geopolitics of Asia. A grandee who traced his lineage
back to the Norman Conquest, Curzon loftily informed colleagues that the Promised Land was
not exactly flowing with milk and honey, but nor was it an empty, uninhabited space.
According to the cabinet minutes, "Lord Curzon urged strong objections upon practical
grounds. He stated, from his recollection of Palestine, that the country was, for the most
part, barren and desolate a less propitious seat for the future Jewish race could not be
imagined."
And, he asked, "how was it proposed to get rid of the existing majority of Mussulman
[Muslim] inhabitants and to introduce the Jews in their place?"
Dungroanin ,
Sorry for the length of this bit – but it only makes sense in the whole:
'Between them, Curzon and Montagu had temporarily slowed the Zionist bandwagon. Lord
Milner, another member of the war cabinet, hastily added two conditions to the proposed
draft, in order to address the two men's respective concerns. The vague phrase about the
rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" hints at how little the
government knew or cared about those who constituted roughly 90 per cent of the population of
what they, too, regarded as their homeland.
After trying out the new version on a few eminent Jews, both of Zionist and
accommodationist persuasions, and also securing a firm endorsement from America's President
Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Balfour took the issue back to the war cabinet on 31
October. By now the strident Montagu had left for India, and on this occasion Balfour, who
could often be moody and detached, led from the front, brushing aside the objections that had
been raised and reasserting the propaganda imperative. According to the cabinet minutes, he
stated firmly: "The vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as, indeed, all over the
world, now appeared to be favourable to Zionism. If we could make a declaration favourable to
such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and
America."
This was standard cabinet tactics: a strong lead from a minister supported by the PM,
daring his colleagues to argue back. And this time Curzon did not, though he did make another
telling comment. He "attached great importance to the necessity of retaining the Christian
and Moslem Holy Places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem". If this were done, Curzon added, he "did
not see how the Jewish people could have a political capital in Palestine".'
Dungroanin ,
Dates again crucial and the smoking gun:
'securing a firm endorsement from America's President Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and
Balfour took the issue back to the war cabinet on 31 October.'
Dungroanin ,
The two conditions had bought off the two main critics. That was all that seemed to matter,
even though the reference to the "rights of the existing non-Jewish communities" stood in
potential conflict with the first two clauses about the British supporting and using their
"best endeavours" for the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
people".
Dungroanin ,
There is MORE but I'll pause and see how many are really interested in FACTS, as opposed to
invented History, Economics and Capital instead of the only real human motivations of the
ages – Money and Power.
George Mc ,
the only real human motivations of the ages – Money and Power.
If this is true then we are all doomed.
Dungroanin ,
Not if we are aware of it George.
Dungroanin ,
Ok a summary fom Brittanica:
'Balfour Declaration Quick Facts
The Balfour Declaration, issued through the continued efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum
Sokolow, Zionist leaders in London, fell short of the expectations of the Zionists, who had
asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as "the" Jewish national home. The declaration
specifically stipulated that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and
religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." The document, however,
said nothing of the political or national rights of these communities and did not refer to
them by name. Nevertheless, the declaration aroused enthusiastic hopes among Zionists and
seemed the fulfillment of the aims of the World Zionist Organization (see Zionism).
The British government hoped that the declaration would rally Jewish opinion, especially
in the United States, to the side of the Allied powers against the Central Powers during
World War I (1914–18). They hoped also that the settlement in Palestine of a
pro-British Jewish population might help to protect the approaches to the Suez Canal in
neighbouring Egypt and thus ensure a vital communication route to British colonial
possessions in India.
The Balfour Declaration was endorsed by the principal Allied powers and was included in
the British mandate over Palestine, formally approved by the newly created League of Nations
on July 24, 1922.
In May 1939 the British government altered its policy in a White Paper recommending a
limit of 75,000 further immigrants and an end to immigration by 1944, unless the resident
Palestinian Arabs of the region consented to further immigration.
Zionists condemned the new policy, accusing Britain of favouring the Arabs. This point was
made moot by the outbreak of World War II (1939–45) and the founding of the State of
Israel in 1948.'
Dungroanin ,
But what about the timing?
Well there are twin tracks, here is the first.
'But talking about the return of the Jews to the land of Israel was only meaningful
because that land seemed up for grabs after the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany in 1914.
For Britain, France and Russia – though primarily focused on Europe – war against
a declining power long dubbed the "Sick Man of Europe" opened up the prospect of vast gains
in the Levant and the Middle East.
The Ottoman army, however, proved no walkover. In 1915 it threatened the Suez Canal,
Britain's imperial artery to India, and then repulsed landings by British empire and French
forces on the Dardanelles at Gallipoli. Although Baghdad fell in March 1917, two British
assaults on Gaza that spring were humiliatingly driven back, with heavy losses. Deadlock in
the desert added to Whitehall's list of woes.
In this prescribed narrative of remembrance for 1914-18, what happened outside the Western
Front has been almost entirely obscured. The British army's "Historical Lessons, Warfare
Branch" has published in-house a fascinating volume of essays about what it tellingly
entitles "The Forgotten Fronts of the First World War" – with superb maps and
illustrations. The collection covers not only Palestine and Mesopotamia (roughly modern-day
Iraq and Kuwait), but also Italy, Africa, Russia, Turkey and the Pacific – indeed much
of the world – but sadly it is not currently available to the public. '
Dungroanin ,
The second track is the 'money' track and what everything is about and why we live in such a
miasma of blatant lies.
IT can only make sense by asking questions such as :
Can we follow the money?
When was the Fed set up? Why? By whom?
How much money did it lend &
to whom?
When was the first world war started?
When did US declare war?
When did US troops arrive in numbers to enter that war?
What happened in Russia at the same time?
And in Mesopotamia?
How did it end?
How did it fail to end?
What happened to the contract?
Etc.
I have attempted to research and answer some of these already above.
Next I will attempt to walk the other track but be warned that opens more ancient
tracks.
Dungroanin ,
'On 2 November, Balfour sent his letter to Lord Rothschild.
7 November, Lenin and the Bolsheviks had seized power in Petrograd. ransacked the Tsarist
archives, they published juicy extracts from the "secret treaties" that the Allied powers had
made among themselves in 1915-16 to divide the spoils of victory.
The same day the Ottoman Seventh and Eighth Armies evacuated the town of Gaza
9 November Letter published in Times.
Mid November – The Bolsheviks did not discover that the British were also playing
footsie with the Turks. In the middle of November 1917, secret meetings took place with
Ottoman dissidents in Greece and Switzerland about trying to arrange an armistice in the Near
East. The war cabinet recognised that, as bait, it might have to let the Ottomans keep parts
of their empire in the region, or at least retain some appearance of control. When Curzon got
wind of this, he was incensed: "Almost in the same week that we have pledged ourselves, if
successful, to secure Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, are we to
contemplate leaving the Turkish flag flying over Jerusalem?"
End November. The Manchester Guardian's correspondent in Petrograd, Morgan Philips Price,
was able to examine the key documents overnight, and his scoop was published by the paper at
the end of November. It revealed to the world, among other things, that the British also had
an understanding with the French – the Sykes-Picot agreement of January 1916 – to
carve up the Near East between them once the Ottoman empire had been defeated. In this,
Palestine was slated for some kind of international condominium – not the British
protectorate envisaged in the Balfour Declaration.
11 December Allenby formally entered Jerusalem. '
So just a few loose ends left to tie up anyone actually want to go there?
The paramount goal of the Fed's founders was to eliminate banking panics, but it was not
the only goal. The founders also sought to increase the amount of international trade
financed by US banks and to expand the use of the dollar internationally. By 1913 the United
States had the world's largest economy, but only a small fraction of US exports and imports
were financed by American banks. Instead, most exports and imports were financed by bankers'
acceptances drawn on European banks in foreign currencies. (Bankers' acceptances are a type
of financial contract used for making payments in the future, for example, upon delivery of
goods or services. Bankers' acceptances are drawn on and guaranteed, i.e., "accepted," by a
bank.) The Federal Reserve Act allowed national banks to issue bankers' acceptances and open
foreign branches, which greatly expanded their ability to finance international transactions
Further the Act authorized the Reserve Banks to purchase acceptances in the open market to
ensure a liquid market for them, thereby spurring growth of that market.
President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913.
The task of determining the specific number of districts, district boundaries, and which
cities would have Reserve Banks was assigned to a Reserve Bank Organization Committee.
On April 2, 1914, the Committee announced that twelve Federal Reserve districts would be
formed, identified the boundaries of those districts, and named the cities that would have
Reserve Banks.1 The Banks were quickly organized, officers and staff were hired, and boards
of directors appointed. The Banks opened for business on November 16, 1914.
..
The Federal Reserve Act addressed perceived shortcomings by creating a new national
currency -- Federal Reserve notes -- and requiring members of the Federal Reserve System to
hold reserve balances with their local Federal Reserve Banks.
World War I began in Europe in August 1914, before the Federal Reserve Banks had opened
for business. The war had a profound impact on the US banking system and economy, as well as
on the Federal Reserve.
War disrupted European financial markets and reduced the supply of trade credit offered by
European banks, providing US banks with an opening. Low US interest rates, abundant reserves,
and new authority to issue trade acceptances enabled American banks to finance a growing
share of world trade.
Dungroanin ,
So the denouement :
It appears that the 'first world war' was designed to diminish European banks and boost
the US banks.
However the fuller history of the US bankers is worth knowing- the Jekyll Islanders story
is widely publicised.
Into this time track enters the Balfour Declaration addressed to Lord Rothschild, steered
by Milner (heir to Rhodes empire building and the old EIC), approved by the potus Wilson
(another hireling) that finally sent US troops to overwhelm the Germans, while the great
gamers took out the Romanovs and the Ottoman Empire.
-- --
When we try to understand such facts and timelines and are attacked as Judaeo-phobes,
because we identify Bankers and Robber Barons, it becomes even clearer how deep and wide they
have controlled history and it has NOTHING to do with RELIGION (except perhaps Ludism).
Nothing to do with Judaism (except perhaps Old Jewry in the City, but Lombard Street was most
powerful!) and EVERYTHING to do with POWER and it's representation MONEY. The obscuring of
that through various Economic theories including Marxism is the work of the same old bastards
who are responsible for all our current malaises.
Thankyou and good evening, if anyone made it this far!
😉
George Mc ,
Well OK Dunnie, let's say I go along with you and assume that all the shit we are facing has
nothing to do with religion or all that "Marxian porridge" (as Guido Giacomo Preparata called
it). The question is: What do we do about it?
Speaking of GGP , it seems to me that you and him have much in common. He also goes on
about "Power" but seems to be on the verge of referring this "Power" to mystical entities in
a disconcertingly Ickean manoeuvre. Not that I'm attibuting such a thing to yourself. (No
irony intended.)
Dungroanin ,
George – i don't want you or anyone to just go along with me.
I want everyone to make their minds up on FACTS. That is the only way humanity has
actually progressed by inventing the only self correcting philosophical system and method of
the ages that goes beyond 'personal responsibility teligions' – SCIENTIFIC METHOD
– that takes away arbitrary power to rule, from these that inhabit the top of the human
pyramid by virtue of being born there and having control over the money and so the power to
remain in these positions, which does not benefit the totality of humanity or all life on
Earth.
I am not a messiah, I am angry as fuck and I am not going to sit around enjoying whatever
soma has been handed to us to keep compliant and leave this Planet worse than I found it.
That is the scientific conclusion I have reached.
I suppose some proto buddhist / zoroastrianism / animalist / Shinto / Jain & Quakers
seek religious truth in inner experience, and place great reliance on conscience as the basis
of morality.
I suppose Ghandi's non-violence rebellion against Imperialists is a model as are various
peasants revolts – the Russian / Chinese / Korean / Vietnamese couldn't have survived
without the literal grassroots!
..
As for Guido Giacomo Preparata that you have introduced to me – i had nevet heard of
him before this morning – my first take on him is that he seems to have arrived at
similar conclusions by similar methodology. He seems to have a lot of formal education and a
enviable career so far – i'll have to look into him further but the interview that i
just read seems to indicate concurrence with what i said above. I see no Ickean references
– please give a link.
-- -
As a observation do you not find it funny that there is not a single objection to the
verity of the facts which I have presented above?
Good luck George if you are a real seeker of truth. If not insta-karma awaits.
George Mc ,
The Preparata statement I was referring to is in this interview:
Power is a purely human suggestion. Suggested by whom? That is the question. The NSDAP
thus appeared to have been a front for some kind of nebula of Austro-German magi, dark
initiates, and troubling literati (Dietrich Eckhart comes to mind), with very plausible
extra-Teutonic ramifications of which we know next to nothing. Hitler came to be inducted
in a lodge of this network, endowed as he seemed with a supernatural gift of inflaming
oratory.
This is a theme that I am still studying, but from what I gathered, the adepts of the
Thule Gesellschaft communed around the belief of being the blood heirs of a breed that
seeks redemption / salvation / metempsychosis in some kind of eighth realm away from this
earth, which is the shoddy creation of a lesser God -- the archangel of the Hebrews,
Jehovah. It all sounds positively insane to post-modern ears, but it should be taken very
seriously, I think.
Admittedly it isn't quite interdimensional reptiles but there is a distinct metaphysical
flavour there.
I wouldn't go along with everything Preparata says but he is a wonderful writer and I have
bought almost everything I can find by him. His "biggie" is "Conjuring Hitler". It was Nafeez
Mosaddeq Ahmed that brought GGP to my attention via that book.
milosevic ,
images on this website look terrible, with very little colour. the problem seems to be caused
by this rule, from the file "OffGstyle.css":
.content-wrap-spp img {
filter: sepia(20%) saturate(30%);
}
Open ,
This sepia effect usually works well with Off-Guardian articles, but with these maps in
today's article it is definitely terrible. Why have maps if they don't want to show them
clearly?
(any extra steps for the user to see the pictures clearly is not the answer)
Another area neglected on this website is crediting photos. The majority of images carry
no atribution/credit, despite it [crediting photos] is the best ethical practice even for
public domain pictures. I wish Admin gets expert advice on this.
Open ,
Look at the language used by the americans:
On feb. 12 [2020], Coalition forces, conducting a patrol near Qamishli, Syria ,
encountered a checkpoint occupied by pro-Syrian .. forces .
So, the supremacist unites states' army has found that Syrian forces are occupying Syrian
land .. wow wow wow .. according to this logic, Russian forces are occupying Russian land.
Iranian forces are occupying Iranian land (how dare they?!). But american forces are not
occupying any land, and Israel is not occupying Palestinian and Syrian lands.
This language needs to be known more widely.
Open ,
The americans always use the term 'Coalition forces' when they talk about their illegal
presence in Syria. I tried to search online for what countries are in this coalition. I
recall I was able to find that in the past, but now, it seems this information is being
pushed under wrap.
What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?
Joe ,
Just bring about the end of "Israel" and there'll be peace in the Middle East, and probably
in the wider world, too.
Open ,
Ending the Israeli project is certainly a step in the right direction to improve global
stability. However, alone, it will not bring about peace because the
British/Five-Eyes/Washington's doctrine of spreading disorder and chaos permeates (saturates)
the planet.
In fact, current disorders are the results of convergence of Israeli interests with those
of Western White Supremacy's* resolve to dominate, erh, eveything.
* Western White Supremacy can also be called Western White Idiocy and Bigotry.
Israel manipulates the West's political and military might. The West also uses Israel to
spread Chaos and Disorder.
Antonym ,
Right, back to the good old peace of the graveyard inspired by Mohamed's male sex riot
ideology and plunder legitimization before the Westerners showed up with their superior
(arms) tech legitimization for their plunder.
Before Israel's 1947 creation the world was a bed of roses .
Open ,
"srael's 1947 creation"
Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Ukranians
and Germans, and later South Americans, found home in the Middle East.
How ligitimate is that?
Antonym ,
Without the natives' consent and without the neighbouring countries approval, Moroccans,
Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians, found home in the EU thanks to madame Merkel.
How ligitimate is that?
Open ,
"Moroccans, Somalis, and later Afghans and Syrians .. etc.."
Do these comments reflect the Zionists' perspective? This is important because they prove
that the whole existence of Israel is based on total fabrication and lies.
Maggie ,
Did you have to practice at being THAT stupid! Or did they lobotomise you in Langley?
Somalis, Afghans, Syrians would not have had any cause to leave their homeland had it not
been for your employers the CIA/MOSSAD facilitating the raping and pillaging of their homes
by the Oil Magnates, leaving them starving and desolate. https://www.hiiraan.com/op2/2007/may/somalia_the_other_hidden_war_for_oil.aspx
and where does our Aid money go?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5OInaYenHkU?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
But of course Antonym, if you were in their situation, you would just stick it out?
Shame on you .
To those who care, read "The confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins" to
understand how this corrupt system is conducted.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Its 'creation' in blood, murder, rape and terror, in a great ethnic cleansing-the sign of
things to come, ceaselessly, for seventy years and ongoing.
paul ,
Ask the people in Gaza about the Zionist "peace of the graveyard."
Antonym ,
Gaza before 2005 was relatively peaceful + prosperous. After the Israeli withdrawal the
inhabitants messed up their own economy but kept on making lots of babies just like
before.
Quite the opposite of a graveyard or a Warsaw ghetto or a Dachau.
Despite the disengagement, the United Nations, international human rights organisations
and most legal scholars regard the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by
Israel, though this is disputed by Israel and other legal scholars. Following the
withdrawal, Israel has continued to maintain direct external control over Gaza and indirect
control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's
seven land crossings, it maintains a no-go buffer zone within the territory, and controls
the Palestinian population registry, and Gaza remains dependent on Israel for its water,
electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.
Interesting definition of "withdrawal". It's amazing those Gazans even managed to have
babies!
Richard Le Sarc ,
You would have made a grand Nazi, Antsie-cripes, you have!
paul ,
Gaza was, and is, a huge Zionist concentration camp hermetically sealed off from the outside
world and blockaded just like the Warsaw Ghetto. With Zionist thugs and kiddie killers
shooting hundreds of kids in the head for the fun of it with British sniper rifles and dum
dum bullets, and periodically dropping 20,000 tons of bombs at a time on it, a higher
explosive yield than Hiroshima. With parties of Jews going along to hold barbecues and
picnics to watch all the fun. Nice people, those chosen folk.
Richard Le Sarc ,
I rather think that Epstein, Weinstein, Moonves and all those orthodox and ultra-orthodox who
are such prolific patrons of the sex industry in Israel, know a bit about 'male sex riot
ideology', Antsie.
Dungroanin ,
Pathetic.
'Nandy won a major boost when members of the Labour affiliate Jewish Labour Movement gave her
their backing after a hustings, saying she understood the need to change the party's
culture.'
From the Groaniad
How many members? How many by denomination?
As for the Balfour Contract there were actual English Jewish establishment figures against
its premise. Actual imperial servants. The declaration was a stitch up by the new banking
powers in the US which then sent in the yanks to stop the Germans in 1917.
History is rewritten daily to memory hole such facts.
Capricornia Man ,
The 'Jewish Labour Movement' is so Jewish that most of its members are not Jewish. And it is
so Labour-affiliated that it did not support Labour in the December general election. But it
has no shortage of money. It exists solely to prosecute the interests of a foreign power.
Much the same could be said for any politician who accepts its endorsement.
Rhys Jaggar ,
Given that Jews are vastly outnumbered by non Jews, the simplest way to stop Jewish
manipulation of politics is to form a party from which Jews are specifically banned.
You will not propose any policies harming Jews in any way, you will just make it clear
that this is a party free from any Jewish influence in its constitution.
If Jews cannot accept that, then they are utterly racist and must be dealt with without
sensibility.
Maggie ,
A better solution Rhys would be to form a party that denies all and any dual citizens
That way all the Zionists would be barred.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Full public financing of political parties would end Zionist control.
paul ,
Thornberry has just thrown in the towel.
She will now have more time to "get down on her hands and knees" and "beg forgiveness" from
the Board of Deputies.
Those good little Shabbos are so easily trained.
Dungroanin ,
BoD's??? Another random organisation!
Who are they? Who do they represent? How many people? Which people? How did they get
elected? How can they be fired?
Richard Le Sarc ,
The next world war has already started, with the bio-warfare atttack on China aka Covid19.
lundiel ,
Why no comment on the government reshuffle? I don't agree with the Indian middle-class
uplifting but totally agree with neutering the ultra-conservative treasury.
Maggie ,
I think it's a case of who gives a fck. We now know that our elections are rigged, and so
there is no point in us being involved. My family and I all realised and voted for the last
time.
They are all bloody crap actors reading their scripts and playing their parts, whilst the
never changing suits in the background pull the strings.
I had to explain to my 10 year old Grandson how politics work, and he said "Why doesn't
anyone know the names of, or see the suits?"
What I want to know is why no-one ever asks this question or demands an answer?
tonyopmoc ,
Completely Brilliant Article, but it is Valentines Day, so as I am 66 years old, and in love
with my wife (nearly 40 years together = LOVE), I wrote this in response to Craig Murray, who
has banned me again.
It may be off topic for him, but it ain't off topic for me. I am still in Love.
"Churchill's mental deterioration from syphilis – which the Eton and Oxford ."
Never had it, and she didn't either. We were young and in love, but we didn't know, if
either of us had sex before, but I had a spotty dick, and went to the VD clinic. I had a
blood test, and they gave me some zinc cream.
She also had the same thing, and showed her Mum.
We were both completely innocent, and had a sexually transmitted disease called Thrush. It
is relatively harmless, but can also give you a sore throat.
We both laughed at each other, and nearly got married.
Natural Yoghurt, is completely brilliant at preventing it.
Far better than Canestan.
Happy Valentines Day, for Everyone still In Love.
Let us all look forwad to a Brighter Day for our Grandchildren.
Tony
Loverat ,
Hey Tony
Dont worry. Craig Murray might not like you but I do. Your stories, here and elsewhere
have entertained me for many years.
Mind you, if I were your other half I would have chucked you years ago.
paul ,
Tell him how much you like haggis and tossing your caber.
Dungroanin ,
Without Stalins say so Poland would not have had its borders at the end of ww2.
Also,
On these maps just off the right hand edges is missing Afghanistan.. which the imperialists
invaded in 2002 as the Taliban wiped out the opium crops. Back to full production immediately
after invasion and 18 years later secret negotiations to hand over to Taliban while leaving
8,000 CUA troops delivering the huge cash crop.
Seeking possession and control – in competition with those you see as seeking to
dispossess and control or deny you – is the identity or belief in 'kill or be
killed'.
This belief overrides and subordinates others – such as to subsume all else to such
private agenda that will seek alliance against common threat but only as a shifting strategy
of possession and control.
One of the things about this 'game' of power struggle, is that it loses any sense of WHY
– and so it is a driven mind or dictate of power or possession for it own sake that
cannot really ENJOY or HAVE and share what it Has. The image of the hungry ghost comes to
mind here. It will never have enough until you are dead – and even then will offer you
torment beyond the grave.
Until this mindset is recognised and released as an 'insanity' it operates as accepted
currency of exchange, and maps our a world of its own conflicting and conflicted
meanings.
The willingness to destroy or kill, deny or undermine and invalidate others in order to
GET for a private agenda set over the whole instead of finding balance within the whole
– is destructive to life, no matter how ingenious the thinking that frames it to seem
to be progressive, protective, or in fact powerful.
But in our collective alignment and allegiance with such a way of thinking and identifying
– we all give power to the destructive – as if to protect the life that it gives
us.
The hungry ghost is also in the mass population when separated from their land and lives
to seek connection or meaning in proffered 'products and services' instead of creating out of
our own lives. Products and services that operate a hidden agenda of possession and control
or market and mind capture under threat of fear of pain of loss in losing even the little
that we have.
Having – on a spiritual level is our being – and not a matter of stuffing a
hole.
Madness that can no longer mask as anything else is all about – and brings a choice to
conscious awareness as to whether to persist in it or decide to find another way of seeing
and being.
This is not to say there is no place to call upon or seek to limit people in positions of
trust from serving an unjust outcome by calling for transparency and accountability –
but not to wait on that or make that the be all and end all.
If there is another way and a better way than war masking in and misusing and thus
corrupting anything and everything, then it has to be lived one to another.
Everyone seeks a better experience – but many seek it in a negative framing.
Negative in the sense of self-lack seeking power in the terms of its current identity. Evils
work their own destruction, but find sustainability in selling destructive agenda or toxic
debt as ingeniously complex instruments of deceit – by which the targeted buyer
believes they have or shall save their 'self' or add to their 'self' rather than growing
hollow to a driven mindset of reactive fear-addiction.
I don't need to 'tell this to those who refuse to listen' – but I share it with any
moment of a willingness to listen. In the final analysis, we are the ones who live the result
of choices in our lives, whatever the times and conditions.
The 'repackaging' of reality to self-deceit, is not new but part of the human mind and
experience throughout history. The evil changes forms – as if the good has and shall
triumph. But truth undoes illusion by being accepted. It doesn't war on illusion and thus
make it real – and remain truth.
Judgement divides to rule.
Discernment arises from the unwillingness to division.
One is set apart from and over life as the invocation of an alien will, dealing death, and
the other as the will of true desire revealed.
The idea of independent autonomy is relative to a limited sphere of responsibilities in
the world.
The idea of living our own life is an alignment within the same for others and the freedom to
do so cannot take from others without becoming possessed by our denials, debts and
transgressions – no less so in the driven mind of ingeniously repackaged and wilfully
defended narrative identity.
In our own experience, this is not a matter of applied analysis, so much as awareness or
space in which to seek and find truth in some willingness of recognition and acceptance or
choice, while the triggering or baiting to madness is loud or compelling as the dictate of
fear seeking protection and grievance seeking retribution – as if these give freedom
and power rather than locking into a fear-framed limitation as substitution for life set in
defiance and refusal to look on or share in truth – and so to such a one, war is truth,
and love is weakness to exploit, use and weaponise for getting.
paul ,
If you look at the proposed new map of the Middle East, it mirrors Kushner's Deal Of The
Century for Palestine – because it has the same Zionist authorship.
The same old dirty Zionist games of divide and rule – break up countries in the region
into tiny defenceless little statelets setting different ethnic and religious groups at each
others' throats, so that they can rule the roost and steal whatever they wish.
You see this in the past and the recent past. The way Lebanon was torn away from Syria. Or
Kuwait from Iraq. Or the Ruritanian petty Gulf dictatorships like Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai.
Trump was being honest for the first time in his miserable life when he said none of these
satellites and satraps would last a fortnight if they were not propped up by the US.
paul ,
George Galloway described the whole region as a flock of sheep surrounded by ravenous wolves.
At the same time, there is more than a grain of truth in the Zionists' contention that the
people of the region are to some extent the authors of their own misfortune.
They always fall for the divide-and-rule games of outside powers, Britain, America,
Israel, who invade, bomb, slaughter, humiliate and exploit them. If they had been united,
Israel would not have been created. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, would not have been destroyed
and bombed back to the Stone Age. These countries would be genuinely independent and at
peace.
When I speak to ordinary moslems, it is surprising and depressing to see how much visceral
hatred they express for Shia moslems. They seem blind to the way they are being manipulated
to serve outside interests.
So we see moslem Saudi Arabia trying to incite America and Israel to destroy Iran, and
offering to pay for the whole cost of the war. Or S. Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, UAE et al, in bed
with Israel, paying billions to bankroll the terrorist head choppers in Syria. Or Egypt,
which does not even protest, let alone lift a finger, when Israeli aircraft use its air space
to carpet bomb Gaza. Or going further back in history, when countries like Egypt and Syria
sent troops to join the 1991 US invasion of Iraq. Even though Iraq had sent its forces to the
Golan Heights in 1973 to fight and die to prevent Syria being overrun by Israel. How
contemptible is all that? Yet those are just a few of many examples of all the backstabbing
that has occurred over the years. If these people don't respect themselves, why should
anybody else?
paul ,
And this has been going on for hundreds of years.
1096 marked the beginning of The Crusades, a disaster for the region on a par with the
creation of Israel.
At that time, London was a little village of 25,000. Baghdad and Alexandria and Cordoba were
sophisticated modern cities with populations of hundreds of thousands. They dismissed the
Crusaders as mere bandits who would do some looting, steal some cattle, and go home. But 3
years later Jerusalem had been conquered and its inhabitants slaughtered, the start of a 200
year disaster for the region. How? Why?
Because the Arabs were so busy fighting a civil war at the time they barely noticed the
foreign invaders. The old, old story. Civil war between Sunnis and Shias.
One day, they will wake up and realise that they have to hang together, or hang
separately.
But I wouldn't hold your breath.
There seems to be an endless supply of quisling stooge dictators ready to do the bidding of
hostile outside powers. The Mubaraks, the Sisis, the King Abdullahs, the Sinioras, the MBS's,
to name but a few.
Conforming to all the worst stereotypes about Arabs and moslems.
You could argue that they deserve all they get, when they are ever ready to bend over and
drop their trousers.
Is it really any surprise that they have been invaded, slaughtered, bombed back to the Stone
Age, robbed, exploited and humiliated from time immemorial.
Maybe one day they will discover an ounce of dignity and self respect. Who knows?
Maggie ,
"1096 marked the beginning of The Crusades, a disaster for the region on a par with the
creation of Israel.
At that time, London was a little village of 25,000. Baghdad and Alexandria and Cordoba were
sophisticated modern cities with populations of hundreds of thousands. They dismissed the
Crusaders as mere bandits who would do some looting, steal some cattle, and go home. But 3
years later Jerusalem had been conquered and its inhabitants slaughtered, the start of a 200
year disaster for the region. How? Why?"
Because despite the mendacious lies that are told about Muslims, they are tolerant and
forgiving. They believe in one God, and live exemplary modest, generous lives in the belief
that they will enter in to the kingdom of heaven.
And these are the people we are being encouraged to hate and fear? To enable the neo cons
to invade and destroy everything in their path to get their oil.
Hundreds of millions of Muslims the world over 'live in democracies' of some shape or
form, from Indonesia to Malaysia to Pakistan to Lebanon to Tunisia to Turkey. Tens of
millions of Muslims' live in -- and participate in' -- Western democratic societies. The
country that is on course to have the biggest Muslim population in the world in the next
couple of decades is India, which also happens to be the world's biggest democracy. Yet a
persistent pernicious narrative exists, particularly in the West, that Islam and democracy
are incompatible. Islam is often associated with dictatorship, totalitarianism, and a lack of
freedom, and many "well paid" analysts and pundits claim that Muslims are philosophically
opposed to the idea of democracy .
Richard Le Sarc ,
'Democracy' as practised in the neo-liberal capitalist West, is a nullity, a fiction, a
smoke-screen behind which the one and only power, that of the rich owners of the economy,
acts alone.
I know. These Zionist morons droning on about how violent Islam is as religion yet ignoring
the fact that the Bible is based on the God of Abraham granting them Canaan (like Trump
giving the Israelis the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) and urging them to
commit complete and utter genocidal annihilation of the inhabitants by not leaving a single
living thing breathing.
No violence there folks. Nope. The book of love my ass!
paul ,
Their God was a demented estate agent, rather like Trump or Kushner.
Personally I believe that the chapters of the bible were written after their genocidal blood
lust simply to justify their despicable acts. Claiming that God made 'em do it.
Loverat ,
My experience of muslims in the UK is many express support for the Palestinians but don't
identify or understand those states which still speak up for their rights, Syria, Iran and a
few others.
Sadly like the general UK population they have been exposed to propaganda which excuses
evil and mass murder carried out by Saudi Arabia and their lackeys and Israel. This is
changing however. People are gradually waking up. Muslims and the general UK public if they
really knew the extent of this would be out demonstrating on the streets.
The realisation these policies have exposed all of us to nuclear wipe out in seconds
should be enough motivation for any normal person.
The wipe out or (preferably) demonstrations will happen. Just a question of when. You can see
why the establishment and people like Higgins, Lucas and York are so active recently. These
idiots, blinded by their pay checks can't see the harm they are causing through their
irresponsible lies even to their own families. Perhaps they all have nuclear shelters in
their back garden.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Saudi Arabia is NOT 'Moslem'. It is Wahhabist, a genocide cult created by doenmeh, ie
crypto-Jewish followers of the failed 17th century Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, which is
homicidally opposed to all Moslems but fellow Wahhabists.
milosevic ,
I thought it was created by the British Empire, in order to provide reliable stooges and
puppet regimes.
Richard Le Sarc ,
What people must realise is that,for the Zionassty secular and Talmudic religious
leaderships, by far the dominant forces in Israel and among many of the Diaspora sayanim, the
drive to create 'Eretz Yisrael', '..from the Nile to the Euphrates' (and some include the
Arabian Peninsula as well), is a real, religious, ambition-indeed an obligation. With the
alliance with the 'Christian Zionist' lunatics in the USA, the fate of humanity is in the
hands of the Evil Brain Dead.
BigB ,
I despair. This is why there is 'No Deal For Nature' because the hegemonic cultural movement
is to extend cultural hegemony over nature. We cannot seem to help it or stop ourselves. Do
we suppose a glossy website will change that? Or empty sloganneering subvertisements? Or
waiving placards outside banks? Or some other futile conscience salving symbolic gesture?
No, we have to subvert the cultural hegemony over nature at every point at every chance.
Which is thankless because cultural normativity is ubiquitous. And it's killing us. And BRI
is the very antithesis of alternative an eternal return into the cultural consumerism and
commodification that is the global hegemony at least at an elite level. And we are among that
elite – in terms of consumption and pollution. We are the problem. If we seek to extend
or preserve our own Eurocentric priviliges and consumptions we can only do so by extracting
evermore global resources and maldeveloping the Rest. Which is also what Samir Amin said:
following Wallerstein's World Systems Theory.
The progressive packaging of all our sins and transferring them to something called
'American Imperialism' is nothing less than mass psychological transference to a Fetish. By
which we maintain autonomy from any blame in the ecological disaster we are co-creating.
Which is why it is a powerful cultural narrative constructivism. 'We' do not have to reform:
the scapegoated Otherised 'they' do. Whilst we all sit smugly in our inauthentic imaginary
autonomy: the ecological destruction caused entirely by our collectivist consumption carries
on. 'They' have to clean up 'their' act – not us. 'We' align with the
'counter-hegemonic alliance': the alternative BRI. 'We' are so bourgeois and progressive in
our invented independence and totally aligned with the destructive forces of capitalist
endocolonised culture because of our own internalised screening discourse. Which is why there
is #NoDealForNature. 'We' don't actually give a flying fuck not beyond some hollow totemic
gestures in transference of our own responsibility.
'We' are pushing for the financialisation of nature: as the teleology of our particular
complicit cultural narratives. It's not just 'them'. Supply and demand are dialectically
exponential. Who is demanding less, more fairly distributed North to South? Exponential
expansionism via BRI is no more alternative than colonising the Moon or Mars. For nature to
have a deal: we have to stop demanding growth. And in doing that: become self-responsible
right through to the narratives we produce. For which every person in the global consumer
bourgeoisie – that's us – will have to change their imperatives from culture to
nature. Which means a new naturalised culture: not just complicitly advocating the 'same old,
same old' exponential expansionism of the extractivist commodification of every last standing
resource. Under the guise of new narrative constructions like this. That's not progress: it's
capitalist propaganda and personal self-propaganda. We are among the consumer elite. Which is
driving the financialisation and commodification of everything. For us.
#NoDealForNature until we take full and honest self-responsibility to create one with our
every enaction including speech-enactivism.
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive
commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our
utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed,
and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save
the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has
preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox.
Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to
the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of
man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the
degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is
so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of
the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but
subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely
diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so urged by hard reason, without deterioration
in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an
operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were
intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit,
with a certain and great present evil. Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly
bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at
least one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society not
marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased, though this
is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind refraining from
marriage."
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
BigB ,
Every appraisal from a cultural POV extends the cultural hegemony over nature – with no
exceptions. If we do not address the false dichotomy of culture and nature – and invert
the privileged status of cultural domination over nature – this never changes. If
nothing changes its going to be a very short century the last in the history of culture.
I'm expressing my own private POV with the intention of at least highlighting the issue of
only ever expressing the distorted cultural-centric POV. It would be nice if we could all
agree to do something other than waste our privileged status and access to resources for
other than meaningless sarcasm. It's not like we'd all benefit from a change in POV and the
entailed potential in a change of course that can only happen if we think of nature first, is
it? 😉
The only thing I don't like about the environmentally "woke" is that many are easily
manipulated by the neoliberal elite. Greta is a perfect example.
That is they go after the little guy while the Military and big industry continue to
pollute unhampered.
George Mc ,
I despair.
Well that's what you do.
Dungroanin ,
The M5 highway is secured. Allepo access points too and Idlib is surrounded- where are the US
backed /Saudi paid / Tukish passport holding Uighars and various Turkmen proxy jihadist anti
Chinese / anti Russian, Central asian caliphate establishing mercenaries supposed to go now??
Pompeo is buzzing around Africa now like a blue bottomed cadaverous fly, non-stop buzzing
from piles of shot, trying to find them homes – no Libya doesn't want anymore of them,
nor the UAE and Saudis, or Turks maybe dump them in Canada with all these ex Ukrainian still
nazis? Its a big country nobody will know!
Or bring them to the US and give them a ticker tape parade?
Or let them surrender and have them testify as to how the fuck they let themselves be
bought for $$$$ maybe just fry them with the low yield nuke and blame Assad for it!
Dumbass yanks, fukus, 5+1 eyed gollum and Nutty- 'it's the Belgian airforce bombing
Russian weapons in Syria' -yahoo!
Up-Pompeos farce and buzzing is about to sizzle in the blue light of death for dumbfuck
poison spreading flies.
normal wisdom ,
so much disrespect here hare here.
these takfiri these giants these beards are hero
of the oded yinon plan
they raped murdered and stole
dustified atomised the syriana so
is rael can become real
the red heffers have been cloned the temple will grow
the semites must leave for norway,sweden wales scotland and detroit
already
the khazar ashkanazim need the land returned to it's true owners from the turkic russio
steppe
tonight back to back i watch reality
fiddler on the roof and exodus and schindlers lists.
i watch bbc simon scharmas new rabbi revised history of mighty israel.
every day it grows massive every day hezbollah become weak husk
shirley you can sea more that
my life already
Francis Lee ,
Very interesting and informative article. Lenin's 5 conditions of the imperialism of his time
have been matched by similar conditions in our own time, as listed by the Egyptian Marxist,
Samir Amin. These conditions being as follows.
1. Control of technology.
2. Access to natural resources.
3. Finance.
4. Global media.
5. The means of mass destruction.
Only by overturning these monopolies can real progress be made. Easily said. But a life
and death struggle for humanity.
The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up the space for increased penetration of Europe
to the East by the US and its West European allies in NATO. At that time the subaltern US
powers in Europe were the UK and West Germany, as it then was. There was a semblance of
sovereignty in France under De Gaulle, but this has since disappeared. Europe as a whole is
now occupied and controlled by the US which has used EU/NATO bloc to push right up to the
Russian border. Most, if not all, the non-sovereign quasi states, in Europe, particularly
Eastern Europe, are Quisling-Petainist puppet regimes regardless of whether they are inside
our outside of the EU. (I say 'states' but of course if a country is not sovereign it cannot
be a 'state' in the full meaning of the word).
A political, social and economic crisis in Europe seems to be taking taking shape. Perhaps
the key problem, particularly Eastern Europe, has been depopulation. There is not one
European state in which fertility (replacement) rates has reached 2.1 children. Western
European imperial states have to large degree been able to counter-act this tendency by
immigration from their former colonies, particularly the UK and France. But this has not been
possible in states such as Sweden and Germany where the migration of non-christian guest
workers from Turkey to Germany and Islamic refugees
from the middle-east hot-spots have had a free passage to Sweden. This has become a serious
social and economic problem; a problem resulting from a neoliberal open borders policy. The
fact of the matter is that radically different cultures will tend to clash. Thank you Mr
Soros.
British immigration policy was successful in so far as immigrants from the Caribbean were
English speakers, they were also protestant Christians, and the culture was not very
different from the UK. Later immigration from the Indian sub-continent and Indian settled
East Africa were generally professional and middle-class business people. Again English
speakers. Assimilation of these newcomers was not unduly difficult.
However it wouldn't be exaggerating to say that Eastern Europe is facing a demographic
disaster. This particular zone is literally bleeding people. Ukraine for example has lost 10
million people since 1990. Every month it is estimated that 100,000 Ukrainians leave the
country, usually for good. In terms of migration – no-one wants to go to Eastern
Europe, but everyone wants to leave, asap. This process is complemented by low birth rates,
and high death rates. These are un-developing states in an un-developing world. But now we
have new kids on the bloc. A counter-hegemonic alliance. No guesses who.
BigB ,
Rubbish. There is no 'counter-hegemonic alliance' to humanities rapacious demand for fossil
fuels and ecological resources. Where are the material consumption resources for BRI coming
from – the Moon, Mars? Passing asteroids? Or from the Earth?
When its gone: its gone. Russia and China provide absolutely no alternative to this.
China's consumption alone is driving us over the brink. To which the real alternative is a
complicit silence. As we all align with culture-centric capitalist views: there is no
naturalistic 'counter-hegemonic alliance'. Just some hunters in the Amazon we are having shot
right now so we can have the privilige of extending cultural hegemony over nature.
When it's gone: it's gone. And so will we be too. Probably as we are still praising the
wonders of the 'counter-hegemonic alliance' that killed us.
Actually there is a naturalistic alliance forming but it seems you haven't been paying
attention because you seem stuck in some Malthusian mind set. In order to defeat capitalism
you have to defeat Globalism so you first have to eliminate the Anglo-American Hegemony and
get back to a multipolar world.
Ranting on about like Gretchen doesn't do any good.
BigB ,
Resources are finite and thermodynamics exist. These are the ineliminable, indisputable, and
rock solid epistemology of the Earth System. Everything else is metaphysics – literally
'beyond nature; beyond physics'. Or, as it is more commonly known – economics. The
imaginary epistemology of political economics and political theory. 'Theory' is the
non-scientific sense of unfounded opinion and non-sense. A philosophical truth-theory that is
not and cannot ever be true. Hypothetical non-sense.
I get my information from a wide range of sources that realise these foundational
predicates. That is: a foundational set of beliefs that require no underpinning. I can only
paraphrase Eddington on thermodynamics: "if your theory is found to be against the second law
I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
Which is to say all modern political theory and economics – and by extension all
opinions based on its internalisation – is the product of vivid and unfounded
imagination. To which a naturalised epistemology is the only remedy.
There are lots of people working on the problem: but not in the political sphere. Which is
why we are stuck in a hallucinated metaphysical political-economic theatre of the absurd and
absolutised cultural non-sense. Which is not beyond anyone to rectify: if and when we accept
the limitations of the physical-material Earth System. And apply them to our thinking.
#NoDealForNature until we accept that the thermodynamics of depletion naturally limit
growth. Anything anyone says to the contrary should be treated with scepticism and cause a
collapse into deepest humiliation of any rational thinker.
Richard Le Sarc ,
'Depopulation' is only a problem if you believe in the capitalist cancer cult of infinite
growth on a finite planet, ie black magic. If you value Life on Earth, and its continuance,
human depopulation is necessary. Best done slowly and humanely, by redistributing the wealth
stolen by the capitalist parasites. The process seen in the Baltics and Ukraine is the
capitalist way, cruel and inhumane. Even worse is planned for the Africans, south Asians and
Chinese etc.
They don't for a minute believe in "infinite growth". They believe in the "bottom
line","instant gratification" and "primitive accumulation". "Infinite growth" is a sales
pitch that they use to sell the unwary on their rapaciousness. That is all. If they actually
believed in "infinite growth" they've be investing in renewable resources not fracking, strip
mining and other environmentally unfriendly practices.
The problem for Imperialists is that they only know how to plunder, rape and destroy thus all
their weaponry and tactics is used for aggression they know nothing about actual defense
which is their weak point. General George C Custer found this out some time back and so did
Trump just recently when the American were assaulted by a barrage of missiles they couldn't
stop.
Iran, Russia and China have one of the most advanced arsenal of defensive weapons ever
developed such as the S- series of air defense system that can turn a Tomahawk attack into a
turkey shoot. What was it? I think it was 100 Tomahawks fired on Syria after that false flag
chemical attack and only 15 or so got through and this was the earlier version of the S
missile defense S-300. They've already developed 500 which practically makes them impervious
and is a true iron dome compared the iron sieve that the Israelis got for free during GW1 and
then repackaged and sold back to the US Military for 15B with very few improvements except
maybe for a pretty blue bow.
Not only that but they can return fire with hypersonic weapons that are unstoppable and
can turn a base or Aircraft Carrier into a floating pinnate.
Actually the US proudly waving the banner of the East India Company is following in the
footsteps of the deceased British Empire into the boneyard of empires which is Afghanistan.
Iraq, Syria and Ukraine are just side shows. America can not escape history no matter what it
does now since its days of empire are now numbered. Just as they were for the late unlamented
Soviet Union.
The "New American Century" is ending preemptively early like Hitler's "Thousand Year
Reich" and we can all breath a sigh of relief when it does.
Frank ,
The only thing that will get the bastard yanks out of the middle east is dead Americans.
Lots and lots of dead Americans.
Enough dead Americans to make the braindead jingoistic American masses notice.
Enough dead Americans to touch every family that produces grunts that serve their criminal
state by raping and pillaging foreign countries.
Enough dead Americans to make dumbfuck Americans who say, 'Thank you for your service"
squirm in literal pain at the words.
Dungroanin ,
They got brain damage in their bunkers in the best US base in the ME from just a handful of
Kinetic energy missiles.
Their low yield nuke is their response.
The Israelis keep prodding the Bear – they even targeted a Russian Pantir system in
Syria!
I suppose only a downing or infact destroying on the ground of a squadron of useless F35's
with a threat to escalate into a full blown mobilisation is ever going to stop these
imperialist chancers. Or a fully coordinated assassination campaign of the leads and their
heirs as they frolic on their superyachts and space stations and secret Tracey islands.
And they can pay their taxes in full.
The Third world war is already fought – this really is a world war rather than some
Anglo Imperialist bankers playing king of the castle – and they have LOST – the
Empire is dead.
Long live the new Empire – the first not beholden to the bankers.
wardropper ,
Even with a new empire, our godless world would soon enough breed another generation of
bankers to which we would be beholden.
That's what the fundamentally dishonest people in any society do.
Something wrong? Oh, well, we'll form a committee to discuss it, and in future we will look
into creating a banking system which will enable us pay ourselves high wages for our
invaluable contribution to human evolution.
It's MORALITY which is lacking today, not more legislation or a new constitution.
All one has to do is move off the centralized banking system developed and controlled by the
Rothschilds that is totally based on creating finance out of thin air and return to a
commodity based currency (not gold!!) that represents actual value like scrip or wampum or
barter and the bankers will eventually starve.
Actually this system is starting to take hold in the US to a small extend to avoid the
depredations of the IRS since Tax is based mostly on currency.
Stop using fiat currency and the problem's solved.
After WW II the French didn't have a press to press Francs so their standard of exchange
became cigarettes and chocolate. It worked quite well until the presses started churning out
paper again.
wardropper ,
My fear is that without the Rothschilds, some other over-ambitious family would simply step
in and fill their shoes. It's the motivation to be greedy and wicked which needs addressing.
How that would be done, of course, I have no idea.
This is only if you embrace the concept of centralized banking and the "magic" of compound
interest. Current "banking" is all smoke and mirrors that favors the parasite who lives on
the production of others through what is called "unearned income".
Actually the Israelis are going a little slower now that isolated reports indicate that those
flying turkeys AKA F-35s are getting popped out of the skies of Syria by antiquated Soviet
SAMs. Of course there is no mention of this in the Mainstream Press. Just like there wasn't a
word of a IDF General and his staff taken out by a shoulder launched RPG fired by Hezbollah
in retaliation for attacking their media center in Beirut.
Antonym ,
Anybody who believes that the Israeli tail wags the US mil-ind. complex dog is contributing
to the Jewish superiority myth.
Ken ,
They're not superior, but they do wag the US MIC dog in and ebb-and-flow kind of way. That
9/11 thing was quite the wag. Read Christopher Bollyn and study other aspects of the event if
you're not sure of this.
Antonym ,
Langley and Riyadh love you; you fell for their ploy. See: Tel Aviv is much worse them.
The CIA/FBI failure explained.
The Mossad loves you too: for keeping mum on this Entebbe Mach 2.0 on their familiar New
York crap they got huge US support in the ME.
Makes them look invincible too as a bonus .
5 dancing guys was all the proof needed – cheapest op in history.
Ken ,
"5 dancing guys was all the proof needed – cheapest op in history"
Oh please, that was such a minor bit of evidence of any Zionist/Israeli involvement, which
spanned nearly every facet of the event and its aftermath.
The list of false flagging Zionist Jews in love with you is too long to list.
Oh please. What about the close to 200 Israelis who were arrested that day? Not to mention
the helpful warning by Odigo which was only given to citizens of Israel?
Also one has to act who benefitted? Definitely not the Saudis or the Americans leaving
Sharon who was trying to suppress a Palestinian uprising that he arrogantly started.
Speaking of your friendly five doing a fiddler on the roof on top of an Urban Moving Van
that just happened to owned by another Israeli who fled the country. Didn't they say
something stupid when arrested like "we are not your problem. It's the Palestinians who are
your problem!"?
A pathetic frame up attempt but a frame none the less. Speaking of frame ups wasn't Fat
Katz at SiteIntel (propaganda) who posted some stock footage of Palestinians celebrating
which has been proven to be false since the only people who seem to celebrating that day was
your friends the Dancing Israelis which doesn't prove their mental superiority at all but
their arrogant stupidity,
Richard Le Sarc ,
The three, the USA, Saudi Arabia and the USA, are allies in destruction-the Real Axis of
Evil. The dominant force, these days, given the control of the USA by Israel First Fifth
Columnists, in the MSM, political 'contributions', the financial Moloch etc, is most
certainly the Zionassties. Why don't you, like so many other Zionassties, glory in your
power, Antsie. Nobody believes your ritual denials.
They don't really wag the dog by themselves. They have a lot of help from the Stand with
Israel brain dead Christian Zionists who like Israelis consider themselves the chosen ones as
well.
Ken ,
@Gall Yep! I had a long time friend who went Pentecostal and we drifted apart but still kept
in touch. I lost him completely just after telling him that Israelis played a big part in
9/11.
Chuck Baldwin and a few other it seems have seen the light and are now questioning their
colleagues undying support of Israel. Maybe you could show this article to your friend who
seems enthralled by the terrorist snake er I mean state: https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/02/13/emperor-trump/
Yes that pretty much sums up how 9/11 was carried on. Both Heinz Pommer and VT have done some
excellent research based on facts not fantasy.
As far as your friend and many Christian Zionists in general. They seem to live in some
alternative universe and dislike being confused by such irrelevant things as facts.
It is a story that can be told in some detail – but when you say myth do you actually
mean fallacy – ie – are you saying that Jewish power doesn't exercise
considerable influence – if not control over US social and political and corporate
development across of broad spectrum of leverages?
Richard Le Sarc ,
Yes-all those addresses of Congress, by Bibi, where the Congress critters compete to display
the most extreme groveling and adulation, are just the natural expression of reverence and
awe at his semi-Divine moral excellence. Denying the undeniable is SOP for Zionassties.
normal wisdom ,
what jews?
i do not see any jews
just a sea of khazar ashkanazim pirates
a kaballa talmudick race trick
a crime syndicate pretending to be semite
jew is just the cover
init
This isn't something new. The American people have been fed propaganda for decades to make
them believe America was exceptional. It was the bed rock of our Imperialism. If you lookout
at measures of well being, America was always down on the list in every category. About the
only thing we led in was military spending. American exceptionalism was used as a tool to
justify our bad behavior all over the planet. Our government is the biggest terror
organization on the planet. We have killed or injured millions of people. All in the name of
spreading democracy, something we actually don't have.
"... Although the memo says one purpose of the action was to "deter Iran from conducting or supporting further attacks against United States forces," it does not cite any specific threats. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the killing was done to prevent imminent attacks and led on like they had the intelligence to prove it. ..."
"... The New York Times recently reported that Iraqi military and intelligence officials believe the December 27 th rocket attack that killed a US contractor was likely carried out by ISIS, not the Shi'ite militia the US blamed and retaliated against. This attack led to a series of provocations that resulted in the assassination of Soleimani. Iraqi officials do not have proof that ISIS carried out the attack, but this possibility makes the US justification for killing Soleimani even more flimsy. ..."
"... Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) responded to the White House's memo in a statement on Friday, "The administration's explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows that the justification the president offered to the American people was false, plain and simple." ..."
The White House
released a memo on Friday to Congress justifying the assassination of top Iranian general
Qassem Soleimani. Despite earlier claims from the administration of Soleimani and his Quds
Force planning imminent attacks on US personnel in the region, the memo uses past actions as
the justification for the killing.
The memo says President Trump ordered the assassination on January 2nd "in response to an
escalating series of attacks in preceding months by Iran and Iran-backed militias on United
States forces and interests in the Middle East region."
Although the memo says one purpose of the action was to "deter Iran from conducting or
supporting further attacks against United States forces," it does not cite any specific
threats. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the killing was done to
prevent imminent attacks and led on like they had the intelligence to prove it.
The New York Times recently
reported that Iraqi military and intelligence officials believe the December 27
th rocket attack that killed a US contractor was likely carried out by ISIS, not the
Shi'ite militia the US blamed and retaliated against. This attack led to a series of
provocations that resulted in the assassination of Soleimani. Iraqi officials do not have proof
that ISIS carried out the attack, but this possibility makes the US justification for killing
Soleimani even more flimsy.
Lawmakers from both parties criticized Trump for killing Iran's top general without
congressional approval. The memo argues that Trump had authority to order the attack under
Article II of the US Constitution, and under the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force
Against Iraq (2002 AUMF).
Congress is taking measures to limit Trump's ability to wage war with Iran. The Senate
passed the Iran War Powers Resolution on Thursday, and the House voted to repeal the 2002 AUMF
in January.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) responded to the White House's memo in a statement on Friday, "The
administration's explanation in this report makes no mention of any imminent threat and shows
that the justification the president offered to the American people was false, plain and
simple."
Hill.TV host Krystal
Ball said Sen. Elizabeth Warren 's (D-Mass.) "campaign was
lost long before this election cycle."
Ball pointed to Warren's "decision not to run in 2016 - she sat out the most critical
election of our lifetime even though she knew better than I did the flaws of Hillary Clinton " Ball then slammed
Warren's decision to not endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016 noting "when her
supposed friend and ally Bernie Sanders, who allegedly shares her politics and was fighting for
the same values she had staked her career on got into the race and started sky-rocketing in the
polls challenging Hillary for the lead, rather than making the movement choice and backing the
progressive, she sat it out."
Ball claims Warren's "attempts to co-opt revolutionary rhetoric in service of an
establishment campaign, like Disney doing socialism, satisfied no one and left her unable to
win more than 1 county and Iowa and an embarrassing distant fourth behind Klobuchar in New
Hampshire."
Click on the video above to catch Ball's full remarks.
A considerable spectrum of the liberal West takes the American interpretation of what
civilization consists of to be something like an immutable law of nature. But what if this
interpretation is on the verge of an irreparable breakdown?
Michael Vlahos has argued that the US is
not a mere nation-state but a "system leader" – "a civilizational power like Rome,
Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire." And, we should add, China – which he did not mention.
The system leader is "a universalistic identity framework tied to a state. This vantage is
helpful because the United States clearly owns this identity framework today."
Intel stalwart Alastair Crooke, in a
searing essay, digs deeper into how this "civilizational vision" was "forcefully unfurled
across the globe" as the inevitable, American manifest destiny: not only politically –
including all the accouterments of Western individualism and neo-liberalism, but coupled with
"the metaphysics of Judeo-Christianity, too".
Crooke also notes how deeply ingrained the notion that victory in the Cold War
"spectacularly affirmed" the superiority of the US civilizational vision among the US
elite.
Well, the post-modern tragedy – from the point of view of US elites – is that
soon this may not be the case anymore. The vicious civil war engulfing Washington for the past
three years – with the whole world as stunned spectators – has just accelerated the
malaise.
Remember Pax Mongolica
It's sobering to consider that Pax Americana may be destined to a shorter historical
existence than Pax Mongolica – established after Genghis Khan, the head of a nomad
nation, went about conquering the world.
Genghis first invested in a trade offensive to take over the Silk Roads, crushing the
Kara-Kitais in Eastern Turkestan, conquering Islamic Khorezm, and annexing Bukhara, Samarkand,
Bactria, Khorasan and Afghanistan. The Mongols reached the outskirts of Vienna in 1241 and the
Adriatic Sea one year after.
The superpower of the time extended from the Pacific to the Adriatic. We can barely imagine
the shock for Western Christendom. Pope Gregory X was itching to know who these conquerors of
the world were, and could be Christianized?
In parallel, only a victory by the Egyptian Mamluks in Galilee in 1260 saved Islam from
being annexed to Pax Mongolica.
Pax Mongolica – a single, organized, efficient, tolerant power – coincided
historically with the Golden Age of the Silk Roads. Kublai Khan – who lorded over Marco
Polo – wanted to be more Chinese than the Chinese themselves. He wanted to prove that
nomad conquerors turned sedentary could learn the rules of administration, commerce, literature
and even navigation.
Yet when Kublai Khan died, the empire fragmented into rival khanates. Islam profited.
Everything changed. A century later, the Mongols from China, Persia, Russia and Central Asia
had nothing to do with their ancestors on horseback.
A jump cut to the young 21st century shows that the initiative, historically, is once again
on the side of China, across the Heartland and lining up the Rimland. World-changing,
game-changing enterprises don't originate in the West anymore – as has been the case from
the 16th century up to the late 20th century.
For all the vicious wishful thinking that coronavirus will derail the "Chinese century",
which will actually be the Eurasian Century, and amid the myopic tsunami of New Silk Roads
demonization, it's always easy to forget that implementation of myriad projects has not even
started.
It should be in 2021 that all those corridors and axes of continental development pick up
speed across Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, Southwest Asia, Russia and Europe,
in parallel with the Maritime Silk Road configuring a true Eurasian string of pearls from
Dalian to Piraeus, Trieste, Venice, Genoa, Hamburg and Rotterdam.
For the first time in two millennia, China is able to combine the dynamism of political and
economic expansion both on the continental and maritime realms, something that the state did
not experience since the short expeditionary stretch led by Admiral Zheng He in the Indian
Ocean in the early 15th century. Eurasia, in the recent past, was under Western and Soviet
colonization. Now it's going all-out multipolar – a series of complex, evolving
permutations led by Russia-China-Iran-Turkey-India-Pakistan-Kazakhstan.
Every player has no illusions about the "system leader" obsessions: to prevent Eurasia from
uniting under one power – or coalition such as the Russia-China strategic partnership;
ensure that Europe remains under US hegemony; prevent Southwest Asia – or the "Greater
Middle East" – from being linked to Eurasian powers; and prevent by all means that
Russia-China have unimpeded access to maritime lanes and trade corridors.
The message
from Iran
In the meantime, a sneaking suspicion creeps in – that Iran's game plan, in an echo of
Donbass in 2014, may be about sucking US neocons into a trademark Russian cauldron in
case the regime-change obsession is turbocharged.
There is a serious possibility that under maximum pressure Tehran might eventually abandon
the JCPOA for good, as well as the NPT, thus openly inviting a US attack.
As it stands, Tehran has sent two very clear messages. The accuracy of the missile attack on
the US Ayn Al-Asad base in Iraq, replying to the targeted assassination of Major General Qassem
Soleimani, means that any branch of the vast US network of bases is now vulnerable.
And the fog of non-denial denials surrounding the downing of the CIA Battlefield Airborne
Communications Node (BACN) – essentially an aerial spook shop – in Ghazni,
Afghanistan also carries a message.
CIA icon Mike d'Andrea, known as 'Ayatollah Mike', The Undertaker, the Dark Prince, or all
of the above, may or may not have been on board. Irrespective of the fact that no US government
source will ever confirm or deny that Ayatollah Mike is dead or alive, or even that he exists
at all, the message remains the same: your soldiers and spooks are also vulnerable.
Since Pearl Harbor, no nation has dared to stare down the system leader so blatantly, as
Iran did in Iraq. Vlahos mentioned something I saw for myself in 2003, how "young American
soldiers referred to Iraqis as 'Indians', as though Mesopotamia were the Wild West".
Mesopotamia was one the crucial cradles of civilization as we know it. Well, in the end, that
$2
trillion spent to bomb Iraq into democracy did no favors to the civilizational vision of
the 'system leader'.
The Sirens and La Dolce Vita
Now let's add aesthetics to our "civilizational" politics. Every time I visit Venice –
which in itself is a living metaphor for both the flimsiness of empires and the Decline of the
West – I retrace selected steps in The Cantos , Ezra Pound's epic masterpiece.
Last December, after many years, I went back to the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, also
known as "The jewel box", which plays a starring role in The Cantos. As I arrived I told the
custodian signora that I had come for "The Sirens". With a knowing smirk, she lighted my way
along the nave to the central staircase. And there they were, sculpted on pillars on both sides
of a balcony: "Crystal columns, acanthus, sirens in the pillar head", as we read in Canto
20.
These sirens were sculpted by Tullio and Antonio Lombardo, sons of Pietro Lombardo, Venetian
masters of the late 15th and early 16th century – "and Tullio Romano carved the sirens,
as the old custode says: so that since then no one has been able to carve them for the jewel
box, Santa Maria dei Miracoli", as we read in Canto 76.
Well, Pound misnamed the creator of the sirens, but, that's not the point. The point is how
Pound saw the sirens as the epitome of a strong culture – "the perception of a whole age,
of whole congeries and sequence of causes, went into an assemblage of detail, whereof it would
be impossible to speak in terms of magnitude", as Pound wrote in Guide to Kulchur .
As much as his beloved masterpieces by Giovanni Bellini and Piero della Francesca, Pound
fully grasped how these sirens were the antithesis of usura – or the "art" of lending
money at exorbitant interest rates, which not only deprives a culture of the best of art, as
Pound describes it, but is also one of the pillars for the total financialization and
marketization of life itself, a process that Pound brilliantly foresaw, when he wrote in Hugh
Selwyn Mauberley that, "all things are a flowing, Sage Heracleitus says; But a tawdry
cheapness, shall reign throughout our days."
La Dolce Vita will turn 60 in 2020. Much as Pound's sirens, Fellini's now mythological tour
de force in Rome is like a black and white celluloid palimpsest of a bygone era, the birth of
the Swingin' Sixties. Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) and Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), impossibly
cool and chic, are like the Last Woman and the Last Man before the deluge of "tawdry
cheapness". In the end, Fellini shows us Marcello despairing at the ugliness and, yes,
cheapness intruding in his beautiful mini-universe – the lineaments of the trash culture
fabricated and sold by the 'system leader' about to engulf us all.
Pound was a human, all too human American maverick of unbridled classical genius. The
'system leader' misinterpreted him; treated him as a traitor; caged him in Pisa; and dispatched
him to a mental hospital in the US. I still
wonder whether he may have seen and appreciated La Dolce Vita during the 1960s, before he died
in Venice in 1972. After all, there was a little cinema within walking distance of the house in
Calle Querini where he lived with Olga Rudge.
"Marcello!" We're still haunted by Anita Ekberg's iconic siren call, half-immersed in the
Fontana di Trevi. Today, still hostages of the crumbling civilizational vision of the 'system
leader', at best we barely muster, as TS Eliot memorably wrote, a "backward half-look, over the
shoulder, towards the primitive terror."
The Trump administration ordered the January 3 assassination of Major General Qassem Suleimani, one of Iran's most senior officials,
not because he posed some "imminent threat," but rather in a calculated bid to disrupt Tehran's attempts to reach an accommodation
with Washington's allies in the region.
This is the inescapable conclusion flowing from a report published Thursday in the New York Times , citing unnamed senior
officials from the US, Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
It recounts the arrival last September in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, of a plane carrying senior Iranian
officials for talks aimed at achieving a bilateral peace agreement between the two countries.
The trip came in the context of a steady sharpening of US-Iranian tensions as a result of Trump's abrogation of the Iranian nuclear
agreement in 2018 along with the imposition of a punishing sanctions regime tantamount to a state of war. This was followed by a
major escalation of the US military presence in the region a year later.
While the US dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group and a B-52-led bomber task force to the region in May of last year, the
same month saw the use of limpet mines to damage four oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic "chokepoint" through which
20 percent of the world's oil is shipped.
In June of last year, the Iranians downed a US Navy spy drone over the same area, with the Trump White House first ordering and
then calling off retaliatory air strikes against Iran. And in September, Saudi oil installations came under a devastating attack
from drones and cruise missiles.
Washington blamed both the attacks on the oil tankers and the strike against the Saudi oil installations -- for which the Houthi
rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility -- on Iran, charges that Tehran denied.
As early as last August, there were reports indicating concerns within Washington that the UAE was veering away from the anti-Iran
front that the US has attempted to cobble together, based upon Israel and the Gulf oil sheikdoms. The Emirates' coast guard had signed
a maritime security agreement with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the UAE had clashed openly with Saudi Arabia over
the control of southern Yemen's port city of Aden. At the time, the Washington Post warned that the UAE "is breaking ranks
with Washington, calling into question how reliable an ally it would be in the event of a war between the United States and Iran."
According to the Times report, the meeting with the Iranian delegation in Abu Dhabi, which had been kept secret from Washington,
"set off alarms inside the White House ... A united front against Iran -- carefully built by the Trump administration over more than
two years -- seemed to be crumbling."
Both the Emirati monarchy and its counterpart in Saudi Arabia had become increasingly distrustful of Washington's Iran policy
and concerned that they would find themselves on the frontline of any confrontation without any guarantee of the US defending them.
Saudi Arabia also began a secret diplomatic approach to Tehran, using the Iraqi and Pakistani governments as intermediaries. Suleimani
played the central role in organizing the talks with both Gulf kingdoms, the Times reports.
In October, according to the report, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Yossi Cohen, the chief
of Mossad, who warned him that "Iran was achieving its primary goal: to break up the anti-Iran alliance."
Last month's assassination of General Suleimani was initially defended by Trump and administration officials as a preemptive strike
aimed at foiling supposedly "imminent" attacks on US personnel or interests in the Middle East. This pretext soon fell apart, however,
and the US president and his aides fell back to justifying the extra-judicial murder of a senior state official as revenge for his
support for Shia militias that resisted the US occupation of Iraq 15 years earlier and retaliation for a missile strike that killed
an American military contractor last December.
That strike was launched against a military base housing American troops in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk. Iraqi security
officials have since contradicted the US claim that an Iranian-backed Shia militia was responsible for the attack. They have pointed
out that the missiles were launched from a predominantly Sunni area where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is active, and
that Iraqi intelligence had warned US forces in November and December that ISIS was preparing to target the base.
The US responded to the missile strike on the base in Iraq by targeting Iraqi Shia militia positions on the Syria-Iraq border,
killing 25 members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia. The attack provoked an angry demonstration that laid siege to the US embassy
in Baghdad on December 31.
Two days later, a US Reaper drone fired missiles into a convoy at Baghdad International Airport, killing Suleimani along with
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a central leader of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, the coalition of militias that constitutes an arm
of Iraq's security forces, as well as eight others.
In the wake of the drone assassinations, US Secretary of State Pompeo sarcastically told the media: "Is there any history that
would indicate that it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman, this diplomat of great order -- Qassem Suleimani -- had traveled
to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace mission? We know that wasn't true."
As the Times report indicates, that was precisely what Suleimani was doing in Baghdad, the US knew it and that is why it
assassinated him. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said at the time that General Suleimani had flown into the country, on a
commercial flight and using his diplomatic passport, for the express purpose of delivering an Iranian response to a message from
Saudi Arabia as part of talks aimed at de-escalating tensions.
The more that emerges about the assassination of Suleimani, the more the abject criminality of his murder becomes clear. It was
carried out neither as a reckless act of revenge nor to ward off unspecified attacks. Rather, it was a calculated act of imperialist
terror designed to disrupt talks aimed at defusing tensions in the Persian Gulf and to convince the wavering Gulf monarchies that
Washington is prepared to go to war against Iran.
This is the policy not merely of the Trump administration. Among the most significant moments in Trump's State of the Union address
earlier this month was the standing ovation by Democratic lawmakers as he gloated over the murder of Suleimani, a war crime.
The resort to such criminal actions is a measure of the extreme crisis of a capitalist system that threatens to drag humanity
into a new world war.
Actually any supremacist ideology produces something like an apartheid regime for other
nationalities.
The current situation looks like a dead end with little chances of reconciliation, especially
after recent killing of protesters by Israel army/snipers. But in general, it is iether a two
state solution of equal rights for Palestinians and Jews in the same state. The elements of
theocratic state should be eliminated and right wing parties outlawed as neofascist parties which
threatens democracy.
Notable quotes:
"... The peace process and the two-state solution failed because America -- the only country on which Israel could count on for generous diplomatic, military and economic support, and therefore the only country that has the necessary leverage to influence Israel's policies -- allowed it to fail. Consequently, most Israelis, including many belonging to the Blue/White party, headed by General Benny Gantz, oppose granting any future Palestinian entity the most basic features of sovereignty, including control of its own borders. Gantz refused to form a unity government with the Likud because of Netanyahu's indictment for multiple crimes, not because of differences over peace policy. What doubts anyone might have had on this subject were removed when Gantz just announced that he embraces Netanyahu's intention to annex the Jordan Valley to Israel. ..."
The threat of a new war with Iran that might have replicated what has been the worst
disaster in the history of America's international misadventures -- George W. Bush's invasion
of Iraq based on fabricated lies -- sucked the air out of all other international diplomatic
activity, not least of what used to be called the Middle East peace process.
Yet the failure of the peace process has not been the consequence of recent mindless and
destructive actions by Donald Trump and of the clownish shenanigans of his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, who was charged with helping Israeli hardliners in nailing down permanently the
Palestinian occupation. For all the damage they caused (mainly to Palestinians), prospects for
a two-state solution actually ended during President Barack Obama's administration, despite
Secretary of State John Kerry's energetic efforts to renew the stalled negotiations. They were
not resumed because Obama, like his predecessors, failed to take the tough measures that were
necessary to overcome Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to prevent the
emergence of a Palestinian state, notwithstanding his pledge in his Bar-Ilan speech of 2009 to
implement the agreements of the Oslo accords.
Yes, Obama and Kerry did warn that Israel's continued occupation might lead to an Israeli
apartheid regime. But knowing how deeply the accusation of an incipient Israeli apartheid could
anger right-wingers in Israel and in the U.S., they repeatedly followed that warning with the
assurance that "America will always have Israel's back." It was the sequence of this two-part
statement that convinced Netanyahu that AIPAC had succeeded in getting American presidents to
protect Israel's impunity. Had Obama and Kerry reversed that sequence, first noting that
the U.S. had always had Israel's back, and then warning that Israel is now on the verge
of trading its democracy for apartheid, the warning might have had quite different implications
for Israel's government.
The peace process and the two-state solution failed because America -- the only country
on which Israel could count on for generous diplomatic, military and economic support, and
therefore the only country that has the necessary leverage to influence Israel's policies --
allowed it to fail. Consequently, most Israelis, including many belonging to the Blue/White
party, headed by General Benny Gantz, oppose granting any future Palestinian entity the most
basic features of sovereignty, including control of its own borders. Gantz refused to form a
unity government with the Likud because of Netanyahu's indictment for multiple crimes, not
because of differences over peace policy. What doubts anyone might have had on this subject
were removed when Gantz just announced that he embraces Netanyahu's intention to annex the
Jordan Valley to Israel.
For the Palestinians, territory is the most critical of the final status issues. The current
internationally recognized borders that separate Israel and the Occupied Territories reduced
the territory originally assigned to Palestinians in the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947 from
roughly half of Palestine to 22 percent. Israel, which was assigned originally roughly the
other half of Palestine, now has 78 percent, not including Palestinian territory Israel has
confiscated for its illegal settlements.
No present or prospective Palestinian leadership will accept any further reduction of
territory from their promised state. Given the territory they already lost in 1947, and again
in 1949, and given Israel's refusal to accept the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, is
it really reasonable to expect Palestinians to give up any further territory? Where else other
than the West Bank could Palestine refugees return to?
The one-state solution that is preferred by many Israelis is essentially a continuation of
the present de facto apartheid. It is not the one-state alternative any Palestinian would
accept. Repeated polling has shown that a majority of Jewish Israelis are unprepared to grant
equal rights to Palestinians in a one-state arrangement. This opposition is unsurprising, for
the inclusion in Israel's body politic of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians would mean the end of
Israel as a Jewish state, for Israel's non-Jewish citizens would then outnumber its Jewish
ones, and may already do so. Of course, Israel could contrive a non-voting status for the West
Bank's Palestinians, something many Jewish Israelis and political parties actually advocate,
but that would not deceive anyone. It would mean the formal end of Israel's democracy.
The foregoing notwithstanding, I have long maintained that if Israel were compelled to
choose between one state that grants full equality to Palestinians now under occupation and two
states that conform substantially to existing agreements and international law, and no other
options were available to it, the majority of Israelis would opt for two states. Why? Because
as noted above, the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose any arrangement that might produce
a Palestinian majority with the same rights Israeli Jewish citizens enjoy. Of course, Israel
has never been compelled to make such a choice, nor will they be compelled to do so by the
international community.
However, they could be compelled to do so by the Palestinians, but only if Palestinians were
finally to expel their current leadership and choose a more honest and courageous one. That new
leadership would have to shut down the Palestinian Authority, which its present leaders allowed
Israel to portray as an arrangement that places Palestinians on the path to statehood, of
course in some undefined future. Israel has deliberately perpetuated that myth to conceal its
real intention to keep the current occupation unchanged. The new Palestinian leadership would
have to declare that since Israel has denied them their own state and established a one-state
reality, Palestinians will no longer deny that reality. Consequently, the national struggle
will now be for full citizenship in the one state that Israel has forced them into. I have
argued for the past two decades that the one-state option is far more likely to open a path to
a two-state solution, however counter intuitive that may seem to be. Palestinians rejected it
categorically from the outset, but
younger Palestinians have come around to accepting it -- even preferring it to the two-state
model.
Unlike the struggle for a two-state solution, a goal that has so easily been manipulated by
Israel to mean whatever serves their real goal of preventing such an outcome -- and also so
easily allowed international actors to pretend they have not given up their efforts to achieve
that outcome, an anti-apartheid struggle does not lend itself to such deceptions. South Africa
has taught the world too well what apartheid looks like, as well as how the international
community could deal with it. Of course, South Africa has also shown how long and bloody a
struggle against apartheid can be, and the terrible price paid by the victims of such a regime.
But Palestinians already live in such a regime, and have for long been paying a terrible price
for their subjugation.
Yet deeper and more troubling questions are raised by the choices that now face Israel,
including whether the original idea of the Zionist movement of a state that is both Jewish and
democratic is not deeply oxymoronic, a question that not only Israelis but Jews outside of
Israel must address. That question is underscored by the challenges to India's democracy posed
by its prime minister's decision to turn his country into a Hindu nation. It is a question that
did not escape some of the founders of the Zionist movement, who argued that Zionism should
define the state as Jewish only in its ethnic and secular cultural dimensions. But that this is
not how Jewish identity is treated in Israel is undeniable.
Imagine if Israel's laws defining national identity and citizenship, as recently
reformulated by Israel's Knesset, were adopted by the U.S. Congress or by other Western
democratic countries, and if Christianity in its "cultural dimensions" were declared to be
their national identity, with citizenship also granted by conversion to the dominant religion,
as is now the case in Israel, where arrangements for Jewish religious conversions are part of
the Prime Minister's office.
Is this not what America's founders, and the waves of immigrants, including European Jews,
sought to escape from? And how would Jews react today to legislation in the U.S. Congress that
would explicitly seek to maintain the majority status of Christians in the U.S.? Are Jews to
take pride in a Jewish state that adopts citizenship requirements that mirror those advocated
by white Christian supremacists? These supremacists have already proclaimed jubilantly that
Israel's policies vindicate the ones they have long been advocating.
It is true, of course, that for some Jews, aware of the history of anti-Semitism that has
spanned the ages, and especially the Holocaust, Zionism's contradictions with democratic
principles are an unpleasant but inescapable dilemma they can live with. As a survivor of the
Holocaust, I can understand that. But I also understand that the likely consequences of these
contradictions are not benign, and can yield their own terrible outcomes, particularly when
they lead to the dalliances by the prime minister of a Jewish state with right-wing racist and
xenophobic heads of state and of political parties that have fascist and anti-Semitic
parentage.
Legislation proposed in the U.S. Congress and by Trump, and recently celebrated by his
son-in-law Kushner in a New York Times op-ed, proposing that criticism of
Zionism be outlawed as antisemitism , would be laughable, were it not so clearly -- and
outrageously -- intended to deny freedom of speech on this subject. Yet laughable it is, for
its first target would have to be Jews -- not liberal left-wingers but the most Orthodox Jews,
known as Haredim, in Israel and in America.
At the very inception of the Zionist movement 150 years ago, not only the Haredim but the
overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jewry everywhere was opposed to Zionism, which it considered
to be a Jewish heresy, not only because the Zionists were mostly secularists, but because of an
oath taken by Jewish leaders after the destruction of the Second Temple following their exile
from Palestine, that Jews would not reestablish a Jewish kingdom except following the messianic
era. Zionism was also bitterly opposed by much of the world's Jewish Reform movement, many of
whose leaders insisted that Jewishness is a religion, not a political identity.
Much of Orthodox Jewry did not end its opposition to Zionism until after the war of 1967,
but many if not most Haredis continue to oppose Zionism as heresy. Most of its members refuse
to serve in Israel's military, to celebrate Israel's Independence Day, sing its national
anthem, and do not allow prayers in their synagogues for the wellbeing of Israel's political
leaders. Trump, Kushner, and the U.S. Congress would have to arrest them as anti-Semites.
I have no doubt that Trump's rage at the Jewish chairmen of the two Congressional committees
that led the procedures for his impeachment will sooner or later explode in anti-Semitic
expletives. The only reason it has not done so yet is because of Trump's fear of jeopardizing
Evangelical support and Sheldon Adelson's mega bucks. After all, Trump already told us that the
neo-Nazi rioters in Charlottesville declaiming "Jews will not replace us" included "very fine
people." Netanyahu never criticized Trump's statement, for he too does not want to jeopardize
certain relationships, namely the "very fine people" he has embraced -- leaders in Hungary,
Poland, Austria, Italy, Brazil, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
If Trump's son-in-law is searching for anti-Semites, he should have been told they are far
closer at hand than in America's schools, for they are ensconced in the White House. They are
also to be found in Jerusalem where they are being accorded honors by Netanyahu. The
anti-Semitic dog whistling contained in Trump's attacks on the two Jewish congressmen were not
misunderstood by his hardcore supporters -- who now include the entire leadership of the
Republican party -- who Trump needs to take him to victory in the coming presidential
elections, or to keep him in the White House were he to lose those elections.
If apartheid is coming (or has come) out of Zion, it should not shock that what may come out
of Washington is a repeat by Trump's Republican shock troops of what occurred in Berlin in
1933, when the Bundestag was taken over by the Nazi party and ended Germany's democracy.
"... It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die. ..."
"... It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS. ..."
Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse
when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually
follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem
Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly
when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The
justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning
an "imminent" mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.
It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that
might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently
knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the US government might have encouraged Soleimani
to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of "imminent
threat" being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn't really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.
The incident that started the killing cycle
that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a US base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two
Iraqis were wounded while one US contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming
that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi'ite militia called Kata'ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim
and retaliated by striking a Kata'ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The
militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the US Embassy in Baghdad,
which were also blamed on Iran by the US There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers.
Iran retaliated when it fired missiles
at American forces , injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly
shot down a passenger
jet , killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the US of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the
Iraqi Parliament also
voted to expel
all American troops.
It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out
by Kata'ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic
State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata'ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack
took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi'a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni
IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.
This new development was reported in the New York Times in
an article that was
headlined "Was US Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised
doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events." In spite of the sensational nature of the report it
generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet
another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.
Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle's
bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that
was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.
There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised KIA truck is used by all sides in the
regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three
separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active
in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small
arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might
be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with US forces.
The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times
reports that the US command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata'ib based on information, including
claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The US forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with
the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the
reticence to confide in an ally.
If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration's reckless
actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking
for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted
in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times
that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is
willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by
a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it
Well, the 9/11 Commission lied about Israeli involvement, Israeli neocons lied America into Iraq, and Netanyahu lied about Iranian
nukes, so this latest news is just par for the course.
Pompeo had evidence of immediate catastrophic attack. That turned out to be a lie and plain BS.
Why should we believe Pompeo or White House or intelligence about the situation developing around 27-29 Dec ? Is it because it's
USA who is saying so?
[it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind
of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.]
The Jewish mafia stooge and fifth column, Trump, is a war criminal and an ASSASSIN.
Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official
to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one.
Soleimani was a soldier involved in covert operations, Iran's most celebrated hero, and had been featured in the Iraq media
as the target of multiple Western assassination attempts. He did not have diplomatic status.
As it happens Iran did not declare war on America and America did not declare war on Iran. If Americans soldiers killed in
Iraq should not have been there in the first place, then the same goes for an Iranian soldier killed there too.
@04398436986 There is western assertion and western assertion only that Iran influences Iraqi administration and intelligence
. It can be a projection from a failing America . It can be also a valid possibility .
But lying is America's alter ego . It comes easily and as default explanation even when admitting truth would do a better job
.
Now let's focus on ISIS 's claims . Why is Ametica not taking it ( claim of ISIS) as truth and fact when USA has for last 19
years has jailed , bombed, attacked mentally retarded , caves and countries because somebody has pledged allegiance to Al Quida
or to ISIS!!!
It seems neither truth nor lies , but what suits a particular psychopath at a particular time – that becomes USA's report (
kind of unassigned sex – neither truth nor lies – take your pick and find the toilet to flush it down memory hole) – so Pompeo
lies to nation hoping no one in administration will ask . When administrative staff gets interested to know the truth , Pompeo
tells them to suck it up , move on and get ready to explain the next batch of reality manufactured by a regime and well trained
by philosopher Karl Rove
To what "conspiracy" are you referring? It's a well established fact that your ilk was, at the very least, aware that the 9/11
attacks would occur and celebrated them in broad daylight. No conspiracy theory needed. Mossad ordnance experts were living practically
next door to the hijackers. Well established fact.
It's also undeniable that the 9/11 Commission airbrushed Israeli involvement from their report. No conspiracy theory there,
either.
Same goes for Israeli neocons and their media mandarins using "faulty intel" to get their war in Iraq. "Clean Break"? "Rebuilding
America's Defenses"? Openly written and published. Judith Miller's lies? Also no conspiracy.
And Israel's own intelligence directors were undermining Netanyahu's lies on Iran. Not a conspiracy in sight.
contemplating the outcome of normal everyday competition, influenced by good & bad luck, is just too much truth for some
psychological makeups
That's one of the lamest attempts at deflection I've seen thus far, and I've seen quite a few here.
Those who deny the official version of 9/11 are in the majority now:
We've reached critical mass. Clearly, that's just too much truth for your psychological makeup. Were we really that worthy
of ignoring, your people wouldn't be working 24/7/365 to peddle your malarkey in fora of this variety.
I have thought that Trump's true impeachable crime was the illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat. Pence
should also be impeached for the botched coup in Venezuela. That was true embarrassment bringing that "El Presidente" that no
one recognizes to the SOTU.
USA is basically JU-S-A now, Jews own and run this country from top to bottom, side to side, and because of it, pretty much
run the world. China-Russia-Iran form their new "Axis of Evil" to be brought in line. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Covid-19
is a bioweapon, except not one created by China. Israel has been working on an ethnic based bioweapon for years. US sent 172 military
"athletes" to the Military World Games in Wuhan in October, 2019, two weeks before the first case of coronavirus appeared. Almost
too coincidental.
@Sean He wasn't there as a soldier -- he was there in a diplomatic role. (regardless of his official "status"). It
also appears he was lured there with intent to assaninate.
Your last para is not only terrible logic but ignores the point of the article. Iran likely was not responsible for the US deaths.
Even had it been responsible it would still not legitimate such a baldly criminal action.
[I]illegal assassination of a foreign general who was not in combat
Lawful combat according to the Geneva Convention in which war is openly declared and fought between two countries each of which
have regular uniformed forces that do all the actual fighting is an extremely rare thing. It is all proxy forces, deniability
and asymmetric warfare in which one side (the stronger) is attacked by phantom combatants.
The Israeli PM publically alluded to the fact that Soleimani had almost been killed in the Mossad operation to kill
Imad Mughniyeh a decade ago. The
Iranian public knew that Soleimani had narrowly escaped death from Israeli drones, because Soleimani appeared on Iranian TV in
October and told the story. A plot kill him by at a memorial service in Iran was supposedly foiled. He came from Lebanon by way
of Syria into Iraq as if none of this had happened. Trump had sacked Bolton and failed to react to the drone attack on Saudi oil.
Iran seems to have thought that refusal to actually fight in the type of war that the international conventions were designed
to regulate is a licence to exert pressure by launch attacks without being targeted oneself. Now do they understand.
@Sean American troops invaded Iraq under false pretenses, killed thousands, and caused great destruction. Chaos and vengeful
Sunnis spilled over into Syria where the US proceeded to grovel before the terrorists we fret about. Soleimani was effective in
organizing resistance in Iraq and Syria and was in both countries with the blessing of their governments.
How you get Soleimani shouldn't be there out of that I have no idea.
@04398436986 Yet you ignore that the Neocons have lied about virtually every cause if war ever. Lied about Iraq, North Korea
and Iran nuclear info actions, about chem weapons in Syria, lied about Kosovo, lied about Libya, lied about Benghazi, lied about
Venezuela. So Whom I gonna believe, no government, but a Neocon led one least of all
It is common knowledge that ISIS is a US/Israeli creation. ISIS is the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. Thus, the US/Israel
staged the attack on the US base on 12.27.2019.
ISIS is a US-Israeli Creation: Indication #2: ISIS Never Attacks Israel
It is more than highly strange and suspicious that ISIS never attacks Israel – it is another indication that ISIS is controlled
by Israel. If ISIS were a genuine and independent uprising that was not covertly orchestrated by the US and Israel, why would
they not try to attack the Zionist regime, which has attacked almost of all of its Muslim neighbors ever since its inception
in 1948? Israel has attacked Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, and of course has decimated Palestine. It has systemically tried to
divide and conquer its Arab neighbors. It continually complains of Islamic terrorism. Yet, when ISIS comes on the scene as
the bloody and barbaric king of Islamic terrorism, it finds no fault with Israel and sees no reason to target a regime which
has perpetrated massive injustice against Muslims? This stretches credibility to a snapping point.
ISIS and Israel don't attack each other – they help each other. Israel was treating ISIS soldiers and other anti-Assad rebels
in its hospitals! Mortal enemies or best of friends?
The MQ-9 pilot and sensor operator will be looking over their shoulders for a long time. They're as famous as Soleimani. Their
command chain is well known too, hide though they might far away.
And who briefed the president that terror Tuesday? The murder program isn't Air Force.
@anonymous The kind of crap Trump pulled in the assassination of Soleimani is what he should be impeached about–not the piss-ant
stuff about Hunter Biden's job in the Ukaranian gas company and his pappy's role in it.
Iraq an ally of the United States! Is it some kind of a joke? How can a master and slave be equal? We, the big dog want their
oil and the tail that wags us, Israel, want all Muslims pacified and the Congress, which is us wether we like or not, compliant
out of financial fears. Unless we curb our own greedy appetite for fossil fuels and at the same time tell an ally, which Israel
is by being equal in a sense that it can get away with murder and not a pip is raised, to limit its ambition, nothing is going
to be done to improve the situation. Until then it's an exercise in futility, at best!
Iran has NO choice but to defend itself from the savages. It has not been Iran that invaded US, but US with a plan that design
years before 9/11 invaded many countries. Remember: seven countries in five years. Soleimani was a wise man working towards peace
by creating options for Iran to defend itself. Iran is not the aggressor, but US -Israel-UK are the aggressor for centuries now.
Is this so difficult to understand. 9/11 was staged by US/Israel killing 3000 Christians to implement their criminal plan.
Soleimani, was on a peace mission, where was assassinated by Trump, an Israeli firster and a fifth column and the baby killer
Netanyahu. Is this difficult to understand by the Trump worshiper, a traitor.
Now, Khamenie is saying the same thing: "Iran should be strong in military warfare and sciences to prevent war and maintain
PEACE.
Only ignorant, arrogant, and racists don't understand this fact and refuse to understand how the victims have been pushed to
defend themselves.
The Assassin at the black house should receive the same fate in order to bring the peace.
When does Amerikastan *not* lie about anything? If an Amerikastani tells you the sun rises in the east, you're probably on Venus,
where it rises in the west.
I think this article is getting close to the truth, that this whole operation was and is an ISIS (meaning Israeli Secret Intelligence
Service) affair designed to pit America against the zionists' most formidable enemy thus far, Iran.
I'm of the opinion that Trump did not order the hit on Soleimani, but was forced to take credit for it, if he didn't want to
forfeit any chance of being reelected this year. The same ISIS (Israeli) forces that did the hit also orchestrated the "retaliation"
that Mr. Giraldi so heroically documents in this piece.
As usual, this is looking more and more like a zionist /jewish false flag attack on the Muslim world, with the real dirty-work
to be done by the American military.
It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan
that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House
apparently knew about may even have approved.
It's now obvious that the slumlord son-in-law Jared Kushner is really running the USA's ME policy.
Kushner is not only a dear friend of at-large war criminal Bibi Nuttyahoo, he also belongs to the Judaic religious cult of Chabad
Lubavitcher, whom make the war-loving Christian Evangelicals almost look sane. Chabad also prays for some kind of Armageddon to
bring forth their Messiah, just like the Evangelicals.
One can tell by Kushner's nasty comments he makes about Arabs/Persians and Palestinians in particular, that he loathes and
despises those people and has an idiotic ear to cry into in the malignant form of Zion Don, AKA President Trump.
It's been said that Kushner is also a Mossad agent or asset, which is a good guess, since that agency has been placing their
agents into the WH since at least the days of Clinton, who had Rahm Emmanuel to whisper hate into his ear.
That the Iranian General Soleimani was lured into Iraq so the WH could murder the man probably most responsible for halting
the terrorist activities of the heart-eating, head-chopping US/Israel/KSA creation ISIS brings to mind the motto of the Israeli
version of the CIA, the Mossad.
"By way of deception thou shalt make war."
Between Trump's incompetence, his vanity–and yes, his stupidity– and his appointing Swamp creatures into his cabinet and
allowing Jared to run the ME show, Trump is showing himself to be a worse choice than Hillary.
If that maniac gets another 4 years, humanity is doomed. Or at least the USA for sure will perish.
The 2020 presidential race was always going to be an uphill battle for Elizabeth
Warren.
Almost from the get-go, political pundits fretted about Warren's electability, setting in
motion a self-fulfilling prophecy now reflected in the
New Hampshire primary results . Warren's disappointing showing on Tuesday comes on the
heels of a stirring debate performance and a strong third place finish in the Iowa caucuses
-- two wins largely ignored by mainstream media commentators, who focused almost entirely on
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, with a spare thought for Amy Klobuchar's rise and Joe
Biden's descent.
Defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election is priority number one for the
Democratic establishment, and a moderate candidate with the potential to sway swing voters
and Republican defectors has long been billed as the wisest course. But by constructing a
dichotomy between the self-described revolutionary leader Sanders and the aggressively
non-threatening trifecta of moderate candidates (not to mention Bloomberg, who is suddenly
the darling of cable news), the networks and pundits with the greatest persuasive power have
ignored and undercut Warren's unique potential to unite the progressive left and hesitant
center.
Warren seems to have unfairly inherited some of the hallmarks of Hillary Clinton's
reputation. Clinton's devastating 2016 upset sparked practical questions as to whether a
woman could win the presidency at all. And Warren's false claim to Native American heritage
sealed a reputation for untrustworthiness that has stuck long after that conversation faded
away. If Clinton, with all of her name recognition and experience, couldn't win against
Trump, what hope could there be for the woman widely considered her successor?
Warren's progressive policies and folksy demeanor also framed her for many as a sort of
second-tier Sanders, not far enough left for the progressives and too far left for gun-shy
moderates. But it is precisely this position that makes her the most electable
candidate.
Warren and Sanders are mostly aligned on their signature issues, but how they present
these issues is entirely different, as are their proposed paths to achieve them. Sanders does
not shy away from the word "socialist." He declares outright that his Medicare-for-All plan
will raise taxes. He says billionaires should not exist. These declarations and convictions
are brave and they are admirable. But they also inspire commentators like
Chris Matthews to worry on-air that a Sanders administration will begin executing the
wealthy in Central Park, French revolution style.
Warren takes a more measured approach in selling her policies, focusing on how she'll
achieve them rather than the eventual outcome. She doesn't say billionaires should not exist,
she proposes a wealth tax. Warren doesn't say "socialist," choosing instead to present the
economic and social advantages to her plans without the label. The other key difference
between Sanders and Warren is that, while Sanders has identified as far left for his entire
political career,
Warren was a committed Republican long before she became a progressive Democrat. As other
commentators have noted , this
history might not earn her many points with committed leftists, but it does put her in a
unique position to appeal to the moderates and Republicans that candidates like Buttigieg and
Klobuchar are trying to court. After all, she used to be one of them. And perhaps most
importantly,
polls continue to show Warren performing just as well as those candidates, if not better,
in hypothetical general election matchups against Trump.
Yet the mainstream media seems determined to undermine her viability.
Sanders and Buttigieg finished neck and neck in the Iowa Caucuses (whose dubious import is
a conversation for another day), with Warren close behind in third. As the dust around the
disastrous vote-counting began to settle, the media centered the conversation on Sanders,
Buttigieg, and Biden. For example, this headline from The Washington Post reads: "Buttigieg and Sanders take lead, Biden fades in
partial results from marred Iowa caucuses," ignoring Warren's close third place finish
entirely in favor of Biden's fourth.
During Friday's Democratic debate, many critics noted the
relatively short speaking time given to Warren in comparison with her white male
competitors. Afterwards, coverage again focused on Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, and Sanders,
despite Warren having the highlight of the night, when she responded to
Buttigieg's embarrassing stumble on a question about race.
It's not just the White House that is doing serious damage to U.S. interests abroad during
this year's election campaign. Of even greater consequence (absent a new Middle East war) is
the U.S. relationship with Russia. It's currently unthinkable that Washington will try to move
beyond the status quo, even if Russian President Vladimir Putin were prepared to do so. Even
before Trump was inaugurated, many Democrats began calling for his
impeachment . Leading Democrats
laid Hillary Clinton ' s defeat at the feet of Russian interference in the U.S. election --
a claim that stretched credulity past the breaking point. Further, as Democrats looked for
grounds to impeach Trump (or at least terminally to reduce his reelection chances), the "
Russia factor" was the best cudgel available. Charges included the notion that " Putin has something on
Trump," which presumes he would sell out the nation ' s security for a mess of pottage.
All this domestic politicking ignores a geopolitical fact: while the Soviet Union lost the
Cold War and, for some time thereafter, Russia could be dismissed, it was always certain that
it would again become a significant power, at least in Europe. Thus, even before the Berlin
Wall fell, President George H. W. Bush proposed creating a " Europe whole and
free" and at peace. Bill Clinton built on what Bush began. Both understood that a renascent
Russia could embrace revanchism, and for several years their efforts seemed to have a chance of
succeeding.
Then the effort went off the rails. Putin took power in Russia, which made cooperation with
the West difficult if not impossible. He worked to consolidate his domestic position, in part
by alleging that the West was " disrespecting" Russia and trying to encircle it. For its part,
the U.S. played into the Putin narrative by abandoning the Bush-Clinton vision of taking
legitimate Russian interests into account in fashioning European security arrangements. The
breaking point came in 2014, when Russia seized
Crimea and sent " little green men" to fight in some other parts of Ukraine. The West
necessarily responded, with economic sanctions
and NATO's
buildup of " trip wire" forces in Central Europe.
But despite the ensuing standoff, the critical requirement remains: the United States has to
acknowledge Russia's inevitable rise as a major power while also impressing on Putin the need
to trim his ambitions, if he is to avoid a new era of Russian isolation. There is also serious
business that the two countries need to pursue, including strategic arms control, the Middle
East (especially Iran), and climate change. Despite deep disagreements, including over Ukraine
and parts of Central Europe, the U.S. needs to engage in serious discussions with Russia, which
means the renewal of diplomacy which has been in the deep freeze for years.
All of this has been put in pawn by the role that the "Russia factor" has been permitted to
play in American presidential politics, especially by Democrats. Longer-term U.S. interests are
suffering, along with those of the European allies and Middle East partners. The task has been
made even more difficult by those U.S. politicians,
think tanks , and journalists
who prefer to resurrect the term "cold war" rather than clearly examining the nation's
strategic needs because of the blinkers imposed by domestic politics. Open discussion about
alternatives in dealing with Russia is thus stifled, at serious cost to the United States and
others.
In all three of these areas, the U.S. is paying a high price in terms of its national
interests to the games political leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, are playing. Great
efforts will be needed to dig out of this mess, beginning with U.S. willingness to do so.
Leaders elsewhere must also be prepared to join in -- far from a sure thing! Unfortunately,
there is currently little hope that, at least in the three critical areas discussed above,
pursuit of U.S. interests abroad will prevail over today's parochial domestic politics.
"... Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights. ..."
"... By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level. ..."
"... Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the demonization of Iran and the groups it supports. ..."
Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps
related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his
evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord
with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time
announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential
proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights.
All of this has changed, however, with the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force
in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head
of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mehdi Al-Muhandis.
By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel
policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level.
Targeting the IRGC and PMF: An Israeli policy
It is worth remembering that Israel set the precedent for carrying out lethal operations in
Iraq by targeting elements of the IRGC and the PMF.
Israel began these operations last year, with the first taking place on July 19 near the
Iraqi town of Amerli. Iranian media later reported that senior IRGC commander Abu Alfazl
Sarabian had died in the attack.
Another Israeli attack on August 25 led to the death of a senior PMF commander in the Iraqi
town of Al-Qaim near the border with Syria, while 21 PMF members were killed in an Israeli
operation near the city of Hit in Iraq's Anbar province on September 20.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even admitted that Israel was behind
these attacks.
"We are working against Iranian consolidation in Iraq as well [as in Syria]" remarked
Netanyahu on August 22.
Trump administration officials adopt the Israel line of demonizing Iran
The Israeli fingerprints on U.S. policy could also be seen in the apparent stances taken by
U.S. officials following the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis.
According to the New York
Times , Trump administration officials have compared the assassination of Soleimani to the
killing of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Such a comparison is no doubt to Israel's
liking.
Not only has Israel long sought to equate the IRGC and its allies, including the Lebanese
Hezbollah and the Iraqi PMF, with terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS, it has even
described the latter groups as being the lesser of the two evils.
According to sources in Washington, one of the most common complaints made by visiting
Israeli officials over the past years was that the U.S. was focusing too much on fighting Sunni
Jihadist groups (al-Qaida, ISIS, etc.) and not enough on fighting Iran and its network of
allies.
Israel's former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren referred to this dynamic in an
interview with the Jerusalem Post back in September 2013, where he summed up the Israeli
policy regarding Syria. "The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted
(President) Bashar Assad to go" he stated, further adding; "we always preferred the bad guys
who weren't back by Iran (al-Qaida affiliates) to the bad guys who were backed by Iran".
For his part, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon referred to an "
axis of evil ' comprising Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
Yaalon made those remarks during a meeting with former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey in August 2013, underscoring that this "axis of evil" must not
emerge victorious in Syria.
Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the
demonization of Iran and the groups it supports.
Hard-core evangelicals like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence
have a strong ideological affinity for Israel and its anti-Iranian agenda.
During a Senate hearing last April, Pompeo
repeated the long-debunked claim that Iran and al-Qaida have cooperated for years. "There
is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaida. Period,
full stop," Pompeo asserted.
Pence, meanwhile, has even gone so far as to claim that
Soleimani was involved with 9/11 . Following the assassination, Pence tweeted that
Soleimani had "assisted in the clandestine travel of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out
the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."
American troops in danger as a result of the Israeli evangelical agenda
With the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, Israel and its Christian evangelical
allies in Washington appear to have succeeded more than any time before in steering Trump's
foreign policy. Their success, however, may have placed U.S. troops in the region in grave
danger.
In a speech
commemorating the death of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah
Hassan Nasrallah warned that retaliation would be aimed at U.S. military assets.
In remarks which brought back the memories of the 1983 attacks on the Marine Barracks in
Beirut, Nasrallah suggested that the U.S. military presence in the region would become a target
for suicide bombers.
"The suicide attackers who forced the Americans to leave our region in the past are still
here today and in far greater numbers," Nasrallah asserted.
Are we? NSC hijecked functions of the Department of State and is a clear parallel structure,
that functions in a way completely different from its initial role. They no longer serve they
serve as the president's personal staff. NSC clearly strives to control foreign policy and thus
control the President in this area.
And with people like Pompeo at the helm what are the benefits of expelling Vindmans
National Security Adviser told a room full of Atlantic Council
attendees on Tuesday that significant cuts were under way at the leak-prone White House
National Security Council, confirming a Monday report in the Washington Examiner that up to 70
positions would be cut.
Robert O'Brien says the NSC will be down between 115 to 120 staffers by the end of this
week. pic.twitter.com/FpleaBFh85
While O'Brien pitched it as a return to "a manageable size," he didn't mention what the
Examiner reported - namely, that most of the cuts would be Obama-era holdovers such as
anti-Trump impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, 44, and his twin brother Yevgeny,
who were
fired from the NSC last week and escorted out of the White House by security.
O'Brian noted that the Vindmans "weren't fired," according to the
Epoch Times , rather "Their services were no longer needed."
"It's really a privilege to work in the White House. It's not a right," he continued. "At
the end of the day, the president is entitled to staffers that want to execute his policy, that
he has confidence in, and I think every president's entitled to that."
" We're not a banana republic where a group of Lt. Colonels get together and decide what the
policy is or should be ," he added.
The reorganization was consistent with the "Scowcroft model" used by Brent Scowcroft, who
served as national security adviser for Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush,
according to O'Brien. The model emphasizes that the national security adviser shouldn't "be
an advocate for one policy or another." Instead, the adviser should "ensure that the
president is well served by the cabinet, departments, and agencies in obtaining counsel and
formulating his policies."
The policies are then decided on by the president and the adviser makes sure they're
carried out.
Most of the staff on the council actually work for other departments and agencies and are
part of the council for a certain length of time. O'Brien suggested that some might not be
serving in the way that top officials think they should. -
Epoch Times
" When they come to the White House, they serve as the president's personal staff and it is
our view that while they are at the National Security Council, they should not represent the
views of their parent agencies or departments," said O'Brien. " They're not there as liaison
officers, and they certainly shouldn't represent their own personal views. "
"The president has to have confidence in the folks on his National Security Council staff to
ensure that they are committed to executing the agenda that he was elected by the American
people to deliver," not a "mini State Department, a mini Pentagon, a mini Department of
Homeland Security."
However, according to some reports, the United States and the Taliban have recently managed
to define the main terms of a future peace deal:
- The Taliban guarantee that they will not allow international terrorist groups such as
al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) to use Afghanistan as a training ground for attacks abroad;
– The US must withdraw its troops from the country. In particular, the terms
include the following:
About 5,000 US soldiers are expected to be withdrawn immediately after the peace deal is
signed, and the remaining troops will leave the country within the next two years;
– Against the backdrop of an indefinite truce in Afghanistan, the conflicting
parties should begin an internal political dialogue.
The Taliban must be naive not to insist on a total cessation to military air assaults and
reconnaissance. There is no way the USA will stop bombing Afghanistan into the stone age -
because it can AND good live training for its murderous home pilots.
And then the predictable USA treachery and ingredient to walk back the treaty:
The Kabul government, however, is not taking part in those talks at the insistence of the
Taliban, which considers the current official government to be a puppet. But the US is in
favor of Kabul reaffirming its commitment to the peace terms, because otherwise the last
condition of the agreement will not be fulfilled.
I guess most of these open threads are going to gravitate to electoral politics--tis the
season--but before it gets lost I did want to share what I thought was an unusually well
written piece on the US leaving Afghanistan.
The author doesn't just go on a diatribe of criticism of the US, although obviously he
feels the US needs to be leaving--the sooner the better, and likely will eventually be
leaving whether it wants to or not. But he points out several "tells" related to just how
serious the US might be any time it starts talking about leaving, or indeed starts leaving. I
would highly recommend reading this article. Really thought provoking.
A very hard-hitting exposé of the US combination of criminality and blundering in
Afghanistan, and what seems to be a comprehensive and completely rational plan for getting
out of that country under the best possible terms for the people of that country, and for the
people of the US.
Not so good for the US military and civilian satraps who are tearing things up, and raking
it in.
In a recent presentation of his book, Laid
Low , which examines the International Monetary Fund's role in the eurozone crisis, author
and journalist Paul Blustein disclosed a memo dated May 4, 2010, from the IMF's then head of
research Olivier Blanchard, to Poul Thomsen, who headed the Greek mission at the time.
In his missive, Blanchard warned that the cumulative fiscal adjustment of 16 percentage
points being demanded of Greece in such a short period of time and with such a high level of
frontloading had never been achieved before.
According to Blanchard, not only was the task unprecedented, but Greece was being asked to
achieve the impossible in unfavourable external circumstances, when everyone was barely
recovering from the 2008 global financial crisis and without any other policy levers (low
interest rates or exchange rate adjustment).
Blanchard foresaw what became a reality only about a year later: Even with "perfect policy
implementation" the programme will be thrown off track rather quickly and the recession will be
deeper and longer than expected, he warned.
Blanchard's scepticism and warnings were ignored. Instead, political limitations took hold
of the decision-making process and domestic-focussed calculations pushed Greece into trying to
achieve the impossible.
This week, the former IMF chief economist admitted on Twitter that although he was not the
one that leaked the memo he was not unhappy that the truth has been revealed because "it is
seven years and still there is no clear/realistic plan" for Greece.
I did not leak, but am not too unhappy that it did leak :). 7 years already, and still no
clear/realistic plan. https://t.co/8mCzO3TYvL
Athens is currently under pressure to adopt another 2 percent of GDP in new fiscal measures,
which relate to the tax-free threshold and pension spending. Since 2010, Greece has adopted
revenue-raising measures and spending cuts that are equivalent to more than a third of its
economy and more than double what Blanchard had described as unprecedented almost seven years
ago.
The Greek economy has been burdened with 35.6 billion euros in all sorts of taxes on income,
consumption, duties, stamps, corporate taxation and increases in social security contributions.
When totting all this up, it is remarkable that the economy still manages to function.
During the same period, the state has also found savings of 37.4 billion euros from cutting
salaries, pensions, benefits and operational expenses. Discretionary spending is now so lean
that even the IMF argues that in certain areas it needs to increase if Greece is to meet the
minimum requirements in the provision of public services.
When this misery started, Greece had to correct a primary deficit of 24 billion euros. But
the painful fiscal adjustment Greeks have had to endure had turned out to be three times as
much.
The IMF's Thomsen, now the director of its European Department, recently argued that Greece
doesn't need any more austerity but brave policy implementation. Somehow, though, the
discussion has ended up being about finding another 3.5 billion euros in taxes and cuts to
pension spending. Bravery is nowhere to be seen.
Poul Thomsen, the IMF assassin of Greece leaves with a pension of more than 18.000
Dollars. He contributed, along with German leaders, to the death of thousands of Greeks who
committed suicide and to the destruction of the life of millions of Greeks. More than half of
Greek pensioners are living now on pensions less of 500 euros, in a country where prices are
the same as in France or Germany and the social protection network much worse. All Thomsen's
estimations have been proven wrong. In fact they were not errors, they were necessary to pursue
the program of "execution" of Greece and its people, by an alliance of the "Empire of Finance"
and German and other European elites, through EU, ECB and IMF. Thomsen, a white collar
international criminal has also worked and contributed to the destruction of ex-Yugoslavia and
of Russia before getting busy with Greece. DKWikileaks: Thomsen/Velkouleskou. Greek Default and Brexit "is going to be a
disaster"
Wikileaks has just published the records of a discussion between the IMF director of
European Affairs Paul Thomsen and the Mission Chief in Greece, Delia Velkouleskou. In it, the
two officials share their worry that the third bailout deal will end up in disaster, in fact
foreseeing a synchronism between a Greek default and a Brexit. Read the piece by Julian
Assange
by Julian Assange April 2, 2016
Today, 2nd April 2016, WikiLeaks publishes the records of a 19 March 2016 teleconference
between the top two IMF officials in charge of managing the Greek debt crisis – Poul
Thomsen, the head of the IMF's European Department, and Delia Velkouleskou, the IMF Mission
Chief for Greece. The IMF anticipates a possible Greek default co-inciding with the United
Kingdom's referendum on whether it should leave the European Union ('Brexit').
"This is going to be a disaster" remarks Velkouleskou in the meeting.
According to the internal discussion, the IMF is planning to tell Germany that it will abandon
the Troika (composed of the IMF, European Commission and the European Central Bank) if the IMF
and the Commission fail to reach an agreement on Greek debt relief.
Thomsen: "Look you, Mrs. Merkel, you face a question: you have to think about what is more
costly, to go ahead without the IMF–would the Bundestag say 'The IMF is not on board?',
or [to] pick the debt relief that we think that Greece needs in order to keep us on board?"
Remaining in the Troika seems an increasingly hard sell internally for the IMF, because
non-European IMF creditor countries view the IMF's position on Greece as a violation of its
policies elsewhere of not making loans to countries with unsustainable debts.
In August the IMF announced it would not participate in last year's €86 billion Greek
bailout, which was covered by EU member states. IMF Chief Christine Lagarde stated at the time
that the IMF's future participation was contingent on Greece receiving "significant debt
relief" from creditors. Lagarde announced that a team would be sent to Greece, headed by
Velkouleskou.
Thomsen said internally that the threat of an imminent financial catstrophe is needed to
force the other players into a "decision point". For Germany, on debt relief, and In the case
of Greece, to accept the IMF's austerity "measures," -- including raising taxes and cutting
Greek pensions and working conditions. However the UK "Brexit" referendum in late June will
paralyse European decision making at the critical moment.
"I am not going accept a package of small measures. I am not " said Thomsen. "What is going
to bring it all to a decision point? In the past there has been only one time when the decision
has been made and then that was when [the Greeks] were about to run out of money seriously and
to default. [ ] And possibly this is what is going to happen again. In that case, it drags on
until July, and clearly the Europeans are not going to have any discussions for a month before
the Brexits "
Last year Greek Finance Minister Tsakalotos accused the IMF of imposing "draconian
measures," including on pension reform. While Velkouleskou concedes in the meeting that "What
is interesting though is that [Greece] did give in they did give a little bit on both the
income tax reform and on the . both on the tax credit and the supplementary pensions."
But Thomsen's view is that the Greeks "are not even getting close [to coming] around to
accept[ing] our views." Velkouleskou argues that "if [the Greek government] get pressured
enough, they would But they don't have any incentive and they know that the Commission is
willing to compromise, so that is the problem."
Velkouleskou: "We went into this negotiation with the wrong strategy, because we negotiated
with the Commission a minimal position and we cannot go further [whereas] the Commission is
just starting from this one and is willing to go much further. So, that is the problem. We
didn't negotiate with the Commission and then put to the Greeks something much worse, we put to
the Greeks the minimum that we were willing to consider and now the Greeks are saying [that] we
are not negotiating."
While the Commission insists on a Primary Government Budget Surplus (total tax minus all
government expenditure excluding debt repayments) of 3.5%; the IMF thinks that this target
should be set at 1.5% of GDP. As Thomsen puts it, "if [Greece] come around to give us 2.5% [of
GDP in tax hikes and pension-wage-benefits cuts] we should be fully behind them." -- meaning
that the IMF would, in exchange for this fresh austerity package, support the reduction of the
Primary Surplus Target imposed upon them from the 3.5% that the European Commission insists on
to 1.5%.
These targets are described as "very crucial" to the IMF. The IMF officials ask Thomsen "to
reinforce the message about the agreement on the 2.5%, because that is not permeating and it is
not sinking very well with the Commission."
At one point, Velkouleskou refers to an unusual solution: to split the problem into two
programs with two different targets: "The question is whether [the Europeans] could accept the
medium term targets of the Commission, for the purposes of the program, and our targets for the
purposes of debt relief." Thomsen further explains that "They essentially need to agree to make
our targets the baseline and then have something in that they hope that will overperform. But
if they don't, they will still disburse."
The EWG [Euro Working Group] needs to "take a stand on whether they believe our projections
or the Commission's projections." The IMF's growth projections are the exact opposite of the
Commission's. The Commission projects a GDP growth of 0.5%, and the IMF a GDP decline of 0.5%
(even if Greece accepts all the measures imposed by the IMF).
In a key piece of actual extensive, on-the-ground reporting
, the New York Times's Alissa Rubin has raised serious questions about the official US
account of who it was that attacked the K-1 base near Kirkuk, in eastern Iraq, on December 27.
The United States almost immediately accused the Iran-backed Ketaib Hizbullah (KH) militia of
responsibility. But Rubin quotes by name Brig. General Ahmed Adnan, the chief of intelligence
for the Iraqi federal police at the same base, as saying, "All the indications are that it was
Daesh" -- that is, ISIS.
She also presents considerable further detailed reporting on the matter. And she notes that
though U.S. investigators claim to have evidence about KH's responsibility for the attack, they
have presented none of it publicly. Nor have they shared it with the Iraqi government.
KH is a paramilitary organization that operates under the command of the Iraqi military and
has been deeply involved in the anti-ISIS campaigns throughout the country.
The December 27 attack killed one Iraqi-American contractor and was cited by the Trump
administration as reason to launch a large-scale attack on five KH bases some 400 miles to the
west which killed around 50 KH fighters. Outraged KH fighters then mobbed the US embassy in
Baghdad, breaking through an outside perimeter on its large campus, but causing no casualties.
On January 2, Pres. Trump decided to escalate again, ordering the assassination of Iran's Gen.
Qasem Soleimani and bringing the region and the world close to a massive shooting war.
The new evidence presented by Rubin makes it look as if Trump and his advisors had
previously decided on a broad-scale plan to attack Iran's very influential allies in Iraq and
were waiting for a triggering event– any triggering event!– to use as a pretext to
launch it. The attack against the K-1 base presented them with that trigger, even though they
have not been able to present any evidence that it was KH that undertook it.
This playbook looks very similar to the one that Ariel Sharon, who was Israel's Defense
Minister in summer 1982, used to launch his wide attack against the PLO's presence in Lebanon
in June that year. The "trigger" Sharon used to launch his long-prepared attack was the serious
(but not fatal) wounding
of Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, which the Israeli government immediately
blamed on the PLO.
Regarding London in 1982, as regarding K-1 last December, the actual identity of the
assailant(s) was misreported by the government that used it as a trigger for escalation. In
London, the police fairly speedily established that it was not the PLO but operatives of an
anti-PLO group headed by a man called Abu Nidal who had attacked Argov. But by the
time they had discovered and publicized that fact, Israeli tanks were already deep inside
Lebanon.
The parallels and connections between the two cases go further. If, as now seems likely, the
authors of the K-1 attack were indeed Da'esh, then they succeeded brilliantly in triggering a
bitter fight between two substantial forces in the coalition that had been fighting against
them in Iraq. Regarding the 1982 London attack, its authors also succeeded brilliantly in
triggering a lethal conflict between two forces (one substantial, one far less so) that were
both engaged in bitter combat against Abu Nidal's networks.
Worth noting: Abu Nidal's main backer, throughout his whole campaign against the PLO, was
Saddam Hussein's brutal government in Iraq. (The London assailants deposited their weapons in
the Iraqi embassy after completing the attack.) Many senior strategists and planners for ISIS
in Iraq were diehard remnants of Saddam's formerly intimidating security forces.
Also worth noting: Three months in to Sharon's massive 1982 invasion of Lebanon, it seemed
to have successfully reached its goals of expelling the PLO's fighting forces from Lebanon and
installing a strongly pro-Israeli government there. But over the longer haul, the invasion
looked much less successful. The lengthy Israeli occupation of south Lebanon that followed 1982
served to incubate the birth and growth of the (pro-Iranian) Hizbullah there. Today, Hizbullah is a strong
political movement inside Lebanon that commands a very capable fighting force that expelled
Israel's last presence from Lebanon in 2000, rebuffed a subsequent Israeli invasion of the
country six years later, and still exerts considerable deterrent power against
Israel today
Very few people in Israel today judge the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to have been a wise move.
How will the historians of the future view Trump's decision to launch his big escalation
against Iran's allies in Iraq, presumably as part of his "maximum pressure" campaign against
Tehran?
This article has been republished with permission from
Just World News .
Looks like the end of Full Spectrum Dominance the the USA enjoyed since 1991. Alliance of Iran, Russia and China (with Turkey
and Pakistan as two possible members) is serious military competitor and while the USA has its set of trump cards, the military
victory against such an alliance no longer guaranteed.
Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is
coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani's
assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported, involving Saudi
Arabia and China as well the US dollar's role as the global reserve currency .
The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with
Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani's assassination in a speech to the Iraqi parliament.
He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him
and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in
false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the
situation, recalling similar modi operandi seen in Cairo in 2009, Libya in 2011, and Maidan in
2014. The purpose of such cynicism was to throw Iraq into chaos.
Here is the reconstruction of the story:
[Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq] Halbousi attended the parliamentary
session while almost none of the Sunni members did. This was because the Americans had
learned that Abdul-Mehdi was planning to reveal sensitive secrets in the session and sent
Halbousi to prevent this. Halbousi cut Abdul-Mehdi off at the commencement of his speech and
then asked for the live airing of the session to be stopped. After this, Halbousi together
with other members, sat next to Abdul-Mehdi, speaking openly with him but without it being
recorded. This is what was discussed in that session that was not broadcast:
Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused
to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil
revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.
The complete (translated)
words of Abdul-Mahdi's speech to parliament:
This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the
construction instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement.
When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my
premiership.
Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that
if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings
target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me.
I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us
rescinding our deal with the Chinese.
After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting
both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I
received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we
kept on talking about this "third party".
Nobody imagined that the threat was to be applied to General Soleimani, but it was difficult
for Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to reveal the weekslong backstory behind the terrorist
attack.
I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to
deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from
the Saudis.
We can surmise, judging by Saudi Arabia's reaction , that some kind of
negotiation was going on between Tehran and Riyadh:
The Kingdom's statement regarding the events in Iraq stresses the Kingdom's view of the
importance of de-escalation to save the countries of the region and their people from the
risks of any escalation.
Above all, the Saudi
Royal family wanted to let people know immediately that they had not been informed of the
US operation:
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not consulted regarding the US strike. In light of the
rapid developments, the Kingdom stresses the importance of exercising restraint to guard
against all acts that may lead to escalation, with severe consequences.
And to emphasize his reluctance for war, Mohammad bin Salman
sent a delegation to the United States.
Liz Sly , the Washington Post Beirut bureau chief, tweated:
Saudi Arabia is sending a delegation to Washington to urge restraint with Iran on behalf
of [Persian] Gulf states. The message will be: 'Please spare us the pain of going through
another war'.
What clearly emerges is that the success of the operation against Soleimani had nothing to
do with the intelligence gathering of the US or Israel. It was known to all and sundry that
Soleimani was heading to Baghdad in a diplomatic capacity that acknowledged Iraq's efforts to
mediate a solution to the regional crisis with Saudi Arabia.
It would seem that the Saudis, Iranians and Iraqis were well on the way towards averting a
regional conflict involving Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Riyadh's reaction to the American strike
evinced no public joy or celebration. Qatar, while not seeing eye to eye with Riyadh on many
issues, also immediately expressed solidarity with Tehran, hosting a meeting at a senior
government level with Mohammad Zarif Jarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Even Turkey
and
Egypt , when commenting on the asassination, employed moderating language.
This could reflect a fear of being on the receiving end of Iran's retaliation. Qatar, the
country from which the drone that killed Soleimani took off, is only a stone's throw away from
Iran, situated on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Riyadh and Tel Aviv, Tehran's
regional enemies, both know that a military conflict with Iran would mean the end of the Saudi
royal family.
When the words of the Iraqi prime minister are linked back to the geopolitical and energy
agreements in the region, then the worrying picture starts to emerge of a desperate US lashing
out at a world turning its back on a unipolar world order in favor of the emerging multipolar
about which
I have long written .
The US, now considering itself a net energy exporter as a result of the shale-oil revolution
(on which the jury is still out), no longer needs to import oil from the Middle East. However,
this does not mean that oil can now be traded in any other currency other than the US
dollar.
The petrodollar is what ensures that the US dollar retains its status as the global reserve
currency, granting the US a monopolistic position from which it derives enormous benefits from
playing the role of regional hegemon.
This privileged position of holding the global reserve currency also ensures that the US can
easily fund its war machine by virtue of the fact that much of the world is obliged to buy its
treasury bonds that it is simply able to conjure out of thin air. To threaten this comfortable
arrangement is to threaten Washington's global power.
Even so, the geopolitical and economic trend is inexorably towards a multipolar world order,
with China increasingly playing a leading role, especially in the Middle East and South
America.
Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and Saudi Arabia together make up the overwhelming
majority of oil and gas reserves in the world. The first three have an elevated relationship
with Beijing and are very much in the multipolar camp, something that China and Russia are keen
to further consolidate in order to ensure the future growth for the Eurasian supercontinent
without war and conflict.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is pro-US but could gravitate towards the Sino-Russian camp
both militarily and in terms of energy. The same process is going on with Iraq and Qatar thanks
to Washington's numerous strategic errors in the region starting from Iraq in 2003, Libya in
2011 and Syria and Yemen in recent years.
The agreement between Iraq and China is a prime example of how Beijing intends to use the
Iraq-Iran-Syria troika to revive the Middle East and and link it to the Chinese Belt and Road
Initiative.
While Doha and Riyadh would be the first to suffer economically from such an agreement,
Beijing's economic power is such that, with its win-win approach, there is room for
everyone.
Saudi Arabia provides China with most of its oil and Qatar, together with the Russian
Federation, supply China with most of its LNG needs, which lines up with Xi Jinping's 2030
vision that aims to greatly reduce polluting emissions.
The US is absent in this picture, with little ability to influence events or offer any
appealing economic alternatives.
Washington would like to prevent any Eurasian integration by unleashing chaos and
destruction in the region, and killing Soleimani served this purpose. The US cannot contemplate
the idea of the dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency. Trump is engaging in a
desperate gamble that could have disastrous consequences.
The region, in a worst-case scenario, could be engulfed in a devastating war involving
multiple countries. Oil refineries could be destroyed all across the region, a quarter of the
world's oil transit could be blocked, oil prices would skyrocket ($200-$300 a barrel) and
dozens of countries would be plunged into a global financial crisis. The blame would be laid
squarely at Trump's feet, ending his chances for re-election.
To try and keep everyone in line, Washington is left to resort to terrorism, lies and
unspecified threats of visiting destruction on friends and enemies alike.
Trump has evidently been convinced by someone that the US can do without the Middle East,
that it can do without allies in the region, and that nobody would ever dare to sell oil in any
other currency than the US dollar.
Soleimani's death is the result of a convergence of US and Israeli interests. With no other
way of halting Eurasian integration, Washington can only throw the region into chaos by
targeting countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria that are central to the Eurasian project. While
Israel has never had the ability or audacity to carry out such an assassination itself, the
importance of the Israel Lobby to Trump's electoral success would have influenced his decision,
all the more so in an election year .
Trump believed his drone attack could solve all his problems by frightening his opponents,
winning the support of his voters (by equating Soleimani's assassination to Osama bin Laden's),
and sending a warning to Arab countries of the dangers of deepening their ties with China.
The assassination of Soleimani is the US lashing out at its steady loss of influence in the
region. The Iraqi attempt to mediate a lasting peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been
scuppered by the US and Israel's determination to prevent peace in the region and instead
increase chaos and instability.
Washington has not achieved its hegemonic status through a preference for diplomacy and calm
dialogue, and Trump has no intention of departing from this approach.
Washington's friends and enemies alike must acknowledge this reality and implement the
countermeasures necessary to contain the madness.
Very good article, straight to the point. In fact its much worse. I know is hard to
swallow for my US american brother and sisters.
But as sooner you wake up and see the reality as it is, as better chances the US has to
survive with honor. Stop the wars around the globe and do not look for excuses. Isnt it
already obvious what is going on with the US war machine? How many more examples some people
need to wake up?
Not all said in video above is accurate but the recent events in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,
Africa are all related to prevent China from overtaking the zionist hegemonic world and to
recolonize China (at least the parasite is trying to hop to China as new host).
Trade war, Huawei, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet ..... the concerted efforts from all zionist
controlled media (ZeroHedge included) to slander, smearing, fake news against China should
tell you what the Zionists agenda are :)
The American President's threatened the Iraqi Prime Minister to liquidate him directly
with the Minister of Defense. The Marines are the third party that sniped the demonstrators
and the security men:
Abdul Mahdi continued:
"After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I
also refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed,
the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of
non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, so that the third party (Marines snipers) would
target the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from the highest structures and
the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China
agreement, so I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist
to this day on canceling the China agreement and when the defense minister said that who
kills the demonstrators is a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically
threatened me and defense minister in the event of talk about the third party."
.........
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found George W. Bush guilty of war crimes in absentia
for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Bush, **** Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers
Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in
absentia in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, this article makes a lot of sense. The US is losing influence and lashing
out carelessly. I hope the rest of the world realizes how detached majority of the citizens
within the states are from the federal government. The Federal government brings no good to
our nation. None. From the mis management of our once tax revenues to the corrupt Congress
who accepts bribes from the highest bidder, it's a rats best that is not only harmful to its
own people, but the world at large. USD won't go down without a fight it seems... All empires
end with a bang. Be ready
The essential facts are these. In April 1898, the United States went to war with Spain. The war's nominal purpose was to liberate
Cuba from oppressive colonial rule. The war's subsequent conduct found the United States not only invading and occupying Cuba, but
also seizing Puerto Rico, completing a deferred annexation of Hawaii, scarfing up various other small properties in the Pacific,
and, not least of all, replacing Spain as colonial masters of the Philippine Archipelago, located across the Pacific.
That the true theme of the war with Spain turned out to be not liberation but expansion should not come as a terrible surprise.
From the very founding of the first British colonies in North America, expansion has constituted an enduring theme of the American
project. Separation from the British Empire after 1776 only reinforced the urge to grow. Yet prior to 1898, that project had been
a continental one. The events of that year signaled the transition from continental to extra-continental expansion. American leaders
were no longer content to preside over a republic stretching from sea to shining sea.
In that regard, the decision to annex the Philippines stands out as especially instructive. If you try hard enough -- and some
politicians at the time did -- you can talk yourself into believing that U.S. actions in the Caribbean in 1898 represented something
other than naked European-style imperialism with all its brute force to keep the natives in line. After all, the United States did
refrain from converting Cuba into a formal colony and by 1902 had even granted Cubans a sort of ersatz independence. Moreover, both
Cuba and Puerto Rico fell within "our backyard," as did various other Caribbean republics soon to undergo U.S. military occupation.
Geographically, all were located within the American orbit.
Yet the Philippines represented an altogether different case. By no stretch of the imagination did the archipelago fall within
"our backyard." Furthermore, the Filipinos had no desire to trade Spanish rule for American rule and violently resisted occupation
by U.S. forces. The notably dirty Philippine-American War that followed from 1899 to 1902 -- a conflict almost entirely expunged
from American memory today -- resulted in something like 200,000 Filipino deaths and ended in a U.S. victory not yet memorialized
on the National Mall in Washington.
So the Philippine Archipelago had become ours. In short order, however, authorities in Washington changed their mind about the
wisdom of accepting responsibility for several thousand islands located nearly 7,000 miles from San Francisco.
The sprawling American colony turned out to be the ultimate impulse purchase. And as with most impulse purchases, enthusiasm soon
enough gave way to second thoughts and even regret. By 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt was privately referring to the Philippines
as America's "Achilles heel." The United States had paid Spain $20 million for an acquisition that didn't turn a profit and couldn't
be defended given the limited capabilities of the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy. To complicate matters further, from Tokyo's perspective,
the Philippines fell within its backyard. So far as Imperial Japan was concerned, imperial America was intruding on its turf.
Thus was the sequence of events leading to the Pacific War of 1941-1945 set in motion. I am not suggesting that Pearl Harbor was
an inevitable consequence of the United States annexing the Philippines. I am suggesting that it put two rival imperial powers on
a collision course.
One can, of course, find in the ensuing sequence of events matters worth celebrating -- great military victories at places like
Midway, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, culminating after 1945 in a period of American dominion. But the legacy of our flirtation with empire
in the Western Pacific also includes much that is lamentable -- the wars in Korea and Vietnam, for example, and now an intensifying
rivalry with China destined to lead we know not where.
If history could be reduced to a balance sheet, the U.S. purchase of the Philippines would rate as a pretty bad bargain. That
first $20 million turned out to be only a down payment.
No. Absolutely not. We would have been much better off had the US not violently dismantled the first Republic of the Philippines.
The canard that our greatest generation of Filipinos (Generation of 1898) was not fit to govern us was a product of US Assimilation
Schools designed to rid the Philippines of Filipinos- by wiring them to automatically think anything non-Filipino will always
be better (intenalized racism) and to train the primarily to leave and work abroad and blend -in as Americans (objectification)
and never stand out as self-respecting Filipinos who aspire to be the best they can be propelled by the Filipino story.
Our multiple Golden Ages only occurred prior to US invasion and colonization.
YES, the USA owes us. We are every American's 2nd original sin.
We do not owe US anything. The USA owes us a great big deal, More than any other country on earth.
THEY (USA) owes us:
1) For violently dismantling the first Republic of the Philippines at the cost of over a million martyrs from the greatest generation
of Filipinos.
2) For US Assimilation Schools denying us the intensity of our golden ages prior to their invasion as our drivers for PH civilization,
turning us into a country that trains its people to leave and assimilate in US culture and become workers for Americans and foreigners
abroad. This results in a Philippines WITHOUT Filipinos.
3) For US bombs turning Intramuros into dust- the centerpiece of the Paris of the East, with treasures, publications and art
much older that the US- without consent from any Filipino leader. And for dismantling our train system from La Union to Bicol.
4) For the US Rescission Act which denied Filipino veterans due recognition, dignity and honor- vets who fought THEIR war against
Japan on our soil.
5) For the canard that Aguinaldo, our 29-year old father and liberator of the Republic of the Philippines, is a villain and
a traitor, even inventing the heroism of Andres Bonifacio which ultimately resulted in "Toxic Nationalism" which Rizal warned
us about in the persona of Simoun in El Filibusterismo who will drive our nation to self-destruction and turn a paradise into
a desert by being automatically wired to think anything non-Filipino will and always be better.
The core of colonial mentality is the misguided belief that we cannot have been a greater country had the US not destroyed
the first Republic of the Philippines- a lie that was embedded in our minds by the US discrediting Aguinaldo and the Generation
of 1896/1898- the greatest generation of Filipinos.
It does seem to me that every country which was able and could afford to expand its territory did so. In Europe, exceptions to
that a wish were Switzerland, Slovakia, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, Ukraine, ?Romania and Chechia.
So, US had company!
President William McKinley defends his decision to support the annexation of the Philippines in the wake of the U.S. war in that
country:
"When I next realized that the Philippines had dropped into our laps I confess I did not know what to do with them. . . And
one night late it came to me this way. . .1) That we could not give them back to Spain- that would be cowardly and dishonorable;
2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany-our commercial rivals in the Orient-that would be bad business and discreditable;
3) that we not leave them to themselves-they are unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there
worse than Spain's wars; and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and
uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ
also died."
Making Christians of a country that had its first Catholic diocese 9 years before the Spanish Armada sailed for England, with
4 dioceses in place years before the English sailed for Jamestown.
Dan Carlin did an outstanding podcast on the choices America faced after acquiring the Philippines. McKinley was anti-empire,
but the industrialists in his administration hungered to thwart the British, French and Dutch empires in the Pacific by establishing
a colony all of our own.
As someone born in Latin America, we never saw the US as anything but a brutal predator, whose honeyed words were belied by their
deeds. I wonder if it began with the Philippines. There was the Mexican war first, which wrested a lot of territory from Mexico.
And then there was the invasion of Canada to bring the blessings of democracy to Canadians (it ended with the White House in flames).
I suspect that the beliefe that you are exceptional and blessed by God can lead to want to straighten up other people "for their
own good", and make a profit besides - a LOT of profit.
"... In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now. ..."
"... Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia. ..."
"... Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come. ..."
"... Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif sent out a message whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a critical blow. ..."
"... Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world. In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully. ..."
"... Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets" See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article. ..."
"... To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others and has not for centuries. ..."
"... SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat. Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about. Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war. ..."
"... Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful. "We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days ..."
"... Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. ..."
"... Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html ..."
"... This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the future are punished in the present. ..."
Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the prize for
bottomless ignorance must go to the bottomlessly ignorant Mike Pompeo.
Speaking after the influential Iranian general's death, our frightening secretary of state declaimed on
CBS's Face the Nation
, "There was sound and just and legal reason for the actions the President took, and the world is safer as a result." In
appearances on
five
news programs on the same Sunday morning, the evangelical paranoid who now runs American foreign policy was a singer with a one-note
tune. "It's very clear the world's a safer place today," Pompeo said on ABC's Jan. 5 edition of This
Week.
In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's
foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now.
We are not safer now that Soleimani, a revered figure across much of the Middle East, has been murdered. The planet has just become
significantly more dangerous, especially but not only for Americans, and this is so for one simple reason: The Trump administration,
Pompeo bearing the standard, has just tipped American conduct abroad into a zone of probably unprecedented lawlessness, Pompeo's
nonsensical claim to legality notwithstanding .
This is a very consequential line to cross.
Hardly does it hold that Washington's foreign policy cliques customarily keep international law uppermost in their minds and that
recent events are aberrations. Nothing suggests policy planners even consider legalities except when it makes useful propaganda to
charge others with violating international statutes and conventions.
Neither can the Soleimani assassination be understood in isolation: This was only the most reckless of numerous policy decisions
recently taken in the Middle East. Since late last year, to consider merely the immediate past, the Trump administration has acted
ever more flagrantly in violation of all international legal authorities and documents -- the UN Charter, the International Criminal
Court, and the International Court of Justice in the Hague chief among them.
Washington is into full-frontal lawlessness now.
'Keeping the Oil'
Shortly after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria last October, the president reversed course --
probably under Pentagon and State Department pressure -- and said some troops would remain to protect Syria's oilfields. "We want
to keep the oil," Trump declared in
the course of a Twitter storm. It soon emerged that the administration's true intent was to prevent the Assad government in Damascus
from reasserting sovereign control over Syrian oilfields.
The Russians had the honesty to call this for what it was. "Washington's attempt to put oilfields there under [its] control is
illegal,"
Sergei Lavrov said at the time. "In fact, it's tantamount to robbery," the Russian foreign minister added. (John Kiriakou, writing
for Consortium News, pointed out
that it is a violation of the 1907 Hague Convention. It is call pillage.)
Few outside the Trump administration, and possibly no one, has argued that Soleimani's murder was legitimate under international
law. Not only was the Iranian general from a country with which the U.S. is not at war, which means the crime is murder; the drone
attack was also a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty, as has been widely reported.
In response to Baghdad's subsequent demand that all foreign troops withdraw from Iraqi soil,
Pompeo flatly refused even to discuss
the matter with Iraqi officials -- yet another openly contemptuous violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
It gets worse. In his own response to Baghdad's decision to evict foreign troops,
Trump threatened sanctions -- "sanctions like they've never seen before" -- and said Iraq would have to pay the U.S. the cost
of the bases the Pentagon has built there despite binding agreements that all fixed installations the U.S. has built in Iraq are
Iraqi government-owned.
At Baghdad's Throat
Trump, who seems to have oil eternally on his mind, has been at Baghdad's throat for some time. Twice since taking office three
years ago, he has
tried
to intimidate the Iraqis into "repaying" the U.S. for its 2003 invasion with access to Iraqi oil. "We did a lot, we did a lot
over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil," he said on the second of these occasions.
Baghdad rebuffed Trump both times, but he has been at it since, according to Adil Abdul–Mahdi, Iraq's interim prime minister.
Last year the U.S. administration
asked Baghdad for 50 percent of the nation's oil output -- in total roughly 4.5 million barrels daily -- in exchange for various
promised reconstruction projects.
Rejecting the offer, Abdul–Mahdi
signed an "oil
for reconstruction" agreement with China last autumn -- whereupon Trump threatened to instigate widespread demonstrations in
Baghdad if Abdul–Mahdi did not cancel the China deal. (He did not do so and, coincidentally or otherwise, civil unrest ensued.)
U.S. Army forces operating in southern Iraq, April. 2, 2003. (U.S. Navy)
Blueprints for Reprisal
If American lawlessness is nothing new, the brazenly imperious character of all the events noted in this brief résumé has nonetheless
pushed U.S. foreign policy beyond a tipping point.
No American -- and certainly no American official or military personnel -- can any longer travel in the Middle East with an assurance
of safety. All American diplomats, all military officers, and all embassies and bases in the region are now vulnerable to reprisals.
The Associated Press reported after the Jan. 3 drone strike that
Iran has developed 13 blueprints for reprisals
against the U.S.
Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech
at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise
other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia.
Here is a snippet from Pompeo's remarks:
"In strategic terms, deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior exceed its benefits.
It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must understand not only do you have the capacity to impose
costs but that you are, in fact, willing to do so . In all cases we have to do this."
Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously
incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given
response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come.
Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif
sent out a message
whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These
few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a
critical blow.
24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown -- masquerading as a diplomat -- claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq.
Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their response across their soil.
Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions
such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world.
In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This
was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune , is a columnist,
essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him
on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is
Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via
his Patreon site .
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Well, there's two relevant bits here. Bullshit walks and money talks. Our money stopped talking $23T ago.
What goes around, comes around. Whenever, however it comes down, it's gonna hurt.
Antiwar7 , January 21, 2020 at 13:46
Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets"
See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article.
rosemerry , January 21, 2020 at 13:28
To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of
Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience
to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others
and has not for centuries.
Even if the USA hates Iran, it has already done inestimable damage to the Islamic Republic before this disgraceful action. Cruelty
to 80 million people who have never harmed, even really threatened, the mighty USA, by tossing out a working JCPOA and installing
economic "sanctions", should not be accepted by the rest of the world-giving in to blackmail encourages worse behavior, as we
have already seen.
"It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. " This is exactly what should be rejected by us all. These "leaders" will
not change their behavior without solidarity among "allies" like the European Union, which has already caved in and blamed Iran
for the changes -Iran has explained clearly why it made- to the JCPOA which the USA has left.
Abby , January 21, 2020 at 20:15
The only difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump doesn't hide the US naked aggression as well as Obama did. So far
Trump hasn't started any new wars. By this time in Obama's tenure we had started bombing more countries and accepted one coup.
dfnslblty , January 21, 2020 at 12:43
SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat.
Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about.
Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war.
Cheyenne , January 21, 2020 at 11:49
The above comment shows exactly why bellicose adventurism for oil etc. is so stupid and dangerous. If we continually prance
around robbing people, they're gonna unite to slap us down.
Hardly seems like anyone should need that pointed out but if anybody mentioned it to Trump or any other gung ho warhawk, he
must not have been listening.
Trump and Pompeo seem to have entered the Wild West stage of recent American history. I think they watch too many western movies,
without understanding the underrlying plot of 100% of them. It is the bad guys take over a town, where they impose their will
on the population, terrorizing everyone into obediance. They steal everything in sight and any who oppose them are summarily killed
off. In the end a good guy ( In American parlance, " a good guy with a gun" shows up . The town`s people approach him and beg
him to oppose the bad guys. He then proceeds to kill off the bad guys after the general population joins him in his crusade. it
looks as though we are at the stage in the movie where the general population is ready to take up arms against the bad guys.
The moral of the story the bad guys, the bullies, Pompeo and Trump, are either killed or chased out of town. But perhaps the
problem is that this plot is too difficult for Trump and Pompeo to understand. So they don`t quite get the peril that there gunmen
and killers are now in. They don`t see the writing on the wall.
Caveman , January 21, 2020 at 11:30
It seems the only US considerations in the assassination were – will it weaken Iran, will it strengthen the American position?
On that perspective, the answer is probably yes on both counts. Legal considerations do not seem to have carried any weight. In
the UK we recently saw a chilling interview with Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Senior Policy Advisor to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It was clear that he saw the assassination as another nail in the coffin of the Iranian regime,
simply furthering a policy objective.
Vera Gottlieb , January 21, 2020 at 11:19
What is even sadder is the world's lack of gonads to stand up to this bully nation – that has caused so much grief and still
does.
Michael McNulty , January 21, 2020 at 11:01
The US government became a crime syndicate. Today its bootleg liquor is oil, the boys they send round to steal it are armies
and their drive-by shootings are Warthog strafings using DU ammunition. Their drug rackets in the back streets are high-grade
reefer, heroin and amphetamines, with pharmaceutical-grade chemicals on Main Street. They still print banknotes just as before;
but this time it's legal but still doesn't make them enough, so to make up the shortfalls they've taken armed robbery abroad.
paul easton , January 21, 2020 at 12:55
The US Government is running a protection racket, literally. In return for US protection of their sources of oil, the NATO
countries provide international support for US war crimes. But now that the (figurative) Don is visibly out of his mind, they
are likely to turn to other protectors.
One need not step back very far in order to look at the bigger longer range picture. What immediately comes into focus is that
this is simply the current moment in what is now 500 plus years of Western colonialism/neocolonialism. When has the law EVER had
anything to do with any of this?
ML , January 21, 2020 at 10:31
Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful.
"We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days. I hope he plans more overseas trips
for himself. He is a vile person, a psychopath proud of his psychopathy. He alone would make anyone considering conversion to
Christianity, his brand of it, run screaming into the night. Repulsive man.
Michael Crockett , January 21, 2020 at 09:40
Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. That said, IMO, the axis of resistance
has the military capability and the resolve to fight back and win. Combining China and Russia into a greater axis of resistance
could further shrink the Outlaw US Empire presence in West Asia. Thank you Patrick for your keen insight and observations. The
Empires days are numbered.
Sally Snyder , January 21, 2020 at 07:28
Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone
who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html
This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might
pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the
future are punished in the present.
Many of these crimes grew out of shortcomings in the military's management of the deployments that
experts say are still present: a heavy dependence on cash transactions, a hasty award process for high-value
contracts, loose and harried oversight within the ranks, and a regional culture of corruption that
proved seductive to the Americans troops transplanted there.
Notable quotes:
"... "this thing going on" ..."
"... a regional culture of corruption that proved seductive to the Americans troops transplanted there. ..."
The Fraud of War: U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have stolen tens of millions through
bribery, theft, and rigged contracts.
U.S. Army Specialist Stephanie Charboneau sat at the center of a complex trucking network in Forward
Operating Base Fenty near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that distributed daily tens of thousands
of gallons of what troops called "liquid gold": the refined petroleum that fueled the international
coalition's vehicles, planes, and generators.
A prominent sign in the base read: "The Army Won't Go If The Fuel Don't Flow." But Charboneau,
31, a mother of two from Washington state, felt alienated after a supervisor's harsh rebuke. Her
work was a dreary routine of recording fuel deliveries in a computer and escorting trucks past a
gate. But it was soon to take a dark turn into high-value crime.
Troops were selling the U.S. military's fuel to Afghan locals on the side, and pocketing the proceeds.
She began an affair with a civilian, Jonathan Hightower, who worked for a Pentagon contractor that
distributed fuel from Fenty, and one day in March 2010 he told her about "this thing going on"
at other U.S. military bases around Afghanistan, she recalled in a recent telephone interview.
Troops were selling the U.S. military's fuel to Afghan locals on the side, and pocketing the proceeds.
When Hightower suggested they start doing the same, Charboneau said, she agreed.
In so doing, Charboneau contributed to thefts by U.S. military personnel of at least $15 million
worth of fuel since the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. And eventually she became one of at
least 115 enlisted personnel and military officers convicted since 2005 of committing theft, bribery,
and contract-rigging crimes valued at $52 million during their deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq,
according to a comprehensive tally of court records by
the Center for Public Integrity.
Many of these crimes grew out of shortcomings in the military's management of the deployments that
experts say are still present: a heavy dependence on cash transactions, a hasty award process for
high-value contracts, loose and harried oversight within the ranks, and a regional culture of
corruption that proved seductive to the Americans troops transplanted there.
Charboneau, whose Facebook posts reveal a bright-eyed woman with a shoulder tattoo and a huge grin,
snuggling with pets and celebrating the 2015 New Year with her children in Seattle Seahawks jerseys,
now sits in Carswell federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, serving a seven-year sentence for her crime.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg seemed perfect, a man who defended the
principle of wine-based fundraisers with military effrontery. New York magazine made his case
in a cover story the magazine's Twitter account summarized as:
"Perhaps all the Democrats need to win the presidency is a Rust Belt millennial who's gay
and speaks Norwegian."
(The "Here's something random the Democrats need to beat Trump" story became an important
literary genre in 2019-2020, the high point being Politico's "Can the "F-bomb save Beto?").
Buttigieg had momentum. The flameout of Biden was expected to help the ex-McKinsey
consultant with "moderates." Reporters dug Pete; he's been willing to be photographed holding a
beer and wearing a bomber jacket, and in Iowa demonstrated what pundits call a "killer
instinct," i.e. a willingness to do anything to win.
Days before the caucus, a Buttigieg supporter claimed Pete's name had not been read out in a
Des Moines Register poll, leading to the pulling of what NBC called the "gold standard" survey.
The irony of such a relatively minor potential error holding up a headline would soon be laid
bare.
However, Pete's numbers with black voters (he polls at zero in many states) led to multiple
news stories in the last weekend before the caucus about "concern" that Buttigieg would not be
able to win.
Who, then? Elizabeth Warren was cratering in polls and seemed to be shifting strategy on a
daily basis. In Iowa, she attacked "billionaires" in one stop, emphasized "unity" in the next,
and stressed identity at other times (she came onstage variously that weekend to Dolly Parton's
"9 to 5" or to chants of "It's time for a woman in the White House"). Was she an outsider or an
insider? A screwer, or a screwee? Whose side was she on?
A late controversy involving a story that Sanders had told Warren a woman couldn't win
didn't help. Jaimee Warbasse planned to caucus with Warren, but the Warren/Sanders "hot mic"
story of the two candidates arguing after a January debate was a bridge too far. She spoke of
being frustrated, along with friends, at the inability to find anyone she could to trust to
take on Trump.
"It's like we all have PTSD from 2016," she said. "There has to be somebody."
... ... ...
What happened over the five days after the caucus was a mind-boggling display of
fecklessness and ineptitude. Delay after inexplicable delay halted the process, to the point
where it began to feel like the caucus had not really taken place. Results were released in
chunks, turning what should have been a single news story into many, often with Buttigieg "in
the lead."
The delays and errors cut in many directions, not just against Sanders. Buttigieg,
objectively, performed above poll expectations, and might have gotten more momentum even with a
close, clear loss, but because of the fiasco he ended up hashtagged as #MayorCheat and lumped
in headlines tied to what the Daily Beast called a "Clusterfuck."
Though Sanders won the popular vote by a fair margin, both in terms of initial preference
(6,000 votes) and final preference (2,000), Mayor Pete's lead for most of the week with "state
delegate equivalents" -- the number used to calculate how many national delegates are sent to
the Democratic convention -- made him the technical winner in the eyes of most. By the end of
the week, however, Sanders had regained so much ground, to within 1.5 state delegate
equivalents, that news organizations like the AP were despairing at calling a winner.
This wasn't necessarily incorrect. The awarding of delegates in a state like Iowa is
inherently somewhat random. If there's a tie in votes in a district awarding five delegates, a
preposterous system of coin flips is used to break the odd number. The geographical calculation
for state delegate equivalents is also uneven, weighted toward the rural. A wide popular-vote
winner can surely lose.
But the storylines of caucus week sure looked terrible for the people who ran the vote. The
results released early favored Buttigieg, while Sanders-heavy districts came out later. There
were massive, obvious errors. Over 2,000 votes that should have gone to Sanders and Warren went
to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer in one case the Iowa Democrats termed a "minor error." In
multiple other districts (Des Moines 14 for example), the "delegate equivalents" appeared to be
calculated incorrectly, in ways that punished all the candidates, not just Sanders. By the end
of the week, even the New York Times was saying the caucus was plagued with "inconsistencies
and errors."
Emily Connor, a Sanders precinct captain in Boone County, spent much of the week checking
results, waiting for her Bernie-heavy district to be recorded. It took a while. By the end of
the week, she was fatalistic.
"If you're a millennial, you basically grew up in an era where popular votes are stolen,"
she said.
"The system is riddled with loopholes."
Others felt the party was in denial about how bad the caucus night looked.
"They're kind of brainwashed," said Joe Grabinski, who caucused in West Des Moines.
"They think they're on the side of the right they'll do anything to save their
careers.
An example of how screwed up the process was from the start involved a new twist on the
process, the so-called "Presidential Preference Cards."
In 2020, caucus-goers were handed index cards that seemed simple enough. On side one, marked
with a big "1," caucus-goers were asked to write in their initial preference. Side 2, with a
"2," was meant to be where you wrote in who you ended up supporting, if your first choice was
not viable.
The "PPCs" were supposedly there to "ensure a recount is possible," as the Polk County
Democrats put it. But caucus-goers didn't understand the cards.
Morgan Baethke, who volunteered at Indianola 4, watched as older caucus-goers struggled.
Some began filling out both sides as soon as they were given them.
Therefore, Baethke says, if they do a recount, "the first preference should be accurate."
However, "the second preference will be impossible to recreate with any certainty."
This is a problem, because by the end of the week, DNC chair Tom Perez -- a triple-talking
neurotic who is fast becoming the poster child for everything progressives hate about modern
Dems -- called for an "immediate recanvass." He changed his mind after ten hours and said he
only wanted "surgical" reanalysis of problematic districts.
No matter what result emerges, it's likely many individual voters will not trust it. Between
comical videos of apparently gamed coin-flips and the pooh-poohing reaction of party officials
and pundits (a common theme was that "toxic conspiracy theories" about Iowa were the work of
the Trumpian right and/or Russian bots), the overall impression was a clown show performance by
a political establishment too bored to worry about the appearance of impartiality.
"Is it incompetence or corruption? That's the big question," asked Storey.
"... Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable as an American vessel. ..."
"... Soon more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns. ..."
"... Attack on the Liberty ..."
"... Attack on the Liberty ..."
"... Dangerous Liaison, ..."
"... In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying $600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft. ..."
"... Perversely, then, the IDF's strike on the Liberty served to weld the US and Israel together, in a kind of political and military embrace. Now, every time the IDF attacks defenseless villages in Gaza and the West Bank with F-16s and Apache helicopters, the Palestinians quite rightly see the bloody assaults as a joint operation, with the Pentagon as a hidden partner. ..."
In early June of 1967, at the onset of the Six Day War, the Pentagon sent the USS Liberty from Spain into international waters
off the coast of Gaza to monitor the progress of Israel's attack on the Arab states. The Liberty was a lightly armed surveillance
ship.
Only hours after the Liberty arrived it was spotted by the Israeli military. The IDF sent out reconnaissance planes to identify
the ship. They made eight trips over a period of three hours. The Liberty was flying a large US flag and was easily recognizable
as an American vessel.
Soon more planes came. These were Israeli Mirage III fighters, armed with rockets and machine guns. As off-duty officers sunbathed
on the deck, the fighters opened fire on the defenseless ship with rockets and machine guns.
A few minutes later a second wave of planes streaked overhead, French-built Mystere jets, which not only pelted the ship with
gunfire but also with napalm bomblets, coating the deck with the flaming jelly. By now, the Liberty was on fire and dozens were wounded
and killed, excluding several of the ship's top officers.
The Liberty's radio team tried to issue a distress call, but discovered the frequencies had been jammed by the Israeli planes
with what one communications specialist called "a buzzsaw sound." Finally, an open channel was found and the Liberty got out a message
it was under attack to the USS America, the Sixth Fleet's large aircraft carrier.
Two F-4s left the carrier to come to the Liberty's aid. Apparently, the jets were armed only with nuclear weapons. When word reached
the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became irate and ordered the jets to return. "Tell the Sixth Fleet to get those aircraft
back immediately," he barked. McNamara's injunction was reiterated in saltier terms by Admiral David L. McDonald, the chief of Naval
Operations: "You get those fucking airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down." The planes turned around. And the attack
on the Liberty continued.
After the Israeli fighter jets had emptied their arsenal of rockets, three Israeli attack boats approached the Liberty. Two torpedoes
were launched at the crippled ship, one tore a 40-foot wide hole in the hull, flooding the lower compartments, and killing more than
a dozen American sailors.
As the Liberty listed in the choppy seas, its deck aflame, crew members dropped life rafts into the water and prepared to scuttle
the ship. Given the number of wounded, this was going to be a dangerous operation. But it soon proved impossible, as the Israeli
attack boats strafed the rafts with machine gun fire. No body was going to get out alive that way.
After more than two hours of unremitting assault, the Israelis finally halted their attack. One of the torpedo boats approached
the Liberty. An officer asked in English over a bullhorn: "Do you need any help?"
The wounded commander of the Liberty, Lt. William McGonagle, instructed the quartermaster to respond emphatically: "Fuck you."
The Israeli boat turned and left.
A Soviet destroyer responded before the US Navy, even though a US submarine, on a covert mission, was apparently in the area and
had monitored the attack. The Soviet ship reached the Liberty six hours before the USS Davis. The captain of the Soviet ship offered
his aid, but the Liberty's conning officer refused.
Finally, 16 hours after the attack two US destroyers reached the Liberty. By that time, 34 US sailors were dead and 174 injured,
many seriously. As the wounded were being evacuated, an officer with the Office of Naval Intelligence instructed the men not to talk
about their ordeal with the press.
The following morning Israel launched a surprise invasion of Syria, breaching the new cease-fire agreement and seizing control
of the Golan Heights.
Within three weeks, the Navy put out a 700-page report, exonerating the Israelis, claiming the attack had been accidental and
that the Israelis had pulled back as soon as they realized their mistake. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara suggested the whole affair
should be forgotten. "These errors do occur," McNamara concluded.
***
In Assault on the Liberty
, a harrowing first-hand account by James Ennes Jr., McNamara's version of events is proven to be as big a sham as his concurrent
lies about Vietnam. Ennes's book created a media storm when it was first published by Random House in 1980, including (predictably)
charges that Ennes was a liar and an anti-Semite. Still, the book sold more than 40,000 copies, but was eventually allowed to go
out of print. Now Ennes has published an updated version, which incorporates much new evidence that the Israeli attack was deliberate
and that the US government went to extraordinary lengths to disguise the truth.
It's a story of Israel aggression, Pentagon incompetence, official lies, and a cover-up that persists to this day. The book gains
much of its power from the immediacy of Ennes's first-hand account of the attack and the lies that followed.
Now, decades later, Ennes warns that the bloodbath on board the Liberty and its aftermath should serve as a tragic cautionary
tale about the continuing ties between the US government and the government of Israel.
The Attack on the Liberty is the kind of book that makes your blood seethe. Ennes skillfully documents the life of the
average sailor on one of the more peculiar vessels in the US Navy, with an attention for detail that reminds one of Dana or O'Brien.
After all, the year was 1967 and most of the men on the Liberty were certainly glad to be on a non-combat ship in the middle of the
Mediterranean, rather than in the Gulf of Tonkin or Mekong Delta.
But this isn't Two Years Before the Mast. In fact, Ennes's tour on the Liberty last only a few short weeks. He had scarcely settled
into a routine before his new ship was shattered before his eyes.
Ennes joined the Liberty in May of 1967, as an Electronics Material Officer. Serving on a "spook ship", as the Liberty was known
to Navy wives, was supposed to be a sure path to career enhancement. The Liberty's normal routine was to ply the African coast, tuning
in its eavesdropping equipment on the electronic traffic in the region.
The Liberty had barely reached Africa when it received a flash message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to sail from the Ivory Coast
to the Mediterranean, where it was to re-deploy off the coast of the Sinai to monitor the Israeli attack on Egypt and the allied
Arab nations.
As the war intensified, the Liberty sent a request to the fleet headquarters requesting an escort. It was denied by Admiral William
Martin. The Liberty moved alone to a position in international waters about 13 miles from the shore at El Arish, then under furious
siege by the IDF.
On June 6, the Joint Chiefs sent Admiral McCain, father of the senator from Arizona, an urgent message instructing him to move
the Liberty out of the war zone to a position at least 100 miles off the Gaza Coast. McCain never forwarded the message to the ship.
A little after seven in the morning on June 8, Ennes entered the bridge of the Liberty to take the morning watch. Ennes was told
that an hour earlier a "flying boxcar" (later identified as a twin-engine Nord 2501 Noratlas) had flown over the ship at a low level.
Ennes says he noticed that the ship's American flag had become stained with soot and ordered a new flag run up the mast. The morning
was clear and calm, with a light breeze.
At 9 am, Ennes spotted another reconnaissance plane, which circled the Liberty. An hour later two Israeli fighter jets buzzed
the ship. Over the next four hours, Israeli planes flew over the Liberty five more times.
When the first fighter jet struck, a little before two in the afternoon, Ennes was scanning the skies from the starboard side
of the bridge, binoculars in his hands. A rocket hit the ship just below where Ennes was standing, the fragments shredded the men
closest to him.
After the explosion, Ennes noticed that he was the only man left standing. But he also had been hit by more than 20 shards of
shrapnel and the force of the blast had shattered his left leg. As he crawled into the pilothouse, a second fighter jet streaked
above them and unleashed its payload on the hobbled Liberty.
At that point, Ennes says the crew of the Liberty had no idea who was attacking them or why. For a few moments, they suspected
it might be the Soviets, after an officer mistakenly identified the fighters as MIG-15s. They knew that the Egyptian air force already
had been decimated by the Israelis. The idea that the Israelis might be attacking them didn't occur to them until one of the crew
spotted a Star of David on the wing of one of the French-built Mystere jets.
Ennes was finally taken below deck to a makeshift dressing station, with other wounded men. It was hardly a safe harbor. As Ennes
worried that his fractured leg might slice through his femoral artery leaving him to bleed to death, the Liberty was pummeled by
rockets, machine-gun fire and an Italian-made torpedo packed with 1,000-pounds of explosive.
After the attack ended, Ennes was approached by his friend Pat O'Malley, a junior officer, who had just sent a list of killed
and wounded to the Bureau of Naval Personnel. He got an immediate message back. "They said, 'Wounded in what action? Killed in what
action?'," O'Malley told Ennes. "They said it wasn't an 'action,' it was an accident. I'd like for them to come out here and see
the difference between an action and an accident. Stupid bastards."
The cover-up had begun.
***
The Pentagon lied to the public about the attack on the Liberty from the very beginning. In a decision personally approved by
the loathsome McNamara, the Pentagon denied to the press that the Liberty was an intelligence ship, referring to it instead as a
Technical Research ship, as if it were little more than a military version of Jacques Cousteau's Calypso.
The military press corps on the USS America, where most of the wounded sailors had been taken, were placed under extreme restrictions.
All of the stories filed from the carrier were first routed through the Pentagon for security clearance, objectionable material was
removed with barely a bleat of protest from the reporters or their publications.
Predictably, Israel's first response was to blame the victim, a tactic that has served them so well in the Palestinian situation.
First, the IDF alleged that it had asked the State Department and the Pentagon to identify any US ships in the area and was told
that there were none. Then the Israeli government charged that the Liberty failed to fly its flag and didn't respond to calls for
it to identify itself. The Israelis contended that they assumed the Liberty was an Egyptian supply ship called El Quseir, which,
even though it was a rusting transport ship then docked in Alexandria, the IDF said it suspected of shelling Israeli troops from
the sea. Under these circumstances, the Israeli's said they were justified in opening fire on the Liberty. The Israelis said that
they halted the attack almost immediately, when they realized their mistake.
"The Liberty contributed decisively toward its identification as an enemy ship," the IDF report concluded. This was a blatant
falsehood, since the Israelis had identified the Liberty at least six hours prior to the attack on the ship.
Even though the Pentagon knew better, it gave credence to the Israeli account by saying that perhaps the Liberty's flag had lain
limp on the flagpole in a windless sea. The Pentagon also suggested that the attack might have lasted less than 20 minutes.
After the initial battery of misinformation, the Pentagon imposed a news blackout on the Liberty disaster until after the completion
of a Court of Inquiry investigation.
The inquiry was headed by Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd. Kidd didn't have a free hand. He'd been instructed by Vice-Admiral McCain
to limit the damage to the Pentagon and to protect the reputation of Israel.
The Kidd interviewed the crew on June 14 and 15. The questioning was extremely circumscribed. According to Ennes, the investigators
"asked nothing that might be embarrassing to Israeland testimony that tended to embarrass Israel was covered with a 'Top Secret'
label, if it was accepted at all."
Ennes notes that even testimony by the Liberty's communications officers about the jamming of the ship's radios was classified
as "Top Secret." The reason? It proved that Israel knew it was attacking an American ship. "Here was strong evidence that the attack
was planned in advance and that our ship's identity was known to the attackers (for it its practically impossible to jam the radio
of a stranger), but this information was hushed up and no conclusions were drawn from it," Ennes writes.
Similarly, the Court of Inquiry deep-sixed testimony and affidavits regarding the flag-Ennes had ordered a crisp new one deployed
early on the morning of the attack. The investigators buried intercepts of conversations between IDF pilots identifying the ship
as flying an American flag.
It also refused to accept evidence about the IDF's use of napalm during the attacks and choose not to hear testimony regarding
the duration of the attacks and the fact that the US Navy failed to send planes to defend the ship.
"No one came to help us," said Dr. Richard F. Kiepfer, the Liberty's physician. "We were promised help, but no help came. The
Russians arrived before our own ships did. We asked for an escort before we ever came to the war zone and we were turned down."
None of this made its way into the 700-page Court of Inquiry report, which was completed within a couple of weeks and sent to
Admiral McCain in London for review.
McCain approved the report over the objections of Captain Merlin Staring, the Navy legal officer assigned to the inquiry, who
found the report to be flawed, incomplete and contrary to the evidence.
Staring sent a letter to the Judge Advocate General of the Navy disavowing himself from the report. The JAG seemed to take Staring's
objections to heart. It prepared a summary for the Chief of Naval Operations that almost completely ignored the Kidd/McCain report.
Instead, it concluded:
that the Liberty was easily recognizable as an American naval vessel; that it's flag was fully deployed and flying in a moderate
breeze; that Israeli planes made at least eight reconnaissance flights at close range; the ship came under a prolonged attack from
Israeli fighter jets and torpedo boats.
This succinct and largely accurate report was stamped Top Secret by Navy brass and stayed locked up for many years. But it was
seen by many in the Pentagon and some in the Oval Office. But here was enough grumbling about the way the Liberty incident had been
handled that LBJ summoned that old Washington fixer Clark Clifford to do damage control. It didn't take Clifford long to come up
with the official line: the Israelis simply had made a tragic mistake.
It turns out that the Admiral Kidd and Captain Ward Boston, the two investigating officers who prepared the original report for
Admiral McCain, both believed that the Israeli attack was intentional and sustained. In other words, the IDF knew that they were
striking an American spy ship and they wanted to sink it and kill as many sailors as possible. Why then did the Navy investigators
produce a sham report that concluded it was an accident?
Twenty-five years later we finally found out. In June of 2002, Captain Boston told the Navy Times: "Officers follow orders."
It gets worse. There's plenty of evidence that US intelligence agencies learned on June 7 that Israel intended to attack the Liberty
on the following day and that the strike had been personally ordered by Moshe Dayan.
As the attacks were going on, conversations between Israeli pilots were overheard by US Air Force officers in an EC121 surveillance
plane overhead. The spy plane was spotted by Israeli jets, which were given orders to shoot it down. The American plane narrowly
avoided the IDF missiles.
Initial reports on the incident prepared by the CIA, Office of Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency all reached
similar conclusions.
A particularly damning report compiled by a CIA informant suggests that Israeli Defense minister Moshe Dayan personally ordered
the attack and wanted it to proceed until the Liberty was sunk and all on board killed. A heavily redacted version of the report
was released in 1977. It reads in part:
"[The source] said that Dayan personally ordered the attack on the ship and that one of his generals adamantly opposed the
action and said, 'This is pure murder.' One of the admirals who was present also disapproved of the action, and it was he who
ordered it stopped and not Dayan."
This amazing document generated little attention from the press and Dayan was never publicly questioned about his role in the
attack.
The analyses by the intelligence agencies are collected in a 1967 investigation by the Defense Subcommittee on Appropriations.
Two and half decades later that report remains classified. Why? A former committee staffer said: "So as not to embarrass Israel."
More proof came to light from the Israeli side. A few years after Attack on the Liberty was originally published, Ennes
got a call from Evan Toni, an Israeli pilot. Toni told Ennes that he had just read his book and wanted to tell him his story. Toni
said that he was the pilot in the first Israeli Mirage fighter to reach the Liberty. He immediately recognized the ship to be a US
Navy vessel. He radioed Israeli air command with this information and asked for instructions. Toni said he was ordered to "attack."
He refused and flew back to the air base at Ashdod. When he arrived he was summarily arrested for disobeying orders.
***
How tightly does the Israeli lobby control the Hill? For the first time in history, an attack on an America ship was not subjected
to a public investigation by Congress. In 1980, Adlai Stevenson and Barry Goldwater planned to open a senate hearing into the Liberty
affair. Then Jimmy Carter intervened by brokering a deal with Menachem Begin, where Israel agreed to pony up $6 million to pay for
damages to the ship. A State Department press release announced the payment said, "The book is now closed on the USS Liberty."
It certainly was the last chapter for Adlai Stevenson. He ran for governor of Illinois the following year, where his less than
perfect record on Israel, and his unsettling questions about the Liberty affair, became an issue in the campaign. Big money flowed
into the coffers of his Republican opponent, Big Jim Thompson, and Stevenson went down to a narrow defeat.
But the book wasn't closed for the sailors either, of course. After a Newsweek story exposed the gist of what really happened
on that day in the Mediterranean, an enraged Admiral McCain placed all the sailors under a gag order. When one sailor told an officer
that he was having problems living with the cover-up, he was told: "Forget about it, that's an order."
The Navy went to bizarre lengths to keep the crew of the Liberty from telling what they knew. When gag orders didn't work, they
threatened sanctions. Ennes tells of the confinement and interrogation of two Liberty sailors that sounds like something right out
of the CIA's MK-Ultra program.
"In an incredible abuse of authority, military officers held two young Liberty sailors against their will in a locked and heavily
guarded psychiatric ward of the base hospital," Ennes writes. "For days these men were drugged and questioned about their recollections
of the attack by a 'therapist' who admitted to being untrained in either psychiatry or psychology. At one point, they avoided electroshock
only by bolting from the room and demanding to see the commanding officer."
Since coming home, the veterans who have tried to tell of their ordeal have been harassed relentlessly. They've been branded as
drunks, bigots, liars and frauds. Often, it turns out, these slurs have been leaked by the Pentagon. And, oh yeah, they've also been
painted as anti-Semites.
In a recent column, Charley Reese describes just how mean-spirited and petty this campaign became. "When a small town in Wisconsin
decided to name its library in honor of the USS Liberty crewmen, a campaign claiming it was anti-Semitic was launched," writes Reese.
"And when the town went ahead, the U.S. government ordered no Navy personnel to attend, and sent no messages. This little library
was the first, and at the time the only, memorial to the men who died on the Liberty."
***
So why then did the Israelis attack the Liberty?
A few days before the Six Days War, Israel's Foreign Minister Abba Eban visited Washington to inform LBJ about the forthcoming
invasion. Johnson cautioned Eban that the US could not support such an attack.
It's possible, then, that the IDF assumed that the Liberty was spying on the Israeli war plans. Possible, but not likely. Despite
the official denials, as Andrew and Leslie Cockburn demonstrate in
Dangerous Liaison, at the
time of the Six Days War the US and Israel had developed a warm covert relationship. So closely were the two sides working that US
intelligence aid certainly helped secure Israel's devastating and swift victory. In fact, it's possible that the Liberty had been
sent to the region to spy for the IDF.
A somewhat more likely scenario holds that Moshe Dayan wanted to keep the lid on Israel's plan to breach the new cease-fire and
invade into Syria to seize the Golan.
It has also been suggested that Dayan ordered the attack on the Liberty with the intent of pinning the blame on the Egyptians
and thus swinging public and political opinion in the United States solidly behind the Israelis. Of course, for this plan to work,
the Liberty had to be destroyed and its crew killed.
There's another factor. The Liberty was positioned just off the coast from the town of El Arish. In fact, Ennes and others had
used town's mosque tower to fix the location of the ship along the otherwise featureless desert shoreline. The IDF had seized El
Arish and had used the airport there as a prisoner of war camp. On the very day the Liberty was attacked, the IDF was in the process
of executing as many as 1,000 Palestinian and Egyptian POWs, a war crime that they surely wanted to conceal from prying eyes. According
to Gabriel Bron, now an Israeli reporter, who witnessed part of the massacre as a soldier: "The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered
to dig pits and then army police shot them to death."
The bigger question is why the US government would participate so enthusiastically in the cover-up of a war crime against its
own sailors. Well, the Pentagon has never been slow to hide its own incompetence. And there's plenty of that in the Liberty affair:
bungled communications, refusal to provide an escort, situating the defenseless Liberty too close to a raging battle, the inability
to intervene in the attack and the inexcusably long time it took to reach the battered ship and its wounded.
That's but par for the course. But something else was going on that would only come to light later. Through most of the 1960s,
the US congress had imposed a ban on the sale of arms to both Israel and Jordan. But at the time of the Liberty attack, the Pentagon
(and its allies in the White House and on the Hill) was seeking to have this proscription overturned. The top brass certainly knew
that any evidence of a deliberate attack on a US Navy ship by the IDF would scuttle their plans. So they hushed it up.
In January 1968, the arms embargo on Israel was lifted and the sale of American weapons began to flow. By 1971, Israel was buying
$600 million of American-made weapons a year. Two years later the purchases topped $3 billion. Almost overnight, Israel had become
the largest buyer of US-made arms and aircraft.
Perversely, then, the IDF's strike on the Liberty served to weld the US and Israel together, in a kind of political and military
embrace. Now, every time the IDF attacks defenseless villages in Gaza and the West Bank with F-16s and Apache helicopters, the Palestinians
quite rightly see the bloody assaults as a joint operation, with the Pentagon as a hidden partner.
Thus, does the legacy of Liberty live on, one raid after another.
Bush older was the first president from CIA. He was already a senior CIA official at the time
of JFK assassination and might participate in the plot to kill JFK. At least he was in Dallas at
the day of assassination. .
That Iraq is to say the least unstable is attributable to the ill-advised U.S. invasion
of 2003.
Nothing to do with 9 years of sanctions on Iraq that killed a million Iraqis, "half of
them children," and US control of Iraqi air space, after having killed Iraqi military in a
turkey-shoot, for no really good reason other than George H W Bush seized the "unipolar
moment" to become king of the world?
Maybe it's just stubbornness: I think Papa Bush is responsible for the "imperial pivot,"
in the Persian Gulf war aka Operation Desert Storm, 29 years and 4 days ago -- January 17,
1991.
According to Jeffrey Engel, Bush's biographer and director of the Bush library at Southern
Methodist University, Gorbachev harassed Bush with phone calls, pleading with him not to go
to war over Kuwait
(It's worth noting that Dennis Ross was relatively new in his role on Jim Baker's staff
when Baker, Brent Skowcroft, Larry Eagleburger & like minded urged Bush to take the
Imperial Pivot.)
According to Vernon Loeb, who completed the writing of King's Counsel after Jack
O'Connell died, Jordan's King Hussein, in consultation with retired CIA station chief
O'Connell, parlayed with Arab leaders to resolve the conflict on their own, i.e. Arab-to-Arab
terms, and also pleaded with Bush to stay out, and to let the Arabs solve their own problems.
Bush refused. https://www.c-span.org/video/?301361-6/kings-counsel
See above: Bush was determined to "seize the unipolar moment."
Once again insist on entering into the record: George H Bush was present at the creation
of the Global War on Terror, July 4, 1979, the Jerusalem Conference hosted by Benzion and
Benjamin Netanyahu and heavily populated with Trotskyites – neocons.
I think Papa Bush is responsible for the "imperial pivot," in the Persian Gulf war aka
Operation Desert Storm, 29 years and 4 days ago -- January 17, 1991.
Yes I remember it well. I came back from a long trip & memorable vacation, alas I was
a young man, to the television drama that was unfolding with Arthur Kent 'The Scud
Stud' and others reporting from the safety of their hotel balconies filming aircaft and
cruise missiles. It was surreal.
You are correct of course.
"... Trump's threats of auto tariffs to gain trade concessions with the Europeans is certainly nothing new, but using the same to dictate foreign policy is, notes WaPo's diplomatic correspondent John Hudson. ..."
"... Interestingly, in Wednesday's joint statement the European signatories attempted to distance their drastic action away from Washington's so-called "maximum pressure" campaign. "Our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran," they said . ..."
"... The statement also underscored Europe hopes to use the mechanism "to bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA" and in the words of one official quoted in The Guardian to prevent nuclear advancement to the point that the Iranians "learn something that it is not possible for them to unlearn" . ..."
A bombshell revelation from The Washington Post a day after France, Britain and Germany took unprecedented action against Iran
by
formally triggering the dispute resolution mechanism regulating conformity to the deal, seen as the harshest measure taken by
the European signatories thus far. The European powers officially see Iran as in breach of the deal which means UN and EU punitive
sanctions are now on the table.
But according to The Post , how things quickly escalated
to this point is real story : " Days before Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose
25% tariff on European autos if they didn't," says the report.
This came as a "shock" to all three countries, with one top European official
calling it essentially "extortion" and a new level of hardball tactics from the Trump administration.
After the US leveraged the new tariffs threat according to the report, European capitals moved quick to trigger the mechanism,
which involved the individual European states formally notifying the agreement's guarantor, the European Union, that Iran is in breach
of the nuclear deal.
This followed the Jan.6 declaration of Tehran's leadership to no longer be beholden to uranium enrichment limits. And that's where
things got interesting as Washington's pressure campaign dramatically turned up the heat on Europe.
"Within days, the three countries would formally accuse Iran of violating the deal, triggering a recourse provision that could
reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran and unravel the last remaining vestiges of the Obama-era agreement," the report
continues .
However, the report notes France, the UK, and Germany were already in deep discussion on moving forward with triggering the mechanism.
"We didn't want to look weak, so we agreed to keep the existence of the threat a secret," a European official cited by WaPo claims.
Trump's threats of auto tariffs to gain trade concessions with the Europeans is certainly nothing new, but using the same to dictate
foreign policy is, notes WaPo's diplomatic correspondent John Hudson.
Interestingly, in Wednesday's joint statement the European signatories attempted to distance their drastic action away from Washington's
so-called "maximum pressure" campaign. "Our three countries are not joining a campaign to implement maximum pressure against Iran,"
they said .
The statement also underscored Europe hopes to use the mechanism "to bring Iran back into full compliance with its commitments
under the JCPOA" and in the words of one official quoted in
The Guardian to prevent nuclear advancement to the point that the Iranians "learn something that it is not possible for them
to unlearn" .
Now that the mechanism has been enacted, the clock starts on 65 days of intensive negotiations before UN sanctions would be reimposed
if no resolution is reached. Specifically a blanket arms embargo would be imposed among other measures, and certainly it would mark
the deal's final demise, given the Europeans are Iran's last hope for being equal partners in the deal.
Also interesting is that in the hours before The Washington Post report was published, Iranian FM Zarif charged that the EU investigation
into Iran's alleged non-compliance meant Europe is allowing itself to be bulled by the United States .
Indeed the new revelation of the secret threats attempting to dictate Europe's course appear to confirm precisely Zarif's words
to reporters
earlier on Wednesday : "They say 'We are not responsible for what the United States did.' OK, but you are independent" he began.
And then added a stinging rebuke: "Europe, EU, is the largest global economy. So why do you allow the United States to bully you
around?"
"... The Iraq war was about oil. Recently declassified US government documents confirm this ( 1 ), however much US president George W Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their ally, the British prime minister Tony Blair, denied it at the time. ..."
The Iraq war was about oil. Recently declassified US government documents confirm this (
1 ), however much US
president George W Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and
their ally, the British prime minister Tony Blair, denied it at the time.
When Bush moved into the White House in January 2001, he faced the familiar problem of the
imbalance between oil supply and demand. Supply was unable to keep up with demand, which was
increasing rapidly because of the growth of emerging economies such as China and India. The
only possible solution lay in the Gulf, where the giant oil-producing countries of Saudi
Arabia, Iran and Iraq, and the lesser producing states of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, commanded 60%
of the world's reserves.
For financial or political reasons, production growth was slow. In Saudi Arabia, the
ultra-rich ruling families of the Al-Saud, the Al-Sabah and the Zayed Al-Nayan were content
with a comfortable level of income, given their small populations, and preferred to leave their
oil underground. Iran and Iraq hold around 25% of the world's hydrocarbon reserves and could
have filled the gap, but were subject to sanctions -- imposed solely by the US on Iran,
internationally on Iraq -- that deprived them of essential oil equipment and services.
Washington saw them as rogue states and was unwilling to end the sanctions.
How could the US get more oil from the Gulf without endangering its supremacy in the region?
Influential US neoconservatives, led by Paul Wolfowitz, who had gone over to uninhibited
imperialism after the fall of the Soviet Union, thought they had found a solution. They had
never understood George Bush senior's decision not to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the first
Gulf war in 1991. An open letter to President Bill Clinton, inspired by the Statement of
Principles of the Project for the New American Century, a non-profit organisation founded by
William Kristol and Robert Kagan, had called for a regime change in Iraq as early as 1998:
Saddam must be ousted and big US oil companies must gain access to Iraq. Several signatories to
the Statement of Principles became members of the new Republican administration in 2001.
In 2002, one of them, Douglas Feith, a lawyer who was undersecretary of defense to Rumsfeld,
supervised the work of experts planning the future of Iraq's oil industry. His first decision
was to entrust its management after the expected US victory to Kellog, Brown & Root, a
subsidiary of US oil giant Halliburton, of which Cheney had been chairman and CEO. Feith's
plan, formulated at the start of 2003, was to keep Iraq's oil production at its current level
of 2,840 mbpd (million barrels per day), to avoid a collapse that would cause chaos in the
world market.
Privatising oil
Experts were divided on the privatisation of the Iraqi oil industry. The Iraqi government
had excluded foreign companies and successfully managed the sector itself since 1972. By 2003,
despite wars with Iran (1980-88) and in Kuwait (1990-91) and more than 15 years of sanctions,
Iraq had managed to equal the record production levels achieved in 1979-1980.
The experts had a choice -- bring back the concession regime that had operated before
nationalisation in 1972, or sell shares in the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC) on the Russian
model, issuing transferrable vouchers to the Iraqi population. In Russia, this approach had
very quickly led to the oil sector falling into the hands of a few super-rich oligarchs.
Bush approved the plan drawn up by the Pentagon and State Department in January 2003. The
much-decorated retired lieutenant general Jay Gardner, was appointed director of the Office of
Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the military administration set up to govern
post-Saddam Iraq. Out of his depth, he stuck to short-term measures and avoided choosing
between the options put forward by his technical advisers.
Reassuring the oil giants
The international oil companies were not idle. Lee Raymond, CEO of America's biggest oil
company ExxonMobil, was an old friend of Dick Cheney. But where the politicians were daring, he
was cautious. The project was a tempting opportunity to replenish the company's reserves, which
had been stagnant for several years, but Raymond had doubts: would Bush really be able to
assure conditions that would allow the company to operate safely in Iraq? Nobody at ExxonMobil
was willing to die for oil. (Its well-paid engineers do not dream of life in a blockhouse in
Iraq.) The company would also have to be sure of its legal position: what would contracts
signed by a de facto authority be worth when it would be investing billions of dollars that
would take years to recover?
In the UK, BP was anxious to secure its own share of the spoils. As early as 2002 the
company had confided in the UK Department of Trade and Industry its fears that the US might
give away too much to French, Russian and Chinese oil companies in return for their governments
agreeing not to use their veto at the UN Security Council ( 2 ). In February 2003 those fears were removed:
France's president Jacques Chirac vetoed a resolution put forward by the US, and the third Iraq
war began without UN backing. There was no longer any question of respecting the agreements
Saddam had signed with Total and other companies (which had never been put into practice
because of sanctions).
To reassure the British and US oil giants, the US government appointed to the management
team Gary Vogler of ExxonMobil and Philip J Carrol of Shell. They were replaced in October 2003
by Rob McKee of ConocoPhilips and Terry Adams of BP. The idea was to counter the dominance of
the Pentagon, and the influential neocon approach (which faced opposition from within the
administration). The neocon ideologues, still on the scene, had bizarre ideas: they wanted to
build a pipeline to transport Iraq's crude oil to Israel, dismantle OPEC (Organisation of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries) and even use "liberated" Iraq as a guinea pig for a new oil
business model to be applied to all of the Middle East. The engineers and businessmen, whose
priorities were profits and results, were more down-to-earth.
In any event, the invasion had a devastating impact on Iraq's oil production, less because
of the bombing by the US air force than because of the widespread looting of government
agencies, schools, universities, archives, libraries, banks, hospitals, museums and state-owned
enterprises. Drilling rigs were dismantled for the copper parts they were believed to contain.
The looting continued from March to May 2003. Only a third of the damage to the oil industry
was caused during the invasion; the rest happened after the fighting was over, despite the
presence of the RIO Task Force and the US Corps of Engineers with its 500 contractors,
specially prepared and trained to protect oil installations. Saddam's supporters were prevented
from blowing up the oil wells by the speed of the invasion, but the saboteurs set to work in
June 2003.
Iraq's one real asset
The only buildings protected were the gigantic oil ministry, where 15,000 civil servants
managed 22 subsidiaries of the Iraq National Oil Company. The State Oil Marketing Organisation
and the infrastructure were abandoned. The occupiers regarded the oil under the ground as
Iraq's one real asset. They were not interested in installations or personnel. The oil ministry
was only saved at the last minute because it housed geological and seismic data on Iraq's 80
known deposits, estimated to contain 115bn barrels of crude oil. The rest could always be
replaced with more modern US-made equipment and the knowhow of the international oil companies,
made indispensible by the sabotage.
Thamir Abbas Ghadban, director-general of planning at the oil ministry, turned up at the
office three days after the invasion was over, and, in the absence of a minister for oil (since
Iraq had no government), was appointed second in command under Micheal Mobbs, a neocon who
enjoyed the confidence of the Pentagon. Paul Bremer, the US proconsul who headed Iraq's
provisional government from May 2003 to June 2004, presided over the worst 12 months in the oil
sector in 70 years. Production fell by 1 mbpd -- more than $13bn of lost income.
The oil installations, watched over by 3,500 underequipped guards, suffered 140 sabotage
attacks between May 2003 and September 2004, estimated to have caused $7bn of damage. "There
was widespread looting," said Ghadban. "Equipment was stolen and in most cases the buildings
were set on fire." The Daura refinery, near Baghdad, only received oil intermittently, because
of damage to the pipeline network. "We had to let all the oil in the damaged sections of the
pipeline burn before we could repair them." Yet the refinery continued to operate, no mean
achievement considering that the workers were no longer being paid.
The senior management of the national oil company also suffered. Until 1952 almost all
senior managers of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) were foreigners, who occupied villas in
gated and guarded compounds while the local workforce lived in shantytowns. In 1952 tension
between Iraq and Muhammad Mossadegh's Iran led the IPC to review its relations with Baghdad,
and a clause of the new treaty concerned the training of Iraqi managers. By 1972, 75% of the
thousand skilled jobs were filled by Iraqis, which helped to ensure the success of the IPC's
nationalisation. The new Iraq National Oil Company gained control of the oilfields and
production reached unprecedented levels.
Purge of the Ba'ath
After the invasion, the US purged Ba'athist elements from INOC's management. Simply
belonging to the Ba'ath, Iraq's single political party, which had been in power since 1968, was
grounds for dismissal, compulsory retirement or worse. Seventeen of INOC's 24 directors were
forced out, along with several hundred engineers, who had kept production high through wars and
foreign sanctions. The founding fathers of INOC were ousted by the Deba'athification
Commission, led by former exiles including Iraq's prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who replaced
them with his own supporters, as incompetent as they were partisan.
Rob McKee, who succeeded Philip J Carrol as oil adviser to the US proconsul, observed in
autumn 2003: "The people themselves are patently unqualified and are apparently being placed in
the ministry for religious, political or personal reasons... the people who nursed the industry
through Saddam's years and who brought it back to life after the liberation, as well as many
trained professionals, are all systematically being pushed to the sidelines" ( 3 ).
This purge opened the door to advisers, mostly from the US, who bombarded the oil ministry
with notes, circulars and reports directly inspired by the practices of the international oil
industry, without much concern for their applicability to Iraq.
The drafting of Iraq's new constitution and an oil law provided an opportunity to change the
rules. Washington had decided in advance to do away with the centralised state, partly because
of its crimes against the Kurds under Saddam and partly because centralisation favours
totalitarianism. The new federal, or even confederal, regime was decentralised to the point of
being de-structured. A two-thirds majority in one of the three provinces allows opposition to
veto central government decisions.
Baghdad-Irbil rivalry
Only Kurdistan had the means and the motivation to do so. Where oil was concerned, power was
effectively divided between Baghdad and Irbil, seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG),
which imposed its own interpretation of the constitution: deposits already being exploited
would remain under federal government control, but new licenses would be granted by the
provincial governments. A fierce dispute arose between the two capitals, partly because the KRG
granted licenses to foreign oil companies under far more favourable conditions than those
offered by Baghdad.
The quarrel related to the production sharing agreements. The usual practice is for foreign
companies that provide financial backing to get a share of the oil produced, which can be very
significant in the first few years. This was the formula US politicians and oil companies
wanted to impose. They were unable to do so.
Iraq's parliament, so often criticised in other matters, opposed this system; it was
supported by public opinion, which had not forgotten the former IPC. Tariq Shafiq, founding
father of the INOC, explained to the US Congress the technical reasons for the refusal (
4 ). Iraq's oil deposits
were known and mapped out. There was therefore little risk to foreign companies: there would be
no prospecting costs and exploitation costs would be among the lowest in the world. From 2008
onwards, Baghdad started offering major oil companies far less attractive contracts --
$2/barrel for the bigger oilfields, and no rights to the deposits.
ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, Total, and Russian, Chinese, Angolan, Pakistani and Turkish oil
companies nevertheless rushed to accept, hoping that things would turn to their advantage.
Newsweek (24 May 2010) claimed Iraq had the potential to become "the next Saudi Arabia."
But although production is up (over 3 mbpd in 2012), the oil companies are irritated by the
conditions imposed on them: investment costs are high, profits are mediocre and the oil still
underground is not counted as part of their reserves, which affects their share price.
ExxonMobil and Total disregarded the federal government edict that threatened to strip
rights from oil companies that signed production-sharing agreements relating to oilfields in
Kurdistan. Worse, ExxonMobil sold its services contract relating to Iraq's largest oilfield,
West Qurna, where it had been due to invest $50bn and double the country's current production.
Baghdad is now under pressure: if it continues to refuse the conditions requested by the
foreign oil companies, it will lose out to Irbil, even if Kurdistan's deposits are only a third
of the size of those in the south. Meanwhile, Turkey has done nothing to improve its relations
with Iraq by offering to build a direct pipeline from Kurdistan to the Mediterranean. Without
the war, would the oil companies have been able to make the Iraqis and Kurds compete? One thing
is certain: the US is far from achieving its goals in the oil sector, and in this sense the war
was a failure.
Alan Greenspan, who as chairman of the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 was well placed
to understand the importance of oil, came up with the best summary of the conflict: "I am
saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war
is largely about oil" ( 5
).
"... Like most lefty journalists, I assumed that George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq to buy up its oil fields, cheap and at gun-point, and cart off the oil. We thought we knew the neo-cons true casus belli ..."
"... But the truth in the Options for Iraqi Oil Industry was worse than "Blood for Oil". Much, much worse. The key was in the flow chart on page 15, Iraq Oil Regime Timeline & Scenario Analysis: "...A single state-owned company ...enhances a government's relationship with OPEC." ..."
Because it was marked "confidential" on each page, the oil industry stooge couldn't believe
the US State Department had given me a complete copy of their secret plans for the oil fields
of Iraq.
Actually, the State Department had done no such thing. But my line of bullshit had been so
well-practiced and the set-up on my mark had so thoroughly established my fake identity, that I
almost began to believe my own lies.
I closed in. I said I wanted to make sure she and I were working from the same State
Department draft. Could she tell me the official name, date and number of pages? She did.
Bingo! I'd just beaten the Military-Petroleum Complex in a lying contest, so I had a right
to be chuffed.
After phoning numbers from California to Kazakhstan to trick my mark, my next calls were to
the State Department and Pentagon. Now that I had the specs on the scheme for Iraq's oil --
that State and Defense Department swore, in writing, did not exist -- I told them I'd
appreciate their handing over a copy (no expurgations, please) or there would be a very
embarrassing story on BBC Newsnight .
Within days, our chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, delivered to my shack in the woods
outside New York a 323-page, three-volume programme for Iraq's oil crafted by George Bush's
State Department and petroleum insiders meeting secretly in Houston, Texas.
I cracked open the pile of paper -- and I was blown away.
Like most lefty journalists, I assumed that George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq to
buy up its oil fields, cheap and at gun-point, and cart off the oil. We thought we knew the
neo-cons true casus belli : Blood for oil.
But the truth in the Options for Iraqi Oil Industry was worse than "Blood for Oil".
Much, much worse. The key was in the flow chart on page 15, Iraq Oil Regime Timeline &
Scenario Analysis: "...A single state-owned company ...enhances a government's relationship
with OPEC."
NSC Russia expert freshly appointed Andrew Peek, who was walked out like Vindman,
with him only freshly appointed after Fiona Hill and the Tim Morrioson resigned.
There is a big problems with "experts" in NSC -- often they represent interests of the
particular agency, or a think tank, not that of the country.
Look at former NSC staffer Fiona Hill. She can be called "threat inflation"
specialist.
NSC tries to usurp the role of the State Department and overly militarize the USA
foreign policy, while having much lower class specialists. It is a kind of CIA backdoor
into defining the USA foreign policy.
I would advocate creating "shadow NSC" by the party who is in opposition, so that it
can somehow provide countervailing opinions. But with both parties being now war parties,
this is no that effective.
Cutting NSC staff to the bones, so that such second rate personalities like Fiona Hill
and Vindman are automatically excluded might also help a little bit.
One common explanation is that the NSC mission creep results from the NSC staff
growing too large and the easy solution is to limit the size of the staff. I am
sympathetic to that feeling because we don't want it to
be too large and we don't want it to be usurping things that the State Department or
the Agency should do.
The very same night Elizabeth Warren's big message is "I don't take billionaires' money!"
Liz has the political instincts of Hilary Clinton. Trump will crush her. pic.twitter.com/cM85kcPYUn
The very same night Elizabeth Warren's big message is "I don't take billionaires'
money!" Liz has the political instincts of Hilary Clinton. Trump will crush her. pic.twitter.com/cM85kcPYUn
"... Sanders and Warren have set themselves apart from the field in having the most credible foreign policy visions and the strongest commitments to bringing our many unnecessary wars to an end. Biden remains wedded to too many outdated and unworkable policies, and just on foreign policy alone Bloomberg is running in the wrong party's primary. Buttigieg is the least formally qualified top presidential candidate on the Democratic side, and his inability or unwillingness to answer most of these questions shows that. If the moderators bother to ask them about foreign policy, the candidates will have another opportunity to address these issues in the debate tonight, and Buttigieg won't be able to get away with saying nothing. ..."
Most of the candidates' responses were predictable. Biden's North Korea policy would be
every bit as unrealistic as Trump's, but he shows even less willingness to negotiate.
Bloomberg's positions were unsurprisingly the most hawkish of the bunch. If there was an option
for using force, he was for it. All of the candidates were unfortunately in agreement with
defining Russia as an enemy.
One of the weirder questions asked the candidates whether they would consider using force to
"preempt" a nuclear or missile test by either Iran or North Korea. Only Yang and Warren said
no. It isn't clear how many of them were serious and how many were just making fun of the
absurdity of the question, but it is disturbing that most of the candidates asked about this
would entertain taking military action against another country because of a test. Maybe it
doesn't need to be said because it is so obvious, but using force to stop a nuclear or missile
test is not "preemption" in any sense of the term. A test is not an attack to be preempted, and
taking military action to prevent a test would be nothing less than an unprovoked, illegal act
of aggression. To her credit, Warren recognizes
how dangerous such an attack would be:
No. Using force against a nuclear power or high-risk adversary carries immense risk for
broader conflict. Using force when not necessary can be dangerously counterproductive. Again,
I will only use force if there is a vital national security interest at risk, a strategy with
clear and achievable objectives, and an understanding and acceptance of the long-term
costs.
In general, Warren's answers were the most substantive and careful. She not only answered
the questions that were put to her, but she gave some explanation of why she took that position
and why it was the appropriate thing to do. She correctly rejected Trump's regime change policy
in Venezuela, and acknowledged that "Trump's reckless actions have only further worsened the
suffering of the Venezuelan people." On North Korea, she remained open to continuing direct
talks with Kim Jong-un, but qualified that by saying, "I would be willing to meet with Kim if
it advances substantive negotiations, but not as a vanity project." Her negotiating position
was similarly reasonable: "A pragmatic approach to diplomacy requires give and take on both
sides, not demands that one side unilaterally disarm first." Both Warren and Sanders correctly
criticized Trump for the illegal assassination of Soleimani, and they recognized that the
president's escalation had put Americans at greater risk. When asked about taking military
action against Iran, Warren rejected the idea of a war with Iran and said the following:
I want to end America's wars in the Middle East, not start a new one with Iran. The litmus
test I will use for any military action against Iran is the same that I will use as I
consider any military action anywhere in the world. I will not send our troops into harm's
way unless there is a vital national security interest at risk, a strategy with clear and
achievable objectives, and an understanding and acceptance of the long-term costs. We will
hold ourselves to this by recommitting to a simple idea: the constitutional requirement that
Congress play a primary role in deciding to engage militarily.
The most revealing set of responses came from Pete Buttigieg in that he gave very few
responses and had remarkably little to say about his plans. He failed
to answer most of the questions he was asked. Of the 36 individual questions included in
the 11 sections, he answered only 17 by my count, and many of those were recycled clips from
previous speeches, interviews, and debate statements. Despite leaning heavily on his military
service in Afghanistan in his campaigning, he failed to answer all of the questions asked about
Afghanistan and the U.S. war there. Buttigieg's failure to respond to most of these questions
underscores the former mayor's lack of foreign policy experience and knowledge, and it shows
that after almost a year his campaign still doesn't have their foreign policy worked out.
Sanders and Warren have set themselves apart from the field in having the most credible
foreign policy visions and the strongest commitments to bringing our many unnecessary wars to
an end. Biden remains wedded to too many outdated and unworkable policies, and just on foreign
policy alone Bloomberg is running in the wrong party's primary. Buttigieg is the least formally
qualified top presidential candidate on the Democratic side, and his inability or unwillingness
to answer most of these questions shows that. If the moderators bother to ask them about
foreign policy, the candidates will have another opportunity to address these issues in the
debate tonight, and Buttigieg won't be able to get away with saying nothing.
I don't trust Warren on this, her flimsiness and pandering and propensity to outright lie
remind me too much of Romney (who speak of the devil got a backbone for once this week!).
Bernie is definitely the best bet for a softer foreign policy.
Warren is one of the most honest politicians. Check her Politifact file, she does far
better than even Bernie. Of course neither compares to Trump, his Politifact file is a
Pants on Fire dumpster fire.
The one thing, and it's only one thing, that causes you to say this is the controversy
over her ancestry. But I don't believe she lied, she was raised with the family lore that
she had native ancestry and she believed that family lore.
If I had a dollar for every white midwesterner who told me that they had Native ancenstry,
I wouldn't be typing comments on disqus, that's for sure. My personal internet comment
typer would be doing the typing for me as I dictated from my throne of mammon.
Im not even really disagreeing. Even if she was wrong, I find it wild that these attacks on
her are playing well in Trumpville, since white midwesterners (my people) falsely claiming
Native heritage is a most common genre.
My guess is that after South Carolina it will be Sanders vs. Bloomberg vs. one of the other
more mainstream Dems, either Mayor Pete, Warren (she's been tacking to the mainstream,
right on economics and "left" on wokeness) or Biden, in that order. A fall-off in funding
will knock everyone else out of the race (or a failure to move the voting needle if Steyer
is self-funding).
... Biden's fundraising has fallen off, and it is unlikely major donors are going to send
cash to a candidate who just ran fourth in Iowa and could run fourth or fifth in New
Hampshire.
...Klobuchar is now in the second tier in New Hampshire, behind Sanders and Buttigieg, but
right alongside Biden and Warren. A third-, fourth- or fifth-place finish would be near-fatal
for them all.
...As for Warren, in her battle with Sanders to emerge as the champion of the progressive
wing of the party, her third-place finish in Iowa, and her expected third-place finish in New
Hampshire, at best, would seem to settle that issue for this election.
Uncle Joe's presidential road show may be a bore and a bust, but the upcoming expose of Biden
& Son International, Inc. should provide a dumpster-load of drama and comedy all summer
long. I wonder how many special guest appearances there will be by the Kerrys, the Clintons,
the Obamas and other nice folks Joe knows from DC.
@anon
IMHO, Bloomberg is ... just one year younger than Bernie, so this is his final rodeo too.
...After the Iowa deep state operation, (it was NOT incompetence), it is clear that the
PTB will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to ensure that Socialist Sanders is not the
nominee. Remember, he already has a heart condition. Just sayin'.
The very part-time mayor of South Bend will soon be yesterday's news after South Carolina.
Unlike suburban whites, blacks have too much common sense to vote for a homosexual.
@follyofwar
If it ends up Bloomberg vs Trump what we've got in this country will have transmogrified
further from an oligarchy to a full blown aristocracy–certainly a
plutocracy–where only billionaires can afford to play king. That race won't be Dems vs
GOPers, as both gentlemen have posed as one before switching to the other for simple
expedience. Who will be the veep candidates? A Rockefeller and a Rothschild?
Bootyjudge is just a short, gay and white version of Obama. But he typifies a government
bureaucrat in that he's politically left wing, sexually deviant and hates normal, everyday
Americans especially if their skin is white.
The DNC knows that if Biden were to win the nomination he'll commit so many gaffes, like
burbling about corn pop, his hairy legs and enjoying kids sitting on his lap, among other
things, that Trump would have a field day on Twitter and easily win a second term.
So it's shaping up to be a contest between orange Jebulus vs. anal Pete. By the time the
presidential debates arrive both candidates will be vowing to crush white nationalism and
improve the lives of black and brown people. White people need not apply.
Nevertheless, Trump's cult like almost all white base will cheer madly for a man who
claims to represent them in words only, but almost never in deeds.
"... Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans, but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon. ..."
"... This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps. Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent shape public perception." ..."
"... During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no one really wanted. ..."
"... When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. ..."
"... Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of war." ..."
"... The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam. ..."
"... Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. ..."
The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It
was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of
mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience:
us.
To understand the Iraq war you don't need to consult generals, but the spin doctors and PR
flacks who stage-managed the countdown to war from the murky corridors of Washington where
politics, corporate spin and psy-ops spooks cohabit.
Consider the picaresque journey of Tony Blair's plagiarized dossier on Iraq, from a grad
student's website to a cut-and-paste job in the prime minister's bombastic speech to the House
of Commons. Blair, stubborn and verbose, paid a price for his grandiose puffery. Bush, who
looted whole passages from Blair's speech for his own clumsy presentations, has skated freely
through the tempest. Why?
Unlike Blair, the Bush team never wanted to present a legal case for war. They had no
interest in making any of their allegations about Iraq hold up to a standard of proof. The real
effort was aimed at amping up the mood for war by using the psychology of fear.
Facts were never important to the Bush team. They were disposable nuggets that could be
discarded at will and replaced by whatever new rationale that played favorably with their polls
and focus groups. The war was about weapons of mass destruction one week, al-Qaeda the next.
When neither allegation could be substantiated on the ground, the fall back position became the
mass graves (many from the Iran/Iraq war where the U.S.A. backed Iraq) proving that Saddam was
an evil thug who deserved to be toppled. The motto of the Bush PR machine was: Move on. Don't
explain. Say anything to conceal the perfidy behind the real motives for war. Never look back.
Accuse the questioners of harboring unpatriotic sensibilities. Eventually, even the cagey
Wolfowitz admitted that the official case for war was made mainly to make the invasion
palatable, not to justify it.
The Bush claque of neocon hawks viewed the Iraq war as a product and, just like a new pair
of Nikes, it required a roll-out campaign to soften up the consumers. The same techniques (and
often the same PR gurus) that have been used to hawk cigarettes, SUVs and nuclear waste dumps
were deployed to retail the Iraq war. To peddle the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell
and company recruited public relations gurus into top-level jobs at the Pentagon and the State
Department. These spinmeisters soon had more say over how the rationale for war on Iraq should
be presented than intelligence agencies and career diplomats. If the intelligence didn't fit
the script, it was shaded, retooled or junked.
Take Charlotte Beers whom Powell picked as undersecretary of state in the post-9/11 world.
Beers wasn't a diplomat. She wasn't even a politician. She was a grand diva of spin, known on
the business and gossip pages as "the queen of Madison Avenue." On the strength of two
advertising campaigns, one for Uncle Ben's Rice and another for Head and Shoulder's dandruff
shampoo, Beers rocketed to the top of the heap in the PR world, heading two giant PR houses:
Ogilvy and Mathers as well as J. Walter Thompson.
At the State Department Beers, who had met Powell in 1995 when they both served on the board
of Gulf Airstream, worked at, in Powell's words, "the branding of U.S. foreign policy." She
extracted more than $500 million from Congress for her Brand America campaign, which largely
focused on beaming U.S. propaganda into the Muslim world, much of it directed at teens.
"Public diplomacy is a vital new arm in what will combat terrorism over time," said Beers.
"All of a sudden we are in this position of redefining who America is, not only for ourselves,
but for the outside world." Note the rapt attention Beers pays to the manipulation of
perception, as opposed, say, to alterations of U.S. policy.
Old-fashioned diplomacy involves direct communication between representatives of nations, a
conversational give and take, often fraught with deception (see April Glaspie), but an exchange
nonetheless. Public diplomacy, as defined by Beers, is something else entirely. It's a one-way
street, a unilateral broadcast of American propaganda directly to the public, domestic and
international, a kind of informational carpet-bombing.
The themes of her campaigns were as simplistic and flimsy as a Bush press conference. The
American incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were all about bringing the balm of "freedom" to
oppressed peoples. Hence, the title of the U.S. war: Operation Iraqi Freedom, where cruise
missiles were depicted as instruments of liberation. Bush himself distilled the Beers equation
to its bizarre essence: "This war is about peace."
Beers quietly resigned her post a few weeks before the first volley of tomahawk missiles
battered Baghdad. From her point of view, the war itself was already won, the fireworks of
shock and awe were all after play.
Over at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld drafted Victoria "Torie" Clarke as his director of
public affairs. Clarke knew the ropes inside the Beltway. Before becoming Rumsfeld's
mouthpiece, she had commanded one of the world's great parlors for powerbrokers: Hill and
Knowlton's D.C. office.
Almost immediately upon taking up her new gig, Clarke convened regular meetings with a
select group of Washington's top private PR specialists and lobbyists to develop a marketing
plan for the Pentagon's forthcoming terror wars. The group was filled with heavy-hitters and
was strikingly bipartisan in composition. She called it the Rumsfeld Group and it included PR
executive Sheila Tate, columnist Rich Lowry, and Republican political consultant Rich
Galen.
The brain trust also boasted top Democratic fixer Tommy Boggs, brother of NPR's Cokie
Roberts and son of the late Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana. At the very time Boggs was
conferring with top Pentagon brass on how to frame the war on terror, he was also working
feverishly for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. In 2002 alone, the Saudis paid his Qorvis PR
firm $20.2 million to protect its interests in Washington. In the wake of hostile press
coverage following the exposure of Saudi links to the 9/11 hijackers, the royal family needed
all the well-placed help it could buy. They seem to have gotten their money's worth. Boggs'
felicitous influence-peddling may help to explain why the references to Saudi funding of
al-Qaeda were dropped from the recent congressional report on the investigation into
intelligence failures and 9/11.
According to the trade publication PR Week, the Rumsfeld Group sent "messaging advice" to
the Pentagon. The group told Clarke and Rumsfeld that in order to get the American public to
buy into the war on terrorism, they needed to suggest a link to nation states, not just
nebulous groups such as al-Qaeda. In other words, there needed to be a fixed target for the
military campaigns, some distant place to drop cruise missiles and cluster bombs. They
suggested the notion (already embedded in Rumsfeld's mind) of playing up the notion of
so-called rogue states as the real masters of terrorism. Thus was born the Axis of Evil, which,
of course, wasn't an "axis" at all, since two of the states, Iran and Iraq, hated each other,
and neither had anything at all to do with the third, North Korea.
Tens of millions in federal money were poured into private public relations and media firms
working to craft and broadcast the Bush dictat that Saddam had to be taken out before the Iraqi
dictator blew up the world by dropping chemical and nuclear bombs from long-range drones. Many
of these PR executives and image consultants were old friends of the high priests in the Bush
inner sanctum. Indeed, they were veterans, like Cheney and Powell, of the previous war against
Iraq, another engagement that was more spin than combat .
At the top of the list was John Rendon, head of the D.C. firm, the Rendon Group. Rendon is
one of Washington's heaviest hitters, a Beltway fixer who never let political affiliation stand
in the way of an assignment. Rendon served as a media consultant for Michael Dukakis and Jimmy
Carter, as well as Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Whenever the Pentagon wanted to go to war, he
offered his services at a price. During Desert Storm, Rendon pulled in $100,000 a month from
the Kuwaiti royal family. He followed this up with a $23 million contract from the CIA to
produce anti-Saddam propaganda in the region.
As part of this CIA project, Rendon created and named the Iraqi National Congress and tapped
his friend Ahmed Chalabi, the shady financier, to head the organization.
Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon handed the Rendon Group another big assignment: public
relations for the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. Rendon was also deeply involved in the planning
and public relations for the pre-emptive war on Iraq, though both Rendon and the Pentagon
refuse to disclose the details of the group's work there.
But it's not hard to detect the manipulative hand of Rendon behind many of the Iraq war's
signature events, including the toppling of the Saddam statue (by U.S. troops and Chalabi
associates) and videotape of jubilant Iraqis waving American flags as the Third Infantry rolled
by them. Rendon had pulled off the same stunt in the first Gulf War, handing out American flags
to Kuwaitis and herding the media to the orchestrated demonstration. "Where do you think they
got those American flags?" clucked Rendon in 1991. "That was my assignment."
The Rendon Group may also have had played a role in pushing the phony intelligence that has
now come back to haunt the Bush administration. In December of 2002, Robert Dreyfuss reported
that the inner circle of the Bush White House preferred the intelligence coming from Chalabi
and his associates to that being proffered by analysts at the CIA.
So Rendon and his circle represented a new kind of off-the-shelf PSYOPs , the privatization
of official propaganda. "I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician," said
Rendon. "I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or
corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception
manager."
What exactly, is perception management? The Pentagon defines it this way: "actions to convey
and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their
emotions, motives and objective reasoning." In other words, lying about the intentions of the
U.S. government. In a rare display of public frankness, the Pentagon actually let slip its plan
(developed by Rendon) to establish a high-level den inside the Department Defense for
perception management. They called it the Office of Strategic Influence and among its many
missions was to plant false stories in the press.
Nothing stirs the corporate media into outbursts of pious outrage like an official
government memo bragging about how the media are manipulated for political objectives. So the
New York Times and Washington Post threw indignant fits about the Office of Strategic
Influence; the Pentagon shut down the operation, and the press gloated with satisfaction on its
victory. Yet, Rumsfeld told the Pentagon press corps that while he was killing the office, the
same devious work would continue. "You can have the corpse," said Rumsfeld. "You can have the
name. But I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done. And I have."
At a diplomatic level, despite the hired guns and the planted stories, this image war was
lost. It failed to convince even America's most fervent allies and dependent client states that
Iraq posed much of a threat. It failed to win the blessing of the U.N. and even NATO, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Washington. At the end of the day, the vaunted coalition of the willing
consisted of Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia, and a cohort of former Soviet bloc nations. Even
so, the citizens of the nations that cast their lot with the U.S.A. overwhelmingly opposed the
war.
Domestically, it was a different story. A population traumatized by terror threats and
shattered economy became easy prey for the saturation bombing of the Bush message that Iraq was
a terrorist state linked to al-Qaeda that was only minutes away from launching attacks on
America with weapons of mass destruction.
Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of
threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans,
but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the
American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was
behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the closest Saddam came to possessing a nuke was a rusting gas centrifuge buried
for 13 years in the garden of Mahdi Obeidi, a retired Iraqi scientist. Iraq didn't have any
functional chemical or biological weapons. In fact, it didn't even possess any SCUD missiles,
despite erroneous reports fed by Pentagon PR flacks alleging that it had fired SCUDs into
Kuwait.
This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps.
Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few
weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent
shape public perception."
During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized
opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the
Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no
one really wanted.
What the Pentagon sought was a new kind of living room war, where instead of photos of
mangled soldiers and dead Iraqi kids, they could control the images Americans viewed and to a
large extent the content of the stories. By embedding reporters inside selected divisions,
Clarke believed the Pentagon could count on the reporters to build relationships with the
troops and to feel dependent on them for their own safety. It worked, naturally. One reporter
for a national network trembled on camera that the U.S. Army functioned as "our protectors."
The late David Bloom of NBC confessed on the air that he was willing to do "anything and
everything they can ask of us."
When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the
war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a
fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain
death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. Of course,
nearly every detail of her heroic adventure proved to be as fictive and maudlin as any
made-for-TV-movie. But the ordeal of Private Lynch, which dominated the news for more than a
week, served its purpose: to distract attention from a stalled campaign that was beginning to
look at lot riskier than the American public had been hoodwinked into believing.
The Lynch story was fed to the eager press by a Pentagon operation called Combat Camera, the
Army network of photographers, videographers and editors that sends 800 photos and 25 video
clips a day to the media. The editors at Combat Camera carefully culled the footage to present
the Pentagon's montage of the war, eliding such unsettling images as collateral damage, cluster
bombs, dead children and U.S. soldiers, napalm strikes and disgruntled troops.
"A lot of our imagery will have a big impact on world opinion," predicted Lt. Jane Larogue,
director of Combat Camera in Iraq. She was right. But as the hot war turned into an even hotter
occupation, the Pentagon, despite airy rhetoric from occupation supremo Paul Bremer about
installing democratic institutions such as a free press, moved to tighten its monopoly on the
flow images out of Iraq. First, it tried to shut down Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel. Then
the Pentagon intimated that it would like to see all foreign TV news crews banished from
Baghdad.
Few newspapers fanned the hysteria about the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction as sedulously as did the Washington Post. In the months leading up to the war, the
Post's pro-war op-eds outnumbered the anti-war columns by a 3-to-1 margin.
Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass
destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington
Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of
war."
The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly
attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam.
Anything to punish Iran was the message coming from the White House. Donald Rumsfeld himself
was sent as President Ronald Reagan's personal envoy to Baghdad. Rumsfeld conveyed the bold
message than an Iraq defeat would be viewed as a "strategic setback for the United States."
This sleazy alliance was sealed with a handshake caught on videotape. When CNN reporter Jamie
McIntyre replayed the footage for Rumsfeld in the spring of 2003, the secretary of defense
snapped, "Where'd you get that? Iraqi television?"
The current crop of Iraq hawks also saw Saddam much differently then. Take the writer Laura
Mylroie, sometime colleague of the New York Times' Judy Miller, who persists in peddling the
ludicrous conspiracy that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
How times have changed! In 1987, Mylroie felt downright cuddly toward Saddam. She wrote an
article for the New Republic titled "Back Iraq: Time for a U.S. Tilt in the Mideast," arguing
that the U.S. should publicly embrace Saddam's secular regime as a bulwark against the Islamic
fundamentalists in Iran. The co-author of this mesmerizing weave of wonkery was none other than
Daniel Pipes, perhaps the nation's most bellicose Islamophobe. "The American weapons that Iraq
could make good use of include remotely scatterable and anti-personnel mines and
counterartillery radar," wrote Mylroie and Pipes. "The United States might also consider
upgrading intelligence it is supplying Baghdad."
In the rollout for the war, Mylroie seemed to be everywhere hawking the invasion of Iraq.
She would often appear on two or three different networks in the same day. How did the reporter
manage this feat? She had help in the form of Eleana Benador, the media placement guru who runs
Benador Associates. Born in Peru, Benador parlayed her skills as a linguist into a lucrative
career as media relations whiz for the Washington foreign policy elite. She also oversees the
Middle East Forum, a fanatically pro-Zionist white paper mill. Her clients include some of the
nation's most fervid hawks, including Michael Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, Al Haig, Max Boot,
Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, and Judy Miller. During the Iraq war, Benador's assignment was to
embed this squadron of pro-war zealots into the national media, on talk shows, and op-ed
pages.
Benador not only got them the gigs, she also crafted the theme and made sure they all stayed
on message. "There are some things, you just have to state them in a different way, in a
slightly different way," said Benador. "If not, people get scared." Scared of intentions of
their own government.
It could have been different. All of the holes in the Bush administration's gossamer case
for war were right there for the mainstream press to expose. Instead, the U.S. press, just like
the oil companies, sought to commercialize the Iraq war and profit from the invasions. They
didn't want to deal with uncomfortable facts or present voices of dissent.
Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk
show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a
running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired
generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. The network's executives
blamed the cancellation on sagging ratings. In fact, during its run Donahue's show attracted
more viewers than any other program on the network. The real reason for the pre-emptive strike
on Donahue was spelled out in an internal memo from anxious executives at NBC. Donahue, the
memo said, offered "a difficult face for NBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in
presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's
motives."
The memo warned that Donahue's show risked tarring MSNBC as an unpatriotic network, "a home
for liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every
opportunity." So, with scarcely a second thought, the honchos at MSNBC gave Donahue the boot
and hoisted the battle flag.
It's war that sells.
There's a helluva caveat, of course. Once you buy it, the merchants of war accept no
returns.
"... By Paul Adler, Professor of Management and Organization, Sociology and Environmental Studies, University of Southern California. Originally published at The Conversation ..."
Yves here. I wish Sanders would use even more pointed
messaging, like "socialism for the rich". But for those who complain about Sanders not going
after important targets, this slap back at Dimon, who criticized Sanders and socialism at
Davos, shows that the Vermont Senator is landing punches, but choosing his fights carefully.
And banks are much bigger welfare queens than the public realizes. They get all sorts of
subsidies, from underpriced deposit insurance to Federal guaranteed for most home mortgages to
the Fed operating and backstopping the essential Fedwire system. These subsidies are so great
that banks should not be considered to be private sector entities, yet we let them privatize
their profits and socialize their train wrecks.
As we wrote in 2010 :
More support comes from Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England, who in a March 2010 paper compared the banking
industry to the auto industry, in that they both produced pollutants: for cars, exhaust
fumes; for bank, systemic risk. While economists were claiming that the losses to the US
government on various rescues would be $100 billion (ahem, must have left out Freddie and
Fannie in that tally), it ignores the broader costs (unemployment, business failures, reduced
government services, particularly at the state and municipal level). His calculation of the
world wide costs:
.these losses are multiples of the static costs, lying anywhere between one and five
times annual GDP. Put in money terms, that is an output loss equivalent to between $60
trillion and $200 trillion for the world economy and between £1.8 trillion and
£7.4 trillion for the UK. As Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman observed,
to call these numbers "astronomical" would be to do astronomy a disservice: there are only
hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy. "Economical" might be a better
description.
It is clear that banks would not have deep enough pockets to foot this bill. Assuming
that a crisis occurs every 20 years, the systemic levy needed to recoup these crisis costs
would be in excess of $1.5 trillion per year. The total market capitalisation of the
largest global banks is currently only around $1.2 trillion. Fully internalising the output
costs of financial crises would risk putting banks on the same trajectory as the dinosaurs,
with the levy playing the role of the meteorite.
Yves here. So a banking industry that creates global crises is negative value added from a
societal standpoint. It is purely extractive . Even though we have described its
activities as looting (as in paying themselves so much that they bankrupt the business), the
wider consequences are vastly worse than in textbook looting.
Back to the current post. As to JP Morgan's socialism versus the old USSR's planned economy,
one recent study which I cannot readily find due to the sorry state of Google offered an
important correction to conventional wisdom.
Recall that Soviet Russia initially did perform extremely well, freaking out the capitalist
world by industrializing in a generation. There was ample hand-wringing as to whether a less
disciplined free enterprise system could compete with a command and control economy. Economists
got a seat at the policy table out of the concern that capitalist economies needed expert
guidance to assure that they could produce both guns and butter.
The study concluded that central planning had worked well in Soviet Russia initially, until
the lower-level apparatchiks started gaming the system by feeding bad information so as to make
their performance look better (for instance, setting way too forgiving production targets, or
demanding more resources than they needed). The paper contended that the increasingly poor
information about what was actually happening on the ground considerably undermined the central
planning process. That is not to say there weren't also likely problems with motivation and
overly rigid bureaucracies. But the evolution of modern corporations, of devaluing and ignoring
worker input and treating them like machines that are scored against narrow metrics, looks as
demotivating as the stereotypical Soviet factory.
Finally, this post conflates socialism, which includes New Deal-ish European style social
democracy, with capitalist systems alongside strong social safety nets, which the public
ownership and provision of goods and services. It should be noted that public ownership has
regularly provided services like utilities very effectively.
By Paul Adler, Professor of Management and Organization, Sociology and Environmental
Studies, University of Southern California. Originally published at
The Conversation
With his Dimon ad, Sanders is referring specifically to the bailouts JPMorgan
and other banks took from the government during the 2008 financial crisis. But accepting
government bailouts and corporate welfare is not the only way I believe American companies
behave like closet socialists despite their professed love of free markets.
In reality, most big U.S.
companies operate internally in ways Karl Marx would applaud as remarkably close to
socialist-style central planning. Not only that, corporate America has arguably become a
laboratory of innovation in socialist governance, as I show in
my own research .
Closet Socialists
In public, CEOs like
Dimon attack socialist planning while defending free markets.
But inside JPMorgan and most other big corporations, market competition is subordinated to
planning. These big companies often contain dozens of business units and sometimes thousands.
Instead of letting these units compete among themselves, CEOs typically direct a strategic
planning process to ensure they cooperate to achieve the best outcomes for the corporation
as
a whole .
This is just how a socialist economy is intended to operate. The government would conduct
economy-wide planning and set goals for each industry and enterprise, aiming to achieve the
best outcome for society as a whole.
And just as companies rely internally on planned cooperation to meet goals and overcome
challenges, the U.S. economy could use this harmony to overcome the existential crisis of our
age – climate change. It's a challenge so massive and urgent that it will require
every part of the economy to work together with government in order to address it.
Overcoming Socialism's Past Problems
But, of course, socialism doesn't have a good track record.
One of the reasons socialist planning failed in the old Soviet Union, for example, was that
it was so top-down
that it lacked the kind of popular legitimacy that democracy grants a government. As a result,
bureaucrats overseeing the planning process could not get reliable information about the real
opportunities and challenges experienced by enterprises or citizens.
Moreover, enterprises had little incentive to strive to meet their assigned objectives,
especially when they had so little involvement in formulating them.
A second reason the USSR didn't survive was that its authoritarian system
failed to motivate either workers or entrepreneurs. As a result, even though the government
funded basic science generously, Soviet industry was a laggard in
innovation .
Ironically, corporations – those singular products of capitalism – are showing
how these and other problems of socialist planning can be surmounted.
Take the problem of democratic legitimacy. Some companies, such as
General Electric , Kaiser Permanente
and General Motors ,
have developed innovative ways to avoid the dysfunctions of autocratic planning by using
techniques that enable
lower-level personnel to participate actively in the strategy process.
Although profit pressures often force top managers to short-circuit the promised
participation, when successfully integrated it not only provides top management with more
reliable bottom-up
input for strategic planning but also makes all employees more reliable partners in carrying it out.
So here we have centralization – not in the more familiar, autocratic model, but
rather in a form I call "participative centralization." In a socialist system, this approach
could be adopted, adapted and scaled up to support economy-wide planning, ensuring that it was
both democratic and effective.
As for motivating innovation, America's big businesses face a challenge similar to that of
socialism. They need employees to be collectivist, so they willingly comply with policies and
procedures. But they need them to be simultaneously individualistic, to fuel divergent thinking
and creativity.
One common solution in much of corporate America, as in the old Soviet Union, is to
specialize those roles ,
with most people relegated to routine tasks while the privileged few work on innovation tasks.
That approach, however, overlooks the creative capacities of the vast majority and leads
to widespread employee disengagement and sub-par business performance.
Smarter businesses have found ways to overcome this dilemma by creating cultures and reward
systems that support a synthesis of individualism and collectivism that I call "interdependent
individualism." In my research, I have found this kind of motivation in settings as diverse as
Kaiser Permanent
physicians , assembly-line workers at Toyota's NUMMI
plant and software
developers at Computer Sciences Corp . These companies do this, in part, by rewarding both
individual contributions to the organization's goals as well as collaboration in achieving
them.
While socialists have often recoiled
against the idea individual performance-based rewards, these more sophisticated policies could
be scaled up to the entire economy to help meet socialism's innovation and motivation
challenge.
Big Problems Require Big Government
The idea of such a socialist transformation in the U.S. may seem remote today.
But this can change, particularly as more Americans, especially young ones,
embrace socialism . One reason they are doing so is because the current capitalist system
has so manifestly failed to deal with climate change.
Looking inside these companies suggests a better way forward – and hope for society's
ability to avert catastrophe.
Just to add, as a former bank and buy side lobbyist, the industry is not always opposed to
regulation. It's a barrier to entry.
This post is on the money. Banksters and their clients love corporate welfare and
socialism for the rich, especially when so much of, for example, UK QE "leaked" into asset
bubbles in emerging markets, commodities and real estate.
You are right to say that Sanders should use more pointed language. Like Nina Turner, he
should call out oligarchs. That term is used for Russians and Ukrainians, but never for the
likes of Zuckerberg, Musk, Dimon, Blankfein, Schmidt, Branson, Dyson, Arnault et al. The term
regime should also be used. If it's good enough to delegitimise certain governments, it's
good enough to describe the Trump and Johnson administrations. After all, William Hague in
talks with the US government called the British government the Brown regime.
Feynman and Haldane are mentioned above. It emerged this week that Dominic Cummings,
Johnson's main adviser, is an admirer of both, regarding them as free thinkers and
technicians of substance, and championed Haldane's candidacy to be Bank of England governor.
Johnson sided with Chancellor Sajid Javid.
Sanders should use more pointed language or may be not for the moment. May be after the
Super Tuesday. He is being careful and that is good IMO. He doesn't want to give excuses for
easy attacks. I would say, instead of "socialism for the rich", "socialism for the 1%" or the
0,1% even better. Sounds more neutral. A comment yesterday linked an article comparing
Sanders with Gandhi and others and I think it was well pointed. The quiet and careful
revolution!
Sanders understands (as does Trump), that the 2020 battle is *not* for the 35-40% whose
minds are basically made up at each end. Trying to win those over in any numbers (especially
by shrieking invective at them) is a pathetic waste of time and effort.
The winning message must move the 20-30% of voters who either:
(a) voted Obama (hope, for something more than soothing patter) and then Trump (a giant
stubby middle finger to the establishment).
(b) voted Obama in 2008 but have stayed at home since (what's the point? they're all lying
scum)
Sanders simply doesn't bring socialism to America, because he doesn't have a New Deal
(i.e. SocDem) party. That kind of movement will take time (and the upcoming global
climatolo-economic crisis) to build up, under savage attack from the propertied unterests and
continuously subverted by credentialed PMC weasels and Idpol misleadership grifters.
This last is vitally important, but must also be approached prudently lest the entire
movement lose focus, overextend and fall prey to the next Trump .
IMHO, it must focus ruthlessly on delivering:
(a) single payer health care, to starve (if not incinerate) the bloated ticks gorging on
the US health/elder 'care' . cesspool, I can't bring myself to call it a 'system'. This above
all: without it, Americans simply can't compete in any world, walls and tariffs or not.
(b) *real* infrastructure, for the 80%. That's water and sewerage, cross-class public
housing, and busways and light rail to coax Americans out of their cars and suburbs. It's not
5G, vanity EVs and high speed Acelas. And sorry Keynesians, shovel ready is a side benefit,
not the primary purpose. There's a lot to do.
(c) an overhaul of American higher education (still rooted in 17th century divinity
schools). Teaching (and medicine) must again become honored occupations in the country;
administrators must give way to front line practitioners.
. Only then can Bernie move on to the more deeply embedded and multinational targets:
(a) big finance,
(b) extractive industries
(c) the MIC
These behemoths can really only be attacked during a time of crisis. Or they will simply
crush their opponents like insects, or buy them off.
In the case of the MIC, Berniecrats will likely need to be content with strong reassertion
of Federal oversight (more stick, less carrot), and disengagement from doing our 'allies'
dirty work (Trump is already on that road, with one huge Ixception .)
Total dismantlement sounds very nice, but consider: whatever's left of US industrial power
is concentrated in the MIC. America doesn't need to 'buy prosperity down at the armoury', but
like FDR, Bernie and (Tulsi) will also need to have the keels laid down against whatever
whirlwind we have reaped. Baring our breast and saying 'we deserve destruction for our sins'
is a fatuous open invitation to fascism. FDR knew better.
Paul Adler's post here reminds me of John Kenneth Galbraith's New Industrial State, except
Professor Adler was referring to the financial (i.e. parasitical) sector of the economy. Am I
off the mark in thinking this?
You're right on. Galbraith showed that planning comes naturally from very large projects.
Soviets went to planning because they couldn't bet the entire national economy on some gut
feeling -- they needed to know what would happen. Ditto the gigantic industries in what JKG
called the Planning Sector in the west. Projects spending millions or billions of dollars
over many years couldn't be left to chance. Eliminating chance meant imposing control, which
the gigantic industries could try to do, helped by their access to gigantic capital, and
which the Soviets had done with State power.
IMHO the modern FIRE sector arose from the old Planning Sector. They eliminated the
uncertainties that complicated their planning; they cut their ties with physical processes
that brought those uncertainties; they dumped physical industries onto throwaway economies
overseas (that could be abandoned if they failed); they finally became pure businesses that
dealt only with nice, clean contracts. No muss, no fuss, no bother.
So planning is a tool of any organization, yet is required more the larger it becomes?
While planning may make sense for a company with a single product such as automobiles, does
it make sense for a conglomerate? I mean I think the purpose of a conglomerate is to contain
many diverse product sectors to reduce risk of the conglomerate as a whole to any one sector.
In that way each sector does its own planning, but the conglomerate as a whole does not,
apart from choosing which companies to buy and sell, which can be considered a different type
of planning? In that way are the goals of society planning are different from the goals of
conglomerate planning or that of smaller single product sector companies? Yet in spite of
these differences the techniques of planning are the same? Is that the main point of Alder's
article? Can someone explain please.
If you surf around a bit you can find links to Bernie's views and support of worker
co-ops. There is nothing on his website. In light the burgeoning Socialist smear tsunami, it
is probably not something he wants to emphasize right now. Imagine someone getting up at a
CNN Town Hall and asking him about his attitude towards worker cooperatives. (corporate heads
explode on golf-courses all over America)
Modern theses about leadership, expertise and management underline agile learning and self
leadership to everyone himself and within team and then within larger entities. While I'm
somewhat pessimistic about these corporate trends they still look like they would work much
better with worker co-ops than in traditional top down owned corporations. Basically they are
asking higher dedication from workers, but this only works really well if the profits are
shared with workers in somewhat equitable manner in my opinion.
Also it seems common nowadays that many coding/programming companies, especially the
highly productive ones seem to act more akin to co-ops than monolithically led traditional
companies. The programmers are often engaged more to the company by giving or selling them
shares, and if this happens in large scale the company ownership structure can skew more
towards worker owned 'co-op'-like entity than more hierarchical traditional company, where
owners and workers are usually clearly separated.
Be nice if one could have posted the Forbes 400 but, listed next to each entry, is the
amount of money that they receive from the Federal government both directly and
indirectly.
Yves here. So a banking industry that creates global crises is negative value added
from a societal standpoint. It is purely extractive. [bold in the original]
Which leads to this obvious question: Why should banks be privileged, explicitly or
implicitly, in any way then?
E.g. why should we have only a SINGLE payment system (besides grubby physical fiat, paper
bills and coins) that recklessly combines what should be inherently risk-free deposits with
the inherently at-risk deposits the banks themselves create? I.e. why should a government
privileged usury cartel hold the entire economy hostage?
If you mean "why" in the moral sense, which I believe you do, there is no answer.
If you mean why in the technical sense, examine this sentence:
>why should a government privileged usury cartel
It's not "government privileged", it owns the government. Anything the government is
allowed to do outside of making Jamie Dimon et al richer are considered the actual privileges
by this group, and can, will and have been retracted at will.
If the banks cognitively "own" the government, it's because almost everyone believes TINA
to government privileges for them.
This is disgracefully true of the big names of MMT, who should be working on HOW to
abolish those privileges, not ignore or, in the case of Warren Mosler at least, INCREASE*
them.
*e.g. unlimited, unsecured loans from the Central Bank to banks at ZERO percent.
That neither extreme, capitalism or socialism, works, and that what is best for human
society is some middle ground between the two is a very important message. So I'm very glad
for this post. I realize that a black and white way of perceiving the world is an easy one.
Yet as Alder points out, humans are both individuals and social beings. If people in this
world could get back to thinking more like Ancient Greece in its appreciation for the golden
mean, we would have a much better chance of surviving. Dispensing with all these useless
socialism vs capitalism discussions would be a great time saver. I realize most people
believe in some middle ground, yet making it explicit would simplify things quite a bit. As
for the rest of the article, I need to think about it more. The corporate socialism idea does
tie in with the link yesterday about limited liability.
>That neither extreme, capitalism or socialism, works,
Exactly! Because: There. Is. No. Economic. Equilibrium. Never was, never will be, anywhere
and everywhere. Heck for billions of years, before humans existed let alone learned to talk,
the world changed. Things developed, other things went extinct (although not in the
heart-wrenching way of the Anthropocene, I personally am happy never to have met a T. Rex in
truth), the way the world works even without us is continual change.
So adjust as necessary. Our healthcare system sucks, bring full bore socialism on it. Our
corporate overlords suck, bring full bore free markets (kill patents to start) on them.
You might want to re-think the "kill patents" idea. Our Founders liked them. I just had a
patent "killed" by an examiner who "killed" 42 of 43 patents he examined. It was for a device
which could be saving Corona/Flu victims Right Now. I am going to try to Donate the idea to
Society, but preventing people from profiting from valid Novel ideas is not the solution. I
realize Corporations abuse the Patent System, like every other thing they touch. But I am a
low level individual who is trying to "innovate" and reduce illness. My main motivation was
not monetary but it is always a factor.
I believe you have the wrong target on this issue.
My first rejection on a related patent was just received 2.5 years after initial filing. It
took this long because the Govt. takes money from USPTO (which runs a surplus) and sends it
to the General Fund. USA innovation friendly? Not the way I see it.
"But for those who complain about Sanders not going after important targets "
Consider the wisdom of Susan Webber:
"Wisdom of the CEO is comprimised work. These CEOs "know" that too much candor,
either individually or institutionally, is not a pro-survival strategy."
I think the comparison of banks to welfare queens is quite unfair.
To welfare queens, that is.
Assuming they exist outside of the sweaty PR fantasies of those of a certain political
stripe, presumably even a welfare queen is not living 100% off of the munificence of the
state, whereas the implied value of the "Too Big To Fail" guaranty subsidy was determined to
be very nearly in the same amount as the annual profits of the recipient banks. In other
words, they're complete wards of the state. Doesn't get much more socialistic than that.
Thank you, Yves for this post. Alder has very logical and accessible ideas.
"Interdependent Individualism" is a good way to begin. When he says "socialists recoil
against individual performance-based rewards" I can't help but think the rewards should be
gifted from the workers to the bosses. Because that would be very change-promoting. Top down
has a tendency to stagnate motivation – even offensively – like tossing them a
few crumbs to keep them quiet. imo. This also really does sound Japanese. I'm not sure I can
relate to the way they cooperate; from them there is not so much as a polite argument;
certainly no sarcastic barbs. Americans are the exact opposite – we cooperate
competitively in a sense. But Climate Change will dictate our direction regardless of
decorum. My own sense of our dilemma is that "free market" corporations make their profits by
extracting from labor and the exploitation of the environment, and by externalizing costs to
society. Big disconnect. Huge, in fact. This is why "capitalism" has failed to address
climate change. Anybody else notice that China has forbidden short selling as we speak? Just
like the Fed did in 2009 with QE, etc. That's probably because if the economy crashes
(regardless of how illogical it has become) it will take way too long to put back together.
And there's work to be done. I remember Randy Wray dryly responding to Jacobin's criticism
(of MMT) that the ideological socialists would rather see a bloody Marxist uprising than a
peaceful evolution. I do think Wray is right on ideological blinders on both sides. One
quibble I have with this very wise post is that it assumes (I think) that we cannot change
our ways fast enough to mobilize adequately to address climate change. I think we've been
doing it pretty aggressively since 2009. Literally a world war to control oil and maintain
financial supremacy; serious consideration of our options by the political class (turning to
MMT, etc.); slamming the breaks on trade and manufacturing; subsidizing essential industries.
I'm sure there are other things going on under the radar. So I wouldn't discount our ability
to mobilize – just our inability to admit it. Clearly we want to do things
selectively.
>the Vermont Senator is landing punches, but choosing his fights carefully.
Yes, as Objective Function laid out nicely (funny word for this mess, but whatever) above
– this isn't gonna be easy. If you hope to beat Mike Tyson in his prime, you don't
start by trading heavy blows. Defeat him with small but continuous cuts from multiple
directions.
" senior leaders of three of the largest and most elite U.S. banks were serial criminals
whose frauds are (we pray) without equal." -- William K. Black
Wallstreet on parade website does great job laying out JPM's crime spree. They (JPM) just
came off parole(?) in January on some Felony charges. Someone (Eliz. Warren?) might start a
movement to prohibit public pensions / State and local Govts. from conducting business with
any banks convicted of felonies or entering plea agreements more than, let's say, ten per
year.
A convicted felon can not get a job at a bank run by a 22 times loser- Jamie Dimon, a fellow
felon who should have some empathy.
Wallstreet on parade is one of few sites who discuss Citi's crimes, and the fact that the
Federal Reserve tried to cover up (and succeeded until about 2012) the secret 2.5 TRILLIION
in revolving loans provided to a bankrupt Citibank around 2009. This in addition to the
hundreds of billions we did know about.
I do tend to harp on this because the felon Robert Rubin cost me about 500K in expired Put
options on shittybank because of his blatant, felonious (per FCIC) lies right before the
implosion. His referral for prosecution by the Financial Crises Inquiry Commission
mysteriously withered away
Bezos held a party in DC recently at his place attended by top officials from the Trump
Administration. Jared Kushner was there before. They hang out together.
How odd that Bezos is somehow portrayed as some anti-Trump owner of WaPo. Bezos serves his
role in Beltway...
When emotion rules the day facts do not matter. Sadly, that is the reality we confront when
it comes to talking about Iran and terrorism. The U.S. Government and almost all of the media
continue to declare that Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism. That is not true. That is a
lie. I realize that calling this assertion a lie opens me to accusations of being an apologist
for Iran. But simply look at the facts.
Iran remains the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism. The regime has spent nearly one
billion dollars per year to support terrorist groups that serve as its proxies and expand its
malign influence across the globe. Tehran has funded international terrorist groups such as
Hizballah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It also has engaged in its own terrorist
plotting around the world, particularly in Europe. In January, German authorities investigated
10 suspected Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force operatives. In the summer,
authorities in Belgium, France, and Germany thwarted an Iranian plot to bomb a political rally
near Paris, France. In October, an Iranian operative was arrested for planning an assassination
in Denmark, and in December, Albania expelled two Iranian officials for plotting terrorist
attacks. Furthermore, Tehran continued to allow an AQ facilitation network to operate in Iran,
which sends fighters and money to conflict zones in Afghanistan and Syria, and it has extended
sanctuary to AQ members residing in the country.
You notice what is absent? A list of specific attacks that caused actual casualties. Plans
and plots are not the same as actions. If Iran's malevolent influence was so powerful, we
should be able to point to specific attacks and specific casualties. But you will not find
those facts in the U.S. State Department report because they do not exist. The statistical
annex that details the attacks and the groups responsible reports the following:
The Taliban was responsible for 8,509 deaths and 4,943 injuries, about 25 percent of the
total casualties attributed to terrorism globally in 2018. With 647 terrorist attacks, ISIS was
the next-most-active terrorist organization, responsible for 3,585 fatalities and 1,761
injuries. Having conducted 535 attacks, al-Shabaab was responsible for 2,062 deaths and 1,278
injuries. Boko Haram was among the top-five terrorist perpetrators, with 220 incidents, 1,311
deaths, and 927 injuries. It should be noted that local sources do not always differentiate
between Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.
Not a single group linked to Iran or supported by Iran is identified. Look at the this table
from the statistical annex:
No Hezbollah and no Hamas. If a country is going to "sponsor" terrorism then we should
expect to see terrorist attacks. The attacks that are taking place are predominantly from Sunni
affiliated groups that have ties to Saudi Arabia, not Iran.
The State Department's explanation about Iranian support for terrorism exposes what the real
issue is (I am quoting the 2016 report but, if you
read the 2017 or 2018
versions there is no significant difference):
Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its terrorist-related
activity in 2016, including support for Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and
various groups in Syria, Iraq, and throughout the Middle East. Iran used the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps‑Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to implement foreign policy goals, provide
cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. Iran has
acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria and the IRGC-QF
is Iran's primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.
In 2016, Iran supported various Iraqi Shia terrorist groups, including Kata'ib Hizballah, as
part of an effort to fight ISIS in Iraq and bolster the Assad regime in Syria. Iran views the
Assad regime in Syria as a crucial ally and Syria and Iraq as crucial routes to supply weapons
to Hizballah, Iran's primary terrorist partner. Iran has facilitated and coerced, through
financial or residency enticements, primarily Shia fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to
participate in the Assad regime's brutal crackdown in Syria. Iranian-supported Shia militias in
Iraq have committed serious human rights abuses against primarily Sunni civilians and Iranian
forces have directly backed militia operations in Syria with armored vehicles, artillery, and
drones.
The United States is upset with Iran because it has thwarted the U.S. covert action in
Syria. It was the United States, along with the U.K., Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that helped
ignite and escalate the civil war in Syria. Why? The Saudis and the Israelis were growing
increasingly concerned in 2011 about Iran's spreading influence in the region. And what enabled
Iran to do that? We did. When the United States removed Saddam Hussein and destroyed the
Baathist movement in Iraq, the Bush Administration thought it was a dandy idea to install Iraqi
Shia in positions of leadership. Not one of the key policymakers on the U.S. side of the
equation expressed any qualms about the fact that these Iraqi politicians and military
personnel had longstanding relationships with Iran, which included financial support.
Iran also had a longstanding relationship with Syria. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
decided that if we could eliminate Bashir Assad, the Syrian leader, then we would weaken Iran.
This was a policy that many Republicans, most notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham,
supported. But the scheme to weaken Iran backfired. Iran, along with Russia, came to the aid of
the Government of Syria in full blown counter-insurgency campaign. Iran, the Russians and the
Syrian Government were fighting radical Sunni islamists, many of whom were funded by the
Western alliance.
Iran's military support for the Government of Syria clearly rankles U.S. policymakers, but
it is not "terrorism." It is pure counter insurgency.
Wikipedia offers additional evidence about the true nature of international terrorism. I
have reviewed the lists of incidents, which includes the description of the attacks, the
perpetrators and the number of casualties for 2016-2018. I have only been able to put the 2016
incidents into a spreadsheet. Here are the actual facts.
In 2016 there were seven terrorist attacks that caused at least 100 casualties. All were
attributed to ISIL aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Not one was linked to Iran
or any group receiving financial support from Iran. There were a total of 1753 terrorist
attacks and at least 15,993 deaths during 2016.
Here is the monthly breakdown for 2016:
January -- 105
terrorist attacks that caused the deaths of at least 1,351 people. There were no attacks linked
to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah. The seven attacks in Israel that left 7 dead were
ascribed to a "Palestinian" lone-wolf.
February -- 72
attacks that left 1075 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah. There were seven attacks and 3 dead attributed to "lone-wolf" Palestinians.
March -- 112
attacks leaving at least 778 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah. There were 13 attacks in Israel identified as "lone-wolf" Palestinian. No
significant Israeli casualties.
April -- 152
attacks that caused at least 1012 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib
Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
May -- 202 attacks
leaving at least 1600 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah.
June -- 187
attacks and at least 1693 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas
or Hezbollah.
July -- 187
attacks with at least 1684 deaths. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or
Hezbollah.
August -- 139
terrorist attacks resulting in 1224 dead. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah,
Hamas or Hezbollah.
September --
128 terrorist attacks, which caused at least 849 fatalities. There were no attacks linked to
Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
October -- 166
terrorist attacks and at least 2139 deaths. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib Hizballah,
Hamas or Hezbollah.
November --
153 terrorist attacks that killed at least 1446. There were no attacks linked to Kata'ib
Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
December --
147 terrorist attacks, which resulted in at least 930 deaths. There were no attacks linked to
Kata'ib Hizballah, Hamas or Hezbollah.
The U.S. State Department continues to insist that Iran is providing indirect support to Al
Qaeda. That is pure nonsense. Iran is fighting and killing Al Qaeda forces inside Syria. They
have no ideological affinity with Al Qaeda.
I wish the American people would take the time to be educated about the actual nature and
extent of "international terrorism." There was a time in the 1980s when Iran was very active in
using terrorism as weapon to attack U.S. military and diplomatic targets. But even those
attacks were focused in areas where Iran's perceived national interests were at stake. I am not
excusing nor endorsing their actions. But I do think we need to understand that terrorism
usually has a context. It is not the actions of a mentally ill person who is angry and lashing
out at the nearest available target. Those attacks were planned and very calculated.
The real issue that we should be focused on is whether or not we can halt the expansion of
Iran's influence in the Middle East. This remains a major concern for Israel and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. policymakers are betting that isolating Iran diplomatically, ratcheting up economic
pressure and using some military power will somehow energize the regime opposition and lead to
the overthrow of the Mullahs. We tried that same policy with Cuba. It did not work there and
will not likely work now in Iran.
Iran has options and is pursuing them aggressively. China and Russia, who are facing their
own bullying from the United States, already are helping Iran tweak the the nose of the Trump
Administration. In late December 2019, Iran, Russia and China carried out a joint military
exercise . The Iranians were very clear about their view of this cooperation:
"The most important achievement of these drills . . . is this
message that the Islamic republic of Iran cannot be isolated," vice-admiral Gholamreza Tahani,
a deputy naval commander, said. "These exercises show that relations between Iran, Russia and
China have reached a new high level while this trend will continue in the coming years."
The Trump Administration needs to stop with its infantile ranting and railing about Iran and
terrorism. The actual issues surrounding Iran's growing influence in the region have little to
do with terrorism. Our policies and actions towards Iran are accelerating their cooperation
with China and Russia, not diminishing it. I do not think that serves the longterm interests of
the United States or our allies in the Middle East.
Iraq & Russia Look To Boost Military Ties While US Threatens Sanctions by
Tyler Durden Fri,
02/07/2020 - 19:45 0 SHARES In more continuing fallout over the Jan.3 assassination by drone of
the IRGC's Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iraq and Russia are preparing for deepening military
coordination , reports the AP .
Iraq's Defense Ministry announced Thursday that increased "cooperation and coordination" is
being discussed with Moscow amid worsened relations with Washington, which even last month
included President Trump issuing brazen
threats of "very big" sanctions on Baghdad if American troops are kicked out of the
country.
This week Iraqi army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Othman Al-Ghanimi and Russian Ambassador Maksim
Maksimov met to discuss future military cooperation. Crucially, Gen. Ghanimi highlighted
Russia's successful anti-ISIS operations over the past years , especially in Syria where the
Russian military has supported Assad since being invited there in 2015.
On Russia's role in Iraq, Ghanimi said Moscow had provided "our armed forces with
advanced and effective equipment and weapons that had a major role in resolving many battles,"
according to the ministry statement.
It's been long rumored that since late summer Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to
deliver either Russia's advanced S-400 or S-300 anti-air missile defense systems - a prospect
which US officials have condemned.
Like other areas of the Middle East, as US adventurism heightens pressure for a US
withdrawal, Russia appears to be seizing the opportunity to move in. This much was affirmed in
AP's reporting, via at least one anonymous senior official :
A senior Iraqi military intelligence official told The Associated Press that Russia, among
other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of fraught US.-Iraq
relations following Soleimani's killing .
"Iraq still needs aerial reconnaissance planes. There are countries that have given
signals to Iraq to support us or equip us with reconnaissance planes such as Russia and
Iran," said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the
information.
Many military analysts have of late noted that the "blowback" from the incredibly risky
operation which killed Soleimani will be a hastening of American forces' exit from the
region.
It could also actually serve to increase Baghdad's dependency on Iran - something which
appears to be already in the works. And now we have confirmation that Moscow will seek to
benefit as well from the worsened US-Iraq relations, certainly now at the lowest point since
the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government. Tags Politics War Conflict
At last! After a full week of playing coy... about delivering any further bad newz from
the muddled east which might further demolish the spirits of our local lovers of spirit
cookin, 'death to amerika' shoutin jihadi huggin regimes
our fearless ferret newz aggregator have delivered us something to chew on.. and spit out!
What febrile gems of crude agitprop await the wondering gaze of the gallery? How bout...
Russia, among other countries, has come forward to offer military support in the wake of
fraught US.-Iraq relations following Soleimani's killing .
as a clear example of the genre of laughable attacks upon common sense and truth in
media... faculties which - when employed - direct our attention to some simple facts curious
scrubbed from this whitewash with which "white hat" superhero Russkies... trundle around the
globe delivering toyz that made loud noise... to downtrodden 'strongman' regimes
as mere tokens of friendly 'solidarity fo'ever or whatever. Simple facts... such as...
due to an unfortunate episode in fellow neo-Bolshevik statecapitalist paradise Sinostan...
the neo-Bolshie paradise on the Muscovy is facing a collapse of its bread earner gas n oil
sales... such that the only thing tween it and yet abother state bankruptcy... is the
burgeoning Russian armaments industry! Selling guns and munitions to downtrodden strongman
regimes is the last best hope it seems... for a Russia foiled at every turn by Urusalems
steady burnnnn
and with a neo-mercantilist flourish which it has clearly learned... from watching the
chinks perform their 'resource extractive' shakedown ... of shaky regimes around the
world.... Moscow now seeks to extract from cash poor states which need guns with which to
threaten either their own citizens, or those of neighboring states..
UUUGE concessions in the form of .... diamonds, metals, petroleum resources... or
strategic real estate... in return for its deadly 'product line!' All of which is 'totally
fine'... if you read tween lines...
so that ...WHEN EVIL CHABADDY talmudic GANGSTERS living in the wester world... peddle
their wares of weaponry to weirdo regimes.... THAT IS .... A BAD THANG!
BUT butt... when evil chabbaddy talmudic oilygarch GANGTAS WITH RUSSKY PASSPORTS do the
peddlin.... with the approval of the Kremlin puppet regime...
its all GOOD!
HE HE HEH... WHO really buys into this ******** anyhoo? Only an echo chamber o tiresome
russo-talmudic trolls workin the board nite n day!
America is far from a Christian nation. No nation that murders babies for body parts is a
Christian nation (yes abortion funded by the government and the part being sold). America
will feel the rather of God for that.
Those helicopters just look like junk--total pieces of ****. I know two guys who saw them
up close and personal--not even as advanced inside as US gear in the late '60s.
Too bad your state of da art militrary couldn't take down goat herders in Afghanistan
after 20 years. The Russians at least pulled out after 10 years. Does that mean America is
doubly stoopid?
Don't kid yourself. Putin is smart, probably the smartest leader out there. But what
motivates him are the best interests of Russia. He doesn't care much about Friendships, not
with Iran, not with Syria or Israel...
...certainly now at the lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a
new government.
U.S meddling and regime change- nothing new.
Besides- anyone buying Russian military equipment will get much more 'bang for their buck'
compared to over-priced, failure ridden U.S (((M.I.C))) crap.
Baghdad and Moscow have been in talks to deliver either Russia's advanced S-400 or S-300
anti-air missile defense systems
I don't think those systems are that advanced. Both are quite old. I'm sure US (and
Israel) have the means to jam and neutralize both those system, about the same as the
Israelis evade the whole Syrian air defense system.
"Lowest point since the 2003 invasion and US attempt to build a new government."
There's the problem right there, the JUSA thinks "their type of Government" has to be
accepted by Iraqi's. This is why amongst countless other thing Iraqi's have had it with the
JUSA.
Russia can't sail past or through Turkey while also being at war with them, which is what
they are going to have to do if they want to stop Turkey from taking Syrian (then Iraqi, then
Kuwaiti, then Saudi) oil fields, in the absence of a US presence in the region.
Putin suks as much Netanyahu dik as Trump. And the dum arz Christians in Russia, much like
US Christians dont give a faq!! Christians have been ignorant sheep to dictators for 2000
years!
...except the Russians are not complete morons to let themselves get screwed like the US.
Just ask the people of Venezuela how Russia has 'saved' their country.
no single military in the world can beat the usa military but a coalition of many of them
will kick zionazi ***. putin is building a real coalition of the willing to counter the dying
zionazi empire.
A great many awakening people continue to be in thrall to the cult of personality that's
been built around Vladimir Putin. They have passively and uncritically accepted the endless
barrage of Putin-worshiping propaganda put out by sellouts in the alternative media, and they
have not bothered to look into things for themselves. If you are one of these people, take a
moment to set down emotionally-held beliefs and open your mind.
1. Russia, unlike the U.S, is building a lot of civilian industries and Putin recently
asked his military factories to adjust to other civilian industries and requirements- The U.S
is going in the opposite direction.
2. This is already happening- other countries have seen how loyal Russia has been to their
promises to the Assad government. The U.S turns on a dime as is convenient in any given
week.
3. To the frustration of the axis of evil (US-Saudi-Occupied Palestine) this has been
Russians biggest success to date.
I have always wondered why the world that is being sanctioned does not hack and attack the
US financial system more. Maybe just a matter of time. You cant tell me that Malta, The
Caymans, Panama and others are not vulnerable!
That's coming. First they had to build their own system. Destroying the Anglo-American
financial system without an alternative is like cutting off your air supply while 200 feet
underwater.
Yes, indeed. Why WOULDN'T the Iraqis seek relations with ANY country outside the sphere of
their destroyers to bond with? The Iraqi people, though "primitive" by our standards, are
still human beings with as much right to grow, develop and live as we zombies of Zionism in
the once noble West. We, of course, will be propagandized to the contrary. They will be shown
as "terrorists" or "Russiaphiles" if they dare to resist the mantle of tyranny imposed on
them by the Israeli/U.S. forces.
If USA imposes sanctions on too many countries, then USA will end up sanctioning
itself.
Iraq is now producing close to 5 million barrels of oil a day, most of which is for
export. If USA sanctions this oil production and sale, then some countries will need to
choose between paying sky high prices for oil, or pay for Iraqi oil in alternative currencies
and ignore US sanctions.
5 million barrels of oil a day even Saudi Arabia doesn't have the capacity to replace.
And if alternative currencies become popular for buying and selling oil, then US ability
to run trade deficits and budget deficits will be curtailed by declining US dollar and higher
interest rates for borrowing in US dollars in international markets.
It should be clear on what the fight is really about in the US. It's about stopping the rise
of socialism. Regardless of party affiliation, the elites know what the populace wants and
are desperately trying to stop it. I refuse to accept that the Democrats have no idea what
they're doing.
I honestly can't see Sanders getting the nomination with all the corruption openly being
displayed. I would be pleasantly surprised if Sanders did manage to get it, but he still have
to deal with the ELECTORAL COLLEGE (EC). The Electors have the final say. Yes, one can point
out that some States have laws forcing Electors to vote what the populace wants, but that is
being challenged in court. The debate on whether such laws are unconstitutional or not,
remains to be seen. It's too late now to deal with the EC for this election, but people need
to be more active in politics at the State level as that's where Electors are (s)elected.
IF Sanders is genuine then he should prepare to run as an independent just to get the EC
attention.
RR @ 14;
Everything in the U$A today, is driven by the unofficial Party of $, and it's reach
transcends both Dems & repubs. It's cadre is the majority of the D.C. "rule makers", so
we get what they want, not what "we the people" want or need.
They own the banks, MSM media, and even our voting systems.
IMO, to assume one party is to blame for conditions in the U$A is a bit naive.
Question is, can anything the masses do, change the system? Or is rank and file America
just along for the ride?
I'm assuming us peons will get what the party of $ wants this November also.
P.S. If any blame is given, it needs to go to the American public, because " you get the
kind of Gov. you deserve" through your inactions...
It's a lot like living, death is certain, but until that occurs, I'll move forward trying
to mitigate current paradigms.
As for being to the left of Clinton, so was Benito Mussolini. I don't see that as a
meaningful description.
Posted by: William Gruff | Feb 6 2020 21:38 utc | 76
Spinner for the new / coming fascist order Mr. Gruff?
Clinton and trump may be competing for the Title of who is the greatest example of
Mussolini's fascist doctrine, but Clinton isn't in the White House. Trump's posture at his
rallies, the essence of said rallies, the message delivered at said rallies, his subservience
to far right dictator ideology, all scream Mussolini wannabe working the disgruntled crowd
who need a Messiah to lead them to the next level of the American dream, that ain't gonna
happen.
America's rich love them the labor of po folk in foreign lands and trump is nothing more
than a Judas Goat.
There is a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those
they serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are
based on faulty inputs. Needless to say it's even worse when they believe they can
create their own reality and invent outcomes out of whole cloth.
Things seldom go as planned in these circumstances.
President Trump was sold a bill of goods on the assassination of Iran's
revered military leader, Qassim Soleimani, likely by a cabal around Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo and the
long-discredited neocon David Wurmser. A former Netanyahu advisor and Iraq war
propagandist, Wurmser reportedly sent memos to his mentor, John Bolton, while Bolton was
Trump's National Security Advisor (now, of course, he's the hero of the #resistance for having
turned on his former boss) promising that killing Soleimani would be a cost-free operation that
would catalyze the Iranian people against their government and bring about the long-awaited
regime change in that country. The murder of Soleimani – the architect of the defeat of
ISIS – would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them
upon which the [Iranian] regime depends for stability and survival," wrote Wurmser.
As is most often the case with neocons, he was dead wrong.
The operation was not cost-free. On the contrary. Assassinating Soleimani on Iraqi soil
resulted in the Iraqi parliament – itself the product of our "bringing democracy" to the
country – voting to expel US forces even as the vote by the people's representatives was
roundly rejected by the people who brought the people the people's representatives. In a manner
of speaking.
Trump's move had an effect opposite to the one promised by neocons. It did not bring
Iranians out to the street to overthrow their government – it catalyzed opposition across
Iraq's various political and religious factions to the continued US military presence and
further tightened Iraq's relationship with Iran. And short of what would be a catastrophic war
initiated by the US (with little or no support from allies), there is not a thing Trump can do
about it.
Iran's retaliatory attack on two US bases in Iraq was initially sold by President Trump as
merely a pin-prick. No harm, no foul, no injuries. This despite the fact that he must have
known about US personnel injured in the attack. The reason for the lie was that Trump likely
understands how devastating it would be to his presidency to escalate with Iran. So the truth
began to trickle out slowly – 11 US military members were injured, but it was just "like
a headache." Now we know that 50 US troops were treated for traumatic brain injury after the
attack. This may not be the last of it – but don't count on the mainstream media to do
any reporting.
The Iranian FARS news agency reported at the time of the attack that US personnel had been
injured and the response by the US government was to completely take that media outlet off the
Internet
by order of the US Treasury !
Last week the US House
voted to cancel the 2002 authorization for war on Iraq and to prohibit the use of funds for
war on Iran without Congressional authorization. It is a significant, if largely symbolic, move
to rein in the oft-used excuse of the Iraq war authorization for blatantly unrelated actions
like the assassination of Soleimani and Obama's
thousands of airstrikes on Syria and Iraq .
President Trump has argued that prohibiting funds for military action against Iran actually
makes war more likely, as he would be restricted from the kinds of
military-strikes-short-of-war like his attack on Syria after the alleged chemical attack in
Douma in 2018 (claims which have recently
fallen apart ). The logic is faulty and reflects again the danger of believing one's own
propaganda. As we have seen from the Iranian military response to the Soleimani assassination,
Trump's military-strikes-short-of-war are having a ratchet-like effect rather than a
pressure-release or deterrent effect.
As the financial and current events analysis site ZeroHedge
put it recently:
[S]ince last summer's "tanker wars", Trump has painted himself into a corner on Iran,
jumping from escalation to escalation (to this latest "point of no return big one" in the
form of the ordered Soleimani assassination) -- yet all the while hoping to avoid a major
direct war. The situation reached a climax where there were "no outs" (Trump was left with
two 'bad options' of either back down or go to war).
The Iranians have little to lose at this point and America's European allies are, even if
impotent, fed up with the US obsession with Saudi Arabia and Israel as a basis for its Middle
East policy.
So why open this essay with a photo of Trump celebrating his dead-on-arrival "Deal of The
Century" for Israel and Palestine? Because this is once again a gullible and weak President
Trump being led by the nose into the coming Middle East conflagration. Left without even a
semblance of US sympathy for their plight, the Palestinians after the roll-out of this "peace"
plan will again see that they have no friends outside Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. As Israel
continues to flirt with the idea of simply annexing large parts of the West Bank, it is
clear that the brakes are off of any Israeli reticence to push for maximum control over
Palestinian territory. So what is there to lose?
Trump believes he's advancing peace in the Middle East, while the excellent Mondoweiss
website rightly
observes that a main architect of the "peace plan," Trump's own son-in-law Jared Kushner,
"taunts Palestinians because he wants them to reject his 'peace plan.'" Rejection of the plan
is a green light to a war of annihilation on the Palestinians.
It appears that the center may not hold, that the self-referential echo chamber that passes
for Beltway "expert" analysis will again be caught off guard in the consequence-free profession
that is neocon foreign policy analysis. "Gosh we didn't see that coming!" But the next day they
are back on the teevee stations as great experts.
It is hard to believe that Trump has any confidence in Jared Kushner. Yet, he does enough
to go public with a one-sided plan developed without Palestinian input.
a real danger for foreign policy advisors and analysts – and especially those they
serve – when they are in a bubble, an echo chamber, and all of their conclusions are
based on faulty inputs.
The same is true of the economists and financial analysts who live in the bubble of the
NSYE and the echo chamber of Manhattan. All of their conclusions are based on faulty
inputs.
If Trump continues to be 'dumb' enough to consistently hire these people and
consistently listen to them, and if his supporters continue to be dumb enough to
consistently believe all the lies and excuses, then Trump and his supporters are 100%
involved in the neoCON.
"It does not take a poli sci major to figure out that Flynn's immediate removal from the
Administration was essential to undermining Trump's entire foreign policy initiatives
including no new interventionist wars, peace with Russia and US withdrawal from Syria and
Afghanistan."
I always get a chuckle out of the notion that Trump and the neocons are mortal enemies. Do
you know who co-wrote Michael Flynn's "The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War
Against Radical Islam and Its Allies"? Does the name Michael Ledeen ring a bell? A profile on
Flynn in the New Yorker Magazine revealed that much of the book is practically plagiarized
from Ledeen's sorry body of books and articles. Ledeen is the Freedom Scholar at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. This is about as neocon as you can get with founder
Clifford D. May now serving as President, who is also a member of the Henry Jackson Society,
an outfit that is infamous for supporting the war in Iraq. Here is Ledeen on the countries
posing the greatest threat to the USA:
It's no coincidence. Russia, Iran and North Korea are in active cahoots. They are
pooling resources, including banking systems (the better to bust sanctions), intelligence
and military technology, as part of an ongoing war against the West, of which the most
melodramatic battlefields are in Syria/Iraq and Ukraine.
To judge by their language, the leaders of the three countries think the tide of world
events is flowing in their favor. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered an
ultimatum to the West, saying that Iran's war against "evil" would only end with the
removal of America. Russian President Vladimir Putin marches on in Ukraine, blaming the
West for all the trouble, and the North Koreans are similarly bellicose.
They are singing from the same hymnal. And they aim to do us in.
Right, they aim to do us in. So it turns out that the guy that Flynn is most closely
allied to ideologically is ten times scarier than Hillary Clinton. If you still have doubts
about Flynn's close ties to Ledeen, I recommend The New Yorker profile linked to above. It
states:
Flynn and Ledeen became close friends; in their shared view of the world, Ledeen
supplied an intellectual and historical perspective, Flynn a tactical one. "I've spent my
professional life studying evil," Ledeen told me. Flynn said, in a recent speech, "I've sat
down with really, really evil people" -- he cited Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Russians, Chinese
generals -- "and all I want to do is punch the guy in the nose."
Get that, people? Flynn said he'd like to punch a Russian in the nose. People get confused
over Flynn's ideological core beliefs by missing that his interest in Russia is solely based
on its usefulness against ISIS. Just because he favored a united military front against ISIS,
it does not mean that he has the same affinity for the Kremlin that someone like Stephen F.
Cohen has. Just remember that the USA and Stalin were allied against Hitler. You know how far
that went.
lundiel ,
Funny you should bring up Ledeen, just after I posted a comment about him, eh Louis?
For whatever reason, Flynn decided to work with Trump and his removal, by his compatriots, is
testament to his problematic policy shift. Who knows if he had a paradigm shift or thought he
knew which side his bread was buttered. The thing is, as Renee says, the FBI are very much
involved in internal politics.
The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump was both a farce and a tragedy. Mr. Trump, a
Fascistic minded President was not targeted for his real crimes (inhumane treatments of
immigrant children in the ICE concentration camps, inciting violence during his rallies,
supporting the ultra-right militias, assassination and violation of international laws); but
for the flimsy accusation of "Abuse of Power" and "Obstruction of Congress" according to the
Democratic Party establishment!
For the American working people, who run America's wheels of life by their deeds every day,
a pathetic attempt to impeach a Fascistic minded President is a disappointment. The Democratic
Party leadership by conducting a hollow impeachment actually legitimized the transformation of
the office of the presidency to the dictatorship circle.
The outcome of an impeachment which was based on shortsightedness rivalry of a section of
the 1% contradicts the ideal of the American Revolution. It betrays those revolutionary
pioneers who fought against the British monarchy.
Through this impeachment, the Congress of the United States has become the living incubator
to "lawfully" hatch the first American dictator and end the idea of "government of the people,
by the people, for the people".
Working people do not benefit from an unformed impeachment by Democrats and disgraceful
acquittal by Republicans. The clear partisanship position toward the President Trump
impeachment, endless infighting and self-serving arguments once again confirmed the fact that
working people have no friends or representatives in Washington to address their urgent
problems such as the high price of medicines, job insecurity, low wages, poor educational and
healthcare systems, a hazardous environment and so on.
The 1% family feud over the impeachment saga creates heroes out of war criminals like John
Bolton, the notorious advocate of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and tireless advocate of war
against Iran, who one day is Mr. Trump favorite advisor and the next day becomes the best ally
of the Democratic Party establishment. The stench of hypocrisy among the well-fed corrupt
politicians of both parties in Washington is nauseating.
Now, we have entered a new era in the history as the "Oldest Democracy" gives rise to a
dictatorial presidency under the protection of Congress. The liberals, so-called "Leftists" and
naïve supporters of the Democratic Party advise the American working people to VOTE for
the Democratic candidate in the next presidential election to gain back the power!
What a foolish proposition as if another Democrat in the White House would give the working
people a chance to be free from the influence of Wall Street and military-industrial
complex!
In 2019 the same Democrats who initiated the impeachment process against President Trump
supported him and approved the largest military budget of $738 billion!
A system that puts profit over people is not reformable. The interest of the 1% with their
Democrat and Republican agents lies in the endless wars, wealth inequality and absolute power
over the democratic rights of voiceless individuals.
No force is able to reform a deadly virus to a benign virus.
In the epoch of the breakdown of democracy, the wealthy elites in all capitalist countries
act as a deadly virus against their own nation. They have equipped their police forces with the
latest military gear to shoot and eliminate their own dissident citizens.
The peaceful protests in France, Chile, Colombia, Iraq, and countless other countries are
dispersed by the bullets of the riot police of these countries. The facts of inhumane living
conditions and miserable situations of Palestinians, Yemenis, Rohingya people and millions of
immigrants around the world are either kept in the dark or distorted. Independent journalists
(like Julian Assange) or honorable whistleblowers (like Chelsea Manning) are locked up and
tortured for telling the truth.
The impeachment process directed against Donald J. Trump which concealed his real crimes was
a step backward in history . A counter revolution that is helping the reign of a ruthless
monarchy slowly revive under the deceptive nationalist ideology.
Adolf Hitler came to power by the vote of people in a legal election in Germany. The history
of the rise of Fascism resembles the current political situation in the U.S. In Germany, in May
1928, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) got less than a tenth of total votes
in the Reichstag (Parliament) elections. More than two years later, in September 1930 election,
the same Nazi Party votes increased by up to 700 percent! Two years later in July 1932, the
Nazi party becomes the largest Party in Germany. Finally, on January 30th, 1933, Hitler is
appointed as Chancellor and became the head of the German government which led to WWII. Today,
the Senators of both parties are crowning a fascistic-minded President under the false banner
of "national security" or "preserving the American democracy".
The working families in the U.S. need to unite against despotism independent of the
Democratic and Republican parties. Endless wars, the rise of Fascism and ecological disasters
are the main problems that only can be confronted by an independent, united, conscious and
internationalist leadership.
*
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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the
United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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OK, baby steps. The FBI is the secret police force of the authoritarian (aching to be
totalitarian) govt hidden behind "Truth, Justice & the American Way". The "democratic"
facade of the US politics is, in fact, close to the Greek original: A cabal of oligarchs who
decide distribution of power without daggers, and naturally exclude slaves (workers),
landless peons (minorities), women (grudgingly later included, once indoctrinated) to
maintain the status quo.
The "vote" the oligarchs advertise as proof of their democratic credentials in allowing
the hoi polloi to have a say is insultingly quaint and blatantly futile. All elections are
rigged. Of course! The outcome is preordained. Would you let some naive do-gooder wreck your
decades of building an empire? Never!
If a "ringer" sneaks through the gauntlet of oligarchic vetting and slips the leash, he
(always HE) is put down and the Electoral College is invoked to re-establish the status quo
with an acceptable front man.
Foreign policy? Long ago decided and continued regardless of who inhabits the White House
this season. He follows the script, is handsomely paid and retires famous and breathing. Go
off-script and doom is certain, the funeral subdued.
In closing the class, we can conclude that the FBI is not rogue; it is functioning as
intended and professionally considering the gangly amateurs it has to herd along path.
Furthermore, first generation immigrants don't want to replicate their culture, they want
the American dream. Their grandchildren might want to "identify" as hispanic, etc., but not
their parents or grandparents. Identity politics only plays in the white middle classes.
"Many of the players involved in this act worked in CI which is closely connected to the
CIA's own counter intelligence. "
Fusion Centers. Created and run by the very same Andrew McCabe at the centre of Crossfire
Hurricane and subsequently fired for malfeasance and abuse of public office.
The same Fusion centers were behind America's biggest "terror" attacks, in the same way
MI5 tend to be behind (or at least have very good knowledge of prior to) our own
"attacks"
(just to let the admins know, I had Seamus Padraig's details pre-filled in my text
box)
This book sheds some light into the story of how Administrative assistants to Present became
independent heavily influenced by CIA body controlling the USA foreign policy and to a large
extent controlling the President. Recent revolt of NSC (Aka Ukrainegate) shows that the servant
became the master
The books contains some interesting information about forming NSC by Truman --- the father of
the US National Security State. And bureaucratic turf war the preceded it. It wwas actually
Eisenhower who created forma position of a "special assistant to the president for national
security affairs"
The author also cover a little bit disastrous decision to launch a "surge" (ironically by the
female chickenhawk Meghan O'Sullivan), -- which attests neocon nature of current NSC and level of
indoctrination of staffers in "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine quite clearly. That's why a
faction of NSC launched a coup d'état against Trump in t he form of Ukrainegate and
probably was instrumental in Russiagate as well.
Notable quotes:
"... Starting in the 1960s, the NSC dethroned the State Department in providing analysis, intelligence, and even some diplomacy to the diplomat in chief. In the years after September 11th, the staff also began to take greater responsibility, especially for planning, from the military and the rest of the Pentagon. Both departments have struggled and often failed to reclaim lost ground and influence in Washington. ..."
"... Yet war is a hard thing to try to manage from the Executive Office Building. Thousands of miles from the frontlines and far from harm, the NSC make recommendations based on what they come to know from intelligence reports, news sources, phone calls, video-teleconferences, and visits to the front. Even with advice based only on this limited and limiting view, the NSC staff has transformed how the United States fights its wars. ..."
"... Although presidents bear the ultimate responsibilities for these decisions, the NSC staff played an essential, and increasing, role in the thinking behind each bold move. In conflict after conflict, a more powerful NSC staff has fundamentally altered the American way of war. It is now far less informed by the perspective of the military and the view from the frontlines. It is less patient for progress and more dependent on the clocks in the Executive Office Building and Washington than those in theater. It is far more combative, less able to accept defeat, and more willing to risk a change of course. ..."
"... The NSC common law's kept the peace in Washington for years after Iran-Contra. The restrictions against outright advocacy and outsized operational responsibilities were accepted by those at the White House as well as in the agencies during Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet as many in Washington believed the world grew more interconnected and the national security stakes increased, especially after September 11th, a more powerful NSC has given staffers the opportunity to bend, and occasionally break, the common laws, as they have been expected to and allowed to take on more responsibilities for developing strategies and new r ideas from those in the bureaucracy and military. ..."
"... ...Meanwhile, others, including the anonymous author of the infamous September 2018 New York Times opinion piece, believe government officials who comprise a "steady state" amid Trump's chaotic presidency are "unsung heroes" resisting his worst instincts and overreaches. 13 Thus, it is no surprise that more and more Americans are concerned: a 2018 poll found that 74 percent of Americans feel a group of officials arc able to control government policy without accountability. ..."
"... it is no wonder some Americans have taken to assuming the worst of their public servants. ..."
"... Each member of the NSC staff needs to remember that their growing, unaccountable power has helped give evidence to the worries about a deep state. Although no one in Washington gives up influence voluntarily, the staff, even its warriors, need to remember it is not just what they fight for but whether a fight is necessary at all. ..."
"... ... Too many in Washington, including at the Executive Office Building, have forgotten that public service is a privilege that bestows on them great responsibility. Although the NSC has long justified its actions in the name of national security, the means with which its members have pursued that objective have made for a more aggressive American way of war, a more fractious Washington, and more conspiracies about government. ..."
"... The question is for what and for whom they will fight in the years and wars ahead. ..."
The men and women walking the hushed corridors of the Executive Office Building do not look
like warriors. Most are middle-aged professionals with penchants for dark business suits and
prestigious graduate degrees, who have spent their lives serving their country in windowless
offices, on far-off battle-fields, or at embassies abroad. Before arriving at the NSC, many
joined the military or the nation's diplomatic corps, some dedicated themselves to teaching and
writing about national security, and others spent their days working for the types of
politicians who become presidents. By the time they joined the staff, each had shown the pluck
-- and the good fortune -- required to end up staffing a president.
When each NSC staffer first walks up the steps to the Executive Office Building, he or she
joins an institution like no other in government. Compared to the Pentagon and other
bureaucracies, the staff is small, hierarchically flat with only a few titles like directors
and senior directors reporting to the national security advisor and his or her deputies.
Compared to all those at the agencies, even most cabinet secretaries, the staff are also given
unparalleled access to the president and the discussions about the biggest decisions in
national security.
Yet despite their access, the NSC staff was created as a political, legal, and bureaucratic
afterthought. The National Security Council was established both
to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II and as part of a deal to create what
became known as the Defense Department. Since the army and navy only agreed to be unified under
a single department and a civilian cabinet secretary if each still had a seat at the table
where decisions about war were expected to be made, establishing the National Security Council
was critical to ensuring passage of the National Security Act of 1947. The law, as well as its
amendments two years later, unified the armed forces while also establishing the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as the CIA.
... ... ...
Fans of television's the West Wing would be forgiven for expecting that once in the Oval
Office, all a staffer needs to do to change policy is to deliver a well-timed whisper in the
president's car or a rousing speech in his company. It is not that such dramatic moments never
occur, but real change in government requires not just speaking up but the grinding policy work
required to have something new to say.
A staffer, alone or with NSC and agency colleagues, must develop an idea until feasible and
defend it from opposition driven by personal pique, bureaucratic jealousy, or substantive
disagreement, and often all three.
Granted none of these fights are over particularly new ideas, as few proposals in war are
truly novel. If anything, the staffs history is a reminder of how little new there is under the
guise of national security. Alter all, escalations, ultimatums, and counterinsurgency are only
innovative in the context of the latest conflicts. The NSC staff is usually proposing old
ideas, some as old as war itself like a surge of troops, to new circumstances and a critical
moment.
Yet even an old idea can have real power in the right hands at the right time, so it is
worth considering how much more influence the NSC brings to its fights today.
... ... ...
A larger staff can do even more thanks to technology. With the establishment of the
Situation Room in 1961 and its subsequent upgrades, as well as the widespread adoption of email
in the 1980s, the classified email system during the 2000s, and desktop video teleconferencing
systems in the 2010s, White House technology upgrades have been justified because the president
deserves the latest and the fastest. These same advances give each member of the staff global
reach, including to war zones half a world away, from the safety of the Executive Office
Building.
The NSC has also grown more powerful along with the presidency it serves. The White House,
even in the hands of an inexperienced and disorganized president like Trump, drives the
government's agenda, the news media's coverage, and the American public's attention. The NSC
staff can, if skilled enough, leverage the office's influence for their own ideas and purposes.
Presidents have also explicitly empowered the staff in big ways -- like putting them in the
middle of the policymaking process -- and small -- like granting them ranks that put them on
the same level as other agency officials.
Recent staffers have also had the president's ear nearly every day, and sometimes more
often, while secretaries of state and defense rarely have that much face time in the Oval
Office. Each has a department with tens of thousands (and in the Pentagon's case millions) of
employees to manage. Most significantly, both also answer not just to the president but to
Congress, which has oversight authority for their departments and an expectation for regular
updates. There are few more consequential power differences between the NSC and the departments
than to whom each must answer.
Even more, the NSC staff get to work and fight in anonymity. Members of Congress,
journalists, and historians are usually too busy keeping track of the National Security Council
principals to focus on the guys and gals behind the national security advisors, who are
themselves behind the president. Few in Washington, and fewer still across the country, know
the names of the staff advising the president let alone what they arc saying in their memos and
moments with him.
Today, there arc too many unnamed NSC staffers for anyone's good, including their own. Even
with the recent congressional limit on policy staffers, the NSC is too big to be thoroughly
managed or effective. National security advisors and their deputies are so busy during their
days that it is hard to keep up with all their own emails, calls, and reading, let alone ensure
each member of the staff is doing their own work or doing it well. The common law and a de
tacto honor system has also struggled to keep staff in check as they try to handle every issue
from war to women's rights and every to-do list item from drafting talking points to doing
secret diplomacy.
Although many factors contribute to the NSC's success, history suggests they do best with
the right-size job. The answer to better national security policy and process is not a bigger
staff but smaller writs. The NSC should focus on fewer issues, and then only on the smaller
stuff, like what the president needs for calls and meetings, and the big, what some call grand
strategic, questions about the nation's interests, ambitions, and capacities that should be
asked and answered before any major decision.
... ... ...
Along the way, the staff has taken on greater responsibilities from agencies like the
departments of state and defense as each has grown more bureaucratic and sclerotic.
Starting in the 1960s, the NSC dethroned the State Department in providing analysis,
intelligence, and even some diplomacy to the diplomat in chief. In the years after September
11th, the staff also began to take greater responsibility, especially for planning, from the
military and the rest of the Pentagon. Both departments have struggled and often failed to
reclaim lost ground and influence in Washington.
As a result, today the NSC has, regretfully, become the strategic engine of the government's
national security policymaking. The staff, along with the national security advisor, determine
which issues -- large and small -- require attention, develop the plans for most of them, and
try to manage day-to-day the implementation of each strategy. That is too sweeping a remit for
a couple hundred unaccountable staffers sitting at the Executive Office Building thousands of
miles from war zones and foreign capitals. Such immense responsibility also docs not make the
best use of talent in government, leaving the military and the nation's diplomats fighting with
the White House over policies while trying to execute plans they have less and less ownership
over.
... ... ...
Although protocol still requires members of the NSC to sit on the backbench in National
Security Council meetings, the staff s voice and advice can carry as much weight as those of
the principals sitting at the table, just as the staff has taken on more of each department's
responsibilities, the NSC arc expected to be advisors to the president, even on military
strategy. With that charge, the staff has taken to spending more time and effort developing
their own policy ideas -- and fighting for them.
Yet war is a hard thing to try to manage from the Executive Office Building. Thousands
of miles from the frontlines and far from harm, the NSC make recommendations based on what they
come to know from intelligence reports, news sources, phone calls, video-teleconferences, and
visits to the front. Even with advice based only on this limited and limiting view, the NSC
staff has transformed how the United States fights its wars.
The American way of war, developed over decades of thinking and fighting, informs how and
why the nation goes to battle. Over the course of American history and, most relevantly, since
the end of World War II, the US military and other national security professionals have
developed, often through great turmoil, strategic preferences and habits, like deploying the
latest technology possible instead of the largest number of troops. Despite the tremendous
planning that goes into these most serious of undertakings, each new conflict tests the
prevailing way of war and often finds it wanting.
Even knowing how dangerous it is to relight the last war, it is still not easy to find the
right course for a new one. Government in general and national security specifically are
risk-averse enterprises where it is often simpler to rely on standard operating procedures and
stay on a chosen course, regardless of whether progress is slow and the sense of drift is
severe. Even then, many in the military, who often react to even the mildest of suggestions and
inquiries as unnecessary or even dangerous micromanagement, defend the prevailing approach with
its defining doctrine and syndrome.
As Machiavelli recommended long ago, there is a need for hard questions in government and
war in particular. He wrote that a leader "ought to be a great askcr, and a patient hearer of
the truth." 7 From the Executive Office Building, the NSC staff, who are more
distanced from the action as well as the fog of war, have tried to fill this role for a busy
and often distracted president. They are, however, not nearly as patient as Machiavelli
recommended: they have proven more willing, indeed too willing at times, to ask about what is
working and what is not.
Warfighters are not alone in being frustrated by questions: everyone from architects to
zookeepers believes they know how best to do their job and that with a bit more time, they will
get it right. Without any of the responsibility for the doing, the NSC staff not only asks hard
questions but, by avoiding implementation bias, is willing to admit, often long before those in
the field, that the current plan is failing. A more technologically advanced NSC, with the
ability to reach deep into the chain of command and war zones for updates, has also given the
staff the intelligence to back up its impatience.
Most times in history, the NSC staff has correctly predicted that time is running against a
chosen strategy. Halperin. and others on the Nixon NSC, were accurate in their assessments of
Vietnam. Dur and his Reagan NSC colleagues were right to worry that diplomacy was moving too
slowly in Lebanon. Haass and Vershbow were correct when they were concerned with how windows of
opportunity for action were shrinking in the Gulf and Balkans respectively, just as O'Sullivan
was right that things needed to change relatively soon in Iraq.
Yet an impatient NSC staff has a worse track record giving the president answers to what
should come next. The NSC staff naturally have opinions and ideas about what can be done when
events and war feel out of control, but ideas about what can be done when events and war feel
out of control, but the very distance and disengagement that allow' the NSC to be so effective
at measuring progress make its ideas less grounded in operational realities and more clouded by
the fog of Washington. The NSC, often stridently, wants to do something more, to "go big when
wc can," as one recent staffer encouraged his president, to fix a failing policy or win a w
r ar, but that is not a strategy, nor does that ambition make the staff the best
equipped to figure out the next steps."
With their proposals for a new plan, deployment, or initiative, the staff has made more bad
recommendations than good. The Diem coup and the Beirut mission are two examples, and
particularly tragic ones at that, of NSC staff recommendations gone awry. The Iraq surge was
certainly a courageous decision, but by committing so many troops to that country, the manpower
w r as not available for a war in Afghanistan that was falling off track. Even the
more successful NSC recommendations for changes in US strategy in the Gulf War and in Bosnia
did not end up exactly as planned, in part because even good ideas in war rarely do.
Although presidents bear the ultimate responsibilities for these decisions, the NSC
staff played an essential, and increasing, role in the thinking behind each bold move. In
conflict after conflict, a more powerful NSC staff has fundamentally altered the American way
of war. It is now far less informed by the perspective of the military and the view from the
frontlines. It is less patient for progress and more dependent on the clocks in the Executive
Office Building and Washington than those in theater. It is far more combative, less able to
accept defeat, and more willing to risk a change of course.
And it is characterized by more frequent and counterproductive friction between the civilian
and military leaders.
... ... ...
Through it all, as the NSC's voice has grown louder in the nation's war rooms, the staff has
transformed how Washington works, and more often does not work. The NSC's fights to change
course have had another casualty: the ugly collapse of the common law' that has governed
Washington policymaking for more than a generation. The result today is a government that
trusts less, fights more, and decides much slower.
National security policy- and decision-making was never supposed to be a fair fight. Eliot
Cohen, a civil-military scholar with high-level government experience, has called the
give-and-take of the interagency process an "unequal" dialogue -- one in which presidents are
entitled to not just make the ultimate decision but also to ask questions, often with the NSC's
help, at any time and about any topic.* Everyone else, from the secretaries of state and
defense in Washington dow r n to the commanders and ambassadors abroad, has to
expect and tolerate such presidential interventions and then carry out his orders.
Even an unfair fight can have rules, however. The NSC common law's kept the peace in
Washington for years after Iran-Contra. The restrictions against outright advocacy and outsized
operational responsibilities were accepted by those at the White House as well as in the
agencies during Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet as many in Washington believed
the world grew more interconnected and the national security stakes increased, especially after
September 11th, a more powerful NSC has given staffers the opportunity to bend, and
occasionally break, the common laws, as they have been expected to and allowed to take on more
responsibilities for developing strategies and new r ideas from those in the
bureaucracy and military.
... ... ...
...Meanwhile, others, including the anonymous author of the infamous September 2018 New
York Times opinion piece, believe government officials who comprise a "steady state" amid
Trump's chaotic presidency are "unsung heroes" resisting his worst instincts and overreaches.
13 Thus, it is no surprise that more and more Americans are concerned: a 2018 poll
found that 74 percent of Americans feel a group of officials arc able to control government
policy without accountability.
In an era when Americans can see on reality television how their fish are caught, meals arc
cooked, and businesses are financed, it is strange that few have ever heard the voice of an NSC
staffer. The Executive Office Building is not the only building out of reach: most of the
government taxpayers' fund is hard, and getting harder, to see. With bigger security blockades,
longer waits on declassification, and more severe crackdowns on leaks, it is no wonder some
Americans have taken to assuming the worst of their public servants.
The American people need to know the NSC's war stories if for no other reason than each
makes clear that there is no organized deep state in Washington. If one existed, there would be
little need for the NSC to fight so hard to coordinate the government's various players and
parts. However, this history also makes plain that though the United States can overcome bad
decisions and survive military disasters, a belief in a deep state is a threat to the NSC and
so much more.
... ... ...
Each member of the NSC staff needs to remember that their growing, unaccountable power
has helped give evidence to the worries about a deep state. Although no one in Washington gives
up influence voluntarily, the staff, even its warriors, need to remember it is not just what
they fight for but whether a fight is necessary at all. Shortcuts and squabbles may make
sense when every second feels like it counts, but the best public servants do what is necessary
for the president even as they protect, for years to come, the health of the institutions and
the very democracy in which they serve. As hard as that can be to remember when the clock in
the Oval Office is ticking, doing things the right way is even more important than the latest
crises, war, or meeting with the president.
... ... ...
... Too many in Washington, including at the Executive Office Building, have forgotten
that public service is a privilege that bestows on them great responsibility. Although the NSC
has long justified its actions in the name of national security, the means with which its
members have pursued that objective have made for a more aggressive American way of war, a more
fractious Washington, and more conspiracies about government.
Centuries ago, Plato argued that civilians must hope for warriors who could be trusted to be
both "gentle to their own and cruel to their enemies." At a time when many doubt government and
those who serve in it, the NSC staff s history demonstrates just what White House warriors arc
capable of. The question is for what and for whom they will fight in the years and wars
ahead.
... ... ...
The legendary British double agent Kim Philby wrote: "just because a document is a document
it has a glamour which tempts the reader to give it more weight than it deserves An hour of a
serious discussion with a trustworthy informant is often more valuable than any number of
original documents. Of course, it is best to have both."
A must-read for anyone interested in history or foreign policy. Gans pulls back the
curtain on arguably the most powerful yet opaque body in foreign policy decision-making,
the National Security Council. Each chapter recounts a different administration -- as told
through the work of an NSC staffer. Through these beautifully-written portraits of largely
unknown staffers, Gans reveals the chilling, outsized influence of this small, unelected
institution on American war and peace. From this perspective, even the policy success
stories seem more luck than skill -- leaving readers concerned about the NSC's continued
unchecked power.
When it comes to US foreign policy, the names in the news usually include our President,
Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and a couple big name
generals depending on the war. Of course, there are many more people involved, and the entire
process is supposed to run through the National Security Council. Hence I bought this book
with the intention of learning more about the decision making process from someone who has
served in government and dealt with the NSC. The book is a chronological history of the NSC
from its inception to the administration of George W. Bush post 9/11. It focuses on the major
personalities that have served on the NSC, and how its functioning have changed with each
administration under the guidance or negligence of the President. Some Presidents, like
Eisenhower, made sure the NSC ran like a well-oiled machine that harnessed the wisdom, skills
and opinions of all its members and their agencies. Other Presidents, like Nixon and W. Bush
used it essentially as a committee to bottleneck ideas while they worked with their favorites
on major decisions. The book does a great job showing how individuals as disparate as Henry
Kissinger and Condoleeza Rice have utilized the NSC.
However, what I found lacking in this book is its complete minimization of the role of big
corporations in affecting US foreign policy. A quick google search will show that every
member of the NSC has sat on the boards of multiple corporations prior to joining the NSC. It
is safe to assume that these corporations chose these board members due in large part to
their ability to influence US foreign policy. And so the book covers very little in terms of
tariffs and economic treaties. The biggest economic item covered by the book are trade
sanctions, and even then focuses mainly on the sanctions applied to Iraq after the first Gulf
War.
Also lacking in the book was any significant discussion on US efforts in combating the
international trade in narcotics, weapons and slaves. Wars are a big issue, but I doubt they
take up all the time of the NSC. Looking up the NSC in Wikipedia, one sees that it includes
members tasked with fighting America's drug wars; and our drug wars are probably the big
ticket item in dealing with Latin America. Yet narcotics, heroine, and cocaine do not even
show up in the book's index. Overall, I consider this book an interesting read for those new
to foreign policy, but it misses out on a lot.
Why the rush? There are a surprising number of little mistakes that should have been
picked up in the editing process. Granted, the topic is timely and important, but would the
world have collapsed if the publishers held on to the book for an extra month for another
round of read-throughs? Also, there is just too much writing. Editors should have crossed out
a lot of unnecessary stuff.
There are two reasons I point out one factual error I came across. First, it makes me feel
smarter. That is less important to everyone else, but it makes me feel good. Second, if I
found one error, people who specialize in other areas may have noticed other errors, and
those should be pointed out. Anyway, on pages 218-219, Rothkopf describes Reagan's National
Security Planning Group (NSPG) as having been "chaired by Bush and [it] ended up dealing with
issues like the spate of terrorist attacks and other crises that confronted the
administration." The NSPG did indeed deal with important issues, and in some sense it
probably dealt with the issues he pointed out, but Rothkopf is confusing the NSPG with the
Crisis Management Team, which later became the Special Situations Group, both of which were
chaired by VP Bush. The NSPG, however, was more accurately described by Bush's VP chief of
staff, Craig Fuller: "The [NSPG] is the most restricted national security council meeting
that is called. It is usually confined to the principals, meaning the Secretaries of State,
Defense, Vice President, ... the Director of Central Intelligence, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, the President's Chief of Staff, [the National Security Adviser and deputy NSA] and
... usually the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury, but it can be expanded
depending on the topic." No more than a dozen people usually attended, and only the President
and Vice President brought their chiefs of staff (p. 923). There were usually two NSPG
meetings per month. The Tower Commission report noted that the NSC meetings were becoming a
bit too big for productive discussions among the principals, so the President turned to the
NSPG. And from everything I have read, Reagan was at most of the meetings. This is not a
major error, but at the same time, the NSPG was an incredibly important component of Reagan
Administration foreign/national security policy. Perhaps there are other errors.
One of the funnier errors: the Washington Post Book World review pointed out that the
picture on the cover is more likely from a Cabinet meeting. Elaine Chao, Secretary of Labor,
who is not on the NSC, is clearly visible in the picture. Was it really that difficult to
come up with a better, more accurate picture? If people do judge books by the cover, this one
has not put its best foot forward.
The good stuff: Rothkopf's description of policy viewpoints is interesting. Rather than
the constant chatter about the personal spats between major members of foreign policy
(although those are included in the book too), we should hear more about what these people
think. This important stuff is shaping the world. Another great aspect of the book is that
Rothkopf got an amazing amount of access to the key players through interviews. These are the
people who have shaped the world over the past four or so decades. The quotations, although a
bit long, are practically a primary source of data for other researchers. Hopefully someday
Rothkopf will make his interview transcripts available to other researchers. Great stuff
there.
David J. Rothkopf was a junior member of the Clinton administration. In this fascinating
book, he studies the post-1947 record of the American foreign policy élite, the
National Security Council and its staff, about 200 people. This exclusive establishment,
which he actually calls an `aristocracy', is the part of the US ruling class that runs
national policy across Republican and Democrat administrations.
He contrasts 1947 with post-2001, finding `a stunningly different set of conclusions about
what to do with American power and prestige'. He supports the multilateralism of NATO, the
Marshall Plan, the IMF, the World Bank and the UN, under the slogan of globalisation, and
argues against Bush's unilateralism, which puts the USA `above and beyond the influence of
global institutions or the rule of law'. He agrees with Carter's national security advisor,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, that terrorism is a tactic not an enemy.
He notes `the debacle in Iraq', yet misunderstands the region completely when he writes,
"it is the decay of Middle Eastern civilisation that is the threat to us." Not the US state's
unpopular alliances with the Saudi and Israeli states then!
He describes the USA's whole political system as suffering "an irresponsible separation
between the will of the majority of America and the will of the representatives of the
American people." But if the people's supposed representatives do not represent them, how can
this be a democracy?
Finally, Rothkopf warns, "The real strategic threats come from those who would offer an
alternative to our leadership." These "will argue that our system has exacerbated rather than
resolved basic problems of inequity in the world." With some justice, since, as he admits,
"the majority of the world's population are today effectively disenfranchised from reaping
the benefit of the world we have been leading." If this US leadership, exercised through the
institutions which he so admires, has not benefited the majority of the world's people, what
good is it?
David J Rothkopf has written a valuable book about a government agency that one hears very
little about in the daily news. "Running the World" is an insider's account of the inner
workings of the National Security Council (created by the National Security Act of 1947). The
National Security Council is an executive body within the White House that includes cabinet
level officials involved in diplomacy and defense. Rothkopf's account is about the key
players that were responsible for the successes and failures of the National Security
Council's management of America's foreign policy since the end of World War II.
Rothkopf's insider credentials are impressive: he is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations, he was under-secretary of commerce during the Clinton Administration, he served as
managing director of Kissinger and Associates, he also served as Chairman and CEO of
Intellibridge, and he is currently visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
There is an interesting section in this book called "Two Degrees of Henry Kissinger,"
which shows that the 13 national security advisors (NSAs) that followed Kissinger have either
worked with him, for him, or worked with or for one of the members of his staff.
After Nixon was elected President, Kissinger was appointed NSA. Kissinger not only
assembled one of the most talented teams in the history of the NSC (Lawrence Eagleberger,
Anthony Lake, Alexander Haig, Brent Scowcroft, and Robert MacFarlane), he also took control,
either directly or indirectly, of all the interagency policy groups. Kissinger was Nixon's
entire inner circle in matters of foreign policy.
When the Watergate scandel broke, Nixon became distracted and virtually left Kissinger to
his own devices. As a result, Kissinger may have been the most powerful non-elected official
in American history and certainly every NSA since has operated in his shadow.
The title of this book "Running the World" is more than a little pretentious. As has been
noted by other reviewers, it is an account of the old boys network written by an old boy and
tends toward self-importance. A more accurate and humble title would have been the one I
chose for this review: "Global Crisis Management." The NSC does not run the world. The NSC,
which consists of the senior cabinet members and White House staff members, is more than
likely trying to control crises as they occur than trying to direct the course of events. And
as Rothkopf makes clear, the response to a given crisis depends very much on the
personalities of the members who are in the president's favor at the given moment.
Rothkopf is very critical of the current Bush Administration's track record. He argues
that they have lost sight of the liberal internationalist values set forth by Truman at the
end of World War II when the council was founded. At the time, the US enjoyed a position of
power that was not unlike its position after 9/11. The Truman Adminsistration established
international institutions that deferred America's power to the good of international system.
The Bush Administration, under the sway of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other neoconservatives,
decided to reassert American national interest through the use of military force, the
consequences of which we are still suffering today.
Critics of this book have called Rothkopf an apologist for the Clinton administration. Far
from it, Rothkopf has enumerated the foreign policy disasters that occured during Clinton's
watch: namely, the failures in Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, and Rwanda. The picture that Rothkopf
paints of the NSC is not one that runs the world but rather one that tries to maintain the
status quo in the face of an ever-changing world.
I read the reviews of this book and made the mistake of buying it based upon them, but
this is really a very superficial book. From a historical point of view, it shows us how the
NSC was created by Truman, primarily because he was so out of the loop while Vice President
that he didn't even know about the Manhattan project to build the atom bomb, but as the book
moves into more current events, political slants take over the turn the book into a very
one-sided view of the US options available in today's world. Rothkopf is a "pragmatist" in
the Kissinger mold, which I guess he would have to be since he ran Kissinger's shop, but his
opinions really show very little depth, and really no historical perspective of options
available in dealing with bin Laden and terrorism back when it could have been much more
easily dealt with. There are some insights about how Clinton seldom attended NSC meetings
when tectonic changes were taking place as he dallied with Monica, but this book isn't really
a very sophisticated examination of the world today and how we got here, other than to
criticize W Bush for the state of the world today without looking at the limited hand he was
dealt by his predecessors when it came to Islamic terrorism. I would have given the book one
star but the book's history of the NSC gives it some redeeming social value, but the last
half of the book is really pretty worthless because it is so unbalanced and political.
Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but no Palestinian leader, President
Donald Trump unveiled “a vision for peace” in the Middle East on Tuesday which
permits Israel to annex much of the occupied West Bank immediately, offering the Palestinians
only local control in isolated Bantustans surrounded by Israeli territory.
As many Israeli political observers noted, the timing of the announcement, just hours after
Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges in Jerusalem, looked like an effort to boost the
prime minister’s bid to win reelection in March, his best hope for avoiding prison.
A US President facing impeachment and an Israeli Prime Minister indicted for corruption,
leading an interim minority government, are about to announce a plan to solve the conflict with
the Palestinians, without any Palestinian present. Unbelievable farce. — Anshel Pfeffer
(@AnshelPfeffer) January 28, 2020
The release of the 180-page plan — which was drafted by aides to Jared Kushner,
Trump’s son-in-law and an old family friend of Netanyahu — was staged as a
celebration, and acted as a dual campaign rally, with the American president and the Israeli
prime minister boasting of all they had achieved for Israel to a room filled with far-right
supporters of the Jewish state, including business magnate Sheldon Adelson, the Republican and
Likud megadonor who spent millions of dollars to elect both leaders.
Trump, who intervened in a previous Israeli election campaign on Netanyahu’s behalf
— by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights last year — gave
the embattled prime minister a podium at the White House to detail conditions imposed on the
Palestinians which sounded like terms of surrender.
To start with, Netanyahu said, the Palestinians would be required to recognize Israel as a
Jewish state, cede the entire Jordan Valley, disarm Hamas, and abandon hope for both the return
of refugees who fled homes in what is now Israel and for a capital in Jerusalem’s Old
City.
pic.twitter.com/RmKVVWh9F2 — Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 28, 2020
“Your peace plan offers the Palestinians a pathway to a future state,” Netanyahu
told Trump. “I know that it may take them a very long time to reach the end of that path;
it may even take them a very long time to get to the beginning of that path,” he
added.
In fact, as Crisis Group analyst Tareq Baconi observed, “The plan sets out parameters
that are impossible for Palestinians to accept, and effectively provides Israel with a
blueprint to sustain the one-state reality that exists on the ground.”
That sentiment was echoed by Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of B’Tselem, an
Israeli rights group that monitors the occupation. “What the Palestinians are being
‘offered’ now is not rights or a state, but a permanent state of Apartheid. No
amount of marketing can erase this disgrace or blur the facts,” El-Ad wrote. “The
reality on the ground is already one of full Israeli control over the entire area between the
Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and everyone living in it. It is a reality of one,
inherently undemocratic, state.”
The plan was rejected by Palestinian rights activists in the region and abroad.
Netanyahu logic: If Palestinians agree to land theft, annexation, no refugee return,
subjugation and no means of defense, Israel will negotiate with us. — Diana Buttu
(@dianabuttu) January 28, 2020
They want to put us in permanent, high-tech cages and call it peace. #DealOfTheCentury
#ApartheidDeal #Palestine #PalestinianFreedom — Noura Erakat (@4noura) January 28,
2020
CNN interviews Palestinian human rights attorney on the Trump plan. "This is not a deal,
this is a plan to consolidate Israel's colonial takings." @4noura https://t.co/dFfNuKnH08
— Mairav Zonszein ??? ??????? (@MairavZ) January 29, 2020
The US is a colonial state trying to broker a "solution" which favors another
settler-colonial state. The only message is, commit enough massacres, create enough judicial
procedures, create enough diplomatic jargon, and all is allowed. #Palestine #TrumpDeal —
???? ???????? (@MariamBarghouti) January 28, 2020
#Palestinian refugees in Lebanon's Ein El-Helweh camp who have been deprived of a homeland
for years protest and say NO to the so-called #DealOfTheCentury and tell Trump: Our fate is not
for you to decide. pic.twitter.com/Y7We93iIRA — We Are Not Numbers #Gaza
(@WeAreNotNumbers) January 28, 2020
“An impeached and bigoted President works in tandem with a criminally indicted and
racist Prime Minister to perpetuate the reality of apartheid and subjugation,” Jamil
Dakwar, a Palestinian American who was born in Haifa and now leads the ACLU’s human
rights program, wrote on Twitter. “Palestinians will not be coerced to give up their
human rights to live as free and equal human beings.”
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, described the
plan delivered by Kushner to Trump as “100 percent the ideas I personally heard many
times from Netanyahu and his negotiators. I can assure you that the American so-called peace
team have only copied and pasted Netanyahu’s and the settlers’ councils
plan.”
Amid accusations that his plan was largely based on concepts and details dictated by
Netanyahu, Kushner cast himself as an independent expert on the conflict in an interview with
Sky News Arabia on Tuesday. “I’ve been studying this now for three years,” he
told Sky News Arabia, “I’ve read 25 books on the subject.”
At least one of those books appears to have been written by Netanyahu, however. As Dylan
Williams of the liberal, pro-Israel group J Street pointed out, Kushner’s plan appeared
at one point to borrow language from one of the Israeli prime minister’s books.
On the left, an excerpt from Netanyahu’s book “A Durable Peace.”
On the right, the Trump/Kushner “peace” proposal.
I don’t know an academic integrity panel at any university that would let this fly.
pic.twitter.com/NvgzWOsL2r — Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) January 29, 2020
In a subsequent interview, Kushner even seemed unaware of the length of the proposal
released by his team, referring to the 181-page document as “an over 80-page
proposal.” He appeared to be echoing an error made by Trump during his prepared remarks
the White House ceremony when he said, “our plan is 80 pages.”
Speaking in Ramallah, at a rare gathering of leaders of the major Palestinian factions,
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the proposal was not “the deal of the
century,” as Trump and the Israelis described it, but “the slap of the
century.”
“Trump, Jerusalem is not for sale. Our rights are not for sale. Your conspiracy deal
will not pass,” Abbas said, in comments reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
While Trump said that Palestinians could eventually have a capital in Jerusalem, the plan
suggested that this would be outside of the city, in a neighborhood close to, but not in the
city, as Telegraph correspondent Raf Sanchez pointed out.
IMPORTANT: the detail plan of the plan confirms that Palestinians will not get any part of
Jerusalem inside the security barrier.
That means they get a few far-flung eastern neighbourhoods as their capital but none of the
Old City or areas where most East Jerusalemites live. pic.twitter.com/ZL6AJVJ565 — Raf
Sanchez (@rafsanchez) January 28, 2020
Within hours of the plan’s release, Netanyahu said that his government would move on
Sunday to formally annex the 131 Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank, all of
which are illegal under international law, as well as the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead
Sea. The plan’s map of the newly expanded Greater Israel, and the fragmented Palestinian
enclaves, were shared on Twitter by Trump.
??? ?? ?? ???? ???? ???? ?????? ?????????? ?????? ?? ????? ?? ????? ???????.
pic.twitter.com/CFuYwwjSso — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2020
In his remarks, Trump said that Netanyahu had “authorized the release of a conceptual
map” showing the contours of the land to be annexed, and their two governments would soon
form a joint committee “to convert the conceptual map into a more detailed and calibrated
rendering so that recognition can be immediately achieved.”
Because the Israeli settlement blocs, which are home to more than 400,000 settlers, are
stitched together with a network of roads and checkpoints that restrict the freedom of movement
of Palestinians, the territory Trump said his plan “allocated” for a future
Palestinian state would exist only as a series of enclaves inside Israel.
As Ben Silverstein of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington,
explained, the “conceptual map” included in the plan gave an “appearance of
contiguity” that facts on the ground would make impossible.
This map is verrrrry generously shaded to give appearance of contiguity.
100% final map will appear closer to archipelago map on the right.
pic.twitter.com/pLcaWak4R2 — Ben Silverstein (@bensilverstein) January 28, 2020
Yousef Munayyer, who directs the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, noted on Twitter that
the reality would look a lot more like what the French illustrator Julien Bousac sketched out
more than a decade ago for Le Monde Diplomatique to show the impossibility of a functioning
state compromised of enclaves.
The West Bank Archipelago pic.twitter.com/FBIeOKmnUd — (((YousefMunayyer)))
(@YousefMunayyer) January 28, 2020
Daniel Seidemann, director of Terrestrial Jerusalem, pointed out that previous
administrations had privately accepted the erosion of Palestinian hopes for a contiguous
state.
Perspective, for those who think this started with Trump.
This is a slide/map, I presented to a senior official in the Obama White House. His chilling
response: you’re probably right, but the sun still will rise, birds sing, and life will
go on.
Sound familiar? Look familiar? pic.twitter.com/mJ2ZQPzgef — Daniel Seidemann
(@DanielSeidemann) January 28, 2020
Shibley Telhami, a scholar of the region at the University of Maryland, pointed to another
disturbing detail of the plan: a provision to further ethnically cleanse Israel by revoking the
citizenship of Palestinians living in one section of the state, and forcing that region to
merge with those parts of the West Bank not annexed by Israel.
One shocking feature of Trump's "American" plan is that Israel would carve out Israeli-Arab
towns in the "Triangle" region, strip them of Israeli citizenship, and place them under
Palestinian jurisdiction -- something majorities oppose. Un-American Plan.
https://t.co/eQNFzRLvdG pic.twitter.com/bn143hVSRr — Shibley Telhami (@ShibleyTelhami)
January 28, 2020
Trump’s plan was denounced by both Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, among
the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump for the presidency.
While Sanders called the plan “unacceptable,” Warren went further, promising to
“oppose unilateral annexation in any form — and reverse any policy that supports
it.”
Trump's "peace plan" is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real
Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn't diplomacy, it's
a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that
supports it. — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 28, 2020
It must end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination in an
independent state of their own alongside a secure Israel. Trump's so-called 'peace deal'
doesn't come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict. It is unacceptable. — Bernie
Sanders (@SenSanders) January 28, 2020
Former Vice President Joe Biden, a staunch defender of Netanyahu who reportedly frustrated
Obama administration efforts to confront him over the occupation, did not immediately comment
on the plan.
Politico reported on Tuesday that the Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel super PAC
led by the Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, plans to run an attack ad in Iowa this week
“that raises concerns about Bernie Sanders’ 2019 heart attack and calls him too
liberal to beat President Donald Trump.”
As I reported earlier this year, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the
conservative pro-Israel lobbying group known as AIPAC, paid for a pressure campaign on Facebook
targeting Sanders, who would be the first Jewish president of the United States — one who
has expressed concern for Palestinian rights and described Netanyahu as “a
racist.”
"... Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment. ..."
"... In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated. ..."
As for "evil republican senators", they would be viewed as evil by electorate if and only only if actual crimes of Trump regime
like Douma false flag, Suleimani assassination (actually here Trump was set up By Bolton and Pompeo) and other were discussed.
Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges
that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides
understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment.
Both sides are afraid to discuss real issues, real Trump regime crimes.
Schiff proved to be patently inept in this whole story even taking into account limitations put by Kabuki theater on him, and
in case of Trump acquittal *which is "highly probable" borrowing May government terminology in Skripals case :-) to resign would be a honest thing
for him to
do.
Assuming that he has some honestly left. Which is highly doubtful with statements like:
"The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia here."
And
"More than 15,000 Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies. 15,000."
Actually it was the USA interference in Ukraine (aka Nulandgate) that killed 15K Ukrainians, mainly Donbas residents
and badly trained recruits of the Ukrainian army sent to fight them, as well as volunteers of paramilitary "death squads" like Asov
battalion financed by oligarch Igor Kolomyskiy
In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means
much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump
slightly deviated.
"... One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously existing foreign intelligence bureau that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared over. The OSS would be replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence purge and the internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows. ..."
"... In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National Security Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended function was to serve as the President's principal arm for coordinating national security, foreign policies and policies among various government agencies. ..."
"... What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence bureau with the military, and that the foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the President, as we will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC's policies. ..."
"... Kennedy would inherit the CIA secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration's March 1960 approval of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach operations) to a 3,000 man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office. ..."
"... Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay of Pigs op was a failure because of the CIA's intervention into the President's orders. This allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum #55 on June 28th, 1961, which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ..."
"... As Prouty states, "When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert operation business. This proved to be one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy's coffin." ..."
"... Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev, which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. Criticisms of JFK being soft on communism began to stir. ..."
"... This was to be the final nail in Kennedy's coffin. ..."
"... Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not just be seen as a tragic loss but, more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful military coup d'état that it was and is. The CIA showed what lengths it was ready to go to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District Attorney of New Orleans at the time, Jim Garrison's book . And the excellently researched Oliver Stone movie "JFK") ..."
"... Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would involve the world would begin full force on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold War. A war that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees the toppling of Russia and China. ..."
"... Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam Hussein was being backed by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979. ..."
"... Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to 'pay the price' . ..."
"... I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked, draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a compromised situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a simple matter that the President alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing. ..."
"... Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown conference recently , but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.", his training under the CIA was the very opposite, stating: ..."
"... "Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979." Ahem. Somehow I doubt the CIA had to do with THAT regime change 🙂 Try 1953? ..."
"... Reminiscent of Karl Rove's :"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort out." ..."
"... It should be noted, that in 1963 shortly following JFK's assassination Truman stated in the Washington Post regret about establishing the CIA: "I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency . For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas." ..."
"... The entire bureaucratic leadership of the Nazis. And it proved to be a smashing success – transforming the U.S. into the fourth Reich. ..."
"... You see the same price gouging in the drug and insurance monopolies. A gigantic slush fund to buy foreign and domestic politicians and journalists like so many street corner whores. ..."
"... There is also a $100 billion "Intelligence" empire. ..."
"... That is why Oceania will always be at war with Eastasia, and why that war will never be won. Wars are not intended to be won, just to carry on for ever, making more and more money and providing more and more opportunities for graft for the people who matter. Weapons are not intended to work, just to make money. ..."
"... That's why flying turkeys like the F22 and F35 are produced. Like the cargo planes full of pallets of shrink wrapped $100 bills that were flown into Iraq that promptly disappeared. ..."
"... But JFK was not shot down like a dog in broad daylight with millions of people watching because he challenged these interests. It was because he was trying to stop the nuclear weapons programme of the Zionist Regime. That was what cost him his life. ..."
"... JFK also wanted to end the control of the US economy of the Federal Reserve, a coalition of private banks, nearly all controlled by Jewish interests. He really wanted to be hit, that fella. ..."
There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully
unfold."
William Shakespeare
Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its
breath all at once and can only wait to see whether this volatile black cloud floating amongst
us will breakout into a thunderstorm of nuclear war or harmlessly pass us by.
The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters
back and forth at the whim of one man. It is only normal then, that during such times of
crisis, we find ourselves trying to analyze and predict the thoughts and motives of just this
one person.
The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a true hero for his fellow countrymen and
undeniably an essential key figure in combating terrorism in Southwest Asia, was a terrible
crime, an abhorrently repugnant provocation. It was meant to cause an apoplectic fervour, it
was meant to make us who desire peace, lose our minds in indignation. And therefore, that is
exactly what we should not do.
In order to assess such situations, we cannot lose sight of the whole picture, and righteous
indignation, unfortunately, causes the opposite to occur. Our focus becomes narrower and
narrower to the point where we can only see or react moment to moment with what is right in
front of our face. We are reduced to an obsession of twitter feeds, news blips and the
doublespeak of 'official government statements'.
Thus, before we may find firm ground to stand on regarding the situation of today, we must
first have an understanding as to what caused the United States to enter into an endless
campaign of regime-change warfare after WWII, or as former Chief of Special Operations for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Col. Prouty stated, three decades of the Indochina war.
An Internal
Shifting of Chess Pieces in the Shadows
It is interesting timing that on Sept 2, 1945, the very day that WWII ended, Ho Chi Minh
would announce the independence of Indochina. That on the very day that one of the most
destructive wars to ever occur in history ended, another long war was declared at its
doorstep.
Churchill would announce his "Iron Curtain" against communism on March 5th, 1946, and there
was no turning back at that point. The world had a mere 6 months to recover before it would be
embroiled in another terrible war, except for the French, who would go to war against the Viet
Minh opponents in French Indochina only days after WWII was over.
In a previous paper I wrote titled "On
Churchill's Sinews of Peace" , I went over a major re-organisation of the American
government and its foreign intelligence bureau on the onset of Truman's de facto
presidency.
Recall that there was an attempted military coup d'état, which was exposed by
General Butler in a
public address in 1933 , against the Presidency of FDR who was only inaugurated that year.
One could say that there was a very marked disapproval from shadowy corners for how Roosevelt
would organise the government.
One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously
existing foreign intelligence bureau that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared over. The OSS would be
replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence
purge and the internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows.
In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National Security
Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended
function was to serve as the President's principal arm for coordinating national security,
foreign policies and policies among various government agencies.
In 1955, I was designated to establish an office of special operations
in compliance with National Security Council (NSC) Directive #5412 of March 15, 1954. This NSC
Directive for the first time in the history of the United States defined covert operations and
assigned that role to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform such missions, provided they
had been directed to do so by the NSC , and further ordered active-duty Armed Forces personnel
to avoid such operations. At the same time, the Armed Forces were directed to "provide the
military support of the clandestine operations of the CIA" as an official function .
What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence
bureau with the military, and that the foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the
relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the President, as we
will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC's
policies.
An Inheritance of Secret Wars
There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare."
Sun Tzu
On January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States.
Along with inheriting the responsibility of the welfare of the country and its people, he was
to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.
JFK was disliked from the onset by the CIA and certain corridors of the Pentagon, they knew
where he stood on foreign matters and that it would be in direct conflict for what they had
been working towards for nearly 15 years.
Kennedy would inherit the CIA secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his
book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration's March 1960 approval
of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach
operations) to a 3,000 man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office.
This was a massive change in plans that was determined by neither President Eisenhower, who
warned at the end of his term of the military industrial complex as a loose cannon, nor
President Kennedy, but rather the foreign intelligence bureau who has never been subject to
election or judgement by the people.
It shows the level of hostility that Kennedy encountered as soon as he entered office, and
the limitations of a President's power when he does not hold support from these intelligence
and military quarters.
Within three months into JFK's term, Operation Bay of Pigs (April 17th to 20th 1961) was
scheduled. As the popular revisionist history goes; JFK refused to provide air cover for the
exiled Cuban brigade and the land invasion was a calamitous failure and a decisive victory for
Castro's Cuba.
It was indeed an embarrassment for President Kennedy who had to take public responsibility
for the failure, however, it was not an embarrassment because of his questionable competence as
a leader. It was an embarrassment because, had he not taken public responsibility, he would
have had to explain the real reason why it failed.
That the CIA and military were against him and that he did not have control over them.
If Kennedy were to admit such a thing, he would have lost all credibility as a President in
his own country and internationally, and would have put the people of the United States in
immediate danger amidst a Cold War.
What really occurred was that there was a cancellation of the essential pre-dawn airstrike,
by the Cuban Exile Brigade bombers from Nicaragua, to destroy Castro's last three combat jets.
This airstrike was ordered by Kennedy himself.
Kennedy was always against an American invasion of Cuba, and striking Castro's last jets by
the Cuban Exile Brigade would have limited Castro's threat, without the U.S. directly
supporting a regime change operation within Cuba. This went fully against the CIA's plan for
Cuba.
Kennedy's order for the airstrike on Castro's jets would be cancelled by Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, four hours before the Exile Brigade's B-26s were
to take off from Nicaragua, Kennedy was not brought into this decision.
In addition, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, the man in charge of the Bay
of Pigs operation was unbelievably out of the country on the day of the landings.
Col. Prouty, who was Chief of Special Operations during this time, elaborates on this
situation:
Everyone connected with the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion knew that the policy
dictated by NSC 5412, positively prohibited the utilization of active-duty military personnel
in covert operations. At no time was an "air cover" position written into the official
invasion plan The "air cover" story that has been created is incorrect."
As a result, JFK who well understood the source of this fiasco, set up a Cuban Study Group
the day after and charged it with the responsibility of determining the cause for the failure
of the operation. The study group, consisting of Allen Dulles, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, Adm.
Arleigh Burke and Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the only member JFK could trust), concluded
that the failure was due to Bundy's telephone call to General Cabell (who was also CIA Deputy
Director) that cancelled the President's air strike order.
Kennedy had them.
Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay
of Pigs op was a failure because of the CIA's intervention into the President's orders. This
allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum #55 on June 28th, 1961,
which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
As Prouty states, "When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection
in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert operation business. This proved to be
one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy's coffin."
If this was not enough of a slap in the face to the CIA, Kennedy forced the resignation of
CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and CIA Deputy
Director Charles Cabell.
In Oct 1962, Kennedy was informed that Cuba had offensive Soviet missiles 90 miles from
American shores. Soviet ships with more missiles were on their way towards Cuba but ended up
turning around last minute.
Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev,
which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles.
Criticisms of JFK being soft on communism began to stir.
NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy, was released on Oct 11th, 1963, and outlined a
policy decision "to withdraw 1,000 military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963" and
further stated that "It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel [including
the CIA and military] by 1965." The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the
headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY '65. Kennedy was winning the game and the American
people.
This was to be the final nail in Kennedy's coffin.
Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not
just be seen as a tragic loss but, more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful
military coup d'état that it was and is. The CIA showed what lengths it was ready to go
to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District
Attorney of New Orleans at the time, Jim Garrison's
book . And the excellently researched Oliver Stone movie "JFK")
Through the Looking
Glass
On Nov. 26th 1963, a full four days after Kennedy's murder, de facto President Johnson
signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of Kennedy's policy under #263. And on March 4th, 1964,
Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved
2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed
Forces during this period.
The Vietnam War, or more accurately the Indochina War, would continue for another 12 years
after Kennedy's death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans.
Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would
involve the world would begin full force on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on
Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold War. A war
that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees
the toppling of Russia and China.
Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam
Hussein was being backed by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already
suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979.
It had been understood far in advance by the CIA and US military that the toppling of
sovereignty in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran needed to occur before Russia and China could be
taken over. Such war tactics were formulaic after 3 decades of counterinsurgency against the
CIA fueled "communist-insurgency" of Indochina.
This is how today's terrorist-inspired insurgency functions, as a perfect CIA formula for an
endless bloodbath.
Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton
during the presidential election campaign and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he
claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie Rose that
Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly to 'pay the price' .
Therefore, when a drone stroke occurs assassinating an Iranian Maj. Gen., even if the U.S.
President takes onus on it, I would not be so quick as to believe that that is necessarily the
case, or the full story.
Just as I would not take the statements of President Rouhani accepting responsibility for
the Iranian military shooting down 'by accident' the Boeing 737-800 plane which contained 176
civilians, who were mostly Iranian, as something that can be relegated to criminal negligence,
but rather that there is very likely something else going on here.
I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked,
draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of
American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a compromised
situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a
simple matter that the President alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after
reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing.
One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC
as "terrorist" occurring in April 2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly
supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC at the time.
This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001
AUMF, where the US military can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both
Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani's assassination and
Bolton went so far as to tweet "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran." Bolton
has also made it no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible
impeachment trial.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown conference recently ,
but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he
admits that though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate
those who do.", his training under the CIA was the very opposite, stating:
I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training
courses. (long pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA
holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is
actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA
accountable for its past and future crimes.
Originally published at Strategic Culture
Cynthia Chung is a lecturer, writer and co-founder and editor of the Rising Tide Foundation
(Montreal, Canada).
Gerda Halvorsen ,
"Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979." Ahem. Somehow I doubt the CIA had
to do with THAT regime change 🙂 Try 1953?
Doctortrinate ,
Is just another work of Theatre ..for all the world, a Staged play – along with legion
of dramatic action to arouse spectator participation – its a merge inducing show
– and each time the curtain falls, the crowd screams "more" so, extending its run.
Hugh O'Neill ,
Reminiscent of Karl Rove's :"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we'll act
again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort
out."
George Cornell ,
Ah yes, the Roveing Lunatic.
Doctortrinate ,
" We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do "
Suskind/Rove.
and so it continues .. 🙂
Vierotchka ,
The actual quote:
The aide said that guys like me [Suskind] were "in what we call the reality-based
community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your
judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about
enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world
really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our
own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll
act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things
will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what
we do."
Charlotte Russe ,
It should be noted, that in 1963 shortly following JFK's assassination Truman stated in the
Washington Post regret about establishing the CIA: "I think it has become necessary to take
another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency .
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original
assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.
This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas."
Well, NO president after Kennedy tried to put that Genie back in the bottle. In fact, the
Genie has taken total control and has mushroomed into thousands of bottles planted throughout
the planet hatching multiple schemes designed to undermine and overthrow numerous
nation-states.
What many don't know is that "decades after World War II, the C.I.A. and other United
States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants (this was
known as Operation Paperclip) ..At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, law enforcement
and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I. and Allen Dulles at the C.I.A.
aggressively recruited onetime Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet "assets,"
declassified records show. They believed the ex-Nazis' intelligence value against the
Russians outweighed what one official called "moral lapses" in their service to the Third
Reich. The CIA hired one former SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after
concluding he was probably guilty of minor war crimes.
And in 1994, a lawyer with the C.I.A. pressured prosecutors to drop an investigation into an
ex-spy outside Boston implicated in the Nazis' massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in
Lithuania, according to a government official."
Is there no wonder, the CIA is so proficient at torture techniques, they learned from the
very best–the Nazis.
They 'hired' Klaus Barbie, a in no ways 'minor' war criminal. The US took over the surviving
Nazi terror apparatus, lock, stock and barrel.
nottheonly1 ,
The entire bureaucratic leadership of the Nazis. And it proved to be a smashing success
– transforming the U.S. into the fourth Reich.
paul ,
You just have to look at existing realities. There is a military budget of $1,134 billion, greater than the rest of the world combined.
This is the true figure, not the bogus official one.
There is a secret black budget of over $50 billion, with zero accountability to anyone.
$21 trillion, $21,000,000,000,000, has officially "gone missing" from the military budget.
This sum is nearly as large as the official National Debt.
This represents a cornucopia of waste, graft, theft, corruption, and wholesale looting on an
unimaginable scale.
A single screw can cost $500.
You see the same price gouging in the drug and insurance monopolies.
A gigantic slush fund to buy foreign and domestic politicians and journalists like so many
street corner whores.
There is also a $100 billion "Intelligence" empire.
That is why Oceania will always be at war with Eastasia, and why that war will never be
won.
Wars are not intended to be won, just to carry on for ever, making more and more money and
providing more and more opportunities for graft for the people who matter.
Weapons are not intended to work, just to make money.
That's why flying turkeys like the F22 and F35 are produced.
Like the cargo planes full of pallets of shrink wrapped $100 bills that were flown into Iraq
that promptly disappeared.
Even with the best will in the world, even if all the people involved were persons of
outstanding integrity, it would probably simply be impossible to control this vast sprawling
octopus of mega arms corporations and competing military and spook and administrative
fiefdoms. So you get different players and actors who are a law unto themselves, beyond any
real control, pursuing their own agendas with little regard for their own government and its
policies, and often blatantly opposing it.
Obama and Trump tried to make limited agreements with Russia over what was happening on
the ground in Syria. These agreements were deliberately sabotaged by people like Ashton
Carter in less than 24 hours. With complete impunity. Sensitive negotiations with North Korea
were deliberately sabotaged by Bolton.
A great deal of the economic and military power of America is dissipated in this way. The
same destructive turf wars between competing agencies were a characteristic feature of the
Third Reich. A model of waste, corruption, muddle and inefficiency.
But JFK was not shot down like a dog in broad daylight with millions of people watching
because he challenged these interests. It was because he was trying to stop the nuclear
weapons programme of the Zionist Regime. That was what cost him his life.
Richard Le Sarc ,
JFK also wanted to end the control of the US economy of the Federal Reserve, a coalition of
private banks, nearly all controlled by Jewish interests. He really wanted to be hit, that
fella.
paul ,
Yes, any goys who threaten Chosen interests would do well to steer clear of grassy
knolls.
JFK, Bernadotte, Arafat, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Chavez, Soleimani, it's all the same
story.
Corbyn could well have gone the same way if rigging the election against him had failed.
Antonym ,
Nice example of Richard Le Sarc's non-sensical anti Israelism: Here he writes that Lower
Manhattan is run by Jews, while scrolling one page up he is telling that the US (=Fairfax
county) took over the Nazi terror apparatus. Some combination!
Both places are run mainly by ex-Christian/ secular Americans, with only money/power as
their God.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Leading Zionassties like Jabotinsky ('We'll kill anyone who gets in our way')were outright
fascists, an, in his case, admirers of Mussolini. Yitzhak Shamir (I have an image of Shamir
in my mind when I read your contributions)offered Jewish 'fighters' to work with the Nazis.
German Zionists actively worked with the Nazis to transfer Jews and German investment to
Palestine. And the similarities hardly end there. The Zionassties and the German Nazis both
see themselves as Herrenvolk. They both desire lebensraum for their people, at the expense of
Slavic or Palestinian and other Arab untermenschen. Both hold International Law in open
contempt. However, the Zionassties have far more political power than the German Nazis ever
dreamed of. And the German Nazis never had nukes, or only very primitive ones.
Harry Stotle ,
"The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that THERE IS NO SECRET. Principally, one
must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world, for which
end it is prepared to use any means necessary. Once one understands that, much of the
apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington's policies fades
away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end
of World War II the United States has:
1) Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were
democratically elected;
2) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries;
3) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
5) Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries."
― William Blum, America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US
Foreign Policy and Everything Else
Brian Harry ,
The older I get, the more I believe that it was the USA/CIA?MIC who made Australia's Prime
Minister, Harold Holt, "disappear" in heavy surf off a Victorian beach on 17th, December
1967. His body was never found. I think he was getting "cold feet" about the "American War"
in Vietnam as it was getting going, and possibly wanted 'out'.
It was said that a Chinese submarine took him, but, I don't think submarines are designed to
operate in relatively shallow water and heavy surf.
Another Australian PM(Gough Whitlam) was "removed" in a Coup in 1975 which was heavily
influenced by the British and American secret services
Richard Le Sarc ,
And Kevin Rudd was offed by a gang of hard Right Labor rats, led by US 'protected source' (as
outlined in the Wikileaks from Manning)Bill Shorten. Principal among Rudd's crimes was a lack
of enthusiasm for the anti-China campaign (his successor, the Clinton-loving Julia Gillard,
was very happy to join the Crusade)and changes to Australia's votes re. Occupied Palestine in
the UN. And he expelled a MOSSAD agent from the Israeli 'Embassy', after the MOSSAD stole
Australian passport identities for operations like the ritual killing of a Hamas operative in
Dubai. They had done it before, and 'promised' not to do it again. Rudd was advised by our
'intelligence', stooges of the USA one and all, to do this, which I suspect was a set-up to
mobilise the local Sabbat Goyim.
Who is in control is the idea of Notional Security within a world of 'Threat' that is
pre-emptively struck before it can speak – and analysed and engineered in all it is,
does or says, for assets, allies, ammunition and narrative reinforcement. (Possession and
control as marketising and weaponising – as the drive rising from fear of pain of
loss).
Insanity is given 'control' by the fear-threat of an unowned projected mind of intention.
The devil is cast out in illusion that is then underpinned by shadow forces that operate
'negatively' as the illusion of victory in subjugation or eradication of evils – that
simply change form within a limiting and limited narrative account. This short term override
has become set as our long term default consciousness and given allegiance and identity as
our source of self-protection.
Imagination is Creative – and fear-framed imagination is the attempt to control an
'evil' imagination CAST OUTSIDE a notional self exceptionalism.
There is a pattern here that CAN be recognised but that the invested identity under fear
of pain of loss does NOT WANT to allow and so refuses and includes the revealing of
heart-felt truth as THREAT to established or surviving order – hence its association
and demonisation with fear, treachery, heresy and evil power that must be denied Voice at ANY
cost – because 'survival' depends on NOT hearing the Voice for truth – when
survival is equated with separated or split minds – set apart from the living and over
them – while struggling within a hateful world that fails the judging imagination of a
private self-gratification.
Fascination with evil and the 'dynamic' of conflict is the willing investment of identity
in its frame – as if THIS TIME – a meaningful result will follow from insane
premises. And THIS TIME is repeated over and over – through millennia.
The 'dynamic' of conflict is the device by which Peace or Wholeness of being is denied
awareness. A polarised play of shifting mutually exclusive and contradictory 'meanings' as a
'doublethink' by which to COVER over lack of substance and SEEM to be in control. Reactive
resistance and opposition provides 'proof' or reinforcement to the narrative frame of the
control. Such is the manipulative power struggle for dominance over the other' subjection or
loss.
A world of sock puppets enacts the script given them.
The living dead willingly give themselves to the specialness that excepts them from feared
lack and loss of validity as the claim to moral outrage or alignment in compliance with its
dictate.
The realm of a phishing ruse is that of a mis-taken identity. At this level a simple error
can set in motion the most complex deceit. Its signature is in the pride or self-inflation
that sets up the 'fall' – and the fool.
Problems are set in forms that persist through apparent resolving. To truly resolve, heal
or undo a problem, we have to go upstream to the level in which it was set up as a
conflict-block – perhaps as an unseen consequence of a false sense of possession or
attempt to control. At some point there will be no other option BUT to yield to truth –
because there is a limit to our tolerance for pain of conflict, protected and worshipped as
power over Life, and sustained as a bubble reality of exclusive and inverted 'meanings' while
Infinity is all about you.
If a mistaken identity is the 'stealing of the mind of the king, and the realm and all it
oversees, then the 'Naked Emperor' story is speaking to your ongoing and persistent loss of
Sovereign will to a fear of being exposed invalid, revealed as without substance, and utterly
undone of not only your self-presentations – but your right to be. IN the story it was
visiting courtiers who insinuated a sense of lack in the Emperor's thought to then offer the
means to cover over it with special and impressive presentation – as a masking that
demanded sacrifice of truth in order to seem to be real.
This inversion operates from lack-based thinking that splits or disconnects from currently
felt and shared presence to seek OUTSIDE itself for what it's thought frames it in being
denied or deprived of.
How does one deal with a dissociated madman massively armed and beset with fears,
grievance, betrayal, and a deep sense of being cornered with no where else to go?
This is our human predicament at this time.
For every instance of its manifestation will be a fear-framed narrative of struggle in
ancient hate.
Willingness to open to that we may be wrong, is the release of the assertion of belief as
'knowing' and the opportunity to re-evaluate the belief in the light of a current relational
honesty. 'Acceptance of 'not knowing' is the condition in which an innocence of being
spontaneously moves us to recognise and release error from its presenting as true.
A false idea of power is being played out as a world of the corruption of the true.
I met this on a random find for a search yesterday:
FIRST RAY:
Pure qualities:
Traditionally as the ray of power and will, yet from a deeper understanding the first ray
represents the creative drive. This is the desire for self-expression, a willingness to
experiment, even when the outcome of the experiment cannot be known ahead of time. Also a
willingness to flow with life and learn from every experience. The first ray gives rise to
the sense that everything matters, that life is exciting and that the individual truly can
make a positive difference. The first ray is also the key to your willingness to work for
raising the whole, instead of raising only yourself.
Perversions:
The perversion of the creative will is a fear of the unknown, which is expressed as an
ability to abuse power in order to control one's circumstances, including other people.
There is a fear of engaging in activities where the outcome cannot be predicted or
guaranteed, which obviously stifles creativity. People with perverted first ray qualities
are often engaged in a variety of power games with other people, all based on the desire to
control the outcome. This is an attempt to quell the very life force itself, which always
points towards self-transcendence, and instead protect the separate self and what it thinks
it can own in this world. This can lead to a sense of ownership over other people, which is
one of the major sources of conflict on this planet. In milder cases, people have a fear of
being creative and a sense of powerlessness, feeling that nothing really matters and that
an individual cannot make a difference -- thus, why even bother trying.
Everything you do is done with the energy of one or several of the spiritual rays. The
entire material world is made from the seven rays.
• Every limitation you face is created out of a perversion of one or more of the seven
spiritual rays.
• The ONLY way to transcend a given limitation is to free yourself from a): the belief
that created the limitation and b): the low-frequency energy that has been generated.
• The ONLY way to transform the low-frequency energy that is created by perverting a
given ray is to invoke the pure energy of that ray. Any ray is the anti-dote to the
perverted energy from that ray.
George Cornell ,
Pompeo's epic statement "we lied we cheated we stole" will be be an American catchphrase or
hashtag for the ages.
In most of the world it would be a confession. In the US it is a boast.
wardropper ,
And after a short while it will no longer be considered to be worth a second thought.
Came, saw, conquered . . . might as well add lied, cheated, stole
Morality is stone dead in Washington. Might as well face it, then perhaps a serious search
for ways of bringing it back to life can begin.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Lying is now the lingua franca of all Western kakistocracies. Here in Australia, not long
ago, to be caught lying ended a political career. Now it is ubiquitous, inescapable and
attended by a smug arrogance that says, 'You can do NOTHING about my personal and group moral
insanity. WE have the power, and we will use it ANY way we, and our Masters in Washington and
Tel Aviv wish to!' It is best and most suicidally seen in this denialist regime's utter
contempt for science and facts, as the country alternatively burns down, or is pummeled by
giant hail-stones and violent tempests, or inundated by record, unprecedented, deluges.
George Cornell ,
Sad but true
Antonym ,
Hear, hear!
An expert on lying opens his mouth again, and again, and again, and again, ..
lundiel ,
Very interesting article.
Hugh O'Neill ,
"Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown conference recently, but judging
from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits
that though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those
who do.", his training under the CIA was the very opposite, stating: I was the CIA Director.
We lied, we cheated, we stole".
Cynthia. The "unknown conference" you refer to was an address to Texas A&M University,
which had former CIA director Robert Gates as President. Another former CIA spook teaches
espionage for wannabe spooks. These are scoundrel patriots, devoid of any moral compass, self
awareness or intelligence. Academics need not apply but liars, thieves, cheats, torturers and
assassins are welcome.
The CIA has a stranglehold upon the American psyche. The oft quoted Bill Casey "Our work
will be complete when everything Americans believe is false" cannot bode well for the glory
of the American Experiment. If fat mafiosi thugs like Pompeo and ghouls devoid of any
humanity like Bolton, Clinton, Allbright run the show, then the question must be asked: how
can such amoral stupidity hold the world to ransom? That the CIA were able to assassinate
JFK, MLK, RFK in broad daylight, aided and abetted by the MSM, means their masks have long
fallen and demons boldly walk among us.
"Who is in charge of the US Military?" Well it certainly isn't the president. There is no
doubt that both the military and the CIA are controlled by unelected faceless money men,
which presumably is the MIC that Eisenhower warned about (as did Teddy Roosevelt). Perhaps
"skull and bones" is indeed a satanic cult?
Yes the National Security Act sent the nation to hell from purgatory. The most insidious and
Orwellian bill ever passed until the oxymoronic "Patriot Act" that is.
George Cornell ,
The West Point oath should be modified to " we will not lie, cheat or steal . as long as we
have the CIA, the FBI, the Secretary of State, Congress, the MSM, and the DNC to do it for
us. We're not stoopid."
George Mc ,
The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters
back and forth at the whim of one man.
Yes this magical thinking is still pretty widespread – although it's difficult to
figure out how many think this way. The MSM project this magical view themselves and thereby
project the notion that everyone believes it. Nevertheless, going by the talk I have with
others, a lot do swallow this. It's a bit like the world fundamentalist Bible believers live
in.
Richard Le Sarc ,
The really salient feature of the murder of Soliemani was the sheer treachery of inviting him
to Iraq on a peace mission, only to set him up for butchery. It has the Zionasties
blood-soaked paw-prints all over it.
Mike Ellwood ,
Ironically, it's the sort of stunt the Nazi's might have pulled, back in their day.
Brian Harry ,
I have asked the same question on other platforms and no one seems to know the Answer. "Who
are the CIA, and the Pentagon answerable to?" They seem to operate outside of the control of
the American Government. The CIA seemingly involved in "False Flags" at any point around the
globe, like the attack on the American Warship, in the gulf of Tonkin which was the excuse
for "The American War, in Vietnam(as it is known to the Vietnamese).
And, of course, the attack on Iraq, because Sadam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction,
which, to this day have never been found(whilst Hussein was hung) after being found guilty of
'something' by an American "military Court'.
The Pentagon has "lost TRILLIONS of dollars which it cannot account for, and nobody is even
investigating the matter, seemingly the American President cannot demand it.
And, of course, the Israeli Airforce attack on the USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea in
1967, killing and wounding over 200 sailors, brought NO response whatsoever from the American
Military.
President Eisenhower warned the USA(and the World) about the Military Industrial Complex when
he left office, and it has been completely ignored.
It seems that Mossad("By deception, we will make War") are heavily involved in the CIA(and
the MIC of course), so, WHO is in control of the USA?
Antonym ,
Follow the money. The CIA – military have unlimited funds -> the FED can print
unlimited paper dollars -> oil and gas are traded in US dollars only via the New York FED
-> Sunni Arab royals own a lot of oil and gas reserves but need body guards ->
Anglo- Arab oil dollar protection pact made long ago.
A similar deal was not possible with the USSR before or with Iran now. Canada is the US back
garden as is Venezuela.
The Israelis hitched on after 1974 and their job is to be punch ball to distract from the
above in exchange for US & hidden Arab royals support.
So who are in charge of the US? A few dozen characters in Fairfax county, lower Manhattan
and Riyadh with inputs from Caribbean tax heavens.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Silly stuff. The Zionasties and Judeofascists have taken charge in the USA since they
bank-rolled Truman, got away with the USS Liberty atrocity and took over US politics through
straight bribery. US Congress critters don't throw themselves to the floor in ecstasies of
subservience, as they do for Bibi, when any Saudi potentate addresses the Congress. Come to
think of it-has any Saudi ever had that 'honour'? Come to think of it, we'd better go back to
1913 when a coalition of private banks, nearly all Jewish-controlled took over the US economy
as the so-called Federal Reserve.
Antonym ,
Israeli sand vs Saudi/ Kuwaiti/ UAE oil & gas: easy choice for American predators.
Richard Le Sarc ,
You keep forgetting the 'Binyamins', Antsie. What would you rather control-an inevitably
diminishing pool of hydrocarbons, or the Federal Reserve that creates US dollars, ex nihilo,
by the trillions?
Richard Le Sarc ,
The CIA is the US ruling class, armed and in love with murder and destruction. The nature and
extent of US global power is the pre-eminent cause of the global Holocaust that is about to
consume humanity.
What Fletcher Prouty mentioned in the above article called "Capitalism's Invisible Army".
Norn ,
Here is a list of what the CIA include: The FIVE-EYES branches operate as CIA branches (I
think this is undisputable). The FIVE-EYES is a White Christian Fundementalist organisation,
and they share their intelligence (surveillance data) with the Israelis. Their Israelis set
many actions on the FIVE-EYES agenda.
Murdoch's press operate as a CIA shopfront, and so many of (maybe all of them?) the NGOs
scattered around third world countries. Evangelists fully support the CIA agenda. What is the
hell South Korean Evangelists doing in Syria as the war rages on?
Many Jihadist groups as well as unhinged Muslim preachers/Imams serve the CIA agenda very
very well and receive considerable support from both Saudi Arabia and the US. Remember, the
first Jihadist posters were printed by the CIA?. Of course, now the posters would have their
brainwashing digital equivalent. And of course, there are full-timers and part-timers.
That's what we know from just reading the news. There are definitely large amounts of unkowns
to humble folks. Who else would you think, make part of the list? 50% of politicians in
Western so-called Democracies?
Outside the government? Are you that naive? This is a fantasy that was promoted as long ago
as the time of Iran-Contra; the idea that the CIA is composed of a bunch of 'loose cannons',
operating beyond the control of the capitalist state. Whilst it is true that the US security
state has different tactics from different elements within it, the objectives are unvarying,
achieving hegemony. What differs is the route chosen to achieve that end. Of course,
competence (or otherwise) is involved, they're not omnipotent and quite obviously have no
long term vision. I think the correct word is HUBRIS that leads them astray. We saw this in
Vietnam; we see it Afghanistan; we see it in Syria.
The US empire is no British Empire of yore. When the leaders of the two dominant
Imperialist powers of the 19th century, the UK and the US met in the 1890s, they drew up a
plan for the next 100 years, that between them they could conquer the world for capitalism
using the UK's control of the oceans and the industrial might of the US economy.
Surely the fact that the US is now 'led' by an ignoramus reveals the bankrupt nature of
late capitalism?
milosevic ,
WHO is in control of the USA?
here's an informative article about that question:
The 'Deep State' IS the State. The surface pantomime is a puppet play, perhaps a shadow play,
where the real rulers manipulate the political marionettes to do their bidding, NOT that of
the 'useless eaters'. Under capitalism politics is the shadow cast on society by Big
Business, as John Dewey observed.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
Every single solitary individual Central Intelligence Agency Civil Servant of the United
States of America does indeed hold allegiance to the flag & country I assure you. Not
only do they hold allegiance for their country but they most assuredly hold allegiance to
their government paycheques too. Without their paycheques they would likely constitute
further troubles systemically.
Governments hire skilled personnel in Intel. They are by & large likely normal people
that work for bad governance. The CIA is headed by Bloody Gina Haspel. Read Jane Mayer's _The
Dark Side_ to get Haspel's role.
Haspel epitomizes allegiance to CIA secrecy.
She is a bot.
MOU
Brian Harry ,
"Every single solitary individual Central Intelligence Agency Civil Servant of the United
States of America does indeed hold allegiance to the flag & country I assure you".
You sound very naïve. How can you be so sure. There's no real evidence to back up
your assurance. How can the Pentagon be allowed to get away with "losing" TRILLIONS of
dollars, and no one's head has rolled? It is a ludicrous situation, and there's no
investigation .WTF!
milosevic ,
How can you be so sure.
personal experience?
Authoritative pronouncements of this sort are typical of the disinfo troll personae.
Apparently, they're supposed to impress the audience, as evidence of direct knowledge and
expertise, to preclude any further doubts or questions about the Official Story.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
I'm an unemployed Social Assistance recipient and have not had a full time job since 1985. If
I had two nickels to scrape together I would not even be on Internet, frankly.
If I worked Intel I would not be on Off-G at all.
I guess life is more interesting for you when you fantasize about losers like moi being
Intel operatives but I can assure you that I have never worked government Intel for even one
hour in my lifetime.
When I applied to work Intel upon graduation I was flatly denied & turned down back in
the late 90s. Today, I would have to get false teeth to be presentable for employment and as
a welfare recipient I cannot afford dental work at all.
Stop being an accusatory jerk off, Milosevic.
MOU
George Cornell ,
Well I for one am saddened to hear of your circumstances. Your mind certainly seems sharp.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
I am a Marxist by circumstance. In CANADA Marxist proponents are marginalized by the state
& corporatocracy to the extent of abject poverty.
My professors at university made sure I was blacklisted so that I would never get any money
or employment because of my political ethos & cosmology. Instead of promoting my career
advancement they chose to excommunicate my membership in the cartel.
Being excluded from the work world & employment by the establishment is the reason why
the establishment was taken down in 08. Excluding myself from employment & career
opportunity only sufficed to annihilate the USA, EU, & Neoliberalism.
The end game is Zero Sum.
MOU
John Thatcher ,
Or in MoUs case ,a common or garden nutter.
George Cornell ,
He sounds like he is down on his luck and you find it in your heart to call him crazy? Is
this what they call subhuman empathy?
milosevic ,
yes, down on his luck, and controlling the world:
Being excluded from the work world & employment by the establishment is the reason
why the establishment was taken down in 08. Excluding myself from employment & career
opportunity only sufficed to annihilate the USA, EU, & Neoliberalism. -- MASTER OF
UNIVE
common nutter, or disinfo persona?
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
I was raised by a Chartered Accountant Civil Servant. The Pentagon accountants were
assassinated by their bosses in the Pentagon as a warning to any & all that want to
forensically investigate their double sets of books. The GAO-General Accountability Office
gets to do the forensic accounting from a distance now.
No investigation is forthcoming because Congress has not initiated discovery yet.
MOU
Fair dinkum ,
'Who's in charge of the US military?'
C'mon Cynthia, you know the answer to that.
It's the owners, shareholders, directors and CEOs of the MIC.
Nothing or no one, will stand in their way.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The 08 Great Financial Crisis not only stood in the way of the USA MIC & NATO but it
forced BREXIT, TARP, & end to the Fractional Reserve Banking empire of the Western world.
Empiricism destroyed the USA & Capitalism hands down to leave it insolvent, destitute,
& poised for global bankruptcy as the third world banana republic it really is helmed by
a tin pot dictator like Trump stumping for Deutsche Bank so that his loans don't get
called.
It should be noted, that in 1963 shortly following JFK's assassination Truman stated in the
Washington Post regret about establishing the CIA: "I think it has become necessary to take
another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency .
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original
assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.
This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas."
Well, NO president after Kennedy tried to put that Genie back in the bottle. In fact, the
Genie has taken total control and has mushroomed into thousands of bottles planted throughout
the planet hatching multiple schemes designed to undermine and overthrow numerous
nation-states.
What many don't know is that "decades after World War II, the C.I.A. and other United
States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants (this was
known as Operation Paperclip) ..At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, law enforcement
and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I. and Allen Dulles at the C.I.A.
aggressively recruited onetime Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet "assets,"
declassified records show. They believed the ex-Nazis' intelligence value against the
Russians outweighed what one official called "moral lapses" in their service to the Third
Reich. The CIA hired one former SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after
concluding he was probably guilty of minor war crimes.
And in 1994, a lawyer with the C.I.A. pressured prosecutors to drop an investigation into an
ex-spy outside Boston implicated in the Nazis' massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in
Lithuania, according to a government official."
Is there no wonder, the CIA is so proficient at torture techniques, they learned from the
very best–the Nazis.
The US calls for apartheid and ethnic cleansing in its primary ME protectorate. Global powers
supposedly concerned with uphholding international law smile knowingly and applaud gently.
Yes it was always going to end this way. Mmmmmm. Might Makes Right. Mmmmmmm. That alone is
international law. Mmmmmmm. More champagne? More vodka?
"The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a communique it would not lead to a just
peace deal and adding it will not cooperate with the United States to execute the plan.
The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured
and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final
communique said.
Israeli officials expressed hope Saturday that the League's rejection could bring the U.S.
closer to green-lighting unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, in light of the fact
that Jared Kushner opposed immediate steps toward annexation because he thought the Arab League
might support the plan. " Haaretz
----------
Well, pilgrims, the truth is that nobody in the States who matters gives a damn about what
happens to the Palestinians and it was always thus. Kushner's "peace plan" is just another real
estate scam. pl
King Salman called Abbas to reassure him of Saudi support on the agreed upon outline drawn
up long ago. MbS thinks otherwise, and he is the one who really runs Saudi policy.
Opinion Every Time Palestinians Say 'No,' They Lose Things rarely go well for those who try
to live history backward.
By Bret Stephens SimonEsposito 2 days ago ( Edited ) Functionally, this proposition makes no
sense. The imbalance of power is so great that Palestinians couldn't stop any amount
more of encroachment on the occupied territories. So why would the encroachment stop at
this arbitrary point?
It's absurd to think that the settler movement is going to be stopped by the proposed
four-year freeze. (I view that as a booby-trap planted by Likud - and they surely must
be expecting a fair chance of defeat - to make the next government quickly use up its political
capital fighting media-savvy settlers.) Max21c 3 days ago If these things are decided on the
basis of "might makes right" then the position of the PRC to take sea-space in the South China
Sea is acceptable to Washington and its supporters? Similar per a variety of other territorial
disputes around the globe? Max21c 3 days ago ( Edited ) Prior UN Resolutions hold precedent
until such times as the parties themselves agree upon a mutually agreed solution.
Modus Vivendi not Modus Dictatum! Max21c 3 days ago The United States Senate ratified the
United Nations Charter on July 28, 1945. Article 6 of the Constitution of the United States
maintains that "all treaties made...under the authority of the United States, shall be the
supreme law of the land..." The United States is a signatory to the UN Charter and it has
passed the US Senate. There is no Treaty which transfers the Golan Heights to the State of
Israel. There is no Treaty which transfers Palestinian lands to the State of Israel. The
Constitution of the United States of America does not construct, create, convey, or confer the
power or authority to the President of the United States of America to change the borders of
other peoples, lands, or countries. An American President can say whatever they want as to
policy. The United States is not necessarily bound by such situ per statements, proclamations,
declarations, pronouncements, announcements, dictatum, et cetera. There is a well known and
existing mechanism for the exchange of lands and territories between nation states via
diplomacy, diplomatic negotiations, resolution of the dispute by treaty, or genuine
negotiations & diplomacy and resolution in accordance with International law, et cetera. An
American President holds exclusive authority over foreign policy and diplomacy with the
exception of passage of a treaty by the US Senate. The existing mechanisms and ways of
International Law and diplomacy are brought into American Constitutionality by way of the
Supremacy Clause, thus, there exists a potential exclusive instance of an exclusion to a
President's authority per differentiation between the "policy" of an Administration or
pronouncements thereof and the "laws of the land." Thus one could well surmise that the United
States is on an ongoing basis bound by the laws of the land rather than the pro tempore policy
statements in this instance. An American President is neither a Global Sovereign nor King of
the World. Border disputes generally remain the domain between the corresponding sovereigns,
sovereign nations, or bordering parties. The role of the United States as a third party is
generally limited to diplomacy. The United States can assist, facilitate, or provide guidance
on the potential resolution of the dispute. The United States can propose solutions, fanciful
or not, well meaning or not, realistic or reasonable or not, reasoned or not, genuine or not,
bonne foi or not, yet it cannot impose such solutions unless the agreement of the parties be
gained according to the fashion, manner, and mechanisms that are well know and existing under
International law and well recognized within the realm of the community of nations and the
diplomacy therein. zbarski 3 days ago ( Edited ) UN resolutions are not treaties. The former
are generic opinions or recommendations, which have no legal effect, unless accepted by a
sovereign.
Treaties, unlike UN resolutions, become laws of the land once ratified by a sovereign's
parliament.
So, all your UN resolutions on Israel and fake Palestinians are pieces of toilet paper.
Max21c 3 days ago It's none of Washington's business. They should let the parties themselves
work out an agreement if they can. It's not up to Washingtonians to impose a solution.
If the parties cannot come to a settlement at this time then the status quo prior borders
remain. Washington should abide by the existing regimen and provisions thereof until or if the
parties themselves alter such by mutual agreement. The borders can only be changed by agreement
between the parties.
There are long established, longstanding, and well know mechanisms for discussing and
possibly resolving territorial disputes and those pathways and methods should be followed by
both sides.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag zbarski 3 days ago ( Edited )
First, you come up with bogus definitions. Next, when I take apart those, you respond: it's
none of Washington's business. LOL.
The fact stands: UN resolutions are generic/advisory/opinions. The have no legal
significance, unless accepted by a sovereign. Last time I checked, Israel has not accepted
any... .
Having said that, I agree with you that Washington should leave the issue to the parties. It
is the US, which has been preventing Israel from resolving the territorial dispute. Any other
country would have resolved the issue long time ago. That Israel can't or won't do it, is a
crime against the Jews.
Think of this: what would the US do, if let's say, Quebec had separated from the rest of
Canada and then started launching rockets at Vermont? Hint: Quebec would have been nuked...
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Max21c 3 days ago Washington
should abide by International law and respect the existing UN resolution per lands/borders
until such time as the parties themselves resolve the situ.
The US should not become a party to the dispute.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag GLA 3 days ago you are right.
the United States is not a world government. Our government can make recommendations and offer
support. that is it.
The United Nations is an organization formed to promote peace among nations. It is not a
world government, it is not a legislative body, and it has no lawmaking authority.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report GLA 3 days ago Palestinian leadership should develop and
present their own peace plan. That is their right. Palestinian leadership should hold town hall
meetings in Gaza and the West Bank on their peace plan and give voice to every Palestinian.
That is their right. Respect 2 Reply reply Share link
Copy Report flag Mike_71 2 days ago But the
Palestinian leaderships of both Hamas and Fatah have never done that, as allowing the average
Palestinian to participate in nominating and electing their own candidates and publicly voicing
their own opinions, particularly when they contradict those of the leadership, is no more
tolerated in the Palestinian Territories, than it is in the Peoples' Republic of China. The
leadership of the soon to be dissolved "Palestinian Authority" will be by "President for Life"
Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 16th year of the four year term to which he was elected in 2005.
Likewise, Ismael Haniyeh, Yoyo Sinwar and others in Hamas, have never faced a Palestinian
electorate at the ballot box.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Orville 3 days ago One thing
Mr. Mackey leaves out is the US's treating the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, rather than
occupied Syrian territory. Mike_71 2 days ago While International Law unequivocally condemns
initiating wars of aggression for the purpose of acquiring territory, it is silent when the
victim of that aggression retains land captured in a "defensive war of necessity." Thus, like
the Soviet Union retaining land captured in the "Great Patriotic War" until 1991, Israel's
retaining the Golan Heights, likewise captured in a "defensive war of necessity," the 1967 "Six
Day War," does not violate International Law. As the victorious belligerent in a "defensive war
of necessity," Israel may retain the Golan Heights until such time as possession is modified by
treaty. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uti_possidetis
(Latin: As you possess, you may possess henceforth) Note that the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula,
likewise captured by Israel in the "Six Day War," was returned to Egyptian sovereignty after an
agreement was negotiated and after a withdrawal period, pursuant to the terms of the
Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. As in the instance of the Egyptian Sinai, the Golan Heights
could be returned to Syria, were the Syrians willing to negotiate a peace agreement with
Israel.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag xochtl 3 days ago
Settler colonialism, white supremacy, and the "special relationship" between the U.S.
and Israel 10 March 2015
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions/From our Staff and Members/Voices of JVP February 24, 2015
talk by JVP Deputy Director Cecilie Surasky at Portland State University from Environmental
Destruction and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement: a panel on international
resistance
1. The 'special relationship' between Israel and the United States is rooted in our common
national narratives and founding mythology. 2. Settler colonialism and white supremacy is the
right, holistic frame with which to understand Israel and Palestine, as well as the U.S. --
it helps us understand what we're really struggling against, and holds us accountable to ways
we may inadvertently be serving the status quo. 3. If the basis of the special relationship
is a common narrative of 'manifest destiny', and the feelings of superiority over others that
it engenders, then to resist we must counter that narrative. One question we often ask
ourselves is why Americans so easily accept the dominant Israeli narrative without question,
and I think the answer is obvious. We have literally been primed, for generations, by our own
national narrative ttler colonialism, white supremacy, and the "special relationship" between
the U.S. and Israel We all are well versed with language about the "special relationship"
between Israel and the United States. And in fact, it is real. Over time, no other country in
the world has been the recipient of more economic and military aid from the U.S., or from any
other country for that matter. Furthermore, many of us hold a power analysis which says that
the key to ending Israel's ongoing occupation and oppression of Palestinians is ending that
unconditional special relationship -- so understanding the roots of this relationship is not
idle curiosity. It's essential if we are to ever achieve a just and durable peace, for both
peoples. There are many reasons for this so-called special relationship, and it has evolved
over time, but I think the foundational aspects of it relate to remarkably similar national
narratives which shape, in an ongoing way, how we see and understand ourselves and our
actions as representatives of a collective national identity -- how we justify killing,
extraction, land theft, and so on, in transcendent moral terms. We have mythical national
narratives of two settler colonial peoples, who both believe that we have a divine mandate,
to settle a so-called empty or savage land, and make it into a kind of heaven on earth.
Ethnic cleansing, even genocide -- these are all divinely justified. Israel is to be a light
unto nations. What would become the United States, a kind of heaven on earth. Both peoples
believe ourselves to be somehow specially chosen by God. As Donald E. Pease, Dartmouth
literary critic wrote about this land, in The New American Exceptionalism: "Virgin Land"
depopulated the landscape in the imaginary register so that it might be perceived as
unoccupied territory in actuality. The metaphor turned the landscape into a blank page,
understood to be the ideal surface onto which to inscribe the history of the nation's
Manifest Destiny". "Virgin Land narratives placed the movement of the national people across
the continent in opposition to the savagery attributed to the wilderness as well as the
native peoples who figured as indistinguishable from the wilderness, and, later, it fostered
an understanding of the campaign of Indian removal as nature's beneficent choice of the
Anglo-American settlers over the native inhabitants for its cultivation " Sounds familiar
doesn't it? The Zionist version is the famous slogan -- a Land with No People for a People
with No Land. And Israel's "miraculous" military victories have always been seen as signs of
God the adjudicator's hand. Of course, that notion of heaven on earth, or A Light Unto
Nations, is predicated on a system of racial and ethnic superiority -- who gets to be human
and "civilized", and who is subhuman. Who exists, and who is invisible or must be
disappeared. Who can claim the land, and who has no rights to it. And the fundamental root of
all that we like to call the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is this essential fact -- it was a
land with people. And specifically, the wrong people who by definition could not be part of
an ethnic exclusivist state. Remember that the original violence of the Nakba, the ethnic
cleansing of the land of Palestinians, continues on a daily basis to this day. The process of
colonization never stopped. Although today we call them "facts on the ground", and
Palestinians are talked about, not as equal human beings with the same hopes aspirations and
rights to freedom, but rather as a "demographic threat."
European Colonialism and White Supremacy What makes this issue so complex and deeply
challenging is that early European Zionists, who first started coming to Palestine in the
late 1800s, had themselves suffered from a profoundly long history of fierce Christian
European anti-Jewish oppression -- forced conversions, ghettoes, pogroms, institutional
repression and discrimination and so on, which as we know, culminated in the horrific
genocide during World War II, the Holocaust or Shoah. They believed the only solution to this
history was for Jews to have a state of their own. But while all genocides and acts of
violence have their unique features, and they must be studied and understood, I believe it is
critical to situate the genocide of Jews, in a broader context -- and not as an exceptional,
metaphysically unique event. Some 6 million Jews died, but another 5 million people were also
targeted for annihilation because they were considered less than human, including the Roma
people, gays, Poles, Ukrainians and so on, totaling 11 million. In Poland alone, Nazis
murdered 3 million ethnic Poles and 3 million Polish Jews. Had they not been stopped, those
numbers would have been infinitely higher in their march to the East. Further, to state the
obvious, the Holocaust did not mark the sudden and inexplicable birth of the white European
capacity to commit genocide. No one knows this better than the indigenous people of this
continent, or the descendants of enslaved Africans. Or the people of the Congo, where 10
million died under the rule of King Leopold of Belgium. I could go on. I could also go on
about U.S. Empire. In Europe, while the specifics looked different, one could be Jewish or a
colonized subject and be called an insect, vermin, an animal -- subhuman. In other words, it
is important that we situate what is happening in Israel and Palestine today, and the work we
must do in the US for justice, as part of a lengthy historical cascade of impacts rooted in
European colonialism, white racism, US Empire, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish oppression,
corporate greed and so on. I'm underscoring this because similarly, even though we understand
that historic Palestine was colonized by the British, there is a tendency to also remove the
story of Israel and Palestine from broader historical contexts and the sweep of history and
to see it as somehow utterly unique, beyond time, and as saying something essential about
Jews and the Arab world especially. The extreme and bigoted versions of this essentializing
view is: -- you either believe that the only story that matters is that the world and
especially Muslims hate Jews and always will, that the hatred of Jews is an essential part of
humanity -- or you believe that Jews are exceptionally powerful and devious, and have managed
to manipulate an otherwise beneficent and inherently just and reasonable U.S. foreign policy
establishment into doing wrong by the Palestinians. Talk about divide and conquer. If we
believe either of these stories, all of us who are natural allies in the struggle against
corporate greed, the destruction of our world, systemic racism and settler colonialism and so
on -- we remain divided from each other. We literally can't build a unified and strong
movement. We create a circular firing range, and we unwittingly become the agents of that
which we should be fighting against. Which is why understanding our struggles as connected --
which is what's happening on campuses throughout the U.S. and world today -- is so
unbelievably powerful, and threatening. I have seen these views manifest in the movement for
Palestinian liberation: sometimes people chant "2-4-6-8 Israel is a racist state", or decry
the disappearance 400 Palestinian villages when Israel was created, without even a hint of
irony or self-reflection that one is literally standing on land built on slavery and the
(still happening) genocide of indigenous peoples. In some cases, we have seen Israeli human
rights advocates try to emphasize the growth of Israeli racism by comparing it unfavorably to
racism here, where presumably, they suggest we have mostly won the battle. All of that said,
what is also absolutely clear is that Early Zionist leaders were simultaneously both the
victims of, and willing agents of white supremacist colonialism. In fact, they made their
case quite explicitly to British colonizers who they knew did not want Jews at home but who
did want to maintain colonial designs on the Middle East. As the Israeli analyst Tom Segev
reports in One Palestine Complete: "The Jewish state in Palestine, Theodor Herzl wrote, would
be Europe's bulwark against Asia. "We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarianism."
And about early Zionist leader and writer Max Nordau: "..Max Nordau believed the Jews would
not lose their European culture in Palestine and adopt Asia's inferior culture, just as the
British had not become Indians in America, Hottentots in Africa, or Papuans in Australia. "We
will endeavor to do in the Near East what the English did in India. It is our intention to
come to Palestine as the representatives of culture and to take the moral borders of Europe
to the Euphrates River." Early Zionist leaders actually appealed to the anti-Jewish hatred of
European colonizers, making the case that helping to create a Jewish state elsewhere was a
win-win because it would help them get rid of the Jews. Theodore Herzl wrote, "the
anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies"
And they internalized the same white supremacist hierarchy which had been used against them.
The "new Jew" was blond, blue eyed, healthy and muscular, vs. the shtetl Jew who was small,
dark, hunched over, religious, an embarrassment. I want to recognize there is sensitivity
about even raising this issue- but this has nothing to do with Jews specifically and
everything to do with human beings. Virtually every colonized or oppressed group internalizes
the eyes, in some way, of their oppressors, as Frantz Fanon wrote about so eloquently. Women
can be the agents of the patriarchy, blacks can internalize white supremacy, LGBT people can
internalize transphobia and homo-phobia. In a sense, we're all colonized in some way. This
shouldn't be a controversial observation, it's just fact about what it means to be human. The
fact remains that many early European Zionist leaders' disdain for the local Arab populations
was only matched by their disdain for other Jews from the Middle East. The founder of Zionist
Revisionism, precursor to Likud, Zev Jabotinsky wrote: "We Jews have nothing in common with
what is called the 'Orient,' thank God. To the extent that our uneducated masses have ancient
spiritual traditions and laws that call the Orient, they must be weaned away from them, and
this is in fact what we are doing in every decent school, what life itself is doing with
great success. We are going in Palestine, first for our national convenience, [second] to
sweep out thoroughly all traces of the 'Oriental soul.' As for the [Palestinians] Arabs in
Palestine, what they do is their business; but if we can do them a favor, it is to help them
liberate themselves from the Orient.'" (One Palestine Complete, Tom Segev) And the effort was
"successful". As Arab Jewish scholar Ella Shohat has written, "in a generation or two,
millennia of rooted Oriental civilization, unified even in its diversity," had been wiped
out. Jews from Arab countries were forced to choose between being either Arab or Jewish, but
they could not be both. ( Ella Shohat, "Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of
its Jewish Victims," Social Text, No.19/20 (1988)) Of course those Jews who survived had the
right to their homes after they were ripped from their homes, and their world literally
obliterated -- but it wasn't Palestinians or the Arab world that owed them reparations or a
homeland. It was Europe. But thanks to settler colonialism, it has been Palestinians who have
been forced to pay the price ever since.
The Manipulation of Jewish Trauma I can't underscore enough the extent to which the profound
Jewish trauma over genocide and oppression has been manipulated and deliberately retriggered
over and over by people and institutions who have instrumentalized Jewish suffering to
justify Israeli expansionism and repression. Everyone from Abraham Foxman and the
Anti-Defamation League to the Simon Wiesenthal Center perform this role effectively through a
steady-drip of "the world hates us" iconography, statements, and Boy-Cries-Wolf overwrought
hysteria, which of course cheapens the charge of anti-Semitism. I grew up with a tante who
would literally shake with rage when she described her childhood in Poland. My father didn't
talk about his family story, so as kids we didn't understand. But later we learned the horror
stories, realized it was our own extended families in those pictures of pogroms and prisoner
camps, and we internalized the sense of perpetual fear. After the war, Jews did not talk
about the Holocaust, there was much shame. But it eventually became our central access to our
identity, thanks in no small part to efforts to give the young nation of Israel a perpetual
free pass. And in the process, it was given a kind of mystical exceptionalism. Rather than
teaching us lessons about systems of oppression, it became the horror to end all horrors,
which cast a shadow over history's other horrors. Many children would be taught to ask, not
Why throughout history groups of people hated other groups? or Why do governments oppress
people? We were taught to ask instead, "Why does everyone hate the Jews? " Further, from a
U.S. Empire perspective, it makes sense that the Shoah is commemorated in a massive museum on
the Mall in DC, while there is still no national slavery museum or indigenous genocide
museum. Better to point the finger elsewhere, while shoring up our sense of collective
superiority as heroic Americans. To this day, Jews and our aspirations for freedom have been
unwittingly made a tool of Empire- the struggle against anti-Jewish hatred has been coopted
into the effort to demonize the Arab and Muslim world in order to justify US wars and
intervention- for profit. And of course, to justify Israeli expansionism. When Netanyahu
encourages Danish or French Jews to mass migrate to Israel -- he's cynically exploiting real
fear and trauma to push his expansionist agenda -- new immigrants will be sent to
settlements, not inside 67 borders. Similarly, classic anti-Semitism itself is a tool of
Empire– Jews are scapegoated as a 'secret cabal' that controls the world's finances,
conveniently distracting potential resistance movements from the actual corporate, government
and military sources of global economic exploitation and control. In the end, if we don't
fight this, we all lose. Rather than joining together to resist power, we instead end up
fighting each other over manufactured hatreds and bigotries. Narrative If the root of this
special relationship is not as much AIPAC and money, as much as it is our national narrative
and the feelings it engenders -- and an unquestioning belief that Israel has an infinite
right to expand onto other people's land, then it is narrative that holds unconditional
support in place, and our resistance must also be at the level of narrative. So let's start
with ourselves. All of us in this movement have to decolonize our minds -- and it is a
constant process, we stumble all the time -- because we are fighting the very air we breathe.
But here is our work: We must insist that Israel does not get a free pass, and nor do I as a
white Jew, or anyone else, only because of a personal or collective history of oppression. We
all have to be held accountable to the power we hold when we hold it, like anyone else, like
any other country. Because it is not only possible but likely that many of us will hold
multiple positions at one time- marginalized in some ways and possessing power and privilege
in others. We have to be mindful of Orientialism on the left: just as the left has projected
on, fetishized, related transactionally to many native peoples, it happens in this movement.
There is a tendency to want all Palestinians to either be helpless grandmothers waiting for a
Great White Hope (heroic in the streets activists) -- or Che Guevera. Well , Palestinians in
Gaza and the West Bank are also sports fans, software developers, and capitalists. Freedom is
freedom. The Palestinian struggle is not simply an excuse for us to reflect on how moral the
Jewish or Christian or leftist or (fill in the blank) people are. It is not the surface on
which we write our own story, or a mirror that interests us only because it shows us our own
reflection. We have to simply be allies who love, yes love, our Palestinian friends and
colleagues enough to simply say: Tell me how I can support you? Knowing, also, with humility,
that in the past, present or future–we too need support in our struggles. And for those
of us given a platform because we are "safe" because we are white or Jewish, for example, we
have to know when to shut up, and cede the platform to our Palestinian friends. Most
important, rather than framing the story of Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice in a
historical and political vacuum -- as many do -- and as a unique and exceptional story, for
example, about a reasonable US foreign policy hijacked by an all-powerful Jewish lobby, we
should understand it as part of a much longer unfolding of Christian European Colonialism,
greed, and white supremacy -- that continues to this day and operates everywhere. Narrative's
power is not just about knowing facts, it is a means to exert psychological control, and to
dampen the will to resist. Palestinian American scholar Steven Salaita wrote in The Holy Land
in Transit, Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan: Ethnic cleansing is the removal of humans
in order that narratives will disappear .a blinding of the national imagination so colonial
history will be removed along with the dispossessed. It is only through ethnic cleansing that
the average American can accept without nagging guilt the history of her nation, which is
known to all but decontextualized from its present " The same is true for the Jewish settler,
living in a home that once belonged to a Palestinian family. Salaita goes on: "It is a
mistake to conceptualize ethnic cleansing simply as a physical act. It's importance lies in
its psychological power." Which is why in the US, we are waging this struggle at the level of
narrative. And why universities are on the very front line of this battle. As even Zev
Jabotinsky wrote about years ago, this is war of attrition. Boycott Divestment Sanctions
(BDS) campaigns create a moral crisis, and replace either a conspiracy of total silence, or
the monologue of the Israeli narrative masquerading as a dialogue -- and it places the
Palestinian story right where it belongs -- up front. One of the beautiful elements of the
BDS movement is the way that is has challenged the engineered invisibility of the Palestinian
narrative and analysis -- divestment and boycott votes demand real communication, revealing
that what often passes for dialogue, is monologue. We have to reprogram our neural pathways
-- through social media, through BDS campaigns, through reinterpreting, re-covering and
re-writing our own religious and cultural language. Campuses are the front line, but so are
artists and religious practitioners and community-builders. And we must rewrite our own
language. We began with a slogan -- a land with no people for a people with no land. But now
I'll leave with a new slogan to help us tell a new story -- a rewriting we have embraced in
my community of Jews -- all of us unwavering in our belief that never again means never again
for all people, unwavering in our pursuit of justice and freedom unwavering in our belief
that Jewish liberation and Palestinian liberation are not opposed, but intertwined That new
slogan is: All people are chosen, All land is holy. NationalismSettler-Colonialism Jewish
Voice for Peace is a national member-driven organization dedicated to a U.S. foreign policy
based on peace, human rights, and respect for international law.
Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Wnt 3 days ago I still would like to
see an actual graph: Palestinian land area as a function of time, number of Palestinians as a
function of time. We should be able to extrapolate not if but when a final
solution to the crisis becomes inevitable.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag lchabin 3 days ago Stop
whining. The Palestinians haven't accepted any offers of peace. They could have had their own
state a long time ago. Wake up folks; a number of Arab states seem just fine with this peace
proposal. Israel isn't going anywhere, and they get it.
@Richard Pierce - so much bile and ignorance. Yes, Israel is a democracy, and Iran not a
democracy. It takes a lot of hate and/or ignorance not to understand that. Seeing a few of your
posts, my money is on hate. Respect 3 Reply reply Share link
Copy Report flag zbarski 3 days ago
It takes a lot of hate and/or ignorance not to understand that
It also takes a few missing chromosomes.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Richard_Pearce 3 days ago No,
just takes being old enough to remember when folks used your sort of 'reasoning' to call the
White State in South Africa an 'island of civilisation amongst savages', the Shah the 'beloved
leader' of Iran, Saddam Hussein AND Osama bin Laden good guys, Nelson Mandela a radical
terrorist, and spent a few years dealing with guys who's survival often came down to their
ability to lie to others convincingly, and who's ability to look in the mirror and see
something they didn't hate came down to their ability to reject reality even more fervently
than supporters of the Israeli regime have to, street addicts.
That results in a finely honed male cow patty detector, as well as robust immunity to bullying
and peer pressure.
Respect 4 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Richard_Pearce 4 days ago If you
present the American population a choice between the 'one state solution' (one country 'between
the river and the sea' with equal rights for all) and the 'two state solution' (which requires
voiding the Geneva Conventions, the UN charter, close to a dozen human rights laws, barring the
ICC and ICJ from exerting jurisdiction, and the rewriting of the International Convention on
the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and 2002 Rome Statute of the ICC)
they're about equally split.
Guess what happens if you tell them the truth, that the 'two state solution' is a fraud that
will never be accepted and therefore is not an option.
If you guessed that the vast majority of the American population chooses to support the same
solution that the 'terrorist' Hamas and the 'genocidal' Iranian government support.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Mike_71 2 days ago If you prefer
the "one state solution" with equal rights for all citizens living between the river and the
sea, then Israel has been that "single state" since June 10, 1967, when it prevailed in a
"defensive war of necessity" against Palestinian and Arab invaders. Since that time, the
Palestinians have rejected all Israeli offers for negotiating for peace and a state of their
own, which Palestinians rejected in 1967, 2000, 2008 and more recently. There is no
"Apartheid," or "ethnic cleansing" in Israel, despite Palestinian efforts to impose them there.
In an "Orwellian Inversion (war is peace, poverty is plenty and ignorance is strength),"
Palestinians seek to impose a 20% minority "Arab Supremacist Apartheid Regime," over a 75 %
Israeli Jewish majority population. How that would differ from the former "Apartheid South
Africa," once ruled by a 10% minority "White Supremacist Apartheid Regime" over a 90% Black and
Mixed Race African majority, they refuse to explain, or justify. Just as South Africans are
entitled to democratic and majority rule in their nation, Israelis are entitled to those same
rights in theirs.
Have you ever studied the founding documents of both the P.L.O. and Hamas? Both call for the
"ethic cleansing"of Jews from their ancestral homeland in which they were indigenous for over
3,000 years. Read them here:
In rejecting the two state solution, as provided under UNGAR 181 in 1947 and numerous
Israeli offers since, the Palestinians have forfeited all rights to statehood, thus by default
making Israel the "one state" solution, with equal rights for all Israeli citizens, Arabs,
Christians, Druze and Jews. Preferring to remaining stateless to having a state of their own,
Palestinians have sealed their fate. There is no "two state" solution, as Palestinians never
wanted it.
Palestinian "rejectionists" seek to accomplish by propaganda that which they are unable to
achieve through war and terrorism. The Palestinians violated the 1949 Geneva Conventions during
the "Second Intifada" in deliberately targeting and killing over 1,000 Israeli civilians in bus
and cafe bombings in acts defined as "War Crimes, " violating the human rights of Israeli
citizens. The I.C.C has no jurisdiction, as Israel was never a party to the Rome Statute
creating the Court, and "Palestine" is not a "state," as required to become a signatory to the
Rome Statute. Having failed in all other means, including war and terrorism, Palestinians are
grasping at straws to try to achieve statehood, which they can only obtain through direct
negotiation with Israel. The conflict will continue until such time as Palestinians adopt the
requirements of UNSCR 242 and 338, which require:
"Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of
the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of every state in the area
and the right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from fear or acts
of force."
The Palestinian demand for a "one state" solution has backfired on them, making Israel the
"one state" solution, while making themselves stateless, impoverished and isolated in a rapidly
changing Middle-East.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Richard_Pearce 4 days ago If
the propasals the US has put forward are 'peace plans', then this https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/79/278375333_dfc587574c.jpg
is brain surgery. Dysnomia 4 days ago The U.S. itself is a settler-colonial state that only
exists because of its genocide of Native Americans. U.S. victory over the native population,
and U.S. control from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is now a fait accompli, and that's exactly
what they want for Israel. Max21c 4 days ago ( Edited )
Lebensraum. Definition: the territory that a state or nation believes is needed for its
natural development. The German concept of Lebensraum comprises policies and practices of
settler colonialism which proliferated in Germany from the 1890s to the 1940s.
Strikingly ironic that they seeks lands in the East!
Irredentism: a policy of advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly
belonging to it.
Both sides are wrong. Both sides yield to or harbor irredentist notions,
practices, policies, factions, groups, and beliefs. Some Israelis want to practice irredentist
beliefs and restore the lands of ancient Israel or its Kingdoms. Other Israelis want to harken
back to their heyday when they had freshly captured Gaza and the West Bank and return to or
retain some form of the status quo that prevailed from winning battles. There are various other
groups that want some degree or flavor of irredentism. Some Palestinians want the Israelis gone
entirely and an end to the Israeli state. Some want a return to earlier borders. The "right of
return" is in itself a form of irredentism as those seeking are essentially seeking political
power and control within Israel.
Trump plan is dead. It's DOA DEAD. It's double DOA dead! Hopefully, it won't lead to too many
deaths or be the cause of future warfare or wars.
There are alternatives. There are alternate paths. Peace can be built in the region. Just not
this way and likely not now. There are good and better pathways that can at some point be
explored in the search for peace! mgr 4 days ago Sounds not unlike the way the neocons of the
Bush admin plunged headlong and chest out into the briar patch, er, Iraq, where grateful
citizens waited eagerly to throw flowers on these conquering heroes as they marched on to Iran.
Castles made of sand... Toots 4 days ago OK, we know how the Palestinians will feel about this,
but what cards do they hold? 4 days ago The only card the Palestinians hold is resistance.
Maybe it's time for the PLO to withdraw from the Oslo Accords, and the PA to be dissolved.
Everyone knows that the PA/Fatah is a collaborationist organization. The illusion of
Palestinian sovereignty in PA-"controlled" areas is too useful to Israel. It lets them pretend
they don't really exercise full control from the river to the sea and deny they're running an
apartheid system. Let there be no illusions.
Respect 4 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Richard_Pearce 4 days ago The
same one that the Bantus held.
It's only one card, undervalued, dismissed, at least when genuine (The forgeries, ironically,
are over valued and loudly proclaimed, but their fake nature causes them to turn to dust) but
durable enough to wear all the others to dust over time.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag REALITYCHECK 4 days ago They did
the experiment on giving land back to Islamists in Gaza and Lebanon. They wont be making that
mistake again. Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag TheManj 4 days ago Spare us your
tired lies. Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Krasny 4 days ago Women and
homosexuals are protected in Israel...if you care about them.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag PerfunctoryUsername 4 days ago
Pfft. Just yell "SQUIRREL" and save everyone some time. Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Art 4 days ago
They did the experiment on giving land back to Islamists in Gaza and Lebanon.
Gaza? The world's largest open-air prison?! HA! Some "give back," with thousands
of innocents assassinated while peacefully protesting their captivity.
You condone murder and assassination.
Respect 5 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag REALITYCHECK 4 days ago Progs
and other useful idiots, you are going to have to learn to live with Islamist control of only
99.8% of the land area of the Middle East and 51 Islamic Apartheid nations. Need a hankey?
Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag TheManj 4 days ago 'Hankey' is
the Hebrew spelling, I suppose. Respect 1 Reply reply Share
link Copy Report flag Orville 3 days ago Fortunately, the
Islamists only control Saudi Arabia, portions of Libya, chunks of Afghanistan and Pakistan,
various segments of Africa, and (thanks to Syria, Iran, and Russia) a declining amount of
Syria. Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag ljg500 4 days ago Disgusting. It is
tragic that a nation forged under the horrific tragedy of the Holocaust, should now bow to
virulent racism- obliterating its legitimacy in exchange for puerile and cynical politics.
Respect 7 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Alex 3 days ago NOW??
LEGITIMACY??
It's time to wake up and realize that Zionism has always been an extremely racist,
supremacist, violent form of European settler-colonialism which is exactly the reason this
creation never had any legitimacy at all.
The Zionist plans for the violent colonisation and ethnical cleansing of Palestine from it's
native population have been made decades before Hitler even appeared on the political stage.
Actually the reason that Zionists and Nazis cooperated so well, were their common believe that
members of a self-declared master race are free to steal and murder sub-humans.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Mike_71 2 days ago Zionism is the
National Liberation Movement of the Jewish people. Like the Vietnamese National Liberation
Front, it has had to fight racist, colonialist, supremacist, bigoted and Imperialist forces to
win national independence. In the pre-state periods of their respective national struggles, in
1946 David Ben Gurion and Ho Chi Minh met in Paris, where the two founders of their respective
nations developed an affinity, with Ho offering Ben Gurion a Jewish homeland in Vietnam. Ben
Gurion declined Ho's offer, as the indigenous Jewish homeland was in the Middle-East, not
Vietnam. In 1975, Vietnam finally won its national struggle and since a border clash with China
in 1979, Vietnam has not engaged in war since. For Israel, however, the "armed struggle"
continues!
Don't believe this historic meeting of two revolutionary founders? Google Israeli-Vietnamese
relations and learn about the Gallil (assault rifle) factory Israel built in Vietnam and
negotiations for joint Israeli-Vietnamese army training and operations. You will be amazed and
educated!
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag CraigPurcell 4 days ago Do I
detect foreign influence (like Trump) in the campaign against Sanders ? With Facebook ads and
all the rest. No doubt business would pay many to get rid of Sanders. Respect 1 Reply
reply Share link Copy Report flag SimonEsposito 4 days ago One point
that maybe isn't being brought out adequately is that this deal won't satisfy Jewish
nationalists either. This is one of those situations where everything you need to assess the
situation is obvious from just one wide-scale map. Nationalists will still see this as a
territorial threat at the heart of Israel, and the use of settlements as an unofficial security
strategy will continue.
And, in any case, the allocated Palestinian territories are not just broken into dozens of
islands, they will be subject to years of being negotiated down even further. No-one will stop
the settler movement continuing to encroach in the meantime, especially because the territories
shown have no stable logic or legal viability to them. (The last remotely viable territorial
unit is 1967.)
So it's actually a plan to formalize and stabilize the gains made so far in the making of
one single territorial state in Palestine. Rinse and repeat.
I like that Elizabeth Warren is emphatically supporting the legitimate status quo - for the
purposes of the two-state solution - of international law and traditional US policy. It should
not be for outsiders to impose the one-state solution, which is what Western far-right
politicians know they are doing. This is opening Israel-Palestine up to the hazards of
historic struggle, and the potential for great suffering, to decide the character of its one
state. What they are unleashing is no more likely to end in ethno-religious apartheid (as some
on the far right explicitly want) than it is in an inclusive constitutional democracy.
For all practical purposes, by this plan, there will soon be two equal and coterminous
sovereignties in the lands from the Jordan River to the sea (including Gaza and Golan). No
involuntary shrinking of Palestinian sovereignty beyond 1967 borders has moral force, and in
fact the unilateral abrogation of 1967 leaves the entire territory constitutionally up for
grabs.
Progressive politics in the US can at least start articulating the characteristics of
a state that deserves a continuing security guarantee from the US, or at least continuing aid.
For me it's common rights for all the inhabitants of Israel-Palestine, under a constitution
built on the spirit of Israel's declaration of independence, based on a belief that the best
friends the Jews and non-Jews of Palestine could ever have in the world are each other.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag SimonEsposito 4 days ago One
of the most difficult problems in a dignified constitutional settlement, where international
help would be needed (for Jordan and Lebanon as well as Israel-Palestine) - and where
international aid needs to be directed - is to agree on some form of negotiated-down right of
return, with just compensation. The Kushner-Netanyahu plan appears to simply cancel the right
altogether, unilaterally. Respect 2 Reply reply Share link
Copy Report flag Art 4 days ago
What they are unleashing is no more likely to end in ethno-religious apartheid...
I hate to have to break it to you but unfortunately Israel is already an Apartheid
state.
Respect 4 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag SimonEsposito 2 days ago I
guess, to be really precise about it, what it is now is "proto-apartheid". It's a piecemeal
collection of segregationist measures, failures to administer existing law justly, and the
perverse outcomes of repeated decisions by the US to veto efforts to uphold the 1967 "reference
standard". The Kushner-Netanyahu plan is a scheme to break 1967 forever, legitimize
settlements, and create a permanent apartheid structure embedded in international law.
The only way two states can work is on the basis of 1967. And actually I don't see why a
Palestine on pre-1967 borders couldn't include a large Jewish minority, in a mirror image of
Israel. So when Elizabeth Warren re-affirmed the "reference standard" without equivocation,
there's an subtle radicalism there. The settler movement can't finally extinguish 1967, as a
theoretical option at least, unless it forms a Jewish majority in the occupied
territories.
To be generous to the administrations that used the veto, I think it was originally intended
to protect the ability of the Zionist left to win the case for two states in friendship. The
veto protection should really have been ended before 2000. On the other hand, it was always
likely that the Israeli far right would win the political contest.
So, however this works out, the best anyone can do is allow Israel-Palestine's future to be
the result of self-determination by its inhabitants. That doesn't exclude boycotts and
sanctions, though, or the suspension of various forms of aid, because that is the sovereign
decision of other polities about who is "fit and proper" to deal with. (Conciliation within the
South African system was still fundamentally self determined, despite the steady pressure of
boycotts.)
It remains the case that Jewish nationalists are the ones with the deep choice to make:
accept the unalterable reality of 1967 for the foundation of two states, or open up a long
struggle to determine the character (and level of isolation) of one state with its competing
sovereignties. Respect Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Mike_71 2 days ago But, the
Palestinians seek to impose a minority dominated "Arab Supremacist Apartheid Regime," over a
conquered and subjugated Jewish majority population, which would then be subjected to "ethnic
cleansing." As the Palestinians have unequivocally rejected the concept of "two states for two
peoples," in favor of a "single state," the question thus becomes will it become a "majority
ruled" state, as 75% of the Israeli population is Jewish, or a "minority ruled" state, like the
former "White Supremacist Apartheid Regime" of South Africa, as only 20% of the Israeli
population is Arab. It becomes more an issue of minority rule vs majority rule, as opposed to
"Apartheid vs "Non-Apartheid." Minority ruled racist regimes, such as the former "White
Supremacist Apartheid Regime" of South Africa, tend to be unstable and subject to violent
internal revolts, such as those led by Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, as
would a minority ruled "Arab Supremacist Apartheid Regime. Minority ruled racist "Apartheid
Regimes," like that of South Africa, cannot last when subjected to repeated popular revolt!
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Art 2 days ago It's the
zionist Jewish colonialists who have - or should have - no rights to the place
whatsoever.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Mike_71 22 hours ago Even the
United Nations, today hardly a rampant pro-Zionist organization, recognized the rights of the
Jews to a significant part of their ancestral homeland in 1947, pursuant to UNGAR 181, the UN
partitioned the former British Mandate into two proposed states, "one Arab and one Jewish." The
Israelis accepted the proposal, while the Palestinians, joined by the Arab League member
nations, rejected it by declaring war on Israel. They lost that war, as well as the subsequent
1967 "Six Day War," resulting in the capture of all West Bank land, for which the Palestinians
refused to negotiate peace to obtain its return. See my discussion concerning about the
difference between "wars of aggression" for the purpose of territorial expansion and territory
captured in the course of "defensive wars of necessity" and the comparison of land captured by
the U.S.S.R. in the "Great Patriotic War" and Israel in the 1967 "Six Day War." If the
Palestinian - Israeli Conflict is strictly a "one to the exclusion of the other" proposition,
and a compromise through direct negotiations is not an option, as specified in the founding
documents of both the P.L.O. and Hamas, then Israel is entitled to the entirety of the land
captured in the 1967 "Six Day War," a "defensive war of necessity." One does not "colonize," or
"occupy" one's ancestral homeland of over 3,000 years. "From the river to the sea, Palestine
will never be!"
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Art 59 minutes ago Ardent Zionists
like you will never acknowledge anything like justice for Palestinians.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag The_Wolf 4 days ago Wow, only
7 comments. Guess there are other things going on. Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Toots 4 days ago You're smart. You
think just like me. Respect Reply reply Share link
Copy Report flag Art 4 days ago I guess the zionists
are busy on other comment boards. But don't worry, they'll come back here in a day or so.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Mona 4 days ago "How I How
Israel exploits Holocaust Remembrance Day"
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/how-israel-exploits-holocaust-remembrance-day
Surviving Auschwitz
Esther Bejarano, now in her nineties, was sent to Auschwitz as a girl. There she played in
the women's orchestra – as long as the camp commanders were happy, she and her fellow
musicians avoided being murdered. She is still a performing musician today. Her parents
Rudolf and Margarethe Loewy did not survive. They were murdered by the Nazis in Lithuania in
1941. After the war, Bejarano emigrated to Palestine, but eventually returned to her native
Germany, disgusted at how Palestinians were being treated. She says that even she – an
Auschwitz survivor – has been labeled an anti-Semite for speaking out for Palestinian
rights. Yet she is not deterred. Refusing to be silent, she told The Electronic Intifada in
2018 that Israel's government is "fascist" and that she supports BDS – boycott,
divestment and sanctions – if it helps challenge Israel's persecution of Palestinians.
Jacques Bude, a retired professor from Belgium, survived the Nazi genocide because he was
saved by farmers who hid him as a child. His parents were deported and murdered in Auschwitz.
After the war, he was sent to Palestine against his will as a Zionist settler. "I really felt
in exile," Bude told The Electronic Intifada in 2017. "I was destroyed by German militarism
and I came to Israel and again encountered militarism." He returned home to Belgium. The Nazi
ideology "led to the genocide of the Jews, the Roma, the Sinti, homosexuals and the mentally
disabled," Bude said. "It is the worst dehumanization that happened until today. It was
industrial and they went all the way. They dehumanized them completely, to a pile of hair and
gold." "So the duty of memory is to say never more dehumanization," Bude added. "If we say
'never again,' we have to decide where we stand and condemn it." And that includes condemning
Israel's crimes: "I am against ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which is a form of
dehumanization." Hajo Meyer was deported to Auschwitz in 1944. After surviving the war, he
returned to the Netherlands where he had a long career as a physicist. He was also a fierce
anti-Zionist and staunch supporter of Palestinian rights. That made him a target of
relentless smears from Israel's supporters, even after his death in 2014. But he too was
never silenced by such attacks. In his last interview, which was with The Electronic
Intifada, Meyer urged Palestinians "not to give up their fight," even if that meant armed
struggle. The lesson Israel wants us to take from the Holocaust is that it has the right to
do whatever it wants to Palestinians with impunity in the name of protecting Jews. But the
right lesson to take – and it is more urgent than ever – is that all of us must
stand together against racial and religious hatred and oppression, no matter who its victims
are.
Respect 14 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Art 4 days ago Good excerpt.
Respect Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag AtheistInChief 4 days ago The
control over Palestinians is SO complete, that Palestinians don't have rights not only to the
water under their feet, but also to the earth's magnetic field that passes through the air
(lest they make electricity out of it). But you'd have to read Max Blumenthal to find that kind
of stuff out, definitely not the apartheid complicit NYTimes.
Respect 4 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Andrew_Nichols 4 days ago The
Euros will mumble some indignation ...and then pursue business as usual...beating up on
Palestinian rights like BDS , selling Irrael more weapons anmd inviting them to join NATO
training. ...all to be expected from cowardly vassals. Respect 6 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag photosymbiosis 4 days ago If
anything demonstrates the sheer scale of propagandistic media control in the United States and
around the world, it's the Israel story. It's just the same old tedious boilerplate narrative,
from the 'left' to the 'right'. The glaring issues just are not allowed to get any air. These
issues are:
1) Israel has a 'covert' nuclear weapons program, and under the terms of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, it's a violation of the treaty to for a nuclear signatory to that
treaty to assist another country with their nuclear weapons program ; the USA's NNSA (DOE
division) has close relations with the Israeli nuclear weapons program. There are other treaty
violations with other countries relating to the Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons programs
as well, but the silence on Israel is pretty hilarious. They've got over 100 ballistic-weapon
capable boosted fission-fusion nukes with working delivery systems! Yes, they're not going to
give them up, fine, but at least make them admit to it in international forums. And about that
$4 billion a year in U.S. taxpayer money... why do they need that, again?
2) Israel and Saudi Arabia, the closest US Empire allies, are not democracies. You cannot
claim to be a democracy while giving special rights to one religious or ethnic group , and
the only way Israel would become a real democracy is to grant the Arab Muslim population the
same rights as the European Jewish population has, on immigration, land ownership, and yes,
that means giving all the human beings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip voting rights in the
Israeli national elections, I mean that's just common sense. Okay, you then have parity between
Jews and Muslims, who cares, it's like the Protestants vs. the Catholics in medieval Europe,
and ditto for the Sunnis and Shias in Saudi Arabia. Why are we involved with these backwards
feudal assholes anyway? We don't need the oil, we don't need the money, we don't need the
entangling relationships with dictators and crooks, just get out already.
Even from the whole imperial perspective, I mean, the whole rationale for being involved in
the region was control of the oil and the money from the oil, and since the world is getting
off oil, the Middle East will soon become as economically attractive as sub-Saharan Africa, so
why not just limit involvement to arms-length diplomacy and let the maniacs try to solve their
own problems themselves?
As far as all the anti-Semitism claims, how about a proposal to spend oh, $2 billion year
rebuilding all the synagogues the Nazis destroyed across Europe instead, and cut off all aid to
Israel? Now, that would really piss off the real anti-Semites, wouldn't it?
Respect 13 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Art 4 days ago Yep, good
post.
Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Wnt 4 days ago A cute idea,
but technically rebuilding synagogues would be establishment of religion, whether inside or
outside the U.S., and therefore unconstitutional. But our politicians don't seem to have any
problem with not being racist against blacks while not giving them money, and they were
impoverished by our version of nazis, not nazis from europe.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag The_Wolf 4 days ago ( Edited )
Establishment of religion is an American constitutional precept. Not sure about European
countries in which the Nazis destroyed synagogues.
Good points otherwise, and in fact the Nazis from Europe actually looked to the segregated
American south and Jim Crow as a model for how to impose their racist ideology on the people of
Germany and the countries they were to conquer in Europe.
Bill Moyers: You begin the book with a meeting of Nazi Germany's leading lawyers on June 5,
1934, which happens, coincidentally, to be the day I was born. James Whitman: Oh boy, you
were born under a dark star.
[...snip...]
Moyers: A stenographer was present to record a verbatim transcript of that meeting.
Reading that transcript you discovered a startling fact. Whitman: Yes -- the fact is that
they began by discussing American law. The minister of justice presented a memorandum on
American race law that included a great deal of detailed discussion of the laws of American
states. American law continued to be a principle topic throughout that meeting and beyond.
It's also a startling fact that the most radical lawyers in that meeting -- the most vicious
among the lawyers present -- were the most enthusiastic for the American example.
Respect 3 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag mgr 4 days ago ( Edited ) photo:
Well put. Slightly related, I understand that Tom Perez, in addition to lobbyists, added a
number of Israeli-firsters to the DNC nomination council for the 2020 election.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Wnt 4 days ago I think the
acid test of any such plan would be an airport. I mean, in theory "Palestine", the nation, can
have an international airport, right? Somebody can get on board a plane in Russia, land in
"Palestine", walk through Customs & Immigration, make a claim for asylum or citizenship at
the courthouse, right?
I think it would be interesting if the Palestinians would try this, just to see whether the
Israelis have the courage to shoot down civilian airplanes on regular flights in the name of
stopping terrorism. I have little doubt they would disappoint ... my expectations, that is.
Any word on whether the "peace" plan explicitly would ban this?
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag zbarski 4 days ago ( Edited )
If they do, you can take all commenters above with you (take Mackey + Electronik Intifada too)
and go on that flight. If the plane doesn't get shut down, you could walk through the customs
and ask for polutical asylum.
Indeed, it'll be interesting to see...
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Wnt 4 days ago With millions
of their own citizens locked on the wrong side of a border for almost a century simply because
they fled to avoid a war zone for a little while, I think Palestine's immigration agency, if
they ever get one, is going to have quite a backlog to clear before they get around to any
actual foreigners.
Respect 1 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag zbarski 3 days ago
if they ever get one, is going to have quite a backlog to clear before they get around to any
actual foreigners.
Ahh. What a pity. Such a deserving crowd above.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag Alex 3 days ago What happened
to Gaza Airport? Donor nations invested millions, it operated about 2 years under israeli
control and then the Judeonazis bombed it....
There is absolutely no reason to believe, that anything invested/built in Kushner's
"Palestinian State" would meet a better fate.
Respect 2 Reply reply Share link Copy Report flag zbarski 3 days ago Still recovering
from your:
The story that Iran shut down the Ukranian airliner is BS. Iran is perfectly capable of
distinguishing between civilian and military objects.
In other news, the Houthis have imposed a massive defeat on the Saudis at Marib - 3500 Saudi
forces killed, wounded or captured, along with 400 trophies. It is bigger than the earlier
massive defeat at Najran.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft warned the
Palestinians on Friday that bringing their displeasure with the U.S. peace plan to the world
body would only "repeat the failed pattern of the last seven decades."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will speak in the U.N. Security Council in the next two
weeks about the plan, Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, adding that he
hoped the 15-member council would also vote on a draft resolution on the issue.
However, the United States is certain to veto any such resolution, diplomats said. That
would allow the Palestinians to take the draft text to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly,
where a vote would publicly show how the Trump administration's peace plan has been received
internationally.
Craft said that while the Palestinians' initial reaction to the plan was anticipated, "why
not instead take that displeasure and channel it into negotiations?"
"Bringing that displeasure to the United Nations does nothing but repeat the failed pattern
of the last seven decades. Let's avoid those traps and instead take a chance on peace," she
told Reuters.
Craft said the United States was ready to facilitate talks and that she was "happy to play
any role" that contributes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan unveiled by U.S. President
Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Mansour said on Thursday: "There is not a single Palestinian official (who) will meet with
American officials now after they submitted an earthquake, the essence of it the destruction of
the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. This is unacceptable."
Israel's U.N. mission signaled on Tuesday that it was preparing for the Palestinians to
pursue U.N. action, saying in a statement that it was "working to thwart these efforts, and
will lead a concerted diplomatic campaign with the U.S."
"nice" Americans: .. Here is a sample of nice Americans who want to control our breath:
Pompeo , Fri 24 Jan 2020: "You Think Americans Really Give A F**k About Ukraine?"
Michael Richard Pompeo (57 y.o.) is the United States secretary of state. He is a former
United States Army officer and was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from January
2017 until April 2018
Nuland , earlier than Feb 2014: "Fuck the EU."
Victoria Jane Nuland (59 y.o) is the former Assistant Secretary of State for European
and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. She held the rank of Career
Ambassador, the highest diplomatic rank in the United States Foreign Service. She is the
former CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and is also a Member of the
Board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
Antonym Cruelty is a sign of a degrading society. Cultures promoting cruelty and torture
have lost any arguments. The Roman empire went down the public games till death phase just
before it collapsed, but that was two millennia ago. The US doesn't have the time excuse but
still promoted its Hollywood violence.
From the biggest kid on the block to bully gone bad
Richard Le Sarc ,
You have to remember that under Talmudic Judaic Law, killing civilians is not just
permissible, but is considered a mitzvah or good deed. And killing children, even babies, is
permissible if it can be said that they would grow up to 'oppose the Jews'. Quite
understandable in a hate-cult where, as the 'revered' Rabbi Kook the Elder declared, it is
believed that, 'There is a greater difference between the soul of a Jew and that of a non-Jew
than there is between the soul of a non-Jew and that of an animal'. What a Divine Burden you
bear, Ant-and with such dignity.
paul ,
Charming, these Levantine folk.
Luckily, Tony Blair is now on the job, working to suppress "the global pandemic of anti
Semitism."
That certainly puts my mind at rest.
Antonym ,
The CIA might have "inspired" Al Qaida or ISIS hangmen but not Assad's. They definitely
trained most Central and South America sadists in official uniform.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Come on Ant-don't be so shy. Israeli trained many Latin American killers and aided them in
drawing up death-lists. You should be proud of Zionist achievements.
Charlotte Russe ,
Guantanamo Bay provided a striking "stage setting" proving there's indeed a "War on Terror."
A "War on Terror is a nebulous concept–how do you battle terror. Terror is an "emotion"
which quickly evolved into rage felt by millions devastated in imperialist wars. How does an
Empire win a War on Terror with 1,000 military bases scattered throughout every continent.
The War on Terror was never conceived to be won, it was meant to be endless.
Now getting back to Guantanamo Bay, most of the victims were gathered by bounty hunters in
Afghanistan or were targeted because of past grievances. The unlucky captives, had nothing to
do with terrorist activities or 9/11. Guantanamo Bay, diabolically tests the limitless way an
Empire can abscond with an individual's freedom. Extrajudicial concepts like "enemy
combatant" are auditioned proving all legal rights can be immediately abrogated with just a
stroke of a pen. The War on Terror produced a new type of captive–someone who was
neither a prisoner of war or a US criminal. An abducted victim held indefinitely in a black
site. In other words, the War on Terror justified extrajudicial transfers from one country to
another circumventing the former country's laws on interrogation, detention and
torture. The War on Terror proved that a mind-boggling event such as a "false flag like 9/11"
generates enough shock to gain public acceptance for legislation like the "Patriot Act" where
frightened citizens are willing to capitulate freedom for safety.
paul ,
Many of the unfortunates murdered or tortured or held indefinitely without trial in US
concentration camps were basically just Afghan or Pakistani yokels handed over to CIA spooks
for a $5,000 bounty. They reckon half the villages in Pakistan were suddenly missing the
village idiot, who had been sold to the CIA.
The Taliban fighters rounded up were engaged in a civil war in Afghanistan at the time
against assorted warlords and drug lords from non Pashtun communities who rejected the
authority of the Taliban government. They had never fought against America, and had no plans
to. Some of them probably didn't know that America existed. They were probably somewhat
bewildered that the US was muscling in on their civil war.
Bin Laden was there as a hang over from the war against Russia. He had been on the CIA
payroll for years, a "heroic freedom fighter" invited round the White House for tea and
buns.
Incidentally, the "enemy combatant" routine is nothing new for the US. In 1945, German
POWs were suddenly designated "surrendered enemy personnel" to deprive them of the protection
of POW status. Eisenhower hated Germans, and wanted to treat prisoners as harshly as
possible. German prisoners held by US forces in the Rhineland area were deliberately deprived
of food, water and shelter, and certainly very large numbers died, though figures are
disputed. There were many murders and summary executions. Wherever they have operated, US
forces have always committed atrocities and war crimes on both a casual and more organised
basis.
Richard Le Sarc ,
It is actually a War OF Terror. And torture is as American as apple-pie.
paul ,
As bad as they are, the US concentration camps at Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib and the
issue of waterboarding, are just the tip of a very large iceberg.
There is a global US Gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons
(including UK territory) where thousands of people have been horrifically tortured and
murdered on an industrial scale.
The torture employed exceeds by far anything Guy Fawkes or the Knights Templar would have
experienced in the 17th and 14th centuries.
paul ,
This torture is the product of very sick and diseased minds from a very sick and diseased
society.
Extreme sexual torture and humiliation. Murder, blindings and maimings. Agonising confinement
in tiny boxes for protracted periods. One unfortunate chained up naked in a freezing cell in
a standing position, medieval style, and just left there until somebody noticed, 17 days
later, that he was dead.
Another kidnapped from Canada and spirited away to US torture chambers in Morocco and
Yugoslavia, where his private parts were mutilated. It transpired that this unfortunate was
not the man they wanted. He just had a similar name to somebody else.
paul ,
And of course the UK and all the US satellites were fully complicit in these crimes and
atrocities.
Not that this will in any way inhibit them from climbing up on their high horse and giving
lofty sermons and pious lectures to all the benighted natives on the rest of the planet about
their human rights failings, and their need to comply with our exalted "Rules Based Order."
paul ,
"We tortured some folks."
paul ,
Of course these are just 2 isolated cases out of thousands and thousands.
One of the worst torturers known as NZ7 was a religious nut job who liked to bring people to
the point of death so he could feel the soul leaving the body.
People were tortured three times a day for weeks and months on end.
Scenes of torture replicated and far exceeded anything in medieval dungeons.
Torture doctors were on hand to advise on how to intensify the torment.
The motivation seems mainly to have been sadism and sexual sadism for its own sake rather
than any genuine interest in obtaining information.
Anal rape was a routine part of the CIA torture manual.
So was freezing people to death and shoving nuts and hummus up people's arses.
People with specialist knowledge of the subject have said that the Gestapo record of
torture was actually far better than that of the US. The Gestapo did torture people, but it
was a very bureaucratic process, and they preferred to intimidate people into cooperating by
playing on their bad reputation.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Many of the worst torture practises used by the USA were borrowed from the Israelis, drawing
on decades of experience torturing tens of thousands of Palestinians. But they are the ' most
moral torturers on Earth'-and don' t you dare forget it.
"... Presently, the West is trying to overthrow governments in several independent countries, on different continents. From Bolivia (the country has been already destroyed) to Venezuela, from Iraq to Iran, to China and Russia. The more successful these countries get, the better they serve their people, the more vicious the attacks from abroad are, the tougher the embargos and sanctions imposed on them are. The happier the citizens are, the more grotesque the propaganda disseminated from the West gets. ..."
"... In Hong Kong, some young people, out of financial interest, or out of ignorance, keep shouting: "President Trump, Please Liberate Us!" Or similar, but equally treasonous slogans. They are waving U.S., U.K. and German flags. They beat up people who try to argue with them, including their own Police Force. ..."
"... So, let us see, how the United States really "liberates" countries, in various pockets of the world. ..."
"... Let us visit Iran, a country which (you'd never guess it if consuming only Western mass media) is, despite the vicious embargos and sanctions, on the verge of the "highest human development index bracket" (UNDP). How is it possible? Simple. Because Iran is a socialist country (socialism with the Iranian characteristics). It is also an internationalist nation which is fighting against Western imperialism. It helps many occupied and attacked states on our planet, including Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia (before), Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, to name just a few. ..."
"... Washington is getting more and more aggressive, in all parts of the world. It also pays more and more for collaboration. And it is not shy to inject terrorist tactics into allied troops, organizations and non-governmental organizations. Hong Kong is no exception. ..."
"... Thank god the US is heading, quite unmistakably now, down the same flush which swallowed the USSR! ..."
"... Yep. America bringing "freedom and democracy" to the world one bomb and bullet at a time. Pretty soon they'll be nobody left to freedomize and democratize. ..."
"... The Democrats deplore humanitarian reasons prior to invading a sovereign nation-state, while Republicans says militarism will keep us safe, however, in actuality the objectives of the political duopoly as reflected in the military/security/surveillance corporate state is rather consistent they're interested in usurping precious resources by acquiring hegemony over significant geostrategic territories. ..."
"... Orwellian speech aside, everything currently boils down to genuine freedom in all its forms not just physical slavery (like in the neoliberal/neocon/zionist wars and its outcomes) but also the mental slavery that leads us to physical slavery. Unfortunately we do not live at the best of times currently, the net of complete neo- slavery is almost upon us and we only have a small window of opportunity to try to stop it. The Smart Grid/IoT system is almost on top of us. Let's fight it with sharing info; and hopefully as a very large population make the establishment listen to us through sustained, strategic non-violent civil disobedience.
"... After 500+ years of Western colonial & now neocolonial plunder and mayhem, maybe it's time to look a bit deeper into how Western cultural narratives have shaped a way of seeing ourselves, others and the world not shared by literally most of the human family. The WEIRD research is an illuminating and interesting examination of some of these differences and how they challenge the very concept of "human nature" associated with Western societies. ..."
"... "Closely related to the depoliticising practices of neoliberalism, the politics of social atomisation and a failed sociality is the existence of a survival of the fittest ethos that drives oppressive narratives used to define both agency and our relationship to others. Mimicking the logic of a war culture, neoliberal pedadogy creates a predatory culture in which the demand of hyper – competitiveness pits individuals against each other through a market based logic in which compassion and caring for the other is replaced by a culture of winners and losers" ..."
"... Neo-liberalism ends in neo-feudalism, with 99.9% of humanity serfs and villeins, and a tiny ruling elite controlling EVERYTHING. The project proceeds apace, with road-kill like Corbyn and the 500,000 'antisemites' who joined Labour littering the road to Hell on Earth. ..."
There are obviously some serious linguistic issues and disagreements between the West and the rest
of the world. Essential terms like "freedom", "democracy", "liberation", even "terrorism", are all mixed up and
confused; they mean something absolutely different in New York, London, Berlin, and in the rest of the world.
Before we begin analyzing, let us recall that countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United
States, as well as other Western nations, have been spreading colonialist terror to basically all corners of the
world.
And in the process, they developed effective terminology and propaganda, which has been justifying, even
glorifying acts such as looting, torture, rape and genocides. Basically, first Europe, and later North America
literally "got away with everything, including mass murder".
The native people of Americas, Africa and Asia have been massacred, their voices silenced. Slaves were imported
from Africa. Great Asian nations, such as China, what is now "India" and Indonesia, got occupied, divided and
thoroughly plundered.
And all was done in the name of spreading religion, "liberating" people from themselves, as well as "civilizing
them".
Nothing has really changed.
To date, people of great nations with thousands of years of culture, are treated like infants; humiliated, and as
if they were still in kindergarten, told how to behave, and how to think.
Sometimes if they "misbehave", they get slapped. Periodically they get slapped so hard, that it takes them
decades, even centuries, to get back to their feet. It took China decades to recover from the period of
"humiliation". India and Indonesia are presently trying to recuperate, from the colonial barbarity, and from, in the
case of Indonesia, the 1965 U.S.-administered fascist coup.
But if you go back to the archives in London, Brussels or Berlin, all the monstrous acts of colonialism, are
justified by lofty terms. Western powers are always "fighting for justice"; they are "enlightening" and "liberating".
No regrets, no shame and no second thoughts. They are always correct!
Like now; precisely as it is these days.
Presently, the West is trying to overthrow governments in several independent countries, on different continents.
From Bolivia (the country has been already destroyed) to Venezuela, from Iraq to Iran, to China and Russia. The more
successful these countries get, the better they serve their people, the more vicious the attacks from abroad are, the
tougher the embargos and sanctions imposed on them are. The happier the citizens are, the more grotesque the
propaganda disseminated from the West gets.
*
In Hong Kong, some young people, out of financial interest, or out of ignorance, keep shouting: "President Trump,
Please Liberate Us!" Or similar, but equally treasonous slogans. They are waving U.S., U.K. and German flags. They
beat up people who try to argue with them, including their own Police Force.
So, let us see, how the United States really "liberates" countries, in various pockets of the world.
Let us visit Iran, a country which (you'd never guess it if consuming only Western mass media) is, despite the
vicious embargos and sanctions, on the verge of the "highest human development index bracket" (UNDP). How is it
possible? Simple. Because Iran is a socialist country (socialism with the Iranian characteristics). It is also an
internationalist nation which is fighting against Western imperialism. It helps many occupied and attacked states on
our planet, including Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia (before), Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, to
name just a few.
So, what is the West doing? It is trying to ruin it, by all means; ruin all good will and progress. It is starving
Iran through sanctions, it finances and encourages its "opposition", as it does in China, Russia and Latin America.
It is trying to destroy it.
Then, it just bombs their convoy in neighboring Iraq, killing its brave commander, General Soleimani. And, as if
it was not horrid enough, it turns the tables around, and starts threatening Teheran with more sanctions, more
attacks, and even with the destruction of its cultural sites.
Iran, under attack, confused, shot down, by mistake, a Ukrainian passenger jet. It immediately apologized, in
horror, offering compensation. The U.S. straightway began digging into the wound. It started to provoke (like in Hong
Kong) young people. The British ambassador, too, got involved!
As if Iran and the rest of the world should suddenly forget that during its attack on Iraq, more than 3 decades
ago, Washington actually shot down an Iranian wide-body passenger plane (Iran Air flight 655, an Airbus-300), on a
routine flight from Bandar Abbas to Dubai. In an "accident", 290 people, among them 66 children, lost their lives.
That was considered "war collateral".
Iranian leaders then did not demand "regime change" in Washington. They were not paying for riots in New York or
Chicago.
As China is not doing anything of that nature, now.
The "Liberation" of Iraq (in fact, brutal sanctions, bombing, invasion and occupation) took more than a million
Iraqi lives, most of them, those of women and children. Presently, Iraq has been plundered, broken into pieces, and
on its knees.
Is this the kind of "liberation" that some of the Hong Kong youngsters really want?
No? But if not, is there any other performed by the West, in modern history?
*
Washington is getting more and more aggressive, in all parts of the world.
It also pays more and more for collaboration.
And it is not shy to inject terrorist tactics into allied troops, organizations and non-governmental
organizations. Hong Kong is no exception.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, China, Venezuela, but also many other countries, should be carefully watching and
analyzing each and every move made by the United States. The West is perfecting tactics on how to liquidate all
opposition to its dictates.
It is not called a "war", yet. But it is. People are dying. The lives of millions are being ruined.
Rhisiart Gwilym
,
Thank god the US is heading, quite unmistakably now, down the same flush which swallowed the USSR!
Yep. America bringing "freedom and democracy" to the world one bomb and bullet at a time. Pretty soon
they'll be nobody left to freedomize and democratize.
Hey we voted against all this BS but what does
that matter in what they call "democracy" or even "republicanism" in the land of the free fire zone?
Charlotte Russe
,
The Democrats deplore humanitarian reasons prior to invading a sovereign nation-state, while
Republicans says militarism will keep us safe, however, in actuality the objectives of the political
duopoly as reflected in the military/security/surveillance corporate state is rather consistent
they're interested in usurping precious resources by acquiring hegemony over significant geostrategic
territories.
Norn
,
150 years ago, The US saw Korea as too isolationist and decided to [what else?] '
liberate
'
the Koreans.
Western Disturbance in the Shinmi 1871 year – Korea
On 10 June 1871, about 650 American invaders landed [on korean shores] and captured several forts,
killing over 200 Korean troops with a loss of only three American dead.
Tallis Marsh
,
Orwellian speech aside, everything currently boils down to genuine freedom in all its forms not just
physical slavery (like in the neoliberal/neocon/zionist wars and its outcomes) but also the mental
slavery that leads us to physical slavery. Unfortunately we do not live at the best of times
currently, the net of complete neo- slavery is almost upon us and we only have a small window of
opportunity to try to stop it. The Smart Grid/IoT system is almost on top of us. Let's fight it with
sharing info; and hopefully as a very large population make the establishment listen to us through
sustained, strategic non-violent civil disobedience.
To make a start: are you as confused as I
am/was about why too many of the general public are just not informed, not 'awake? Why they do not
seem to know the reality about the lies & corruption by a small global-establishment; how our world is
really run; who is running it; and what their plans and ultimate agenda is? The following video so
precisely pin-points how & why; it would be a terrible shame if people did not watch it and share it.
Thank you to a leader who did share it – so much appreciated!
Tallis Marsh, Great video, and I agree with a lot of it, but I think the numerology stuff is
bollocks, as is the idea that "the elite" have this secret very advanced technology, and can
perform "magic powers", beyond the basic principles of physics and maths.
However, the Truth is
quite horrendous. I personally felt, I had been physically kicked very hard in my guts, and to the
depths of my soul, when in a moment, I became personally convinced that the Official US Government
story of 9/11 was impossible, because it did not comply with the basic principles of physics and
maths.
I understood all the implications in that moment in February 2003. It was not an alien culture,
that I did not understand, that did this atrocity, it was my culture, and I knew almost exactly
what was going to happen.
Most people, don't want to know, and won't even look, because they are not mentally capable of
tolerating the horror. The truth will send many such people mad. They are better off not knowing,
carrying on their lives as best they can. Most people are good, and not guilty of anything. It's
just that they won't be able to cope with the truth, that it is our culture, our governments, our
institutions, and our religions, which are so evil.
Why isn't Tony Blair on trial for War Crimes Against Humanity?
Its because the entire system is rotten to the core, and will eventually collapse.
Tony
Tallis Marsh
,
I have a few questions (that imo are vital). How would you define magic/magick?
What about magic/magick being the manipulation of sound and vision to influence/control
others?
Observe our industries like the publishing industry – newspapers, academic books, brands,
logos, internet; tv, film internet video industry; music industry Who founded and instituted
all these industries using the particular system of 'words', numerals, symbols, music and sounds
– these are now all-pervasive in our world; who is using them to manipulate us and for what
purposes? What are the meanings of these sounds and symbols, etc? E.g. What are the hidden
meanings of words/parts of words e.g. el as in elder, elite, election, elevate ? Traditionally
'el' was Saturn.
What is the real history of our world, country, local area (and who is in charge of academia,
publishing of all kinds – are they the ones who have rewritten history in order to keep almost
all of us in the dark)? How can we find out the true history of our world and know its accuracy?
E.g. Why are the worshipers of El/Saturn; and all their Saturnalian symbols around us in the
world? e.gs: black gowns worn by the judiciary, priests, graduates; black cubes/squares found on
hats of religious leaders, graduates' hats and black cubes found as monuments in such
culturally-different places around the world like Saudi Arabia, NYC, Denmark, Australia?
Note: I do not have the answers (I'm still researching) but are these not good questions to
explore because the more you look/hear, the more you see that many of the things mentioned above
seem to be related; and some would call this magic/magick. To be clear, I am not superstitious
and I do not believe in or practice these things myself but as far as I know, a group with
immense power do seem to believe these things described.
Tallis Marsh
,
For symbols, a good place to start for research is geometry and alchemy. Traditionally, a
major part of elite education studied/studies geometry (including 'sacred geometry') and
ancient education studied alchemy/chemistry and subjects like astrology/astronomy? Part of
the Seven Liberal Arts (the trivium and quadrivium combined), I think.
For history, it is
good to research the ancient places and cultures of Phoenicia, Canaan, Ur, Sumeria and
Babylon (apparently all of which were brought together into a hidden eclectic culture through
the elites which moved into ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome and then moved into/by Celtic/Druidic
culture in Central and Northern Europe and now practised in various forms (some hidden but
apparent in symbols) in major religions, the freemasons and modern royalty?
Tallis Marsh
,
Re: Saturnalian symbols. Forgot to mention – almost all, if not
all
corporate brand logos (which companies buy for
extortionate prices?! Who and why gives out the ideas for brand logos?) seem to be a
variation of Saturnalian symbols like the planet's rings, the colour black, cubes, hexagrams;
and parts of these things like XX, swish, etc
Not confused, frankly. The ruling classses must always devote massive resources to promoting the
dominant ideology that underpins their rule or else they are finished. The hight priests who pump
out this ideology have always had high status – look at Rupert Murdoch.
nottheonly1
,
Just remember one 'thing(k)':
EVERYTHING you know was told to you by another human.
Everything human believes in was made up by human to suit his needs.
Human makes stuff up as it goes.
God/religion/the unknown – is all evidence for 'not knowing'.
For it is the one who sees and hears 'thinks' the way they are.
That everything is and human has absolutely no clue as to why.
No whatsoever clue. But lots of all kinds of stories.
There is only one veil – the veil of delusion. To be deluded enough not
to understand that 'The Universe' is an Organism (with all kinds of organs)
that lives and grows.
On Earth, this Organism has cancer. Mankind is that cancer on The Universe.
Mankind is Earth's cancer.
Those who have the porential to look through it all – already do.
Those who don't have the potential to look through it all – never will.
One day, the 'history' of mankind will also become just another story.
With no one to listen to.
Gary Weglarz
,
After 500+ years of Western colonial & now neocolonial plunder and mayhem, maybe it's time to look a
bit deeper into how Western cultural narratives have shaped a way of seeing ourselves, others and the
world not shared by literally most of the human family. The WEIRD research is an illuminating and
interesting examination of some of these differences and how they challenge the very concept of "human
nature" associated with Western societies.
"To date, people of great nations with thousands of years of culture, are treated like infants;
humiliated, and as if they were still in kindergarten, told how to behave, and how to think."
As
happenned right HERE in the UK last month at the polls – when they were offered the first REAL hope of
lifting the yoke of the ancient imperialist forces for over half a century- the election of a GENUINE
social democratic Labour government.
"..the West is trying to overthrow governments in several independent countries, on different
continents." confirms Vltchek.
As the West (the ancient imperialists to be exact) DID overthrow what should be the current UK
government BEFORE it could take office – a Advance Coup – avoiding all the nastiness of having actual
military parking its tanks in Whitehall and having Betty supporting it as beardy gets dragged off for
crucifixion.
Achieved by the dirtiest election EVER in UK history using the combined forces of the 5+1 eyed
Empire ordered into action, by Up Pompeo Caesar General, who visits his latest victorious battlefield
today. Here to collect his tributes for delivering his Gauntlet to stop the Corbynite Labour
government taking office – by vote rigging using the favourite DS big data Canadian company CGI and
its monopoly, of the privatised postal vote system of the UK.
Here to celebrate a brexit so long planned and also to deliver the final final solution victory for
a Israeli APARTHEID state – which like a lightning rod is doomed to be struck by such forces.
A coup. A junta. At the heart of a diseased, decrepit, shrinking Empire – doomed just like Rome.
Morbidly persuing a 'last ditch' master plan to reverse the decline from ever deeper bunker
mentality and hoping to form a Singapore on Thames to keep its ancient City home.
Huzzah! the crowds lining the grand avenues sceam as he arrives to claim his triumph.
In his dreams.
UP POMPEO! UP YOURS!
Francis Lee
,
"As happenned right HERE in the UK last month at the polls – when they were offered the first REAL
hope of lifting the yoke of the ancient imperialist forces for over half a century- the election of
a GENUINE social democratic Labour government."
Errrm the Labour party is not a genuine
social-democratic formation. It is a pantomime horse consisting of the party in the country and the
Parliamentary party – a parliamentary party that is thoroughly Blairite and shows no signs of
becoming anything other. Moreover, there is the 'Labour Friends of Israel' a zionist-front
organisation consisting of a majority in the Parliamentary party which takes its its foreign policy
cue from Tel Aviv. In this respect it has accepted the IHRA definition of anti-semitism. Jewish
members of the Labour have been expelled for alleged anti-semitism. Bizarre or what.
You see the problem with the Labour party is that it wants to be thought of as being
respectable, moderate, non-threatening and so forth. Therefore, it is Pro monarchy, pro-NATO,
pro-Trident, pro-FTTP, pro-Remainer and consists of a Shadow cabinet key positions of inter alia,
Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer, John MacDonnell, who seems to have had a Damascene conversion. The
position left vacant by the departure of Tom Watson is still unfilled. Is this the team that is
going to lead us to the social democratic society. In short it is a thoroughly conservative (small
c)political party and organization being pulled in several different directions at the same time.
It has only gained office (I say office rather than power) by detaching itself from its radicalism
and then sucking up to a new constituency of the professional and managerial middle class, which is
precisely where its leadership is drawn from.
But socialism or even social-democracy if it wants to be taken seriously as a movement which
fundamentally change the landscape of British politics must cease this sucking up to the PTB and
playing their game and stop being nice, cuddly and respectable. Unfortunately I do not see any sign
of this happening, now or in at any time in the future.
Dungroanin
,
Ah Francis "Errrm the Labour party is not a genuine social-democratic formation."
I would
guess you would say the same of the 1945 Labour party too.
You 'Marxist' tools of the bankers since the C19th have like a religious order been insistent
on promoting nationalist rebellion against a social democratic world.
Thats why you sell not just brexit but a HARD brexit while incantating Marxsist creed – for
your Banker masters if two centuries.
Enjoy your damp squib celebrations in two days – 11 pm,not midnight, because the bankers
don't even control time anymore!
As the FartAgers embarrassed us all with their willy waving union jocks the rest of the EU
held hands and sang Auld lang syne to us.
Lol.
paul
,
Labour is a waste of space and a waste of a man's rations. The sooner it consigns itself to
oblivion the better.
nottheonly1
,
There are obviously two Andre Vitschek.
But if you go back to the archives in London, Brussels or Berlin, all the monstrous acts of
colonialism, are justified by lofty terms. Western powers are always "fighting for justice"; they
are "enlightening" and "liberating". No regrets, no shame and no second thoughts. They are always
correct!
It is much worse. The fascists rewrite history as we type. Everywhere. Soon, WWII was started by
Russia and brave American murderers taught the Bolsheviks a lesson: Get Nukes!!!
Here is the Holy Grail of fascism. The God of fascism. The real 'uniter'. All the lies about how
bad Hitler was are Bolshevik propaganda and character defamation – against which a dead person cannot
protest.
Some say that not all humans are like that. Like those who recklessly and generously dispose off
the well being of others, including their lives. Someone, however, must have told them that it is okay
to perpetrate crimes against humanity when you call them 'collateral damages'. But there is truth to
that.
Humanity will experience the collateral damages of the religious freaks that are – see above –
ready to follow the worst dictator ever – or others – into ruins. Based on the story that there is an
'Afterlife'. People who seriously believe in someone standing there at a gate in the sky dtermining if
you are allowed to eternally be with virgins, or do whatever is now worthless, because there are no
one-sided situations in a world of action and reaction.
Homo Sapiens is dead. He was replaced by Homo Consumos, Homo Gullibilitens, Homo Terroristicus,
Homo Greediensis, Homo Friocorazoniens and Homo Networkiens Isolatiens et insane al.
This is not working. Because close to eight billion people are helpless, because it would take one
billion to remove the one million that have hijacked the evolution of Homo Sapiens into a being that
better goes extinct before it can further spread.
All ya gotta do is read Mein Kampt to realize that uncle 'Dolf was nuttier than a fruit cake and a
total loony tune and that he should have been transferred from Landsberg to the nearest sanitarium
but then they took him seriously and as they say the rest is history
Millions upon millions of fellow human beings dead due to the direct consequences of imperialism, neo
colonialism, sanctions and rampant neoliberal economic policies that destroy people's lives and the
notions of solidarity and compassion.
Today, one of my mag customers said to me: "people have become disposable and forgotten about now,
especially those struggling to survive".
I couldn't have said it better myself.
It's all like a dog eat dog race to the bottom for most of us.
So many human beings just disposable and thrown on the scrap heap to die while the billionaires gorge
themselves from the rank exploitation and deaths of so many people.
How many of them would have shares in the merchants of death like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin or the
Big Banks?
Such dizzying levels of vast wealth and opulence next to grinding poverty, despair and chasms of
inequality.
Here's a quote from an article called 'Depoliticization Is A Deadly Weapon of Neoliberal Fascism' by
Henry Giroux:
"Closely related to the depoliticising practices of neoliberalism, the politics of
social atomisation and a failed sociality is the existence of a survival of the fittest ethos that
drives oppressive narratives used to define both agency and our relationship to others.
Mimicking the logic of a war culture, neoliberal pedadogy creates a predatory culture in which the
demand of hyper – competitiveness pits individuals against each other through a market based logic in
which compassion and caring for the other is replaced by a culture of winners and losers"
And meanwhile, most of us stare, trance like, at our digital screens or we shop shop shop till we
drop, or sadly, the more sensitive souls fully lose themselves in drugs or gambling or alcohol to
deaden the gnawing pain of living in a dystopic, cruel, neoliberal society.
Or as Thatcher said: 'there is no such thing as society'. Bitch.
And things are only going to get worse.
I really really get your anger and frustration Andre.
nottheonly1
,
Or as Thatcher said: 'there is no such thing as society'. Bitch.
There is a song (electronic music) by Haldolium that uses a Thatcher impersonator to repeat
throughout the song:
"Yes, I am with You all the way – to the end of the government."
We are witnessing the transfer of governance into private hands. The hands of the owner class.
Let's see how they see the problems of the many, the masses. Oh? They're not even looking?
Yes, this is a Dead End.
lundiel
,
Don't rely on music. Stormsy & Co won't liberate you. They are supporting the establishment. I
who love R&B, the music of struggle, know corporate bursaries to enter the class system when I
see them.
N probably already told you, but there's a huge site called Neoliberalism Softpanorama with
many hundreds of linked articles (if you have lots and lots of spare time!). Every subject
imaginable related to this warped cancer, espec the role of the media presstitutes.
Will check out that song later. Music helps keep me sane, as well as venting my spleen here and
elsewhere!
Bands such as Hammock, Whale Fall, Maiak, Hiva Oa, Yndi Halda. Six Organs Of Admittance to name
just a handful in my collection.
Highly contemplative and soothing.
Especially knowing how things are and what's coming, what most of us see.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Neo-liberalism ends in neo-feudalism, with 99.9% of humanity serfs and villeins, and a tiny ruling
elite controlling EVERYTHING. The project proceeds apace, with road-kill like Corbyn and the
500,000 'antisemites' who joined Labour littering the road to Hell on Earth.
Yes it does. You see where all this is heading. I see where all this is heading (tho can be a
bit naive at times) and except for our pet trolls who visit here, nearly everyone else at OffG
can see where all this is heading.
It's bloody frustrating that the large majority refuse to open their eyes, even when you explain
what is happening, and direct them to sites like here or The Saker or The Grayzone, etc.
Things are going to get really ugly and brutal, tho they already are for the tens of millions
just discarded like a bit of flotsam, all the homeless, and those living in grinding poverty,
those one or two paychecks away from losing their homes .
Society has become very callous and judgemental and atomised.
Just how the 0.01% planned it.
Richard Le Sarc
,
It's like the Protocols. Whether a 'forgery' by the Russians, or created as a pre-emptive
fabrication by certain Jewish figures (in order for the truth to be distorted and denied)it
describes behaviour that we do see. Just as all the 'antisemitic conspiracy theories' that
are denounced, concerning the attempts by Jewish and Zionist elites to control the West, are
attested by evidence that is impossible to deny. Except it MUST be denied. It is like the
JFK, RFK hits, the 9/11 fiasco and countless other examples. The truth is out there, and it
does NOT come anywhere near the Official Version. Meanwhile the Sabbat Goy Trump, and the
Zionist terrorist thug, simply eviscerate International Law in Occupied Palestinians, and NOT
ONE Western MSM presstitute scum-bag dares to say so. That is power.
Yes, the much heralded, deal of the century, Peace Plan, another stinking pile of lies and
garbage to further (if that's possible) screw the Palestinians into the dirt and rob them
of everything.
With scores more dead kiddies blown up or shot in the head or burned alive by the settler
fascists, and the World's most moral army. Kiddie killers.
I'll have a look at Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada shortly.
This outrage, decade after decade, is another main reason I boycott the whore filth
masquerading as . 'journalists'.
paul
,
People talk about the Protocols either as a genuine document or a forgery.
I think it is more likely to have been something of a dystopian piece of writing, like
Orwell's 1984.
– This is what lies in store for you if you don't watch out, etc.
Looking at the Zionist
stranglehold over the world today, the author would probably say, "You can't say I didn't
warn you."
Seriously, how do we get the "woke" generation to stop dicking around with identity and "social media
influencers" and see just what they've bought into? It's not like it's even hard to understand, there
seems to be a miasma over Britain with the old seeking solace in social conservatism and the young
resigned to neoliberalism, debt, multiple careers, impossible targets, performance evaluation,
micromanagement,
Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Realistic and Time
specified goals (SMART)
for your "stakeholders and customers". It's all so Disney. No wonder
people are going mad.
Fair dinkum
,
Just when I thought business jargon couldn't get any slimier.
'SMART' sounds like an MBA having a wet dream.
Harry Stotle
,
When working men and women were sent off to die in the trenches during WWI most, I suspect, would
have known virtually nothing about the geopolitics driving the conflict.
Now we have boundless
information streams yet the public is more outraged by some dickhead sounding off on Twitter than
they are about cruelty and trauma arising from brutal regime change wars.
Surely it is glaringly obvious that this kind of carnage is orchestrated by amoral politicians
acting at the behest of rapacious corporations and a crazed military?
What has gone wrong: unlike earlier generations they do not have the excuse of saying we didn't
know what has happening?
They do, or should know, for example, that around 3 million Vietnamese were killed because of a
childish theory (the domino theory), yet to them Twitter etiquette seems the more pressing issue.
Twatter's useless. Jack and his team of imperial censors shadowban anything that might upset the
comfortable applecart of consumerism. This is why you don't see anything relevant other than the
latest football, basket ball and baseball scores. If I was into sports betting I'd be on twatter
otherwise it's a waste of time.
nottheonly1
,
You should stop dicking around with identity.
Fair dinkum
,
The history of (mainly) white men and their religions, whether they be Christian or Mammon, is a
history of exploitation, human and ecological.
As a white western male I am ashamed.
Extinction will be too good for us.
Jasper
,
As a brown western male, I can say that you should not be ashamed. You are also one of the
exploited, the 'cannon fodder' during the wars contained high proportions of white western males
and we can see the contempt with which white working class communities are treated in the west
today.
True what they call "white trash" are beat up multiculturally as well as by the self righteous
white limousine liberal elitists. I'd say they are the most oppressed group in the country right
now.
Some of their trailer parks have worse poverty than Pine Ridge and that's saying
something. Many of them go to the city looking for gainful employment end up living on the
streets or in their cars even when they have job because the cost of living exceeds their
income.
San Francisco is a perfect example.
Peter Charles
,
Not
"The history of (mainly) white men
"
People only think that because that is the modern (edited at that) history we
are familiar with. Look a little deeper and we can see it is the history of Man, period, throughout
our existence. Man, black, white, yellow or anything in-between is and always has been greedy,
acquisitive, violent and jealous, it is our innate nature, likely the exact reason we are the most
successful animal species on the planet. Probably because we developed our intelligence during the
drastic changes that drove our predecessors from the trees to the plains and then out of Africa.
Civilisation and a satisfactory quality of life somewhat tempers these natural urges but as soon as
things get difficult we revert.
At the same time we have a small proportion of people that make these characteristics the
bedrock of their lives and for the majority of people they are the pack alphas they all too
willingly look up to and follow.
Fair dinkum
,
Most successful?
Reckon the cockroach family might prove that wrong.
Peter Charles
,
Hence the reason I included 'animal' in the phrase, or do you maintain that there has been
another animal more successful than Man?
Fair dinkum
,
Point taken Peter.
Rhisiart Gwilym
,
"Successful", Peter? "Man"? Really?
anonymous bosch
,
"Throughout our existence, Man, black, white, yellow or anything in-between is and always has
been greedy, acquisitive, violent and jealous, it is our innate nature, likely the exact reason
we are the most successful animal species on the planet."
Firstly, so that is our 'innate
nature' ? I wonder how many would agree with that assertion ? Secondly, in respect of "we are
the most successful animal species on the planet", I must question the use of the word
"successful" here – for what have "succeeded" in doing right up until now has actually brought
us to the brink of extinction – are you suggesting that our "innate nature" is to bring an end
to everything ?
Ramdan
,
greedy, acquisitive, violent and jealous, it is our innate nature
,
To be closer to truth this is just one side of the "innate nature". We are not black OR white
(inside) we are BOTH. that means we are also loving, compassionate, collaborative creatures.
Like in that native american tale: there are two wolves (black&white) the one you feed is the
one that prevails.
Unfortunately, humanity-from the very beggening- fed the black wolf : the rapacious predator and
elevated the most egregious of all beigns to positions of leadership. They were made kings,
presidents, prime ministers.
Meanwhile, the white wolfs were given a cross and placed at an almost unreachable
distance venerated with our tongue, desacrated with our actions.
This behaviour has reached its peak and today, competition, killing, betrayal, economical
success, hedonism have been elevated to the level of virtues.
Interestingly, those characteristic you mention (greedy, acquisitive, violent and jealous)
Buddha calls them: poisons of the mind, the defining symptom of a deranged mind ..but well, that
was another white wolf: Buddha, a MAN not a HU-man.
We'll do well and not wrong, if we took some time for internal exporation . To continue to
postpone our internal growth means postponing humanity's survival.
Not true. Some cultures are more willing to share with others. What you're are talking about are
those who have embraced the Social Darwinist "philosophy" of survival of the fittest which is
dominated mainly by whites but there are also other races who embrace this twisted 'philosophy"
then there are those who consider themselves the "chosen ones" 'cause the bible or torah or
talmud tells them so.
Antonym
,
As China is not doing anything of that nature, now.
Who is hiding behind bully no.1, the CIA/FED US?
Bully no.2, Xi / CCP-China.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Coming from an apologist for the planet's Number Two bully-boy, Israel, with its hatred of others,
belligerence, aggression, utter hateful contempt for International Law, dominance of industries of
exploitation like arms trafficking, surveillance methodologies and equipment, 'blood diamonds',
human organs trafficking,sex trafficking, pornography, 'binary options', online gambling, pay-day
lending etc,that takes real CHUTZPAH.
Antonym
,
All that with just 6.5 million Israeli Jews in total; Compare that to 1.3 billion Chinese in
China or 1.4 billions Sunnis.
Dyscalculia much?
Fair dinkum
,
The Chinese do not claim to be perfect, but then they also make no claim to be the chosen.
Antonym
,
No, China just calls itself modestly "Zhongguo" Central or Middle Kingdom, while for
Sunnis
all
others are
infidel
s.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Chinese civilization aims for harmony within society and between societies. Talmudic
Judaism sees all non-Jews as inferior, barely above animals, and enemies. Chalk and
cheese.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Yes, you really are busy little beavers, aren't you. With perhaps 40% of Israeli Jews
actually opposed to Israeli State fascism and terror, the numbers become even more stark. But
what counts is the money, the 'Binyamins' as they say in Brooklyn, and the CONTROL that they
purchase.
Antonym
,
Sure, plenty of Jews are not happy with Netanyahu's hard line. Your number reduces the
supporting Israelis to 3.9 million, even less. One big city size in the ME.
Money /
control: Ali Baba's cave with gold and treasure is not in Lower Manhattan -paper dollars +
little gold- but along the Arabian West coast-
real
oil and gas. The Anglo American and Brit 0.1% know that, but you don't
apparently.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Very poor quality hasbara. The Sauds are rich, the petro-dollar vital to US economic
dominance, but compared to Jewish elite control of Western finances, of US politics, of
US MSM, of the commanding heights of US Government and of the Ivy League colleges, it
is PEANUTS. And, in any case, the Sauds are doenmeh.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Jewish control of the West is mediated by the number of 'Binyamins' dispensed to the
political Sabbat Goyim, not the numbers of Jewish people. You know that-why dissemble? Can't
help yourself, can you.
paul
,
Olga Guerin at the state controlled, Zionist BBC, is apparently the latest Corbyn style
rabid anti-semite to be unmasked by the Board of Deputies.
In her coverage of the
Holocaust Industry's Auschwitz Jamboree, she made a very brief passing reference to
Palestinians living under occupation, and apparently that is unpardonable anti Semitism.
Capricornia Man
,
Rich. you forgot to mention gross, systematic interference in the politics of the UK, US,
Australia and who knows how many other countries.
paul
,
There are some grounds for optimism despite the utter undisguised barbarism of the US, Israel
and their satellites.
These vile regimes are having their last hurrah.
The US is on the brink of imploding. It will collapse politically, financially, economically,
socially, culturally, morally and spiritually.
When it does, its many satraps and satellites in the EU, the Gulf dictatorships, Israel, will go
down with it. It will be like eastern Europe in 1989.
All it takes is for the front door to be kicked in and the whole rotten structure will come
crashing down. Some sudden crisis or unforeseen event will bring this about. A sudden unwinding
of the Debt and Derivatives time bombs. Another war or crisis in any one of a number of
destabilised regions, Iran being an obvious favourite. There are many possibilities.
And the blueprint for a better world already exists. In fact, it is already being implemented.
Russia, China and Iran have survived the aggression directed against them. They have been left
with few illusions about the nature of the US regime and the implacable hatred and violence they
can expect from it.
These are the key players in the Belt And Road, which provides a new template for development
and mutual prosperity throughout the planet.
China has built infrastructure and industry in Africa and elsewhere in a single generation which
colonial powers neglected to provide in centuries of genocide, slaughter, slavery and rapacious
exploitation. It is not surprising that these achievements have been denigrated and traduced by
western regimes, who seek to ascribe and transfer their own dismal record of behaviour to China.
The Zio Empire is lashing out like a wounded beast. It is even attacking its own most servile
satellites and satraps. It just has to be fended off and left to die like a mad dog. Then a
better world will emerge.
George Cornell
,
Taiwan has been a US vassal for a very long time and its location next to China, its history as a
part of China and its lack of recognition should not be ignored. Its people are ethnically Chinese,
speak Chinese and follow most Chinese customs. For you to equate this to the presence of American
bases all over the world, meddling in hundreds of elections, assassinating elected leaders who
won't kowtow, invading country after country and causing millions of deaths for "regime changes" is
absolutely ridiculous.
paul
,
Taiwan is just another part of China that was brutally hacked off its body by rapacious western
imperial powers. Like Hong Kong, Tsingtao and Manchuria.
paul
,
Or Shanghai. No self respecting nation would accept this, but China has been a model of
restraint in not using force, but patient diplomacy, to rectify this imperial plunder.
Antonym
,
Or the Tibet, Aksai Chin, the Shaksgam Valley or the South China Sea. What's next,
Siberia?
paul
,
Tibet was Chinese before the United Snakes or Kosherstan even existed.
The South China Sea was recognised as Chinese until 1949, when the US puppet Chiang Kai
Shek was booted out and skulked around on Taiwan.
Then suddenly the SC Sea was no longer Chinese. Lord Neptune in Washington decreed
otherwise.
Martin Usher
,
I remember the downing of flight 655 because it was on the evening news in the US. Literally. The
Vincennes, the ship that shot down the airliner, had a news crew on board and they recorded the entire
incident, the excitement of the incoming threat, the firing of a couple of Standard missiles at the
threat, the cheering when the threat was neutralized followed by the "Oh, shit!" moment when they
realized what they had done. This was in the pre-youTube days and the footage was only shown once to
the best of my recollection so its probably long gone and buried. The lessons learned from that
incident was that the crew needed better training -- they appeared to be near panic -- and you shouldn't
really have those sorts of weapons near civilian airspace. Another lesson that's worth remembering is
that this was 30 years ago, far enough in the past that the state of the art missile carrier has long
been scrapped as obsolete (broken up in 2011). Put another way, we (the US) have effectively been in a
state of war with Iran for over 40 years. Its expensive and pointless but I suppose the real goal is
to keep our aerospace companies supplied with work.
johny conspiranoid
,
Yes, I remember that news clip as well. It was shown in the UK. There was one young 'dude' on a
swivel seat working the aiming device and a bunch of people cheering him on, then "oh shit!" as you
say. I also wonder if the whole thing was staged latter though, for damage limitation.
I remember seeing clips at the time, but this documentary is excellent, thanks for sharing. The
Capt of the USS Vincennes should have been put behind bars.
Richard Le Sarc
,
But he got a medal! The Vincennes returned to the USA to a 'heroes' welcome'. 'Warriors' one
and all.
No surprise. Many of the low life cretins that were responsible for the Wounded Knee
Massacre received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Ironic that many of the post humous
awards and the Purple Hearts received were those wounded or killed by the 7th's own
"friendly fire".
The dubious legal proceedings at the Guantanomo Bay (Gitmo) prison camp continue to promote the idea
of justice for victims of 9/11. Unfortunately, these proceedings do not represent an administration of law but an
unstated claim that the Global War on Terror is above the law. More importantly, the Gitmo antics have one obvious
objective -- to perpetuate willful ignorance of the 9/11 crimes.
There is a dangerous elephant in the Gitmo courtroom, however, and if it ever gets reported it could bring down the
terror-torture house of cards.
Reporters covering Gitmo continue to call it a trial but it is not a trial, it is a "military tribunal." They
continue to call the site "Camp Justice" when justice is as far from the prison camp as it has ever been from any human
endeavor. What they don't do is think critically about the information they are parroting from court sources.
The history is profoundly absurd. The suspects were brutally tortured and held without charges for up to 18 years.
The alleged evidence obtained from the torture was made secret. Then the records of the secret torture evidence were
illegally destroyed. Then the secret evidence simply turned out to be completely false. FBI and CIA officers then began
to
make a mockery
of the whole thing, secretly bugging defense
team discussion rooms and covertly inserting themselves as translators and defense team members.
This is not just a matter of an extreme violation of human rights and an utter disrespect for the law. Within this
sequence of stupidity looms the mother of all oversights. That is, the secret evidence that turned out to be false was
used as the basis for
The 9/11 Commission Report
.
At the center of the media's willful ignorance is "
forever
prisoner
" Abu Zubaydah, the first alleged al Qaeda leader captured and tortured. In 2009, the U.S. government began
correcting the record by admitting, in
habeus corpus
proceedings, that Zubaydah was never associated with al
Qaeda and that he had no role in, or knowledge of, the 9/11 attacks. That Zubaydah was never associated with al Qaeda is
no longer challenged by anyone and is regularly repeated in the mainstream press. What is not mentioned is the
astounding implication of that admission.
Abu Zubaydah's "torture testimony" was used to construct the official narrative of 9/11 that is still accepted as
fact today.
Check for yourself. Do a quick search for the word "Zubaydah" in
The 9/11 Commission Report
. You'll find it 52
times. As you read these references and claims, ask yourself -- how could a man who the government now says had nothing to
do with al Qaeda have known any of these things? How could he be a key travel facilitator for al Qaeda operatives when
he wasn't associated in any way with al Qaeda? How could Zubaydah give detailed accounts of Osama bin Laden and Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed (KSM)'s plans for 9/11 when he had no knowledge of those plans?
Disassociating Zubaydah from al Qaeda causes
so many problems
for the official narrative of al Qaeda and 9/11 that people like Lee Hamilton, the co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission,
simply develop amnesia
when asked about him.
As seen in the 9/11 Commission Report, the official account begins with linking "Mukhtar" (KSM) to "al Qaeda
lieutenant Abu Zubaydah," who we now know was never associated with al Qaeda. Both
FBI interrogator Ali Soufan
, in a 2009
New
York Times
opinion piece, and Vice President Dick Cheney, in his 2011 book, claimed that Zubaydah (who never had
any knowledge or connection to 9/11) identified KSM as the "mastermind of the 9/11 attacks." The official account of
9/11, and the ongoing fake trial at Gitmo, all proceeded from there.
But none of it was true.
The latest crime of 9/11 is that this fact is not being reported. The media admits that Zubaydah was never associated
with al Qaeda but entirely ignores the devastating consequences of that admission. The false official account for 9/11
is the root cause and ongoing justification for greater crimes -- 1) wars of aggression in multiple countries that have
destroyed millions of lives, 2) the public's acceptance of torture and indefinite detention, and 3) mass surveillance
and an overall attack on freedom.
Instead of reporting that the basis for those greater crimes has been obliterated, the media reduces the subject to a
discussion of how torture is bad but perhaps still justified by the gain. Of course, torture is bad but mass murder is
much worse and the justification for both the wars and the torture is now indefensible! Until the media reports this
fact there will be no justice for victims of 9/11 or for the victims of the resulting wars and torture.
We know that there are many
striking anomalies
and
inexplicable facts
about 9/11 that have yet to be
resolved. But the fake Gitmo trial stands as a final absurd crime in the history of 9/11 as it is represented as an
attempt at justice yet includes more farcical elements every day.
For example, the CIA-driven architect of the torture program recently claimed that he was acting on behalf of the
9/11 families and that he
would do it again
.
The final proceedings have been set to officially begin in January 2021, aligning with the 20th anniversary news
cycle and re-emphasizing that propaganda is the primary goal. The propaganda narrative focuses on setting the false
official account in stone and further normalizing torture.
Sadly, reporters and editors covering these events don't seem to have an interest in challenging any substantial part
of the story. Let's hope that one or more of them comes to their senses and proves that suspicion wrong.
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Kevin Ryan's blog is a must read for anyone interested in the truth of 9/11:
https://digwithin.net/
As is David Chandler et al's. :
http://911speakout.org/
And Jim Hoffman's:
http://911research.wtc7.net/
**Stay away from anyone making no planes claims. They are intended to undermine 911 truth by trying to
associate it with loony conspiracism and spurious claims.
TFS
,
I have a few Elephants off my own.
1. The Victims Compensation Fund. If there was a contract that needed
to be signed, prior to receiving a payout, what the conditions were there in the document?
2. How did the Pilots flying the 757/767's get hold of a Pilots Operating Manual, and could they read
English?
3. What publicly available flightsim software did they use and what particular addon replicating the
757/767 did they use to practice flying and more importantly get used to the autopilot?
Cruelty is a sign of a degrading society. Cultures promoting cruelty and torture have lost any arguments.
The Roman empire went down the public games till death phase just before it collapsed, but that was two
millennia ago. The US doesn't have the time excuse but still promoted its Hollywood violence.
From the biggest kid on the block to bully gone bad
Richard Le Sarc
,
Dear me-is their a crueler and more inhumane regime anywhere than Israel? Perhaps the USA and Saudi
Arabia, but that' s a three-headed monster.
paul
,
The 10,000 child prisoners in Israeli dungeons are routinely tortured. Torture is an integral part of
the "justice" system and has been legitimised as normal practice. Though perhaps that's not all that
surprising when "Justice" Minister Shaked called for the murder of Palestinian mothers so that no
Palestinian children would be born. Maybe that's where their American friends got the inspiration for
their more grisly torture practices. Many of the torturers and concentration camp guards received
training in Israel, after all.
Antonym
,
P.R. child abuse in adult conflicts was pioneered around 1987 in Gaza/ West bank with "unarmed"
stone pelting boys. People died at the receiving end. This tactic was later copied in Irak and
Kashmir .
Western prestitutes were invited before hand to take pictures of thus created victims and perps –
Israeli forces replying to the deadly rock hail. This was leaped up in the West by droves of
gullible naives. Mission accomplishised!
Greta Thunberg is a different form of child abuse – non
physical – but violent speech, now by a girl. She was preceded by Pakistani religious stooge
Malala.
paul
,
Blame the victim.
Look at what those terrible Palestinians have made us do to them.
We are the most moral kiddie killers and kiddie torturers in the world.
Richard Le Sarc
,
You have to remember that under Talmudic Judaic Law, killing civilians is not just permissible,
but is considered a mitzvah or good deed. And killing children, even babies, is permissible if
it can be said that they would grow up to 'oppose the Jews'. Quite understandable in a hate-cult
where, as the 'revered' Rabbi Kook the Elder declared, it is believed that, 'There is a greater
difference between the soul of a Jew and that of a non-Jew than there is between the soul of a
non-Jew and that of an animal'. What a Divine Burden you bear, Ant-and with such dignity.
paul
,
Charming, these Levantine folk.
Luckily, Tony Blair is now on the job, working to suppress "the global pandemic of anti
Semitism."
That certainly puts my mind at rest.
Richard Le Sarc
,
So, criticising Israeli torture of children, or any one of their other myriad crimes, will
bring you twenty years in the nick, for the New Supreme Crime of 'antisemitism'. When they
go too far, finally, as they inevitably must, being driven by truly insatiable hatred, the
reaction will be nassty. Any real 'philosemite' would make avoiding that a paramount
ambition, but I suspect many are simply opportunistic Judeophobes.
Antonym
,
The CIA might have "inspired" Al Qaida or ISIS hangmen but not Assad's. They definitely trained
most Central and South America sadists in official uniform.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Come on Ant-don't be so shy. Israeli trained many Latin American killers and aided them in
drawing up death-lists. You should be proud of Zionist achievements.
Uncle Sam is the one who belongs in the exercise yard.
Charlotte Russe
,
Guantanamo Bay provided a striking "stage setting" proving there's indeed a "War on Terror." A "War on
Terror is a nebulous concept–how do you battle terror. Terror is an "emotion" which quickly evolved into
rage felt by millions devastated in imperialist wars. How does an Empire win a War on Terror with 1,000
military bases scattered throughout every continent. The War on Terror was never conceived to be won, it was
meant to be endless.
Now getting back to Guantanamo Bay, most of the victims were gathered by bounty
hunters in Afghanistan or were targeted because of past grievances. The unlucky captives, had nothing to do
with terrorist activities or 9/11. Guantanamo Bay, diabolically tests the limitless way an Empire can
abscond with an individual's freedom. Extrajudicial concepts like "enemy combatant" are auditioned proving
all legal rights can be immediately abrogated with just a stroke of a pen. The War on Terror produced a new
type of captive–someone who was neither a prisoner of war or a US criminal. An abducted victim held
indefinitely in a black site. In other words, the War on Terror justified extrajudicial transfers from one
country to another circumventing the former country's laws on interrogation, detention and
torture. The War on Terror proved that a mind-boggling event such as a "false flag like 9/11" generates
enough shock to gain public acceptance for legislation like the "Patriot Act" where frightened citizens are
willing to capitulate freedom for safety.
paul
,
Many of the unfortunates murdered or tortured or held indefinitely without trial in US concentration
camps were basically just Afghan or Pakistani yokels handed over to CIA spooks for a $5,000 bounty. They
reckon half the villages in Pakistan were suddenly missing the village idiot, who had been sold to the
CIA.
The Taliban fighters rounded up were engaged in a civil war in Afghanistan at the time against
assorted warlords and drug lords from non Pashtun communities who rejected the authority of the Taliban
government. They had never fought against America, and had no plans to. Some of them probably didn't know
that America existed. They were probably somewhat bewildered that the US was muscling in on their civil
war.
Bin Laden was there as a hang over from the war against Russia. He had been on the CIA payroll for
years, a "heroic freedom fighter" invited round the White House for tea and buns.
Incidentally, the "enemy combatant" routine is nothing new for the US. In 1945, German POWs were
suddenly designated "surrendered enemy personnel" to deprive them of the protection of POW status.
Eisenhower hated Germans, and wanted to treat prisoners as harshly as possible. German prisoners held by
US forces in the Rhineland area were deliberately deprived of food, water and shelter, and certainly very
large numbers died, though figures are disputed. There were many murders and summary executions. Wherever
they have operated, US forces have always committed atrocities and war crimes on both a casual and more
organised basis.
Richard Le Sarc
,
It is actually a War OF Terror. And torture is as American as apple-pie.
I miss Mark too. He writes really well, but he did give fair warning, that he wasn't going
to write here any more. I have no idea why not. He is very talented. Maybe he got a new job, or venture,
that takes up all his energies. Some people are like that. He's probably volunteered for something, very
dangerous, like clearing British land mines in some God forsaken land, because he is fed up, with young
innocent children, having their arms and legs blown off, when all they are trying to do is grow some
food. Some people care, and try and do something to help, rather than just writing about it. Craig
Murray's brother has done that.
Tony
Tallis Marsh
,
Unfortunately the judicial system is corrupt to the bone. Many of us are not holding our breath that real
justice will be done about places like Guantanomo Bay The lies will abound as they always have and will
always will unless there is a real "draining of the swamp" which will not happen under Trump The real
elephant in the room is that we continue to live in corrupt systems globally as well as nationally.
A
national example is this:
5G and the use of Huwawei in the UK: using Huawei was always the plan it seems; and the dithering is just
for theatre (again)!
Boris Johnson is just continuing David Cameron's policies and going along with those plans. Take the
following as an example:
– Lord Browne (ex-Cameron's Cabinet Office Non-Exec. Director) currently Chairman of "Huawei UK"
– Sir Andrew Cahn (ex-Cameron's Head of UK Trade & Investments) currently Board Member of "Huawei UK"
– John Suffolk (ex-Cameron's Chief Information Officer) currently Senior Vice President & Global Cyber
Security & Privacy Officer of Huawei
Careerists and lobbyists love the gravy-train & revolving-doors in our corrupt political system; and it
is the general public's life -- our health, security, privacy and freedom – that will be utterly compromised
for the establishment's venal money & asset grabs, power–hungry gains, and control-freakery
eugenicist/depopulation goals.
If you care about your (and future generations') health and freedom, please research (beyond the MSM) the
privacy & security risks of the 5G system and the catastrophic health/system effects of these EMF/RF
frequencies on all biological life including humans: their health & fertility (especially the young and
infirm). This is the most important subject in our current era.
Mucho
,
Well said.
CIA released document with the only source of valid info available about the health effects of
millimeter waves on biology. They want to irradiate you with millimeter waves 24/7 with 5G.
These are the waveforms they use in those horrendous airport body scanners. 5G – being in an airport body
scanner 24/7.
WHERE ARE THE ACADEMICS GOING APESHIT ABOUT THIS????
Thanks, Mucho. There are a lot of independent studies on the effect of EMF/RF on health, and here is a
very good starter-hub of information with numerous links to many independent studies (not the usual,
solely, cherry-picked studies linked to the gov/telecom industry usually referred to by MSM hacks) to
get people started:
We need to ask the vital question: what happened to the precautionary principle? Traditionally this
was the backbone of the health & safety industry/research – so why does it not apply now?
Another thing to really ponder is: why do large insurer's like Lloyd's of London excludes any
liability coverage for claims "directly or indirectly arising out of, resulting from or contributed to
be electromagnetic fields, electromagnetic radiation, electromagnetism, radio waves or noise." This
would include not just telcom masts/arrays etc but also smart-meters, Wi-Fi, wireless devices,
smart-devices in homes, businesses, schools, etc.
When people realise the implications of the EMF/RF polluting of our environment and health (and
privacy and freedom), almost all of us do not want this system around us. The general public were not
consulted about this technology and it's nationwide/global roll-out – and we do not consent; we should
try to use the Nuremberg Code to stop the roll-out of all these devices/structures; are there any
non-estab/non-corrupt lawyers & politicians out there that could help with this?
Tallis Marsh
,
* its (not it's)
Tallis Marsh
,
Looks like Robert Kennedy Jr is trying to set up a legal team:
"
Robert Kennedy Jr. Assembles Legal Team to Sue FCC – The team includes RFK, Jr., IRREGULATORs'
Attorney Scott W. McCollough & Dafna Tachover
Robert Kennedy, Jr., Chairman of Children's Health Defense (CHD) has committed to be proactive on
the concerns regarding excessive exposure of our children to 5G and wireless radiation. To fulfill
this promise, CHD will be submitting a lawsuit on February 3rd against the FCC for its December 4,
2019 decision to decline to review its 1996 guidelines, and for its determination that the guidelines
are protective of human health.
The Dec. 4 determination provides a rare opportunity to sue the FCC and expose its disregard for
public health that has been causing so many injuries and deaths, including among children. We will be
representing the many children who have been injured. This is the opportunity we have been waiting
for; a successful lawsuit on this will be a game changer.
"
Mucho
,
The whole "debate" about 5G in the UK is cynically framed around the fake concern about Huawei and
using their hardware. Watch the film I posted to in the previous post with Trump, Bibi and the
Iranians on the thumbnail to see where all this truly originates from, and how this relates to
China being in bed. They do not touch the health implications at all, it is totally off limits to
discuss this. This is evidence of a cover-up of 9/11 proportions.
I am very, very worried about the rollout of 5G. I recently went to Norwich and saw the micro-cells
on the lampposts, turned the car around and will never, ever go to Norwich again. If you live in
Norwich, leave as quick as you can. Ditto London, ditto Bristol, ditto anywhere with this crap
installed. It won't be long before you cannot make that decision, to turn around and escape this
evil. Why are people so spineless in facing up to this? How can every moron working at the BBC
carry on taking money from their employers when they are so blatantly involed in a cover-up that
ultimately will make their families and them very ill? How can people be so pig-headed? Where are
the academics screaming from the rooftops about the harm associated with milllimeter waves? What
has happened to our supposed "survivial instincts", the most basic and primitive instinct of
mankind? Nowhere to be seen, just a bunch of dribbling idiots salivating about dowloading a film in
3 seconds flat. Brainwashed idiots, each and every one of them.
That is good news about Robert Kennedy, a high profile name like that being resistant is great
news. The Kevin Mottus – 5G film on YT has lots of info about the deep corruption within the FCC,
how the foxes are guarding the henhouse in terms of the wireless industry. This world is well and
truly fucked, and it's about to get a whole lot worse with the rollout of this evil. It's so
criminal but the moron majority sleeps like a baby with a wireless baby monitor irradiating it.
Those things are so harmful. You see so many Brits stupidly arming their kids with smart phones to
keep them "safe". That's the trick, sell the problem and the solution. Pure evil
Then there's the new, ultra-Satanic LED streetlights. Frightening
Here is Jonathon Watt from Hertfordshire Cunty Council confirming that these disgusting, hideous
new LED lights are radio linked, therefore they emit harmful radiation. This guy has already
booked his place in hell. It states they save money on maintenance costs as justification so
why have I seen so many non-functioning lights already then. Bunch of lying pieces of filth
selling harmful cheap shit
WAKE THE F**K UP PEOPLE! YOU ARE BEING TARGETED BY THESE WEAPONS
"The "blue light" in LED lighting can damage the eye's
retina and disturb natural sleep rhythms, France's government-run health watchdog said this
week.
New findings confirm earlier concerns that "exposure to an intense and powerful [LED]
light is 'photo-toxic' and can lead to irreversible loss of retinal cells and diminished
sharpness of vision," the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health &
Safety (ANSES) warned in a statement."
"Blue light" of LED streetlights linked to breast and
prostate cancer
The "blue light" emitted by street lights including LEDs, and commercial outdoor
lighting such as advertising, is linked to a significant increase in the risk of breast
and prostate cancer, innovative new research has concluded.
Look at what happened to Boots when they tried to highlight the issues with blue light
LED in order to sell blue light blocking glasses .SPEECHLESS! The General Optical
COuncil is fining opticians for helping customers to save their eyesight. This is
fucking ridiculous.
"The General Optical Council (GOC) has reprimanded Boots Opticians with a Ł40,000
fine for a "misleading" advertisement about Boots Protect Plus Blue (BPPB) lenses.
In a decision published today (26 May), the optical regulator found that there was
potential for patients to be misled by the multiple overstating claims about blue light
and the benefits of its BPPB lenses in an advertisement that was published in The Times
in January 2015.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received complaints about the content of
the advertisement, including claims that blue light from LED TVs, smartphones and
energy saving light bulbs caused damage to retinal cells over time, and that BPPB
lenses protected against blue light from these sources. The authority found that these
claims were misleading and unsubstantiated. " ..
Brilliant info and links there, Mucho – thank you – appreciate it.
It pains me
that it is normal people that have to get information out to the public as the hacks
do not; there must almost certainly be a media 'D-notice' on the subject of the
health effects of 5G (and wireless, wi-fi, smart devices, etc)? How can we stop this
anti-democratic censorship and corruption?
I have never felt so livid; and never more disappointed not just with the
establishment corruption (not least the almost transparent postal-ballot-rigging in
the tories' favour & ultra-smearing of Corbyn 2019 UK General Election) but also
disappointed that no-one, not one person with power or weighting in the UK wants to
stop the EMF/RF pollution-surveillance system roll-out in the country. Where are
they? Normal people like us are shouting from the roofs and trying to get heard in
censorious 'social-media' platforms and online news forums (sadly without much
leeway: too much deleting of posts, shadow-banning, manipulation of 'likes', blogs
set-up as honey-traps/gate-keepers e.g. facebook, reddit, twitter, etc; I personally
have never had SM accounts for uber-censorship reasons and surveillance reasons
among others – but admire the people who do use it for info sharing purposes).
Also importantly, have people seen the telecom maps of the 5G roll-outs? The
initial couple of roll-outs -- if you look at their own maps/lists (EE, Vodaphone,
BT, Three, etc) -- are ALL in the poorest parts of the cities and towns in the UK;
not one of the 1st phase and 2nd phase are in wealthy places not even wealthy whole
establishment places like Oxford, etc. Doesn't that tell us something vital? That
they want to depopulate the poorest of society? I remember that quote – which
so-called elitist despicably labelled the general public as 'useless eaters'?
My only wish now is that the people (hopefully with help from non-corrupt
people/person with power & weighting on their side) stand-up to the supremacist,
power-hungry, eugenicist, technocratic, globalist control-freaks and soon! For
observations coupled with intuition tells us the people do not have very long before
we are completely enslaved? God, I hope I am wrong about all this, but I have a
feeling I am not. We must carry on getting information out to people and then
extended, persistent non-violent civil disobedience in strategic areas.
Obviously, individual people cannot do it on our own and we must look to the
Gilets Jaunes for brilliant inspiration & vision. What I truly love & admire about
the Gilets Jaunes is that their philosophy (which does not get airing by the global
MSM – D notice again?) gets to the root of the problem as their demands are:
-- the resignation of Macron and his regime
-- restoration of national sovereignty:Frexit
-- monetary reform (elimination of inflation/debt-based,fiat fractional reserve
based private banking cartel – the central banking system
–the RIC (local citizens based referendum) and towards a genuine participatory,
direct democracy
Maybe 'Mark' whoever he may be, has just been disappeared like Mark Sloboda who was at one time an
ever-present presenter on RT – whatever happened to him?
Perhaps Mark's realpolitik views didn't quite fit in with Lavelle's and his – 'I always hog the
conversation' – predilections. Maybe they are even the same person. Who knows?
paul
,
As bad as they are, the US concentration camps at Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib and the issue of
waterboarding, are just the tip of a very large iceberg.
There is a global US Gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons (including UK
territory) where thousands of people have been horrifically tortured and murdered on an industrial scale.
The torture employed exceeds by far anything Guy Fawkes or the Knights Templar would have experienced in the
17th and 14th centuries.
paul
,
This torture is the product of very sick and diseased minds from a very sick and diseased society.
Extreme sexual torture and humiliation. Murder, blindings and maimings. Agonising confinement in tiny
boxes for protracted periods. One unfortunate chained up naked in a freezing cell in a standing position,
medieval style, and just left there until somebody noticed, 17 days later, that he was dead.
Another kidnapped from Canada and spirited away to US torture chambers in Morocco and Yugoslavia, where
his private parts were mutilated. It transpired that this unfortunate was not the man they wanted. He
just had a similar name to somebody else.
paul
,
And of course the UK and all the US satellites were fully complicit in these crimes and atrocities.
Not that this will in any way inhibit them from climbing up on their high horse and giving lofty
sermons and pious lectures to all the benighted natives on the rest of the planet about their human
rights failings, and their need to comply with our exalted "Rules Based Order."
paul
,
"We tortured some folks."
paul
,
Of course these are just 2 isolated cases out of thousands and thousands.
One of the worst torturers known as NZ7 was a religious nut job who liked to bring people to the point
of death so he could feel the soul leaving the body.
People were tortured three times a day for weeks and months on end.
Scenes of torture replicated and far exceeded anything in medieval dungeons.
Torture doctors were on hand to advise on how to intensify the torment.
The motivation seems mainly to have been sadism and sexual sadism for its own sake rather than any
genuine interest in obtaining information.
Anal rape was a routine part of the CIA torture manual.
So was freezing people to death and shoving nuts and hummus up people's arses.
People with
specialist knowledge of the subject have said that the Gestapo record of torture was actually far
better than that of the US. The Gestapo did torture people, but it was a very bureaucratic process,
and they preferred to intimidate people into cooperating by playing on their bad reputation.
Richard Le Sarc
,
Many of the worst torture practises used by the USA were borrowed from the Israelis, drawing on
decades of experience torturing tens of thousands of Palestinians. But they are the ' most moral
torturers on Earth'-and don' t you dare forget it.
Willem
,
I remember, at one stage (4-5 years ago) the US asked the world to take over Gitmo prisoners, to which the
world's response was: it is not our problem, it is a US problem.
Well, not so quick. There is one prisoner
there, named Hambali, who allegedly is the mastermind of the Balibombings of 2002 and a money handler of Al
qaida. And still prisoner at Gitmo, because he is too 'dangerous' to be released. In the Balibombings of
2002, 4 Dutch People were killed.
So I asked at the time when NL parliamentarians were 'seriously' debating the question about Gitmo
prisoners, if Hambali could be sent over to NL to be judged according to Dutch law.
To the credit of some of the parliamentarians who posed the question, they did reply to me. But they did
not disclose if they talked about Hambali, and they weren't succesful as we now all know
Anyway, Hambali is still held prisoner at Gitmo, and I would have been a happy man if he, in fact was
released to NL, as Hambali is a problem for NL citizens who lost their friends and loved ones due to the
balibombings. But I don't think that will ever happen, but am happy that I at least gave it a try at the
time.
Anyway
tonyopmoc
,
Willem, I don't know about the Bali bombings, but I do remember reading this by Jo Vialls, who had many
interesting theories about lots of stuff, some of which maybe true. He died, probably of natural causes
in Australia, shortly after writing this. I personally found what Jo Vialls wrote, very interesting,
because at the time, I was almost 100% certain, that the Official US Government Story re 9/11 was
impossible, because it did not comply with the most basic laws of physics and maths, which I had studied
to a fairly high level at university in England. I told everyone I knew, that the story was impossible,
but no one believed me, except for one man I knew who designed buildings. Everyone else thought I had
gone mad, and it caused me a lot of grief, and I had to leave my job. Many more people believe me now.
I don't know, if any of this is true, but it makes interesting reading. I did not study nuclear physics,
to any depth and I do not know if even the concept of micro nukes is viable.
Incidentally, I think Petra (ex flaxgirl) is honest, and believes what she writes, and I agree with
her that some terrorist attacks are faked. A good indication of whether they were faked of not, is the
size of the hole in the ground. If it is supermassive, then the energy in the bomb to do that is
enormous, unless the bomb was buried underground, before it exploded.
Tony
Richard Le Sarc
,
One thing is for certain-whatever it was that ripped concrete off rebar at 100 metres in Bali was not
cooked up in a bath-tub.
Tony, There is quite a lot of evidence supporting the lack of the existence of nuclear weapons and
that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conventional. I'm in correspondence with someone
writing a book about it and there is a book on Amazon, Death Object: Exploding the Nuclear Weapons
Hoax.
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Object-Exploding-Nuclear-Weapons/dp/1545516839
I'm writing a post
on it myself and what I've noticed is that the Hiroshima survivor stories are not convincing (they
always give us the clues). Also, what we're told about Iranian nuclear physicists being "assassinated"
are not convincing nor is what we're told about Mordechai Vanunu, alleged leaker of Israeli nuclear
secrets.
I know someone whose father worked next door to the Sari bar in Bali where the major bombing was
and his father said that when he was asked to go and help with the injured there were no injured to
help. When you look at the images of the injured they are not convincing and I've seen an interview
displaying a typical characteristic of staged events – the ever-so-smiling loved ones. I know people
who know people who allegedly died or were injured but that's a given with staged events.
So no nuclear weapons and no coronavirus (at least not of significance in impacting our health)
we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
However, manmade climate change is no hoax and that's what worries me.
Antonym
,
The present Dutch PM Rutte is more of a CIA poodle than Tony Blair was. MH17 a case in point. The Dutch
judicial set up is populated with similar drones: the assassin of prominent Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn
is walking free after less jail time than other criminals. Holland is gone to the dogs.
Yes and thanks for bringing this into recognition as coercive deceit given (sacrifice of) power by
allegiance of compliance – as effectively a version of 'say and do what you are told to say and do or your
will suffer greater pain of loss". This can be insinuated and framed as taking the seemingly lesser of evils
as the means to survive an impossible situation – as "an offer you cant refuse" or perceived self interest
in terms of the 'way everything is moving'.
The ego of a self imaged isolation always leads to an
impossible situation because it is an impossible premise given reality, identity and allegiance as the
private and separate sense of self and life. But having 'taken it on' and 'cast it out', we are 'taken in'
or cast under our own mis-spelled word.
Survival at any price – pays the price.
But 'survival' of WHAT exactly? and for what END?
A madness possesses the mind of (Hu) Man.
The attempt of a mind to judge and attack itself – as if to excommunicate, cast out, banish, eradicate,
deny, destroy – will always set in motion an equal and opposite reaction – regardless it NOT being allowed
into a conscious awareness
The 'program' emerges from the Deep as a 666 without a 7 of true rest in recognition as shared
fulfilment. More robot than Beast. Who or where is the 'programming?' and how is it to be re-integrated to
wholeness of being? We cannot choose in the place of another – (but that we entangle as denial with them),
but we can grow a culture of Choice – and actually we have no choice in this as our every thought and
decision – but only in what we give value, allegiance and identity to.
The invitation or 'incentivation' to identify with insanity as our consciously accepted will is to arrive
at our starting place and know it for the first time.
But while insanity seems to hold some appeal or use or meaning for us – it will frame our thinking to
persist under the illusion we are 'dealing with it', opposing, or eradicating, and casting our self in role
that depends on it for the sustainability of the split-minded attempt to possess and control Life.
What we get back is thus a split mind of division subjected to controls.
Garbage in; garbage out.
Can we 'think' in any other way than 'possession and control'? (Regardless its masking in plaintive or
outraged mimicry of 'love and concern').
The framing of our mind – as our mind – is a construct within our thought.
Narrative or story is a continuity of identified and valued focus, endeavour and exploration that unfolds
and grows the Meaning of its original Inspiration.
But Meaning Itself is the archetype – and not the forms that by derivative association become idol to a
robotic re-enactment of 'meaninglessness in search of power'.
In order to grow a shared reality, we need to bring forth from ourselves rather than seek power over a
sense of lack. It cannot come from or through a sense of self-lack – excepting 'backwards!' and we already
have the learning of a world in which "everything is backwards" – and are recognising that we do not WANT
it.
True desire is where we associate pain of separation and loss – and so a world of substitutes runs blind
as the protection from the reliving of an intolerable that the mind is set to forever deny, evade and
dissociate. But there is true-fulfilment when the movement of our very being is given welcome rather than
denial under terms and conditions of coercive enslavement and 'NDA' (non disclosure agreement).
Reading our 'world' as a means of reintegration rather than re-enacting its script is the willingness to
embody and give witness to a different 'script' or story. One that is given in exchange for the old habit –
rather than as reward for a 'successful denial' masking under a new set of clothes.
"And who told you , you were naked?"
Harry Stotle
,
George Galloway accused Chritopher Hitchens of 'proselytising for the devil' after Hitchens gave neocons the
intellectual thumbs up for unleashing hell after 9/11, while it is common knowledge the pro-war, liberal
media had to acquire a paint factory because so many coatings were required to white-wash the lies and
fabrications employed to rationalise Bush's 'war on terror' and many events leading up to it (not least the
fact the US buddied up with Saddam a decade earlier in order to foment war with Iran).
By contrast counterveiling forces (such as Galloway) have almost no voice within political spheres, the
academic world and certainly the MSM, and when necessary certain propaganda operations unfold to subvert
meaningful investigations, such as the alleged chemical attack in Douma (where, ironically, Peter Hitchens
amongst others has called bullshit)
Of course its important to deconstruct flagrent untruths (as Kevin Ryan does in this fine article) not
least because they have been used as a platform for the current reign of terror in the Middle East – but the
question is, in totalitarian states like America (where authorities effectively act as judge, jury and
executioner) how can this knowledge be used to shake up a system that has closed its eyes and ears to truth
or reality?
Put another way who expects the likes of Rachel Maddow or Bill Maher to ever hold authority to account?
Now depending on your ideologial outlook the actions of the US are either a facet of the 'international
rules based order' (which IMO is no more than a self-aggrandising term neocons, like Tony Blair, love to
apply to themselves), or abject betrayal of the holocaust: a critical moment in history when the world vowed
to learn from the terrible conseqeunces that arise when powerful, lawless states are unconstrained by public
opinion or cultural watchdogs.
One clue to answering this rhetorical question is the way whistleblowers or publishers are treated by
those they accuse of wrong doing – the evidence tells us that just like Guantanamo they are likely to be
tortured and subject to sham legal proceedings.
As an aside it begs questions about the kind or people, such as prosecutors who are willing participate
in this cruel process – they are the same sort of people that would have cropped up in Soviet Russia, or
Nazi Germany I imagine?
Maggie
,
your link buffers and I can't access.
Harry Stotle
,
Search: 'Christopher Hitchens prosthelytized for the Devil – George Galloway' – in YouTube. that
should find it.
Patrick C
,
Harry, I was reading along nodding in agreement and then, as the song says, you spoil it all by saying, I
hate you. The Soviet Union, by equating it with Nazi Germany. As you say it's important to, "deconstruct
flagrant untruths." And this is possibly the granddaddy of all untruths. But as this isn't even a
comment, rather it's an answer to a comment, there simply isn't the space to fully contest that
characterization. I would hope given your obvious intelligence you might make it a priority to research
and understand the Cold War demonization of the USSR and before that the attempts to crush them. I am not
excusing their crimes I'm saying there weren't any. Certainly not in the sense that we've been
brainwashed to believe. You can dismiss me as an idealogue if you wish or you can start the hard slog
towards understanding. Otherwise loved what you wrote.
Harry Stotle
,
Thanks, Patrick – I am not suggesting equivalence except to the extent the legal systems in Russia and
Germany were co-opted to fulfil certain ideological goals (as they are in the west today given high
ranking political figures are more or less exempt from any sort of meaningful judicial scrutiny).
Talking about Russia in particular it is claimed, "According to the International Memorial, the law on
rehabilitation covers 11-11.5 million people in the territory of the former USSR. The latest (2016)
statistical calculations are given in the article by A. Roginsky and E. Zhemkova "Between sympathy and
indifference – rehabilitation of victims of Soviet repressions".
About 5.8 million people became victims of "administrative repressions" directed against certain
groups of the population (kulaks, representatives of repressed peoples and religious denominations).
From 4.7 to 5 million people were arrested on individual political charges, of which about a million
were shot. These are preliminary estimates obtained as a result of many years of work by researchers
with internal statistics of punitive bodies at the central and regional levels, investigative cases.
As the "Memorial" movement, it is fundamentally important to establish the names of all the
repressed. At the moment, in the consolidated database "Victims of Political Terror in the USSR",
there are more than 3 million people. This base was compiled mainly on the basis of regional Books of
Remembrance, in the preparation of which members of local Memorial organizations often took part. The
database is currently being updated." (site contents can be translated into English)
https://www.memo.ru/ru-ru/history-of-repressions-and-protest/chronology-stat/
Just to add I know a reasonable amount about 9/11, know a little about the US empire (and Britains
role in it) and have also looked at historians who have questioned specifics about the holocaust (and
here I mean David Irving, a brilliant but deeply flawed, and unempathic man).
Russia however I am less sure about.
I would just add that revolutions are always violent because no one ever relinquishes power without a
fight, while reverberations from such convulsions can carry consequences long after they first
occured.
For example, Trotsky was tried and found guilty of treason and sentenced to death in absentia – as you
must know he was murdered in Mexico following severe head wounds inflicted by an icepick.
Richard Le Sarc
,
I hope that Hitchens' water-boarding didn't cause his oesophageal cancer. That would be ironic.
Norn
,
The distance from this country to the border with China is 0 (Zero) Km.
The distance from this country to the border with Iran is 0 (Zero) Km.
The distance from Washington, US to this country is 11,136 Km direct by air.
What is the name of this
country? Answer: Afghanistan.
Dungroanin
,
Certainly there were aircraft flying into the WTC – it was broadcast in full colour directly without
interruption all day long. That struck me instantly as I watched on Sky News and BBC from lunchtime onwards
as my insurance agent bought me a sandwich and a pint after assessing our new offices and confirming our
cover – we grim humouredly agreed that the policy would have cost a lot more the following day and his
commission bigger!
The choreography was immense -immediate a passport was found; the reporters looked so
sanguine as did the Anchors. I had major work to do because of the unfolding event my business would require
immediate extra resources by that evening, so I had to stop watching and get working – so i missed the WTC7
collapse announced live on the BBC 15 minutes before it happened, until many years later.
At the time I wondered about why we HAD to invade Afghanistan as my sainted Blair, the Peoples Prince of
a PM, of NuLabour, flew over the terrain clutching a copy of the Koran looking at the ancient landscape
below -which it turns out had its opium poppy crops annihalated just months previously by the Taliban!
I knew of the planned phases of invasions of the ME back in 2001.
But that is another story.
At the time it didn't seem such a big deal and after Kuwait and the burning oil fields, and the huge
propaganda about the evil Sadaam, Assad and Ayatollah (the last mostly to do with Rushdies fatwa) – I
genuinely believed it would be a good idea to get western democratic beneficient liberation in the region
and let their peoples have a democracy. I even believed that it would include the princess head chopping,
Saudi Arabia to start with for sure!
And that the harmless, young state, Israel with its simple desire to live peacefully in their biblical small
patch of Judea after the horrors would thus be free of threat of extermination and they would make a peace
with the Palestinians they had displaced
Such naivety- from a grown and educated and experienced successful fellow like myself in his 40's the
fall from such false verities has been long and hard, i did object at the blatant WMD lie and turned up at
the march of protest.
The decades of being immersed in the propaganda and entertainment from : Isaacs World at War, Charlton
Hestons biblical epics, Munich Olympics, Entebbe ..yes even my beloved TLOB (of the recently departed
Python).
The scales fell away, it has taken nearly two decades, Bambi's mask fell and revealed a poxed, horned
orange skinned bastard godfather to the devil Murdochs latest . NuLabour was actually a Incorporated vehicle
fully controlled by the Labour Friends of the Invaders. We were party to secret extraditions (another new
word of horror), our legal case for invasions were non existent, Straw was and is still a complete bastard
as Craig Murray has documented. We had been led like donkeys by the nose to be willing crusaders for bankers
and barons – fooled by support for our Heroes who were maimed in body and mind for life, if not dead in the
field.
The mutations took us to the great financial crash where the bankers escaped with their QE, pensions and
careers and reputations intact, while the rest of us got rinsed and repeated into their next phase, through
austerity, to hate a new enemy just as potent as the imaginary Ossama BL – the EU, and its efforts to escape
the yoke of ancient imperialist bankers. Then last month the equally insanely maligned JC – to achieve by
hook and crook through evidently fixed ballots the brexit they have long planned – which will be a HARD
brexit that allows the making of their safe Singapore on Thames.
Yup Gitmo is a place, where something has been going on, outta sight outta mind – will we ever get the
full story? I wonder how many of the isis headchoppers got their recruitment, training and marching orders
from there – there was never such barbarism in the world until Gitmo and Bush, Blair, Obama & co sold it to
us.
3 days to our very own private hell – that is the elephant right here, right now.
The biggest elephant in the 9/11 room is, of course:
STAGED DEATH AND INJURY
That's the biggest elephant, the most taboooooooooo cos death is such a big taboooooooooo and when you
say that people said to have died didn't die you expose yourself to derision, hostility and people taking
massive offence. And the perps only understand this taboooooooooo oh so well and exploit it to the max. They
knew they couldn't suppress the outrageous contradiction of Newtonian laws evidenced in the building
collapses and plane crashes so they pushed controlled demolition as a means to distract from and also
smother the big fat lie of staged death and injury. So clever! The essentially two-streamed 9/11 propaganda
campaign: one for the masses and one for the anticipated recognisers of "inside job" is most worthy of
study.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/blog/911-controlled-demolition-as-propaganda
So far, no one has come up with a single point let alone 10 favouring the hypothesis that death and
injury were real and no one will because that's not the way the perps stage their events. No sireee! They
give us the clues (above and beyond the Emperor's New Clothes lie that 9/11 was) and they are utterly
meticulous and scrupulous in never presenting a single piece of their story in such a way that it can be
used to defend its reality. You have to give them that, you really do.
If my comment arouses your hostility, incredulity or whatever other reaction in opposition to it, please
explain what makes you believe that 3,000 people died and 6,000 were injured on 9/11 (or whatever
approximate number you believe died and were injured) and please supply at least one point that favours the
hypothesis that death and injury were real over the hypothesis that they were staged.
Ah ex-flaxgirl – the tares bind their roots to the crop.
It isn't that there are no staged or exaggerated and weaponised narrative deceits – but that
opinionated assertions of moral self righteousness reinforce the deceit under guise of 'truth' made
exclusive to your own framing.
You speak into an arena of outrage to which you have no sense of connection or compassion.
That 911 is a deceit ONGOING is evidenced in your knowing or unknowing complicity.
Arguing anything within your frame is feeding your either/or agenda of division.
I lean to your post being staged – unless and until signs of life indicate otherwise.
The 'elephant' is the truth that is collectively ignored as a result of baited or incentivised
diversion.
Your abstruse comment would have a degree of credibility, binra, if it contained anything at all that
supported real death and injury on 9/11 but what a surprise! it contains nothing of the sort.
3A No obvious motive
3B Immeasurable disincentive (loved ones of 3,000 descending on the Capitol)
3C Eminently fakable
The combined force of these three elements is extremely compelling
4. Vastly incommensurate number of loved ones and colleagues of the dead and the injured themselves
marching on Washington
5. Anomalies with key figures whom we might consider to be disinformation agents used in the
propaganda campaign aimed at the truthers, that is, they push the double "suspicions of
government/controlled demolition" ||| "my loved one died/people were rescued" line.
6. No convincing signs of injury
7. The fakery of the jumpers
8. Ridiculous survivor stories of the 12-second collapses of the 500,000 ton twin towers
9. Missing – expected evidence for the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11
10. Lawyer looking after victim funds not convincing
What 9/11 wasn't:
-- The work of 19 terrorists armed with boxcutters
-- A false flag where 3,000 were killed and 6,000 were injured
What 9/11 was (in effect):
A massive Full-Scale Anti-Terrorist Exercise pushed out as real where the only physical realities were
damage of and destruction to buildings and where the plane crashes were faked and death and injury were
staged.
Do you think that the two people in the conversation below indicate they knew what was really going
down and do you think that they would have been AOK with 3,000 of their fellow citizens being killed?
https://youtu.be/i5b719rVpds?t=224
Conversation between Brian Williams, MSNBC News Anchor and David Restuccio, FDNY EMS Lieutenant about
WTC-7, the third building to collapse at the WTC on 9/11, after its collapse:
"Can you confirm that it was No 7 that just went in?" ["Went in" is a term used in controlled
demolition that comes from the fact that the buildings fall in on themselves.]
"Yes, sir."
"And you guys knew this was comin' all day."
"We had heard reports that the building was unstable and that eventually it would either come down on
its own or it would be taken down."
paul
,
I don't think there's any need to get too immersed in details.
There is a danger of not seeing the wood for the trees, and this being used for the purpose of
diversion and deflection by those who still peddle the official government conspiracy theory.
milosevic
,
question for admins and moderators: is there no limit to the number of times that the same absurd disinfo
can be recyled here, without the slightest alteration?
at first, it served some purpose as an example
of deep-state psyops, but it's now become quite tiresome, far beyond any educational value it might once
have had.
Similarly, milo, like binra's comment it would contain a degree of credibility if it contained
anything to support real death and injury on 9/11 but it doesn't. I wonder how you reason that there
is something so wrong with my claim that you need to invoke action by admins when you have zero to
support the opposing claim. Zero. I really do wonder how you reason that. I wonder how, when you
recognise so very many lies in the 9/11 story (I'm assuming), that you choose to believe one claim of
that story without having a single piece of evidence to back it up.
milosevic
,
-- your arguments for "no planes" were all BS, but when this was (repeatedly) pointed out to you,
you took no notice whatsoever, and just went right on repeating the same ludicrous disinfo.
having been through that experience, I'm disinclined to waste my time examining in detail your
undoubtedly nonsensical "no deaths" claims, since you'll just go right on repeating those, no
matter what evidence is advanced. The "thirteen-foot-tall dummies" episode demonstrates what
quality of argument you find compelling; why should I assume that any of the rest is any better?
My claims can be considered irrelevant to your beliefs in death and injury on 9/11. To justify a
belief one needs evidence, no? You don't think of yourself as a mindless believer, do you, milo?
Thus if you believe the death and injury part of the 9/11 story you must surely have evidence to
support that belief. What is it?
As anticipated you have not responded to my question on your evidence for death and injury on
9/11 nor the other question on the signs they give us.
Please do not invoke admin action when
what you spout is simply hot air. You have nothing to support your beliefs and thus no
justification or entitlement to disparage mine when I have provided solid evidence for them on
my website and also issued a challenge to you and like-minded people who hold opposing beliefs
but to which no one, including you, has responded, despite the rules including the challenger's
choice of judge in a relevant profession to validate their 10 points.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
How many times will you bring up the dummies that I have already admitted to? Are you insane?
I will be referring back to this comment and your inability to justify your beliefs in death
and injury (or the reality of the plane crashes) any time you make ludicrous accusations against
me in future.
norman wisdom
,
moderators: is there no limit
you sound like barbera lerner spector or his wife rita katz
read or do not read
move along fella
who or what should we believe in this satanick system
some folks called milosevic a new hitler like saddam and gadaffi later.
i hated him at the time did not understand it was all chatham house projects.
who are you milosevic is that your real name?
for your ideas on censorship and memory holing seem very ashkanazi 2 me.
let all speak scum
for who are you to be arbiter of truth or lie
if you are a milosevic your country was carpeted in depleted uranium waste sold out to lowest zio
alien bidder
discernment scum
banning words is cheap
toilet paper gets ever more expensive
already
milosevic
,
-- because you can never have too much disinfo. it gets ever more aromatic, with every retelling.
that's the wonderful thing about disinfo BS, you can recycle it endlessly, without the slightest
diminution in quality or flavour.
norman wisdom
,
how do you know
what the stuff is?
what agency are you with holy or demonick?
if you want memory hole if you want subtle word erasure
why not try the anti semite gambit
why not change your name to benjamin or elliot
then you can stamp your feet so everyone will here.
no disrespect but few sites would employ a
milosevic as head of word vaporising black holing
it just not kosher enough
George Mc
,
when you say that people said to have died didn't die you expose yourself to derision
Unnecessary derision. The main matter is that 9/11 was, to use that tired but accurate term, an
"inside job". Occam's razor says you should not involve unnecessary complications. The question "Did
people die or not?" is such a complication.
What Occam's Razor says George is not that "you" shouldn't involve unnecessary complications but that
we should choose the hypothesis that involves the fewest complications. Thus, if a house is burgled
and we see that a window is broken and footprints lead from the broken window to a stolen object and
there are no other methods indicating evidence of being used then that is the one we plump for unless
we have reason to doubt it.
However, I couldn't agree with you more on focusing on the main points.
Could not agree more. It's just that what you and I consider main points is different with regard to
9/11.
The perps, master propagandists I think you will agree, have put enormous effort and spent millions
of dollars on their truther-targeted propaganda campaign to smother the truth of staged death and
injury and because they have spent millions on that campaign that surely must make it important. They
haven't bothered with truther-targeted campaigns for many other events including Sandy Hook, the
Boston bombing, the Manchester bombing and Brussels airport, for example, although they have with a
few others including the 9/11 anthrax attacks – much less money was spent on that, however.
Evidence of their campaign:
1. The timing of release of the PNAC and Northwoods documents (I do not claim that these documents
are not "real" necessarily but it is obvious they have been targeted at truthers.)
2. The loved ones and colleagues of those who allegedly died making indignant noises about the
government including: Bob McIlvaine, the Jersey Widows, April Gallop, Richard Grove and William
Rodriguez.
3. The large number of scientists and engineers focusing the truthers on controlled demolition and
the production of high-quality songs, Free Fallin' and I Believe in 9/11 Miracles. While some of these
people are perfectly genuine, some of them have been employed to control the 9/11 story by:
-- keeping focus on CD
-- creating confusion around the plane crashes (they don't want people recognising that no one died in
those crashes because that's the start of the slippery slope to recognising completely staged death
and injury)
-- joining forces with the "loved ones"
4. The alleged whistleblowers who've lost their jobs, etc and commentators such as James Corbett.
5. The Conspiracy Solved! film by Jeremy Rys indicating that the US government had reason to target
people in the building.
6. The Bush family connections to companies located in the twin towers.
7. Everything Israeli: the Dancing Israeli Mossad agents caught on camera who later got caught in
their white van with explosives powder (good at their job no?) and the Israeli art students students
(these people could well have been responsible for making the dummies to function as jumpers).
8. Loads of distraction propaganda creating confusion in general, however, distraction propaganda
is designed to stymie the truth generally in getting out whether it simply be "inside job" or "death
and injury staged".
So we have the evidence for staged death and injury both in the obvious truther-targeted propaganda
campaign as well as in other evidence. It's pretty overwhelming, George.
The reason for the huge effort into smothering staged death and
injury
The reason is to stagnate the truth of inside job that the truthers are trying to push out. That the
US government would kill all those poor people in the buildings is so utterly taboo that people won't
countenance it. So the fact that it hampers the ability for those who recognise "inside job" to get
the word out that it was an inside job makes it extremely important. The irony is that now that
truthers are fully indoctrinated with the "false flag where 3,000 people died and 6,000 were injured"
belief they stubbornly refuse to be coaxed out of it and, of course, the perps knew this. They knew
that when people such as Simon Shack (although I have to say I have my doubts about him) eventually
came along to work out the staging of death and injury that the truthers indoctrinated with "false
flag" would be mightily resistant to it.
False flag where 3,000 died and 6,000 were injured is a very, very different kettle of fish from
massive Full-Scale Anti-Terrorist Exercise comprising a number of exercises and drills where the only
physical realities of the day were damage to and destruction of buildings and where the plane crashes
were faked and death and injury were staged.
They are two very different kettles of fish.
Beyond that I think it's extremely important, in general to recognise how we are propagandised,
George, don't you?
George Mc
,
Petra I have no doubt that you have researched all of this very thoroughly and I am prepared to
listen to many points and to even agree with them. I watched a video that suggested there were no
planes at all in NY and it sounded plausible. If you say there were no deaths at all – then perhaps
you're right. It's just that – at the risk of sounding callous – I don't think any of this is the
main point, which is that 9/11, whatever it was, was an inside job. The big trouble with going down
this constantly expanding path of speculation is that you have fallen for the biggest trick behind
9/11 i.e. reversal of the burden of proof. The official account (henceforth OC) is actually
skeletal and has nothing to stand on. What I would say we know is that three buildings fell in NY
and something happened at the Pentagon which left a hole in it. That's all. If the OC was true, the
entire view would be different in massive ways e.g. spectacular footage of the Pentagon being hit
by a passenger plane, the rubble from the collapsed buildings in NY being thoroughly examined and
an explanation presented of why they fell that would be consistent with the OC, and plenty of
footage of the crashed Flight 93. There is none of that hence the official account is bollocks. And
all you have to do is say this. To start by saying there were no deaths is just going to scare
people away.
I agree with you in principle, George, but the thing is if the lie of 3,000 deaths and 6,000
injured is hampering the ability for truthers to get out the "inside job" message – and it seems
the perps knew this would be the case and why they have invested millions in smothering that lie
– then I think it's extremely important. Just to point out that I don't say there were no
deaths, just that death and injury were staged – whether all death and injury was staged or not
I cannot be sure of but it doesn't matter if it was all or most – essentially, it was staged.
I'd imagine no one died because that is simply the MO unless by accident. I don't think they mix
up covert and clandestine operations (covert is an operation done publicly but not what it seems
(psyop) while clandestine is a hidden operation where killing might occur. I'd guess that the
only kind of killing that occurs in a covert operation is an assassination.
To me, 9/11 is a massively Emperor's New Clothes affair. Collapses by fire and real plane
crashes are simply laughable and it's so easy to prove simply by asking people to come up with
10 points favouring the official story hypothesis. It cannot be done. We know it was controlled
demolition, George, we know that for a fact and we know that the 4 plane crashes were faked.
Newtonian physics says so.
I'm a lazy researcher, George, I don't research things as thoroughly as I should but that's
the beauty of 9/11 and other similar events – you don't have to. The perps make it easy: they
give you the clues – above and beyond the unhideable lies – and they never fake anything so well
that it can be used to support their story. A prime example are the photos of Bob McIlvaine with
son Bobby. The photos are obviously doctored. They could give us undoctored photos but they
don't do that – they are scrupulous in putting under our noses evidence of their hoaxing of us.
I categorically deny speculation. There is no speculation in claiming that death and injury
were staged. The evidence is very clear and there is not a skerrick of evidence to support a
single death of the alleged 3,000 or a single injury to any of the allegedly 6,000 injured and
that surely is impossible for real death and injury. I have absolute respect for the evidence
and equal respect for lack of evidence and I simply don't understand why other people don't come
to the same conclusions as I do.
What is helpful is to understand the category of event that 9/11 is. It is one on a long and
broad continuum starting at least as far back as the Great Fire of London. It is a psyop and in
psyops you don't kill people unless you want them killed. This is the great error that people
make when they speak of 9/11 as a psyop but believe in the death and injury – that is no psyop!
Surely, understanding that 9/11 is not really a completely one-off event but an event on
continuum of similar events with the same MO is another approach to take – not that I've been
successful with it. The one thing different about 9/11 is the massive truther-targeted
propaganda campaign to maintain the lie of death and injury. Other events such as the anthrax
attacks also employ that type of propaganda but 9/11's truther-targeted campaign is surely the
mother of all truther-targeted propaganda campaigns.
Additionally, when you recognise that 9/11 was completely staged as opposed to a "false flag" then you
can see how it fits into a long and broad continuum of events. Recognising that 9/11 was a staged
event prompted me to look at Pearl Harbour and the 1980 Bologna station bombing to realise that they,
too, were completely staged. Your understanding of what the power elite foist on us is so greatly
increased. I have to say I do wonder at your notion that the distinction of the two types of events
has low significance. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I first awoke to it, despite the fact that I
knew of other completely staged events such as Sandy Hook. What I first awoke to was not so much the
fact that death and injury were staged but to the propaganda campaign directed at truthers to maintain
our belief it was real. That's what I awoke to and that's what hit me. And when I first awoke, I had
an extremely visceral feeling of being a dumb bull being yanked viciously by the nose-ring this way
and that. It was such a powerful feeling.
Petra – When you say 'completely staged' it sounds as if you're claiming the WTC buildings didn't
implode and disintegrate, and are therefore still there, which makes you seem like a troll or a
lunatic.
I shall be careful of my wording as you suggest, Admin, however, I hope it is clear that I
understand the buildings came down through my constant reference to the fact. BTW, it seems the
method of destruction of the twin towers was a "banana peel" controlled demolition while that of
WTC-7 was a typical bottom-up implosion. On the page below is a link to a "banana peel"
demolition of a building in China which more resembles the destructions of the twin towers than
that of WTC-7.
https://911explained.blogspot.com/2013/09/911-how-it-was-done-science-of.html
The beauty of OffG is that we are all allowed to say what what we think as they don't censor comments
but thanks for your vote of confidence, Rob. I do feel rather alone with some of my hypotheses despite
their basis in evidence.
paul
,
The important thing is simply to demonstrate that the official narrative, or official conspiracy theory,
is absurd.
paul
,
There is no obligation whatever to explain in comprehensive detail, how the attacks were actually
carried out.
paul
,
That should be the subject of a genuine, independent criminal investigation.
paul
,
The involvement and relative guilt of different officials and dual nationals, the type of
explosives used, whether planes were empty and directed by remote control, etc.
paul
,
They are legitimate subjects of discussion, but they are matters of detail, and there is a
risk of not being able to see the wood for the trees, or proponents of the official
conspiracy theory using this for diversion and distraction, to muddy the waters.
I completely agree with you re detail, especially detail that
can be argued over. A major part of the propaganda campaign is putting forward loads of different
theories, eg, Judy Wood's Directed Energy Weapons theory, and details for people to argue over.
However, I think we disagree on what constitutes detail. To me, the greater understanding we can have
of the kind of event 9/11 was is very valuable and all the information that contributes to that I
consider significant.
We can know for absolute sure that 9/11 was not:
-- A terrorist attack conducted by 19 fanatical Muslims armed with boxcutters
-- A false flag where 3,000 were killed and 6,000 were injured
We can infer with virtual certainty that 9/11 was:
A Trauma-based Mind Control Psychological Operation (psyop) in the form, effectively, of a massive
Full-Scale Anti-Terrorist Exercise comprising numerous smaller exercises and drills where the only
physical realities of the day were damage to and destruction of buildings and where the plane crashes
were faked and death and injury were staged. A two-streamed propaganda campaign has been implemented,
one aimed at the masses and one aimed at the anticipated recognisers of controlled demolition and,
less often, faked plane crashes. The purpose of the second stream is to hamstring the recognisers of
"inside job" by maintaining their belief in real death and injury thus compromising their ability to
get the truth of "inside job" out – that the US government would cold-bloodedly kill all those poor
people in the buildings is simply too taboo and horrific to countenance.
We can also know that while bombarding us with their propaganda the perps give us the clues in such
things as:
-- having the nose cone of the second plane pop out the other side of the South tower
-- the newscaster Brian Williams say to David Restuccio, FDNY EMS Lieutenant, "Can you confirm that it
was No 7 that just went in?", "went in" being a term used in controlled demolition that comes from the
fact that the buildings fall in on themselves
-- unbelievable miracle survivor stories
-- doctored photos of Bob McIlvaine, with his alleged son Bobby, who allegedly died in an explosion in
the lobby of the North tower before it came down
This understanding can prompt us to look at other events that we may suspect to be "false flags"
and see that the evidence shows that they too have similar MOs where physical destruction may have
occurred but death and injury didn't, eg, Pearl Harbour and the 1980 Bologna station bombing. The
evidence for the 9/11 anthrax attacks also shows staged death and illness. And in these events we are
also given the clues such as major discrepancy between show and tell.
This understanding can help us see that 9/11 is an event on a long continuum starting at least as
far back as the Great Fire of London in 1666. While the second stream of propaganda is only evident
for a number of events, 9/11 shares many hallmarks with much smaller events such as Sandy Hook, the
Manchester bombing, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, a recent Sydney CBD stabbing and so very, very many
other events.
Knowledge is power, Paul. When we understand what kind of event 9/11 is and how it fits on the
historical continuum we have much greater power to deal with it.
paul
,
That is all quite interesting in itself and worth thinking about, P.
But my argument is that the best strategy is to simply point out all the obvious inadequacies and
nonsense in the official conspiracy theory and let people draw their own conclusions.
This has
been done in the past on numerous occasions by knowledgeable, articulate, professional people.
When confronted with inconvenient facts, the journalist interlocutor hack present will then
typically demand a full alternative account, asking, "So what did happen? Are you saying that the
government murdered 3,000 of its own people?", or something similar.
The shrewd response is, "I'm just saying that the official narrative is obviously untrue, for
the reasons I've given you. What really needs to happen is a thorough, professional, independent
criminal enquiry, to establish exactly what did happen. You're supposed to be a journalist – why
aren't you calling for this?"
That is a challenge they find difficult to answer.
I've got a pretty clear idea what happened myself, but there are a number of different
permutations. They aren't important in themselves. What matters is debunking the ludicrous official
account.
I see your point, Paul, and your suggested approach may well be the best.
Good to know though
what kind of event 9/11 really is though – just for your own edification, no? because knowing
what kind of event and how it relates to others on the historical continuum provides a much
greater understanding of how we are ruled by a global power elite and have been for centuries
at least.
paul
,
I was interested myself in the attack on the Pentagon. To me it seems "highly likely" to coin
a phrase, that a cruise missile was used. But some people may think otherwise, and still
reject the official narrative. I wouldn't argue with them because it's only a relatively
minor point and doesn't change very much.
"cruise missile hitting the Pentagon" is exactly the kind of detail I'd avoid, Paul. We
know that the perps have pushed out multiple theories (eg, Judy Wood's DEW nonsense) and
details to distract and factionalise truthers – although truthers themselves have, no
doubt, come up with their own to argue over. The "controlled opposition" actors also stage
division among themselves to undermine the truth movement.
This is the critical information:
-- the four plane crashes were faked
-- WTC-1, 2 and 7 came down by controlled demolition
-- death and injury were staged
-- multiple exercises and drills on the day, one, at least, named as an anti-hijacker drill
Thus, 9/11 was, in effect, a Full-Scale Anti-Terrorist Exercise pushed out as a real
event (a psyop) where the only physical realities of the day were damage to and
destruction of buildings.
That's it in a nutshell and that's all we need to know to proceed with action.
And we know that controlled demolition was used as a focus in various ways to keep
people away from the truth of staged death and injury. Of course, we only need to
ascertain that the plane crashes were faked to know automatically that the collapses of
the buildings had to be engineered – but that would be too simple, they want 9/11 to seem
so very complicated. We have a significant number of professionals in the fields of
science, architecture, metallurgy, demolition and civil, mechanical & fire engineering,
speaking for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth but where's a single aircraft accident
investigator on the job?
Francis Lee
,
"Sadly, reporters and editors covering these events don't seem to have an interest in challenging any
substantial part of the story. Let's hope that one or more of them comes to their senses and proves that
suspicion wrong." With all due respect – fat chance.
One example is a current article by Robert Fisk.
I couldn't help noticing his most recent piece in 'Counterpunch' . Fisky is the go-to guy for anything
happening in the middle-east but this was something of a clumsy attempt to equate oppressed with oppressors
in the never ending imbroglio. For example.
''But this is water in the desert if we continue to betray the Palestinians, the Kurds and the millions
of people who suffer under our well-armed local dictators, whether they be Trump's "favourite dictator",
president el-Sisi of Egypt – whom I noticed at Davos, did I not? – or the ever more sinister Mohammed bin
Salman,
or Assad (armed by the Russians, of course)
or the militias of
Libya, Yemen or Iraq. If Trump can mix up al-Qaeda with the Kurds "
But of course Assad is as bad as the rest, another cheap dictator and a Russian stooge at that. Well
Assad defends his country's sovereignty against the US/Saudi/Jsraeli armed to the teeth jihadist foreign
legions of ISIS and Al-Qeada. So one lot of terrorists are as bad as the other. Is that right? What's with
this equi-distance between the invader and the defender. No difference really. But what exactly was Assad
and Syria supposed to do when being attacked by the US-Saudi funded head-choppers?
It gets better:
" well, then the Americans probably are finished in the Middle East.
We
know, of course, who is not finished in that region.''
Aha, yes, the hand of Putin is easily
recognisable in this middle-east cockpit. This sounds exactly like CNN 'newspeak'.
Finally, comes the oblique bias.
"After all, Moscow now seems to have more "territorial ambitions" (Surmelian's language, again) in the
Middle East than Washington."
Notice that Fisky attributes Moscow's 'territorial ambitions' to a certain Mr Surmelian, a gentleman I am
not familiar with, but its an easy way to get another snide little falsehood into the article.
Moscow's presence and strategy in Syria is quite simply explained: namely, it is to keep the
head-choppers out of Russia's soft underbelly of Chechnya and Dagestan where two bloody wars were fought as
well as terrorist outrages in the big cities of Moscow and St.Petersburg.
This sort of mealy-mouthed evasion is typical of the likes of Fisk and Monbiot.
Capricornia Man
,
Difficult to trust anyone in any way connected with the established media – even some alt-media.
Meanwhile the lies and incompetence of the state broadcasters seem to be ever proliferating. Australian
Broadcasting Corporation talking heads are still pontificating about Russian 'interference' in foreign
elections (despite Mueller) while the annexation of Crimea gets another run around the block without
mention of the referendum or Russian ownership prior to 1954. Putin's big speech is portrayed as nothing
more than a power-grab (so why is the power to appoint the PM being devolved to the Duma?) and nothing is
said about the proposed sweeping improvements to social welfare. Mentioning that might make Putin look
less like a pantomime villain. Couldn't have that, could we?
Dungroanin
,
Gatekeepers and limited hang-out specialists.
norman wisdom
,
a famous reporter for the bbc his name is gabriel gatehouse
you have to admit the khazar pirates do have a rather good and rather sick sense of humours
is it
nor
already
norman wisdom
,
jason bournes and james bonds the special forces of the world could not find osama bin atlarges cia name
tim osman (sounds jewish)
yet fisked pop over to the afgham plains and mountains and found him on a
donkey track
never get fisked over time it will hurt
never get gnome chumpskied
read a saymore hershey bar with caution
and never get your cockburnt
without some kosher chabad certifried salt rubbing salve
Loverat
,
So many parallels with the lead up to WW2 and the way Nazis behaved. The media back then complicit or silent
to the cruelties, racism, censorship, foreign aggression and obvious false flags (,even doubts over 911
aside) the pretext to all that.
We're heading towards a very dark place at lightning speed. Are there enough mainstream jounalists and
others breaking ranks? Not yet, some recently though – Tareq Haddad and Anna Brees and Hitchens as always
pushing – and independent media fighting back strong, the OPCW scandal one example. Too many like Monbiot
and ' liberal' press hiding behind ' 'progressive' issues to avoid addtessing the most pressing and
important. Keeping their personal gravy train going. We need more people of courage and intelligence to
counter the ignorant mass which make up MSM. This next year I think will be crucial for all of our futures.
Actually most "journalist" are like hookers they'd be turning tricks if they weren't working in the news
room.
Capricornia Man
,
'Liberal' media are the number one menace to public enlightenment because (unlike the tabloids, from
which nobody expects the truth) the public was brought up to trust them as reasonably accurate and fair
-which they are not, and perhaps never were.
Casandra2
,
A fully converted (or freed up) media could never counter what's coming our way. As you say, 'the next
year is crucial' . Somebody has better better rise to the occasion.
George Mc
,
The 9/11 Commission Report is so obviously a crass fraud that it gives weight to Petra/Flaxgirl's assertions
that the Deep State make their bullshit deliberately blatant because they are having a laugh at us all. The
commission report starts like a fictional narrative:
Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.
Millions of men and women readied themselves for work.
And it continues in this vein until we get this:
At 8:46:40, American 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. All
on board, along with an unknown number of people in the tower, were killed instantly.
How could the authors possibly know that? I didn't bother reading further apart from skipping ahead to
see how they covered the collapse of the towers. At that point I found out there was NO INDEX! There was an
enormous amount of small print verbiage that was practically impenetrable. I wasted no further time with it.
Mike Ellwood
,
The 9/11 Commission Report is so obviously a crass fraud
Thus continuing in that fine tradition established by the Warren Commission Report of 1964.
WTC7 is, I believe, the key to it all, or much of it. Really establish the truth of what went on
there, and much else may be revealed. ("And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the
building collapse".
Larry Silverstein
)
It's the "dog that didn't bark in the night". It's Jack Ruby being able to walk into Dallas Police
Headquarters and shoot Oswald at point blank range. It's the "three tramps". It's the fake Secret Service
agents with authentic looking ID on the grassy knoll. And much else. All the things that just don't add
up, and which make the official story look even shakier than it was to begin with.
paul
,
Very true. Most people soon accept 9/11 was a hoax when WTC7 is pointed out to them.
WTC-7 is key in more ways than one, Mike. Its collapse is a little like the scripted line from Oswald,
"I'm just a patsy," which is the truth, of course, but also functions as propaganda directed at
skeptics to make them believe that Oswald needed to be silenced. Oswald was an agent and, of course,
would not be spilling any beans, he would simply be "sheepdipped" (given a new identity and shipped
off somewhere). And as George says above about making their BS blatant:
-- there is no correspondence
between any still in the footage of the murder on LIVE TV and the famous photograph so we can tell it
was faked from the evidence of multiple takes – they didn't have to do multiple takes, did they? or
they certainly could have made it much less obvious. (
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/lho-shot-tvphoto-comparison.html
).
-- an assassin would not choose a $12 mail-order Carcano, a relic of Mussolini's WWII armed forces,
for his crackshot assassination either
-- and we're supposed to believe that Jack Ruby shows the signs he didn't really have the intention
to kill Oswald but only did it under "Mafia pressure" because when he arrived at the police station he
had his weenie, Sheba, with him and his alleged mistress says that Ruby would never have taken Sheba
with him if he really planned on shooting Oswald, knowing that he would have to abandon her. Doncha
love it?
The similarity with WTC-7?
WTC-7 was given to us on a platter – there was absolutely no need to bring down WTC-7 on the day,
just as they didn't bring any of the other buildings at the WTC on the day apart from the twin towers
(which they needed for their terror story). It was a perfect implosion that serves as a way to keep
skeptics' focus on controlled demolition. The perps want all the attention on controlled demolition,
much less on the planes (because the faked plane crashes means no deaths on planes and tends to lead
much more easily to the hypothesis of completely staged death and injury) and right away from death
and injury. They do not want skeptics of the story to realise that 9/11 was completely staged apart
from the buildings.
It's all about focus and distraction. That's how the propaganda works.
milosevic
,
assertions that the Deep State make their bullshit deliberately blatant
because they are having a laugh at us all
An alternative hypothesis would be that it was produced
by vulgar, stupid people, who assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the target audience was even more vulgar
and stupid than themselves.
who've managed to persuade lots of millions that 19 terrorists armed with boxcutters yada yada
yada and persuaded fewer millions that the US government cold-bloodedly killed all those poor people
in the buildings. Admittedly, the same MO has been in operation for centuries at least so it's hard to
know where their smarts really come in but I would tend not to underestimate it.
So what about these, milo. What's your alternative hypothesis for these?
-- having the nose cone of the second plane pop out the other side of the South tower (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH5InKzdQHw
)
with a freelance FoxNews reporter, Mark Walsh, describe how he saw the second plane "ream right into
the side of the twin tower exploding through the other side." (
https://youtu.be/f-pLwI7dcQ0?t=56s
)
-- the newscaster Brian Williams say to David Restuccio, FDNY EMS Lieutenant, "Can you confirm that
it was No 7 that just went in?", "went in" being a term used in controlled demolition that comes from
the fact that the buildings fall in on themselves.
https://youtu.be/i5b719rVpds?t=224
I thank you, George, from the bottom of my heart. This seems to be a first from an OffGer who previously
wasn't aware of their signs chiming in with me. Mark Gobell knows independently about the signs
(especially the "date arithmetic") but I haven't seen his name in absolutely ages – perhaps others too
but I'm simply not aware of them.
Just a quibble – "assertion" lacks the connotation of
"evidence-based". My claims about blatancy are 100% evidence-based.
Yes, it is very tedious to wade through the ludicrous and sometimes extremely convoluted BS being
lazy, I simply switch to seek other less mind-consuming examples of the blatant BS to make my case.
"... A chorus of neocons rushed to second his praise: Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and prominent Never Trumper, lauded Trump's intestinal fortitude, while Representative Liz Cheney hailed Trump's "decisive action." It was Carlson who was left sputtering about the forever wars. "Washington has wanted war with Iran for decades," Carlson said . "They still want it now. Let's hope they haven't finally gotten it." ..."
"... Neoconservatism as a foreign policy ideology has been badly discredited over the last two decades, thanks to the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the national conversation. It now appears that Trump intends to make Soleimani's killing -- which has nearly drawn the U.S. into yet another conflict in the Middle East and, in typical neoconservative fashion, ended up backfiring and undercutting American goals in the region -- a central part of his 2020 reelection bid . ..."
"... The neocons are starting to realize that Trump's presidency, at least when it comes to foreign policy, is no less vulnerable to hijacking than those of previous Republican presidents, including the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The leading hawks inside and outside the administration shaping its approach to Iran include Robert O'Brien, Bolton's disciple and successor as national security adviser; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook; Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; David Wurmser, a former adviser to Bolton; and Senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. Perhaps no one better exemplifies the neocon ethos better than Cotton, a Kristol protégé who soaked up the teachings of the political philosopher Leo Strauss while studying at Harvard. Others who have been baying for conflict with Iran include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now Trump's personal lawyer and partner in Ukrainian crime. In June 2018, Giuliani went to Paris to address the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose parent organization is the Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MeK. Giuliani, who has been on the payroll of the MeK for years, demanded -- what else? -- regime change. ..."
"... The fresh charge into battle of what Sidney Blumenthal once aptly referred to as an ideological light brigade brings to mind Hobbes's observation in Leviathan : "All men that are ambitious of military command are inclined to continue the causes of war; and to stir up trouble and sedition; for there is no honor military but by war; nor any such hope to mend an ill game, as by causing a new shuffle." The neocons, it appears, have caused a new shuffle. ..."
"... the killing of Soleimani revealed that the neocon military-intellectual complex is very much still intact, with the ability to spring back to life from a state of suspended animation in an instant. Its hawkish tendencies remain widely prevalent not only in the Republican Party but also in the media, the think-tank universe, and in the liberal-hawk precincts of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the influence and reach of the anti-war right remains nascent; even if this contingent has popular support, it doesn't enjoy much backing in Washington beyond the mood swings of the mercurial occupant of the Oval Office. ..."
"... The neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies that might once have seemed outré. ..."
"... But it was the neoconservatives, not the paleocons, who amassed influence in the 1990s and took over the GOP's foreign policy wing. Veteran neocons like Michael Ledeen were joined by a younger generation of journalists and policymakers that included Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol (who founded The Weekly Standard in 1994), Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas J. Feith. The neocons consistently pushed for a hard line against Iraq and Iran. In his 1996 book, Freedom Betrayed, for example, Ledeen, an expert on Italian fascism, declared that the right, rather than the left, should adhere to the revolutionary tradition of toppling dictatorships. In his 2002 book, The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen stated , "Creative destruction is our middle name. We tear down the old order every day." ..."
"... Still, a number of neocons, including David Frum, Max Boot, Anne Applebaum, Jennifer Rubin, and Kristol himself, have continued to condemn Trump vociferously for his thuggish instincts at home and abroad. They are not seeking high-profile government careers in the Trump administration and so have been able to reinvent themselves as domestic regime-change advocates, something they have done quite skillfully. In fact, their writings are more pungent now that they have been liberated from the costive confines of the movement. ..."
"... And so, urged on by Mike Pompeo, a staunch evangelical Christian, and Iraq War–era figures like David Wurmser , Trump is apparently prepared to target Iran for destruction. In a tweet, he dismissed his national security adviser, the Bolton protégé Robert O'Brien, for declaring that the strike against Soleimani would force Iran to negotiate: "Actually, I couldn't care less if they negotiate," he said . "Will be totally up to them but, no nuclear weapons and 'don't kill your protesters.'" Neocons have been quick to recognize the new, more belligerent Trump -- and the potential maneuvering room he's now created for their movement. Jonathan S. Tobin, a former editor at Commentary and a contributor to National Review , rejoiced in Haaretz that "the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, for which Carlson is a spokesperson, is losing the struggle for control of Trump's foreign policy." Tobin, however, added an important caveat: "When it comes to Iran, Trump needs no prodding from the likes of Bolton to act like a neoconservative. Just as important, the entire notion of anyone -- be it Carlson, former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, or any cabinet official like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- being able to control Trump is a myth." ..."
"... One reason is institutional. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hudson Institute, and AEI have all been sounding the tocsin about Iran for decades. Once upon a time, the neocons were outliers. Now they're the new establishment, exerting a kind of gravitational pull on debate, pulling politicians and a variety of news organizations into their orbit. The Hudson Institute, for example, recently held an event with former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who exhorted Iran's Revolutionary Guard to "peel away" from the mullahs and endorsed the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign. ..."
"... Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, also writing in the Times , has popped up to warn Trump against trying to leave Syria: "To paraphrase Trotsky's aphorism about war, you may not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle East is interested in you." With the "both-sides" ethos that prevails in the mainstream media, neocon ideas are just as good as any others for National Public Radio or The Washington Post, whose editorial page, incidentally, championed the Iraq War and has been imbued with a neocon, or at least liberal-hawk, tinge ever since Fred Hiatt took it over in 2000. ..."
"... Above all, Trump hired Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser. Flynn was the co-author with Ledeen of a creepy tract called Field of Fight, in which they demanded a crusade against the Muslim world ..."
"... At a minimum, the traditional Republican hard-line foreign policy approach has now fused with neoconservatism so that the two are virtually indistinguishable. At a maximum, neoconservatism shapes the dominant foreign policy worldview in Washington, which is why Democrats were falling over themselves to assure voters that Soleimani -- a "bad guy" -- had it coming. Any objections that his killing might boomerang back on the U.S. are met with cries from the right that Democrats are siding with the enemy. This truly is a policy of "maximum pressure" at home and abroad. ..."
There was a time not so long ago, before President Donald Trump's surprise decision early this year to liquidate the Iranian commander
Qassem Soleimani, when it appeared that America's neoconservatives were floundering. The president was itching to withdraw U.S. forces
from Afghanistan. He was staging exuberant photo-ops with a beaming Kim Jong Un. He was reportedly willing to hold talks with the
president of Iran, while clearly preferring trade wars to hot ones.
Indeed, this past summer, Trump's anti-interventionist supporters in the conservative media were riding high. When he refrained
from attacking Iran in June after it shot down an American drone, Fox News host Tucker Carlson
declared , "Donald Trump was elected president precisely to keep us out of disaster like war with Iran." Carlson went on to condemn
the hawks in Trump's Cabinet and their allies, who he claimed were egging the president on -- familiar names to anyone who has followed
the decades-long neoconservative project of aggressively using military force to topple unfriendly regimes and project American power
over the globe. "So how did we get so close to starting [a war]?"
he asked. "One of [the hawks'] key allies is the national security adviser of the United States. John Bolton is an old friend
of Bill Kristol's. Together they helped plan the Iraq War."
By the time Trump met with Kim in late June, becoming the first sitting president to set foot on North Korean soil, Bolton was
on the outs. Carlson was on the president's North Korean junket, while Trump's national security adviser was in Mongolia. "John Bolton
is absolutely a hawk,"
Trump
told NBC in June. "If it was up to him, he'd take on the whole world at one time, OK?" In September, Bolton was fired.
The standard-bearer of the Republican Party had made clear his distaste for the neocons' belligerent approach to global affairs,
much to the neocons' own entitled chagrin. As recently as December, Bolton, now outside the tent pissing in, was hammering Trump
for "bluffing" through an announcement that the administration wanted North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. "The
idea that we are somehow exerting maximum pressure on North Korea is just unfortunately not true,"
Bolton told Axios . Then Trump ordered the drone
strike on Soleimani, drastically escalating a simmering conflict between Iran and the United States. All of a sudden the roles were
reversed, with Bolton praising the president and asserting that Soleimani's death was "
the first step to regime change in Tehran ." A chorus of neocons rushed to second his praise: Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former
CIA officer and prominent Never Trumper, lauded Trump's intestinal fortitude, while Representative Liz Cheney hailed Trump's
"decisive action." It was Carlson
who was left sputtering about the forever wars. "Washington has wanted war with Iran for decades,"
Carlson said . "They
still want it now. Let's hope they haven't finally gotten it."
Neoconservatism as a foreign policy ideology has been badly discredited over the last two decades, thanks to the debacles
in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the
national conversation. It now appears that Trump intends to make Soleimani's killing -- which has nearly drawn the U.S. into yet
another conflict in the Middle East and, in typical neoconservative fashion, ended up backfiring and undercutting American goals
in the region -- a central part of his
2020 reelection bid
.
The anti-interventionist right is freaking out. Writing in American Greatness, Matthew Boose
declared , "[T]he Trump movement, which was generated out of opposition to the foreign policy blob and its endless wars, was
revealed this week to have been co-opted to a great extent by neoconservatives seeking regime change." James Antle, the editor of
The American Conservative, a publication founded in 2002 to oppose the Iraq War,
asked , "Did
Trump betray the anti-war right?"
In the blinding flash of one drone strike, neoconservatism was easily able to reinsert itself in the national conversation.
Their concerns are not unmerited. The neocons are starting to realize that Trump's presidency, at least when it comes to foreign
policy, is no less vulnerable to hijacking than those of previous Republican presidents, including the administrations of Ronald
Reagan and George W. Bush. The leading hawks inside and outside the administration shaping its approach to Iran include Robert O'Brien,
Bolton's disciple and successor as national security adviser; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Special Representative for Iran Brian
Hook; Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; David Wurmser, a former adviser to Bolton; and Senators
Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton. Perhaps no one better exemplifies the neocon ethos better than Cotton, a Kristol protégé who soaked
up the teachings of the political philosopher Leo Strauss while studying at Harvard. Others who have been baying for conflict with
Iran include Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now Trump's personal lawyer and partner in Ukrainian crime. In
June 2018, Giuliani went to Paris to address the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose parent organization is the Iranian
opposition group Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MeK. Giuliani, who has been on the payroll of the MeK for years, demanded -- what else? --
regime change.
The fresh charge into battle of what Sidney Blumenthal once aptly referred to as an ideological light brigade brings to mind
Hobbes's observation in Leviathan : "All men that are ambitious of military command are inclined to continue the causes of
war; and to stir up trouble and sedition; for there is no honor military but by war; nor any such hope to mend an ill game, as by
causing a new shuffle." The neocons, it appears, have caused a new shuffle.
Donald Trump has not dragged us into war with Iran (yet). But the killing of Soleimani revealed that the neocon military-intellectual
complex is very much still intact, with the ability to spring back to life from a state of suspended animation in an instant. Its
hawkish tendencies remain widely prevalent not only in the Republican Party but also in the media, the think-tank universe, and in
the liberal-hawk precincts of the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, the influence and reach of the anti-war right remains nascent; even
if this contingent has popular support, it doesn't enjoy much backing in Washington beyond the mood swings of the mercurial occupant
of the Oval Office.
But there was a time when the neoconservative coalition was not so entrenched -- and what has turned out to be its provisional
state of exile lends some critical insight into how it managed to hang around respectable policymaking circles in recent years, and
how it may continue to shape American foreign policy for the foreseeable future. When the neoconservatives came on the scene in the
late 1960s, the Republican old guard viewed them as interlopers. The neocons, former Trotskyists turned liberals who broke with the
Democratic Party over its perceived weakness on the Cold War, stormed the citadel of Republican ideology by emphasizing the relationship
between ideas and political reality. Irving Kristol, one of the original neoconservatives,
mused in 1985 that " what communists call the theoretical organs always end up through a filtering process influencing a lot
of people who don't even know they're being influenced. In the end, ideas rule the world because even interests are defined by ideas."
At pivotal moments in modern American foreign policy, the neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies
that might once have seemed outré. Jeane Kirkpatrick's seminal 1979 essay in Commentary, "Dictatorships and Double Standards,"
essentially set forth the lineaments of the Reagan doctrine. She assailed Jimmy Carter for attacking friendly authoritarian leaders
such as the shah of Iran and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza. She contended that authoritarian regimes might molt into democracies,
while totalitarian regimes would remain impregnable to outside influence, American or otherwise. Ronald Reagan read the essay and
liked it. He named Kirkpatrick his ambassador to the United Nations, where she became the most influential neocon of the era for
her denunciations of Arab regimes and defenses of Israel. Her tenure was also defined by the notion that it was perfectly acceptable
for America to cozy up to noxious regimes, from apartheid South Africa to the shah's Iran, as part of the greater mission to oppose
the red menace.
The neocons supplied the patina of intellectual legitimacy for policies that might once have seemed outré.
There was always tension between Reagan's affinity for authoritarian regimes and his hard-line opposition to Communist ones. His
sunny persona never quite gelled with Kirkpatrick's more gelid view that communism was an immutable force, and in 1982, in a major
speech to the British Parliament at Westminster emphasizing the power of democracy and free speech, he declared his intent to end
the Cold War on American terms. As Reagan's second term progressed and democracy and free speech actually took hold in the waning
days of the Soviet Union, many hawks declared that it was all a sham. Indeed, not a few neocons were livid, claiming that Reagan
was appeasing the Soviet Union. But after the USSR collapsed, they retroactively blessed him as the anti-Communist warrior par excellence
and the model for the future. The right was now a font of happy talk about the dawn of a new age of liberty based on free-market
economics and American firepower.
The fall of communism, in other words, set the stage for a new neoconservative paradigm. Francis Fukuyama's The End of History
appeared a decade after Kirkpatrick's essay in Commentary and just before the Berlin Wall was breached on November 9,
1989. Here was a sharp break with the saturnine, realpolitik approach that Kirkpatrick had championed. Irving Kristol regarded it
as hopelessly utopian -- "I don't believe a word of it," he wrote in a response to Fukuyama. But a younger generation of neocons,
led by Irving's son, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kagan, embraced it. Fukuyama argued that Western, liberal democracy, far from being
menaced, was now the destination point of the train of world history. With communism vanquished, the neocons, bearing the good word
from Fukuyama, formulated a new goal: democracy promotion, by force if necessary, as a way to hasten history and secure the global
order with the U.S. at its head. The first Gulf War in 1991, precipitated by Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, tested the neocons'
resolve and led to a break in the GOP -- one that would presage the rise of Donald Trump. For decades, Patrick Buchanan had been
regularly inveighing against what he came to call the neocon "
amen corner" in and around the
Washington centers of power, including A.M. Rosenthal and Charles Krauthammer, both of whom endorsed the '91 Gulf War. The neocons
were frustrated by the measured approach taken by George H.W. Bush. He refused to crow about the fall of the Berlin Wall and kicked
the Iraqis out of Kuwait but declined to invade Iraq and "finish the job," as his hawkish critics would later put it. Buchanan then
ran for the presidency in 1992 on an America First platform, reviving a paleoconservative tradition that would partly inform Trump's
dark horse run in 2016.
But it was the neoconservatives, not the paleocons, who amassed influence in the 1990s and took over the GOP's foreign policy
wing. Veteran neocons like Michael Ledeen were joined by a younger generation of journalists and policymakers that included Robert
Kagan, Bill Kristol (who founded The Weekly Standard in 1994), Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas J. Feith. The neocons consistently
pushed for a hard line against Iraq and Iran. In his 1996 book, Freedom Betrayed, for example, Ledeen, an expert on Italian
fascism, declared that the right, rather than the left, should adhere to the revolutionary tradition of toppling dictatorships. In
his 2002 book, The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen
stated , "Creative destruction
is our middle name. We tear down the old order every day."
We all know the painful consequences of the neocons' obsession with creative destruction. In his second inaugural address, three
and a half years after 9/11, George W. Bush cemented
neoconservative ideology into presidential doctrine: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of
democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." The neocons'
hubris had already turned into nemesis in Iraq, paving the way for an anti-war candidate in Barack Obama.
But it was Trump -- by virtue of running as a Republican -- who appeared to sound neoconservatism's death knell. He announced
his Buchananesque policy of "America First" in a speech at Washington's Mayflower Hotel in 2016, signaling that he would not adhere
to the long-standing Reaganite principles that had animated the party establishment.
The pooh-bahs of the GOP openly declared their disdain and revulsion for Trump, leading directly to the rise of the Never Trump
movement, which was dominated by neocons. The Never Trumpers ended up functioning as an informal blacklist for Trump once he became
president. Elliott Abrams, for example, who was being touted for deputy secretary of state in February 2017, was rejected when Steve
Bannon alerted Trump to his earlier heresies (though he later reemerged, in January 2019, as Trump's special envoy to Venezuela,
where he has pushed for regime change). Not a few other members of the Republican foreign policy establishment suffered similar fates.
Kristol's The Weekly Standard, which had held the neoconservative line through the Bush years and beyond , folded
in 2018. Even the office building that used to house the American Enterprise Institute and the Standard, on the corner of
17th and M streets in Washington, has been torn down, leaving an empty, boarded-up site whose symbolism speaks for itself.
Still, a number of neocons, including David Frum, Max Boot, Anne Applebaum, Jennifer Rubin, and Kristol himself, have continued
to condemn Trump vociferously for his thuggish instincts at home and abroad. They are not seeking high-profile government careers
in the Trump administration and so have been able to reinvent themselves as domestic regime-change advocates, something they have
done quite skillfully. In fact, their writings are more pungent now that they have been liberated from the costive confines of the
movement.
It was Trump -- by virtue of running as a Republican -- who appeared to sound neoconservatism's death knell.
But other neocons -- the ones who want to wield positions of influence and might -- have, more often than not, been able to hold
their noses. Stephen Wertheim, writing in The New York Review of Books, has perceptively dubbed this faction the anti-globalist
neocons. Led by John Bolton, they believe Trump performed a godsend by elevating the term globalism "from a marginal slur
to the central foil of American foreign policy and Republican politics,"
Wertheim argued . The U.S. need not
bother with pesky multilateral institutions or international agreements or the entire postwar order, for that matter -- it's now
America's way or the highway.
And so, urged on by Mike Pompeo, a staunch evangelical Christian,
and Iraq War–era figures like
David Wurmser , Trump is apparently prepared to target Iran for destruction. In a tweet, he dismissed his national security adviser,
the Bolton protégé Robert O'Brien, for declaring that the strike against Soleimani would force Iran to negotiate: "Actually, I couldn't
care less if they negotiate,"
he said . "Will be totally up to them but, no nuclear weapons and 'don't kill your protesters.'" Neocons have been quick to recognize
the new, more belligerent Trump -- and the potential maneuvering room he's now created for their movement. Jonathan S. Tobin, a former
editor at Commentary and a contributor to National Review ,
rejoiced in Haaretz that "the neo-isolationist wing of the GOP, for which Carlson is a spokesperson, is losing the struggle
for control of Trump's foreign policy." Tobin, however, added an important caveat: "When it comes to Iran, Trump needs no prodding
from the likes of Bolton to act like a neoconservative. Just as important, the entire notion of anyone -- be it Carlson, former White
House senior advisor Steve Bannon, or any cabinet official like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo -- being able to control Trump is
a myth."
In other words, whether the neocons themselves are occupying top positions in the Trump administration is almost irrelevant. The
ideology itself has reemerged to a degree that even Trump himself seems hard pressed to resist it -- if he even wants to.
How were the neocons able to influence another Republican presidency, one that was ostensibly dedicated to curbing their sway?
One reason is institutional. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hudson Institute, and AEI have all been sounding the
tocsin about Iran for decades. Once upon a time, the neocons were outliers. Now they're the new establishment, exerting a kind of
gravitational pull on debate, pulling politicians and a variety of news organizations into their orbit. The Hudson Institute, for
example, recently held an event with former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who exhorted Iran's Revolutionary Guard to "peel away"
from the mullahs and endorsed the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign. The event was hosted by Michael Doran, a
former senior director on George W. Bush's National Security Council and a senior fellow at the institute, who
wrote in
The New York Times on January 3, "The United States has no choice, if it seeks to stay in the Middle East, but to check
Iran's military power on the ground." Then there's Jamie M. Fly, a former staffer to Senator Marco Rubio who was appointed this past
August to head Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; he previously co-authored an essay in Foreign Affairs contending that it isn't enough to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities: "If the United States seriously considers military action,
it would be better to plan an operation that not only strikes the nuclear program but aims to destabilize the regime, potentially
resolving the Iranian nuclear crisis once and for all."
Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, also writing in the Times , has
popped up to warn Trump against
trying to leave Syria: "To paraphrase Trotsky's aphorism about war, you may not be interested in the Middle East, but the Middle
East is interested in you." With the "both-sides" ethos that prevails in the mainstream media, neocon ideas are just as good as any
others for National Public Radio or The Washington Post, whose editorial page, incidentally, championed the Iraq War
and has been imbued with a neocon, or at least liberal-hawk, tinge ever since Fred Hiatt took it over in 2000.
But there are plenty of institutions in Washington, and neoconservatism's seemingly inescapable influence cannot be chalked up
to the swamp alone. Some etiolated form of what might be called Ledeenism lingered on before taking on new life at the outset of
the Trump administration. Trump's overt animus toward Muslims, for example, meant that figures such as Frank Gaffney, who opposed
arms-control treaties with Moscow as a member of the Reagan administration and resigned in protest of the 1987 Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty, achieved a new prominence. During the Obama administration, Gaffney, the head of the Center for Security Policy,
claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the White House and National Security Agency.
Above all, Trump hired Michael Flynn as his first national security adviser. Flynn was the co-author with Ledeen of a
creepy tract called Field of Fight, in which they demanded a crusade against the Muslim world: "We're in a world
war against a messianic mass movement of evil people." It was one of many signs that Trump was susceptible to ideas of a civilizational
battle against
"Islamo-fascism,"
which Norman Podhoretz and other neocons argued, in the wake of 9/11, would lead to World War III. In their millenarian ardor
and inflexible support for Israel, the neocons find themselves in a position precisely cognate to evangelical Christians -- both
groups of true believers trying to enact their vision through an apostate. But perhaps the neoconservatives' greatest strength lies
in the realm of ideas that Irving Kristol identified more than three decades ago. The neocons remain the winners of that battle,
not because their policies have made the world or the U.S. more secure, but by default -- because there are so few genuinely alternative
ideas that are championed with equal zeal. The foreign policy discussion surrounding Soleimani's killing -- which accelerated Iran's
nuclear weapons program, diminished America's influence in the Middle East, and entrenched Iran's theocratic regime -- has largely
occurred on a spectrum of the neocons' making. It is a discussion that accepts premises of the beneficence of American military might
and hegemony -- Hobbes's "ill game" -- and naturally bends the universe toward more war.
At a minimum, the traditional Republican hard-line foreign policy approach has now fused with neoconservatism so that the
two are virtually indistinguishable. At a maximum, neoconservatism shapes the dominant foreign policy worldview in Washington, which
is why Democrats were falling over themselves to assure voters that Soleimani -- a "bad guy" -- had it coming. Any objections that
his killing might boomerang back on the U.S. are met with cries from the right that Democrats are siding with the enemy. This truly
is a policy of "maximum pressure" at home and abroad.
As Trump takes an extreme hard line against Iran, the neoconservatives may ultimately get their long-held wish of a war with the
ayatollahs. When it ends in a fresh disaster, they can always argue that it only failed because it wasn't prosecuted vigorously enough
-- and the shuffle will begin again.
Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of The National Interest and the author of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons.
@ JacobHeilbrunn
They are not helping Ukraine citizen of which after 2014 live in abject poverty. So in now
way this an aid. They are arming Ukraine to kill Russians and maintain a hot spot on Russian
border.
The USA, specifically Brennan, Nuland and Biden create civil war out of nothing pushing far
right nationalist to suppress eastern population by brute forces (they burned alive 200 hundred
or more people on Odessa and killed people in Mariupol before Donbass flared up)
They are despicable MIC bottomfeeders. Neocon calculation is that Russia will not respond to
this provocation, because it is too weak after the economic rape of 1991-2000. While Putin is a
very patient politician they might be wrong.
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by James Bovard via JimBovard.com, ..."
"... "corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United States." ..."
"... "I think it makes no sense to give aid money to countries that are corrupt." ..."
"... " remains skeptical after a history of broken promises [from the Ukraine govt]. Kiev hasn't successfully completed any of a series of IMF bailout packages over the past two decades, with systemic corruption at the heart of much of that failure." ..."
"... "Most foreign aid winds up with outside consultants, the local military, corrupt bureaucrats, the new NGO [nongovernmental organizations] administrators, and Mercedes dealers." ..."
"... James Bovard is the author of " ..."
"... Attention Deficit Democracy ..."
"... The Bush Betrayal ..."
"... Terrorism and Tyranny ..."
"... ," and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at ..."
The campaign to convict and remove President Donald Trump in the Senate hinges on delays in
disbursing U.S. aid to Ukraine. Ukraine was supposedly on the verge of great progress until
Trump pulled the rug out from under the heroic salvation effort by U.S. government bureaucrats.
Unfortunately, Congress has devoted a hundred times more attention to the timing of aid to
Ukraine than to its effectiveness. And most of the media coverage has ignored the biggest
absurdity of the impeachment fight.
The temporary postponement of the Ukrainian aid was practically irrelevant considering that
U.S. assistance efforts have long fueled the poxes they promised to eradicate –
especially
kleptocracy, or government by thieves .
A 2002 American Economic Review analysis concluded that
"increases in [foreign] aid are associated with contemporaneous increases in corruption" and
that "corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United
States."
Then-President George W. Bush promised to reform foreign aid that year,
declaring , "I think it makes no sense to give aid money to countries that are
corrupt." Regardless, the Bush administration continued delivering billions of dollars in
handouts to
many of the world's most corrupt regimes .
Then-President Barack Obama, recognizing the failure
of past U.S. aid efforts, proclaimed at the United Nations in 2010 that the U.S. government
is "
leading a global effort to combat corruption ." The following year, congressional
Republicans sought to restrict foreign aid to fraud-ridden foreign regimes. Then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton wailed that restricting handouts to nations that fail anti-corruption
tests "has
the potential to affect a staggering number of needy aid recipients."
The Obama administration continued pouring tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars into
sinkholes such as Afghanistan, which even its president, Ashraf Ghani, admitted in 2016 was
"one of the
most corrupt countries on earth ." John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghan
Reconstruction (SIGAR), declared that "U.S.
policies and practices unintentionally aided and abetted corruption" in Afghanistan.
Since the end of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has provided more than $6 billion in aid to
Ukraine. At the House impeachment hearings, a key anti-Trump witness was acting U.S. ambassador
to the Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr. The Washington Post hailed Taylor as someone who "
spent much of the 1990s telling Ukrainian politicians that nothing was more critical to
their long-term prosperity than rooting out corruption and bolstering the rule of law, in his
role as the head of U.S. development assistance for post-Soviet countries." A New York Times
editorial
lauded Taylor and State Department deputy assistant secretary George Kent as witnesses who
"came across not as angry Democrats or Deep State conspirators, but as men who have devoted
their lives to serving their country."
After their testimony spurred criticism, a Washington Post headline
captured the capital city's reaction: "The diplomatic corps has been wounded. The State
Department needs to heal." But not nearly as much as the foreigners supposedly rescued by U.S.
bureaucrats.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 31 that the International Monetary Fund, which has
provided more than $20
billion in loans to Ukraine, " remains
skeptical after a history of broken promises [from the Ukraine govt]. Kiev hasn't
successfully completed any of a series of IMF bailout packages over the past two decades, with
systemic corruption at the heart of much of that failure."
The IMF concluded that Ukraine continued to be vexed by " shortcomings
in the legal framework, pervasive corruption, and large parts of the economy dominated by
inefficient state-owned enterprises or by oligarchs." That last item is damning for the U.S.
benevolent pretensions. If a former Soviet republic cannot even terminate its government-owned
boondoggles, then why in hell was the U.S. government bankrolling them?
Transparency International, which publishes an annual Corruption Perceptions Index, shows
that corruption
surged in Ukraine in the late 1990s (after the U.S. decided to rescue them) and remains at
abysmal levels. Ukraine is now ranked as the 120th most
corrupt nation in the world -- a lower ranking than received by Egypt and Pakistan, two
other major U.S. aid recipients also notorious for corruption.
Actually, the best gauge of Ukrainian corruption is the near-total collapse of its citizens'
trust in government or in their own future. Since 1991, the nation
has lost almost 20% of its population as citizens flee abroad like passengers leaping off a
sinking ship.
And yet, the House impeachment hearings and much of the media gushed over career U.S.
government officials despite their strikeouts. It was akin to a congressional committee
resurrecting Col. George S. Custer in 1877 and fawning as he offered personal insights in
dealing with uprisings by Sioux Indians (while carefully avoiding awkward questions about the
previous year at
the Little Big Horn ).
Foreign aid is virtue signaling with other people's money. As long the aid spawns press
releases and photo opportunities for presidents and members of Congress and campaign donations
from corporate and other beneficiaries, little else matters. Congress almost never conducts
thorough investigations into the failure of aid programs despite their legendary pratfalls. The
Agency for International Development ludicrously evaluated its programs in Afghanistan based
on their "burn rate" – whether they were spending money as quickly as possible,
almost regardless of the results. SIGAR's John Sopko "found a USAID lessons-learned report from
1980s on Afghan reconstruction but nobody at AID had read it
."
After driving around the world, investment guru Jim Rogers declared: "Most foreign
aid winds up with outside consultants, the local military, corrupt bureaucrats, the new NGO
[nongovernmental organizations] administrators, and Mercedes dealers." After the Obama
administration promised massive aid to Ukraine in 2014,
Hunter Biden jumped on the gravy train – as did legions of well-connected
Washingtonians and other hustlers around the nation. Similar largesse assures that there will
never be a shortage of overpaid individuals and hired think tanks ready to write op-eds or
letters to the editor of the Washington Post whooping up the moral greatness of foreign aid or
some such hokum.
When it comes to the failure of U.S. aid to Ukraine, almost all of Trump's congressional
critics are like the "
dog that didn't bark " in the Sherlock Holmes story. The real outrage is that Trump and
prior presidents, with Congress cheering all the way, delivered so many U.S. tax dollars to
Kiev that any reasonable person knew would be wasted. If Washington truly wants to curtail
foreign corruption, ending U.S. foreign aid is the best first step.
paying billions to corrupt Jewish Ukranians is just another way to support Israel.
Christian Zionists understand and approve of this. So what's the big deal? It's free money.
Money that grows on trees. What does it cost to print billions of free money by a few
electronic entries? Nothing. We should print more. Free **** is a beautiful thing.
We can postpone judgment day for at least another decade or so. By then, all the smart
Harvard educated guys and gals at Goldman Sachs and Wall Street will figure out how to kick
the can down the road for another decade or so.
When it all collapses, half of India and Africa and central America will already have
replaced what used to be the American population. The few remaining Americans aside from the
immigrants will be unrecognizable anyway. many will have left. Many more will have been
reduced by failure to procreate and replace themselves. Christians will be a despised,(even
the idiotic Zio-Christians who looked the other way on important issues as long as we were
bombing and killing for their beloved Israel) We will have a dying population as many will
have chosen the gay LGBTQ lifestyle and we are replaced by subservient obedient, uneducated
immigrants who are happy to work for $8 an hour and live in a single room apartment they
share with other immigrant families.
Ukraine was a failed state since day one and it got much worse since US/EU instigated
coup. I don't see any light at the end of tunnel. Zielensky is a more friendly face, but
that's it. He obviously doesn't have power to change the course. He can promise anything
while abroad, but he has to appease the nazis at home or they will get rid of him. In other
words Ukraine is doomed.
Zielensky is more than friendly face...he signed many deals with Putin and behave as
responsible politician who wanna bring normalization and peace. Same forces overthrow
Yanukovitch will try it with Zielensky, because they not wanna peace, but their interest is
war....so Zielensky is in danger.
Ukraine has biggest potential of all countries. Has richest on a planet soil, educated
European population, is poor so money go long way. And of course bridge to forcing Russia
being our ally, and adhere to nationalism, vs being corrupted by globalists.
No ****, it's absurd. The Wretched City was practically unanimous in the screeching about
sending weapons to Ukraine because Crimea voted to join Russia, something they describe up
there as being "annexed". Especially so now because since then Iraq voted to kick the US out
of their country and has been ignored, themselves being "annexed".
This is something that is accepted to a certain degree as a result of Bob Mueller.
Crimea is military important for their security...that why they had naval base there..they
cant afford lose this point and Black Sea....
Soviets were not willing to colonize these satelites like Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. they
were relevant after ww2 and Russians were scared of another war...day they become irrelevant
thanks of new weapons they abandon these states.
I know they are corrupted one...but USA is careless toward Ukraine fortunes...they use
them to provoke conditions to create cold war two...military industry need big enemies for
sake of hundreds bilions usd profits...how would you explain your citizens you pay one third
of budget and no enemies??? so Deep state want cold war two.
More than milion Ukrainians left to Russia...while EU has closed Ukrainian borders...so
who care more of Ukrainian people?
Russians were victims of all of this...red line was Crimea...and Putin did
right...otherwise Russian nuclear security would be doomed if you allow NATO troops to
Crimea.
US politicians not do it first time...did you know most wealthy Kosovian is Magdalene All
Bright?? i live in postcommunist state and whole my life witness western proxies stealing all
valuable stakes here....Communism created state ownership of big industries...domestic
politicians alongside western snakes steal it very ugly way.IN SO CALLED PRIVATIZATION..wheather it is Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania etc. even information networks are owed by westeners....we are absolutely
blackmailed.
Russians and partly Ukrainians did not allow foreigers to entry ...they tried it..here and
there something got, whole 90s was going on this big fight among Russians and plus western
snakes for stakes....Putin created order in it alongside Russian oligarchy and
normalization....that why Russians like him.
Are these idiotic Democrats and Russia haters crazy?
Russia has a population and GDP roughly the same as Mexico and they're on the other side
of the planet (unless you're in Alaska). There is exactly zero chance Russia will invade or
attack Western Europe or the USA.
The USA should be concerned with the USA, and not whether Russia will act to safeguard its
border.
When Soviet Union left...military industry for sake of their profits needed to create big
enemy....they created terrorism and islamic wars......now as it failing apart they need new
enemies..big one to explain you why is necessary to give one third of your taxes into
military toys...so they create conflicts around China and Russia with hope to dig in into
cold war two.
Russians and Chinese have not big corporate bussines behind their military...their
spending is tiny compared to US military industry profits....so they have no interest in
wars...while US seek them.
Be aware Americans...your military is not only milking you, but risking of whole humanity
throwing into military disasters even as an accidents . Putin explained it many
times...computer supersystems can be activated so easily if some misteps happen...
If Quid Pro Que is legal, then the swamp is drained. The swamp isn't doing anything wrong.
They have been following the law all this time. Ask the president.
Words matter, they can be as precise as scalpels or as blunt as a sledgehammer. In skilled
hands, a word-tool can be either be a scalpel or a sledgehammer.
Jewish ethnonationalism (Zionism) was well underway from the mid-1800s, and well-supported
(at least in terms of "solving the Jewish problem") in some elite circles in the early 1900s
as the Balfour Declaration proves. The Nazis erred in thinking it was the Jewish population
was the "problem", when the problem resided in the Jewish/banking and intellectual elites
(e.g. Rothchilds).
AIPAC etc. shows this malignant ideology continues to grow in scope and influence.
We here at MoA should adopt Florin's more correct terms and use them here at MoA AND
ANYWHERE ELSE WE POST... From and acorn of an idea, a mighty oak of understanding may grow.
But it won't grow if we don't nurture it.
Semitism refers to speakers of Semitic languages, of which Hebrew-speakers are but one
part... most of the rest are Arabic speakers. The term antisemitism was hijacked in the early
1800's.
"... also antisemitism, 1881, from German Antisemitismus, first used by Wilhelm Marr
(1819-1904) German radical, nationalist and race-agitator, who founded the Antisemiten-Liga
in 1879; see anti- + Semite.
Not etymologically restricted to anti-Jewish theories, actions, or policies, but almost
always used in this sense. Those who object to the inaccuracy of the term might try Hermann
Adler's Judaeophobia (1881). Anti-Semitic (also antisemitic) and anti-Semite (also
antisemite) also are from 1881, like anti-Semitism they appear first in English in an article
in the "Athenaeum" of Sept. 31, in reference to German literature. Jew-hatred is attested
from 1881. As an adjective, anti-Jewish is from 1817."
---------
Words matter as the Israel Project's "Global Language Dictionary"(IP-GLG) demonstrates,
the Jewish ethnonationalists (Zionists) use words to hide their intentions. Why not call the
IP-GLD "Propaganda Language to support the theft of, and genocide in, Palestine"? It's a far
more accurate description of the contents and intents... but being honest and transparent is
not what the international Jew/Israel Lobby/elite is all about. https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/08/global-language-dictionary/
DNC In Disarray After Chairman's Secret Golden Parachute Revealed by Tyler Durden Thu, 01/30/2020 -
17:20 0 SHARES The
perpetually broke ,
deck-stacking DNC has been thrown into disarray just days before the Iowa caucus after
Buzzfeed
revealed that a cadre of top officials at the Democratic National Committee approved, then
concealed a 'generous exit package for the party chair, Tom Perez, and two top lieutenants,'
which has left Democrats 'confounded over the weekend by the optics and timing of the decision
on the eve of the presidential primary."
The proposal, put forward as an official DNC resolution during a meeting of the party's
budget and finance committee last Friday, would have arranged for Perez and two of his top
deputies, CEO Seema Nanda and deputy CEO Sam Cornale, to each receive a lump-sum bonus
equaling four months' salary within two weeks of the time they eventually leave their roles
.
Senior DNC officers, including members of Perez's own executive committee, learned of the
compensation package after its approval, through the rumor mill, setting off a furious
exchange of emails and texts over the weekend to determine what had been proposed, and by
whom . - Buzzfeed
And while four-months salary might be more of a 'bronze parachute', Perez rejected the
"extra compensation" package for himself and his two lieutenants in an email to officials .
Perez says he will serve through the end of the 2020 election, while all three officials
have denied having any prior knowledge of, or involvement in the pay package resolution .
"One-hundred percent of our resources are going towards beating Donald Trump," said DNC
communications director Xochitl Hinojosa, who added "DNC leadership will not accept any extra
compensation recommended by the budget committee, which didn't operate at the direction of DNC
leadership. The resolution was crafted by the budget committee and did not involve the Chair,
CEO, or Deputy CEO."
Taking the fall for the resolution are two members of the DNC's budget and finance committee
- Daniel Halpern and Chris Korge, who described it as the first step in a "smooth transition"
for Perez.
Halperin, an
anti-minimum wage lobbyist , was appointed by Perez in 2017. He previously chaired Atlanta
Mayor Kasim Reed's 2009 moyoral campaign, and was a trustee for Barack Obama's 2008 inaugural
committee.
Chris Korge is a Florida
attorney hired in May of 2019. He was one of the top fundraisers for Andrew Gillum, Hillary
Clinton, Bill Clinton, and served as the co-chairman for the Kerry Edwards campaign in
2004.
For years, the 64-year-old attorney, developer and one-time county hall lobbyist has been
an important fundraiser for Democrats. He has raised millions for both Hillary and Bill
Clinton, served as national co-chairman for Kerry Edwards Victory in 2004 and this year was
co-chairman of Miami's unsuccessful bid to bring the Democratic convention to South Florida
next summer. - Miami
Herald
According to Buzzfeed , Halpern and Korge both said the resolution was above-board
and a common business practice.
The resolution, which only applies to the 2021 transition, states that the outgoing chair,
CEO, and deputy CEO will help facilitate donor and "stakeholder" relations, and convey
"institutional knowledge" to the next chair, but is less specific about the requirements of
the transition than the details of the compensation package: a lump sum of four months' pay,
paid within two weeks, unless either Perez, Nanda, or Cornale is terminated for "gross
misconduct."
On Tuesday, Halpern said the resolution was meant to serve only as a "nonbinding" starting
point to ensure "continuity" between Perez's tenure and the next party chair . - Buzzfeed
Top Democrats within the DNC's leadership speaking on condition of anonymity said that they
were shocked to learn of the compensation package on the eve of a presidential primary , amid a
massive fundraising defecit .
"I think it is completely short-sighted and really stupid," said one senior official.
The package would have paid Perez around $69,000, Nanda around $61,000, and Cornale
$39,000.
The infighting is indicative of the ongoing DNC implosion. These parties, like the entire
world's governments, were terminated long ago. NOBODY wants or needs the fake drama bullsh*t.
If it's not on one side or the other it's on both to distract everybody. Like the ongoing
fake impeachment fraud. Chump was finished day one on the job. And even if not certainly the
public conspiring with both parties to commit sedition and treason after Parkland ensured
it.
Tom Perez - member of the Obama Transition Project's Agency Review Working Group
responsible for the justice, health and human services, veterans affairs, and housing and
urban development agencies. He is Secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing
and Regulation under Governor Martin O'Malley.
He worked in a variety of civil rights positions at the Department of Justice, including
Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Janet Reno.
He also served as Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services under Secretary Donna Shalala, and as Special Counsel to Senator Edward
Kennedy. From 2001 until 2007, he was Assistant Professor of Law at the University of
Maryland School of Law, and is an adjunct faculty member at the George Washington School of
Public Health.
Trump and his Israeli partners are betting on Palestine's Arab friends to recognize the
finality of the window of opportunity that has presented itself and prevail upon the
Palestinian people to act accordingly.
For Israel, a rejection of this ultimatum benefits them far more than any Palestinian
acceptance. This fact, more than anything else, opens the door to the possibility that the
Palestinians can be dissuaded from their current hardline position rejecting the deal.
Most see this deal as cover for Israel's annexation of Occupied Palestine. The deal was
made public yesterday. Bibi rushed home today for the vote on Sunday to annex the Jordan
Valley and West Bank Settlements. This agreement was constructed for the occupiers and
negotiations did not include proprietors of the land.
Read on it is for the sole benefit of Israel.
Why the rush?
Kushner said not so soon...wait a month. but in Israel ......
"We have been working on this for three years, hundreds of hours, to bring the best
agreement in Israel," the source noted, adding that Trump's move to recognize the
application of Israeli law to the Jordan Valley, the Northern Dead Sea, Judea and Samaria
was "a huge thing" and an undeniable success for Israel.
The source clarified that the US side had preferred an Israeli annexation of these
territories "all at once" instead of a slice-by-slice approach, calling this a "technical
problem" but emphasizing that there was "no argument about the essence" of the
matter.[.]
Well, King Donald Trump giveth. The same king who abrogates international treaties has no
respect for the rights of others.
Ok btw. Mike Bloomberg is not really running a campaign to be president. He said, "I am
spending my money to get rid of Trump." Thing is whoever comes after must be approved by
the landlords.
"... I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not smart. They are bullies and cowards. ..."
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 30 2020 23:02 utc | 124
I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians
decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not
smart. They are bullies and cowards.
At present what I notice is what you do, there is a lot going on, but you won't find it in
the MSM. They are busy reducing their audience share with propaganda.
They kicked the jams out when they droned Soleiman. No more "deals".
But I expect Iran to do these things while this is going on:
1.) Annoy Trump and his minions and USG political class as much as possible, stay in their
face.
2.) Watch, and help their "proxies" work on making life unbearable in the Middle East for
us.
The Houthis seem to have just kicked the shit out of the Saudi coalition again. Quite a
few damaged ships and down aircraft reports too, not just Afghanistan.
The House voted 236 to 166 to kill the 2002 Authorization for Military Force (AUMF) on
Iraq. The law was drafted during the presidency of George W. Bush to authorize the 2003
invasion of Iraq, and has been used by subsequent administrations to continue military
activity in the country – most recently to justify the US drone assassination of
Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad earlier this month.[.]
The bill was one of two pieces of legislation passed by the House on Thursday aimed at
curbing Trump's warmaking powers. Prior to its passage, a bill prohibiting Trump from using
federal funds for "unauthorized military force against Iran" cleared the House floor, again
along party lines, with a vote of 228-175.[.]
lizabeth Warren wrote an
article
outlining in general terms how she would bring America's current foreign wars to an end. Perhaps the most significant part of the
article is her commitment to respect Congress' constitutional role in matters of war:
We will hold ourselves to this by recommitting to a simple idea: the constitutional requirement that Congress play a primary
role in deciding to engage militarily. The United States should not fight and cannot win wars without deep public support.
Successive administrations and Congresses have taken the easy way out by choosing military action without proper authorizations
or transparency with the American people. The failure to debate these military missions in public is one of the reasons
they have been allowed to continue without real prospect of success [bold mine-DL].
On my watch, that will end. I am committed to seeking congressional authorization if the use of force is required. Seeking
constrained authorizations with limited time frames will force the executive branch to be open with the American people and
Congress about our objectives, how the operation is progressing, how much it is costing, and whether it should continue.
Warren's commitment on this point is welcome, and it is what Americans should expect and demand from their presidential
candidates. It should be the bare minimum requirement for anyone seeking to be president, and any candidate who won't commit to
respecting the Constitution should never be allowed to have the powers of that office. The president is not permitted to launch
attacks and start wars alone, but Congress and the public have allowed several presidents to do just that without any consequences.
It is time to put a stop to illegal presidential wars, and it is also time to put a stop to open-ended authorizations of military
force. Warren's point about asking for "constrained authorizations with limited time frames" is important, and it is something that
we should insist on in any future debate over the use of force. The 2001 and 2002 AUMFs are still on the books and have been abused
and stretched beyond recognition to apply to groups that didn't exist when they were passed so that the U.S. can fight wars in
countries that don't threaten our security. Those need to be repealed as soon as possible to eliminate the opening that they have
provided the executive to make war at will.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is
unimpressed with Warren's rhetoric:
But what has Warren offered to do differently, or better? She's made no notable break with the class of experts who run our
failing foreign policy. Unlike Bernie Sanders, and like Trump or Obama, she hasn't hired a foreign-policy staff committed to a
different vision. And so her promise to turn war powers back to Congress should be considered as empty as Obama's promise to do
the same. Her promise to bring troops home would turn out to be as meaningless as a Trump tweet saying the same.
We shouldn't discount Warren's statements so easily. When a candidate makes specific commitments about ending U.S. wars during a
campaign, that is different from making vague statements about having a "humble" foreign policy. Bush ran on a conventional hawkish
foreign policy platform, and there were also no ongoing wars for him to campaign against, so we can't say that he ever ran as a
"dove." Obama campaigned against the Iraq war and ran on ending the U.S. military presence there, and before his first term was
finished almost all U.S. troops were out of Iraq. It is important to remember that he did not campaign against the war in
Afghanistan, and instead argued in support of it. His subsequent decision to commit many more troops there was a mistake, but it was
entirely consistent with what he campaigned on. In other words, he withdrew from the country he promised to withdraw from, and
escalated in the country where he said the U.S. should be fighting. Trump didn't actually campaign on ending any wars, but he did
talk about "bombing the hell" out of ISIS, and after he was elected he escalated the war on ISIS. His anti-Iranian obsession was out
in the open from the start if anyone cared to pay attention to it. In short, what candidates commit to doing during a campaign does
matter and it usually gives you a good idea of what a candidate will do once elected.
If Warren and some of the other Democratic candidates are committing to ending U.S. wars, we shouldn't assume that they won't
follow through on those commitments because previous presidents proved to be the hawks that they admitted to being all along.
Presidential candidates often tell us exactly what they mean to do, but we have to be paying attention to everything they say and
not just one catchphrase that they said a few times. If voters want a more peaceful foreign policy, they should vote for candidates
that actually campaign against ongoing wars instead of rewarding the ones that promise and then deliver escalation. But just voting
for the candidates that promise an end to wars is not enough if Americans want Congress to start doing its job by reining in the
executive. If we don't want presidents to run amok on war powers, there have to be political consequences for the ones that have
done that and there needs to be steady pressure on Congress to take back their role in matters of war. Voters should select
genuinely antiwar candidates, but then they also have to hold those candidates accountable once they're in office.
"... Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources." ..."
"... According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the series of crippling sanctions the Trump administration has put on Iran. ..."
Why is Pompeo suddenly directing increasingly heated rhetoric towards Iran and its proxies
in South America?
"Anti-Iran hawks like Pompeo like to emphasize that Iran is not a defensively-minded
international actor, but rather that it is offensively-minded and poses a direct threat to the
United States," said Max Abrahms, associate professor of political science at Northeastern and
fellow of the Quincy Institute said in an interview with The American Conservative. "And
so for obvious reasons, underscoring Hezbollah's international tentacles helps to sell their
argument that Iran needs to be dealt with in a military way, and that the key to dealing with
Iran is through confrontation and pressure."
Stories highlighting the role of Hezbollah in America's backyard "are almost always peddled
by anti-Iran hawks," he said.
Like Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security
Policy, who aligns with the argument that Hezbollah has been populating South America since the
days of the Islamic revolution.
"From at least the 1980s, many Lebanese fled to South America, and among that flow Hezbollah
embedded themselves," she told The American Conservative in a recent interview. Their
activity "really expanded throughout the continent" during the presidencies of Iran's Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
During that time, Lopez added, "there was a really strong relationship that developed
Iranians established diplomatic facilities, enormous embassies and consulates, embedded IRGC
cover positions and MOIS (intelligence services) within commercial companies and mosques and
Islamic centers. This took place in Brazil in particular but Venezuela also."
Iran and Hezbollah intensified their involvement throughout the region in technical services
like tunneling, money laundering, and drug trafficking. Venezuela offered Iran an international
banking work-around during the period of sanctions, said Lopez.
Obviously security analysts like Lopez and even Pompeo, have been following this for years.
But the timing here, as the Senate impeachment inquiry heats up, looks suspicious.
Last week, just as it looks increasingly likely that former national security advisor John
Bolton and Pompeo himself will be hauled before the Senate as witnesses about the foreign aid
hold-up to Ukraine, Pompeo praised Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala for designating
"Iran-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization," and slammed Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro for embracing the terrorist group.
Hezbollah "has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro. This is unacceptable," Pompeo said
when he met with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last week.
Asked by Bloomberg News how significant a role Hezbollah plays in the region, Pompeo
responded, "too much."
From the interview:
Pompeo : " I mentioned it in Venezuela, but in the Tri-Border Area as well. This
is again an area where Iranian influence – we talk about them as the world's largest
state sponsor of terror. We do that intentionally. It's the world's largest; it's not just a
Middle East phenomenon. So while – when folks think of Hezbollah, they typically think
of Syria and Lebanon, but Hezbollah has now put down roots throughout the globe and in South
America, and it's great to see now multiple countries now having designated Hezbollah as a
terrorist organization. It means we can work together to stamp out the security threat in the
region."
Question: "I'm struck by this, because even hearing you – what you're
saying, right, now – I mean, to take a step back, an Iranian-backed terrorist
organization has found a home in America's backyard."
Pompeo: "It's – it's something that we've been talking about for some
time. When you see the scope and reach of what the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime has
done, you can't forget they tried to kill someone in the United States of America. They've
conducted assassination campaigns in Europe. This is a global phenomenon. When we say that
Iran is the leading destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world, it's
because of this terror activity that they have now spread as a cancer all across the globe.
"
Pompeo has also been publicly floating increasing sanctions on Venezuela. He called the
behavior of Maduro's government "cartel-like" and "terror-like," intensifying the sense that
there is a real security "threat" in our hemisphere.
Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and
"Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about
Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is
the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without
corroborating sources."
There's no question that Hezbollah has a presence in South America, said Abrahms, "but the
nature of its presence has been politicized."
"What this underscores is that Iran could pull the trigger, it could bloody
the U.S., including the U.S. homeland, but tends to avoid such violence. I think the question
that needs to be asked isn't just, 'where in the world could Iran commit an attack?' but
whether Iran is a rational actor that can be deterred," said Abrahms. "Interestingly, this
administration as well as its hawkish supporters tend to emphasize their belief that Iran can
in fact be deterred," since that is the logic behind "maximum pressure" against Iran, after
all. "The main causal mechanism according to advocates of maximum pressure, is that it will
force Iran as a rational actor to reconsider whether it wants to irritate the U.S By applying
economic pressure through sanctions, [they hope to] succeed in coaxing Iran to restructure the
nuclear deal and making additional concessions to the west and reigning in its activities in
the Persian Gulf and the Levant. At least on a rhetorical level, the hawks say they believe
Iran can be deterred," he said.
It would not be the first time that a president reacted to an intensifying impeachment
inquiry by redirecting national focus to threats abroad. In December 1998, as the impeachment
inquiry into then-President Bill Clinton heated up, Clinton launched airstrikes against Iraq.
We should therefore apply some caution when we see decades-old threats amplified by
administration officials.
Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security
reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She
is the author of Patton Uncovered, a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her
work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill, UK Spectator, and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from
Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter
No problem, Putin will happily sell them superior fighter/bombers that can actually fly in
the rain and not succumb to small arms fire from the ground. He'll also equip them with the
S-400 anti-aircraft missile system that can easily knock that flying barrel of pig ****,
better known as the F-35, out of the sky with one shot..
Correction. Sadam was 'supported by the U.$. (so U.$ didn't really have to invade, except
U.$. stabbed him in the back, and Iraqi's had MUCH higher standard of living under Sadam...
until U.$. put sanctions on them and KILLED a half million Iraqi children because the 'PRICE
WAS WORTH IT' (according to *** Princess Madeleine Albright)
the trump card is not playing 6million d chess. he is playing the jewlander card of
killing the top dog over and over again as just a bloody murderous act that achieves nothing.
hamas is stronger than ever. trump is a stable genius among horses not humans.
the murder of soulmani is just another jewlander directed clusterfuck move of many
clusterfuck moves since shrub avenged the death threat to his father and the wmds that were
found to be degraded chemical weapons sold to saddam during the war with iran.
2010-2020 Was the Stalingrad for the world. The decade the empire and their americunt
fodder capitulated on all fronts. The decade that'd serve to fully turn the tie of history in
favor of those God has deemed worthy of him. The following decade is the mass decline of the
empire and its parasites till they reach the end of the precipice to feel in full the misery
they've seethed onto their victims.
They deserve to be bombed because they asked the US to leave, after destroying their
country based on a lie and then occupying it for 20 years? You are a complete *******
idiot.
Been sayin that for years bro. With the world pretty much filled up except for the tundra,
I think a good old fashioned dose of self-determination is in order. No more immigration. No
more refugees. Let every country fix their own goddamned problems and let the bodies fall
where they may. Period.
Oh yeah..? Scorched Earth??? What the **** for? Iraq never harmed the U.$. Russia never
harmed the U.$. North Korea never harmed the U.$. Iran never harmed the U.$. Venezuela never
harmed the U.$. Bolivia never harmed the U.$.!! Libya, Somalia, Vietnam etc etc etc... What
did they ever do to the U.$. And look what the **** you are doing to them. You're a *******
hypocrite. U.$. needs a good SCORCHED EARTH Policy imposed on it. And hardly a country on the
planet will shed a tear... Not even IsraHell...
This is how American Foreign Policy alienated Venezuela, Venezuela was one of the first
export customers for the F16 but sbsequently GHW Bush refused to sell Venezuela spare parts
unless they acquiesced to American pressure on oil royalties.
Venezuela shifted to Russia and has spent more than $40 Billion modernizing their
military, none of the weapons were purchased from the USA.
Funny that the locals are not happy with our gift-bearing. human pyramid-building saviors.
How so utterly ungrateful. We brought them democracy, human rights and genocide, and they now
want us out. Shame!
We should immediately send them Madeleine Albright to explain to them that the deaths of
600,000 Iraqi babies was actually a good thing and "God's work". That'll do!
Good, now the Iraqi's can get missile defense systems from Russia instead, that aren't
designed to turn off when Israel ends up attacking them. But then again, they will need no
missile defenses systems, since they have become closer allies to their former enemies, Iran
and the Saudi's, thanks to us. Winning!
We should bomb the **** out of Iraq again, destroy their military equipment, raid their
banks, blow up their refineries and then leave, because they want us to.
We should bomb the **** out of Iraq again, destroy their military equipment, raid their
banks, blow up their refineries and then leave, because they want us to.
Another Iranian journalist who writes for Mashregh newspaper, described as having
close links to IRGC, tweeted not long after the
news broke out: "We will attack them on the same level as they are attacking us."
The world weeps a hero against you parasitic scum.
Now you just need to follow it up with a complete troop withdrawal from Iraq. You can
abandon that 100 acre military compound, disguised as an embassy.
The Iraqi government want US troops out. The Iraqi people want US troops out of their
country. Shucks, even the American people want US troops out of Iraq, so they can come home
and defend our southern border.
Let the Iraqis and Iranians sort out their own differences.
If you think the isrhll held companies that own those wells give a **** about china
showing, your crazy, they own china, they funded the communist party out of jewyork.... Who
do you think got all those oil wells in syria, iraq, libya.... Genie oil and some other
inclusive board member oils companies.... They run china so they care not a bit either way,
probably thank them for the good cheap labor that knows how to read and write..
Us soldiers did not die for victory..they died for the rich! As a well known line that
often gets tossed around says...War is not meant to be won....it's meant to be continued
We will stay there so long as AIPAC, Israel, and the MIC demand that we stay there. The
dumbed down US populace won't do **** all about it as we bleed our treasure, resources, and
lives for American Corporate Imperialism and Greater Israel. Don't you Trumptards love your
Messiah delivering the greatest Middle East Piece plan of all time?
"Turkey: The goal of American peace is to destroy and plunder Palestine."
"Turkish Foreign Ministry:
The fake US plan for peace in the Middle East was born 'dead'.
We will not allow actions to legitimize Israeli occupation and oppression."
Yet another cord in the knot tying Turkey to the West is severed. Word is the Turkish convoy
has turned around and will not be constructing another OP near Saraqib.
"Denouncing Trump Plan as 'Unacceptable,' Sanders Declares It Is Time to 'End the Israeli
Occupation:'
"'Trump's so-called 'peace deal,' warned the White House hopeful, 'will only perpetuate the
conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians.'"
But isn't that exactly what the plan's supposed to do?
"Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba Statement on Peace Plan:
"The United Arab Emirates appreciates continued US efforts to reach a Palestine-Israel
peace agreement. This plan is a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over
the years. (1/3)"
From what I've read, Egypt also favors the plan, although I've yet to read anything
official from Egypt's government. But Hezbollah's correct, IMO.
"The only way to guarantee a lasting solution is to reach an agreement between all
concerned parties. The UAE believes that Palestinians and Israelis can achieve lasting
peace and genuine coexistence with the support of the international community. (2/3)"
"The plan announced today offers an important starting point for a return to
negotiations within a US-led international framework. (3/3)"
"This deal would not have taken place without the collusion and treason of a number of
Arab regimes, both secret and public. The peoples of our nation will never forgive those
rulers who forsook resistance to maintain their fragile thrones."
"Trump greenlights Netanyahu to annex at least 1/3 of the West Bank.
"Never forget that Oman, Bahrain and the UAE were present in that room [where the
speech was made]."
I'm very surprised at Oman. This indicates to me both the Iranian and Russian
collective security proposals are now dead and the situation will now escalate
further.
But isn't that exactly what the plan's supposed to do?
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 28 2020 21:12 utc | 33
"In the remaining weeks before the March 2 Israeli elections, and the few months left
until elections in the United States, Trump's peace plan will primarily serve the goal
for which it was designed: election propaganda for Israel's right-wing."
+Bonus prize = Stay out of jail card for Netanyahu if he remains Prime Minister.
"In the near term, the 80-page plan is most likely to stir up Israeli and American
politics. Mr. Trump is sure to cite the plan's pro-Israel slant on the 2020 campaign
trail to win support from conservative Jewish Americans in Florida and other key states,
along with the Evangelical Christians who are some of his strongest backers and support
Israeli expansion in the Holy Land."
Let's not forget the far right Zionist money men AIPAC members who lavish millions on
trump and GOP campaigns. ie Sheldon Adelson was seated in the front row when trump and
netanyahu made their announcement. I would say these are the things it's intended to
do.
Via RT.com Jan. 27, ' Iran slams Trump's 'delusional' Middle East peace plan, calls on US to
accept Tehran's proposal instead'
Instead of a delusional "Deal of the Century" -- which will be D.O.A. -- self-described
"champions of democracy" would do better to accept Iran's democratic solution proposed by
Ayatollah @khamenei_ir :A referendum whereby
ALL Palestinians -- Muslim, Jew or Christian -- decide their future .
"In anticipation of a strongly pro-Israeli plan, Palestinian leaders in Ramallah and Gaza
have also condemned the upcoming deal and called for a "day of rage" on Tuesday. They
urged Palestinians to boycott American goods, and remove all US symbols remaining in the West
Bank."
'Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu of the State of Israel Upon
Arrival',
January 27, 2020 , whitehouse.gov (a stomach-churning read, but not as much as the joint
presser in the Rose Garden above)
The jerusalem post has some very partial transcripts:
'Deal of Century establishes Palestinian state, Jewish control of Jerusalem; "I have to do a
lot for the Palestinians or it just wouldn't be fair.",
Jan 28, 202O
"US President Donald Trump unveiled his "Deal of the Century" together with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House on Tuesday.
The peace plan, which Trump said was already supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and his main rival Blue and White head Benny Gantz, would give Israel full control of the
settlements and its undivided capital in Jerusalem.
"If they are genuinely prepared to make peace with the Jewish state," Netanyahu said,
"Israel will be there. Israel will be prepared to negotiate peace right away."
Trump said that the United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over any land that "my
vision provides to to be part of the State of Israel" and will require the Palestinians to
recognize Israel as the Jewish state and to agree to solve the refugee problem outside of
Israel.
The plan also establishes a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem .
As part of the plan, Trump will reveal a map delineating Israeli and Palestinian state
borders. He said the map will make clear the "territorial sacrifices that Israel is willing to
make for peace."
Trump said the plan will "more than double Palestinian territory No Palestinians will be
uprooted from their homes."
Moreover, he said that although Israel will maintain control of Jerusalem, the status quo
will remain on the Temple Mount and Israel will work with Jordan to ensure that all Muslims who
want to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque will be able to do so.
The president said that if the Palestinians choose to accept the plan, some $50 billion will
be infused into this new Palestinian state.
"There are many countries that want to partake in this," he said. "The Palestinian poverty
rate will be cut in half and their GDP will double and triple." He then called for "peace and
prosperity for the Palestinian people."
But Trump noted that the transition to the two-state solution will present "no incremental
security risk to the State of Israel whatsoever.
But Trump noted that the transition to the two-state solution will present "no incremental
security risk to the State of Israel whatsoever.
"Peace requires compromise, but we will never require Israel to compromise on it security,"
he continued.
Netanyahu in his speech said that he has agreed to negotiate peace with the Palestinians on
the basis of Trump's peace plan. The prime minister noted several key reasons, but namely that
rather than "pay lip service to Israel's security," the president "recognizes that Israel must
have sovereignty in places that enable Israel to defend itself by itself.
"For too long, the heart of Israel has been outrageously branded as illegally occupied
territory," Netanyahu continued . "Today, Mr. President, you are puncturing this big lie. You
are recognizing Israel's sovereignty over all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria –
large and small alike."
However, Israel agreed that it will maintain the status quo in all areas that the peace plan
does not designate as Jewish for four years to allow for an opportunity for negotiation. At the
same time, as per the plan, Israel will immediately apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley
and other areas that the plan does recognize as Israeli .
'The 'Deal of the Century': What are its key points?', jpost.com,
Jan. 28, 2020
Borders: Trump's plan features a map of what Israel's new borders will be should it enact
the plan fully. Israel retains 20% of the West Bank, and will lose a small amount of land in
the Negev, near the Gaza-Egypt border. The Palestinians will have a pathway to a state on 80%
of the West Bank. Israel will maintain control of all borders. This is the first time a US
president has provided a detailed map of this kind.
Jerusalem: The Palestinians will have a capital in Jerusalem based on northern and eastern
neighborhoods that are outside the Israeli security fence – Kfar Aqab, Abu Dis and half
of Shuafat.
Settlements: Israel would retain the Jordan Valley and all Israeli settlements in the West
Bank, in the broadest definition possible, meaning not the municipal borders of each
settlement, but their security perimeters. This also includes 15 isolated
settlements , which will be enclaves within an eventual Palestinian state, unable to expand
for four years. The IDF will have access to the isolated settlements . In order for the
settlement part of the plan to go into effect, Israel will have to take action to apply
sovereignty to the settlements.
Security: Israel will be in control of security from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Sea. The IDF will not have to leave the West Bank. No change to Israel's approach to Judea and
Samaria would be needed.
Palestinian State: The plan does not include immediate recognition of a Palestinian state;
rather, it expects a willingness on Israel's part to create a pathway towards Palestinian
statehood based on specific territory, which is 80% of Judea and Samaria, including areas A and
B and half of Area C. The state will only come into existence in four years if the Palestinians
accept the plan, if the Palestinian Authority stops paying terrorists and inciting terror, and
Hamas and Islamic Jihad put down its weapons . In addition, the American plan calls on the
Palestinians to give up corruption, respect human rights, freedom of religion and a free press,
so that they don't have a failed state. If those conditions are met, the US will recognize a
Palestinian state and implement a massive economic plan to assist it.
Refugees: A limited number of Palestinian refugees and their descendants will be allowed
into the Palestinian state. None will enter Israel ."
On the other hand, from mondoweiss.net: ' The 'Deal of the Century' is Apartheid, Sheena
Anne Arackal January 28, 2020
(some outtakes)
"With great fanfare, President Trump finally unveiled his long-anticipated Middle East peace
proposal. The proposal was labeled 'The Deal of the Century' because it was supposed to offer
an even-handed and just solution to one of the world's most intractable conflicts. Instead it
does something very different. The 'Deal of the Century' resurrects and restores grand
apartheid, a racist political system that should have been left in the dustbins of history.
Under President Trump's newly unveiled peace plan, the Palestinians will be granted limited
autonomy within a Palestinian homeland that consists of multiple non-contiguous enclaves
scattered throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The government of Israel will retain security
control over the Palestinian enclaves and will continue to control Palestinian borders,
airspace, aquifers, maritime waters, and electromagnetic spectrum . Israel will be allowed to
annex the Jordan Valley and Jewish communities in the West Bank. The Palestinians will be
allowed to select the leaders of their new homeland but will have no political rights in Israel
, the state that actually rules over them."
'Trump unveils peace plan, promising more land and control for Israel', Yumna Patel,
January 28, 2020 , mondowiess.net (a few snippets)
"The room was filled with familiar faces -- Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Jason
Greenblatt, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Sara Netanyahu, and US Ambassador to Israel David
Friedman, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer -- and dozens of Israel's supporters, who
clapped and cheered throughout the announcement.
..
"After the press conference, reports surfaced saying that Netanyahu would be announcing
Israel's full annexation of the settlements in the West Bank on Sunday, and that Ambassador
Friedman expressed that Israel was "free to annex settlements in the West Bank at any time
"
While Trump boasted that his plan would promise a contiguous Palestinian state, doubled in
size from its current form, the "conceptual map" released by his administration shows a
fragmented and dwindling territory, connected by a series of proposed bridges and tunnels."
..
"We are asking the Palestinians to meet the challenges of peaceful coexistence," Trump
said.
"This includes adopting basic laws enshrining human rights, protecting against political and
financial corruption ending incitement of hatred against Israel, and ending financial
compensation to terrorists," he said, referring to pensions paid by the Palestinian Authority
to the families of prisoners and martyrs.
In his speech, Netanyahu demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish State ,
and that Israel will maintain military control of the entire Jordan Valley to establish a
permanent eastern border in the area."
..
"Throughout his speech, Trump repeatedly praised Israel for "wanting peace badly," and praised
Netanyahu for "willing to endorse the plan as the basis for direct negotiations."
He boasted about everything he has done for Israel, listing off the recognition of Jerusalem
as its capital, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing Israel's sovereignty over
the occupied Golan Heights."
"Over the next 10 years, 1 million great new Palestinian jobs will be created," he said,
adding that the poverty rate will be cut in half, and the Palestinian GDP will "double and
triple."
"Our vision will end the cycle of Palestinian dependency on charity and financial aid. They
will do fine by themselves. They are a very capable people ," he said."
What none of the above coverage had included was that in the video Bibi had high-fived Trump
for ridding the Middle East of the greatest terrorist in the world (or close to that, meaning
the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. Bibi'd also laughed and said 'It takes someone
[like Trump] who knows real estate'.
The White House is pleased to share President @realDonaldTrump 's Vision for
a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. https://t.co/7o3jPHpcLv
The
Palestinian leadership has entirely rejected what is known of the Trump plan for Israel and
Palestine, and warned that they see it as destroying the Oslo Peace accords. The Trump
administration did not consult the Palestinians in drawing up the plan, which gives away East
Jerusalem and 30% of the Palestinian West Bank to Israel. The Palestinians may as well,
Palestine foreign minister Saeb Erekat said, just withdraw from the 1995 Interim Agreement on
Oslo.
Trump appears to have decided to unveil the Israel-Palestine plan on Tuesday to take the
pressure off from his Senate impeachment trial and to shore up his support from the Jewish and
evangelical communities. A majority of Americans in polls say they want Trump impeached and
removed from office.
Trump's plan may also bolster beleaguered Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu , who
has been indicted for corruption and is fighting for his political life as Israel's third
election in a year approaches. Rushing the details of an important policy like Israel and
Palestine for the sake of politics, however, could backfire big time.
Erekat also warned that the plan virtually assures that Israel will ultimately have to
absorb the Palestinians, and give them the vote inside Israel. Mr. Erekat may, however, be
overly optimistic, since it is much more likely that the Palestinians will be kept in a Warsaw
Ghetto type of situation and simply denied a meaningful vote entirely.
Al-Quds al-`Arabi reports that Donald Trump attempted to call Palestine president Mahmoud
Abbas during the past few days and that Mr. Abbas refused to take the call.
The plan, according to details leaked to the Israeli press, will propose a Palestinian
statelet on 70% of the West Bank, to be established in four years. The hope is apparently that
Mahmoud Abbas will no longer be president of Palestine in four years, and his successor will be
more pliable.
This so-called state, however, will be demilitarized and will lack control over borders and
airspace, and will be denied the authority to make treaties with other states. In other words,
it will be a Bantustan
of the sort the racist, Apartheid South African government created to denaturalize its
Black African citizens.
Netanyahu has pledged that there will be no Palestinian state as long as he is prime
minister.
Palestinians are under Israeli military rule and are being deprived of basic human rights,
including the right to have citizenship in a state. They do not have passports but only
laissez-passer certificates that are rejected for travel purposes by most states. Israeli
squatters continually steal their land and property and water, and Palestinians have no
recourse, being without a state to protect them.
*
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"... It would be highly ironic if these American military aircraft were shot down with the (in)famous US Stinger missiles that America gave to Afghan jihadists against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. ..."
"... Uncle Sam has declared War on the World, thinking it is just a bunching bag. Now he is finding out that sometimes punching bags can punch back... ..."
If the $1.6 trillion cost of the US military being in Afghanistan is correct, then the loss
of 4 helicopters and even the E11 won't significantly increase US overall spend there. $1.6
trillion over 18 years is a tad under $250 million per day
...I recall a quotation from that good man, Winston C, who wrote long ago about
Afghanistan...{populated by} "poverty-stricken illiterate tribesmen possessed of the finest
Martini-Henry Rifles..."
That was over 100 years ago...
Now, it seem, "possessed of the finest surface to air missiles."
It would be highly ironic if these American military aircraft were shot down with the
(in)famous US Stinger missiles that America gave to Afghan jihadists against the Soviet Union
in the 1980s.
Terrorism to Turkey means the PKK/YPG Kurds in Syria which also fight Turkish forces
within Turkey and Iraq. In east Syria the Kurds are cooperating with U.S. troops who occupy
the Syrian oil resources. Turkey wants Syria to at least disarm the Kurds. The Kurds though
use their U.S. relations to demand autonomy and to prevent any agreement with the Syrian
government.
Neither Ankara nor Damascus seem yet ready to make peace. But both countries have economic
problems and will have to come to some solution. There are still ten thousand of Jihadis in
Idleb governorate that need to be cleaned out. Neither country wants to keep these people.
The export of these Jihadis to Libya which Turkey initiated points to a rather unconventional
solution to that problem.
The U.S. has still
not given up its efforts to overthrow the Syrian government through further economic
sanctions. It also
pressures Iraq to keep its troops in the country.
After the U.S. murder of the Iranian general Soleimani and the Iraqi PMU leader
al-Muhandis its position in Iraq is
under severe threat . If the U.S. were forced to leave Iraq it would also have to remove
its hold on Syria's oil. To prevent that the U.S. has reactivated its old plan to
split Iraq into three statelets :
At the height of the war in Iraq Joe Biden publicly
supported it. The original plan failed when in 2006 Hizbullah defeated Israel's attack on
Lebanon and when the Iraqi resistance overwhelmed the U.S. occupation forces.
It is doubtful that the plan can be achieved as long as the government in Baghdad is
supported by a majorities of Shia. Baghdad as well as Tehran will throw everything they have
against the plan.
After the U.S. murder of Soleimani Iran fired well aimed ballistic missiles against U.S.
forces at the Ain al Assad airbase west of Ramadi in Anbar province and against the airport
of Erbil in the Kurdish region. This because those are exactly the bases the U.S. wants to
keep control of. The missiles demonstrated that the U.S. would have to fight a whole new war
to implement and protect its plan.
From the perspective of the
resistance the new plan is just another U.S. attempt to rule the region after its many
previous attempts have failed.
Posted by b on January 28, 2020 at 16:28 UTC |
Permalink
Nine months ago, a group of Iraqi politicians and businessmen from Anbar, Salah al-Din and
Nineveh provinces were invited to the private residence of the Saudi ambassador to Jordan
in Amman.
Their host was the Saudi minister for Gulf affairs, Thamer bin Sabhan al-Sabhan, Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman's point man for the region.
It is not known whether Mohammed al-Halbousi, the speaker of parliament with ties to
both Iran and Saudi Arabia, attended the secret Amman conference, but it is said that he
was informed of the details.
On the agenda was a plan to push for a Sunni autonomous region, akin to Iraqi
Kurdistan.
The plan is not new. But now an idea which has long been toyed with by the US, as it
battles to keep Iraq within its sphere of influence, has found a new lease of life as Saudi
Arabia and Iran compete for influence and dominance.
Anbar comprises 31 percent of the Iraqi state's landmass. It has significant untapped
oil, gas and mineral reserves. It borders Syria.
If US troops were indeed to be forced by the next Iraqi government to quit the country,
they would have to leave the oil fields of northern Syria as well because it is from Anbar
that this operation is supplied. Anbar has four US military bases.
The western province is largely desert, with a population of just over two million. As
an autonomous region, it would need a workforce. This, the meeting was told, could come
from Palestinian refugees and thus neatly fit into Donald Trump's so-called "Deal of the
Century" plans to rid Israel of its Palestinian refugee problem.
Anbar is almost wholly Sunni, but Salah al-Din and Nineveh aren't. If the idea worked in
Anbar, other Sunni-dominated provinces would be next.
At least three large meetings have
already been held over the plan, the last one in the United Arab Emirates. The timing
indicates that the plan was initiated when John Bolton as Trump's national security
advisor.
Canada also has troops in the Kurdish/Erbil region. One wonders if/when Iraq will demand
they go as well, since they are part of the US-led coalition and reflect US/Israeli
geostrategic objectives there
It seems to me that in the Idlib pocket we are seeing an emerging Russian form of
offensive/deterrence military strategy when up against proxies backed by the overwhelming
force of empire.
By using proxies the empire forfeits much of its military mass advantage.
The repeated strike and ceasefire combined with continual negotiation approach negates the
hybrid/media warfare of the empire which requires a period of time to mobilize public
opinion. The empire cannot maintain more than three foci for that dis-information campaign
due to the social engineered response it has manufactured
By constantly maneuvering, especially in coordinating with friends like Xi, opportunities
of attack open up
Choosing moments of maximum empire distraction is also part of the process
This is a far cry from the classic mass formation attack strategy that most present
warfare strategists endlessly debate.
Let the empire wear out it's own heart through an abuse of the hybrid/media warfare til
it's own people vomit up the diet of fear
"... Trump was adamant that Palestinians would be forced to accept his plan in the end. "We have the support of the prime minister, we have the support of the other parties, and we think we will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians, but we're going to see," he said on Monday. ..."
"... Trump has largely outsourced the creation of the plan to his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The initial idea was to publish it after the April 2019 election in Israel, but the uncertainty hanging over the Knesset over the past year has delayed the announcement. ..."
The announcement comes after Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his
main political rival Benjamin 'Benny' Gantz. The Palestinian authorities have repeatedly
objected to the plan, as its details were trickling out, and mass protests are expected in the
Palestinian territories as Israel tightens security measures. US President Donald
Trump has unveiled his long-anticipated Middle East plan – effectively his
administration's vision for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Trump said that under his plan Jerusalem will remain Israel's 'undivided' capital.
Israel's West Bank settlements would be recognised by the United States.
However, Israel would freeze the construction of new settlements on Palestinian territories
for four years while Palestinian statehood is negotiated. Trump said that the US will open an
embassy to Palestine in East Jerusalem.
The US president said that his Palestine-Israel map would "more than double" the Palestinian
territory.
"I want this deal to be a great deal for the Palestinians, it has to be. Today's agreement is
a historic opportunity for the Palestinians to finally achieve an independent state of their
own," Trump said. "These maps will more than double Palestinian territory and provide a
Palestinian capital in Eastern Jerusalem where America will proudly open its embassy."
He added that the US and Israel would create a committee to implement the proposed peace
plan.
"My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that
resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel's security," Trump said during a press
conference.
On Monday, Donald Trump held separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and
opposition leader Benny Gantz. Neither of the two managed to achieve a decisive victory in
general elections in April or September last year, and a third vote is scheduled for March to
break the impasse.
Benny Gantz, the leader of the centre-right Blue and White alliance, praised Trump's plan
following Monday's meeting in Washington and promised to put it into practice if he wins the
March election. Netanyahu has not commented publicly on it yet.
There has been some speculation in the media that Trump wants Netanyahu and Gantz to work
together toward implementing the plan.
No Palestinians at the table
Trump had not met with any Palestinian representatives prior to the announcement;
Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had reportedly turned down several
offers to discuss the proposal.
Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza have called for mass protests against the
peace plan, prompting the Israeli military to reinforce troops in the Jordan Valley.
President Abbas reportedly greenlighted a "Day of Rage" over
the Trump plan on Wednesday, paving the way for violent clashes between protesters and Israeli
forces. He is currently holding an emergency meeting of the executive bodies of the Palestine
Liberation Organisation and the Fatah party.
Palestinians have also floated the possibility of quitting the Oslo accords, which created
the Palestinian Authority and regulate its relations with the state of Israel.
The Oslo accords, signed in the 1990s, officially created the Palestinian Authority as a
structure tasked with exercising self-governance over the territories of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip.
A long path behind
Trump was adamant that Palestinians would be forced to accept his plan in the end. "We have
the support of the prime minister, we have the support of the other parties, and we think we
will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians, but we're going to see," he said on
Monday.
Trump has largely outsourced the creation of the plan to his adviser and son-in-law Jared
Kushner. The initial idea was to publish it after the April 2019 election in Israel, but the
uncertainty hanging over the Knesset over the past year has delayed the announcement.
Jared Kushner unveiled the economic portion of the plan this past summer at a conference in
Bahrain, but failed to shore up support from Palestinians and faced widespread condemnation
instead.
Israelis and Palestinians have been embroiled in a conflict ever since the State of Israel
came into existence. Previous American administrations, in line with the United Nations's
approach, had long favoured an arrangement that envisaged an independent Palestinian state in
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem.
The Trump administration reversed that policy and made a series of decidedly pro-Israel
moves in the past three years. Those included moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
and recognising the Golan
Heights (which it annexed illegally from Syria) and Israeli settlements in the West Bank
(illegal under international law) as parts of Israel.
Unless the operatives on the US spy plane were carrying ID the Taliban can find, we'll never
know who they really were. As if we could trust that either. (remember Colonel Flagg from
MASH? New fake/cover ID every time he showed up) And funny how those "soldiers" with brain
damage from the Iranian missile strikes have disappeared of the MSM news cycle... And the
"American" interpreter's death that triggered the Soleimani assassination was a dual US/Iraqi
citizen... doesn't the US often offer citizenship to useful locals in return for betraying
their home country? Sometimes treason doesn't pay.
One of the main Taliban Twitter accounts, @Zabehulah_M33 , has posted the following tweets
(machine translated):
US invasion plane crashes in Ghazni, killing scores of officers
Following a raid today in Sadukhel district of Dehik district of Ghazni province, a US
special aircraft carrier was flying over an intelligence mission in the area.
The aircraft was destroyed with all its crew and crew, including the major US
intelligence officers (CIA).
It is noteworthy that recently, in the provinces of Helmand, Balkh and some other parts
of the country, large numbers of enemy aircraft and helicopters have fallen and fallen.
# Important News:
A Ghazni helicopter crashed in the area near Sharana, the capital of Paktika province, this
evening after the Ghazni incident.
The helicopter crew and the soldiers were all destroyed.
So Taliban has not taken responsibility for the E-11A crash (although many news
outlets are reporting it, including Russian ones). Meanwhile, yet another helicopter crashed
after the E-11A crash, so it's two crashes in one day.
If the $1.6 trillion cost of the US military being in Afghanistan is correct, then the loss
of 4 helicopters and even the E11 won't significantly increase US overall spend there. $1.6
trillion over 18 years is a tad under $250 million per day
When a colonial war goes wrong, one salient question was: who sold guns to the savages?
Among more recent examples, who explained technologically inept Iraqis how to make
IEDs?
In the case of smaller weapons, the usual suspect is responsible. NYT By C. J. Chivers
Aug. 24, 2016
... In all, Overton found, the Pentagon provided more than 1.45 million firearms to
various security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, including more than 978,000 assault rifles,
266,000 pistols and almost 112,000 machine guns. These transfers formed a collage of firearms
of mixed vintage and type: Kalashnikov assault rifles left over from the Cold War; recently
manufactured NATO-standard M16s and M4s from American factories; machine guns of Russian and
Western lineage; and sniper rifles, shotguns and pistols of varied provenance and caliber,
including a large order of Glock semiautomatic pistols, a type of weapon also regularly
offered for sale online in Iraq.
----
That said, one needs something more sophisticated against helicopters and planes. I
suspect that even if Iran were inclined to provide them to Taliban, it would not give them
their own products, and, for sure, they cannot purchase Western missiles on regular markets.
However, as valiant freedom fighters in Syria are provided with such weapons while being
woefully underpaid...
"... They look so great only because the Empire and its sidekicks have morons at the helm (I don't mean disposable figureheads, "presidents", "chancellors", and "PMs", but real powers behind the throne). ..."
I think President Putin is a great leader and the greatest in the world today.
Putin is just a man with normal quite ordinary intelligence, like Xi. They look so great
only because the Empire and its sidekicks have morons at the helm (I don't mean disposable
figureheads, "presidents", "chancellors", and "PMs", but real powers behind the throne).
There is a huge difference between extremely bright students and medicate ones. Bright students are the future of the society and
need to be nurtures and helped in any way possible for the range of specialties that are important (STEM is one example)
There is difference between the degree in computer science and the degree in some obscure nationality studies (let's say Eastern
European studies; few people that are needed can be paid by intelligence agencies ;-) Obscure areas should be generally available only
to well to do students, who can pay for their education.
Like is the case with alcoholism, some student debt is the result of bad personal choices.
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, ..."
"... "My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my money back?" ..."
"... So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, ..."
"... "We did the right thing and we get screwed," ..."
"... "Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," ..."
"... "We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt." ..."
"... Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) ..."
"... "I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," ..."
"... A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that! ..."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) defended her plan to pay off college loans after being confronted by a father in Iowa in an exchange
that went viral.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is confronted by a father who worked double shifts to pay for his daughters education and wants to
know if he will get his money back. pic.twitter.com/t2GGbAnG08
The father approached Warren, a leading Democratic presidential contender, after a campaign event in Grimes.
"My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my
money back?" the man asked Warren.
"Of course not," Warren replied.
" So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, " the
father told her.
He then described a friend who makes more money but didn't save up while he worked double shifts to save up to pay for his daughter's
college.
The father became upset, accusing Warren of laughing.
"We did the right thing and we get screwed," he added before walking off.
In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" on Friday, Warren was asked about the exchange.
Last night, a father who saved for his daughter's college education approached
@SenWarren and challenged her proposed student
loan forgiveness plan. @TonyDokoupil asks the
senator for her response: pic.twitter.com/jLUXPqChC6
"Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social
Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," Warren said.
Pressed on whether she was saying "tough luck" to people like the father, she said "No." She then recounted how she got to go
to college despite coming from a poor family.
"There was a $50 a semester option for me. I was able to go to college and become a public school teacher because America had
invested in a $50 a semester option for me. Today that's not available," she said.
"We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities
for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
One of Warren's plans is to cancel student loans. According to
her website , on her first day as president
she would cancel student loan debt as well as give free tuition to public colleges and technical schools and ban for-profit colleges
from getting aid from the federal government.
"I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans
consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," Warren
wrote.
"I'll also direct the Secretary of Education to use every existing authority available to rein in the for-profit college industry,
crack down on predatory student lending, and combat the racial disparities in our higher education system."
Sounds an awful lot like the dad above is right those that did the "right thing" are gonna get "screwed."
Warren you bitch, I paid back my student loans responsibly by working my *** off (140k) and now you want to give others a free
ride? I sure hope that I get a refund for all that money I paid back.
Obama did this kinds thing with housing. I got outbid by 100k on a house. The other bidder who got it didn't make his house
payments so Obama restructured his loan knocking off 100k from his loan and giving him a 1% interest rate on it. He again didn't
make his payments and got it restructured again but I didn't hear the terms of that one.
If student loan debt is such a crisis, force every university to use their precious endowment funds to underwrite those loans
AND let those loans get discharged in bankruptcy. Maybe then those schools would start to question whether having a dozen
"Diversity Deans" each being paid $100k+ salaries is really worth the expense (among other things).
A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply
to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that!
The pissed off dad in this story has only one person to be pissed off at: himself, for being stupid. Understand something about
college degrees: 90% of them, including majors like accounting, are not worth the paper they are printed on. Anyone who works
double shifts to pay for anyone's college degree, even their own, is stupid. Look at why college costs so much: go to any state,
and you'll see that 70% or more of the highest paid state employees are employed by public colleges and universities. You need
to play these sons of bitches at their game, use their funny money to pay for the degree, and walk away. If you play the way these
sons of bitches tell you to play, you get what you deserve.
I used their funny money to get a degree that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and walked away. I don't give a ****
if the sons of bitches grab my tax refund. Why? Because I have my withholdings set up so they get next to nothing in April. It
costs the sons of bitches more to print up the garnishment letter and send it to me than what they're stealing from me. Guess
what I use for an address? P.O. Box (can't serve a summons to a ghost).
If you're going to do what stupid, pissed off dad did, and work double shifts, you need to be trading out of all that funny
money you're being paid for those double shifts, and trading into personal economic leverage (gold first, then silver). Instead
of having bedrock to build multi-generational wealth, he has a daughter with a degree in pouring coffee, and nothing else to show
for it. He only has himself to blame for drinking the Kool Aid. I can grab overtime every Saturday at my job if I want it, and
every last penny of that OT is traded out of funny money and into gold ASAP.
Understand the US real estate market: the only reason it did not die five years ago was because we welcomed rich foreigners
to come in and buy real estate to protect their wealth. We've stopped doing that, we have an over-abundance of domestic sellers
and a severe shortage of domestic buyers. It's also where history says you need to be if you want to build multi-generational
wealth. Warren actually needs to go further than what she's proposing. Not only does she need to discharge 100% of those balances
by EO, she also needs to refund all those tax refunds stolen under false pretenses. Anything less, and we are guaranteed, for
the next 40 years, to have a real estate market and economy which resembles Japan since 1989.
Why do I buy gold? So I can play people like Warren at their game. I'll take whatever loan discharge she gives me, and have
lots of leverage in reserve to take advantage of what will be a once in a lifetime real estate fire sale.
Make those who want to be bailed out have to pay the bailout back by working every non-holiday Saturday (at the minimum wage
rate) for the government and citizens (e.g who need work done around the house, take care of the elderly - in the bathroom) until
the debt is paid back. AND let those who have not taken the debt relief supervise them - getting paid by the government at the
same rate, minimum wage. 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
For a decent college it's between 35-70k a year.... Why? 300k a year library professors, if it weren't for tenure the problem
would largely he self correcting as rntrillments drop...
My how times have changed. My son was a college grad circa 1996. He did the JUCO thing for 1 1/2 years , worked a part time
job for the duration, and picked up an A S while making the President's list. I aid, out of pocket all educational expenses while
he lived at home and provided for a nice lifestyle while he was in school. As promised, he finished his education, out of state,
which I paid for all along the way. 2 more years, he graduated, on the Pres list, and picked up his B S. No student debt, in his
words, was one of the the greatest gifts. Today he is debt free, (so am I ), and he is a very happy , financially secure ( until
the world goes upside down) mature adult. Hey Lizzie, send me a check.
They are all ignoring the real problem...the Federal mandated system of the guaranteed student loan program. Anyone with a
pulse can get a guaranteed student loan, thus creating a massive rise in college admissions. The colleges are guaranteed the money
for these loans, while the lender (the US gov't) is not guaranteed to be paid back by the students receiving these loans,. this
created a fool proof, risk free ability for colleges and universities across the country to jack up their tuition costs at over
a 5:1 ratio of income growth over the last 25 years. The problem is the program itself, students need to earn their ability to
enroll in college through hard work and good grades. Currently, any moron with a high school diploma can go to college on a guaranteed
student loan program and the colleges are more than willing to take on any idiot that wants to go to school despite their aspirations,
work ethics, intelligence, achievements, etc. The universities have been given a blank check to expand their campuses, drastically
inflate the salaries and pensions of professors and administrators of these schools all at the expense of this guaranteed "free"
money from the government that only achieved an immense amount of the population going to overpriced schools in order to get a
diploma in useless pursuits like african american studies, philosophy, creative writing, music, criminal justice, arts, basket
weaving, etc.. The skyrocketing costs of colleges and student debt is the direct result of this miserably failed system of the
guaranteed student loan. The majority of which have no business going to higher education because they don't have the aptitude,
work ethic and intelligence necessary to actually receive a degree in anything that benefits the economy and themselves going
forward. 30 years ago the average state college admission was roughly $4k a year for a good state school, today it is roughly
$20k or far more. Meanwhile, the average income has gone up a meaningless amount. Get rid of the guaranteed student loan program
and make the colleges responsible for accepting the responsibility of the loans for their students. I guarantee enrollment will
decrease and costs will decline making it much more affordable for the truly responsible and aspiring student to achieve their
dreams of a degree without a $250k loan needed for completion nor the lifelong strain of debt on their future incomes. The colleges
are raping the system the same as all these shoestring companies take advantage of the medicaid system and give hovarounds and
walking canes, and hearing aids for free because the gov't reimburses them at wildly inflated prices under some federally passed
mandate. The system is the problem, eliminating the debt will only exacerbate it and cost taxpayers trillions more each and every
year as "free" college will now entice every moron with a heartbeat the ability to go to outrageously priced schools with no skin
in the game on the taxpayer's dime. Elizabeth Warren is an idiot....someone needs to have a sit down with her and discuss this
rationale in her luxurious, state of the art TeePee.
While you are correct corrupting academics with huge payoffs is how you secure their votes and the votes of most of the 'students'
for decades to come.
Any group or industry can be paid off and you might think of the system as a set of interlocking payoffs until you get out
to the margins and the fringes where the cash and benefits are a lot thinner.
Everyone who continues to pay taxes to these neo-Bolsheviks is going to get screwed. The only alternative is to stop funding
these criminals completely.
What a sorry presidential canditate! She flat out LIED about being native american to get FREE college. And now this. Where
has America gone????????? Socialism sems to be what most want nowadays. It has NEVER EVER worked anywhere in the world at any
time! If yoou think therwise, just name ONE countryn it has worked in ! What a lying bunch the democrats are..........................
So all if us have to pay for it. Why did I have to pay for University and College in the 1970's if I wanted to further my education
and now that I am older I have to foot the bill for the young people of today? Pay DOUBLE? (just to buy votes for traitors?)
I think NOT! Take your theft from the people, to buy votes of everyone from young people to illegal criminals to outright criminals
in prison to dead people and resign before we decide to arrest you.
Democrats, HANG IT UP! We are NOT paying for YOUR illegitimate votes.
Notice too how all their "we're going to wipe out your debt!" promises never seem to include the big "endowments" of these
fascist colleges that jacked up tuition 1000% over what it used to cost.
No, those creepy commie profs and their freaky administrators get to keep their big TAX FREE endowments AND their big salaries.
Big Gov by Sanders/Warren don't seem to think that's obscene.
You are absolutely correct. 45 years ago you could almost work part time and actually PAY your way through college. Today you
almost need a physicians salary to pay for these OVERPRICED sewers filled with leftist propaganda.
It's obvious that Warren doesn't teach economics or even math. They weren't smart enough when they took out the loans and they
are not good with paying their bills so move the goal posts to bail them out. Has anyone given the thought that maybe they shouldn't
have gone to college at all. Sounds like they will all work for the government anyways.
"... Taylor exaggerates what the conflict is about by saying that Ukraine is defending "the West." That's not true. Ukraine is defending itself. The U.S. does not have a vital interest in this conflict, but Taylor talks about it as if we do. He says that the relationship with Ukraine is "key" to our national security, but that is simply false. To say that it is key to our national security means that we are supposed to believe that it is crucially important to our national security. That suggests that U.S. national security would seriously compromised if that relationship weakened, but that doesn't make any sense. We usually don't even talk about our major treaty allies this way, so what justification is there for describing a relationship with a weak partner government like this? ..."
"... The op-ed reads like a textbook case of clientitis, in which a former U.S. envoy ends up making the Ukrainian government's argument for them ..."
"... To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that enabled major powers in Europe to avoid war for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy. It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do. ..."
"... These make for catchy slogans, but they are lousy policy arguments. This rhetoric veers awfully close to saying that you aren't on the side of freedom if you don't support a particular policy option. In my experience, advocates for more aggressive measures use rhetoric like this because the rest of their argument isn't very strong. It is possible to reject illegal military interventions of all governments without wanting to throw weapons at the problem. ..."
"... Taylor has set up the policy argument in such a way that there seems to be no choice, but the U.S. doesn't have to support Ukraine's war effort. He oversells Ukraine's importance to the U.S. to justify U.S. support, because an accurate assessment would make the current policy of arming their government much harder to defend. Ukraine isn't really that important to U.S. security and our security doesn't require us to provide military assistance to them. Of course, our government has chosen to do it anyway, but this is just one more optional entanglement that the U.S. could have avoided without jeopardizing American or allied security. ..."
ormer ambassador William Taylor wrote an op-ed on Ukraine in
an attempt to answer Pompeo's question about whether Americans care about Ukraine. It is not
very persuasive. For one thing, he starts off by exaggerating the importance of the conflict
between Russia and Ukraine to make it seem as if the U.S. has a major stake in the outcome:
Here's why the answer should be yes: Ukraine is defending itself and the West against
Russian attack. If Ukraine succeeds, we succeed. The relationship between the United States
and Ukraine is key to our national security, and Americans should care about Ukraine.
Taylor exaggerates what the conflict is about by saying that Ukraine is defending "the
West." That's not true. Ukraine is defending itself. The U.S. does not have a vital interest in
this conflict, but Taylor talks about it as if we do. He says that the relationship with
Ukraine is "key" to our national security, but that is simply false. To say that it is key to
our national security means that we are supposed to believe that it is crucially important to
our national security. That suggests that U.S. national security would seriously compromised if
that relationship weakened, but that doesn't make any sense. We usually don't even talk about
our major treaty allies this way, so what justification is there for describing a relationship
with a weak partner government like this?
The op-ed reads like a textbook case of clientitis, in which a former U.S. envoy ends up
making the Ukrainian government's argument for them. The danger of exaggerating U.S. interests
and conflating them with Ukraine's is that we fool ourselves into thinking that we are acting
out of necessity and in our own defense when we are really choosing to take sides in a conflict
that does not affect our security. This is the kind of thinking that encourages people to spout
nonsense about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." If we view
Ukraine as "the front line" of a larger struggle, that will also make it more difficult to
resolve the conflict. When a local conflict is turned into a proxy fight between great powers,
the local people will be the ones made to suffer to serve the ambitions of the patrons. Once
the U.S. insists that its own security is bound up with the outcome of this conflict, there is
an incentive to be considered the "winner," but the reality is that Ukraine will always matter
less to the U.S. than it does to Russia.
If this relationship were so important to U.S. security, how is it that the U.S. managed to
get along just fine for decades after the end of the Cold War when that relationship was not
particularly strong? As recently as the Obama administration, our government did not consider
Ukraine to be important enough to supply with weapons. Ukraine was viewed correctly as
being of
peripheral interest to the U.S., and nothing has changed in the years since then to make it
more important.
Taylor keeps repeating that "Ukraine is the front line" in a larger conflict between Russia
and the West, but that becomes true only if Western governments choose to treat it as one. He
concludes his op-ed with a series of ideological assertions:
To support Ukraine is to support a rules-based international order that enabled major
powers in Europe to avoid war for seven decades. It is to support democracy over autocracy.
It is to support freedom over unfreedom. Most Americans do.
These make for catchy slogans, but they are lousy policy arguments. This rhetoric veers
awfully close to saying that you aren't on the side of freedom if you don't support a
particular policy option. In my experience, advocates for more aggressive measures use rhetoric
like this because the rest of their argument isn't very strong. It is possible to reject
illegal military interventions of all governments without wanting to throw weapons at the
problem.
Taylor has set up the policy argument in such a way that there seems to be no choice, but
the U.S. doesn't have to support Ukraine's war effort. He oversells Ukraine's importance to the
U.S. to justify U.S. support, because an accurate assessment would make the current policy of
arming their government much harder to defend. Ukraine isn't really that important to U.S.
security and our security doesn't require us to provide military assistance to them. Of course,
our government has chosen to do it anyway, but this is just one more optional entanglement that
the U.S. could have avoided without jeopardizing American or allied security.
The January 2nd American assassination of Gen. Qassem Soleimani of Iran was an event of
enormous moment.
Gen. Soleimani had been the highest-ranking military figure in his nation of 80 million, and
with a storied career of 30 years, one of the most universally popular and highly regarded.
Most analysts ranked him second in influence only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's elderly
Supreme Leader, and there were widespread reports that he was being urged to run for the
presidency in the 2021 elections.
The circumstances of his peacetime death were also quite remarkable. His vehicle was
incinerated by the missile of an American Reaper drone near Iraq's Baghdad international
airport just after he had arrived there on a regular commercial flight for peace negotiations
originally suggested by the American government.
Our major media hardly ignored the gravity of this sudden, unexpected killing of so
high-ranking a political and military figure, and gave it enormous attention. A day or so
later, the front page of my morning New York Times was almost entirely filled with
coverage of the event and its implications, along with several inside pages devoted to the same
topic. Later that same week, America's national newspaper of record allocated more than
one-third of all the pages of its front section to the same shocking story.
But even such copious coverage by teams of veteran journalists failed to provide the
incident with its proper context and implications. Last year, the Trump Administration
had declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard "a terrorist organization," drawing widespread
criticism and even ridicule from national security experts appalled at the notion of
classifying a major branch of Iran's armed forces as "terrorists." Gen. Soleimani was a top
commander in that body, and this apparently provided the legal figleaf for his assassination in
broad daylight while on a diplomatic peace mission.
But consider that Congress has been considering
legislation declaring Russia an official state sponsor of terrorism , and Stephen Cohen,
the eminent Russia scholar, has argued that no foreign leader since the end of World War II has
been so massively demonized by the American media as Russian President Vladimir Putin. For
years, numerous agitated pundits have denounced
Putin as "the new Hitler," and some prominent figures have even called for his
overthrow or death. So we are now only a step or two removed from undertaking a public
campaign to assassinate the leader of a country whose nuclear arsenal could quickly annihilate
the bulk of the American population. Cohen has repeatedly warned that the current danger of
global nuclear war may exceed that which we faced during the days of the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis, and can we entirely dismiss such concerns?
Even if we focus solely upon Gen. Solemaini's killing and entirely disregard its dangerous
implications, there seem few modern precedents for the official public assassination of a
top-ranking political figure by the forces of another major country. In groping for past
examples, the only ones that come to mind occurred almost three generations ago during World
War II, when Czech agents assisted by the Allies assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in
1941 and the US military later shot down the plane of Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in
1943. But these events occurred in the heat of a brutal global war, and the Allied leadership
hardly portrayed them as official government assassinations. Historian David Irving reveals
that when one of Adolf Hitler's aides suggested that an attempt be made to assassinate Soviet
leaders in that same conflict, the German Fuhrer immediately forbade such practices as obvious
violations of the laws of war.
The 1914 terrorist assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary, was certainly organized by fanatical elements of Serbian Intelligence, but the
Serbian government fiercely denied its own complicity, and no major European power was ever
directly implicated in the plot. The aftermath of the killing soon led to the outbreak of World
War I, and although many millions died in the trenches over the next few years, it would have
been completely unthinkable for one of the major belligerents to consider assassinating the
leadership of another.
A century earlier, the Napoleonic Wars had raged across the entire continent of Europe for
most of a generation, but I don't recall reading of any governmental assassination plots during
that era, let alone in the quite gentlemanly wars of the preceding 18th century when Frederick
the Great and Maria Theresa disputed ownership of the wealthy province of Silesia by military
means. I am hardly a specialist in modern European history, but after the 1648 Peace of
Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War and regularized the rules of warfare, no assassination as
high-profile as that of Gen. Soleimani comes to mind.
The bloody Wars of Religion of previous centuries did see their share of assassination
schemes. For example, I think that Philip II of Spain supposedly encouraged various plots to
assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England on grounds that she was a murderous heretic, and their
repeated failure helped persuade him to launch the ill-fated Spanish Armada; but being a pious
Catholic, he probably would have balked at using the ruse of peace-negotiations to lure
Elizabeth to her doom. In any event, that was more than four centuries ago, so America has now
placed itself in rather uncharted waters.
Different peoples possess different political traditions, and this may play a major role in
influencing the behavior of the countries they establish. Bolivia and Paraguay were created in
the early 18th century as shards from the decaying Spanish Empire, and according to Wikipedia
they have experienced nearly three dozen successful coups in their history, the bulk of these
prior to 1950, while Mexico has had a half-dozen. By contrast, the U.S. and Canada were founded
as Anglo-Saxon settler colonies, and neither history records even a failed attempt.
During our Revolutionary War, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and our other Founding
Fathers fully recognized that if their effort failed, they would all be hanged by the British
as rebels. However, I have never heard that they feared falling to an assassin's blade, nor
that King George III ever considered such an underhanded means of attack. During the first
century and more of our nation's history, nearly all our presidents and other top political
leaders traced their ancestry back to the British Isles, and political assassinations were
exceptionally rare, with Abraham Lincoln's death being one of the very few that come to
mind.
At the height of the Cold War, our CIA did involve itself in various secret assassination
plots against Cuba's Communist dictator Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders considered
hostile to US interests. But when these facts later came out in the 1970s, they evoked such
enormous outrage from the public and the media, that three consecutive American presidents --
Gerald R.
Ford , Jimmy
Carter , and Ronald Reagan -- issued successive
Executive Orders absolutely prohibiting assassinations by the CIA or any other agent of the US
government.
Although some cynics might claim that these public declarations represented mere
window-dressing, a
March 2018 book review in the New York Times strongly suggests otherwise. Kenneth M.
Pollack spent years as a CIA analyst and National Security Council staffer, then went on to
publish a number of influential books on foreign policy and military strategy over the last two
decades. He had originally joined the CIA in 1988, and opens his review by declaring:
One of the very first things I was taught when I joined the CIA was that we do not conduct
assassinations. It was drilled into new recruits over and over again.
Yet Pollack notes with dismay that over the last quarter-century, these once solid
prohibitions have been steadily eaten away, with the process rapidly accelerating after the
9/11 attacks of 2001. The laws on our books may not have changed, but
Today, it seems that all that is left of this policy is a euphemism.
We don't call them assassinations anymore. Now, they are "targeted killings," most often
performed by drone strike, and they have become America's go-to weapon in the war on
terror.
The Bush Administration had conducted 47 of these assassinations-by-another-name, while his
successor Barack Obama, a constitutional scholar and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, had raised his
own total to 542. Not without justification, Pollack wonders whether assassination has become
"a very effective drug, but [one that] treats only the symptom and so offers no cure."
Thus over the last couple of decades American policy has followed a very disturbing
trajectory in its use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy, first restricting its use
to only the most extreme circumstances, next targeting small numbers of high-profile
"terrorists" hiding in rough terrain, then escalating those same such killings to the many
hundreds. And now under President Trump, the fateful step has been taken of America claiming
the right to assassinate any world leader not to our liking whom we unilaterally declare worthy
of death.
Pollack had made his career as a Clinton Democrat, and is best known for his 2002 book
The Threatening Storm that strongly endorsed President Bush's proposed invasion of Iraq
and was enormously
influential in producing bipartisan support for that ill-fated policy. I have no doubt that
he is a committed supporter of Israel, and he probably falls into a category that I would
loosely describe as "Left Neocon."
But while reviewing a history of Israel's own long use of assassination as a mainstay of its
national security policy, he seems deeply disturbed that America might be following along that
same terrible path. Less than two years later, our sudden assassination of a top Iranian leader
demonstrates that his fears may have been greatly understated.
The book being reviewed was Rise and Kill First by New York Times reporter
Ronen Bergman, a weighty study of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, together
with its sister agencies. The author devoted six years of research to the project, which was
based upon a thousand personal interviews and access to some official documents previously
unavailable. As suggested by the title, his primary focus was Israel's long history of
assassinations, and across his 750 pages and thousand-odd source references he recounts the
details of an enormous number of such incidents.
That sort of topic is obviously fraught with controversy, but Bergman's volume carries
glowing cover-blurbs from Pulitzer Prize-winning authors on espionage matters, and the official
cooperation he received is indicated by similar endorsements from both a former Mossad chief
and Ehud Barak, a past Prime Minister of Israel who himself had once led assassination squads.
Over the last couple of decades, former CIA officer Robert Baer has become one of our most
prominent authors in this same field, and he praises the book as "hands down" the best he has
ever read on intelligence, Israel, or the Middle East. The reviews across our elite media were
equally laudatory.
Although I had seen some discussions of the book when it appeared, I only got around to
reading it a few months ago. And while I was deeply impressed by the thorough and meticulous
journalism, I found the pages rather grim and depressing reading, with their endless accounts
of Israeli agents killing their real or perceived enemies, with the operations sometimes
involving kidnappings and brutal torture, or resulting in considerable loss of life to innocent
bystanders. Although the overwhelming majority of the attacks described took place in the
various countries of the Middle East or the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank
and Gaza, others ranged across the world, including Europe. The narrative history began in the
1920s, decades before the actual creation of the Jewish Israel or its Mossad organization, and
ranged up to the present day.
The sheer quantity of such foreign assassinations was really quite remarkable, with the
knowledgeable reviewer in the New York Times suggesting that the Israeli total over the
last half-century or so seemed far greater than that of any other country. I might even go
farther: if we excluded domestic killings, I wouldn't be surprised if the body-count exceeded
the combined total for that of all other major countries in the world. I think all the lurid
revelations of lethal CIA or KGB Cold War assassination plots that I have seen discussed in
newspaper stories might fit comfortably into just a chapter or two of Bergman's extremely long
book.
Trump outlived his shelf life. Money quote: "This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a
point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring
the world in 4 more years."
Notable quotes:
"... Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making ..."
"... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
"... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
"... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
"... Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote. ..."
"... Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out. ..."
"... Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos. ..."
"... President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC ..."
"... His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year. ..."
"... Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful. ..."
President Trump will easily be acquitted in the senate trial. This may occur this week and
there will probably be no witnesses called. That will be an additional victory for him and will
add to the effect of his trade deal victories and the general state of the US economy. These
factors should point to a solid victory in November for him and the GOP in Congress.
Ah! Not so fast the cognoscenti may cry out. Not so fast. The Middle East is a graveyard of
dreams:
1. Iraq. Street demonstrations in Iraq against a US alliance are growing more
intense. There may well have been a million people in Muqtada al-Sadr's extravaganza. Shia
fury over the death of Soleimani is quite real. Trump's belief that in a contest of the will he
will prevail over the Iraqi Shia is a delusion, a delusion born of his narcissistic personality
and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions. A hostile Iraqi
government and street mobs would make life unbearable for US forces there.
2. Syria. The handful of American troops east and north of the Euphrates "guarding"
Syrian oil from the Syrian government are in a precarious position with the Shia Iraqis at
their backs across the border and a hostile array of SAA, Turks, jihadis and potentially
Russians to their front and on their flanks.
3. Palestine. The "Deal of the Century" is approaching announcement. From what is
known of its contours, the deal will kill any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood and
will relegate all Palestinians (both Israeli citizens and the merely occupied) to the status of
helots forever . Look it up. In return the deal will offer the helotry substantial bribes in
economic aid money. Trump evidently continues to believe that Palestinians are
untermenschen . He believe they will sell their freedom. The Palestinian Authority has
already rejected this deal. IMO their reaction to the imposition of this regime is likely to be
another intifada.
Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn
Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making . pl
Could it be true? If that is the case, it´s more scary than Elora thought when that of Soleimani
happened....This starts to look as a frenopatic...isn´t it?
With Iran and her allies holding the figurative Trump Card on escalation, will they ramp up
the pressure to topple him? They could end up with a Dem who couldn't afford to "lose" Syria
or Iraq.
I submit to you, Colonel, that the biggest threat to Trump is a Bernie/Tulsi ticket. Bernie
is leading in the Iowa and NH polls, and the recent spat with Warren (in my opinion) leaves
Bernie with no viable choice for VP other than Tulsi.
Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this.
And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please
point them out to me.
And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a
point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring
the world in 4 more years.
Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he
has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously
change the course.
So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and
ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his
intentions.
And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing
is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next
global superpower.
It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China
has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.
North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the
world how he treats international law and even allies.
With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are
important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than
substantial progress.
Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to
know can see, that he is neither one.
4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself
as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true
alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?
I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not
perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there,
is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and
economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years
ago.
And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and
unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As
you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.
And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my
own.
The economy is actually quite good and he is NOT "a dictator." Dictators are not put on
trial by the legislature. He is extremely ignorant and suffers from a life in which only
money mattered.
Once Bernie wins the nomination, it's going to be escalation time. Trump stands no chance if
things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote.
I'm starting to think that Trumps weakness is believing that everyone and everything has a
monetary price. I think perhaps his dealings with China may reinforce his perception, as,
also, his alleged success in bullying the Europeans over Iran -- with the threat of tariffs on
European car imports. His almost weekly references to Iraqi and Syrian oil, allies "not
paying their way", financial threats to the Iraq Government, all suggest a fixation on
finance that has served him well in business.
The trouble is that one day President Trump is going to discover there is something money
can't buy, to the detriment of America.
Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy
both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are
sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be
contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way
out.
Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with
Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality
clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I
can't vote for either. Both spread chaos.
My subconscious is again acting out. The mini-WWIII with Iran could shut off Middle
Eastern oil at any time. The Fed is back to injecting digital money into the market. China
has quarantined 44 million people. Global trade is fragile. Today there are four cases of
Wuhan Coronavirus in the USA.
If confirmed that the virus is contagious without symptoms and
an infected person transmits the virus to 2 to 3 people and with a 3% mortality rate and a
higher 15% rate for the infirmed, the resupply trip to Safeway this summer could be both
futile and dangerous.
It's an old story. Mr X is elected POTUS; going to do this and that; something happens in the
MENA. That's all anyone remembers.
Maybe time to kiss Israel goodbye, tell SA to sell in whatever currency it wants, and realise that oil producers have to sell
the stuff -- it's no good to them in the ground...
President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC -- and much of the
Department of Commerce & Treasury. His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 -
15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to
Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the
President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year.
Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to
fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his
economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and
successful.
Carthage must be destroyed! I don't know if Trump is going to war with Iran willingly or with
a Neocon gun to his head, but if he's impeached I expect Pence to go on a holy crusade.
9K38-Igla-M
MANPADS represent a large leap in the 'death by 1000 cuts' equation.
The stinger missile made a huge difference in the battle dynamics when the Soviets were in
Afganistan. 2000 Iglas trickled into Afganistan would be a huge headache for occupying
forces. No more close air support, very dangerous take-off and landings along with possible
higher altitude interceptions.
In regard to the financing of the ongoing operations, war profiteers are happy to continue
that ad infinitum. The American war in Viet-Nam was a test run of sorts, how to keep things
running for maximum profit and burn. Weapons in and commodities (hmmmm...)out makes for quite
a killing.
The sense I get is that the escalation cause by the various air strikes and assassinations
was designed as a last ditch effort to keep things escalating lest peace and stability break
out. Granted that is a distant horizon, but if Iran and the KSA found some common ground,
Syria was mopped up and Lebanon was able to shake off the elements that continually throw
spanners in the works USA/isreal interests would definitely be less likely to prosper. Given
the pattern of provocation by the USA trying to get Iran to do something extreme in order to
justify all out war, the murder of the highly prized generals seems not to have worked as
intended. Rather than striking out impulsively, the Resistance appears to have engaged in a
broad spectrum highly controlled campaign to do just what it has promised. Expel the USA from
the MidEast.
We live in world of countermeasures and gone are the days of total domination by the usual
suspects. Anti aircraft missile defense is the current keystone to this balance. As with many
things MANPADS are very much a double edged sword, so one must be judicious with sales and
distribution. There is nothing stopping them from biting the manufacturer in the arse.
Not long ago such missiles would be easier to trace, but given the amount of exports and
knock-offs they could filter into the Afgan theater from anywhere. If there are in fact a
quantity of them in play, then the occupiers are going to have a very bad day(s) indeed.
"WHAT are the Americans actually bombing?
Let me suggest - nothing, just an opportunity to use up the existing arsenal."
Posted by: Alex_Gorsky | Jan 27 2020 17:14 utc | 12
No, they are bombing homes and trying to genocide the Pashtuns that live on/over a fortune in
minerals and whatnot,.-
Try to research how many Pashtun children the united states of terrorist and nato terrorists
have raped and killed, ALL just to steal Afghanistans wealth.
To Ant 10, Per/Norway 18: Afghanistan is a vast source of mineral wealth, and has valuable
potential oil/gas pipeline routes. As usual, US/ZATO wants to "protect" these for their pet
corporate thieves. That the CIA/Mossad runs the opium industry is just a cash-cow to pay-off
the local drug kingpins/warlords.
The Taliban had decimated the opium industry a couple times, but the CIA/Mossad always
pushes back in and keeps the country in chaos.
The Taliban are no angels, but at least they eradicate the opium industry. If the US/ZATO
and CIA/Mossad got out of Afghanistan, it wouldn't take long for the locals to throw out the
Taliban. The locals put up with the Taliban because they are slightly less destructive than
the US/ZATO/CIA/Mossad thugs.
Ukies got Javelin anti-tank weapons. (though the US controls them or half of them would be
sold off).
Then, there was a counter-move. Not in Donbass. Elsewhere.
Taliban have MANPADS.
Soon, the Iraqi PMF will have MANPADS.
It's a weapons war that the US cannot win.
Too many people want the Hegemon out of their country.
We see this weapons war in Africa. Russia and China are there to teach the weapons'
use.
You don't need big nukes and aircraft to win a war.
Vietnam won with artillery, sappers and AK-47s.
Houthis are winning with homemade missiles and drones.
Taliban will force out the US. Russia and China will do whatever they can to see that will
be the outcome.
There must be some Iranian special Quods force operating deep inside Afghanistan using their
own SAM, not giving them to the Taliban, who are their longtgerm enemies.
The Iranians will choose how, when and where they are going to kill US soldiers and CIA
opertatives with total deniability if required; probably in this plane there were some CIA
dudes involved in dirty operations in the ME affecting Iran, now they have reaped what they
sown
If I wanted to attack the US I would do it in Afghanistan. Hostile territory, hostile
population, impossible lines of communication. If it isn't Taliban, then it probably someone
in alliance with them. China? Shares a border with Afghanistan (even if a bit inaccessible).
Pakistan? Iraq? Iran? Russia (I doubt it but you never know). There must be so much general
ordnance kicking around in the Middle East, most of it supplied or sourced by the US. I'm
surprised it hasn't been done before. Certainly, if whoever it is has a regular supply of
surface to air missiles, Bhagram, and the US are toast.
The afghans canteach the iraqi how to bring down those planes, then the NATO would be a
sitting duck in Iraq and the only option to get out alive would be a peacedeal the israeli
can not refuse.
I tend to agree with that thinking. The Outlaw US Empire will need to be ousted from
wherever it occupies as with 'Nam, although there's still the question of the Current
Oligarchy's domestic viability and ability to retain control over the federal government.
What's promising in the latter regard is the very strong pushback aimed at
DNC Chair Perez's committee appointments , which is being called Trump's Re-election
Campaign Committee for good reasons. However IMO, people need to look beyond Trump and the
Duopoly at those pulling the strings. And the easiest way to cut the strings is to elect
people without any.
Hard to say just what the Iranian-Taliban relationship is at this juncture. Tehran
continues to deny supplying them, but it's clear Taliban are the only force capable to
defeating the Outlaw US Empire's Terrorist Foreign Legion it imported into the Afghan
theatre. Iran's watched the Taliban up close and personal for 24+ years now, so I'd be very
surprised if there wasn't at least a strong backchannel com between them. IIRC, Iran okayed
Taliban's inclusion in the Moscow talks and has suggested they become a part of any future
Afghan government.
@ 38 Quixotic 1
Guarantee you- "the Empire is not going to cede its position anywhere on the globe. It's
not going to leave Syria, it's not going to leave Iraq, and it certainly is not going to
leave it's foothold in the underbelly of Eurasia.
Because to do so would mean the end of the Hegemonic project.
I have 1st dibs on that Guarantee
by 2025. Be ready to deliver in gold.
Here is how. Watch KSA and that old 1973 deal to price oil in USD$; follows then ALL
countries need USD to buy oil. Fast Forward. KSA wants in on their share of oil to China AND
the price will be paid in Yuan. Ask Qatar.
See the historical Timeline of currencies at link.
The USD is losing its appeal because Uncle Sam foolishly weaponized its currency. A review
of history: Bullies have a limited
life as do Reserve Currencies all things end. And sanctions are wearing thin.
The epitaph reads "US$, aka the greenback, met its demise by sanctions."
Well may be the Iranians could supply the Taliban with weapons, or may be they supply them
to the Hazara, that are much more close to them and are the real allies in Afghanistan, and
it is a way to protect them un a post-US future. So may be the Hazara could become the new
Houthies in Afghanistan
Johan Galtung predicted, in the year 2000, the end of the US Empire in 2020, he also
predicted, in the year 1980, the end of the Soviet Empire before the end of that decade, and
he nailed.
This is an interview in 2010, but the book with his predictions is much old:
He said:
"It's an empire against a wall; an empire in despair; an empire, I would say, in its last
phase. My prediction in the book that is here, that you mentioned, The Fall of the US
Empire–And Then What?, is that it cannot last longer than 'til about 2020. In 1980, I
predicted for the Soviet empire that it will crack at its weakest point, the wall of Berlin,
within ten years, and it happened in November 1989, and the Soviet empire followed. So my
prediction is a similar one for the US empire"
In another interview he said that after the cracks in the Empire and the loss of the
Imperial Wealth Pump:
"The most dangerous variable is the definitive end of the American dream, due to domestic
hardship. This would lead to the functional breakdown of the establishment and Treaty of the
Union, which would be the political end of the North American multi-state entity. At this
point, Galtung says, the empire would be split into a confederation of states, more or less
powerful, that would seek an independent solution to the external and internal crisis."
Can someone explain to mean what 'ZATO' (as in 'US/ZATO') means on this site?
As for China being a possible source for the anti-aircraft missiles, I doubt it is via the
Xinjiang/Afghanistan border and must instead be using established smuggling routes and
intermediaries groups.
I've heard it said that the missiles fired by Houthis on the Abqaiq oil facility are based
on Iran designs, some of which are in turn copies or reverse-engineered from Chinese designs.
If the Afghanistan situation is like that, then the Chinese connection is mediated instead of
immediate, such as via Iran. The missiles doesn't even need to be reverse-engineered --- just
swap out some parts for generic ones. For various reasons, such as plausible deniability, I
doubt that China would directly supply Taliban with such equipment.
Native people were classified as militarily apt and militarily inept, and recruitment to
colonial armies was guided by that principle. Arabs were typically classified as inept,
unlike Gurkhas and the Sikh. Persians were not recruited, but they were known to colonial
leaders who had education in classics."
iotr Berman@48
This is Raj History 101 bullshit recycled. Far from being classified as inept- Arabs,
particularly Sunni
desert Arabs were very highly regarded by the British for their military prowess. Hence the
entrusting to
the current Gulf rulers of the British protectorates handed back in the 1960s.
The Arab Legion in 1948 came out of the war with its reputation intact.
So far as their educational achievements are concerned: it was the Arabs who brought Europe
the Renaissance.
Anyone who really believes that Arabs are incapable of developing IEDs is likely to be
part of that unfortunate portion of humanity that holds them to be 'sand niggers' etc. And
likely to suffer
the fate of racist fools throughout history.
I continue to see Twitter reports, like this one that the
Prince of Darkness aka Mike de Andrea was killed in that shootdown. As with the commander at
the base Iran attacked in Iraq who is now rumored to have died, the easiest refutation would
be for them to appear in public.
2) The Soviet Union never invaded Afghanistan, they were invited in in by then sovereign
UN-recognised Gov of Afghan (golly wonder why)
Posted by: Ant. | Jan 27 2020 17:03 utc | 10
Wiki (quite accurate): Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of
the PDPA -- the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham -- resulted (in
July–August 1979) in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of
Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup.[62]
In September 1979, President Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA
orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. The
situation in the country deteriorated under Amin and thousands of people went missing.[63]
The Soviet Union was displeased with Amin's government and decided to intervene and invade
the country on 27 December 1979, killing Amin that same day.[64]
A Soviet-organized regime, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions
(Parcham and Khalq), filled the vacuum.
------
Perhaps Taraki invited Soviets just as he was beset by assassins, or Amin did it for
reasons he never got a chance to explain. Honestly, left to their own devices, PDPA, the
Afghan Communists, were making royal mess. In any case, the western supported anti-progress
guerilla, fighting horrors like schools for girls, predated Soviet "invasion".
Easiest route for Afghan Taliban to obtain weapons is from Pakistani Taliban, with ISI
permission.
Remember Pakistani ISI ran Al-Qaeda back in the day.
It is also forgotten that the Tallys prevent the muj warlords from raping the country's
teenagers, of both genders, their favorite sport. Thus they are forgiven for suppressing the
poppy farming.
"The US govt seems to be actively hiding this information from the public, but the Taliban
has verified this to the Iranians, who in turn passed the message to the GCC states. There is
a gruesome photograph of one of the passengers who died, & he has the same profile as
D'Andrea."
And:
"The CIA's Michael D'Andrea, who was in charge of the CIA's anti-Iran operations, was in
fact killed yesterday in a plane crash in Afghanistan, which the Iranian-backed Taliban
claims to have downed. He was killed alongside 4 other people, including 2 USAF pilots &
2 CIA figures."
Not equivalent in stature to Soleimani but important nonetheless. I'll add a small caveat
that this still isn't 100% confirmed.
@ S (club) 7 and karlofi 93
Yes I'm hearing Ayatollah Mike was one of the several CIA officers among the dead. BIG loss
for US and good retaliatory strike (if true) for Iran. The Dark Prince Mike was indeed head
of CIA anti-Iran operations and likely played a big part in the Soleimani assassination. We
may never know for sure, but the premature departure of CIA officers is always good for the
rest of humankind.
I have long wondered why the Russians have not paid back the US for their aid to the Afghan
guerrilla in the 1980's. The US supplied stinger missiles and other anti-aircraft systems and
at one point they were knocking down one Russian aircraft a day. Maybe the Russians smell
Western blood on the water and have chosen this as the time to pay them back with select arms
deliveries to the Taliban.
It was this loss of aviation support that hastened their departure and it would certainly
hasten a US departure. I do not think the US has it in them to ramp it up at this
point...
"... They look so great only because the Empire and its sidekicks have morons at the helm (I don't mean disposable figureheads, "presidents", "chancellors", and "PMs", but real powers behind the throne). ..."
I think President Putin is a great leader and the greatest in the world today.
Putin is just a man with normal quite ordinary intelligence, like Xi. They look so great
only because the Empire and its sidekicks have morons at the helm (I don't mean disposable
figureheads, "presidents", "chancellors", and "PMs", but real powers behind the throne).
This blabbing about authoritarian Russia and China greatly diminishes the value of this
article. The author is Warren foreign policy advisor. Probably she should find a better
advisor.
Compare this blabbing with Putin stance about strengthening of the role of the UN.
Notable quotes:
"... Fourth, the new progressive foreign policy is highly skeptical of military interventions, and opposed to democracy promotion by force. This does not mean that progressives are unwilling or would be unable to use force when it is necessary. But after 17 years of war in the Middle East, they do not share the aggressive posture that has characterized the post-Cold War era. Some are skeptical because they think interventions cannot succeed. Others emphasize the potential for backlash and making the situation worse. Still others hold that stable, sustainable democracy cannot be imposed from abroad but must emerge organically. ..."
"... Fifth, the new progressive foreign policy seeks to reshape the military budget by both cutting the budget overall and reallocating military spending. This should not be surprising. The skepticism of intervention suggests military budgets do not need to be as big as they have been in an era when the goal was to be able to fight two regional wars simultaneously. The centrality of economics to a progressive foreign policy further explains this position; military spending should partly be reallocated to cyber and other technologies that are deeply integrated with the economy and likely to be crucial in future conflicts. ..."
end of history " and
America's " unipolar moment ." And
both camps have undergone a serious reckoning after the Afghanistan, Iraq, and forever wars, as
well as the global financial crisis calling into question neoliberal
economic policies -- namely, deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and austerity.
Prominent foreign policy advocates have quite publicly engaged in
soul-searching as they confronted these changes, and debates about the future of foreign
policy abound.
The emergence of a distinctively progressive approach to foreign policy is perhaps the most
interesting -- and most misunderstood -- development in these debates. In speeches and
articles, politicians like Sen.
Elizabeth Warren and Sen.
Bernie Sanders have outlined an approach to foreign policy that does not fall along the
traditional fault-lines of realist versus idealist or neoconservative versus liberal
internationalist (disclosure: I have been a longtime advisor to Sen. Warren). Their speeches
come alongside an
increasing number of
articles exploring the
contours of a
progressive foreign policy. Even those who might not consider themselves
progressive are
sounding similar themes .
From this body of work, it is now possible to sketch out the framework of a distinctively
progressive approach to foreign policy. While its advocates, like those in other foreign policy
camps, discuss a wide range of issues -- from climate change to reforming international
institutions -- at the moment, five themes mark this emerging approach as a specific framework
for foreign policy.
First, progressive foreign policy breaks the
silos between domestic and foreign policy and between international economic policy and
foreign policy. It places far greater emphasis on how foreign policy impacts the United States
at home -- and particularly on how foreign policy (including international economic policy) has
impacted the domestic economy. To be sure, there have always been analysts and commentators who
recognized these interrelationships. But progressive foreign policy places this at the center
of its analysis rather than seeing it as peripheral. The new progressive foreign policy takes
the substance of both domestic and international economic policies seriously, and its adherents
will not support economic policies on foreign policy grounds if they exacerbate economic
inequality at home. For example, the argument that trade deals must be ratified on national
security grounds even though they have problematic distributional consequences does not carry
much weight for progressives who believe that an equitable domestic economy is the foundation
of national power.
Second, progressive foreign policy holds that one of the important threats to American
democracy at home is nationalist
oligarchy (or, alternatively, authoritarian
capitalism ) abroad. Countries like Russia and China are not simply authoritarian
governments, and neither can their resurgence and assertion of power be interpreted as merely
great power competition. The reason is that their economic systems integrate economic and
political power. Crony/state capitalism is not a bug, it is the central feature. In a global
society, economic interrelationships
weaponize economic power into political power .
China, for example, already uses its economic power as leverage in political disputes with
other Asian countries. Its growing share of global GDP is one of the most consequential facts
of the 21st century. As a result of these dynamics, progressives are also highly skeptical of a
foreign policy based on the premise that the countries of the world will all become neoliberal
democracies. Instead, they take seriously the risks that come from economic integration with
nationalist oligarchies.
Third, the new progressive foreign policy values America's alliances and international
agreements, but not because it thinks that such alliances and rules can convert nationalist
oligarchies into liberal democracies. Rather, alliances should be based on
common values or common goals, and, going forward, they will be critical to balancing and
countering the challenges from nationalist oligarchies. Progressives are thus far more
skeptical of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia and far more interested in reinforcing
and deepening ties with allies like Japan -- and are concerned about the erosion of alliances
like NATO from within.
Western Democracies have fallen to the secretive Zionist Death Cult.
We need Movement(s) to restore democracy.
"Democracy Works!" propagandists will tell you that you only need YOUR VOTE. That is
false. They ask for unilateral disarmament. We will never restore democracy by voting in
rigged elections.
Zionist Death Cult? is no exaggeration. IMO The Zionist Movement has been
hijacked by those who see ANY opposition as an existential threat. Thus, they MUST smash
countries in the Middle East, and they MUST rule the world, even if that means conflict
with Russia and China.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I see Zionism not as a bad expression.... Zion and Zionism is, in my view, only a
necessary expression of an oppressed people ...
Massaging Zionist egos with happy talk is counter-productive. (Yeah, I know you qualify
your happy talk later, but still ...) THEY DON'T CARE. They are only interested in POWER
and keeping it.
Whatever it started out as, Zionism has morphed into a Movement that has brought misery
to millions and threatens the extinction of humanity via WWIII. The Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to
midnight .
Just imagine if your culture, your tribe, was abolished and persecuted for
centuries ...
Whatever was learned from that persecution seems to have been co-opted by ruthless
Zionists who don't just want a homeland but the defeat of everyone that might
restrict or restain them in any way - thus, the alliance with USA Empire-builders that to
rule the world (NWO).
Just imagine if ... : your country has been subverted by a secretive
Movement that bypasses Democratic process and corrupts your leaders via money and
relentless organizing - including illegal blackmail operations that subvert anyone that
doesn't approve of their goals and means of achieving them. At some point, they get to a
point where their undermining is essentially more than paid for by grants from the
government that they now control.
= That the state of Israel is oppressing other people today, and is secured by the
'empire' and the holocaust emblem, is certainly a sad period of history.
You're forgetting the Christian Zionists, MIC, and others that have a financial interest
in continuing the farce.
USA and Western political elites are virtually ALL corrupted by Zionist influence.
= It inverted the role play entirely, even perverted it. There is some hope in the
citizens of Israel and the Jews that live abroad to find a way to end this
insanity.
We should not rely upon that faint hope. The people in the West need to take back their
democracies via MOVEMENTS.
They we might see a quick rush by Israel embrace those "simple solutions" that you
talked about and to be less like the belligerent rogue State that they are today.
= [Jews are] ... a people that is suffering from finding a place to be, to find a home.
Palestine is somehow their home, but it must be shared with the Arab people who also call
Palestine their home. Of course there is no simple solution to that question.
Well, the "simple solutions" that have been rejected by Zionist Death Cult.
The Zionist Death Cult decided that if they gain political control of USA, then they
don't need to agree to "simple solutions". And "Zionist" Empire-builders in USA decided
that they could use Israel to control the region and increase MIC profits. And the Zionist
Death Cult mentality applies not just to Middle East but the World.
= We, as a global community, have to bring separated tribes together. We have no other
choice. Else, there is war. Constant war. Which is of course the plan for a certain
elevated upper realm that is playing the part of the bad guy.
Yeah, well hoping for the best is not a plan.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Laguerre @40:
[Phil @35] Jews are a separate identity ... If they wish to remain a separate
identity, then there are consequences.
As I see it, the problem is not Jews but Zionists, neocons, and other warmongers.
Too often, criticism of Israel or Zionism is wrongly translated into criticism of
Jews.
The above is from Thierry Meyssan's most recent essay. In it, he examines what he considers
a kind of unique "problem" for Iran; the lack of a constitutional separation of religious and
state powers (the one thing the US Founding Aristocrats got right).
Upon reading one might feel (as I did) a reflexive tendency toward defensive sympathy for
Iran, especially in the face of constant threat from the US and the zionist entity in
Palestine.
But the admirable thing about Meyssan is that he is consistently an advocate for peace,
fairness, and above all truth. Anyways, it's a great read; highly recommended.
Thanks for all you do for us, b; peace and Happy Lunar New Year, barflies.
Posted by: robjira | Jan 26 2020 18:42 utc |
23 Ps.
Quadrant is sponsored by the Australian Committee for Cultural Freedom (the Australian arm
of the Congress for Cultural Freedom - a CIA-funded anti-communist group from Yankistan), who
later changed their name to the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom.
Such an independent source of information, not. They are basically a mouthpiece for the
Trilateral Commission goons, and all of their apparatchiks, and are aligned with Murdoch stable
neo-con/lib dogma. Sorry, but I'd rather listen to people with experience, qualifications, or
"skin in the game", than right-wing propaganda.
@ robjira | Jan 26 2020 18:42 utc | 23 ( Thierry Meyssan's most recent essay)
Yes, it is a good essay. However I think his understanding of International Law is only one
of several, there are at least two views as to what is the basis of Law.
You'll have to look for it I'm afraid>
Title: ABOVE AND BEYOND INTERNATIONAL LAW: GEORGE W. BUSH AS THE AUSTINIAN SOVEREIGN
Professor Ali Khan
Washburn University School of Law
JURIST
a fragment, you'll see that TM bases his idea on an altogether different foundation, I
think.
"For centuries, international law has been anchored in the theory of contracts. Treaties are
explicit contracts among states, but even customary international law, at least in its
formative stages, is founded on consent and is derived from voluntary state practices.
All along, powerful nations have influenced international law. Yet in modern times no single
state - no single sovereign - has claimed the authority to make laws for the rest of the world.
International law has, since the Second World War, admittedly developed some coercive elements
in its genetic structure, but it nonetheless remains, both in its essence and legitimacy, the
law of partnership.
This jurisprudence might change, however, if George Walker Bush is successful in crowning
himself as the Austinian Sovereign. "
"... imperialism is an integral part of the capitalist world-economy. It is not a special phenomenon. It has always been there. It always will be there as long as we have a capitalist world economy. Two, we are experiencing at the moment a particularly aggressive and egregious form of imperialism, which is now even ready to claim that it is being imperialist. ..."
"... We have to start in 1945, when the United States became hegemonic, really hegemonic. What does hegemony in this context mean? It means that the U.S. nation-state was so much the strongest, it had an economic capability so far ahead of anybody else in the world as of 1945, that it could undersell anyone in their own home markets. The United States had a military strength that was unparalleled. As a consequence, it had an ability to create formidable alliances, NATO, the U.S.-Japan Defense Pact, and so on. At the same time, the United States, as the hegemonic power, became culturally the center of the world. New York became the center of high culture and American popular culture went on its march throughout the world. ..."
"... It is true that there was the Soviet Union, which posed a military difficulty for the United States. Nonetheless, the United States handled that very simply by an agreement. It is called Yalta, which encompasses more than just what happened at Yalta itself. I think the left has underestimated historically the reality and the importance of the Yalta agreement that made the Cold War a choreographed arrangement in which nothing ever really happened for forty years. That was the important thing about the Cold War. It divided up the world into the Soviet zone that was about a third of the world, and the U.S. zone that was two-thirds. It kept the zones economically separate and allowed them to shout at each other loudly in order to keep their own side in order, but never to make any truly substantial changes in the arrangement. The United States was therefore sitting on top of the world. ..."
"... The third thing that happened is that there were people who didn't agree with Yalta. They were located in the third world and there were at least four significant defeats of imperialism that occurred in the third world. The first was China, where the Communist Party defied Stalin and marched on Kuomintang-controlled Shanghai in 1948, thus getting China out from under U.S. influence on the mainland. That was a central defeat in the U.S. attempt to control the periphery. Secondly, there was Algeria and all its implications as a role model for other colonial territories. There was Cuba, in the backyard of the United States. And finally, there was Vietnam, which both France and then the United States were incapable of defeating. It was a military defeat for the United States that has structured world geopolitics ever since. ..."
"... How could the rulers of the United States handle the loss of hegemony? That has been the problem ever since. There were two dominant modes of handling this loss of hegemony. One is that pursued from Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, including Ronald Reagan, including George Bush Sr. All these U.S . presidents handled it the same way, basically a variant of the velvet glove hiding the mailed fist. ..."
"... They sought to persuade Western Europe and Japan and others that the United States could be cooperative; that the others could have an alliance of semi-equals, though with the United States exerting "leadership." That's the Trilateral Commission and the G7. And, of course, they were using all this time the unifying force of opposition to the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Secondly, there was the so-called Washington Consensus that coalesced in the 1980s. What was the Washington Consensus about? I remind you that the 1970s was the era when the United Nations proclaimed the decade of development. Developmentalism was the name of the game from the 1950s through the 1970s. Everybody proclaimed that countries could develop. The United States proclaimed it. The Soviet Union proclaimed it, and everybody in the third world proclaimed it -- if only a state were organized properly. Of course, people disagreed about how to organize a state properly, but if only it were organized properly and did the right things, it could develop. This was the basic ideology; development was to be achieved by some kind of control over what went on within sovereign national states. ..."
"... The second objective was to deal with the military threat. The real threat to U.S. military power, and they say it all the time, so let's believe them, is nuclear proliferation; because if every little country has nuclear weapons it becomes very tricky for the United States to engage in military action. That is what North Korea is demonstrating at this moment. North Korea only has two nuclear bombs, if what the newspapers say is correct. But that is enough to shake things up. ..."
"... Second, there was Saddam. Saddam Hussein started the first Gulf War. He did it deliberately. He did it deliberately to challenge the United States. He could not have done that if the Soviet Union had still been an active power. They would have stopped him from doing it because it would have been too dangerous in terms of the Yalta agreement. And he got away with it. That is to say, at the end of the war, all he lost was what he had gained. He was back at the starting point. That is what has stuck in the craw for ten years. That war was a draw. It was not a victory for the United States. ..."
"... Enter the hawks. The hawks do not see themselves as the triumphant continuation of U.S. capitalism or U.S. power or anything else. They see themselves as a group of frustrated outsiders who for fifty years did not get their way even with Reagan, even with Bush Sr., even with George Bush Jr. before 9/11. They are still worried that Bush Jr. will chicken out on them. They think that the policy that went from Nixon to Clinton to the first year of George W. Bush, of trying to handle this situation, diplomatically, multilaterally -- I call it the velvet glove -- was an utter failure. They think it just accelerated the decline of the United States and they think that had to be changed radically by engaging in an egregious, overt, imperial action -- war for the sake of war. They did not go to war on Iraq or Saddam Hussein because he was a dictator. They did not go to war on Iraq even for oil. I will not argue that point here, but they did not need the war on Iraq for oil. They needed it to show the United States could do it, and they needed that demonstration in order to intimidate two groups of people: (1) anybody in the third world who thinks that they should engage in nuclear proliferation; and (2) Europe. This was an attack on Europe, and that is why Europe responded the way it did. ..."
"... Second, look at North East Asia. This is harder but I think China, a reunited Korea, and Japan will begin to move together politically and economically. Now, this will not be easy. The reunification of Korea will be a tremendously difficult thing to achieve. The reunification of China as well will be a difficult thing to achieve, and those countries have all sorts of reasons for hating one another and tensions with deep historical roots, but the pressure is on them. If, realistically, they are going to survive as independent forces in the world, they will move in this direction. ..."
Immanuel Wallerstein (1930–2019) was the
director of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and
Civilizations; the editor of Review ; and Senior Research Scholar at Yale University. He
was the author of numerous books, including Transforming the
Revolution: Social Movements and the World-System , cowritten with Andre Gunder
Frank, Giovanni Arrighi, and Samir Amin (Monthly Review Press, 1990).
Wallerstein was also a frequent contributor to Monthly Review . "
U.S. Weakness and the Struggle for
Hegemony " was first published in Monthly Review 55, no. 3 (July–August
2003).
I am going to start with two things with which I think nearly all MR readers will
probably agree. One, imperialism is an integral part of the capitalist world-economy. It is not
a special phenomenon. It has always been there. It always will be there as long as we have a
capitalist world economy. Two, we are experiencing at the moment a particularly aggressive and
egregious form of imperialism, which is now even ready to claim that it is being
imperialist.
Now, I ask you to reflect upon that anomaly. How do we explain that, at the moment, we are
living through a particularly aggressive and egregious form of imperialism, which for the first
time in over a hundred years has been ready to use the words imperial and
imperialism ? Why should they do that? Now, the answer most people give in one word is
U.S. strength . And the answer I will give in one word is U.S. weakness .
We have to start in 1945, when the United States became hegemonic, really hegemonic. What
does hegemony in this context mean? It means that the U.S. nation-state was so much the
strongest, it had an economic capability so far ahead of anybody else in the world as of 1945,
that it could undersell anyone in their own home markets. The United States had a military
strength that was unparalleled. As a consequence, it had an ability to create formidable
alliances, NATO, the U.S.-Japan Defense Pact, and so on. At the same time, the United States,
as the hegemonic power, became culturally the center of the world. New York became the center
of high culture and American popular culture went on its march throughout the world.
The first time I was in the Soviet Union, in the Brezhnev era, my host took me to a
nightclub in Leningrad. The one thing that startled me in the Soviet Union, the whole time I
was there, was that in this nightclub one heard American popular music sung in English. And, of
course, ideologically, I think we underestimate the degree to which the theme of the "free
world" has had legitimacy among wide segments of the world population.
So the United States was really on top of the world for about twenty-five years, and it got
its way in whatever it wanted to do.
It is true that there was the Soviet Union, which posed a military difficulty for the United
States. Nonetheless, the United States handled that very simply by an agreement. It is called
Yalta, which encompasses more than just what happened at Yalta itself. I think the left has
underestimated historically the reality and the importance of the Yalta agreement that made the
Cold War a choreographed arrangement in which nothing ever really happened for forty years.
That was the important thing about the Cold War. It divided up the world into the Soviet zone
that was about a third of the world, and the U.S. zone that was two-thirds. It kept the zones
economically separate and allowed them to shout at each other loudly in order to keep their own
side in order, but never to make any truly substantial changes in the arrangement. The United
States was therefore sitting on top of the world.
This lasted only about twenty-five years. The United States ran into difficulty somewhere
between 1967 and 1973 because of three things. One, it lost its economic edge. Western Europe
and Japan became sufficiently strong to defend their own markets. They even began to invade
U.S. markets. They were then about as strong and as competitive as the United States
economically and that, of course, had political implications.
Secondly, there was the world revolution of 1968 in which many MR readers were
involved, in one way or another. Think of what happened in 1968. In 1968, there were two themes
that were repeated everywhere throughout the world in one version or another. One, we don't
like the U.S. hegemony and dominance of the world, and we don't like Soviet collusion with it.
That was a theme everywhere. That was not only the Chinese stance on the two superpowers but
that of most of the rest of the world as well.
The second thing that 1968 made clear was that the Old Left, which had come to power
everywhere -- Communist parties, social-democratic parties, and national liberation movements
-- had not changed the world and something had to be done about it. We were not sure we trusted
them anymore. That undermined the ideological basis of the Yalta agreement, and that was very
important.
The third thing that happened is that there were people who didn't agree with Yalta. They
were located in the third world and there were at least four significant defeats of imperialism
that occurred in the third world. The first was China, where the Communist Party defied Stalin
and marched on Kuomintang-controlled Shanghai in 1948, thus getting China out from under U.S.
influence on the mainland. That was a central defeat in the U.S. attempt to control the
periphery. Secondly, there was Algeria and all its implications as a role model for other
colonial territories. There was Cuba, in the backyard of the United States. And finally, there
was Vietnam, which both France and then the United States were incapable of defeating. It was a
military defeat for the United States that has structured world geopolitics ever since.
The threefold fact of the rise of economic rivals, the world revolution of 1968 and its
impact on mentalities across the world, and Vietnam's defeat of the United States, all taken
together, mark the beginning of the decline of the United States.
How could the rulers of the United States handle the loss of hegemony? That has been the
problem ever since. There were two dominant modes of handling this loss of hegemony. One is
that pursued from Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, including Ronald Reagan, including George
Bush Sr. All these U.S . presidents handled it the same way, basically a variant of the velvet
glove hiding the mailed fist.
They sought to persuade Western Europe and Japan and others that the United States could be
cooperative; that the others could have an alliance of semi-equals, though with the United
States exerting "leadership." That's the Trilateral Commission and the G7. And, of course, they
were using all this time the unifying force of opposition to the Soviet Union.
Secondly, there was the so-called Washington Consensus that coalesced in the 1980s. What was
the Washington Consensus about? I remind you that the 1970s was the era when the United Nations
proclaimed the decade of development. Developmentalism was the name of the game from the 1950s
through the 1970s. Everybody proclaimed that countries could develop. The United States
proclaimed it. The Soviet Union proclaimed it, and everybody in the third world proclaimed it
-- if only a state were organized properly. Of course, people disagreed about how to organize a
state properly, but if only it were organized properly and did the right things, it could
develop. This was the basic ideology; development was to be achieved by some kind of control
over what went on within sovereign national states.
Now, the Washington Consensus was the abandonment and the denigration of developmentalism,
which had visibily failed by the late 1980s, and, therefore, everybody was ready to abandon.
They substituted for developmentalism what they called globalization , which simply
meant opening up all the frontiers, breaking down all the barriers for: (a) the movement of
goods and, more importantly, (b) capital, but not (c) labor. And the United States set out to
impose this on the world.
The third thing they did along this line of "cooperation" was an ideological
consensus-building process at Davos. Davos is not unimportant. Davos was an attempt to create a
meeting ground of the world's elites, including elites from the third world, and constantly
bring together and blend their political activity.
At the same time, the objectives of the United States during this period took three forms.
One was to launch a counteroffensive. It was a counteroffensive of neoliberalism on three
levels to: (1) reduce wages worldwide; (2) reduce costs for (and end ecological constraints on)
corporations, permitting the total externalization and socialization of such costs; and (3)
reduce taxation, which was subsidizing social welfare (that is to say, subsidizing education,
health care, and lifelong guarantees of income).
On all these three levels they were only partially successful. None of these three succeeded
totally, but they all succeeded a little. However, cost curves were not brought down to
anything like the 1945 level. The cost curves had gone way up and they are down now, but they
are not down below the 1945 level, and they will go up again.
The second objective was to deal with the military threat. The real threat to U.S. military
power, and they say it all the time, so let's believe them, is nuclear proliferation; because
if every little country has nuclear weapons it becomes very tricky for the United States to
engage in military action. That is what North Korea is demonstrating at this moment. North
Korea only has two nuclear bombs, if what the newspapers say is correct. But that is enough to
shake things up.
The third objective -- and this was very crucial and they've been working at it since the
1970s -- was to stop the European Union. The United States was for the European Union in the
1950s and 1960s, when it was a means of getting France to agree to have Germany rearm. But once
it became serious it was viewed as an attempt to create a European state of one variety or
another, and the United States was of course strongly opposed to it.
What happened? First, we had the collapse of the Soviet Union. That was a disaster for the
United States; it removed the most important political weapon they had in relation to Western
Europe and East Asia.
Second, there was Saddam. Saddam Hussein started the first Gulf War. He did it deliberately.
He did it deliberately to challenge the United States. He could not have done that if the
Soviet Union had still been an active power. They would have stopped him from doing it because
it would have been too dangerous in terms of the Yalta agreement. And he got away with it. That
is to say, at the end of the war, all he lost was what he had gained. He was back at the
starting point. That is what has stuck in the craw for ten years. That war was a draw. It was
not a victory for the United States.
Third, we saw in the 1990s, to be sure, a momentary spurt of the U.S. economy, but not of
the world-economy as a whole and a spurt that is now over. But we now have a weakening of the
dollar, and the dollar has been a crucial lever of the United States, enabling it to have the
kind of economy it has and the dominance it has over the rest of the world. And finally, we had
9/11 that showed that the United States was vulnerable.
Enter the hawks. The hawks do not see themselves as the triumphant continuation of U.S.
capitalism or U.S. power or anything else. They see themselves as a group of frustrated
outsiders who for fifty years did not get their way even with Reagan, even with Bush Sr., even
with George Bush Jr. before 9/11. They are still worried that Bush Jr. will chicken out on
them. They think that the policy that went from Nixon to Clinton to the first year of George W.
Bush, of trying to handle this situation, diplomatically, multilaterally -- I call it the
velvet glove -- was an utter failure. They think it just accelerated the decline of the United
States and they think that had to be changed radically by engaging in an egregious, overt,
imperial action -- war for the sake of war. They did not go to war on Iraq or Saddam Hussein
because he was a dictator. They did not go to war on Iraq even for oil. I will not argue that
point here, but they did not need the war on Iraq for oil. They needed it to show the United
States could do it, and they needed that demonstration in order to intimidate two groups of
people: (1) anybody in the third world who thinks that they should engage in nuclear
proliferation; and (2) Europe. This was an attack on Europe, and that is why Europe responded
the way it did.
I wrote an article in 1980 in which I said, "It is geopolitically inevitable that over the
next period, there will emerge a Paris/Berlin/Moscow alliance." I said this when the Soviet
Union was still in existence and I have repeated it ever since. Now, everybody talks about it.
There is actually a website now, paris-berlin-moscou.info, which reprints what people are
writing in French, German, Russian, and English throughout Europe about the virtues of a
Paris/Berlin/Moscow linkup.
We must not underestimate the second Security Council nonvote in March of this year. It is
the first time since the United Nations was founded that the United States, on an issue that
mattered to it, could not get a majority on the Security Council. Of course, they have had to
veto various resolutions in the past but on no issue that was truly crucial to them. But in
March 2003 they withdrew the resolution because they could not get more than four votes
for it. It was a political humiliation and it was universally regarded as such. The United
States has lost legitimacy, and that is why you cannot call it hegemonic anymore. Whatever you
want to call it, there is no legitimacy now and that's crucial.
So, what should we look for in the next ten years? First, there is the question of how
Europe will construct itself. It will be very difficult, but they will construct themselves and
they will construct an army. Maybe not all of Europe, but the core. The United States is really
worried about it, and that army will sooner or later link up with the Russian army.
Second, look at North East Asia. This is harder but I think China, a reunited Korea, and
Japan will begin to move together politically and economically. Now, this will not be easy. The
reunification of Korea will be a tremendously difficult thing to achieve. The reunification of
China as well will be a difficult thing to achieve, and those countries have all sorts of
reasons for hating one another and tensions with deep historical roots, but the pressure is on
them. If, realistically, they are going to survive as independent forces in the world, they
will move in this direction.
Thirdly, you should watch the World Social Forum. I think that is where the action is. It is
the most important social movement now on the face of the earth and the only one that has a
chance of playing a really significant role. It has blossomed very fast. It has a wealth of
internal contradictions that we should not underestimate and it will run through all sorts of
difficult periods, and it may not make it. It may not survive as a movement that is a movement
of movements, that has no hierarchical center, is tolerant of all the varieties within it and
yet stands for something. This is not an easy game, but it is where the best hope lies.
Finally, I would think you ought to look at the internal contradictions among capitalists.
The basic political contradiction of capitalism throughout its history has been that all
capitalists have a common political interest insofar as there is a world class struggle going
on. At the same time, all capitalists are rivals of all other capitalists. Now that is a
fundamental contradiction of the system and it's going to be very explosive.
I don't think we should underestimate the fact that in April 2003 Lawrence Eagleberger, the
secretary of state under the first President Bush, and still a close adviser of the current
president's father, said in print that if the United States were now to invade Syria, he,
Eagleberger, would be for impeaching George W. Bush. Now, that is not a very light thing for a
person of that sort to say. So there is a message being sent, and who is the message coming
from? I think it is coming from the father for one thing. And beyond that, it is coming from an
important segment of U.S. capital and of world capital. They are not all happy about the hawks.
The hawks have not won the game. They have grabbed hold of the U.S. state machinery; 9/11 made
that possible. And the hawks know it is now or never and they will continue to push, because if
they don't push forward, they will fall back. But they have no guarantee of success, and some
of their biggest enemies are other capitalists who do not like the line with Europe and Japan
because they basically do believe in the unity of capital; who don't think that the way
you handle these things is by smashing all opposition, but would prefer to co-opt it. They are
extremely worried that this is Samson pulling down the house.
We have entered a chaotic world. It has to do with the crisis of capitalism as a system, but
I will not argue that now. What I will say is that this chaotic world situation will now go on
for the next twenty or thirty years. No one controls it, least of all the U.S. government. The
U.S. government is adrift in a situation that it is trying to manage all over the place and
that it will be incapable of managing. This is neither good nor bad, but we should not
overestimate these people nor the strength on which they rely.
In case you have missed this. Here is an excellent interview of Elijah Magnier on a broad
range of issues related to Iran, Iraq and US policy. This link was previously posted by
another commenter but I am reposting it because it is so informative. I apologize for not I
remembering the name of the original poster was.
U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths sounded relieved in a briefing to the Security
Council this week,
noting that even after the American airstrike that killed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, "the immediate crisis seems to be over Yemen
has been kept safe."
Griffiths may have spoken too soon.
Yemen has been an increasingly important and tragic theater in the confrontation between
Iran, the United States, and their respective clients in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates at the head of an intervening coalition on one side and the Houthis
backed by Iran on the other. What will happen in Yemen following the killing of Soleimani and
the escalation in tensions between the United States and Iran? And how can Yemen's civil war be
insulated from the regional fallout?
News
emerged late last week that the United States also targeted Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior
Quds commander, in Yemen. Had the strike succeeded, the Houthis or other Iranian-aligned forces
in Yemen would almost certainly have had to respond, threatening an unruly escalation spiral.
Instead, the operation was unsuccessful, and Iran's measured reaction was limited to Iraq.
Nevertheless, the airstrike is unlikely to have put Houthi leadership in a conciliatory
mood.
Ismaeil Ghaani, who served as Soleimani's deputy for decades, was quickly named Soleimani's
replacement as head of the Quds Force. Following decades of leadership of the Quds Force,
Ghaani is unlikely to deviate from Iran's approach of using proxies to push
against opponents in the retaliation for Soleimani's killing.
At the same time, there is reason to hope that Yemen can avoid Iranian-backed escalation.
But avoiding another round of escalation in Yemen's civil war will
require the active participation of the United States and regional actors.
Yemen's Fragile Status Quo
One year after representatives of the Houthis and of Yemen's internationally-recognized
government agreed to a limited ceasefire as part of the Stockholm Agreement, little concrete progress to implement the
agreement has been made: Hodeidah, the port area at the center of the agreement, is still the
most dangerous place in the country for civilians. Likewise, the Riyadh Agreement, which
sought to
patch a split between the official government and southern separatists supported by the
United Arab Emirates, is
faltering and
in danger of total collapse.
Nevertheless, just a few weeks ago there were
reasons to be cautiously optimistic that, after years of failed negotiations, the Saudi-led
coalition's intervention in Yemen may have been winding down. Soleimani's assassination
threatens to undo this fragile and halting progress. While Iraq remains the most likely arena
for Iranian retaliation against the United States and its partners, Iranian officials also see
their relationship with the Houthis as a mechanism for dialing pressure on its opponents up or
down while maintaining plausible deniability for any particular attack. Yemen may therefore be
a site of Iranian escalation in the coming weeks and months. Indeed, the Houthis expressed
support for Iran and
promised to respond "promptly and swiftly" to the airstrike. Whatever its form, public
retaliation risks upsetting the nascent negotiations over Yemen's forgotten war.
What Will Happen Now in Yemen?
Iran is well aware that it would be badly overmatched in a conventional conflict, and is
therefore
likely to avoid all-out war with the United States. Rather, Iran's leadership is likely to
retaliate via the asymmetric resources that Tehran -- in an effort led by Soleimani and the
Quds Force -- has successfully cultivated in the region.
The Houthis have assumed greater importance in Tehran's regional strategy in recent years.
Their geographic proximity to Saudi Arabia (and decades-long history of antagonistic
relations) provides Iran with a convenient way to antagonize a long-time rival on its
southern
border and to retaliate horizontally for attacks on its partners in Syria. The relationship
confers what Austin Carson calls escalation control
: By maintaining plausible deniability, Tehran can signal its displeasure at American policies
while giving opponents a face-saving way to avoid further reprisals, thereby dampening the risk
of further escalation. Indeed, the recent strike on Saudi Aramco facilities claimed by the
Houthis (but
likely perpetrated by Iran) is indicative of this dynamic. The attack allowed Tehran to
push back against the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign while affording both
sides an off-ramp.
There are a few reasons to expect that Tehran could turn to Yemen as it formulates its
response to Soleimani's assassination. While Iran's leadership signaled that its retaliation
would end after the missile strikes on bases in Iraq, analysts note that
Iran is likely to return to its "
forward defense " strategy of working through proxies to push back against what its
leadership sees as American aggression in the region.
Ramping up Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would allow Iran to
signal its displeasure with Washington while attempting to avoid escalation that could lead to
a conventional war. This would be consistent with the forward defense strategy and Tehran's
past behavior in the region. Additionally, by coalescing domestic support, the American strike
may empower
hardliners in the Iranian regime who favor regional escalation.
And although the Houthis certainly receive significant support from Iran in the form of
material support, as well as advice and training from Hizballah operatives on the ground, they
are not as strategically close to Iran as other proxies like Hizballah are thought to be. As a
recent
New America report notes, "there is little evidence of firm Iranian command and control.
Iran's reported provision of missiles and drones shapes the conflict, but its roots are local
and would not disappear were Iran to fully abandon the Houthis." Even
U.S. officials have sought to draw a distinction between Iranian and Houthi leadership in
recent months.
Yet there are cautious signs that Houthi leadership could be willing to play along by
following Iran's lead in this instance: Just a few days before the assassination of Soleimani,
Houthi officials cautioned that targets within Saudi and Emirati territory remain on their
list of potential military targets, suggesting a willingness to escalate. And, after the
strike, Houthi leadership called for reprisals
against the United States.
But the region's reaction to the Aramco attack -- which saw the Emiratis pursuing quiet
talks with Iran and Saudi Arabia negotiating with the Houthis -- also provides reason to hope
that regional actors may work together to head off Iranian escalation in Yemen.
First, the Houthis' relative autonomy from Iranian command-and-control gives them some
leeway to resist pressure to escalate, although the failed U.S. strike in Yemen may affect this
calculus. Confronted with the choice of either retaliating on Tehran's behalf, at the risk of
inciting Saudi re-entry into the war, or resisting the external pressure, thereby preserving
the odds of a favorable settlement, the Houthi leadership may decide to bet on the latter.
Second, while Saudi commentators delighted in the blow to their regional opponent, the
Kingdom has publicly cautioned against
escalation and
reportedly urged the Trump administration to exercise restraint. This signals that the Arab
Gulf states may continue in the more cautiously de-escalatory approach that they have taken on
Yemen over the past several months, as the United Arab
Emirates and
Sudan began to withdraw troops from Yemen, Saudi Arabia
negotiated with the Houthis, and the tempo of Saudi airstrikes declined precipitously.
As much as they vehemently oppose Iranian influence in the region, both Saudi and Emirati
leadership want to avoid a direct confrontation with Iran, especially after the Trump
administration's erratic policies have made it clear that they may not get American backing in
such a confrontation. In other words, the factors that contributed to the intervening
coalition's de-escalatory tendencies a few months ago are still relevant, even after the
escalation in tensions between the United States and Iran.
The United States is well-positioned to reinforce de-escalatory dynamics in Yemen and
support the nascent peace process there. The recent de-escalation in Yemen has shown that
pressure works: Although both the Obama and Trump administrations initially supported the
Saudi-led intervention, Congressional threats to leverage
arms sales and invoke the War Powers Act to
end American material support for the intervention in 2019 subdued Abu Dhabi and Riyadh and
opened a new juncture in the conflict. The U.S. military
ended its provision of aerial refueling to the Saudi-led coalition following the murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi in late 2018, and Secretary of Defense James Mattis reportedly
pressured Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to negotiate a political settlement to the
war in the lead-up to the Stockholm Agreement. While some of this de-escalatory behavior is
attributable to a gradual acknowledgement that this war cannot be won, much can be attributed
to U.S. pressure as well. Washington therefore can -- and should -- continue to pressure its
regional partners to reach a negotiated agreement. The recent House vote
invoking the War Powers Act with regards to Iran -- and supportive
statements from a cross-party range of senators -- indicates that Congress is willing to
maintain pressure on the administration to avoid escalation in the region, even in the midst of
ongoing presidential impeachment proceedings.
Players in the region will also continue to play a critical role in Yemen in the weeks and
months ahead. Saudi and Emirati leaders are tired of the resource and reputational drain of a
war that appears increasingly unwinnable, leading to their willingness to draw down the
coalition's intervention. With international support, regional actors like Oman and even the
Gulf Cooperation Council can
act as mediators and guarantors to deter potential spoilers and help implement any
agreement.
Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said's untimely death this past weekend is another potentially
complicating factor here. Under Qaboos, Oman has played an important behind-the-scenes role in
the negotiations that led to the nuclear agreement, and brokered negotiations between the Saudi
Arabia and the Houthis beginning this past fall. Qaboos cut a unique figure in the
region, acting as a mediator who had both the stature and credibility to broker agreements
between warring parties in the region. His death and the drama around succession
created some doubt about whether anyone would be able to take his place. Yet the new sultan
Haitham bin Tariq, who was quickly sworn in, has pledged to continue Qaboos' diplomatic path.
Leaders from across the region traveled to Muscat to
pay their condolences to the new sultan, cementing the peaceful transition. This continuity is
a hopeful sign that Oman can continue to play a productive role as regional mediator.
Finally, policymakers shouldn't forget about Yemeni actors themselves. While most western
analysis of the conflict in Yemen focuses on the third-party intervention, this perspective
neglects the indigenous dynamics that led to the outbreak of the civil war in the first place.
The focus on external intervention is not without good reason, since regional actors
dramatically exacerbated the conflict and prevented an earlier resolution. Yet the civil war in
Yemen began over
local issues around governance and resource-sharing, and it will not end without solving
these underlying issues, thus undercutting potential
spoilers .
Additionally, years of fighting has created a patchwork of
splintered militia groups and local governance institutions that will prove very difficult to
knit back together into a coherent, functioning polity. A resumption of local fighting could
act as an invitation for external actors to intervene again, leading to a resumption of
conflict. It is therefore essential for mediation efforts to take these local issues into
account.
Over the past century, Yemen has often been a site for actors in the region to play out
their own conflicts. A relapse in fighting in Yemen could provide future grounds for
intervention and will act as a driver of regional instability. By contrast, ending the war in
Yemen will eliminate a critical source of Iranian leverage in the Gulf.
Dr. Alexandra Stark is asenior researcherat New
America. She was previously a research fellow at the Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security
Scholar.
"... But U.S. adversaries were watching closely. As advanced technologies inexorably became cheaper and more widely available, the U.S. monopoly on these capabilities started to erode. By 2016, for example, eight countries other than the United States had conducted armed drone attacks , including Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. By 2019, Russia and two other countries joined this exclusive club. And at least one non-state actor has already used an armed drone for a targeted killing. According to one estimate, 27 other countries currently possess armed drones while dozens of states and non-state actors have unarmed drones . These capabilities can now be used against specific individuals even in the absence of large intelligence networks, thanks to the constant streams of personal information flowing from personal phones , fitness trackers , and other devices. ..."
The fiery explosions from the recent U.S. drone attack that killed
Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have sent shock waves reverberating across the Middle East.
Those same shocks should now be rippling through the American national security establishment
too. The strike against the man widely considered the second-most powerful leader of a
long-standing U.S. adversary was unprecedented, and its ultimate effects remain unknown. But
regardless of what happens next, one thing is certain: The United States has now made it even
more likely that American military and civilian leaders will be targeted by future U.S. foes.
As a result, the United States will have to dramatically improve the ways in which it protects
those leaders and rethink how it commands its forces on the battlefield.
Over the last 20 years, the United States has been able to target and kill specific
individuals almost anywhere around the world, by matching an increasingly advanced array of
precision weapons with a strikingly effective intelligence system. It has employed this
capability
frequently , especially across the greater Middle East ,
as it has sought to eliminate senior leaders of the Taliban insurgency or highly placed
terrorists directing jihadist cells. And it has been able to pursue this decapitation strategy
with impunity, because it has held a monopoly on this bespoke use of force. Not even the most
powerful states could attempt the types of complex targeted strikes that the U.S. military and
CIA conducted so routinely.
But U.S. adversaries were watching closely. As advanced technologies inexorably became
cheaper and more widely available, the U.S. monopoly on these capabilities started to erode. By
2016, for example, eight countries other than the United States had
conducted armed drone attacks , including Iran, Pakistan, and Nigeria. By 2019, Russia and
two other countries joined this exclusive club. And at least one
non-state actor has already used an armed drone for a targeted killing. According to one
estimate, 27 other countries currently possess
armed drones while dozens of states and non-state actors have unarmed
drones . These capabilities can now be used against specific individuals even in the
absence of large intelligence networks, thanks to the constant streams of personal information
flowing from personal
phones , fitness
trackers , and other devices.
The Soleimani strike has given potential U.S. adversaries every reason to accelerate their
efforts to develop similar capabilities. Moreover, these same adversaries can now justify their
own future targeted killings by invoking this U.S. precedent. Sooner or later -- and probably
sooner -- senior U.S. civilian and military leaders will become vulnerable to the same types of
decapitation strikes that the United States has inflicted on others. Enemies will almost
certainly attempt to target and kill U.S. officials during any future major war, and such
attacks will likely become a part of future irregular conflicts as well. Though such strikes
would dangerously escalate any conflict, committed adversaries of the United States may still
find that the advantages outweigh the costs, especially if they can plausibly deny
responsibility or if the strength of their resolve makes them willing to accept any resulting
consequences.
In the face of this growing threat, what does the United States need to do in order to
protect its key military and civilian leaders from a potential decapitation strike? Here are
some potential first steps.
Improve personal protection for senior leaders. The president and the vice president are
well protected against a myriad of threats by the Secret Service, but levels of protection
quickly diminish for those who work beneath them. A number of senior officials, including
cabinet officials and the chiefs of the military services, have their own security details,
but those focus primarily on providing traditional physical security. They typically offer
little if any protection against newly emerging threats such as a targeted missile attack or
swarming suicide drones. Most senior military and civilian leaders have no security at all,
and they and their family members (like most other Americans) are constantly emitting
electronic signals that give away their location. Improving their protection will require
rethinking nearly every aspect of their daily lives, especially their extensive
vulnerabilities when traveling. For example, the obtrusive motorcades and conspicuous convoys
of black SUVs currently favored by many senior U.S. officials may need to be replaced with
lower visibility alternatives, to include employing decoys that travel along multiple routes
in high risk situations.
Harden key meeting locations, headquarters, and transition points. U.S. adversaries will
be particularly interested in targeting locations where numbers of senior military and
civilian leaders gather. Many such locations today in the United States and overseas are not
sufficiently hardened against attack. The locations of most offices and meeting spaces are
either publicly available or easily found, and few are protected from any sort of aerial
attack. (At a minimum, senior officials should stop having their photos taken in front of
their offices where the room number is
clearly visible .) And even hardened command centers usually have key vulnerabilities at
entrances and exits, and at exposed transition points between different modes of
transportation (such as airfield aprons). Ironically, current U.S. military security measures
can unintentionally make leaders more vulnerable in other ways. Shortly after the
Soleimani strike, for example, many U.S. military bases imposed
stricter security measures at their entry points, including extensive identification
checks and reducing the number of open gates. These reflexive measures caused
long traffic backups that spilled
onto local roads and highways -- which made everyone entering the bases far more
vulnerable as they sat in these traffic jams. Any senior leader stuck in those lines would
have become a remarkably easy target with no clear avenues of escape.
Exercise wartime succession in the U.S. military chain of command. Combatant commanders
and other senior military officers often use high-level wargames to validate key war plans
and operational concepts. Yet most exercises and simulations deliberately avoid removing
senior commanders from the battlefield, which reinforces the flawed notion that they will
always be in charge. This problem also extends to the tactical level, where commanders of
brigades, divisions, and corps are rarely assessed as casualties. Exercises at all levels
need to regularly include scenarios where one or more senior commanders are killed or
incapacitated, to test succession plans and to ensure that subordinates gain valuable
leadership experience.
Further decentralize battlefield command and control. The military chain of command
necessarily relies upon centralized control, with commanders directing the actions of their
subordinates. The U.S. military does decentralize some authority through concepts like
mission command , which
empower subordinates to make independent decisions about the best ways to achieve the
commander's overall intent. Yet as we've
written
extensively elsewhere , the military's growing culture of compliance and risk aversion
already undermines this critical principle, and modern command and control systems make it
far
too easy for senior commanders to intervene in routine tactical operations. In an
environment where senior commanders can be individually targeted and killed, truly
decentralized authority becomes absolutely vital -- and even efforts to
reinvigorate mission command may no longer be sufficient. One recent article, for
example, called for an entirely new,
bottom-up approach to command and control that would build resilience and speed by
reducing the reliance on a small number of increasingly vulnerable senior leaders.
The U.S. government needs to acknowledge that its senior leaders are becoming more
vulnerable to targeted attacks, and that the Soleimani attack will only accelerate the
determination of U.S. adversaries to be able to conduct similar attacks themselves. Yet threats
like this are too easily discounted or ignored until it is too late. The
U.S. government must recognize the grave dangers of this threat before it occurs. It needs to
protect its senior officials more effectively, and ensure that the military chain of command
will continue to function effectively after one or more commanders are killed by a targeted
strike.
Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, U.S. Army (ret.) and Dr. Nora Bensahel are visiting professors
of strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and senior
fellows at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies. They are also contributing editors
at War on the Rocks , where their column appears monthly.Sign up for Barno and Bensahel's Strategic Outpost
newsletterto track their articles as well as their public events.
Editor's Note: Due to an internal error, we published the near-final version of this
article rather than the final version. While the differences between the two drafts are minor,
we apologize for the error and have fixed our mistake. The final version of this article is now
published below.
In this episode of Horns of a Dilemma, John Gans, director of communications and research at
Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, gives a talk at the University of Texas at
Austin to discusses his book, White House
Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War . In
this talk, Gans focuses on the career and the accomplishments of a single NSC staffer, who
ultimately perished during his duties in Bosnia. He uses the story of Nelson Drew as a way to
illustrate both the power and the process that exists within the NSC. This talk took place at
the University of Texas at Austin and was sponsored by the Clements Center.
Exactly why the people who brought you the world wars inserted Mussolini, under the
influence of his Jewish lover, into the mix.
For example, has anybody thoroughly researched whether some Allied agent "incentivized" Il
Duce to invade Greece, thereby drawing off energy from Hitler's forces in the East? I don't
know enough about strategy to be able to use BOGO coupons, but even I can see how weird it
was for Mussolini to take a notion to invade Greece, and how obvious it would be for Allies
to see the usefulness of such a gambit.
Ever notice that for all the shouting we hear of "Fascism," very little is explored of the
real role of Italy and Mussolini in the Allied take-down of Western Europe.
Guido Preparata has written a bit about the Mussolini-Hitler relationship, but he
studiously avoids in depth discussion of the deliberate discombobulation of Italy by FDR and,
earlier, by Wilson.
[A] powerful argument for the continuities of U.S. economic policy from the
post–World War I period to the post–World War II period, a primary goal of
which was the stabilization of Europe as an outlet for U.S. capital and manufactured
goods.
In this project, Mussolini was a key component. Instead of viewing him as the destroyer of
democracy in Italy, many Americans saw him as the guarantor of stability and a willing
partner in U.S. capitalist expansion in the 1920s. This commitment required peace, which
Mussolini dutifully offered, contrary to all his bellicose rhetoric, because he needed U.S.
investment to stabilize his fledgling dictatorship. It was only the Depression and the
contraction of U.S. economic involvement in Europe that broke this close relationship and
led Italy down the path of imperialism and war.
@SolontoCroesus I agree Mussolini was probably a Western sleeper agent the whole time. At
the same time, I feel like Hitler sabotaged himself and Germany as a whole with Operation
Barbarossa. The most astute German minds like Bismarck or Karl Haushofer always argued that
German interests dictated close cooperation with Russia in a Eurasian continental bloc.
Germany, Russia, and Japan was the ideal combination against the Zionist Anglo bloc. The
Japanese Foreign Minister at the time, Matsuoka, was a visionary who saw this potential and
argued for a German Soviet Japanese combination before Hitler took the fateful step of
invading Russia.
Fascism is the most extreme form of counterrevolution. Counterrevolution itself only
emerges as a response to revolution. Nazism, for example, didn't arrive because the
German people all of a sudden lost their bearings from an overdose of Wagner's operas and
Nietzsche's aphorisms. It arrived at a time when massive worker's parties threatened
bourgeois rule during a period of terrible economic hardship. Big capital backed Hitler
as a last resort. The Nazis represented reactionary politics gone berserk. Not only could
Nazism attack worker's parties, it could also attack powerful institutions of the ruling
class, including its churches, media, intellectuals, parties and individual families and
individuals. Fascism is not a scalpel. It is a very explosive, uncontrollable weapon that
can also inflict some harm on its wielder.
Fascism emerges in the period following the great post-World War I revolutionary
upsurge in Europe. The Bolsheviks triumphed in Russia, but communists mounted challenges
to capitalism in Hungary, Germany and elsewhere. These revolutions receded but but their
embers burned. The world-wide depression of 1929 added new fuel to the glowing embers of
proletarian revolution. Socialism grew powerful everywhere because of the powerful
example of the USSR and the suffering capitalist unemployment brought.
Proletarian revolutions do not break out every year or so, like new car models. They
appear infrequently since working-people prefer to accomodate themselves to capitalism if
at all possible. They tend to be last-ditch defensive reactions to the mounting violence
and insecurity brought on by capitalist war and depression.
The proletarian revolution first emerges within the context of the bourgeois
revolutions of 1848. Even though the revolutions in Germany, France and Italy on the
surface appeared to be a continuation of the revolutions of the 1780's and 90's, they
contain within them anticapitalist dynamics. The working-class at this point in its
history has neither the numbers, nor the organization, nor the self- consciousness to
take power in its own name. Its own cause tends to get blurred with the cause of of other
classes in the struggle against feudal vestiges.
Marx was able to distinguish the contradictory class aspects of the 1848 revolutionary
upsurge with tremendous alacrity, however. Some of his most important contributions to
historical materialism emerge out of this period and again in 1871 when the proletariat
rises up in its own name during the Paris Commune. The 18th Brumaire was written in the
aftermath of the failure of the revolution in France in 1848 to consolidate its gains.
Louis Bonaparte emerges as a counterrevolutionary dictator who seems to suppress all
classes, including the bourgeoisie. Marx is able to show that Bonapartism, like Fascism,
is not a dictatorship that stands above all classes. The Bonapartist regime, whose social
base may be middle-class, acts in the interest of the big bourgeoisie.
Robert Tucker's notes in his preface to the 18th Brumaire that, "Since Louis
Bonaparte's rise and rule have been seen as a forerunner of the phenomenon that was to
become known in the twentieth century as fascim, Marx's interpretation of it is of
interest, among other ways, as a sort of a prologue to later Marxist thought on the
nature and meaning of fascism."
The 18th Brumaire was written by Marx in late 1851 and early 1852, and appeared first
in a NY magazine called "Die Revolution". This was a time of great difficulty for Marx.
He was in financial difficulty and poor health. The triumph of the counterrevolution in
France deepened his misery. In a letter to his friend Weydemeyer, Marx confides, "For
years nothing has pulled me down as much as this cursed hemorrhoidal trouble, not even
the worst French failure."
In section one of the 18th Brumaire, Marx draws a clear distinction between the
bourgeois and proletarian revolution.
"Bourgeois revolutions like those of the eighteenth century storm more swiftly from
success to success, their dramatic effects outdo each other, men and things seem set in
sparkling diamonds, ecstasy is the order of the day- but they are short-lived, soon they
have reached their zenith, and a long Katzenjammer [crapulence] takes hold of society
before it learns to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period soberly. On the
other hand, proletarian revolutions like those of the nineteenth century constantly
criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the
apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the
half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down
their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before
them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of
their own goals -- until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible,
and the conditions themselves call out: Hic Rhodus, hic salta! "
Proletarian revolutions, Marx correctly points out, emerge from a position of weakness
and uncertainty. The bourgeoisie emerges over hundreds of years within the framework of
feudalism. At the time it is ready to seize power, it has already conquered major
institutions in civil society. The bourgeoisie is not an exploited class and therefore is
able to rule society long before its political revolution is effected. When it delivers
the coup de grace to the monarchy, it does so from a position of overwhelming
strength.
The workers are in a completely different position, however. They lack an independent
economic base and suffer economic and cultural exploitation. Prior to its revolution, the
working-class remains backward and therefore, unlike the bourgeoisie, is unable to
prepare itself in advance for ruling all of society. It often comes to power in coalition
with other classes, such as the peasantry.
Since it is in a position of weakness, it is often beaten back by the bourgeoise. But
the bourgeoisie itself is small in numbers. It also has its own class interests which set
it apart from the rest of society. Therefore, it must strike back against the workers by
utilizing the social power of intermediate classes such as the peasantry or the
middle-classes in general. It will also draw from strata beneath the working-class, from
the so-called "lumpen proletariat". Louis Bonaparte drew from these social layers in
order to strike back against the workers, so did Hitler.
Bonaparte appears as a dictator whose rule constrains all of society. In section seven
of the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx characterized Bonapartist rule in the following
manner:
"The French bourgeoisie balked at the domination of the working proletariat; it has
brought the lumpen proletariat to domination, with the Chief of the Society of December
10 at the head. The bourgeoisie kept France in breathless fear of the future terrors of
red anarchy- Bonaparte discounted this future for it when, on December 4, he had the
eminent bourgeois of the Boulevard Montmartre and the Boulevard des Italiens shot down at
their windows by the drunken army of law and order. The bourgeoisie apotheosized the
sword; the sword rules it. It destroyed the revolutionary press; its own press is
destroyed. It placed popular meetings under police surveillance; its salons are placed
under police supervision. It disbanded the democratic National Guard, its own National
Guard is disbanded. It imposed a state of siege; a state of siege is imposed upon it. It
supplanted the juries by military commissions; its juries are supplanted by military
commissions. It subjected public education to the sway of the priests; the priests
subject it to their own education. It jailed people without trial, it is being jailed
without trial. It suppressed every stirring in society by means of state power; every
stirring in its society is suppressed by means of state power. Out of enthusiasm for its
moneybags it rebelled against its own politicians and literary men; its politicians and
literary men are swept aside, but its moneybag is being plundered now that its mouth has
been gagged and its pen broken. The bourgeoisie never tired of crying out to the
revolution what St. Arsenius cried out to the Christians: 'Fuge, tace, quiesce!' ['Flee,
be silent, keep still!'] Bonaparte cries to the bourgeoisie: 'Fuge, tace, quiesce!'"
At first blush, Bonaparte seems to be oppressing worker and capitalist alike.
Supported by the bourgeoisie at first, he drowns the Parisian working-class in its own
blood in the early stages of the counterrevolution. He then turns his attention to the
bourgeoisie itself and "jails", "gags" and imposes a "state of siege" upon it. By all
appearances, the dictatorship of Bonaparte is a personal dictatorship and all social
classes suffer. The Hitler and Mussolini regimes gave the same appearance. This led many
to conclude that fascism is simply a totalitarian system in which every citizen is
subordinated to the industrial-military-state machinery. There is the fascism of Hitler
and there is the fascism of Stalin. A class analysis of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
would produce different political conclusions, however. Hitler's rule rested on
capitalist property relations and Stalin's on collectivized property relations.
Bonaparte's rule, while seeming to stand above all social classes, really served to
protect capitalist property relations. Bonaparte represents the executive branch of
government and liquidates the parliamentary branch. The parliament contains parties from
every social class, so a superficial view of Bonapartist rule would conclude that all
classes have been curtailed. In actuality, the bourgeoisie maintains power behind the
scenes.
In order to maintain rule, Bonapartism must give concessions to the lower-classes. It
can not manifest itself openly as an instrument of the ruling-classes. It is constantly
on the attack against both exploiter and exploited. It acts against exploited because it
is ultimately interested in the preservation of the status quo. It acts against the
exploiters, because it must maintain the appearance of "neutrality" above all
classes.
Marx describes this contradictory situtation as follows:
"Driven by the contradictory demands of his situation, and being at the same time,
like a juggler, under the necessity of keeping the public gaze on himself, as Napoleon's
successor, by springing constant surprises -- that is to say, under the necessity of
arranging a coup d'etat in miniature every day -- Bonaparte throws the whole bourgeois
economy into confusion, violates everything that seemed inviolable to the Revolution of
1848, makes some tolerant of revolution and makes others lust for it, and produces
anarchy in the name of order, while at the same time stripping the entire state machinery
of its halo, profaning it and making it at once loathsome and ridiculous. The cult of the
Holy Tunic of Trier, he duplicates in Paris in the cult of the Napoleonic imperial
mantle. But when the imperial mantle finally falls on the shoulders of Louis Bonaparte,
the bronze statue of Napoleon will come crashing down from the top of the Vendome
Column."
Bonaparte throws the bourgeois economy into a confusion, violates it, produces anarchy
in the name of order. This is exactly the way fascism in power operates. Fascism in power
is a variant of Bonapartism. It eventually stabilizes into a more normal dictatorship of
capital, but in its early stages has the same careening, out-of-control behavior.
Bonapartism does not rest on the power of an individual dictator. It is not Louis
Napoleon's or Adolph Hitler's power of oratory that explains their mastery over a whole
society. They have a social base which they manipulate to remain in power. Even though a
Bonapartist figure is ultimately loyal to the most powerful industrialists and
financiers, he relies on a mass movement of the middle-class to gain power.
Louis Bonaparte drew from the peasantry. The peasantry was in conflict with the big
bourgeoisie but was tricked into lending support to someone who appeared to act in its
own behalf. The peasantry was unable to articulate its own social and political interests
since the mode of production it relied on was an isolating one. Marx commented:
"The small-holding peasants form an enormous mass whose members live in similar
conditions but without entering into manifold relations with each other. Their mode of
production isolates them from one another instead of bringing them into mutual
intercourse. The isolation is furthered by France's poor means of communication and the
poverty of the peasants. Their field of production, the small holding, permits no
division of labor in its cultivation, no application of science, and therefore no
multifariousness of development, no diversity of talent, no wealth of social
relationships. Each individual peasant family is almost self-sufficient, directly
produces most of its consumer needs, and thus acquires its means of life more through an
exchange with nature than in intercourse with society. A small holding, the peasant and
his family; beside it another small holding, another peasant and another family. A few
score of these constitute a village, and a few score villages constitute a department.
Thus the great mass of the French nation is formed by the simple addition of homonymous
magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes. Insofar as millions of
families live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their
interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile
opposition to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local
interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests
forms no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do
not constitute a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in
their own name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot represent
themselves, they must be represented. Their representative must at the same time appear
as their master, as an authority over them, an unlimited governmental power which
protects them from the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above. The
political influence of the small-holding peasants, therefore, finds its final expression
in the executive power which subordinates society to itself. "
Intermediate layers such as the peasantry are susceptible to Bonapartist and Fascist
politicians. They resent both big capital and the working- class. They resent the banks
who own their mortgage. They also resent the teamsters and railroad workers whose strikes
disrupts their own private economic interests. They turn to politicians whose rhetoric
seems to be both anti-capitalist and anti-working class. Such politicians are often
masters of demagoguery such as Hitler and Mussolini who often employ the stock phrases of
socialism.
The peasantry backed Bonaparte. It was also an important pillar of Hitler's regime. In
the final analysis, the peasants suffered under both because the banks remained powerful
and exploitative. The populism of Bonaparte and the "socialism" of Hitler were simply
deceptive mechanisms by which the executive was able to rule on behalf of big
capital.
Bonapartism, populism and fascism overlap to a striking degree. We see elements of
fascism, populism and Bonapartism in the politics of Pat Buchanan. Buchanan rails against
African-Americans and immigrants, both documented and undocumented. He also rails against
Wall St. which is "selling out" the working man. Is he a fascist, however? Ross Perot
employs a number of the same themes. Is he?
The problem in trying to answer these questions solely on the basis of someone's
speeches or writings is that it ignores historical and class dynamics. Bonaparte and
Hitler emerged as a response to powerful proletrian revolutionary attacks on capital.
What are the objective conditions in American society today? Hitler based their power on
large-scale social movements that could put tens of thousands of people into the streets
at a moment's notice. These movements were not creatures of capitalist cabals. They had
their own logic and their own warped integrity. Many were drawn to Hitler in the deluded
hope that he would bring some kind of "all-German" socialism into existence. These
followers were not Marxists, but they certainly hated the capitalist class. Are the
people who attend Buchanan, Perot and Farrakhan rallies also in such a frenzied,
revolutionary state of mind?
At what point are we in American society today?
I would argue that rather than being in a prerevolutionary situation, that rather we
are in a period which has typified capitalism for the better part of a hundred and fifty
years.We are in a period of capitalist "normalcy". Capitalism is a system which is prone
to economic crisis and war. The unemployment and "downsizing" going on today are typical
of capitalism in its normal functioning. We have to stop thinking as if the period of
prosperity following WWII as normal. It is not. It is an anomaly in the history of
capitalism. When industrial workers found themselves in a position to buy houses, send
children through college, etc., this was only because of a number of exceptional
circumstances which will almost certainly never arise again.
We are in a period more like the late 1800's or the early 1900's. It is a period of
both expansion and retrenchment. It is a period of terrible reaction which can give birth
to the Ku Klux Klan and the skinheads and other neo-Nazis. It is also a period which can
give birth to something like Eugene V. Debs socialist party.
But if we don't recognize at which point we stand, we will never be able to build a
socialist party. We will also not be in a position to resist fascism when it makes its
appearance.
In my next report, I will take a look at the American Populist movement led by Tom
Watson at the turn of the century. It is a highly contradictory social movement. In some
respects it is fascist-like, in other respects it is highly progressive. If we understand
American Populism, we will in a much better position to understand the populism of
today.
These are the types of questions that we should be considering in the weeks to
come:
1) Why did fascism emerge when it did? Could there have been fascism in the
1890's?
2) Is fascism limited to imperialist nations? Could there be fascism in third-world
countries? Did Pinochet represent fascism in Chile?
3) What is the class base of the Nation of Islam? Can there be fascism emerging out of
oppressed nationalities? Can a Turkish or Algerian fascism develop as a response to
neo-fascism in Europe today?
4) The Italian government includes a "fascist" party that openly celebrates Mussolini.
What should we make of this?
5) What is the difference between fascism and ultrarightism? Ultrarightism is a
permanent feature of US and world politics. Was George Wallace a fascist? What would a
European equivalent be?
6) Is fascism emerging in the former Soviet Union? Does Zherinovsky represent fascism?
Is the cause of the civil war in former Yugoslavia Serbian or Croatian fascism?
7) Can there be a fascism which does not incorporate powerful anticapitalist themes
and demagoguery? Joe McCarthy was regarded as a fascist-like figure, but had no use for
radical left-wing verbiage or actions. What should we make of him?
8) If fascism emerged as a reaction to the powerful proletarian revolutionary
movements of the 1920's and 30's, what types of conditions can we see in the foreseeable
future that would provoke new fascist movements? If socialism is no longer objectively
possible because of the ability of capitalism to "deliver the goods", what would the need
for fascism be? Why would the capitalist class support a new Hitler when the
working-class is so quiescient? Should we be thinking about a new definition of
fascism?
9) Fascism has a deeply expansionist and bellicose dynamics. In the age of nuclear
weaponry, can we expect imperialism to opt for a fascist solution? Would the Rockefellers
et al allow a trigger-happy figure like "Mark from Michigan" in control of our nuclear
weapons?
10) What tools are necessary to analyze fascism? Should we be looking at the speeches
of Farrakhan or Mark from Michigan? Was this Marx's approach to Bonapartism?
2. TROTSKY ON BONAPARTISM AND FASCISM
Trotsky, like Lenin, was a revolutionary politician and not an economist or political
scientist. Every article or book the two wrote was tied to solving specific political
problems. When Lenin wrote "Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism", he was trying
to define the theoretical basis for the Zimmerwald opposition to W.W.I. Similarly, when
Trotsky wrote about German fascism, his purpose was to confront and defeat it.
Trotsky's understanding of how fascism came to power is very much grounded in the
definition of "Bonapartism" contained in Marx's "18th Brumaire", a classic study of
dictatorship in the 19th century. Marx was trying to explain how dictatorships of "men on
horseback" such as Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon's nephew, can appear to stand suspended
above all classes and to act as impartial arbitrator between opposing classes, even
though they carry out the wishes of the capitalist ruling class. The capitalist class is
small in number and periods of revolutionary crisis depend on these types of seemingly
neutral strong men.
A true Bonapartist figure is somebody who emerges out of the military or state
apparatus. In order to properly bamboozle the masses, he should have charismatic
qualities. War heroes tend to move to the front of the pack when a Bonapartist solution
is required. Charles DeGaulle is the quintessential Bonapartist figure of the modern age.
If the US labor movement and the left had been much more powerful than it had been during
the Korean war and had mounted a serious resistance to the war and to capitalist rule, it
is not hard to imagine a figure such as General Douglas MacCarthur striving to impose a
Bonapartist dictatorship. Since there was no such left-wing, it was possible for US
capitalism to rule democratically. Democracy is a less expensive and more stable
system.
Germany started out after W.W.I as a bourgeois democracy-- the Weimar Republic. The
republic was besieged by a whole number of insurmountable problems: unemployment,
hyperinflation, and resentment over territory lost to the allies.
The workers had attempted to make a socialist revolution immediately after W.W.I, but
their leadership made a number of mistakes that resulted in defeat. The defeat was not so
profound as to crush all future revolutionary possibilities. As the desperate 20's wore
on, the working- class movement did regain its confidence and went on the offensive
again. The two major parties of the working class, the CP and the SP, both grew.
In the late 1920's, Stalin had embarked on an ultraleft course in the USSR and CP's
tended to reflect this ultraleftism in their own strategy and tactics. In Germany, this
meant attacking the Socialist Party as "social fascist". The Socialist Party was not
revolutionary, but it was not fascist. A united SP and CP could have defeated fascism and
prevented WWII and the slaughter of millions. It was Stalin's inability to size up
fascism correctly that lead to this horrible outcome.
Hitler's seizure of power was preceded by a series of rightward drifting governments,
all of which paved the way for him. The SP found reasons to back each and every one of
these governments in the name of the "lesser evil". (This is an argument we have heard
from some leftists in the United States: "Clinton is not as bad as Bush"; "Johnson is not
as bad as Goldwater, etc." The problem with this strategy is that allows the ruling class
to limit the options available to the oppressed. The lesser evil is still evil.)
The last "lesser evil" candidate the German Social Democracy urged support for was
Paul Von Hindenburg, a top general in W.W.I.. The results were disastrous. Hindenburg
took office on April 10 of 1932 and basically paved the way for Adolph Hitler. Hindenburg
allowed the Nazi street thugs to rule the streets, but enforced the letter of the law
against the working-class parties. Elections may have been taking place according to the
Weimar constitution, but real politics was being shaped in the streets through the
demonstrations and riots of Nazi storm-troopers.
As these Nazi street actions grew more violent and massive, Hindenburg reacted on May
31 by making Franz Von Papen chancellor and instructed him to pick a cabinet "above the
parties", a clear Bonapartist move. Such a cabinet wouldn't placate the Nazis. All they
wanted to do was smash bourgeois democracy. As the civil war in the streets continued,
Papen dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections on July 31, 1932.
On July 17, the Nazis held a march through Altona, a working class neighborhood, under
police protection. The provocation resulted in fighting that left 19 dead and 285
wounded. The SP and CP were not able to mount a significant counteroffensive and the
right-wing forces gathered self-confidence and support from "centrist" voters. When
elections were finally held on July 31, the Nazi party received the most votes and took
power.
In his article "German Bonapartism", Trotsky tries to explain the underlying
connections between the Bonapartist Hindenburg government and the gathering Nazi
storm:
"Present-day German Bonapartism has a very complex and, so to speak, combined
character. The government of Papen would have been impossible without fascism. But
fascism is not in power. And the government of Papen is not fascism. On the other hand,
the government of Papen, at any rate in the present form, would have been impossible
without Hindenburg who, in spite of the final prostration of Germany in the war, stands
for the great victories of Germany and symbolizes the army in the memory of the popular
masses. The second election of Hindenburg had all the characteristics of a plebiscite.
Many millions of workers, petty bourgeois, and peasants (Social Democracy and Center)
voted for Hindenburg. They did not see in him any one political program. They did not see
in him any one political program. They wanted first of all to avoid civil war, and raised
Hindenburg on their shoulders as a superarbiter, as an arbitration judge of the nation.
But precisely this is the most important function of Bonapartism: raising itself over the
two struggling camps in order to preserve property and order."
The victory of Hitler represents a break with Bonapartism, since it represents the
naked rule of finance capital and heavy industry. Fascism in Germany breaks the tension
between classes by imposing a reign of terror on the working class. Once in power,
however, fascism breaks its ties with the petty-bourgeois mass movement that ensured its
victory and assumes a more traditional Bonapartist character. Hitler in office becomes
much more like the Bonapartist figures who preceded him and seeks to act as a
"superarbiter". In order to make this work, he launches an ambitious publics works
program, invests in military spending and tries to coopt the proletariat. Those in the
working-class who resist him are jailed or murdered.
In "Bonapartism and Fascism", written on July 15, 1934, a year after Hitler's rise to
power, Trotsky clarifies the relationship between the two tendencies:
"What has been said sufficiently demonstrates how important it is to distinguish the
Bonapartist form of power from the fascist form. Yet, it would be unpardonable to fall
into the opposite extreme, that is, to convert Bonapartism and fascism into two logically
incompatible categories. Just as Bonapartism begins by combining the parliamentary regime
with fascism, so triumphant fascism finds itself forced not only to enter a bloc with the
Bonapartists, but what is more, to draw closer internally to the Bonapartist system. The
prolonged domination of finance capital by means of reactionary social demagogy and
petty- bourgeois terror is impossible. Having arrived in power, the fascist chiefs are
forced to muzzle the masses who follow them by means of the state apparatus. By the same
token, they lose the support of broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie."
3. MICHAEL MANN ON FASCISM
Michael Mann believes that 20th century Marxism has made a mistake by describing
fascism as a petty-bourgeois mass movement. He does not argue that the leaders were not
bourgeois, or that the bourgeoisie behind the scenes was financing the fascists. He
develops these points at some length in an article "Source of Variation in Working-Class
Movements in Twentieth-Century Movement" which appeared in the New Left Review of
July/August 1995.
If he is correct, then there is something basically wrong with the Marxist approach,
isn't there? If the Nazis attracted the working-class, then wouldn't we have to
reevaluate the revolutionary role of the working-class? Perhaps it would be necessary to
find some other class to lead the struggle for socialism, if this struggle has any basis
in reality to begin with.
Mann relies heavily on statistical data, especially that which can be found in M.
Kater's "The Nazi Party" and D. Muhlberger "Hitler's Followers". The data, Mann reports,
shows that "Combined, the party and paramilitaries had relatively as many workers as in
the general population, almost as many worker militants as the socialists and many more
than the communists".
Pretty scary stuff, if it's true. It is true, but, as it turns out, there are workers
and there are workers. More specifically, Mann acknowledges that "Most fascist
workers...came not from the main manufacturing industries but from agriculture, the
service and public sectors and from handicrafts and small workshops." Let's consider the
political implications of the class composition of this fascist strata." He adds that,
"The proletarian macro-community was resisting fascism, but not the entire
working-class." Translating this infelicitous expression into ordinary language, Mann is
saying that as a whole the workers were opposed to fascism, but there were
exceptions.
Let's consider who these fascist workers were. Agricultural workers in Germany: were
they like the followers of Caesar Chavez, one has to wonder? Germany did not have
large-scale agribusiness in the early 1920's. Most farms produced for the internal market
and were either family farms or employed a relatively small number of workers. Generally,
workers on smaller farms tend to have a more filial relationship to the patron than they
do on massive enterprises. The politics of the patron will be followed more closely by
his workers. This is the culture of small, private agriculture. It was no secret that
many of the contra foot-soldiers in Nicaragua came from this milieu.
Turning to "service" workers, this means that many fascists were white-collar workers
in banking and insurance. This layer has been going through profound changes throughout
the twentieth century, so a closer examination is needed. In the chapter "Clerical
Workers" in Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital", he notes that clerical work
in its earlier stages was like a craft. The clerk was a highly skilled employee who kept
current the records of the financial and operating condition of the enterprise, as well
as its relations with the external world. The whole history of this job category in the
twentieth century, however, has been one of de-skilling. All sorts of machines, including
the modern-day, computer have taken over many of the decision-making responsibilities of
the clerk. Furthermore, "Taylorism" has been introduced into the office, forcing clerks
to function more like assembly-line workers than elite professionals.
We must assume, however, that the white-collar worker in Germany in the 1920's was
still relatively high up in the class hierarchy since his or her work had not been
mechanized or routinized to the extent it is today. Therefore, a clerk in an insurance
company or bank would tend to identify more with management than with workers in a
steel-mill. Even under today's changed economic conditions, this tends to be true. A bank
teller in NY probably resents a striking transit worker, despite the fact that they have
much in common in class terms. This must have been an even more pronounced tendency in
the 1920's when white-collar workers occupied an even more elite position in society.
Mann includes workers in the "public sector". This should come as no surprise at all.
Socialist revolutions were defeated throughout Europe in the early 1920's and right-wing
governments came to power everywhere. These right-wing governments kept shifting to the
right as the mass working-class movements of the early 1920's recovered and began to
reassert themselves. Government workers, who are hired to work in offices run by
right-wingers, will tend to be right-wing themselves. There was no civil-service and no
unions in this sector in the 1920's. Today, this sector is one of the major supporters of
progressive politics internationally. They, in fact, spearheaded the recent strikes in
France. In the United States, where their composition tends to be heavily Black or
Latino, also back progressive politics. But in Germany in the 1920's, it should come as
no major surprise that some public sector workers joined Hitler or Mussolini's cause.
When Trotsky or E.J. Hobsbawm refer to the working-class resistance to Hitler or
Mussolini, they have something specific in mind. They are referring to the traditional
bastions of the industrial working-class: steel, auto, transportation, mining, etc. Mann
concurs that these blue- collar workers backed the SP or CP.
There is a good reason why this was no accident. In Daniel Guerin's "Fascism and Big
Business", he makes the point that the capitalists from heavy industry were the main
backers of Hitler. The reason they backed Hitler was that they had huge investments in
fixed capital (machines, plants, etc.) that were financed through huge debt. When
capitalism collapsed after the stock-market crash, the owners of heavy industry were more
pressed than those of light industry. The costs involved in making a steel or chemical
plant profitable during a depression are much heavier. Steel has to be sold in dwindling
markets to pay for the cost of leased machinery or machinery that is financed by bank
loans When the price of steel has dropped on a world scale, it is all the more necessary
to enforce strict labor discipline..
Strikes are met by violence. When the boss calls for speed-up because of increased
competition, goons within a plant will attack workers who defend decent working
conditions. This explains blue-collar support for socialism. It has a class basis.
These are the sorts of issues that Marxists should be exploring. Michael Mann is a
"neo-Weberian" supposedly who also finds Marx useful. Max Weber tried to explain the
growth of capitalism as a consequence of the "Protestant ethic". Now Mann tries to
explain the growth of fascism as a consequence of working-class support for "national
identity". That is to say, the workers backed Hitler because Hitler backed a strong
Germany. This is anti-Marxist. Being determines consciousness, not the other way around.
When you try to blend Marx with anti-Marxists like Weber or Lyotard or A.J. Ayer, it is
very easy to get in trouble. I prefer my Marx straight, with no chaser.
4. NICOS POULANTZAS ON FASCISM
Nicos Poulantzas tried to carve out a political space for revolutionaries outside of
the framework of the CP, especially the French Communist Party. Poulantzas wrote "Fascism
and Dictatorship, The Third International and the Problem of Fascism" in 1968 when he was
in the grips of a rather severe case of Maoism.
This put him in an obviously antagonistic position vis a vis Trotsky. Trotsky was the
author of a number of books that tried to explain the victory of Hitler, Mussolini and
Franco in terms of the failure of the Comintern to provide revolutionary leadership.
Poulantzas's Maoism put him at odds with this analysis. His Maoist "revolutionary
heritage" goes back through Dmitrov to Stalin and Lenin. In this line of pedigrees,
Trotsky remains the mutt.
Poulantzas could not accept the idea that the Comintern was the gravedigger of
revolutions, since the current he identified with put this very same Comintern on a
pedestal. Yet the evidence of Comintern failure in the age of fascism is just too
egregious for him to ignore. He explains this failure not in terms of bureaucratic
misleadership, but rather in terms of "economism". This Althusserian critique targets the
Comintern not only of the 1930s when Hitler was marching toward power, but to the
Comintern of the early 1920s, before Stalin had consolidated his power. All the
Bolsheviks to one extent or another suffered from this ideological deviation: Stalin and
Trotsky had a bad case of it, so did Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev.
What form did this "economism" take? Poulantzas argues that the Third International
suffered in its infancy from "economic catastrophism", a particularly virulent form of
this ideological deviation. What happened, you see, is that the Communists relied too
heavily on Lenin's "Imperialism, the Latest Stage of Capitalism". Lenin's pamphlet
portrayed capitalism as being on its last legs, a moribund, exhausted economic system
that was hanging on the ropes like a beaten prize-fighter. All the proletariat had to do
was give the capitalist system one last sharp punch in the nose and it would fall to the
canvas.
If capitalism was in its death-agony, then fascism was the expression of the weakness
of the system in its terminal stages. Poulantzas observes:
"The blindness of both the PCI and KPD leaders in this respect is staggering. Fascism,
according to them, would only be a 'passing episode' in the revolutionary process.
Umberto Terracini wrote in Inprekorr, just after the march on Rome, that fascism was at
most a passing 'ministerial crisis'. Amadeo Bordiga, introducing the resolution on
fascism at the Fifth Congress, declared that all hat had happened in Italy was 'a change
in the governmental team of the bourgeoisie'. The presidium of the Comintern executive
committee noted, just after Hitler's accession to power: 'Hitler's Germany is heading for
ever more inevitable economic catastrophe...The momentary calm after the victory of
fascism is only a passing phenomenon. The wave of revolution will rise inescapably
Germany despite the fascist terror..."
Now Poulantzas is correct to point out this aspect of the Comintern's inability to
challenge and defeat fascism. Yes, it is "economic catastrophism" that clouded its
vision. We must ask is this all there is to the problem? If Lenin's pamphlet had not
swept the Communists off their feet, could they have gotten a better handle on the
situation?
Unfortunately, the failure of the Comintern to provide an adequate explanation of
fascism and a strategy to defeat it goes much deeper than this. The problem is that
Stalin was rapidly in the process of rooting out Marxism from the Communist Party in the
*very early* stages of the Comintern. Stalin's supporters were already intimidating and
silencing Marxists in 1924, the year of the Fifth Congress of the Comintern.
>From around that time forward, the debate in the Comintern was not between a wide
range of Marxist opinion. The debate only included the rightist followers of Bukharin and
Stalin, the cagey spokesman for the emerging bureaucracy. The Soviet secret police and
Stalin's goons were suppressing the Left Opposition. Shortly, Stalin would jail or kill
its members. So when Poulantzas refers to the "Comintern", he is referring to a rump
formation that bore faint resemblance to the Communist International of the heroic, early
days of the Russian Revolution.
When Stalin took power, the Comintern became an instrument of Soviet foreign policy
and Communist Parties tried to emulate the internal shifts of the Soviet party. The
ultraleft, third period of the German Communist Party mirrored the extreme turn taken by
Stalin against Bukharin and the right Communists in the late 1920s. Bukharin was for
appeasement of the kulaks and, by the same token, class-collaborationist alliances with
the national bourgeoisie of various countries. Stalin had embraced this policy when it
was convenient.
When Stalin broke with Bukharin, he turned sharply to the ultraleft and dumped the
rightist leadership of the Comintern. He replaced it with his lackeys who were all to
happy to march in lock-step to the lunatic left. The German CP went to the head of the
pack during this period by attacking the social democrats as being "social fascists".
Poulantzas maintains that the Kremlin did not have a master-puppet relationship to the
Communist Parties internationally. Since the evidence to the contrary is rather
mountainous, his explanations take on a labored academic cast that are in sharp
contradistinction to his usually lucid prose. It also brings out the worst of his Maoist
mumbo- jumbo:
"To sum up: the general line which was progressively dominant in the USSR and in the
Comintern can allow us to make a relatively clear [!] periodization of the Comintern, a
periodization which can also be very useful for the history of the USSR. But this is
insufficient. For example, we have seen how the Comintern's Sixth (1928) and Seventh
(1935) Congresses cannot be interpreted on the model of a pendulum (left
opportunism/right opportunism), but that there is no simple continuity between them
either. That corroborates the view that the turn in Soviet policy in relationship to the
peasantry as a whole was not a simple, internal, 'ultra-left' turn. But it will be
impossible to make a deeper analysis of this problem in relation to the Comintern until
we have exactly established what was the real process involving the Soviet bourgeoisie
[Don't forget, gang, this is 1968] during the period of the class struggle in the USSR --
which was considerably more than a simple struggle of the proletariat and poor peasants
against the kulaks."
As Marxists, we should always avoid the temptation to resort to "deterministic" types
of analysis. Poulantzas, the Althusserian, would never yield to such temptation. That is
why refuses to make a connection between the ultraleft attack on the peasantry within the
Soviet Union and the ultraleft turn internationally. I am afraid, however, that no other
analysis makes any sense. Sometimes, a cigar is simply a cigar. Stalin, the
quintessential bureaucrat seems only capable of lurching either to the extreme left or
extreme right. His errors reflect an inability to project working-class, i.e., Marxist,
solutions to political problems. By concentrating such enormous power in his hands, he
guaranteed that every shift he took, the Communist Parties internationally would
follow.
Ideology plays much too much of a role in the Poulantzas scheme of things. The
Comintern messed up because it put Lenin on a pedestal. He also says that the bourgeoisie
supported fascism because it too was in a deep ideological crisis. What does Poulantzas
have to say about the German working-class? What does he say about the parties of the
working-class? Could ideological confusion explain their weakness in face of the Nazi
threat? You bet.
Poulantzas alleges that the rise of fascism in Germany corresponds to an ideological
crisis of the revolutionary organizations, which in turn coincided with an ideological
crisis within the working class. He says:
"Marxist-Leninist ideology was profoundly shaken within the working class: not only
did it fail to conquer the broad masses, but it was also forced back where it managed to
root itself. It is clear enough what happens when revolutionary organizations fail in
their ideological role of giving leadership on a mass line: particular forms of bourgeois
and petty-bourgeois ideology invade the void left by the retreat of Marxist- Leninist
ideology.
The influence of bourgeois ideology over the working class, in this situation of
ideological crisis, took the classic form of trade unionism and reformism. It can be
recognized not only in the survival, but also in the extending influence of social
democracy over the working class, through both the party and trade unions, all through
the rise of fascism. The advancing influence of social-democratic ideology was felt even
in those sections of the working class supporting the communist party."
Comrades, this is not what Lenin said! Lenin said that socialist consciousness has to
be brought into the working-class from the outside, from intellectuals who have mastered
Marxism. Not is it only what Lenin said, it is happily what makes sense. Workers *never*
rise above simple trade union consciousness.
When Poulantzas says that bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology "invades" the
working-class, he is mixing things up hopelessly. This type of ideology has no need to
invade, it is *always* there. It is socialist ideas that are the anomaly, the
exception.
Workers have no privileged status in class society. The ruling ideas of any society
are the ideas of the ruling class. When Jon the railroad worker reports to this l*st
about the numbers of his co-workers who are for Perot, he is conveying the same truth
that is found in What is to be Done. The ideas that he supports are being "imported" into
the rail yards. That's the way it goes.
This also explains the murderous fanaticism of the Shining Path. When they witness the
"bourgeois" ideas of ordinary Peruvian workers, it is very tempting for them to put a
bullet in the brain of any of them who stand in their way. If Maoism posits ideology as
the enemy, no wonder they conceive of the class struggle as a struggle against impure
thoughts. The answer to impure thoughts, of course, is patient explanation. This is the
method of Marxism, the political philosophy of the working-class. Marxists try to resolve
contradictions by reaching a higher level of understanding. Sometimes, it can be
frustrating to put up with and work through these contradictions, but the alternative
only leads down the blind alley to sectarianism and fanaticism.
5. DELEUZE/GUATTARI ON FASCISM
In the translator's foreword to "A Thousand Plateaus", Brian Massumi tells us that the
philosopher Gilles Deleuze was prompted by the French worker-student revolt of 1968 to
question the role of the intellectual in society. Felix Guattari, his writing partner,
was a psychoanalyst who identified with R.D. Laing's antipsychiatry movement of the
1960's. Laing created group homes where schizophrenics were treated identically to the
sane, sort of like the Marxism list. Guattari also embraced the protests of 1968 and
discovered an intellectual kinship with Deleuze. Their first collaboration was the 1972
"Anti-Oedipus". Massumi interprets this work as a polemic against "State-happy or
pro-party versions of Marxism". "A Thousand Plateaus", written in 1987, is basically part
two of the earlier work. Deleuze and Guattari state that the two books make up a grand
opus they call "Capitalism and Schizophrenia".
I read the chapter "1933" in "A Thousand Plateaus" with as much concentration as I can
muster. Stylistically, it has a lot in common with philosophers inspired by Nietzsche. I
am reminded of some of the reading I did in Wyndham Lewis and Oswald Spengler in a
previous lifetime. These sorts of authors pride themselves in being able to weave
together strands from many different disciplines and hate being categorized. Within a few
pages you will see references to Kafka, American movies, Andre Gorz's theory of work and
Clausewitz's military writings.
Their approach to fascism is totally at odds with the approach we have been developing
in our cyberseminar. Thinkers such as Marx and Trotsky focus on the class dynamics of
bourgeois society. Bonapartism is rooted in the attempt of the French bourgeoisie in 1848
to stave off proletarian revolution. Trotsky explains fascism as a totalitarian last-
ditch measure to preserve private property when bourgeois democracy or the Bonapartist
state are failing.
Deleuze and Guattari see fascism as a permanent feature of social life. Class is not
so important to them. They are concerned with what they call "microfascism", the fascism
that lurks in heart of each and every one of us. When they talk about societies that were
swept by fascism, such as Germany, they totally ignore the objective social and economic
framework: depression, hyperinflation, loss of territory, etc.
This is wrong. Fascism is a product of objective historical factors, not shortcomings
in the human psyche or imperfections in the way society is structured. The way to prevent
fascism is not to have unfascist attitudes or live in unfascist communities, like the
hippies did in the 1960's. It is to confront the capitalist class during periods of
mounting crisis and win a socialist victory.
In a key description of the problem, they say, "The concept of the totalitarian State
applies only at the macropolitical level, to a rigid segmentarity and a particular mode
of totalization and centralization. But fascism is inseparable from a proliferation of
molecular focuses in interaction, which skip from point to point, before beginning to
resonate together in the National Socialist State. Rural fascism and city or neighborhood
fascism, youth fascism and war veteran's fascism, fascism of the Left and fascism of the
Right, fascism of the couple, family, school, and office: every fascism is defined by a
micro-black hole that stands on its own and communicates with the others, before
resonating in a great, generalized central black hole."
This is a totally superficial understanding of how fascism came about. What is Left
fascism? It is true that the Communist Party employed thuggish behavior on occasion
during the ultraleft "Third Period". They broke up meetings of small Trotskyist groups
while the Nazis were breaking up the meetings of trade unions or Communists. Does this
behavior equal left Fascism? Fascism is a class term. It describes a mass movement of the
petty-bourgeoisie that seeks to destroy all vestiges of the working-class movement. This
at least is the Marxist definition.
Fascism is not intolerance, bad attitudes, meanness or insensitivity. It is a violent,
procapitalist mass movement of the middle-class that employs socialist
phrase-mongering.
I want to conclude with a few words about Felix Guattari and Toni Negri's "Communists
like Us". Unlike Deleuze/Guattari's collaborations, this is a perfectly straightforward
political manifesto that puts forward a basic challenge to Marxism. It is deeply inspired
by a reading of the 1968 struggle in France as a mass movement for personal liberation.
Students and other peripheral sectors move into the foreground while workers become
secondary. It is as dated as Herbert Marcuse's "One Dimensional Man".
The pamphlet was written in 1985 but has the redolence of tie-dyed paisley, patchouli
oil and granny glasses. Get a whiff of this:
"Since the 1960's, new collective subjectivities have been affirmed in the dramas of
social transformation. We have noted what they owe to modifications in the organization
of work and to developments in socialization; we have tried to establish that the
antagonisms which they contain are no longer recuperable within the traditional horizon
of the political. But it remains to be demonstrated that the innovations of the '60s
should above all be understood within the universe of consciousnesses, of desires, and of
modes of behaviour."
I have some trouble understanding why Deleuze and Guattari are such big favorites with
some of my younger friends. My friend Catherine who works in the Dean of Studies office
at Barnard was wild about Derrida when I first met her four years ago. She started
showing more of an interest in Marxism after Derrida did. But she is not reading the 18th
Brumaire. She is reading Bataille, Deleuze/Guattari and Simone Weil. My guess is that a
lot of people from her milieu feel a certain nostalgia for the counterculture of the
1960's and in a funny sort of way, Deleuza/Guattari take that nostalgia and cater to it
but in an ultrasophisticated manner. They wouldn't bother with Paul Goodman and Charles
Reich, this crowd. But French and Italian theorists who write in a highly allusive and
self-referential manner: Like wow, man!
6. TOM WATSON
Tom Watson was born in Thompson, Georgia on September 5, 1856. His father owned 45
slaves and 1,372 acres of land on which he grew cotton. These assets put the Watson
family in the top third of the Georgian land-owning class, but not at the very top of the
slaveocracy.
The slave-owning class hated the Northern industrial class which had won the civil
war. The northerners brought an end to the old agrarian ways at the point of the bayonet
during reconstruction. The Yankee industrial capitalist sought free land and free labor.
This would allow him to commercially exploit the south and break up the older semi-
feudal relations.
Young Tom Watson hated what was happening to the south and joined the Democratic Party
soon after graduating college and starting a law profession. The Democrats in the south
formed the political resistance to the northern based Republicans. The "white man's
party" and the Democratic Party were terms used interchangeably.
Some of the southern capitalists aligned with the Democratic Party realized that the
future belonged to the northern capitalist class and joined forces with them. They became
avid partners in the commercial development of agriculture and the expansion of the
railroads throughout the south. Most of these southerners were connected with a newly
emerging finance capital, especially in the more forward- looking cities like Atlanta,
Georgia. Atlanta has always seen itself as representative of a "new south". It was to be
the first to end Jim Crow and it was the first to develop an intensive financial and
services-based infrastructure after WWII.
The intensive commercialization of the south impoverished many of the small and
mid-sized farmers who found themselves caught between the hammer and anvil of railroad,
retail store and bank. The banks charged exorbitant mortgages for land while the
railroads exacted steep fees for transporting grain and cotton. It often cost a farmer a
bushel of wheat just to bring a bushel of wheat to market. The retail stores charged high
prices for manufactured goods and were often owned behind the scenes by bank or
railroad.
Tom Watson identified with the exploited farmers who had begun to organize themselves
into a group called the Farmer's Alliance, which started in Texas but soon spread
throughout the south in the 1880's. The Alliance was determined to defend the interests
of small farmers against the juggernaut of bank, railroad and retail entrepreneur. The
Alliance evolved into the People's Party, the original version of the populists, a term
that is much overused today.
In this emerging class conflict, what side would a Marxist support? After all, didn't
Marx support the Yankees in the Civil War? Didn't the north represent industrialization,
progress and modernization? Wasn't the Alliance simply a continuation of the old
agricultural system?
When Tom Watson joined the Alliance cause, his words would not give a modernizer much
encouragement. He said, "Let there come once more to Southern heart and Southern brain
the Resolve--waste places built up. In the rude shock of civil war that dream perished.
Like victims of some horrid nightmare, we have moved ever since--
powerless--oppressed--shackled--".
The Alliance, like the Democratic Party in the south, was for white people only. The
leader of the Alliance in Texas, Charles Macune, was an outspoken racist.
A preliminary Marxist judgment on the Populists would be negative, wouldn't it, since
their nostalgia for the old south is reactionary. Their roots in the Democratic Party,
the "white man's party" would also make them suspect. Finally, why would Marxists support
the antiquated agrarian life-style of small farmers against the northern capitalist class
and their "new south" allies?
This snap judgment would fail to take into account the brutal transformations that
were turning class relations upside down in the south. As farmers became pauperized by
the commercial interests, many became share-croppers who had everything in common with
the impoverished Okies depicted by John Steinbeck in the "Grapes of Wrath". Others became
wage laborers on plantations, while others entered the industrial proletariat itself in
the towns and cities of the "new south". The class interests of these current and former
petty- bourgeois layers were arrayed against the big bourgeoisie of the south and
north.
This impoverished white farmers found itself joined in dire economic circumstances
with black farmers who had recently been freed from slavery, but who remained
share-croppers for the most part. Those with a pessimistic view of human nature might
assume that white and black farmer remained divided and weak. After all, doesn't racial
solidarity supersede class interest again and again in American history?
The Populists defied expectations, however. They united black and white farmers and
fought valiantly against Wall St. and their southern partners throughout the 1890's and
nearly succeeded in becoming a permanent third party.
At their founding convention, the delegates to the People's Party adopted a program
which included the following demands:
"The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation; we meet in the midst
of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption
dominates the ballot-box, the legislature, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of
the bench. The people are demoralized...
We have witnessed for more than a quarter of a century the struggles of the two great
political parties for power and plunder, while grievous wrongs have been inflicted upon
the suffering people...
The land, including all the natural sources of wealth, is the heritage of the people,
and should not be monopolized for speculative purposes, and alien ownership of land
should be prohibited.
All land now held by railroads and other corporations in excess of their actual needs,
and all lands owned by aliens [i.e., absentee landlords] should be reclaimed by the
government and held for actual settlers only."
This program galvanized millions of farmers into action. They joined the People's
Party and elected local, state and federal politicians including Tom Watson himself who
went to Congress and spoke forcefully for the interests of small farmers.
Watson also was one of the Populist leaders who saw most clearly the need for
black-white unity. Watson framed his appeal this way:
"Now the People's Party says to these two men, 'You are kept apart that you may be
separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that
hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both.
You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a
monetary system which beggars both.'"
Watson spoke out forcefully against lynching, nominated a black man to his state
executive committee and often spoke from the same platform with black populists to mixed
audiences.
The Populists were a real threat to the capitalist system. While they did not advocate
socialist solutions, they objectively defended the interests of both poor farmer and
working-class. In many states in the west and north, populist farmers began to form ties
with the newly emerging Knights of Labor. Both populist farmer and northern worker saw
Wall St. as the enemy.
How and why did the populists disappear?
Watson became the Vice Presidential running-mate of the Democratic nominee William
Jennings Bryan in 1896. Bryan had the reputation of being some kind of populist radical,
but nothing could be further from the truth. He was the first in a long line of
Democratic Party "progressives" who fooled the mass movement into thinking that the party
could accommodate their needs.
Bryan did support the adoption of the silver standard (this was favored by farmers who
sought more plentiful currency in expectation that this would bring down prices), but was
cool to the rest of the populist demands. He had no use especially for any anti-corporate
measures.
The populists were fooled into supporting Bryan, but the Democrats knew who their
class-enemy was. Throughout the south, armed thugs destroyed populist party headquarters
and terrorized party members. The combination of Bryan's co-optation and violence at the
street level took the momentum out of this movement.
In a few short years, other factors served to dampen farmer radicalism. There was a
European crop failure and American farmers were able to sell their goods at a higher
price. Also, the United States started to develop as an imperial power through its
conquest of the Philippines, Cuba, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The material and psychological
benefits of these new colonies tended to mute class-consciousness among worker and farmer
alike.
The populists dissolved slowly as the twentieth century approached. Some activists
became members of the Progressive Party, while others joined Deb's Socialist Party. The
working-class began to emerge as more of a self-aware, insurgent force in its own right,
especially in its drive to form unions.
What lessons can be drawn about the People's Party? At the very least, it should teach
us that politics can often be unpredictable. Who would imagine that the son of a
slave-owner would end up as a defender of black rights nearly a century before the civil
rights movement?
As we move forward in our study of fascism, and especially as we come close to the
period when Black Nationalism and the militias show up, let us take care to look at a
movement's class dynamics rather than the words of one or another leader. Marxism is
suited to analysis of social forces in formation and development. It is ideally suited to
understanding the types of rapid changes that are beginning to appear on the American
political landscape.
7. PAT BUCHANAN AND AMERICAN FASCISM
The United States in the 1930s became a battleground between industrial workers and
the capitalist class over whether workers would be able to form industrial unions. There
had been craft unions for decades, but only industrial unions could fight for all of the
workers in a given plant or industry. This fight had powerful revolutionary implications
since the captains of heavy industry required a poorly paid, docile work-force in order
to maximize profits in the shattered capitalist economy. There were demonstrations,
sit-down strikes and even gun-fights led by the Communist Party and other left groups to
establish this basic democratic right.
Within this political context, fascist groups began to emerge. They drew their
inspiration from Mussolini's fascists or Hitler's brown- shirts. In a time of severe
social crisis, groups of petty-bourgeois and lumpen elements begin to coalesce around
demagogic leaders. They employ "radical" sounding rhetoric but in practice seek out
working- class organizations to intimidate and destroy. One such fascist group was the
Silver Shirts of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In chapter eleven of "Teamster Politics", SWP leader Farrell Dobbs recounts "How the
Silver Shirts Lost Their Shrine in Minneapolis". It is the story of how Local 544 of the
Teamsters union, led by Trotskyists, defended itself successfully from a fascist
expedition into the city. Elements of the Twin Cities ruling-class, alarmed over the
growth of industrial unionism in the city, called in Silver Shirt organizer Roy Zachary.
Zachary hosted two closed door meetings on July 29 and August 2 of 1938. Teamster "moles"
discovered that Zachary intended to launch a vigilante attack against Local 544
headquarters. They also discovered that Zachary planned to work with one F.L. Taylor to
set up an "Associated Council of Independent Unions", a union-busting operation. Taylor
had ties to a vigilante outfit called the "Minnesota Minute Men".
Local 544 took serious measures to defend itself. It formed a union defense guard in
August 1938 open to any active union member. Many of the people who joined had military
experience, including Ray Rainbolt the elected commander of the guard. Rank-and-filers
were former sharpshooters, machine gunners and tank operators in the US Army. The guard
also included one former German officer with WWI experience. While the guard itself did
not purchase arms except for target practice, nearly every member had hunting rifles at
home that they could use in the circumstance of a Silver Shirt attack.
Events reached a climax when Pelley came to speak at a rally in the wealthy section of
Minneapolis.
Ray Rainbolt organized a large contingent of defense guard members to pay a visit to
Calhoun Hall where Pelley was to make his appearance. The powerful sight of disciplined
but determined unionists persuaded the audience to go home and Pelley to cancel his
speech.
This was the type of conflict taking place in 1938. A capitalist class bent on taming
workers; fascist groups with a documented violent, anti-labor record; industrial workers
in motion: these were the primary actors in that period. It was characteristic of the
type of class conflict that characterized the entire 1930s. It is useful to keep this in
mind when we speak about McCarthyism.
WWII abolished a number of major contradictions in global capital while introducing
others. The United States emerged as the world's leading capitalist power and took
control economically and politically of many of the former colonies of the exhausted
European powers. Inter-imperialist rivalries and contradictions seemed to be a thing of
the past. England was the U.S.'s junior partner. The defeated Axis powers, Germany and
Japan, were under Washington's thumb. France retained some independence. (To this day
France continues to act as if it were an equal partner of the US, detonating nuclear
weapons in the Pacific or talking back to NATO over policies in Bosnia.)
Meanwhile the USSR survived the war bloodied but unbowed. In a series of negotiations
with the US and its allies, Stalin won the right to create "buffer" states to his West. A
whole number of socialist countries then came into being. China and Yugoslavia had
deep-going proletarian revolutions that, joined with the buffer states, would soon
account for more than 1/4 of the world's population.
World imperialism took an aggressive stance toward the socialist bloc before the smoke
had cleared from the WWII battlegrounds. Churchill made his "cold war" speech and
contradictions between the socialist states and world capitalism grew very sharp.
Imperialism began using the same type of rhetoric and propaganda against the USSR that it
had used against the Nazis. Newreels of the early fifties would depict a spreading red
blot across the European continent. This time the symbol superimposed on the blot was a
hammer-and-sickle instead of a swastika. The idea was the same: to line up the American
people against the enemy overseas that was trying to gobble up the "free world".
A witch-hunt in the United States, sometimes called McCarthyism, emerged in the United
States from nearly the very moment the cold war started. The witch-hunt would serve to
eradicate domestic opposition to the anti-Communist crusade overseas. The witch-hunters
wanted to root up and eradicate all sympathy to the USSR. President Harry Truman, a
Democrat and New Dealer, started the anticommunist crusade. He introduced the first
witch-hunt legislation, a bill that prevented federal employees from belonging to
"subversive" organizations. When Republican Dwight Eisenhower took office, he simply kept
the witch-hunt going. The McCarthy movement per se emerges out of a reactionary climate
created by successive White House administrations, Democrat and Republican alike.
I will argue that a similar dynamic has existed in US politics over the past twenty
years. Instead of having a "cold war" against the socialist countries, we have had a
"cold war" on the working-class and its allies. James Carter, a Democrat, set into motion
the attack on working people and minorities, while successive Republican and Democratic
administrations have continued to stoke the fire. Reaganism is Carterism raised to a
higher level. All Buchanan represents is the emergence of a particularly reactionary
tendency within this overall tendency toward the right.
Attacks on the working-class and minorities have nothing to do with "bad faith" on the
part of people like William Clinton. We are dealing with a global restructuring of
capital that will be as deep-going in its impact on class relations internationally as
the cold war was in its time. The cold war facilitated the removal of the Soviet Union as
a rival. Analogously, the class war on working people in the advanced capitalist
countries that began in the Carter years facilitates capital's next new expansion.
Capitalism is a dynamic system. This dynamism includes not only war and "downsizing", it
also includes fabulous growth in places like the East Coast of China. To not see this is
to not understand capitalism.
"The United States, the most powerful capitalist country in history, is a component
part of the world capitalist system and is subject to the same general laws. It suffers
from the same incurable diseases and is destined to share the same fate. The overwhelming
preponderance of American imperialism does not exempt it from the decay of world
capitalism, but, on the contrary, acts to involve it even more deeply, inextricably and
hopelessly. US capitalism can no more escape from the revolutionary consequences of world
capitalist decay than the older European capitalist powers. The blind alley in which
world capitalism has arrived, and the US with it, excludes a new organic era of
capitalist stabilization. The dominant world position of American imperialism now
accentuates and aggravates the death agony of capitalism as a whole."
This appears in an article in the April 5, 1954 Militant titled "First Principles in
the Struggle Against Fascism". It is of course based on a totally inaccurate
misunderstanding of the state of global capital. Capitalism was not in a "blind alley" in
1954. The truth is that from approximately 1946 on capitalism went through the most
sustained expansion in its entire history. To have spoken about the "death agony" of
capitalism in 1954 was utter nonsense. This "catastrophism" could only serve to misorient
the left since it did not put McCarthyism in proper context.
One of the great contributions made by Nicos Poulantzas in his "Fascism and the Third
International" was his diagnosis of the problem of "catastrophism". According to
Poulantzas, the belief that capitalism has reached a "blind alley" first appeared in the
Comintern of the early 1920's. He blames this on a dogmatic approach to Lenin's
"Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism" that existed in a communist movement that
was all too eager to deify the dead revolutionist.
Lenin's theory of imperialism owed much to Hilferding and Bukharin who believed that
capitalism was moribund and incapable of generating new technical and industrial growth.
Moreover, this capitalist system was in a perpetual crisis and wars were inevitable. The
Comintern latched onto this interpretation and adapted it to the phenomenon of fascism.
Fascism, in addition to war, was also a permanent feature of the decaying capitalist
system. A system that had reached such an impasse was a system that was in a permanent
catastrophic mode. The Comintern said that it was five minutes to midnight.
The SWP's version of catastrophism did not allow it to see McCarthy's true mission.
This mission was not to destroy the unions and turn the United States into a totalitarian
state. It was rather a mission to eliminate radical dissent against the stepped-up attack
on the USSR, its allies and revolutionary movements in the third world. The witch- hunt
targeted radicals in the unions, the schools, the State Department, the media and
elsewhere. After the witch-hunt had eradicated all traces of radical opinion, the US
military could fight its imperialist wars without interference from the left. This is
exactly what took place during the Korean War. There were no visible signs of dissent
except in the socialist press and in some liberal publications like I.F. Stone's
Newsletter. This clamp-down on dissent lasted until the Vietnam war when a newly
developing radicalization turned the witch-hunt back for good.
In the view of the SWP, nothing basically had changed since the 1930's. The target of
McCarthyite "fascism" was the working-class and its unions. The Militant stated on
January 18, 1954:
"If the workers' organizations don't have the answer, the fascists will utilize the
rising discontent of the middle class, its disgust with the blundering labor leadership,
and its frenzy at being ruined economically, to build a mass fascist movement with armed
detachments and hurl them at the unions. While spouting a lot of radical-sounding
demagogy they will deflect the anti-capitalist wrath of the middle class and deploy it
against labor, and establish the iron- heel dictatorship of Big Capital on the smoking
ruins of union halls."
One wonders if the party leadership in 1954 actually knew any middle- class people,
since party life consisted of a "faux proletarian" subculture with tenuous ties to
American society. Certainly they could have found out about the middle-class on the newly
emerging TV situation comedies like "Father Knows Best" or "Leave it to Beaver". Rather
than expressing "rising discontent" or "frenzy", the middle- class was taking advantage
of dramatic increases in personal wealth. Rather than plotting attacks on union halls
like the Silver Shirts did in 1938, they were moving to suburbia, buying televisions and
station wagons, and taking vacations in Miami Beach or Europe. This was not only
objectively possible for the average middle-class family, it was also becoming possible
for the worker in basic industry. For the very same reason the working-class was not
gravitating toward socialism, the middle-class was not gravitating toward fascism. This
reason, of course, is that prosperity had become general.
The other day Ryan Daum posted news of the death of Pablo, a leader of the Trotskyist
movement in the 1950s. European Trotskyism is generally much less dogmatic than its
American and English cousins. While the party leadership in the United States hated Pablo
with a passion, rank and filers often found themselves being persuaded by some ideas put
forward by the Europeans.
One of these differences revolved around how to assess McCarthy. The party leadership
viewed McCarthy as a fascist while a minority grouping led by Dennis Vern and Samuel Ryan
based in Los Angeles challenged this view. Unfortunately I was not able to locate
articles in which the minority defends its view. What I will try to do is reconstruct
this view through remarks directed against them by Joseph Hansen, a party leader. This is
a risky method, but the only one available to me.
Vern and Ryan criticize the Militant's narrow focus on the McCarthyite threat. They
say, "The net effect of this campaign is not to hurt McCarthy, or the bourgeois state,
but to excuse the bourgeois state for the indisputable evidences of its bourgeois
character, and thus hinder the proletariat in its understanding that the bourgeois-
democratic state is an 'executive committee' of the capitalist class, and that only a
workers state can offer an appropriate objective for the class struggle."
I tend to discount statements like "only a workers state" since they function more as
a mantra than anything else ("only socialism can end racism"; "only socialism can end
sexism"-- you get the picture.) However, there is something interesting being said here.
By singling out McCarthy, didn't the SWP "personalize" the problems the left was facing?
A Democratic president initiated the witch-hunt, not a fascist minded politician. Both
capitalist parties created the reactionary movement out of which McCarthy emerges. By the
same token, doesn't the narrow focus on Buchanan today tend to lift some of the pressure
on William Clinton. After all, if our problem is Buchanan, then perhaps it makes sense to
throw all of our weight behind Clinton.
Vern and Ryan also offer the interesting observation that McCarthy has been less
anti-union than many bourgeois politicians to his left. The liberal politicians railed
against McCarthy's assault on civil liberties, but meanwhile endorsed all sorts of
measures that would have weakened the power of the American trade union movement.
This was an interesting perception that has some implications I will attempt to
elucidate. McCarthy did not target the labor movement as such because the post WWII
social contract between labor and big business was essentially class-collaborationist.
The union movement would keep its mouth shut about foreign interventions in exchange for
higher wages, job security, etc. Social peace at home accompanied and eased the way of US
capitalist expansionism overseas. The only obstacle to this social contract was the
ideological left, those members of the union movement, the media, etc. They were all
possible supporters of the Vietminh and other liberation movements. McCarthy wanted to
purge the union movement of these elements, but not destroy the union movement itself.
Turning our clock forward to 1996, does anybody think that Buchanan intends to break the
power of the US working-class? Does big business need Buchanan when the Arkansas
labor-hater is doing such a great job?
The SWP has had a tremendous attraction toward "catastrophism". Turning the clock
forward from 1954 to 1988, we discover resident genius Jack Barnes telling a gathering of
the faithful that capitalism finally is in the eleventh hour. In a speech on "What the
1987 Stock Market Crash Foretold", he says:
"Neither past sources of rapid capital accumulation nor other options can enable the
imperialist ruling classes to restore the long-term accelerating accumulation of world
capitalism and avert an international depression and general social crisis....
"The period in the history of capitalist development that we are living through today
is heading toward intensified class battles on a national and international scale,
including wars and revolutionary situations. In order to squeeze out more wealth from the
labor of exploited producers....
"Before the exploiters can unleash a victorious reign of reaction [i.e., fascism],
however, the workers will have the first chance. The mightiest class battles of human
history will provide the workers and exploited farmers in the United States and many
other countries the opportunity to place revolutionary situations on the order of the
day."
Someone should have thrown a glass of cold water in the face of this guru before he
made this speech. He predicted depression, but the financial markets ignored him. The
stock market recovered from the 1987 crash and has now shot up to over 5000 points. His
statement that nothing could have averted an international depression shows that he much
better qualified at plotting purges than plotting out the development of capital
accumulation.
His statement that the "period in the history of capitalist development that we are
living through" is heading toward wars and revolution takes the word "period" and strips
it of all meaning. Nine years have passed and there is neither depression nor general
social crisis. Is a decade sufficient to define a period? I think all of us can benefit
from Jack Barnes' catastrophism if we simply redefine what a period is. Let us define it
as a hundred years, then predictions of our Nostradamus might begin to make sense.
Unfortunately, the art of politics consists of knowing what to do next and predictions of
such a sweeping nature are worthless.
Sally Ryan posted an article from the Militant newspaper the other day. It states that
Buchanan is a fascist:
"Buchanan is not primarily out to win votes, nor was he four years ago. He has set out
to build a cadre of those committed to his program and willing to act in the streets to
carry it out. He dubs his supporters the 'Buchanan Brigades'....
"Commenting on the tone of a recent speech Buchanan gave to the New Hampshire
legislature, Republican state representative Julie Brown, said, 'It's just mean - like a
little Mussolini.'....
"While he is not about to get the Republican nomination, Buchanan is serious in his
campaign. The week before his Louisiana win, he came in first in a straw poll of Alaska
Republicans and placed third in polls in New Hampshire, where the first primary election
will be held. He is building a base regardless of how the vote totals continue to fall.
And he poses the only real alternative that can be put forward within the capitalist
system to the like-sounding Clinton and Dole - a fascist alternative."
These quotations tend to speak for a rather wide-spread analysis of Buchanan that a
majority of the left supports, including my comrades on this list.
I want to offer a counter-analysis:
1) We are in a period of quiescence, not class confrontation.
Comrades, this is the good news and the bad news. It is good news because there is no
threat of a fascist movement coming to power. It is bad news because it reflects how
depoliticized the US working-class remains.
There is no fascist movement in the United States of any size or significance. It is
time to stop talking about the militias of Montana. Let us speak instead of New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, etc. Has there been any growth of fascism? Of course
not. In New York, my home town, there is no equivalent of the German- American bund, the
fascists of the 1930s who had a base on New York's upper east side, my neighborhood.
There are no attacks on socialist or trade union meetings. There are not even attacks
on movements of allies of the working-class. The women's movement, the black movement,
the Central American movement organize peacefully and without interference for the simple
reason that there are no violent gangs to subdue them.
The reason there are no violent gangs of fascists is the same as it was in the 1950s.
We are not in a period of general social crisis. There are no frenzied elements of the
petty-bourgeoisie or the lumpen proletariat being drawn into motion by demagogic and
charismatic leaders like Mussolini or Hitler. There are no Silver Shirts that the labor
or socialist movement needs protection from.
There is another key difference from the 1930s that we must consider. Capital and
labor battled over the rights of labor within the prevailing factory system. Capitalism
has transformed that factory system. Workers who remain in basic industry are not
fighting for union representation. They simply want to keep their jobs. Those who remain
employed will not tend to enter into confrontations with capital as long as wages and
benefits retain a modicum of acceptability. That is the main reason industrial workers
tend to be quiescent and will remain so for some time to come.
In the 1930s, workers occupied huge factories and battled the bosses over the right to
a union. The bosses wanted to keep these factories open and strikes tended to take on a
militant character in these showdowns. Strike actions tended to draw the working-class
together and make it easier for socialists to get a hearing. This was because strikes
were much more like mass actions and gave workers a sense of their power. The logical
next step, according to the socialists, was trade union activity on a political level
and, ultimately, rule by the workers themselves.
The brunt of the attack today has been downsizing and runaway capital. This means that
working people have a fear of being unemployed more than anything else. This fear grips
the nation. When a worker loses a job today, he or she tends to look for personal
solutions: a move to another city, signing up for computer programming classes, etc.
Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" vividly illustrated this type of personal approach Every
unemployed auto worker in this film was trying to figure out a way to solve their
problems on their own.
In the face of the atomization of the US working class, it is no surprise that many
workers seem to vote for Buchanan. He offers them a variant on the personal solution. A
worker may say to himself or herself, "Ah, this Buchanan's a racist bigot, but he's the
only one who seems to care about what's happening to me. I'll take a gamble and give him
my vote." Voting is not politics. It is the opposite of politics. It is the capitalist
system's mechanism for preventing political action.
2) Buchanan is a bourgeois politician.
Pat Buchanan represents the thinking of an element of the US ruling class, and views
the problems of the United States from within that perspective. Buchanan's nationalism
relates very closely to the nationalism of Ross Perot, another ruling class
politician.
A consensus exists among the ruling class that US capital must take a global route.
The capitalist state must eliminate trade barriers and capital must flow to where there
is greatest possibility for profit. Buchanan articulates the resentments of a section of
the bourgeoisie that wants to resist this consensus. It would be an interesting project
to discover where Buchanan gets his money. This would be a more useful of one's time than
comparing his speeches to Father Coughlin or Benito Mussolini's.
There are no parties in the United States in the European sense. In Europe, where
there is a parliamentary system, people speak for clearly defined programs and are
responsible to clearly defined constituencies. In the United States, politics revolves
around "winner take all" campaigns. This tends to put a spotlight on presidential
elections and magnify the statements of candidates all out of proportion.
Today we have minute textual analysis of what Buchanan is saying. His words take on a
heightened, almost ultra-real quality. Since he is in a horse race, the press tends to
worry over each and every inflammatory statement he makes. This tends to give his
campaign a more threatening quality than is supported by the current state of class
relations in the United States.
3) The way to fight Buchanan is by developing a class alternative.
The left needs a candidate who is as effective as Buchanan in drawing class lines.
The left has not been able to present an alternative to Buchanan. It has been making
the same kinds of mistakes that hampered the German left in the 1920s: ultraleft
sectarianism and opportunism. Our "Marxist-Leninist" groups, all 119 of them, offer
themselves individually as the answer to Pat Buchanan. Meanwhile, social democrats and
left-liberals at the Nation magazine and elsewhere are preparing all the reasons one can
think of to vote for the "lesser evil".
What the left needs to do is coalesce around a class-based, militant program. The left
has not yet written this program, despite many assurances to the contrary we can hear on
this list every day. It will have to be in the language of the American people, not in
Marxist- Leninist jargon. Some people know how speak effectively to working people. I
include Michael Moore the film-maker. I also include people like our own Doug Henwood,
and Alex Cockburn and his co-editor Ken Silverstein who put out a newsletter called
"Counterpunch".
Most of all, the model we need is like Eugene V. Debs and the Socialist Party of the
turn of the century, minus the right-wing. Study the speeches of Debs and you get an idea
of the kind of language we need to speak. Our mission today remains the same as it was in
turn of the century Russia: to build a socialist party where none exists.
This shouldn't have been too much of a surprise, as neoliberal policies had already wreaked
havoc around the world. Looking back at the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the economist Joseph
Stiglitz
comments that "excessively rapid financial and capital market liberalization was probably
the single most important cause of the crisis"; he also notes that after the crisis, the
International Monetary Fund's policies "exacerbated the downturns."
Neoliberals pushed swift privatization in Russia after the Cold War, alongside a restrictive
monetary policy. The result was a growing barter economy, low exports, and asset-stripping, as
burgeoning oligarchs bought up state enterprises and then moved their money out of the
country.
... ... ...
Rising economic inequality and the creation of monopolistic megacorporations also threaten
democracy. In study after study, political scientists have shown that the U.S. government is
highly responsive to the policy preferences of the wealthiest people, corporations, and trade
associations -- and that it is largely unresponsive to the views of ordinary people. The
wealthiest people, corporations, and their interest groups participate more in politics, spend
more on politics, and lobby governments more. Leading political scientists have declared that
the U.S. is no longer best characterized as a democracy or a republic but as an oligarchy -- a
government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.
The neoliberal embrace of individualism and opposition to "the collective society," as
Margaret Thatcher put it, also had perverse consequences for social and political life. Humans
are social animals. But neoliberalism rejects both the medieval approach of having fixed social
classes based on wealth and power and the modern approach of having a single, shared civic
identity based on participation in a democratic community. The problem is that amid
neoliberalism's individualistic rat race, people still need to find meaning somewhere in their
lives. And so there has been a retreat to tribalism and identity groups, with civic
associations replaced by religious, ethnic, or other cultural affiliations.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been
important to politics. But neoliberalism's radical individualism has increasingly raised two
interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into identity groups
can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity.
Self-government requires uniting through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared
future. When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the
political community gets fragmented. It becomes harder for people to see each other as part of
that same shared future. Demagogues rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and
religious antagonism, which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's
war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and marketization of everything, thus
indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for a
free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield
to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class
politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which
individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means
is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus
claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in
politics and the economy. Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it
gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization,
liberalization, and austerity. Of course, the result is to leave in place political and
economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals claim to
support.
The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't
fared much better than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition
partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan for 18 years and counting. Neither
Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in Iraq
lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better.
Instead, power in Iraq has shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi
government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi government -- and more than
100,000 Iraqis are dead. Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The
result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy but instead civil war and instability,
with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups. On
the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And
for those motivated to expand human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars
as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
So what happened following the dissolution of the Soviet Union?
The United States dispatched a cabal of cutthroat economists to Moscow to assist in the
"shock therapy" campaign that collapsed the social safety net, savaged pensions, increased
unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and alcoholism by many orders of magnitude,
accelerated the slide to privatization that fueled a generation of voracious oligarchs, and
sent the real economy plunging into an excruciating long-term depression.
Basically the NWO mafia saw that there was an opportunity to loot the place and they did
it – gaining ownership – and stripping everything of value out of the place.
If the US public had the sense to realize it, it's the same as is currently happening to
them.
At the same time Washington's agents were busy looting Moscow, NATO was moving its
troops, armored divisions and missile sites closer to Russia's border in clear violation of
promises that were made to Mikhail Gorbachev not to move its military "one inch east".
Yeah, yeah . . . This reminds me of that line from Animal House: "Face it Kent, you fucked
up. You trusted us."
This was small beer in term's of betrayals the Russians have endured. What I've always
liked about them is that they aren't bellyachers, like the Iranians are at the moment.
Ignore Western Media on Putin. He remains The Indispensable Man for Russia so he isn't
going anywhere for the moment. I'm sure he'd love to become the Russian version of Deng but
that's going to take a lot of preparatory work for him to get there.
@Huxley Very true and this idea that man sets himself at the top of the creation is
exactly the philosophy of "Human Rights", the Masonic model imposed through the UN to the
whole world.
This ideology was launched by Freemasonry during the "Enlightenment", in the 18th century. It
produced the Masonic French Revolution, the Masonic US republic and later the concept of
"democracy".
Published in 1899 by Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany: Liberalism is a sin. This is from a Catholic
priest, but we all share the same enemy. http://www.liberalismisasin.com/
@9/11 Inside job What cult of personality? There isn't one. People mostly like the
decisions he makes, not because he makes them, but because they agree with them.
As to Chabad Lubavitch, Putin is a politician – he mingles with Christians, Jews and
Muslims. As evil as Chabad Lubavitch is, Putin also mingles with the Saudi Barbarians. It's
hardly proof they control him.
Go find something real, you are making a fool of yourself spreading baseless propaganda.
Next you will tell us about the $583 trillion he has stashed away, so he can use it,
secretly, after he retires from his life-long dictatorship.
While I agree that the removal of Trump might be slightly beneficial (Pence-Pompeo duo initially will run scared), this Kabuki
theater with Schiff in a major role is outright silly.
Adam Schiff physically resembles a typical prosperity theology preacher -- a classic modern American snake oil salesman. And
with his baseless accusations and the fear to touch real issues , he is even worse than that -- he looks outright silly even for
the most brainwashed part of the USA electorate ;-)
As he supported the Iraq war, he has no right to occupy any elected office. He probably should be prosecuted as a war criminal.
Realistically Schiff should be viewed as yet another intelligence agency stooge, a neocon who is funded by military contractors
such as Northrop Grumman, which sells missiles to Ukraine.
The claim that Trump is influenced by Russia is a lie. His actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not
so much for Russia. Several of his actions were more reckless and more hostile to Russia than the actions of the Obama administration.
Anyway, his policies toward Russia are not that different from Hillary's policies. Actually, Pompeo, in many ways, continues Hillary's
policies.
The claim that the withdrawal of military aid from Ukraine somehow influences the balance of power in the region was a State
department concocted scam from the very beginning. How sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles change the balance of power on the
border with the major nuclear power, who has probably second or third military in the world.? They do not.
They (especially sniper rifles) will definitely increase casualties of Ukrainian separatists (and will provoke Russian reaction
to compensate for this change of balance and thus increase casualties of the Ukrainian army provoking the escalation spiral ),
but that's about it. So more people will die in the conflict while Northrop Grumman rakes the profits.
They also increase the danger of the larger-scale conflict in the region, which is what the USA neocons badly wants to impose
really crushing sanctions on Russia. The danger of WWIII and the cost of support of the crumbling neoliberal empire with its outsize
military expenditures (which now is more difficult to compensate with loot) somehow escapes the US neocon calculations. But they
are completely detached from reality in any case.
I think Russia can cut Ukraine into Western and Eastern parts anytime with relative ease and not much resistance. Putin has
an opportunity to do this in 2014 (risking larger sanctions) as he could establish government in exile out of Yanukovich officials
and based on this restore the legitimate government in Eastern and southern region with the capital in Kharkiv, leaving Ukrainian
Taliban to rot in their own brand of far-right nationalism where the Ukraine identity is defined negatively via rabid Russophobia.
His calculation probably was that sanctions would slow down the Russia recovery from Western plunder during Yeltsin years and,
as such, it is not worth showing Western Ukrainian nationalists what level of support in Southern and Eastern regions that they
actually enjoy.
My impression is that they are passionately hated by over 50% of the population of this region. And viewed as an occupying
force, which is trying to colonize the space (which is a completely true assessment). They are viewed as American stooges, who
they are (the country is controlled from the USA embassy in any case).
And Putin's assessment might be wrong, as sanctions were imposed anyways, and now Ukraine does represent a threat to Russia
and, as such, is a huge source of instability in the region, which was the key idea of "Nulandgate" as the main task was weakening
Russia. In this sense, Euromaidan coup d'état was the major success of the Obama administration, which was a neocon controlled
administration from top to bottom.
Also unclear what Dems are trying to achieve. If Pelosi gambit, cynically speaking, was about repeating Mueller witch hunt
success in the 2018 election, that is typical wishful thinking. Mobilization of the base works both ways.
So what is the game plan for DemoRats (aka "neoliberal democrats" or "corporate democrats" -- the dominant Clinton faction
of the Democratic Party) is completely unclear.
I doubt that they will gain anything from impeachment Kabuki theater, where both sides are afraid to discuss real issues like
Douma false flag and other real Trump crimes.
Most Democratic candidates such as Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar will lose from this impeachment theater. Candidates who can
gain, such as Major Pete and Bloomberg does not matter that much.
"... But even I was flabbergasted by what Trump did. Absolutely gobsmacked. Killing Qassem Soleimani, Iranian general, leader of the Quds forces, and the most respected military leader in the Middle East? And ..."
"... The first thing, the thing that is so sad and so infuriating and so centrally symptomatic of everything wrong with American political culture, is that, with painfully few exceptions, Americans have no idea of what their government has done. They have no idea who Qassem Soleimani was, what he has accomplished, the web of relationships, action, and respect he has built, what his assassination means and will bring. The last person who has any clue about this, of course, is Donald Trump, who called Soleimani " a total monster ." His act of killing Soleimani is the apotheosis of the abysmal, arrogant ignorance of U.S. political culture. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Whatever their elected governments say, we'll will keep our army in Syria to "take the oil," and in Iraq to well, to do whatever the hell we want. ..."
"... Sure, we make the rules and you follow our orders. ..."
I've been writing and speaking for months about the looming danger of war with Iran, often to
considerable skepticism.
In June, in an essay entitled "
Eve of
Destruction: Iran Strikes Back ," after the U.S. initiated its "maximum pressure" blockade of
Iranian oil exports, I pointed out that "Iran considers that it is already at war," and that the
downing of the U.S. drone was a sign that "Iran is calling the U.S. bluff on escalation
dominance."
In an October
essay , I pointed out that Trump's last-minute calling off of the U.S. attack on Iran in
June, his demurral again after the Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities, and his announced
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria were seen as "catastrophic" and "a big win for Iran" by the
Iran hawks in Israel and America whose efforts New York Times (NYT) detailed in an
important article, " The Secret History
of the Push to Strike Iran ." I said, with emphasis, " It always goes to Iran ," and
underlined that Trump's restraint was particularly galling to hard-line zionist Republican
Senators, and might have opened a path to impeachment. I cited the reported
statement
of a "veteran political consultant" that "The price of [Lindsey] Graham's support would be an
eventual military strike on Iran."
And in the middle of December, I went way out on a limb, in
an essay suggesting
a possible relation between preparations for war in Iran and the impeachment process. I pointed
out that the strategic balance of forces between Israel and Iran had reached the point where
Israel thinks it's "necessary to take Iran down now ," in "the next six months," before
the Iranian-supported Axis of Resistance accrues even more power. I speculated that the need to
have a more reliable and internationally-respected U.S. President fronting a conflict with Iran
might be the unseen reason -- behind the flimsy Articles of Impeachment -- that explains why
Pelosi and Schumer "find it so urgent to replace Trump before the election and why they
think they can succeed in doing that."
So, I was the guy chicken-littling about impending war with Iran.
But even I was flabbergasted by what Trump did. Absolutely gobsmacked. Killing Qassem
Soleimani, Iranian general, leader of the Quds forces, and the most respected military leader in
the Middle East? And Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, Iraqi commander of the Popular Mobilization
Forces (PMF) unit, Kataib Hezbollah? Did not see that coming. Rage. Fear. Sadness.
Anxiety. A few days just to register that it really happened. To see the millions of people
bearing witness to it. Yes, that happened.
Then there was the anxious anticipation about the Iranian response, which came surprisingly
quickly, and with admirable military and political precision, avoiding a large-scale war in the
region, for the moment.
That was the week that was.
But, as the man said: "It ain't over 'til it's over." And it ain't over. Recognizing the
radical uncertainty of the world we now live in, and recognizing that its future will be
determined by actors and actions far away from the American leftist commentariat, here's what I
need to say about the war we are now in.
The first thing, the thing that is so sad and so infuriating and so centrally symptomatic
of everything wrong with American political culture, is that, with painfully few exceptions,
Americans have no idea of what their government has done. They have no idea who Qassem Soleimani
was, what he has accomplished, the web of relationships, action, and respect he has built, what
his assassination means and will bring. The last person who has any clue about this, of course,
is Donald Trump, who called Soleimani "
a total monster ." His act of killing Soleimani is the apotheosis of the abysmal, arrogant
ignorance of U.S. political culture.
It's virtually impossible to explain to Americans because there is no one of comparable
stature in the U.S. or in the West today. As Iran cleric Shahab Mohadi
said , when talking about what a "proportional response" might be: "[W]ho should we consider
to take out in the context of America? 'Think about it. Are we supposed to take out Spider-Man
and SpongeBob? 'All of their heroes are cartoon characters -- they're all fictional." Trump?
Lebanese Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah said what many throughout the world familiar with both of
them would agree with: "the shoe of Qassem Soleimani is worth the head of Trump and all American
leaders."
To understand the respect Soleimani has earned, not only in Iran (where his popularity was
around
80% ) but throughout the region and across political and sectarian lines, you have to know
how he led and organized the forces that helped save
Christians ,
Kurds , Yazidis and others from being
slaughtered by ISIS, while Barack Obama and John Kerry were still "
watching " ISIS advance and using it as a tool
to "manage" their war against Assad.
In an informative
interview
with Aaron Maté, Former Marine Intelligence Officer and weapons inspector, Scott Ritter,
explains how Soleimani is honored in Iraq for organizing the resistance that saved Baghdad from
being overrun by ISIS -- and the same could be said of Syria, Damascus, or Ebril:
He's a legend in Iran, in Iraq, and in Syria. And anywhere where, frankly speaking, he's
operated, the people he's worked with view him as one of the greatest leaders, thinkers, most
humane men of all time. I know in America we demonize him as a terrorist but the fact is he
wasn't, and neither is Mr. Mohandes.
When ISIS [was] driving down on the city of Baghdad, the U.S. armed and trained Iraqi Army had
literally thrown down their weapons and ran away, and there was nothing standing between ISIS and
Baghdad
[Soleimani] came in from Iran and led the creation of the PMF [Popular Mobilization Forces] as
a viable fighting force and then motivated them to confront Isis in ferocious hand-to-hand combat
in villages and towns outside of Baghdad, driving Isis back and stabilizing the situation that
allowed the United States to come in and get involved in the Isis fight. But if it weren't for
Qassem Soleimani and Mohandes and Kataib Hezbollah, Baghdad might have had the black flag of ISIS
flying over it. So the Iraqi people haven't forgotten who stood up and defended Baghdad from the
scourge of ISIS.
So, to understand Soleimani in Western terms, you'd have to evoke someone like World War II
Eisenhower (or Marshall Zhukov, but that gets another blank stare from Americans.) Think I'm
exaggerating? Take it from the family of the Shah
:
Beyond his leadership of the fight against ISIS, you also have to understand Soleimani's
strategic acumen in building the Axis of Resistance -- the network of armed local groups like
Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as the PMF in Iraq, that Soleimani helped organize and provide with
growing military capability. Soleimani meant standing up; he helped people throughout the region
stand up to the shit the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis were constantly dumping on them
More apt than Eisenhower and De Gaulle, in world-historical terms, try something like Saladin
meets Che. What a tragedy, and travesty, it is that legend-in-his-own-mind Donald Trump killed
this man.
Dressed to Kill
But it is not just Trump, and not just the assassination of Soleimani, that we should focus
on. These are actors and events within an ongoing conflict with Iran, which was ratcheted up when
the U.S. renounced the nuclear deal (JCPOA – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and
instituted a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic and financial sanctions on Iran and
third countries, designed to drive Iran's oil exports to zero.
The purpose of this blockade is to create enough social misery to force Iran into compliance,
or provoke Iran into military action that would elicit a "justifiable" full-scale,
regime-change -- actually state-destroying -- military attack on the country.
From its inception, Iran has correctly understood this blockade as an act of war, and has
rightfully expressed its determination to fight back. Though it does not want a wider war, and
has so far carefully calibrated its actions to avoid making it necessary, Iran will
fight back however it deems necessary.
The powers-that-be in Iran and the U.S. know they are at war, and that the Soleimani
assassination ratcheted that state of war up another significant notch; only Panglossian American
pundits think the "w" state is yet to be avoided. Sorry, but the United States drone-bombed an
Iranian state official accompanied by an Iraqi state official, in Iraq at the invitation of the
Iraqi Prime Minister, on a conflict-resolution mission requested by Donald Trump himself. In
anybody's book, that is an act of war -- and extraordinary treachery, even in wartime, the
equivalent of shooting someone who came to parley under a white flag.
Indeed, we now know that the assassination of Soleimani was only one of two known
assassination attempts against senior Iranian officers that day. There was also an unsuccessful
strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, another key commander in Iran's Quds Force who has been
active in Yemen. According to the
Washington Post , this marked a "departure for the Pentagon's mission in Yemen,
which has sought to avoid direct involvement" or make "any publicly acknowledged attacks on
Houthi or Iranian leaders in Yemen."
Of course, because it's known as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis," the Pentagon wants
to avoid "publicly" bloodying its hands in the Saudi war in Yemen. Through two presidential
administrations, it has been trying to minimize attention to its indispensable support of, and
presence in, Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen with
drone strikes ,
special
forces operations , refueling of aircraft, and intelligence and targeting. It's such a nasty
business that even the U.S. Congress
passed a bipartisan
resolution to end U.S. military involvement in that war, which was vetoed by Trump.
According to the ethic and logic of American exceptionalism, Iran is forbidden from helping
the Houthis, but the U.S. is allowed to assassinate their advisors and help the Saudis bomb the
crap out of them.
So, the Trump administration is clearly engaged in an organized campaign to take out senior
Iranian leaders, part of what it considers a war against Iran. In this war, the Trump
administration no longer pretends to give a damn about any fig leaf of law or ethics. Nobody
takes seriously the phony "imminence" excuse for killing Soleimani, which even
Trump say s "doesn't matter," or the "bloody hands" justification, which could apply to any
military commander. And let's not forget: Soleimani was "
talking about bad stuff ."
The U.S. is demonstrating outright contempt for any framework of respectful international
relations, let alone international law. National sovereignty? Democracy? Whatever their
elected governments say, we'll will keep our army in Syria to "take the oil," and in Iraq to
well, to do whatever the hell we want. "Rules-based international order"? Sure, we make
the rules and you follow our orders.
The U.S.'s determination to stay in Iraq, in defiance of the
explicit, unequivocal
demand of the friendly democratic government that the U.S. itself supposedly invaded the
country to install, is particularly significant. It draws the circle nicely. It demonstrates that
the Iraq war isn't over. Because it, and the wars in Libya and Syria, and the war that's
ratcheting up against Iran are all the same war that the U.S. has been waging in the
Middle East since 2003. In the end is the beginning, and all that.
We're now in the endgame of the serial offensive that
Wesley Clark described in
2007, starting with Iraq and "finishing off" with Iran. Since the U.S. has attacked, weakened,
divided, or destroyed every other un-coopted polity in the region (Iraq, Syria, Libya) that could
pose any serious resistance to the predations of U.S. imperialism and Israel colonialism, it has
fallen to Iran to be the last and best source of material and military support which allows that
resistance to persist.
And Iran has taken up the task, through the work of the Quds Force under leaders like
Soleimani and Shahlai, the work of building a new Axis of Resistance with the capacity to resist
the dictates of Israel and the U.S. throughout the region. It's work that is part of a
war and will result in casualties among U.S. and U.S.-allied forces and damage to their
"interests."
What the U.S. (and its wards, Israel and Saudi Arabia) fears most is precisely the kind of
material, technical, and combat support and training that allows the Houthis to beat back the
Saudis and Americans in Yemen, and retaliate with stunningly accurate blows on crucial oil
facilities in Saudi Arabia itself. The same kind of help that Soleimani gave to the armed forces
of Syria and the PMF in Iraq to prevent those countries from being overrun and torn apart by the
U.S. army and its sponsored jihadis, and to Hezbollah in Lebanon to deter Israel from demolishing
and dividing that country at will.
It's that one big "endless" war that's been waged by every president since 2003, which
American politicians and pundits have been scratching their heads and squeezing their brains to
figure out how to explain, justify (if it's their party's President in charge), denounce (if it's
the other party's POTUS), or just bemoan as "senseless." But to the neocons who are driving it
and their victims -- it makes perfect sense and is understood to have been largely a
success. Only the befuddled U.S. media and the deliberately-deceived U.S. public think it's
"senseless," and remain enmired in the
cock-up theory
of U.S. foreign policy, which is a blindfold we had better shed before being led to the next very
big slaughter.
The one big war makes perfect sense when one understands that the United States has thoroughly
internalized Israel's interests as its own. That this conflation has been successfully driven by
a particular neocon faction, and that it is excessive, unnecessary and perhaps disruptive to
other effective U.S. imperial possibilities, is demonstrated precisely by the constant plaint
from non-neocon, including imperialist, quarters that it's all so "senseless."
The result is that the primary object of U.S. policy (its internalized zionist
imperative) in this war is to enforce that Israel must be able, without any threat of serious
retaliation, to carry out any military attack on any country in the region at any time, to seize
any territory and resources (especially water) it needs, and, of course, to impose any level of
colonial violence against Palestinians -- from home demolitions, to siege and sniper killings
(Gaza), to de jure as well as de facto apartheid and eventual further mass
expulsions, if deems necessary.
That has required, above all, removing -- by co-option, regime change, or chaotogenic
sectarian warfare and state destruction -- any strong central governments that have provided
political, diplomatic, financial, material, and military support for the Palestinian resistance
to Israeli colonialism. Iran is the last of those, has been growing in strength and influence,
and is therefore the next mandatory target.
For all the talk of "Iranian proxies," I'd say, if anything, that the U.S., with its
internalized zionist imperative, is effectively acting as Israel's proxy.
It's also important, I think, to clarify the role of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in this policy. KSA is
absolutely a very important player in this project, which has been consistent with its interests.
But its (and its oil's) influence on the U.S. is subsidiary to Israel's, and depends entirely on
KSA's complicity with the Israeli agenda. The U.S. political establishment is not overwhelmingly
committed to Saudi/Wahhabi policy imperatives -- as a matter, they think, of virtue -- as they
are to Israeli/Zionist ones. It is inconceivable that a U.S. Vice-President would
declare "I am a
Wahhabi," or a U.S. President
say
"I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch, and fight and die" for Saudi Arabia -- with
nobody even noticing . The U.S. will turn on a dime against KSA if Israel wants it; the
reverse would never happen. We have to confront the primary driver of this policy if we are to
defeat it, and too many otherwise superb analysts, like Craig Murray, are mistaken and
diversionary, I think, in saying things like the assassination of Soleimani and the drive for war
on Iran represent the U.S. "
doubling
down on its Saudi allegiance ." So, sure, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Batman
and Robin.
Iran has quite clearly seen and understood what's unfolding, and has prepared itself for the
finale that is coming its way.
The final offensive against Iran was supposed to follow the definitive destruction of the
Syrian Baathist state, but that project was interrupted (though not yet abandoned) by the
intervention of Syria's allies, Russia and Iran -- the latter precisely via the work of Soleimani
and the Quds Force.
Current radical actions like the two assassination strikes against Iranian Quds Force
commanders signal the Trump administration jumping right to the endgame, as that neocon hawks
have been " agitating for
." The idea -- borrowed, perhaps from Israel's campaign of
assassinating Iranian scientists -- is that killing off the key leaders who have supplied and
trained the Iranian-allied networks of resistance throughout the region will hobble any strike
from those networks if/when the direct attack on Iran comes.
Per Patrick
Lawrence , the Soleimani assassination "was neither defensive nor retaliatory: It reflected
the planning of the administration's Iran hawks, who were merely awaiting the right occasion to
take their next, most daring step toward dragging the U.S. into war with Iran." It means that war
is on and it will get worse fast.
It is crucial to understand that Iran is not going to passively submit to any such bullying.
It will not be scared off by some "bloody nose" strike, followed by chest-thumping from Trump,
Netanyahu, or Hillary about how they will "
obliterate " Iran. Iran knows all that. It also knows, as I've said
before , how little damage -- especially in terms of casualties -- Israel and the U.S. can
take. It will strike back. In ways that will be calibrated as much as possible to avoid a larger
war, but it will strike back.
Iran's strike on Ain al-Asad base in Iraq was a case in point. It was preceded by a warning
through Iraq that did not specify the target but allowed U.S. personnel in the country to hunker
down. It also demonstrated deadly precision and determination, hitting specific buildings where
U.S. troops work, and, we now know, causing at least eleven acknowledged casualties.
Those casualties were minor, but you can bet they would have been the excuse for a large-scale
attack, if the U.S. had been entirely unafraid of the response. In fact, Trump did
launch that attack over the downing of a single unmanned drone -- and Pompeo and the neocon crew,
including Republican Senators, were "
stunned " that he
called it off in literally the last
ten minutes . It's
to the eternal shame of what's called the "left" in this country that we may have
Tucker
Carlson to thank for Trump's bouts of restraint.
There Will Be Blood
But this is going to get worse, Pompeo is now
threatening Iran's leaders that "any attacks by them, or their proxies of any identity, that
harm Americans, our allies, or our interests will be answered with a decisive U.S. response."
Since Iran has ties of some kind with most armed groups in the region and the U.S. decides what
"proxy" and "interests" means, that means that any act of resistance to the U.S., Israel, or
other "ally" by anybody -- including, for example, the Iraqi PMF forces who are likely to
retaliate against the U.S. for killing their leader -- will be an excuse for attacking Iran.
Any anything. Call it an omnibus threat.
The groundwork for a final aggressive push against Iran began back in June, 2017, when, under
then-Director Pompeo, the CIA set up a stand-alone
Iran
Mission Center . That Center
replaced
a group of "Iran specialists who had no special focus on regime change in Iran," because "Trump's
people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group." The purpose of this -- as of any --
Mission Center was to "elevate" the country as a target and "bring to bear the range of the
agency's capabilities, including covert action" against Iran. This one is especially concerned
with Iran's "increased capacity to deliver missile systems" to Hezbollah or the Houthis that
could be used against Israel or Saudi Arabia, and Iran's increased strength among the Shia
militia forces in Iraq. The Mission Center is headed by Michael D'Andrea, who is perceived as
having an "aggressive stance toward Iran." D'Andrea, known as "the undertaker" and "
Ayatollah Mike ," is himself a
convert to Islam, and
notorious for his "central role in the agency's torture and targeted killing programs."
This was followed in December, 2017, by the signing of a
pact with Israel "to
take on Iran," which took place, according to Israeli television, at a "secret" meeting at the
White House. This pact was designed to coordinate "steps on the ground" against "Tehran and its
proxies." The biggest threats: "Iran's ballistic missile program and its efforts to build
accurate missile systems in Syria and Lebanon," and its activity in Syria and support for
Hezbollah. The Israelis considered that these secret "dramatic understandings" would have "far
greater impact" on Israel than Trump's more public and notorious recognition of Jerusalem as
Israeli's capital.
The Iran Mission Center is a war room. The pact with Israel is a war pact.
The U.S. and Israeli governments are out to "take on" Iran. Their major concerns, repeated
everywhere, are Iran's growing military power, which underlies its growing political influence --
specifically its precision ballistic missile and drone capabilities, which it is sharing with its
allies throughout the region, and its organization of those armed resistance allies, which is
labelled "Iranian aggression."
These developments must be stopped because they provide Iran and other actors the ability to
inflict serious damage on Israel. They create the unacceptable situation where Israel cannot
attack anything it wants without fear of retaliation. For some time, Israel has been reluctant to
take on Hezbollah in Lebanon, having already been driven back by them once because the Israelis
couldn't take the casualties in the field. Now Israel has to worry about an even more
battle-hardened Hezbollah, other well-trained and supplied armed groups, and those damn
precision missiles . One cannot overstress how important those are, and how adamant the U.S.
and Israel are that Iran get rid of them. As another Revolutionary Guard commander
says :
"Iran has encircled Israel from all four sides if only one missile hits the occupied lands,
Israeli airports will be filled with people trying to run away from the country."
This campaign is overseen in the U.S. by the likes of "
praying
for war with Iran " Christian Zionists Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, who together "
urged " Trump to approve the killing of Soleimani. Pence, whom the Democrats are trying to
make President, is associated with Christians United For Israel (CUFI), which paid for his and
his wife's pilgrimage to Israel in 2014, and is run by lunatic televangelist John Hagee, whom
even John
McCain couldn't stomach. Pompeo,
characterized
as the "brainchild" of the assassination, thinks Trump was sent by God to save
Israel from Iran. (Patrick Lawrence
argues
the not-implausible case that Pompeo and Defense Secretary Esper ordered the assassination and
stuck Trump with it.) No Zionists are more fanatical than Christian Zionists. These guys are not
going to stop.
And Iran is not going to surrender. Iran is no longer afraid of the escalation dominance game.
Do not be fooled by peace-loving illusions -- propagated mainly now by mealy-mouthed European and
Democratic politicians -- that Iran will return to what's described as "unconditional"
negotiations, which really means negotiating under the absolutely unacceptable condition of
economic blockade, until the U.S. gets what it wants. Not gonna happen. Iran's absolutely correct
condition for any negotiation with the U.S. is that the U.S. return to the JCPOA and lift all
sanctions.
Also not gonna happen, though any real peace-loving Democratic candidate would specifically
and unequivocally commit to doing just that if elected. The phony peace-loving poodles of
Britain, France, and Germany (the EU3) have already
cast their lot with the aggressive American policy, triggering a dispute mechanism that will
almost certainly result in a " snapback " of full UN
sanctions on Iran within 65 days, and destroy the JCPOA once and for all. Because, they, too,
know Iran's nuclear weapons program is a fake issue and have "always searched for ways to put
more
restrictions on Iran, especially on its ballistic missile program." Israel can have all the
nuclear weapons it wants, but Iran must give up those conventional ballistic missiles. Cannot
overstate their importance.
Iran is not going to submit to any of this. The only way Iran is going to part with its
ballistic missiles is by using them. The EU3 maneuver will not only end the JCPOA, it may
drive
Iran out of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As Moon of Alabama says, the
EU3 gambit is "not designed to reach an agreement but to lead to a deeper conflict" and ratchet
the war up yet another notch. The Trump administration and its European allies are -- as FDR did
to Japan -- imposing a complete economic blockade that Iran will have to find a way to break out
of. It's deliberately provocative, and makes the outbreak of a regional/world war more likely.
Which is its purpose.
This certainly marks the Trump administration as having crossed a war threshold the Obama
administration avoided. Credit due to Obama for forging ahead with the JCPOA in the face of
fierce resistance from Netanyahu and his Republican and Democratic acolytes, like Chuck Schumer.
But that deal itself was built upon false premises and extraordinary conditions and procedures
that -- as the current actions of the EU3 demonstrate -- made it a trap for Iran.
With his Iran policy, as with Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, what Trump is doing -- and can
easily demonstrate -- is taking to its logical and deadly conclusion the entire
imperialist-zionist conception of the Middle East, which all major U.S. politicians and media
have embraced and promulgated over decades, and cannot abandon.
With the Soleimani assassination, Trump both allayed some of the fears of Iran war hawks in
Israel and the
U.S. about his "reluctance to flex U.S. military muscle" and re-stoked all their fears
about his impulsiveness, unreliability, ignorance, and crassness. As the the
Christian Science Monitor reports, Israel leaders are both "quick to praise" his
action and "having a crisis of confidence" over Trump's ability to "manage" a conflict
with Iran -- an ambivalence echoed in every U.S. politician's "Soleimani was a terrorist, but "
statement.
Trump does exactly what the narrative they all promote demands, but he makes it look and sound
all thuggish and scary. They want someone whose rhetorical finesse will talk us into war on Iran
as a humanitarian and liberating project. But we should be scared and repelled by it.
The problem isn't the discrepancy in Trump between actions and attitudes, but the duplicity in
the fundamental imperialist-zionist narrative. There is no "good" -- non-thuggish, non-repellent
way -- way to do the catastrophic violence it demands. Too many people discover that only after
it's done.
Trump, in other words, has just started a war that the U.S. political elite constantly brought
us to the brink of, and some now seem desperate to avoid, under Trump's leadership . But
not a one will abandon the zionist and American-exceptionalist premises that make it inevitable
-- about, you know, dictating what weapons which countries can "never" have. Hoisted on their own
petard. As are we all.
To be clear: Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. This is the war
that, as the NYTreports ,
"Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for." It will start, upon
some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks
on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on
Iran -- which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it's becoming
almost impossible to avoid.
The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense
treaty right now. But that's not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for
Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United
States.
There are massive street demonstrations in Baghdad today calling for the exit of U.S.
troops from the country. The demonstrations are in response to call for protests from Muqtada
al-Sadr. Estimates of the crowd size vary, but it is a huge turnout of Iraqis that wants us
gone:
100's of thousands protest in Baghdad, calling for all US troops to leave Iraq, close all
bases & embassies, if they don't they will be considered an occupying force. pic.twitter.com/C3CqBqpxyD
Some more photos of the march by Sadrists today in Baghdad, the turnout is huge by any
measure, perhaps the largest in #Baghdad so far,
and perhaps the most noticeable aspect is the lack of violence and troubles despite the scale
of it #IraqProtests
#Iraq #US pic.twitter.com/2xXGk2dSVY
The Trump administration has violated Iraqi sovereignty earlier this month by taking
military action inside Iraq against both Iraqis militias and the Iranian government without
Baghdad's consent, and their government wants our forces out of the country. Sadr has
considerable influence in Iraqi politics, and he has wanted U.S. forces out for a long time.
When opponents of our military presence can organize such huge popular demonstrations, it is
time for us to go. The U.S. should have withdrawn from Iraq years ago, and it would have been
better to leave on our own terms. Now the U.S. cannot stay without provoking armed opposition
from Iraqis to our continued presence.
So far the administration position has been to threaten Iraq with punishment for upholding
its own sovereignty. That's a disgraceful and imperialist position to take, and it is also an
untenable one. There have been enough American wars in Iraq. Trump should yield to the Iraqi
government's wishes and bring these troops home before any more Americans are injured or killed
as a result of his destructive Iran policy.
Daniel Larison is a
senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New
York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review ,
Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and
Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the
University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter . email
AP tried to downplay the protests, reporting only 'hundreds. There must be close to a
million people out there (as reported by the Baghdad Chief of Police) and the fact that
Sadr and the other Iraqi Shia militias can organize this massive demonstrations proves that
the assassination of Soleimani, the protector of Syria and Iraq's Christians, did
absolutely nothing to drive a wedge between the various Iraqi Shia militia groups, the vast
majority of which are not Iranian sponsored but true Iraqi national patriots.
There is never a bad time to leave a country that we never should have invaded and
occupied. Not that I expect wisdom, common sense,or basic morality from a foreign policy
establishment that formulated a strategy for the Middle East, saw that it would entail the
genocide of Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities, and decided, "That's a price worth
paying."
In 1958, U.S. leaders stood at the threshold of an American era in the Middle East, conflicted about whether it was
worth the trouble to usher in.
... ... ...
More than half a century later, the future of the United States' military presence in the Middle East is once again up
for discussion, as Iraq
calls on
the U.S. to end its roughly 5,000-strong troop presence in the country and Trump struggles to remove American
forces from
Syria
and
Afghanistan
as well. U.S. politicians are now grappling with the possibility of a post-American period in the region.
... ... ..
And even if Trump doesn't get his way entirely, he will undoubtedly seize on additional opportunities to reduce the
American military presence in the Middle East, as
fed-up Americans
and progressive
presidential candidates
push in the same direction. When Eisenhower
elected
to open that "Pandora's Box" back in 1958, his justification was that it would be "disastrous" if "we don't."
Perhaps nothing signals the coming post-American era in the Middle East more than the fact that so many U.S. leaders these
days fear the disastrous consequences of leaving the box open.
"... Finally, the political dysfunction that now eats away at the United States' reputation, is not a factor that we should underestimate. Donald Trump's administration treats no one as equal. Only Israel and at times Saudi Arabia seem like favored nations if not full-fledged equals. Speaking of brotherhood and loyalty, Mr. Putin's loyalty to and rescuing of Syria's Assad has not gone unnoticed in these regions. At the same moment the US-led coalition tries to stabilize it's invaded satraps, Putin continues a more than forty-year tradition of sticking by the Syrian leadership. And the Russian president has capitalized on this aspect to expand Russian influence worldwide. ..."
Whenever there's an examination of Russia's resurgence in Middle Eastern and African affairs, the narrative is always
about weapons, economic competition, and Cold War-era detente. Few analysts or reporters examine the non-transactional
elements of the policies of Vladimir Putin. To really understand the recent successes of Mr. Putin and Russia, we must
understand the somewhat obscure aspects of Russia's foreign policy.
A perfect example of how trade statistics dominate
western thought process on Russia policy can be found at almost any Washington or London think tank. Take this Chatham
House
report
last year by Dr. Alex Vines OBE, for instance. The Africa Programme at Chatham House is not immune from the
disease that causes western experts to oversimplify and underestimate Putin's external policies. To quote Dr. Vines:
"Russia has, for several years, been quietly investing in Soviet-era partnerships and forging new alliances by
offering security, arms training, and electioneering services in exchange for mining rights and other opportunities."
As you can see, Vines is totally focused on transactional aspects of Russia's relationships, adhering to what
political scientists refer to as "rentierism" – or the new imperialism. As you may know, the concept of the rentier
state is Marxist, thought to have come into practical use in the time of Lenin. But while the so-called rentier
mentality which dominates much of the Middle East and Africa does affect Russia and policy, the deeper implications of
Russia's new relationships are equally important.
Dr. Vines, Chatham House, and nearly all the west's other analytical stables discuss Russia's wielding of soft power.
This is true because their approaches and understanding of world affairs is from purely a businessman's or a general's
world perspective. This is the part of the reason west-east relations are so mucked up. Every reporter on a policy beat
in New York or Washington can write a biography on Vladimir Putin and "what he wants," but there's no one who really
understands how Russia's president is winning at world detente.
In much the same way business relationships are fostered in a highly competitive economic environment, Russia's
successful policies often win out because of the more subtle factors. In Africa, for instance, the history of the Soviet
Union's, and later Russia's criticisms of Cold War-era neocolonialism play a role. Make no mistake, ideologically, Mr.
Putin's efforts and outreaches are far more appealing than those of the US, France, Britain, Germany, and others with
the Anglo-European mindset toward these nations. As for the Middle East, Mr. Putin's policies win out in large part
because of a more "fraternal relationships" – like the one between Russian and Middle Eastern Islamic communities.
Samuel Ramani and Theodore Karasik point these out in a report last year at
LobeLog
.
The western discussion centers around accusing Russia and Mr. Putin for what US policies are centered around. It's as
if the greatest minds in the western world cannot fathom establishing cultural or ideological linkages with people of
these nations. The Americans, French, Brits, and Germans look at Russia policy success as bankers and weapons dealers,
from a superiority and exceptionalism standpoint. While Russia seems to address the Middle East and Africa on a more
equal footing.
Finally, the political dysfunction that now eats away at the United States' reputation, is not a factor that we
should underestimate. Donald Trump's administration treats no one as equal. Only Israel and at times Saudi Arabia seem
like favored nations if not full-fledged equals. Speaking of brotherhood and loyalty, Mr. Putin's loyalty to and
rescuing of Syria's Assad has not gone unnoticed in these regions. At the same moment the US-led coalition tries to
stabilize it's invaded satraps, Putin continues a more than forty-year tradition of sticking by the Syrian leadership.
And the Russian president has capitalized on this aspect to expand Russian influence worldwide.
Russia is supplanting western powers as the more "reliable partner" for many reasons. And it does not hurt that
Donald Trump and his European allies continually stumble over their archaic ideas about emerging countries. Sure Russian
business will prosper from this dynamic shift in Africa and the Middle East, but the profit will not be nearly as
one-sided as it is with the neocolonialists. This
AI-Monitor
report puts it this way in a discussion of Mr. Putin's "Gulf Security Plan":
"He [Putin] might believe his is ultimately the only meaningful diplomatic channel; his stock rises, even if
incrementally, simply by playing on traditionally American turf; and the Gulf states, and maybe even the United
States and the EU, might eventually come around to avoid an unwanted crisis and conflict."
In short, Putin and Russia have been so successful, winning nowadays is about watching the US and allies make
mistakes as much as it is about created dynamic policies. For those unfamiliar, the Russian
concept
for the Gulf area is a strategy that will work. That is if the western hegemony can agree to try a new game
for peace and prosperity in these regions. I find it interesting that the official documentation of this Putin plan is
framed in the form of an invitation to Washington and the others, to take part in a broader coalition for peace and
security. Obviously, the Anglo-European cabal did not accept.
"Russia's proposals are in no way final and represent a kind of invitation to start a constructive dialogue on
ways to achieve long-term stabilization in the Gulf region. We are ready to work closely with all stakeholders in
both official settings and in sociopolitical and expert circles."
Yes, Russia wants trade and economic wins in both the Middle East and Africa. No, Vladimir Putin does not want to
leverage regions and continents in a global domination game intended to destroy America and allies. Destroying markets,
after all, is not a way to do good business. As for analyzing Putin, the experts should examine the other variables of
his success. That is, even if the goal of think tanks is to find an enemy's weakness. So far, Putin does not seem to
have any.
Barack Obama's private assessment of Donald Trump: He's a fascist.
That is, at least, according to Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia and a friend of the former president.
In a video clip from October 2016, Kaine is seen relaying Obama's comment to Hillary Clinton. The footage is part of the
new Hulu documentary
Hillary
, which was obtained by
The Atlantic
ahead of its premiere at the Sundance
Film Festival today.
"President Obama called me last night and said, 'Tim, this is no time to be a purist,'" Kaine tells his then–running
mate. "'You've got to keep a fascist out of the White House.'"
Clinton replies: "I echo that sentiment."
A representative for Obama declined to comment on the conversation. A representative for Kaine did not respond to
requests for comment.
In an interview at Sundance today with Jeffrey Goldberg,
The Atlantic
's editor in chief, Clinton elaborated
on her exchange with Kaine. "If you look at the definition [of
fascist
], which I've had the occasion to read
several times," Clinton said, "I think we can agree on several things: One, he has authoritarian tendencies and he
admires authoritarian leaders, [Vladimir] Putin being his favorite. He uses a form of really virulent nationalism. He
identifies targets: immigrants, blacks, browns, gays, women, whoever the target of the day or week is I think you see
a lot of the characteristics of what we think of [as] nationalistic, fascistic kinds of tendencies and behaviors."
Obama has been careful
in how he's publicly discussed his successor. Campaigning against Trump in 2016, Obama said several times that
"democracy is on the ballot," and he often portrayed the then–Republican nominee as an easily triggered hate-monger who
couldn't be trusted with the presidency. The night before the November election, at a closing rally in Philadelphia with
Clinton, Obama said that the presidency reveals people for who they really are, and that Americans should be worried
about what Trump had revealed about himself. Since then, Obama has largely stayed away from offering specific criticism
of Trump. But he campaigned in 2017 and 2018 to defeat the president's Republican allies, declaring, in a repeat of his
2016 message, that "our democracy's at stake."
Obama has never gone as far as using the word
fascist
in public, even though that's not an uncommon opinion,
especially on the left. Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to the
traits Trump seems to share with those leaders, including demanding fealty, deliberately spreading misinformation, and
adopting Joseph Stalin's slur that the press is the "enemy of the people." And that's not to mention Trump's apparent
admiration for living authoritarians, such as Russia's Putin, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and North Korea's Kim Jong
Un. "He speaks, and his people sit up at attention," Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on
Fox & Friends
.
"I want my people to do the same."
In the Sundance interview, Clinton said that Obama had never used the word
fascist
in conversations with her
about Trump. But, she said, what Obama "observed was this populism untethered to facts, evidence, or truth; this total
rejection of so much of the progress that America has made, in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into
the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of people -- predominantly in small-town and rural areas -- who felt like they
were losing something. And [Trump] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible."
In the documentary footage, Clinton also notes that she is "scared" and suspicious of what Trump is up to. "His
agenda is other people's agenda," she says. "We're scratching hard, trying to figure it out. He is the vehicle, the
vessel for all these other people."
"[Paul] Manafort, all these weird connections," Kaine replies, referring to Trump's former campaign chair, who is now
in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings.
"[Michael] Flynn, who is a paid tool for Russian television," Clinton continues, referring to Trump's onetime
national security adviser and former campaign surrogate. "The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus "
she starts to say. Then, a voice off camera interrupts her.
"... The US President Donald Trump assassinated the commander of the "Axis of the Resistance", the (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) IRGC – Quds Brigade Major General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport with little consideration of the consequences of this targeted killing. It is not to be excluded that the US administration considered the assassination would reflect positively on its Middle Eastern policy. Or perhaps the US officials believed the killing of Sardar Soleimani would weaken the "Axis of the Resistance": once deprived of their leader, Iran's partners' capabilities in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen would be reduced. Is this assessment accurate? ..."
The US President Donald Trump assassinated the commander of the "Axis of the
Resistance", the (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) IRGC – Quds Brigade Major General
Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad airport with little consideration of the consequences of this
targeted killing. It is not to be excluded that the US administration considered the
assassination would reflect positively on its Middle Eastern policy. Or perhaps the US
officials believed the killing of Sardar Soleimani would weaken the "Axis of the Resistance":
once deprived of their leader, Iran's partners' capabilities in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
and Yemen would be reduced. Is this assessment accurate?
A high-ranking source within this "Axis of the Resistance" said " Sardar Soleimani was the direct and fast track link
between the partners of Iran and the Leader of the Revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei. However, the
command on the ground belonged to the national leaders in every single separate country. These
leaders have their leadership and practices, but common strategic objectives to fight against
the US hegemony, stand up to the oppressors and to resist illegitimate foreign intervention in
their affairs. These objectives have been in place for many years and will remain, with or
without Sardar Soleimani".
"In Lebanon, Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah leads Lebanon and is
the one with a direct link to the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. He supports Gaza, Syria,
Iraq and Yemen and has a heavy involvement in these fronts. However, he leads a large number
of advisors and officers in charge of running all military, social and relationship affairs
domestically and regionally. Many Iranian IRGC officers are also present on many of these
fronts to support the needs of the "Axis of the Resistance" members in logistics, training
and finance," said the source.
In Syria, IRGC officers coordinate with Russia, the Syrian Army, the Syrian political
leadership and all Iran's allies fighting for the liberation of the country and for the defeat
of the jihadists who flocked to Syria from all continents via Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. These
officers have worked side by side with Iraqi, Lebanese, Syrian and other nationals who are part
of the "Axis of the Resistance". They have offered the Syrian government the needed support to
defeat the "Islamic State" (ISIS/IS/ISIL) and al-Qaeda and other jihadists or those of similar
ideologies in most of the country – with the exception of north-east Syria, which is
under US occupation forces. These IRGC officers have their objectives and the means to achieve
a target already agreed and in place for years. The absence of Sardar Soleimani will hardly
affect these forces and their plans.
In Iraq, over 100 Iranian IRGC officers have been operating in the country at the official
request of the Iraqi government, to defeat ISIS. They served jointly with the Iraqi forces and
were involved in supplying the country with weapons, intelligence and training after the fall
of a third of Iraq into the hands of ISIS in mid-2014. It was striking and shocking to see the
Iraqi Army, armed and trained by US forces for over ten years, abandoning its positions and
fleeing the northern Iraqi cities. Iranian support with its robust ideology (with one of its
allies, motivating them to fight ISIS) was efficient in Syria; thus, it was necessary to
transmit this to the Iraqis so they could stand, fight, and defeat ISIS.
The Lebanese Hezbollah is present in Syria and Yemen, and also in Iraq. The Iraqi Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked Sayyed Nasrallah to provide his country with officers to stand
against ISIS. Dozens of Hezbollah officers operate in Iraq and will be ready to support the
Iraqis if the US forces refuse to leave the country. They will abide by and enforce the
decision of the Parliament that the US must leave by end January 2021. Hezbollah's long warfare
experience has resulted in painful experiences with the US forces in Lebanon and Iraq
throughout several decades and has not been forgotten.
Sayyed Nasrallah, in his latest speech, revealed the presence in mid-2014 of Hezbollah
officials in Kurdistan to support the Iraqi Kurds against ISIS. This was when the same Kurdish
Leader Masoud Barzani announced that it was due to Iran that the Kurds received weapons to
defend themselves when the US refused to help Iraq for many months after ISIS expanded its
control in northern Iraq.
The Hezbollah leaders did not disclose the continuous visits of Kurdish representatives to
Lebanon to meet Hezbollah officials. In fact, Iraqi Sunni and Shia officials, ministers and
political leaders regularly visit Lebanon to meet Hezbollah officials and its leader.
Hezbollah, like Iran, plays an essential role in easing the dialogue between Iraqis when these
find it difficult to overcome their differences together.
The reason why Sayyed Nasrallah revealed the presence of his officers in Kurdistan when
meeting Masoud Barzani is a clear message to the world that the "Axis of the Resistance"
doesn't depend on one single person. Indeed, Sayyed Nasrallah is showing the unity which reigns
among this front, with or without Sardar Soleimani. Barzani is part of Iraq, and Kurdistan
expressed its readiness to abide by the decision of the Iraqi Parliament to seek the US forces'
departure from the country because the Kurds are not detached from the central government but
part of it.
Prior to his assassination, Sardar Soleimani prepared the ground to be followed (if killed
on the battlefield, for example) and asked Iranian officials to nominate General Ismail Qaani
as his replacement. The Leader of the revolution Sayyed Ali Khamenei ordered Soleimani's wish
to be fulfilled and to keep the plans and objectives already in place as they were. Sayyed
Khamenei, according to the source, ordered an "increase in support for the Palestinians and, in
particular, to all allies where US forces are present."
Sardar Soleimani was looking for his death by his enemies and got what he wished for. He was
aware that the "Axis of the Resistance" is highly aware of its objectives. Those among the
"Axis of the Resistance" who have a robust internal front are well-established and on track.
The problem was mainly in Iraq. But it seems the actions of the US have managed to bring Iraqi
factions together- by assassinating the two commanders. Sardar Soleimani could have never
expected a rapid achievement of this kind. Anti-US Iraqis are preparing this coming Friday to
express their rejection of the US forces present in their country.
Sayyed Ali Khamenei , in his Friday prayers last week, the first for eight years, set up a
road map for the "Axis of the Resistance": push the US forces out of the Middle East and
support Palestine.
All Palestinian groups, including Hamas, were present at Sardar Soleimani's funeral in Iran
and met with General Qaani who promised, "not only to continue support but to increase it
according to Sayyed Khamenei's request," said the source. Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Leader, said
from Tehran: "Soleimani is the martyr of Jerusalem".
Many Iraqi commanders were present at the meeting with General Qaani. Most of these have a
long record of hostility towards US forces in Iraq during the occupation period (2003-2011).
Their commander, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, was assassinated with Sardar Soleimani and they are
seeking revenge. Those leaders have enough motivation to attack the US forces, who have
violated the Iraq-US training, cultural and armament agreement. At no time was the US
administration given a license to kill in Iraq by the government of Baghdad.
The Iraqi Parliament has spoken: and the assassination of Sardar Soleimani has indeed fallen
within the ultimate objectives of the "Axis of the Resistance". The Iraqi caretaker Prime
Minister has officially informed all members of the Coalition Forces in Iraq that "their
presence, including that of NATO, is now no longer required in Iraq". They have one year to
leave. But that absolutely does not exclude the Iraqi need to avenge their commanders.
Palestine constitutes the second objective, as quoted by Sayyed Khamenei. We cannot exclude
a considerable boost of support for the Palestinians, much more than the actually existing one.
Iran is determined to support the Sunni Palestinians in their objective to have a state of
their own in Palestine. The man – Soleimani – is gone and is replaceable like any
other man: but the level of commitment to goals has increased. It is hard to imagine the "Axis
of the Resistance" remaining idle without engaging themselves somehow in the US Presidential
campaign. So, the remainder of 2020 is expected to be hot.
*
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"... Wilkerson provided a harsh critique of US foreign policy over the last two decades. Wilkerson states: ..."
"... America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the American Empire is. ..."
"... We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo] is doing right now, as [President Donald Trump] is doing right now, as [Secretary of Defense Mark Esper] is doing right now, as [Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] is doing right now, as [Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR)] is doing right now, and a host of other members of my political party -- the Republicans -- are doing right now. We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it, and that's the agony of it. ..."
"... That base voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end these endless wars, he promised to drain the swamp. Well, as I said, an alligator from that swamp jumped out and bit him. And, when he ordered the killing of Qassim Suleimani, he was a member of the national security state in good standing, and all that state knows how to do is make war. ..."
Lawrence Wilkerson, a College of William & Mary professor who was chief of staff for
Secretary of State Colin Powel in the George W. Bush administration, powerfully summed up the
vile nature of the US national security state in a recent interview with host Amy Goodman at
Democracy Now.
Asked by Goodman about the escalation of US conflict with Iran and how it compares with the
prior run-up to the Iraq War, Wilkerson provided a harsh critique of US foreign policy over the
last two decades. Wilkerson states:
Ever since 9/11, the beast of the national security state, the beast of endless wars, the
beast of the alligator that came out of the swamp, for example, and bit Donald Trump just a
few days ago, is alive and well.
America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no
end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the American Empire is.
We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as [US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo] is doing
right now, as [President Donald Trump] is doing right now, as [Secretary of Defense Mark
Esper] is doing right now, as [Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)] is doing right now, as [Senator
Tom Cotton (R-AR)] is doing right now, and a host of other members of my political party --
the Republicans -- are doing right now. We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is
we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it, and that's the agony of
it.
What we saw President Trump do was not in President Trump's character, really. Those boys
and girls who were getting on those planes at Fort Bragg to augment forces in Iraq, if you
looked at their faces, and, even more importantly, if you looked at the faces of the families
assembled along the line that they were traversing to get onto the airplanes, you saw a lot
of Donald Trump's base. That base voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end these
endless wars, he promised to drain the swamp. Well, as I said, an alligator from that swamp
jumped out and bit him. And, when he ordered the killing of Qassim Suleimani, he was a member
of the national security state in good standing, and all that state knows how to do is make
war.
Wilkerson, over the remainder of the two-part interview provides many more
insightful comments regarding US foreign policy, including recent developments concerning Iran.
Watch Wilkerson's interview here:
It's amazing all the money in the State Department and other intelligence agencies should be
attracting the best minds. Yet a bunch of us sitting here watching this from our boring
office jobs realize how genuinely stupid US foreign policy has been.
A separate Sunni state in West Iraq would be doomed. We need to leave these people alone,
we've made enough foolish mistakes and this will get a lot of people killed. That's along
with US troops being put in harms way for ridiculous reasons like stealing Syrian oil and now
occupying Iraq against their parliaments wishes.
Back in the day you told someone you were American and they wanted to shake your hand and
ask you about this place or that. Now they want to spit in our faces
Just when you thought that Washington could not sink any lower in the international
diplomacy game, the Trump White House compounds its previous misdeed by issuing a public death
threat against the successor of assassinated Quds Force General Qasem Soleimani.
Presidential US Special Envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, gave a statement to the Arabic language
newspaper,
Asharq al-Awsat , where he warned new General of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC), Esmail Ghaani, that he will end up like Soleimani should he be accused of killing any
Americans, remarking that, "follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the
same fate."
Hook continued saying,"We will hold the regime and its agents responsible for any attack on
Americans or American interests in the region."
Hook also went on to boast that Washington's state-sponsored assassination of Soleimani has
made the Middle East a safer place because it has "create a vacuum that the Regime will not be
able to fill," inferring that Ghaani will not be able to marshal "Iran's agents in the
region".
Hook also repeated the common talking point that Soleimani was the 'world's most dangerous
terrorist' – a label which hardly corresponds with facts which clearly demonstrate that
the Iranian military leader was leading the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Iraq and
Syria.
In the interview, Hook also used the opportunity to reinforce another State Department
narrative which still claims that Iran somehow launched the September attack on Saudi Arabia's
Aramco oil facilities – even though the likely culprit, Yemen's Houthi rebel forces,
had already taken credit for the attack.
Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks been
promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials from both
countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties' attempts to
expel American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria, Lebanon and
Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of using
land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007 proposition by
Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.
Biden's plan was actually an attempt to ethnically cleanse Iraq into three distinct
enclaves (because an integrated, multicultural Iraq is anathema to the US colonial divide and
conquer strategy).
Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians on Saturday bemoaned Democratic
presidential contender Barack Obama's choice of running mate, known in Iraq as the author of
a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.
"This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of the idea of dividing
Iraq," Salih al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue, one of the main Sunni Arab blocs in
parliament, told Reuters.
"We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject it. Dividing the
communities and land in such a way would only lead to new fighting between people over
resources and borders. Iraq cannot survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would keep
the problems alive for a long time."
For all his brazen denials about his Iraq involvement, one wonders whether, if Joe Biden
hadn't been selected Obama's Vice President, he might have eventually been named Iraq
Viceroy.
Now Trump is adopting Biden's plan.
Same as it ever was.... up 12 users have voted. --
Tom Steyer is my favorite billionaire. Let's eat him last.
Backed into a corner and influence waning, the United States has in recent weeks
been promoting a plan to create an autonomous Sunni region in western Iraq, officials
from both countries told Middle East Eye.
The US efforts, the officials say, come in response to Shia Iraqi parties' attempts
to expel American troops from their country.
Iraq represents a strategic land bridge between Iran and its allies in Syria,
Lebanon and Palestine.
Establishing a US-controlled Sunni buffer zone in western Iraq would deprive Iran of
using land routes into Syria and prevent it from reaching the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean.
For Washington, the idea of carving out a Sunni region dates back to a 2007
proposition by Joe Biden, who is now vying to be the Democratic Party's presidential
candidate.
Biden's plan was actually an attempt to ethnically cleanse Iraq into three distinct
enclaves (because an integrated, multicultural Iraq is anathema to the US colonial divide
and conquer strategy).
Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians on Saturday bemoaned
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama's choice of running mate, known in Iraq
as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian
enclaves.
"This choice of Biden is disappointing, because he is the creator of the idea of
dividing Iraq," Salih al-Mutlaq, head of National Dialogue, one of the main Sunni Arab
blocs in parliament, told Reuters.
"We rejected his proposal when he announced it, and we still reject it. Dividing the
communities and land in such a way would only lead to new fighting between people over
resources and borders. Iraq cannot survive unless it is unified, and dividing it would
keep the problems alive for a long time."
For all his brazen denials about his Iraq involvement, one wonders whether, if Joe
Biden hadn't been selected Obama's Vice President, he might have eventually been named
Iraq Viceroy.
Trump needs to claim victory over ISIS and get the hell out. Those one million peaceful
protesters will turn into something really ugly, probably joined by parts or all of the Iraqi
military. That will be far worse for him, with scenes of US diplomats being airlifted out of
the embassy by helicopter. up 10 users have voted. --
Capitalism has always been the rule by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate
them or restrict their power.
B - AP isn't the only outlet falsely reporting the protest. Please get screen shots from the
other "reports" (like Bloomberg) and add them to this post to document the media
manipulation.
Around Baghdad's Hurriyah Square, the streets were a sea of black, white and red, as
protesters clutched Iraqi flags and wore shrouds around their shoulders to evoke the
country's dead.
White shrouds around their shoulders do not "evoke the country's dead" but a a sign of
willingness for martyrdom. Those guys ( vid ) are ready to
fight and die for their aim.
Yes, I was thinking about something along those lines, and was about to write a comment.
There are conservative tribal leaders, who were at one point relatively favourable to the US,
and who might be susceptible to this manoeuvre, and to Saudi persuasion. I was thinking in
particular of Abu Risheh. However, unfortunately, their peoples along the Euphrates got
flattened by the fighting during the Surge (after the period you're citing), so I don't know
how enthusiastic they're going to be. It's a conventional problem, if the US makes a deal
with a chief, indeed MbS is an example, they presume that they've got the whole people. They
haven't.
div> please, do not try to search for US policy sense in the whole ME. all
the moves there are done by the Israel firsters: destroy first then invent "senses". even the
first Gulf War was lacking any policy consideration. I hope one day before she dies, to listen
to what US Ambassador at that time, April Gillepsie, has to say about "her" entrapment of
Saddam Hussein, a sort of McNamara hour of acknowledging.
Posted by: nietzsche1510 , Jan 24 2020 18:59 utc |
54
please, do not try to search for US policy sense in the whole ME. all the moves there are
done by the Israel firsters: destroy first then invent "senses". even the first Gulf War was
lacking any policy consideration. I hope one day before she dies, to listen to what US
Ambassador at that time, April Gillepsie, has to say about "her" entrapment of Saddam
Hussein, a sort of McNamara hour of acknowledging.
Posted by: nietzsche1510 | Jan 24 2020 18:59 utc |
54
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Thirty-four US service members have been diagnosed with concussions
and traumatic brain injuries after Iran conducted ballistic missile strikes on two bases in
Iraq with half of them still undergoing medical treatment, Department of Defence spokesman
Jonathan Hoffman said in a press briefing on 24 January.
"With regard to the number of recent injuries here is the latest update 34 total members have
diagnosed with concussions and TBI [traumatic brain injury]", Hoffman told reporters.
Concussions or Headaches.? When it's serious we have to lie -
Paging Dr. Donald J. Trump
Paging any available Dr. or resident at Mayo Clinic
I wouldn't deny the US is capable of creating an Iraqi al-Tanf. The US is always capable of
air-supporting isolated bases, as long as there is the determination to do so. It's been
shown many times, from Vietnam to Afghanistan. More, I don't see. The Sunnis have seen the
way the Syrian Kurds were abandoned, so nobody's going to be enthused. And the surge has not
been forgotten.
"The Shi'a can certainly get their people out - which by the way is why they have such
effective militias. The Sunnis don't have similarly effective militias (though such would
probably also be politically difficult)."
Wondering why ? Because the don't want to live as minorities any more, specially where
they are the majority. There is need for a collective security across the Shia community
throughout the Western Asia and has nothing to do with US. Because US and UK, historically
and continually have supported and inspired Sunni clients against Shia uprisings
For equal rights, US and UK and their clients have become a common threat to Shia resistance.
This resistance and sense of common security within Shia communities is so strong and
imbedded that killing one leader here one commander there will not change the outcome. As an
example Abbas Mussavie was assassinated by IDF in 1992 who replaced him that became more
dangerous and kicked Israel out of Lebanon, one Hassan Nassrollah
US will end up leaving like in VM No matter what she does
I was thinking along the lines of Saudi intermediaries doing deals with tribes as Mcgurk
pulled off in the Raqqa meeting when he brought in a Saudi intermediary or envoy to do a deal
with the tribes of Deir Ezzor. I see the tribe break down into clans, so suppose it would or
may be the heads of clans that deals would have to be done with.
What strikes me about this though is that US are looking at retreating into the area ISIS
have retreated to and where they arose - the Iraq Syria border regions.
- Muqtada Al Sadr is an iraqi nationalist. As long as he can get help from Iran he will
take it. But when that help is no longer needed then he will try to reduce the "influence" of
the iranians as much as possible. Prehaps the words "boot them out" is a bit "over the
top".
- But the relationship will Always remain friendly. But he is "his own man".
- In this regard this a re-run of what happened in the year 2003 & 2004. Back then the US
wanted to pick their own sock puppet but the shiites out-witted the US.
Interesting that the number of US troops suffering concussive injuries from the Iran
retaliatory strikes has been quietly reassessed to 44 persons. That seems significant in
light of the extensive threats beforehand that any injury to a US person would ignite
thunderous reprisal. It seems, then, the Americans have no plan, the Soleimaini hit was not
thought through, and they are not in any way prepared for a necessary readjustment of their
position in the region. Trump at Davos dismissed the protests and again threatened sanctions
on Iraq - the fulcrum of US power has now visibly shifted from the military to the dominance
of the reserve currency in the form of economic reprisals (sanctions). Reduced to imposing or
threatening economic blockades on adversary populations is not a winning long-term
strategy.
It is not only the MSM coordinated blackout on the important events developing in Iraq,
notice also the scarce half hundred comments here in this thread on the same events by the
usual and otherwise prolific regulars, who preferred to comment on so used Boeing or whatever
old topic instead...
Meanwhile, those of us who wished to comment got banned, as they seemed to be some other
who wanted to comment by other media, like Pepe Escobar in Facebook...
Elijah Magnier says,
Someone should write an article on how Main Stream Media and most reputable agencies either
ignored what happened in #Baghdad #Iraq today or deliberately downplayed it because it
calls for the #US to leave.
News is strikingly manipulated s since the war in #Syria 2011.
Incredible, isn't it? A policy of parcellisation which has already failed twice, in Iraq
and then again in Syria. And now Trump is going to do it again, according to reports which
could well be right. They're sufficiently stupid. They're actually expecting the poor
suffering Fallujans, who suffered through more than a month of being tortured by US troops,
are going to stand up and fight for the US.
It's a complete misappreciation of the situation, not unusual in the US. It is of course
true that the Sunnis suffer from the unthinking policies of the Shi'a, and are treated like
an occupied country. But that doesn't mean that the Sunnis think they can stand up an
independent state. They don't, particularly if the US only stations a handful of troops
there.
The US could of course militarily occupy the area, but that's not Trump's plan, as it
would be too politically intrusive back home.
By the way I hear we're about to receive Trump's overall peace plan for the Middle East.
Given that the first rollouts fell totally flat, I wouldn't be too optimistic about its new
reception in the Middle East.
- Carving out a state in North-Western Iraq is part of "The Biden plan" of 2006 (/2007 ?).
The Biden plan was to divide Iraq into 3 parts: Kurdistan, "Sumnnistan" and "Shia-stan".
- Was this the reason why the US "created" ISIS (in 2014) ??
The Shi'a can certainly get their people out - which by the way is why they have such
effective militias. The Sunnis don't have similarly effective militias (though such would
probably also be politically difficult).
The US certainly doesn't have much idea how to tackle such a movement. The renewal of the
plan for parcellisation just shows up the bankruptcy of US policy, nothing spoke to me so
strongly of the failure of US thinking. For all the number of Washington think-tanks
concentrating on the ME, they can't come up with workable ideas.
Posted by: Ernesto Che | Jan 24 2020 12:32 utc | 6
Al-Sadr is indeed an Iraqi nationalist, and not particularly pro-Iranian, others are more.
He more profited from Iran's safe haven, than became pro-Iranian.
On the other hand, he's unlikely to become Prime Minister, as too extreme. The US, if it
gets a say in the choice of the next PM, will veto. And he's a sort who is in permanent
opposition to everything, rather than in government, much like Corbyn in Britain.
On January 18, Houthi rebels targeted the al Estiqbal military training camp, used by the
Saudi-led coalition and forces loyal to Yemen's UN-recognised government. The strikes
resulted in at least 116 deaths and dozens (if not hundreds) of injuries. Those struck had
reportedly just finished praying at the base's mosque. According to Saudi media, the
Houthis used a combination of ballistic missiles and drones.
The fake media are trying to trasvesticize these protests as antigovernment protests in the
eyes of the Waestern and American population, fortunately, the images are worth thousands
words:
During the first of the various criminal attacks on Fallujah, Sadr famously promised to
deploy the Mahdi Army there to defend the largely sunni community.
The US fears nothing more than nationalism in the middle east- all its policies are aimed at
atomising communities and fostering sectarian division. It is a tactic that has worked well
in the United States for centuries- preserving the absolute power of the capitalist oligarchy
by setting black against white, catholic against protestant, settler against indigenous,
migrant against native.
It is difficult to conceive of a more evil policy than that of encouraging shi'ites to bully
sunnis and vice versa, while dissecting society into shreds of ethnic and sectarian entities
, which are then armed and trained to fight and kill one another.
This was the basis of the surge under Petraus. Of course the British had established the
practice themselves. Among other things they employed christian Assyrians as police.
Al Mayadeen is reporting testimonies from all confesional sides on that this is an united
clamor coming from the whole Iraqi society, who sees a clear link between occupation and
corruption, in spite of their internal political differences, seeing no future while the US
remains in the country corrupting and compromising Iraqi reconstruction and progress.
They are saying that the numbers seen demonstrating today in Iraq, in the anniversary of
the other historical 1920 anticolonial demonstration, equates a popular referendum on the US
illegal and forced presence in the country.
The representatives of the protesters are stating that there are being stablished
diplomatic means for the US to go out, but, in case it refuses doing it by these means, the
resistance will come into action. Thus a way of no return for the US is being delineated
here...
Since the assassination drones cannot fly all the way from US territory to their intended
targets,
any country that harbors the drones is actually complicit to the crimes of the US of A.
They must be made to understand that these assassinations will cost them eventually as
accessories
to these crimes.
Possibly the most potent leverage Iraq can have on the US is for the Iraqi parliament to
decree that all legal previously agreed immunity for US military guilty of crimes in Iraq is
null and void. All US war criminals immediately liable to be tried in Iraq under Iraq law,
unless the US commit to a prompt and orderly withdrawal. Right to prosecute still reserved in
case of US non-compliance with any such commitment.
Whether or to what extent this could be made retrospective to the beginning of the current
agreement (on the grounds that the agreement has been violated) I don't know. Maybe it might
be possible to apply retrospectively at least to the first verifiable breech of the agreement
by the US, I have no idea. Or maybe the agreement can only be deemed void with effect from a
statement by the parliament, I have no idea. In any case, the US is now there illegally:
any US soldier can legally be arrested and imprisoned at any time; and any US
soldier from now on killing or injuring any person in Iraq is automatically a war
criminal.
If it can so some extent legally be made retrospective, the US would automatically face a
terrifying situation.
(Any prisons containing US prisoners in Iraq need full military protection though - I
recall previously the US destroyed a prison with a tank where some soldiers were
arrested).
The link from Al Mayadeen includes live stream with commentary in Arabic of the crowds
gathering who seem in the sizes of Arbaeen pilgrimage...or more.....since
multiconfessional...
A new poll shows a plurality of Americans approve of President Trump's decision to order
the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Forty-one percent of Americans agreed with the decision, according to the Associated Press
and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Friday. Thirty percent disapproved
and the remaining 30 percent were indifferent.
On Jan. 3 the U.S. killed Soleimani at the Baghdad airport. The move raised tensions in
the Middle East and fears of a new war. Iran launched rocket attacks on two bases with U.S.
personnel in Iraq days later.
You are likely confusing the US with the UK. I tried to look up the tale of the "Basra
bombers" again, but it appears to be pretty well scrubbed from the web.. Here's some of what
I could scramble to find:
The deep state clearly is running the show (with some people unexpected imput -- see Trump
;-)
Elections now serve mainly for the legitimizing of the deep state rule; election of a
particular individual can change little, although there is some space of change due to the power
of executive branch. If the individual stray too much form the elite "forign policy consensus" he
ether will be JFKed or Russiagated (with the Special Prosecutor as the fist act and impeachment
as the second act of the same Russiagate drama)
But a talented (or reckless) individual can speed up some process that are already under way.
For example, Trump managed to speed up the process of destruction of the USA-centered neoliberal
empire considerably. Especially by launching the trade war with China. He also managed to
discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush II.
>This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
> Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36
Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it
that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of
murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive
policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the
growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are
easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.
One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him
whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose
name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to
pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially
change the direction of US policy.
But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able
to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming
into view...
The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me.
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE to believe A politician will/can change anything and give your consent to
war criminals and traitors?
NO person(s) WILL EVER get to the top in imperial/vassal state politics without being on the
rentier class side, the cognitive dissonans in voting for known liars, war criminals and
traitors would kill me or fry my brain. TINA is a lie and "she" is a real bitch that deserves
to be thrown on the dump off history, YOUR vote is YOUR consent to murder, theft and
treason.
DONT be a rentier class enabler STOP voting and start making your local communities better
and independent instead.
The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me. <-
Norway
Of course, There Is Another Way, for example, kvetching. We can boldly show that we are
upset, and pessimistic. One upset pessimists reach critical mass we will think about some
actions.
But being upset and pessimistic does fully justify inactivity. In particular, given the
nature of social interaction networks, with spokes and hubs, dominating the network requires
the control of relatively few nodes. The nature of democracy always allows for leverage
takeover, starting from dominating within small to the entire nation in few steps. As it was
nicely explained by Prof. Overton, there is a window of positions that the vast majority
regards as reasonable, non-radical etc. One reason that powers to be invest so much energy
vilifying dissenters, Russian assets of late, is to keep them outside the Overton window.
Having a candidate elected that the curators of Overton window hate definitely shakes the
situation with the potential of shifting the window. There were some positive symptoms after
Trump was elected, but negatives prevail. "Why not we just kill him" idea entered the window,
together with "we took their oil because we have guts and common sense".
From that point of view, visibility of Tulsi and election of Sanders will solve some
problems but most of all, it will make big changes in Overton window.
Vanessa Beeley provides a short, incomplete, list.
I look at the pictures of today's refugees and see the faces of yesterday's. I see the
conditions they inhabit, the squalor and filth, and I see the same in pictures from the past.
I read the words of hatred directed at those innocents and recall the same words being said
of their predecessors.
And the source of the words and plight of the innocents both present
and past come from the same portals or power--The Imperialist West and its Zionist progeny.
How many millions have died to enrich their purse, to increase the size of the estates, to
serve as their slaves? How many more in the future will share their fate?
Will humans ever
evolve to become peaceful animals and save themselves?
Elections now serve mainly the legitimizing of the deep state rule function; election of a
partuclar induvudual can change little, althouth there is some space of change due to the power
of executive branch.
For example, Trump managed to speed up the process od destruction of the USA-centered
neoliberal empire considerably. Especially by lauching the trade war with China. He also
managed to discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush
II.
>This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
> Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36
Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it
that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of
murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive
policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the
growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are
easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.
One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him
whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose
name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to
pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially
change the direction of US policy.
But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able
to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming
into view...
In a day like yesterday....US merits to remain in Iraq getting 50% oil revenues while
contributing zero to rebuilt the country they previosuly destroyed and funding and spreading
chaos, unrest and terrorism...
On this day in 1991, the US bombed an infant formula production plant in Iraq as part of
Operation Desert Storm. The US lied, calling it a biological weapons facility, but in
actuality, "it was the only source of infant formula food for children one year and younger
in Iraq."
If the U.S. can do it or rather, have been assassinating other countries Officials, so can
others and eventually, they will retaliate. No U.S. official will be safe, even in the
mainland U.S. An old saying applies here. You sew the wind and reap the whirlwind.
The world is rapidly tiring of the classless thuggery of the U.S.A.
Excellent point... and furthermore, if Russia & others are capable of clandestine hits
(as per the accusations against them, i.e. Skripal, MH17, Litvinenko) then why on earth would
US invite such operations against themselves?
I'm sure if they (Russia/Iran/others) really wanted to, unfortunate mishaps, like
traceless, self-inflected, nail-gun accidents are easily possible
Just when you think ZATO couldn't get any stupider...
"The Iraqi Shia, 66% of the 40 million Iraqi population, are expressing their hatred towards
US forces in particular and all foreign forces in general. Iraq would like to see these
forces depart for good, putting an end to US influence in Mesopotamia and West Asia. A
massive protest has been organised for this Friday 24th January, led by Sayyed Moqtada
al-Sadr, who is warning the US of the consequences of ignoring this Parliamentary decision.
It is expected to be the most massive protest in the history of Iraq. But this protest is
only the beginning."
https://ejmagnier.com/2020/01/22/immediate-us-withdrawal-due-to-its-violation-of-the-agreement-and-iraq-sovereignty/
The murder of Soleimani was not a one-off: it will be the policy to take out leaders and US
vassals dare not speak up: Murder and Sanctions (aka "Financial Warfare" ) is what they do.
The US will assassinate Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani if he targets
Americans, US special representative for Iran Brian Hook has warned.
"If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate,"
Hook said, speaking to Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, in an interview
published Thursday.
According to the US diplomat, President Trump has made it very "clear that any attack on
Americans or American interests will be met with a decisive response, which the president
demonstrated on January 2".
Hook also said he believed that "the Iranian regime" now "understands that they cannot
attack America and get away with it".
Yes and soon.
Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend itself from licentious
extraterritorial sanctions.
USA has just but a bulls-eye on every American in Iraq and Syria.
Every anti-Iranian ideologue (starting with Netanyahu) will now start planning false-flag
attacks.
Just another dog whistle like Obama's "red-line" farce.
PS Did any media confirm the death of the US translator that caused USA to bomb the
Iraqi PMU? His name wasn't even released for a couple of week AFTER he was killed and AFAIK
no one really knows who killed him.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Probably little happens until UN sanctions "snap-back". That will light the fuse and the
fireworks start a number of weeks later but certainly before July (somebody wrote about
Russia's being able to sell arms to Iran on the 5th-year anniversary of the JCPOA on July
14th).
Sadly, the false-flag needed to energize the masses with "war fever" (like after 9-11) is
likely to require that many Americans are killed. And possibly not just military but
civilians.
Aside:
The cover of the 2015 Economist comes to mind. Two arrows on the lower right contain the
numbers "11.5" and "11.3". The sand behind the arrows might represent the middle east. Do the
two arrows represent a date range (European-like dates) of March 11th to May 11th? FYI:
Persian New Year is March 21st, UN sanctions are likely to "snap-back" by mid-March.
The eleventh of the month has gained significance due to 9-11 and 7-11 (in England). Thus,
3-11, 4-11, and 5-11 would have symbolic value as for a "terrorist" incident.
How could the Economist have predicted such a date range? I've said many times that I
thought that the JCPOA was a delaying tactic that was needed simply because Syrian regime
change was taking longer than expected. From such a point of view, it's reasonable to assume
that steps are taken to end the agreement and/or prompt strikes (symbolized by the arrows on
the Economist's cover) prior to the end of the agreement or important anniversary milestones
(like Ruissia's being able to sell arms after 5 years).
While some might say that such musings are irrational "conspiracy theory", I bring it up
because neocons and other bad actors engage in long-term planning to achieve their goals. We
are not suppose to notice such planning and then when things happen (like 9-11 and the
2008 Global Financial Crisis) it is quickly claimed that "no one could've foreseen"
such things - which becomes an excuse for the bad actors to go unpunished.
!!
Jackrabbit , Jan 23 2020 18:36 utc | 46
3.11.2004 Madrid Atocha train station attacks happened...allegedly AQ autorship...
1.7.2015 Charlie Hebdo attack...IS/AQ autorship...allegedly...
The murder of Soleimani was not a one-off: it will be the policy to take out leaders and US
vassals dare not speak up: Murder and Sanctions (aka "Financial Warfare" ) is what they do.
The US will assassinate Quds Force Commander Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani if he targets
Americans, US special representative for Iran Brian Hook has warned.
"If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate,"
Hook said, speaking to Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, in an interview
published Thursday.
According to the US diplomat, President Trump has made it very "clear that any attack on
Americans or American interests will be met with a decisive response, which the president
demonstrated on January 2".
Hook also said he believed that "the Iranian regime" now "understands that they cannot
attack America and get away with it".
Yes and soon.
Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend itself from licentious
extraterritorial sanctions.
by William Walter Kay Posted on
January
23, 2020 January 22, 2020 Katyushas are short-range, unguided artillery rockets typically
fired in salvos from truck-mounted launch-tubes. Iraq's insurgents deploy three types.
The smallest is 107 millimeters in diameter and 1 meter long. Its 19 kilogram weight
includes an 8 kg high-explosive, shrapnel-bearing warhead. The 107mm is often fired from a
12-tube launcher, however, infantry-portable single-tube tripods are common. An experienced
crew with a standardized weapon can hit a 400 X 400 meter target from 8 kilometers away.
During the Vietnam War the US Army considered the 107mm to be their adversaries' most
formidable weapon.
The 122mm 'Grad' Katyusha is 3 meters long and weighs 75 kg. Its warhead spans a third of
its length and weighs 18 kg. It has a 20-kilometer range and a 30-meter lethal radius.
220mm Katyushas hurl 100 kg warheads 30 kilometers.
Katyushas have advantages over mortars. They deliver the same payload twice the distance
and they fire multiple ordnance more rapidly. The globally ubiquitous BM-21 Grad fires forty
122mm rockets in three minutes. Reloading takes 10 minutes. Thus, Katyushas excel at
"shoot-and-scoot" operations. As well, Katyushas' flat trajectories permit line-of-sight
attacks and their 700 meter-per-second velocities provide unique anti-building potential.
After helping suppress the ISIS-led insurgency (2014-17) US forces defaulted to their
previous occupation plan. Central to this program are segregated compounds situated inside
Iraqi Armed Forces bases. These installations, always near airstrips, contain mere hundreds
(not thousands) of US and Coalition troops who ride herd over the Iraqi Army whilst grooming
and directing Iraq's 15,000-strong Special Forces.
Embassies and consulates are integral to the occupation. The sprawling US Embassy compound
dominates Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone" which also houses Coalition partners' embassies,
and the headquarters of the many NGOs insinuated throughout Iraqi society.
The occupation facilitates local activities of American and European businesses. These
require office blocks, oil-field infrastructure; and, gated communities for imported
talent.
Pre-2011 Americans relied on bases containing thousands of troops. These were remotely
located and allocated substantial resources to thwart indirect (mortar and rocket) attacks
through: counter-artillery, drone surveillance, and fighting patrols. Despite this, indirect
fire inflicted 3,000 casualties (including 211 fatalities) on American forces; many occurring
inside 'secure' bases.
The US-led Coalition's current archipelago of military, diplomatic, intelligence, business
and NGO installations are ill-equipped to defend themselves against indirect fire. Proximity
to cities makes them sitting ducks.
In September 2018 persons unknown began targeting US installations with Katyushas. This
list chronicles these attacks. *
(A dozen mortar attacks are not listed; Katyushas being the weapon of choice.)
September 8, 2018 – four rockets (three 107mms and one 122mm) fall near the Green
Zone.
September 8, 2018 – two salvos of 107mms land near the US Consulate beside Basra
Airport.
September 28, 2018 – three 107mms are fired at the Basra Consulate; two land on
site.
December 27, 2018 – two 107mms are fired at Al-Asad Airbase (160 kilometers west
of Baghdad) during Trump's visit.
February 2, 2019 – an attack on Al-Asad Airbase is aborted. Three ready-to-launch
122mms are captured.
February 12, 2019 – three 107mms hit Q-West Airfield (an off-the-books base south
of Mosul).
May 1, 2019 – two 107mms hit Camp Al-Taji: a 'training' institute, 40 kilometers
north of Baghdad.
May 19, 2019 – two rockets land near the US Embassy.
June 10, 2019 – rocket attack on Camp Al-Taji.
June 12, 2019 – rocket attack on a "northern air base" starts a fire.
June 13, 2019 – rocket attack on Nineveh Command Headquarters (Mosul Presidential
Palace).
June 14, 2019 – a rocket lands near the US Embassy.
June 17, 2019 – three rockets hit Camp Al-Taji.
June 18, 2019 – Nineveh HQ is attacked by two 122mms; one hits, one misses.
June 19, 2019 – rockets strike a gated community outside Basra (home to Exxon
staff).
September 23, 2019 – two rockets hit the Green Zone; one lands near the US
Embassy.
October 30, 2019 – two rockets hit the Green Zone, killing an Iraqi soldier.
November 8, 2019 – seventeen rockets target Q-West Airfield.
November 17, 2019 – rockets hit the Green Zone.
November 29, 2019 – a rocket hits the Green Zone.
December 3, 2019 – Al-Asad Airbase is "rocked" by five 122mms.
December 5, 2019 – five 107mms hit Balad Airbase (80 kilometers north of
Baghdad).
December 6, 2019 – a 240mm rocket lands near Baghdad Airport (then housing a US
base).
December 9, 2019 – four 240mms strike Baghdad Airport killing 2, and wounding 5,
Iraqi soldiers.
December 11, 2019 – two 240mms land outside Baghdad Airport.
December 27, 2019 – thirty-six 107mms hammer K1 Base (15 kilometers northwest of
Kirkuk); killing an American translator and wounding several US troops.
December 29, 2019 – four rockets hit Camp Al-Taji.
December 29, 2019 – five rockets hit Al-Asad Airbase.
January 4, 2020 – two rockets hit Balad Airbase.
January 4, 2020 – several rockets hit the Green Zone. One lands near the US
Embassy; another closes a major street.
January 5, 2020 – six rockets are fired at the Green Zone; three hit the
target.
January 8, 2020 – two rockets hit the Green Zone.
January 12, 2020 – eight rockets hit Balad Airbase, wounding several Iraqi
soldiers.
January 14, 2020 – a five-rocket attack on Camp Al-Taji.
January 20, 2020 – three rockets hit Green Zone. They were fired from Al
Zafraniya (15 kilometers away).
Attacks are becoming more frequent and are trending toward bigger rockets and higher
volume salvos.
The insurgents' strategy is working. Katyusha attacks shuttered the US Basra Consulate in
September 2018. Attacks in May and June 2019 forced Exxon to evacuate much of its foreign
staff. Throughout 2019 the US State Department extracted personnel and the Defense Department
consolidated bases into more secure facilities. By late 2019 US authorities were begging
Iraqis for help whilst threatening retaliation.
The last straw came December 27 when the barrage onto K1 Base killed an American
translator. The US responded with airstrikes on five Kata'ib Hezbollah bases (90 casualties)
and with the January 3 assassination of Iranian General Soleimani. (The decision to
assassinate Soleimani – in the event of an American fatality – was made June 24,
2019 following a week of near daily Katyusha attacks.)
While Iran and Iran's Iraqi allies are blamed for these attacks; this is dubious.
Reportage following attacks invariably drops the phrase " no one claimed
responsibility " – which is notable because perpetrators often boast of such
achievements. Ten years ago, when Kata'ib Hezbollah targeted US facilities with "lob bombs"
(improvised rockets), they posted videos of their handiwork. They deny involvement in these
recent attacks as do other Iranian-linked militias.
The reportage often describes the attacks as " mysterious " or as a "
whodunit. " Authors relay US intelligence theories of Iranian involvement without
evidence.
On several occasions insurgents abandoned launchers and/or launch vehicles after the
attack, often with fail-to-launch rockets inside. Investigators also possess fragments of
successfully fired rockets. Tellingly, US officials, renowned for straining at gnats for
evidence of Iranian complicity, do not utilize this material to incriminate Tehran.
The launchers themselves are obviously manufactured by local artisans. Moreover, an
article from Kurdistan – 24 describes the rockets as " locally
made ." Even globalist-militarist instrumentalities like the Washington Institute, Long
War Journal, and Center for Strategic and International Studies concede some Katyushas are
manufactured in Iraq.
Iraq has a burgeoning steel industry and, due to the calamities of the past 20 years, an
enormous scrap metal industry. Katyushas' cardinal virtue is their simplicity.
Circa 2014 twelve countries hosted non-state armed groups that deployed Katyushas.
(Post-2014 Yemen's Houthis joined this list, then outdid the pack in innovation and
output.)
During the 2003-11 era Iraqi insurgents looted Katyushas from local arsenals. Other
Katyushas came from Iran (officially or via the black market) and possibly from any of 32
other countries manufacturing them. Experts bemoan the difficulty of determining a rocket's
origin.
Circa 2008 Iraqi artisans manufactured a variety of launchers. A 2009 raid in Maysan
Governorate discovered 107mm, 122mm and 220mm rail launchers; and 1,700 carjacks. (Jacks were
affixed to the bottoms of stationary tripods to permit changes in launch angle.) Insurgents
developed creative mobile launch platforms i.e. inside ice cream trucks or towed behind
motorcycles etc. They debuted remote control triggers and GPS reconnaissance.
Circa 2011 poor quality of locally acquired rockets compelled insurgents to continue to
rely on imports. The insurgents were, however, manufacturing "lob bomb" rockets and
anti-armor mines; although Iran stood accused of being their sole supplier.
Post-2011 insurgents honed their craft. Remember: Hamas, operating inside Gaza with a tiny
fraction of the resources of Iraq's insurgents, manufactures crude Katyushas.
Prime suspects in the Katyusha campaign are not pro-Iranian militias; but rather the
milieu around Mahdi Army successor, the Promise Day Brigades (PDB). This political tendency,
nominally led by Moqtada al-Sadr, is concentrated in Iraq's densely populated central and
southern regions, but boasts a militant contingent in Mosul. This milieu overlaps the Saairun
Alliance which includes Iraq's far left; who carry their own legacy of armed struggle.
The insurgency's Von Braun might be Jawad al-Tulaybani. An Iran-Iraq War veteran,
al-Tulaybani possesses 40 years of combat rocketry experience. A war wound left him partially
disabled. He appeared on US radar in 2008 after masterminding a barrage that wounded 15 US
soldiers.
The org-chart of the Saairun/PDB/al-Sadr movement remains obscured. Notably, on January 8,
2020 al-Sadr counseled refrain from military actions. Four Katyusha attacks happened
since.
What is clear is that this general political tendency is not particularly beholden to
Iran. They appear nonsectarian, if not secularist, and they advance a left-nationalist
agenda. Prior to the 2018 election (wherein Saairun emerged as the most popular bloc) Iran's
Foreign Minister warned Iran would never tolerate an Iraq run by " liberals and
communists " – meaning Saairun.
Then again, Trump's thrill kill of Soleimani (and Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units'
Deputy Commander) completely reshuffled the deck, creating unprecedented unity amongst
hitherto rivals.
As Katyushas veto pacification efforts, US forces return to square one. They must retreat
to sprawling, remotely situated camps equipped to suppress indirect fire. This, however,
means surrendering Iraq's political theater to adversaries who will marshal Iraqi Government
resources against them.
Katyushas are driving the Trump Administration's Iraq policy. Prisoners of groupthink they
react by doubling-down on the Big Lie that Iraq's national liberation movement consists only
of "Iranian terrorists." In reality, their most effective opponents are as indigenous and
legitimate as the French Resistance.
*Note on Sources
Data came from scanning 1,000 articles then parsing several dozen of them. Preference went
to state media: i.e. Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Xinhua et al; although Military Times and
Kurdistan-24 proved germane. Rogue Rocketeers: Artillery
Rockets and Armed Groups (Small Arms Survey, Geneva Switzerland, 2014) is a
must-read. Data on the first 7 Katyusha attacks was lifted without corroboration from Michael
Knights'
Responding to Iranian Harassment of U.S. Facilities in Iraq (Washington Institute,
May 21, 2019). As Knights is the only analyst to grasp the seriousness of the Katyusha
attacks. His reports are a trove. Being intimately connected to US and Israeli intelligence,
he slavishly relays the anti-Iran party line.
Major attacks generate scores of reports. Lesser attacks are mentioned only in passing.
Some articles tally the attacks but the numbers do not jibe. Certain attacks go unreported.
Probably, 50+ mortar and Katyusha attacks hit US facilities between September 8, 2018 and
January 14, 2020.
William Walter Kay is a researcher and writer from Canada. His most recent book is
From Malthus to Mifepristone: A Primer on the Population Control Movement.
The article mentions Samsung dismal profit rates from last quarter (that I posted here a
few weeks ago) and China-USA trade war. Both excuses are false; instead, South Korea is just
the latest victim of the chronic falling profitability stage, a stage every fully developed
capitalist nation will go through.
The South Korea Times was more sincere, it mentioned the country is entereing a "slow
growth trap" (the bourgeois term to designate Marx's Tendency of the Profit Rate to
Fall).
Apple was barred from offering customers encrypted iCloud storage because US intelligence
agencies insisted on maintaining open access to users' files, their primary means of
evidence-gathering, sources claim.
The FBI quashed a planned feature that would have allowed Apple users to encrypt their
iCloud storage, claiming that it would cut the agency off from its best source of evidence
against iPhone-using suspects, according to sources who spoke to Reuters on Wednesday.
Apple reportedly went along with the agency , hoping to avoid being made an example
of in the media or used as the test case for a draconian new anti-encryption law, and the
program was put to bed two years ago – yet the crusading surveillance state has
returned in the wake of the Pensacola naval air base shooting to demand still greater
incursions on user privacy.
So, when the USA does it, it isn't "totalitarianism", but "national security".
BAGHDAD, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's paramilitary force Hashd Shaabi said on Thursday that
it opened fire at an unidentified drone flying over its bases near the border with Syria in
the western province of Anbar.
On Dec. 29, the Hashd Shaabi's 45th and 46th brigades belonging to Kata'ib Hezbollah in
Iraq were attacked by U.S. airstrikes, leaving more than 25 Hashd Shaabi members killed and
51 others injured.
In his recent extended article titled How to Fight Antisemitism, published by the
purportedly 'Left' Jewish Currents, Sanders takes up the same line you'd expect from an ADL
spokesman, ticking every Hasbara box from the Jewish right of 'self determination 'to the
primacy of Jewish suffering.
The ideology of the Empire is Exceptionalism and Zionism is a key pillar. Zionists
take pains to draw parallels between USA and Israel as divinely-inspired settler
states .
Both parties support the Empire's New World Order (NWO) and Bernie has no answer for
the toxic empire-building fantasies that plague those who rule in the West . He
blithely joins other Democrats in focusing on "bread and butter" issues of "ordinary
Americans" so as to distract from the truth that EMPIRE skews everything and
disadvantages all of us except the ideologues and their wealthy backers.
Bernie is part of the problem. His sheep-dogging for Hillary was not an aberration. The
establishment has doubled-down yet again on EMPIRE. And whatever the outcome, we lose.
Can "corporate democrats" be viewed as modern day neofascists ? The fact that they do support
remnants of Nazi coalition forces in eastern Europe is especially alarming.
When I launched Immigrants as a Weapon back in September, I argued that America had done
more to promote the far-right around the world than any other country on earth. I wasn't
exaggerating. America really is the biggest and most active player in the field -- the
biggest by far.
Even a cursory look at modern American history shows that promoting nationalism and
backing far-right emigre groups has been a major plank of American foreign policy going
back to the very end of World War II. This mixture of covert and overt programs and
initiatives was first deployed to fight the Soviet Union and left-wing political movements
but has over the years touched down all over the globe -- wherever America has some sort of
geopolitical interest, including modern capitalist states like Russia and China. One of
these nationalism weaponization initiatives -- which targeted the USSR for destabilization
in the 70s and 80s -- was how a Soviet kid like me ended up in San Francisco as a political
refugee.
This history is important. Without it, it's impossible to understand the mechanics of
our reactionary foreign policy today -- whether in China or with our "strategic partner"
Ukraine, a country that's at the center of today's impeachment show.
There are all sorts of possible entry points into this story. I guess I could go all the
way back to America's support for the White Russians against the Bolsheviks in the Russian
Civil War. But for now I'd like to start at the very end of World War II -- when this
approach was just beginning to crystalize as a distinct strategy inside America's foreign
policy apparatus.
... ... ...
As Ira was made to understand, to fight the commies the Allies needed a strong,
economically stable Germany. That's why denazification efforts had been scrapped and Allied
military command was busy putting former Nazis back in charge of industry to "reconstitute
the German economy as quickly as possible." This new war footing against the Soviet Union
was also why military officials didn't want to seize German property for Jewish survivors.
They thought giving Jews anything at the expense of German citizens strained relations and
caused bad blood between them and a vital new ally.
And anyway, it wasn't like military command had much sympathy for the Jews.
General George Patton, who for a short time ran occupied Bavaria after the war, was
infamous for his contempt for Jewish survivors. In his diary, he described Jews as "lower
than animals" who would multiply like "locusts" if not kept under strict armed guard in
their camps. "I have never looked at a group of people who seem to be more lacking in
intelligence and spirit," he wrote. Patton refused to authorize the confiscation of German
property to house Jewish survivors because, he explained, it was "against my Anglo-Saxon
conscience to remove a person from a house." And when an underling had no choice but to
move a few wealthy German families to make room for Jewish survivors, Patton confessed to
his diary that he felt guilty -- like he was committing a crime.
He had been fired shortly before Ira came to Europe, but many in the US Army agreed with
his views about the Jews and continued to follow his lead. The debased and broken
conditions of Jewish survivors only confirmed people's worst antisemitic stereotypes. The
Jews were a filthy and disgusting race unfit for cohabitation with the civilized. Why give
them anything? Maybe the Germans were right in trying to wipe them out. And the Brits?
Well, if anything, even more antisemitic.
It didn't take long for Ira, an American Jew, to realize that most of the top Allied
military command was set against Jewish survivors. To them, these Jews were a liability and
a nuisance.
And the non-Jewish displaced groups? Well, they were a different story.
Among them were thousands of hardcore anticommunists. They were hardened fighters
with plenty of killing experience. They had lost their fascist wars. Their dream of
building ethnically pure utopias on their home turf had collapsed. The communists had won.
Now they had nothing left to lose and had an endless appetite for revenge. And, as it
turned out, they also had the same goal as the Allies: to destroy the Soviet Union.
No one told Ira that this was happening, but they didn't have to.
As he toured the camps it became obvious to him that the Allies were maneuvering to,
as he called it, "consolidate the forces of reaction." On the sly, they were whipping these
fascists and Nazi collaborators into the nucleus of what they hoped would to be a new
fighting force against the Soviet Union.
He saw this as the ultimate betrayal.
Ira was a bit naive about the nature of American liberalism. But on the question of
weaponized fascism, he turned out to be right. Even as he toured the camps in 1946, Britain
and America had already started working with Eastern European fascist groups for
intelligence gathering and covert commando raids on Soviet territory -- including in Latvia
and Ukraine. And by the time his book appeared in stores three years later, the
weaponization of European fascist movements had become official American policy, secretly
crafted by the most celebrated foreign policy brain of that generation: George
Kennan.
To occupatio: We know that the US/ZATO is in the weaponized pathogen development
business. The US has set up "plausible deniablility" black bio-weapons production sites in
former Eastern Bloc countries, and the UK still runs Porton Downs, not far from the Skripal
"poisoning" location.
They have been doing this for a long, long time at Porton Down. Not living in the UK, I first
became aware of it in 1979 via a song called "Porton Down" by Peter Hammill.
An excerpt from the lyrics gives it away
Won't hear a sound at Porton Down
The clear liquids keep their silence
Buried underground at Porton Down
The fast form of the final violence
Hurry on round about Porton Down
A quick glimpse of the future warfare
Hidden underground at Porton Down
Far too frightening to say what you saw there
>In the article you link to, Levine seems to use the Ira Hirschmann book,
> The Embers Still Burn, to reinforce the notion of the preeminence of Jewish
suffering.
But of course: Hirschmann was very much a Zionist. But that need not compromise the
validity of his observations regarding the US/UK's nurturing of Central and Eastern European
fascisms.
Another unforced error. What a politically naive (or evil) twat, this Elithabeth Warren
is
"I can't think of more devastating news if you're running one of these campaigns for
president than the news that your candidate is going to be bound to a desk in Washington, day
after day, in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses." ~Obama's former campaign manager David
Axelrod
Sanders and Warren have the most to lose from a Senate impeachment trial. Iowa is Feb 3 and
New Hampshire is Feb 11. As McConnell told reporters "A number of Democratic senators are running
for president. I'm sure they're gonna be excited to be here in their chairs not being able to say
anything during the pndency of this trial. So hopefully we'll work our way through it and finish
it in not too lengthy a process,"
Clinton trial ran from Jan. 7 until Feb. 12, approximately five weeks. So if McConnell is
shrewd, he will ensure that Sanders and Warren were absent from both Iowa is Feb 3 and Feb
11.
This, however, is an outright lie. If Democrats truly valued America over their own partisan
interests, they wouldn't have forced a hoax impeachment through government, despite the
overwhelming opposition against it. Moreover, if "country over party" mattered to Democrats,
then they wouldn't have commenced talks about impeachment since before the inception of Trump's
presidency.
A new year and new decade may be upon us, but this doesn't mean that Democrats are any less
terrified of seeing their impeachment sham die in the Senate.
As a matter of fact, 2020 Democrat and Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent New Year's Eve raging
against her Republican colleagues and making baseless accusations against Trump, per reports
from Washington Examiner.
Reviewing Warren's Tirade Against Senate Republicans The 2020 socialist's remarks about
Republican members of the Senate came during her New Year's Eve address in Boston,
Massachusetts. Warren lamented over the reality that Democrats will not be able to bully or
intimidate Republicans into voting for a partisan-driven, unfounded sham. This blows Warren's
far-left, unwell mind, so she opted to blast GOP senators as " fawning, spineless defenders" of
President Trump's supposed "crimes."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks in Boston: "[President Trump] has tried to squeeze foreign
governments to advance his own political fortunes. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress
have turned into fawning spineless defenders of his crimes." pic.twitter.com/sGyLqsA8C7
Shortly thereafter, Warren followed up with the lie that ramming the weakest and thinnest
impeachment through government "brought no joy" to House Democrats. This, of course, just isn't
accurate; House Rep. Rashida Tlaib posted a gleeful livestream prior to the "impeachment" where
she bragged about being "on [her] way to the United States House floor" in order to "impeach
President Trump."
Finally, Warren declared that conservative senators need to "choose truth over politics" or
else President Trump will attempt to "cheat his way" via the 2020 election.
Misplaced Outrage As per usual with Democrats, the outrage is misplaced and misguided. If
Warren is so eager for a trial, then she should be directed this animosity towards House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi who continues to hoard the impeachment articles.
f left-wing Congress members truly believed they had a solid case against the president,
they'd be more than eager for the Senate to receive the articles and begin conducting a trial;
instead, however, raging at President Trump and Senate Republicans is easier than acknowledge
the true reality here.
Democrats forced the weakest, thinnest, and fastest impeachment through the House. The
president did absolutely nothing wrong and will be acquitted either when the Senate holds a
trial or by default if Pelosi keeps hoarding the articles.
Joe Biden's statement that "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a
tinderbox" by assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But
it skirts an all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
The answer, of course, is the United States.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
The effect is to propel himself into the front ranks of international war criminals. But
Trump could never have done it on his own if a long line of American militarists hadn't paved
the way.
Daniel Lazare January 8, 2020 | Security Who Created the Persian Gulf Tinderbox? Joe Biden's
statement that "President Trump just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox" by
assassinating Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was not inaccurate. But it skirts an
all-important question: who created the tinderbox in the first place?
The answer, of course, is the United States.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
The effect is to propel himself into the front ranks of international war criminals. But
Trump could never have done it on his own if a long line of American militarists hadn't paved
the way.
In the long history of imperial folly and recklessness, nothing compares to U.S. policy in
the Persian Gulf. Yes, the British shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in 1838, and, yes, JFK
shouldn't have backed the overthrow of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem in November
1963. If they had thought things through more carefully, one wouldn't have lost an entire army
in the retreat from Kabul while the other wouldn't have stumbled into a dozen-year-long
quagmire that would leave the U.S. military depleted and demoralized – not to mention
killing more than a million or more Vietnamese.
But those were momentary miscalculations compared to the slow-motion disaster in the gulf.
For nearly half a century, every U.S. president – liberal, conservative, or whatever
– has pumped up a regional arms race that has set the stage for ever more destructive
wars. The death and destruction have been incalculable. Yet not once throughout the long sorry
saga have Americans paused for even a moment to consider where it was all going.
The process began in 1973 when Arab oil exporters quadrupled prices after Richard Nixon
provided Israel with $2.2 billion in emergency aid in the midst of the nineteen-day Yom Kippur
War. America
considered seizing Saudi oil fields in retaliation. But once passions cooled, it opted for
a pragmatic policy of mutual accommodation in which Arab oil producers and western consumers
would accept Israeli victory and higher energy prices alike as faits accomplis and forge
a workable settlement out of the rubble.
The result from a U.S. point of view was a win-win situation if ever there was one. At a
stroke, it acquired a powerful military ally in the Jewish state, a valuable export market in
the gulf, and a much-needed conservative Muslim ally at a time when secular Arab radicalism was
shooting through the roof. The big payoff came in 1989 when a US-backed Saudi-organized jihad
drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan, causing the entire Soviet bloc to unravel just two years
later.
Washington was dizzy with success. "What is more important in world history," exulted Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the architect of the Afghanistan plan, in 1998. "The Taliban or the collapse of the
Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?" A top CIA strategist named Graham Fuller added
a year later:
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be
used to destabilize what remains of Russian power and especially to counter the Chinese
influence in Central Asia."
What could go wrong? Plenty, as it turned out: the emergence of jihad as a global
phenomenon, the birth of hyper-sectarian Sunni terrorists like Al Qaeda and ISIS, and a cycle
of violence that has since proved unstoppable. Since Carter declared unilateral U.S. military
jurisdiction over the Persian Gulf in January 1980, the region has seen no fewer than seven
major wars:
The Afghan jihad (1979-89).
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).
The gulf war (1990-91).
The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-03).
The US-Saudi assault on Syria (starting in late 2011).
And the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen (beginning in March 2015 and still ongoing).
Toss in such "minor" incidents as the Saudi-UAE invasion of Bahrain in order to crush
democratic protests in March 2011 or the Saudi economic blockade of Qatar in June 2017, and the
list grows to nine, surely a record for American "peacekeepers."
Yet the United States, the world's leading military exporter, has piled up the tinder ever
higher by accelerating military exports to absolutist states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that,
as even Hillary Clinton has admitted , "are providing
clandestine financial and logical support to ISIL [i.e. Islamic State] and other radical Sunni
groups in the region."
Never has imperialism been more nihilistic. Yet Donald Trump has dialed up the craziness
even more by abrogating the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and imposing a trade embargo that has
brought the Iranian economy to its knees. Not content with economic warfare, he's now advancing
to physical warfare by "droning" Soleimani and threatening massive retaliation against both
military and cultural targets if Iran dares raise a hand in response.
She is now trapped and has no space for maneuvering. She now needs to share the path to the
cliff with Pelosi gang to the very end. Not a good position to be in.
Analysis: The Massachusetts senator's forceful call to begin the process of removing Trump
set her apart from the crowded primary field.
While most fellow 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls ducked and dived to find safe ground
-- and party elders solemnly warned against over-reach -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped boldly
out into the open late Friday and called on the House to begin an impeachment process against
President Donald Trump based on special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
The Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic presidential contender slammed Trump for
having "welcomed" the help of a "hostile" foreign government and having obstructed the probe
into an attack on an American election.
"To ignore a President's repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal
behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country," Warren tweeted. "The severity
of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political
considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate
impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States."
It was a rare moment in a crowded and unsettled primary: A seized opportunity for a
candidate to cut through the campaign trail cacophony and define the terms of a debate that
will rage throughout the contest.
"... A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America ..."
"... But it was and is true. Indeed, when I visited Afghanistan back when U.S. troop levels were near their highest, "off camera," so to speak, military folks were quite skeptical of the war. So were Afghans, who had little good to say about their Washington-created and -supported government unless they were collecting a paycheck from it. An incoming president could be forgiven for suspecting that his predecessor had poured more troops into the conflict only to put off its failure until after he'd left office. ..."
"... Accounts like that from Rucker and Leonnig are beloved by the Blob. America's role is to dominate the globe, irrespective of cost. Those officials pursuing this objective, no matter how poorly, are lauded. Any politician challenging Washington's global mission is derided. ..."
"... President Trump has done much wrong. However, he deserves credit for challenging a failed foreign policy that's been paid for by so many while benefiting so few. It is "crazy" and "stupid," as he reportedly said. Why should Americans keep dying for causes that their leaders cannot adequately explain, let alone justify? Let us hope that one day Americans elect a president who will act and not just talk. ..."
fter three years of the Trump presidency, the Washington Post is breathlessly
reporting that Donald Trump is a boor who insults everyone, including generals used to respect
and even veneration. He's had the impertinence to ask critical questions of his military
briefers. For shame!
President Trump's limitations have been long evident. The Post 's discussion,
adapted by Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker from their upcoming book, A Very Stable
Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America , adds color, not substance, to this concern.
It seems that in the summer of 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, and others were concerned about the president's international ignorance and
organized a briefing at the Pentagon to enlighten him.
Was that a worthwhile mission? Sure. Everyone in the policy world marvels at the president's
lack of curiosity, absent knowledge, bizarre assumptions, and perverse conclusions. He doesn't
get trade, bizarrely celebrates dictatorship, fixates on Iran, doesn't understand agreements,
acts on impulse, and exudes absolute certainty. Yet he also captures the essence of issues and
shares a set of inchoate beliefs held by millions of Americans, especially those who feel
ignored, insulted, disparaged, and dismissed. Most important, he was elected with a mandate to
move policy away from the bipartisan globalist conventional wisdom.
The latter was evidently the main concern of these briefers. The presentation as described
by the article exuded condescension. That attitude very likely was evident to Trump. The
briefing was intended to inform, but even more so to establish his aides' control over him.
While they bridled at Trump's manners, they were even more opposed to his substantive opinions.
And that made the briefing sound like a carefully choreographed attack on his worldview.
For instance, Mattis used charts with lots of dollar signs "to impress upon [the president]
the value of U.S. investments abroad. [Mattis] sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed
in so many regions and why America's safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances,
and bases across the globe." Notably, Mattis "then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of
the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe."
No doubt Secretary Mattis sincerely believed all that. However, it was an argument more
appropriately made in 1950 or 1960. The world has since changed dramatically.
Of course, this is also the position of the Blob, Ben Rhodes' wonderful label for the
Washington foreign policymaking community. What has ever been must ever be, is the Blob's
informal mantra. America's lot in life, no matter how many average folks must die, is to litter
the globe with bases, ships, planes, and troops to fight endless wars, some big, some small, to
make the world safe for democracy, sometimes, and autocracy, otherwise. If America ever stops
fulfilling what seems to be the modern equivalent of Rudyard Kipling's infamous "white man's
burden," order will collapse, authoritarianism will advance, trade will disappear, conflict
will multiply, countries will be conquered, friends will become enemies, allies will defect,
terrorists will strike, liberal values will be discarded, all that is good and wonderful will
disappear, and a new dark age will envelope the earth.
Trump is remarkably ignorant of the facts, but he does possess a commonsensical skepticism
of the utter nonsense that gets promoted as unchallengeable conventional wisdom. As a result,
he understood that this weltanschauung, a word he would never use, was an absolute fantasy. And
he showed it by the questions he asked.
For instance, he challenged the defense guarantee for South Korea. "We should charge them
rent," he blurted out. "We should make them pay for our soldiers." Although treating American
military personnel like mercenaries is the wrong approach, he is right that there is no need to
protect the Republic of Korea. The Korean War ended 67 years ago. The South has twice the
population and, by the latest estimate, 54 times the economy of the North. Why is Seoul still
dependent on America?
If the Blob has its way, the U.S. will pay to defend the ROK forever. Analysts speak of the
need for Americans to stick around even after reunification. It seems there is no circumstance
under which they imagine Washington not garrisoning the peninsula. Why is America, born of
revolution, now acting like an imperial power that must impose its military might
everywhere?
Even more forcefully, it appeared, did Trump express his hostile views of Europe and NATO.
Sure, he appeared to mistakenly believe that there was an alliance budget that European
governments had failed to fund. But World War II ended 70 years ago. The Europeans recovered,
the Soviet Union collapsed, and Eastern Europeans joined NATO. Why is Washington expected to
subsidize a continent with a larger population than, and economy equivalent to, America's, and
far larger than Russia's? Mattis apparently offered the standard bromides, such as "This is
what keeps us safe."
How? Does he imagine that without Washington's European presence, Russia would roll its
tanks and march to the Atlantic Ocean? And from there launch a global pincer movement to invade
North America? How does adding such behemoths as Montenegro keep the U.S. "safe"? What does
initiating a military confrontation with Moscow over Ukraine, historically part of the Russian
Empire and Soviet Union, have to do with keeping Americans "safe"? The argument is
self-evidently not just false but ridiculous.
Justifying endless wars is even tougher. Rucker and Leonnig do not report what the president
said about Syria, which apparently was part of Mattis's brief. However, Trump's skepticism is
evident from his later policy gyrations. Why would any sane Washington policymaker insist that
America intervene militarily in a multi-sided civil war in a country of no significant security
interest to the U.S. on the side of jihadists and affiliates of al-Qaeda? And stick around
illegally as the conflict wound down? To call this policy stupid is too polite.
Even more explosive was the question of Afghanistan, to which the president did speak,
apparently quite dismissively. Unsurprisingly, he asked why the U.S. had not won after 16 years
-- which is longer than the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War combined. He
also termed Afghanistan a "loser war." By Rucker's and Leonnig's telling, this did not go over
well: "That phrase hung in the air and disgusted not only the military men and women in uniform
sitting along the back wall behind their principals. They all were sworn to obey their
commander in chief's commands, and here he was calling the way they had been fighting a loser
war."
But it was and is true. Indeed, when I visited Afghanistan back when U.S. troop levels were
near their highest, "off camera," so to speak, military folks were quite skeptical of the war.
So were Afghans, who had little good to say about their Washington-created and -supported
government unless they were collecting a paycheck from it. An incoming president could be
forgiven for suspecting that his predecessor had poured more troops into the conflict only to
put off its failure until after he'd left office.
The fault does not belong to combat personnel, but to political leaders and complicit
generals, who have misled if not lied in presenting a fairy tale perspective on the conflict's
progress and prognosis. And for what? Central Asia is not and never will be a vital issue of
American security. Afghanistan has nothing to do with terrorism other than its having hosting
al-Qaeda two decades ago. Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. In recent years, it's Yemen
that's hosted the most dangerous national affiliate of al-Qaeda. So why are U.S. troops still
in Afghanistan?
Accounts like that from Rucker and Leonnig are beloved by the Blob. America's role is to
dominate the globe, irrespective of cost. Those officials pursuing this objective, no matter
how poorly, are lauded. Any politician challenging Washington's global mission is
derided.
President Trump has done much wrong. However, he deserves credit for challenging a
failed foreign policy that's been paid for by so many while benefiting so few. It is "crazy"
and "stupid," as he reportedly said. Why should Americans keep dying for causes that their
leaders cannot adequately explain, let alone justify? Let us hope that one day Americans elect
a president who will act and not just talk.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant
to President Ronald Reagan and author of several books, including Foreign Follies:
America's New Global Empire .
CNN and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts, with powerful establishment
support, combined to stage a provocation this week aimed at slowing down or derailing the
campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party presidential
nomination.
Through CNN, the Massachusetts senator's camp first alleged that Sanders told her in
December 2018 a woman could not win a presidential election, an allegation Sanders strenuously
refuted. At the Democratic debate on Tuesday night, CNN's moderator acted as though the claim
was an indisputable reality, leading to a post-debate encounter between Warren and Sanders,
which the network just happened to record and circulate widely.
This is a political stink bomb, borrowed from the #MeToo playbook, typical of American
politics in its putrefaction. Unsubstantiated allegations are turned into "facts," these
"facts" become the basis for blackening reputations and damaging careers and shifting politics
continuously to the right. Anyone who denies the allegations is a "sexist" who refuses "to
believe women."
The Democratic establishment is fearful of Sanders, not so much for his
nationalist-reformist program and populist demagogy, but for what his confused but growing
support portends: the movement to the left by wide layers of the American population. The US
ruling elite seems convinced, like some wretched, self-deluded potentate of old, that if it can
simply stamp out the unpleasant "noise," the rising tide of disaffection will dissipate.
CNN's operation began Monday when it posted a "bombshell" article by M.J. Lee with the
headline, "Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win,
sources say."
The article animatedly begins, "The stakes were high when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren met at Warren's apartment in Washington, DC, one evening in December 2018." Among other
things, the CNN piece reported, the pair "discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump,
and Warren laid out two main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could
make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters. Sanders
responded that he did not believe a woman could win."
Lee continues, "The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two
people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the
meeting." In reality, the story is based on the account of one individual with a
considerable interest in cutting into Sanders' support, i.e., Elizabeth Warren. As the New
York Times primly noted, "Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders were the only people in the
room."
The absurd CNN article goes on, "After publication of this story, Warren herself backed up
this account of the meeting, saying in part in a statement Monday, 'I thought a woman could
win; he disagreed.'" In other words, Warren "backed up" what could only have been her own
account insofar as she was the only person there besides Sanders!
After a pro forma insertion of Sanders' categorical denial that he ever made such a
statement, in which he reasonably observed, "Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course!
After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016," Lee plowed right
ahead as though his comments were not worth responding to. She carries on, "The conversation
also illustrates the skepticism among not only American voters but also senior Democratic
officials that the country is ready to elect a woman as president" and, further, "The
revelation that Sanders expressed skepticism that Warren could win the presidency because she
is a woman is particularly noteworthy now, given that Warren is the lone female candidate at
the top of the Democratic field."
This is one of the ways in which the sexual misconduct witch-hunt has poisoned American
politics, although by no means the only one. Warren's claims about a private encounter simply
"must be believed."
During the Democratic candidates' debate itself Tuesday night, moderator Abby Phillips
addressed Sanders in the following manner: "Let's now turn to an issue that's come up in the
last 48 hours [because Warren and CNN generated it]. Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday that
-- and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you
did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that? " (emphasis
added). Sanders denied once again that he had said any such thing. Phillips persisted, "Sen.
Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you're saying that you never told Sen. Warren that a woman
could not win the election?" Sanders confirmed that. Insultingly, Phillips immediately turned
to Warren and continued, "Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman
could not win the election?" This was all clearly prepared ahead of time, a deliberate effort
to embarrass Sanders and portray him as a liar and a male chauvinist.
Following the debate, Warren had the audacity to confront the Vermont senator, refuse to
shake his hand and assert, "I think you called me a liar on national TV." When Sanders seemed
startled by her remark, she repeated it. CNN managed to capture the sound and preserve it for
widespread distribution.
The WSWS gives no support to Sanders, a phony "socialist" whose efforts are aimed at
channeling working-class anger at social inequality, poverty and war back into the big business
Democratic Party. He is only the latest in a long line of figures in American political history
devoted to maintaining the Democrats' stranglehold over popular opposition and blocking the
development of a broad-based socialist movement.
Nonetheless, the CNN-Warren "dirty tricks" operation is an obvious hatchet job and an attack
from the right. Accordingly, the New York Times and other major outlets have been
gloating and attempting to make something out of it since Tuesday night. The obvious purpose is
to "raise serious questions" about Sanders and dampen support for him, among women especially.
It should be recalled that in 2016 Sanders led Hillary Clinton among young women by 30
percentage points.
Michelle Cottle, a member of the Times editorial board (in "Why Questions on Women
Candidates Strike a Nerve," January 15), asserted that the issue raised by the Warren-Sanders
clash was "not about Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren. Not really. And Ms. Warren was right to try to
shift the focus to the bigger picture -- even if some critics will sneer that she's playing
'the gender card.'"
Cottle's "bigger picture," it turned out, primarily involved smearing Sanders. The present
controversy, she went on, "has resurfaced some of Mr. Sanders's past women troubles. His 2016
campaign faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment, pay inequities and other gender-based
mistreatment. Asked early last year if he knew about the complaints, Mr. Sanders's reaction was
both defensive and dismissive: 'I was a little bit busy running around the country'."
After Cottle attempted to convince her readers, on the basis of dubious numbers, that
Americans were perhaps too backward to elect a female president, she continued, again, taking
as good coin Warren's allegations, "This less-than-inspiring data -- along with from-the-trail
anecdotes about the gender-based voter anxiety that Ms. Warren and Ms. [Amy] Klobuchar have
been facing -- help explain why Mr. Sanders's alleged remarks struck such a nerve. Women
candidates and their supporters aren't simply outraged that he could be so wrong. They're
worried that he might be right." The remarks he denies making have nonetheless "outraged"
Cottle and others.
The Times more and more openly expresses fears about a possible Sanders'
nomination. Op-ed columnist David Leonhardt headlined his January 14 piece, "President Bernie
Sanders," and commented, "Sanders has a real shot of winning the Democratic nomination. Only a
couple of months after he suffered a mild heart attack, that counts as a surprise." Leonhardt
downplays Sanders' socialist credentials, observing that "while he [Sanders] would probably
fail to accomplish his grandest goals (again, like Medicare for all), he would also move the
country in a positive direction. He might even move it to closer to a center-left ideal than a
more moderate candidate like Biden would."
On Thursday, right-wing Times columnist David Brooks argued pathetically against
the existence of "class war" in "The Bernie Sanders Fallacy." He ridiculed what he described as
"Bernie Sanders's class-war Theyism: The billionaires have rigged the economy to benefit
themselves and impoverish everyone else." According to Brooks, Sanders is a Bolshevik who
believes that "Capitalism is a system of exploitation in which capitalist power completely
dominates worker power." Accusing Sanders of embracing such an ABC socialist proposition is all
nonsense, but it reveals something about what keeps pundits like Brooks up at night.
The Times is determined, as the WSWS has noted more than once, to exclude anything
from the 2020 election campaign that might arouse or encourage the outrage of workers and young
people. The past year of global mass protest has only deepened and strengthened that
determination.
The Times , CNN and other elements of the media and political establishment, and
behind them powerful financial-corporate interests, don't want Sanders and they don't
necessarily want Warren either, who engaged in certain loose talk about taxing the
billionaires, before retreating in fright. They want a campaign dominated by race, gender and
sexual orientation -- not class and not social inequality. The #MeToo-style attack on Sanders
reflects both the "style" and the right-wing concerns of these social layers.
"... The decision to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11, 2001, while declaring an "axis of evil" to be confronted that included nuclear-armed North Korea and budding regional hegemon Iran, can be said to be the reason for many of the most significant strategic problems besetting the U.S.. ..."
"... The U.S. often prefers to disguise its medium- to long-term objectives by focusing on supposedly more immediate and short-term threats. Thus, the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and its deployment of the Aegis Combat System (both sea- and land-based) as part of the NATO missile defense system, was explained as being for the purposes of defending European allies from the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. ..."
"... As was immediately clear to most independent analysts as well as to President Putin , the deployment of such offensive systems are only for the purposes of nullifying the Russian Federation's nuclear-deterrence capability . Obama and Trump faithfully followed in the steps of George W. Bush in placing ABM systems on Russia's borders, including in Romania and Poland. ..."
"... There is no defense against such Russian systems as the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, which serves to restore the deterrence doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which in turn serves to ensure that nuclear weapons can never be employed so long as this "balance of terror" exists. Moscow is thus able to ensure peace through strength by showing that it is capable of inflicting a devastating second strike with regard regard for Washington's vaunted ABM systems. ..."
"... In addition to the continued economic and military pressure placed on Iran, one of the most immediate consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal) has been Tehran being forced to examine all options. Although the country's leaders and political figures have always claimed that they do not want to develop a nuclear weapon, stating that it is prohibited by Islamic law, I should think that their best course of action would be to follow Pyongyang's example and acquire a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves from U.S. aggression. ..."
"... Once again, Washington has ended up shooting itself in the foot by inadvertently encouraging one of its geopolitical opponents to behave in the opposite manner intended. Instead of stopping nuclear proliferation in the region, the U.S., by scuppering of the JCPOA, has only encouraged the prospect of nuclear proliferation. ..."
"... Trump's short-sightedness in withdrawing from the JCPOA is reminiscent of George W. Bush's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. By triggering necessary responses from Moscow and Tehran, Washington's actions have only ended up leaving it at a disadvantage in certain critical areas relative to its competitors. ..."
Starting from the presidency of George W. Bush to that of Trump, the U.S. has made some
missteps that not only reduce its influence in strategic regions of the world but also its
ability to project power and thus impose its will on those unwilling to genuflect appropriately
.
Some examples from the recent past will suffice to show how a series of strategic errors
have only accelerated the U.S.'s hegemonic decline.
ABM + INF = Hypersonic Supremacy
The decision to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11, 2001, while
declaring an "axis of evil" to be confronted that included nuclear-armed North Korea and
budding regional hegemon Iran, can be said to be the reason for many of the most significant
strategic problems besetting the U.S..
The U.S. often prefers to disguise its medium- to long-term objectives by focusing on
supposedly more immediate and short-term threats. Thus, the U.S.'s withdrawal from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and its deployment of the Aegis Combat System (both
sea- and land-based) as part of the NATO missile defense system, was explained as being for the
purposes of defending European allies from the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles. This
argument held little water as the Iranians had neither the capability nor intent to launch such
missiles.
As was immediately clear to most independent analysts as well as to President Putin , the deployment of such
offensive systems are only for the purposes of nullifying the
Russian Federation's nuclear-deterrence capability . Obama and Trump faithfully followed in
the steps of George W. Bush in placing ABM systems on Russia's borders, including in Romania
and Poland.
Following from Trump's momentous decision to
withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), it is also likely
that the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) will also be abandoned, creating more
global insecurity with regard to nuclear proliferation.
Moscow was forced to pull out all stops to develop new weapons that would restore the
strategic balance, Putin revealing to the world in a speech in 2018 the introduction of
hypersonic weapons and other technological breakthroughs that would serve to disabuse
Washington of its first-strike fantasies.
Even as Washington's propaganda refuses to acknowledge the tectonic shifts on the global
chessboard occasioned by these technological breakthroughs, sober
military assessments acknowledge that the game has fundamentally changed.
There is no defense against such Russian systems as the Avangard hypersonic glide
vehicle, which serves to restore the deterrence doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD),
which in turn serves to ensure that nuclear weapons can never be employed so long as this
"balance of terror" exists. Moscow is thus able to ensure peace through strength by showing
that it is capable of inflicting a devastating second strike with regard regard for
Washington's vaunted ABM systems.
In addition to ensuring its nuclear second-strike capability, Russia has been forced to
develop the most advanced ABM system in the world to fend off Washington's aggression. This ABM
system is integrated into a defensive network that includes the Pantsir, Tor, Buk, S-400 and
shortly the devastating S-500 and A-235 missile systems. This combined system is designed to
intercept ICBMs as well as any future U.S. hypersonic weapons
The wars of aggression prosecuted by George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only ended up
leaving the U.S. in a position of nuclear inferiority vis-a-vis Russia and China. Moscow has
obviously shared some of its technological innovations with its strategic partner, allowing
Beijing to also have hypersonic weapons together with ABM systems like the Russian S-400.
No
JCPOA? Here Comes Nuclear Iran
In addition to the continued economic and military pressure placed on Iran, one of the
most immediate consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA, better known as the Iran nuclear deal) has been Tehran being forced to examine all
options. Although the country's leaders and political figures have always claimed that they do
not want to develop a nuclear weapon, stating that it is
prohibited by Islamic law, I should think that their best course of action would be to
follow Pyongyang's example and acquire a nuclear deterrent to protect themselves from U.S.
aggression.
While this suggestion of mine may not correspond with the intentions of leaders of the
Islamic Republic of Iran, the protection North Korea enjoys from U.S. aggression as a result of
its deterrence capacity may oblige the Iranian leadership to carefully consider the pros and
cons of following suit, perhaps choosing to adopt the Israeli stance of nuclear ambiguity or
nuclear opacity, where the possession of nuclear weapons is neither confirmed nor denied. While
a world free of nuclear weapons would be ideal, their deterrence value cannot be denied, as
North Korea's experience attests.
While Iran does not want war, any pursuit of a nuclear arsenal may guarantee a conflagration
in the Middle East. But I have long maintained that the risk of a nuclear war (once nuclear
weapons have been acquired)
does not exist , with them having a
stabilizing rather than destabilizing effect, particularly in a multipolar environment.
Once again, Washington has ended up shooting itself in the foot by inadvertently
encouraging one of its geopolitical opponents to behave in the opposite manner intended.
Instead of stopping nuclear proliferation in the region, the U.S., by scuppering of the JCPOA,
has only encouraged the prospect of nuclear proliferation.
Trump's short-sightedness in withdrawing from the JCPOA is reminiscent of George W.
Bush's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. By triggering necessary responses from Moscow and
Tehran, Washington's actions have only ended up leaving it at a disadvantage in certain
critical areas relative to its competitors.
The death of Soleimani punctures the myth
of the U.S. invincibility
I wrote a couple of articles in the wake of General Soleimani's death that
examined the incident and then
considered the profound ramifications of the event in the region.
What seems evident is that Washington appears incapable of appreciating the consequences of
its reckless actions. Killing Soleimani was bound to invite an Iranian response; and even if we
assume that Trump was not looking for war (I
explained why some months ago), it was obvious to any observer that there would be a
response from Iran to the U.S.'s terrorist actions.
The response came a few nights later where, for the first time since the Second World War, a
U.S. military base was subjected to a rain of missiles (22 missiles each with a 700kg payload).
Tehran thereby showed that it possessed the necessary technical, operational and strategic
means to obliterate thousands of U.S. and allied personnel within the space of a few minutes if
it so wished, with the U.S. would be powerless to stop it.
U.S. Patriot air-defense systems yet again failed to do their job, reprising their failure
to defend Saudi oil and gas facilities against a missile attack conducted by Houthis a few
months ago.
We thus have confirmation, within the space of a few months, of the inability of the U.S. to
protect its troops or allies from Houthi, Hezbollah and Iranian missiles. Trump and his
generals would have been reluctant to respond to the Iranian missile attack knowing that any
Iranian response would bring about uncontrollable regional conflagration that would devastate
U.S. bases as well as oil infrastructure and such cities of U.S. allies as Tel Aviv, Haifa and
Dubai.
After demonstrating to the world that U.S. allies in the region are defenseless against
missile attacks from even the likes of the Houthis, Iran drove home the point by conducting
surgical strikes on two U.S. bases that only highlights the disconnect between the perception
of U.S. military invincibility and the reality that would come in the form of a multilayered
missile conflict.
Conclusion
Washington's diplomatic and military decisions in recent years have only brought about a
world world that is more hostile to Washington and less inclined to accept its diktats, often
being driven instead to acquire the military means to counter Washington's bullying. Even as
the U.S. remains the paramount military power, its ineptitude has resulted in Russia and China
surpassing it in some critical areas, such that the U.S. has no chance of defending itself
against a nuclear second strike, with even Iran having the means to successfully retaliate
against the U.S. in the region.
As I continue to say, Washington's power largely rests on perception management helped by
the make-believe world of Hollywood. The recent missile attacks by Houthis on Saudi Arabia's
oil facilities and the Iranian missile attack a few days ago on U.S. military bases in Iraq
(none of which were intercepted) are like Toto drawing back the curtain to reveal Washington's
military vulnerability. No amount of entreaties by Washington to pay no attention to the man
behind the curtain will help.
The more aggressive the U.S. becomes, the more it reveals its tactical, operational and
strategic limits, which in turn only serves to accelerate its loss of hegemony.
If the U.S. could deliver a nuclear first strike without having to worry about a retaliatory
second strike thanks to its ABM systems, then its quest for perpetual unipolarity could
possibly be realistic. But Washington's peer competitors have shown that they have the means to
defend themselves against a nuclear first strike by being able to deliver an unstoppable second
strike, thereby communicating that the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD) is here
to stay. With that, Washington's efforts to maintain its status as uncontested global hegemon
are futile.
In a region
vital to U.S. interests , Washington does not have the operational capacity to stand in the
way of Syria's liberation. When it has attempted to directly impose its will militarily, it has
seen as many as 80% of its cruise missiles
knocked down or deflected , once again highlighting the divergence between Washington's
Hollywood propaganda and the harsh military reality.
The actions of George W. Bush, Obama and Trump have only served to inadvertently accelerate
the world's transition away from a unipolar world to a multipolar one. As Trump follows in the
steps of his predecessors by being aggressive towards Iran, he only serves to weaken the U.S.
global position and strengthen that of his opponents.
Up to the election of our current President, I agree that we were bullying for the
personal gain of a few and our military was being used as a mercenary force. The current
administration is working on getting us out of long term conflicts. What do you think "drain
the swamp" means? It is a huge undertaking and need to understand what the "deep state" is
all about and their goals.
The death of Soleimani was needed and made the world a safer place. Dr. Janda / Freedom
Operation has had several very intriguing presentations on this issue. It is my firm belief
that there is a worldwide coalition to make the world a better and safer place. If you want
to know about the "deep state" try watching: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cYZ8dUgPuU
All mostly true, but the constant drone of this type of article gets old, as the comments
below attest. We really don't need more forensic analysis by the SCF, what we need is an
answer to America's dollar Imperialism problem. But we'll never get it, just as England never
got an answer to it's pound Imperialism problem.
I like Tulsi Gabbard, but she can never truly reveal the magnitude of the dollar
Imperialism behind her "stop these endless wars" sloganism. Besides, she doesn't have the
billions required to mount any real successful campaign. Only billionaires like Bloomberg
need apply these days.
The Truth is that NO ONE will stand up to Wall Street and it's system of global dollar
corporatism (from which Bloomberg acquired his billions, and to which the USG is bound). It's
suicide to speak the truth to the masses. The dollar must die of its own disease.
Trump is America's Chemo. The cure nearly as bad as the cancer, but the makers of it have
a vested interest in its acceptance.
General Bonespur murders a genuine military man from the comfort of his golf course.
America is still dangerous, Pinky might be tired but the (((Brain))) is working feverishly on
solutions for the jaded .
There has been a perception in the last 25 years that the US could win a nuclear war. This
perception is extremely dangerous as it invites the US armed forces to commit atrocities and
think they can get away with it (they are for now). The world opinion has turned, but the
citizens of the United States of America are not listening.
If the US keeps going down the path they are currently on, they are ensuring that war will
eventually reach its coast.
To challenge the US Empire the new Multipolar World is focused on a two-pronged
strategy:
1. Nullifying the US nuclear first strike (at will) as part of the current US military
doctrine - accomplished (for a decade maybe).
2. Outmaneuvering the US petrodollar in trade, the tool to control the global fossil fuel
resources on the planet - in progress.
What makes 2.) decisive is that the petrodollar as reserve currency is the key to recycle
the US federal budget deficit via foreign investment in U.S. Treasury Bonds (IOUs) by the
central banks, thus enabling the global military presence and power projection of the US
military empire.
All their little plots and schemes failed, as corrupt arsehole after corrupt arsehole
stole the funding from those plots and schemes to fill their own pockets. They also put the
most corrupt individuals they could find into power, so as much as possible could be stolen
and voila, everywhere they went, everything collapsed, every single time.
Totally and utterly ludicrous decades, of not punishing failure after failure has resulted
in nothing but more failure, like, surprise, surprise, surprise.
Routine failures have forced other nation to go multipolar or just rush straight to global
economic collapse as a result of out of control US corruption. Russia and China did not
outsmart the USA, the USA did it entirely to itself by not prosecuting corruption at high
levels, even when it failed time and time again, focusing more on how much they could steal,
then on bringing what ever plot or scheme to a successful conclusion.
The use of the terms "Unintended Consequences", shortsightedness, mistakes, stupidity, or
ignorance provides the avenue to transfer or divert the blame. It excuses it away as bad
decisions so that the truth and those responsible are never really exposed and held
accountable. The fact is, these actions were not mistakes or acts of shortsightedness...they
were deliberate and planned and the so-called "unintended consequences" were actually
intended and part of their plan. Looking back and linking the elites favorite process to
drive change (problem, reaction, solution)...one can quickly make the connection to many of
the so-called "unintended consequences" as they are very predictable results their actions.
It becomes very clear that much of what has occurred over the last few decades has been
deliberate with planned/intended outcomes.
I think the biggest advantage USA used to have was that they claimed to stand for Freedom
and Democracy. And for a time, many people believed them. That's partly why the USSR fell
apart, and for a time USA had a lot of goodwill among ordinary Russians.
But US political leaders squandered this goodwill when they used NATO to attack Yugoslavia
against Russia's objections and expanded NATO towards Russia's borders. This has been long
forgotten in USA. But many ordinary Russians still seethe about these events. This was the
turning point for them that motivated them to support Putin and his rebuilding of Russia's
military.
When you have goodwill among your potential competitors, then they don't have much
motivation to increase their capabilities against you. This was the situation USA was in
after the USSR fell apart. But USA squandered all of this goodwill and motivated the Russians
to do what they did.
And now, USA under Trump has done something like this with China. USA used to have a lot
of goodwill among the ordinary Chinese. But now this is gone as a result of US tariffs,
sanctions, and its support for separatism in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Now, the Chinese will be
as motivated as the Russians to do their best at promoting their interests at the expense of
USA. And together with Russia, they have enough people and enough natural resources to do
more than well against USA and its allies.
I think USA could've maintained a lot more influence around the world through goodwill
with ordinary people, than through sanctions, threats, and military attacks. If USA had left
Iraq under Saddam Hussein alone, then Iran wouldn't have had much influence in there. And if
USA had left Iran alone, then the young people there might've already rebelled against their
strict Islamic rule and made their government more friendly with USA.
Doing nothing, except business and trade, would've left USA in a much better position,
than the one USA is in now.
Now USA is bankrupting itself with unsustainable military spending and still falling
behind its competitors. USA might still have the biggest economy in the world in US Dollar
terms. But this doesn't take into account the cost of living and purchasing parity. With
purchasing parity taken into account, China now has a bigger economy than that of USA.
Because internally, they can manufacture and buy a lot more for the same amount of money than
USA can. A lot of US military spending is on salaries, pensions, and healthcare of its
personnel. While such costs in Russia and China are comparatively small. They are spending
most of their money on improving and building their military technology. That's why in the
long run, USA will probably fall behind even more.
The Anglos in the U.S. are not from there and are imposters who are claiming
characteristics and a culture that doesn't belong to them. They're using it as a way
to hide from scrutiny, so you blame "Americans", when its really them. That's why
there's such a huge disconnect between stated values and actions. The values belong to
another group of people, TRUE Americans, while the actions belong to Anglos, who have a
history of aggressive and forced, irrational violence upon innocents.
It's true that ordinary people are often different from their government, including in
Russia, in China, in Iran, in USA, and even in Nazi Germany in the past.
But the people in such a situation are usually powerless and unable to influence their
government. So, their difference is irrelevant in the way their government behaves and
alienates people around the world.
USA is nominally a democracy, where the government is controlled by the people. But in
reality, the people are only a ceremonial figurehead, and the real power is a small minority
of rich companies and individuals, who fund election campaigns of politicians.
That's why for example most Americans want to have universal healthcare, just like all
other developed countries have. But most elected politicians from both major parties won't
even consider this idea, because their financial donors are against it. And if the people are
powerless even within their own country, then outside with foreigners, they have even less
influence.
1. Nation Building? It worked with Germany and Japan, rinse and repeat. So what if it's
comparing apples to antimatter?
2. US won the Cold War? So make the same types of moves made during Reagan adm? The real
reason the Soviet Empire collapsed was because it was a money losing empire while the US was
a money making empire. Just review the money pits they invested in.
3. Corruption? That was your grandfather's time. The US has been restructured. Crime
Syndicate and Feudal templates are the closest. Stagnation and decline economically and
technologically are inevitable.
4. Evaluating the competition is problematic. However perhaps the most backward and
regressive elements in this society are branding themselves as progressive and getting away
with it. That can't work.
Unprecedented hubris is drawing a global blowback that will leave America in a very
dangerous place.
Sorin Alb/Shutterstock
January 2, 2020
|
12:01 am
Doug
Bandow Economic sanctions are an important foreign policy tool going back to America's founding.
President Thomas Jefferson banned trade with Great Britain and France, which left U.S. seamen
unemployed while failing to prevent military conflict with both.
Economic warfare tends to be equally ineffective today. The Trump administration made Cuba,
Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and North Korea special sanctions targets. So this strategy has failed
in every case. In fact, "maximum pressure" on both Iran, which has become more threatening, and
North Korea, which appears to be preparing a tougher military response, has dramatically
backfired.
The big difference between then and now is Washington's shift from primary to secondary
sanctions. Trade embargoes, such as first applied to Cuba in 1960, once only prevented
Americans from dealing with the target state. Today Washington attempts to conscript the entire
world to fight its economic wars.
This shift was heralded by the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which extended Cuban penalties to
foreign companies, a highly controversial move at the time. Sudan was another early target of
secondary sanctions, which barred anyone who used the U.S. financial system from dealing with
Khartoum. Europeans and others grumbled about Washington's arrogance, but were not willing to
confront the globe's unipower over such minor markets.
However, sanctions have become much bigger business in Washington. One form is a mix of
legislative and executive initiatives applied against governments in disfavor. There were five
countries under sanction when George W. Bush took office in 2001. The Office of Foreign Assets
Control currently lists penalties against the Balkans, Belarus, Burundi, Central African
Republic, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Nicaragua,
North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine-Russia, Venezuela, Yemen, and
Zimbabwe. In addition are special programs: countering America's adversaries,
counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, cyber warfare, foreign election interference, Global
Magnitsky, Magnitsky, proliferation, diamond trade, and transnational crime.
Among today's more notable targets are Cuba for being communist, Venezuela for being crazy
communist, Iran for having once sought nuclear weapons and currently challenging Saudi and U.S.
regional hegemony, Russia for beating up on Ukraine and meddling in America's 2016 election,
Syria for opposing Israel and brutally suppressing U.S.-supported insurgents, and North Korea
for developing nuclear weapons. Once on Washington's naughty list, countries rarely get
off.
The second penalty tier affects agencies, companies, and people who have offended someone in
Washington for doing something considered evil, inappropriate, or simply inconvenient.
Individual miscreants often are easy to dislike. Penalizing a few dubious characters or
enterprises creates less opposition than sanctioning a country.
However, some targets merely offended congressional priorities. For instance, as part of the
National Defense Authorization Act Congress authorized sanctions against Western companies,
most notably the Swiss-Dutch pipe-laying venture Allseas Group, involved in the Nord Stream 2
natural gas pipeline project. GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson threatened Allseas:
"continuing to do the work -- for even a single day after the president signs the sanctions
legislation -- would expose your company to crushing and potentially fatal legal and economic
sanctions."
Penalizing what OFAC calls "Specially Designated Nationals" and "blocked persons" has become
Washington sport. Their number hit 8000 last year. The Economist noted that the Trump
administration alone added 3100 names during its first three years, almost as many as George W.
Bush included in eight years. Today's target list runs an incredible 1358 pages.
The process has run wildly out of control. Policymakers' first response to a person,
organization, or government doing something of which they disapprove now seems to be to impose
sanctions -- on anyone or anything on earth dealing with the target. Unfortunately, reliance on
economic warfare, and sanctions traditionally are treated as an act of war, has greatly
inflated U.S. officials' geopolitical ambitions. Once they accepted that the world was a messy,
imperfect place. Today they intervene in the slightest foreign controversy. Even allies and
friends, most notably Europe, Japan, South Korea, and India, are threatened with economic
warfare unless they accept Washington's self-serving priorities and mind-numbing fantasies.
At the same time the utility of sanctions is falling. Unilateral penalties usually fail,
which enrages advocates, who respond by escalating sanctions, again without success. Of course,
embargoes and bans often inflict substantial economic pain, which sometimes lead proponents to
claim victory. However, the cost is supposed to be the means to another end. Yet the
Trump administration has failed everywhere: Cuba maintains communist party rule, Iran has grown
more truculent, North Korea has refused to disarm, Russia has not given back Crimea, and
Venezuela has not defenestrated Nicolas Maduro.
Much the same goes for penalties applied to individuals, firms, and other entities. Those
targeted often are hurt, and most of them deserve to be hurt. But they usually persist in their
behavior or others replace them. What dictator has been deposed, policy has been changed,
threat has been countered, or wrong has been righted as a result of economic warfare? There is
little evidence that U.S. sanctions achieve much of anything, other than encourage
sanctimonious moral preening.
Noted the Economist , "If they do not change behavior, sanctions risk becoming less a
tool of coercion than an expensive and rather arbitrary extraterritorial form of punishment."
One that some day might be turned against Americans.
Contra apparent assumptions in Washington, it is not easy to turn countries into America's
image. Raw nationalism usually triumphs. Americans should reflect on how they would react if
the situation was reversed. No one wants to comply with unpopular foreign dictates.
In fact, economic warfare often exacerbates underlying conflicts. Rather than negotiate with
Washington from a position of weakness, Iran has threatened maritime traffic in the Persian
Gulf, shut down Saudi oil exports, and loosed affiliates and irregulars on American and allied
forces. Russia has challenged against multiple Washington policy priorities. Cuba has shifted
power to the post-revolutionary generation and extended its authority private businesses as the
Trump administration's policies have stymied growth and undermined entrepreneurs.
The almost endless expansion of sanctions also punishes American firms and foreign companies
active in America. Compliance is costly. Violating one rule, even inadvertently, is even more
so. Chary companies preemptively forego legal business in a process called "de-risking."
Even humanitarian traffic suffers: Who wants to risk an expensive mistake in handling
relatively low value transactions? Such effects might not bother smug U.S. policymakers, but
should weigh heavily on the rest of us.
Perhaps most important, Washington's overreliance on secondary sanctions is building
resistance to American financial dominance. Warned Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in 2016: "The
more we condition use of the dollar and our financial system on adherence to U.S. foreign
policy, the more the risk of migration to other currencies and other financial systems in the
medium-term grows."
Overthrowing the almighty dollar will be no mean feat. Nevertheless, arrogant U.S. attempts
to regulate the globe have united much of the world, including Europe, Russia, and China,
against American extraterritoriality. Noted attorney Bruce Zagaris, Washington is
"inadvertently mobilizing a club of countries and international organizations, including U.S.
allies, to develop ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions."
Merchant ships and oil tankers turn off transponders. Vessels transfer cargoes at sea. Firms
arrange cash and barter deals. Major powers such as China aid and abet violations and dare
Washington to wreck much larger bilateral economic relationships. The European Union passed
"Blocking Legislation" to allow recovery of damages from U.S. sanctions and limit Europeans'
compliance with such rules. The EU also developed a barter facility, known as Instex, to allow
trade with Iran without reliance on U.S. financial institution.
Russia has pushed to de-dollarize international payments and worked with China to settle
bilateral trade in rubles and renminbi. Foreign central banks have increased their purchases of
gold. At the recent Islamic summit Malaysia proposed using gold and barter for trade to thwart
future sanctions. Venezuela has been selling gold for euros. These measures do not as yet
threaten America's predominant financial role but foreshadow likely future changes.
Indeed, Washington's attack on plans by Germany to import natural gas from Russia might
ignite something much greater. Berlin is not just an incidental victim of U.S. policy. Rather,
Germany is the target. Complained Foreign Minister Heiko Maas "European energy policy is
decided in Europe, not in the U.S." Alas, Congress thinks differently.
However, Europeans are ever less willing to accept this kind of indignity. Washington is
penalizing even close allies for no obvious purpose other than demonstrating its power. In Nord
Stream 2's case, Gazprom likely will complete the project if necessary. Germany's Deputy
Foreign Minister Niels Annen argued that "Europe needs new instruments to be able to defend
itself from licentious extraterritorial sanctions."
Commercial penalties have a role to play in foreign policy, but economic warfare is warfare.
It can trigger real conflicts -- consider Imperial Japan's response to the Roosevelt
administration's cut-off of oil exports. And economic warfare can kill innocents. When UN
Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked about the deaths of a half million Iraqi babies from
U.S. sanctions, her response was chilling: "We think the price is worth it." Yet most of the
time economic war fails, especially if a unilateral effort by one power applied against the
rest of the world.
Washington policymakers need to relearn the meaning of humility. Incompetent and arrogant
sanctions policies hurt Americans as well as others. Unfortunately, the resulting blowback will
only increase.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire.
Under the official Full Spectrum Dominance policy of national security, the goal is that
all other nations will be satrapies under U.S. jurisdiction. There are both punishments for
using the U.S. dollar, and punishments for not using it.
I'm afraid it will be the U.S. that suffers. Other countries will no longer subordinate
their interests to those of the U.S. I think the U.S. will have to fight all future wars,
and accept all blow-back, on her own.
It's a waste of time trying to appeal to the commonsense of the Washington Elites. They are
too arrogant and sociopathic to care, and lack anything that remotely resembles a moral
compass.
Sanctions are ineffective because the effects don't fall on those making decisions that are
adverse to the US. After fifty years of sanctions, Fidel died in bed in great comfort.
Sanctions on top of the crazy Juche policies make life hard for the ordinary North Korean,
but Kim doesn't appear to have lost any weight. Our officials pat themselves on the back
for their militancy without checking for effectiveness.
Would it be correct to say that the US embargo on oil exports to Japan in August 1941 led
to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor a few months later (Dec. 7)? Was FDR trying to
provoke a war with Japan at the time?
Discuss 10021. Yes. I used to study East Asia and even reading standard collections of
articles, on the article announcing the embargo of steel and oil, and from British
controlled territories in East Asia, one's reaction would be, "This means war." (In like,
Pres. Carter said if Saudi Arabia refused to sell oil to the US we would invade and take
over oil fields.) Se our reaction was similar to that of Japan, though we would blame them
and us doing the same would be good. The US military assessment was, I have forgotten
exactly, but that Japan would be without heat, power, lighting, factories closed (no oil or
steel) and they would be on the point of starvation within, I have forgotten, 9 months to 1
1/2 years. So they "had to do something".. Their war plan was not to invade the US but
start a surprise war and strike quickly hoping to get forward bases in the Pacific and we
would need to negotiate and turn on the spigot. Japanese assessment was if they did not
achieve this by the end of 1942 they were finished. Interestingly, Hitler's assessment of
Germany's war was if they had not defeated USSR and gone after United Kingdom by the end of
1942, they, also, were finished. If I recall the report, Eleanor Roosevelt had told on US
writer the day the attack occurred, something like, "We thought they were going to attack,
but we thought it would be in the Philippines, not Hawaii."
The hubris is overwhelming. All empires fall, and the USA certainly seems headed for a
fall. However, we still have a choice. We could reject empire, stop all our illegal foreign
wars, close all our foreign military bases, drastically reduce our military budget (it is
NOT a "defense" budget; it is an offense military budget), end our campaigns of economic
sanctions, and stop being the Big Bully of the world. The result would be to free enormous
resources for our own country which ranks behind almost all other affluent nations - and
sometimes many not-so-affluent nations - in almost all indicators of ecnomic and social
well being. Replacing the military sector of our economy with civilian alternatives would
be a big boon. Weapons are notable for not continuing in the economic cycle as civilian
products do. There are many more jobs per dollars spent in the civilian sector than the
military sector. Empire is killing our country even as it is killing other countries.
Agreed, but the elites make BILLIONS from Empire & the associated militarism.
Psychopaths don't care about the damage they inflict on others, even their own countrymen,
and they won't willingly surrender the machinery that generates their wealth and privilege.
This is a relevant quote from a commentary in NYT, March 26, 2018 by Kadri Liik (@KadriLiik)
is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the former
director of the International Center for Defense Studies in Estonia.
"The world does not yet know the full details of the Skripal poisoning, but it does not
feel like waiting, as the expulsions make clear. Too often in the past, Moscow has denied its
involvement in cases that later end up being traced to the Kremlin or its proxies. The result
is that its denials lack credibility. Now, the successful use of "plausible deniability" in
all the previous cases collides with the Kremlin's current interests and contributes to the
verdict: guilty until proven innocent."
Punishment before the proof, if you reverse the order you [do what Putin wants|make Putin
happy], the outcome so ghastly that we cannot risk it. The truth has to be declared, and
then, optionally, proven. Another option is to just repeat that, say, Qassim Suleimani was a
terrorist. And punish.
Bombing of Barzeh as a punishment for un-investigated crime follows the template, duly
approved by the sophisticated Europeans from a myriad of outfits like International Center
for Defense Studies in Estonia. I would move all of them to Tiksi (check accuweather), a
quiet and somewhat depopulated city on the shore of beautiful Arctic ocean, with an airport,
a few thousand of empty apartments should accommodate them (if not, there are also former
mining towns in the interior, although the may be colder). Cold Warriors should embrace the
cold.
"... Many of those who sneaked out to Argentina and concealed themselves would have done better to have waited for Canada and the States to invite them to come and 'do their thing' in Cleveland, Chicago, Montreal and Edmonton, Alberta. ..."
"... Which leads me to the point I came here to make: the astonishing thing about the OPCW hearing is that Henderson was denied a visa. That really is shocking and a measure of how brutal, intellectually and actually, the US government has become. ..."
"... Not to mention the imposition of semi colonial hegemony over Europe. ..."
somebody@94
Don't underestimate the transformation of residual 'blood and soil' themes in fascism into
foundations of the Green movements. They were not simply dissenters within the communist
tradition but rabid anti-communists. It was the intellectual traditions and the residual
popular support among generations schooled in fascism-often literally schooled- which were
preserved and amplified by the wave of anti-communism which came in from America. Like the
legendary 'cavalry' rescuing the embattled settlers the US swooped into Europe, when all
seemed lost, and turned the remnants of fascism into heroes.
Many of those who sneaked out to Argentina and concealed themselves would have done
better to have waited for Canada and the States to invite them to come and 'do their thing'
in Cleveland, Chicago, Montreal and Edmonton, Alberta.
Which leads me to the point I came here to make: the astonishing thing about the OPCW
hearing is that Henderson was denied a visa. That really is shocking and a measure of how
brutal, intellectually and actually, the US government has become. It has long been bad
but things have reached the stage now where it has become clear that the likes Of Al Capone
and the models for The Godfather movies, were babes in arms compared with the likes of Bolton
or Pompeo.
When we consider Trump and the key, almost impossibly apt, fact that Roy Cohn was his mentor
it is easy to forget that, in a sense, Roy Cohn was America's mentor. Cohn, who got the job
of McCarthy's counsel, in competition with Bobby Kennedy, turned the Wisconsin Senator from a
loose cannon into a guided missile against the residual American left and, a much easier
target, the Intelligentsia.
And Cohn and McCarthy and the forces that they represented- the primordial forces of
Capitalism- put the fear of poverty into them. It is impossible to understand the USA today,
and its role in the world, without understanding that its intellectuals were intimidated into
exile, silence, compromise, retreat and impotence as the new Imperialism set about its
ruthless work. Look at the late forties, from Taft Hartley (and the crushing of the Unions)to
such forgotten but signatory interventions as that in Guyana against Cheddi Jagan (repeated
by JFK in 1960) Guatemala and Iran. Not to mention the imposition of semi colonial
hegemony over Europe.
All these things have lasted. And Cohn's role in producing them was crucial-it was the
bipartisanship of bigotry and brutality and Tammany gangsterism. (An old alliance that,
between Jim Crow and the Machines.)
Trump is one of Cohn's kids but much more representative of them is Hillary Clinton,
daughter of a John Bircher, a Goldwater girl, a 'feminist'-of the thoroughly sickening
variety- and imbued with a hatred of Russia.
The Soviet Union won the war, the United States won the peace... That didn't happen by
accident.
The Outlaw US Empire immediately initiated the Cold War as soon as V-E day happened by
collecting SS and Gestapo for redeployment into Eastern Europe to commit acts of terrorism, a
preplanned exercise. It later held the farcical trials at Nuremburg. Walter's provided lots
of nice insight into the aims of the Manhattan Project and real reason for murdering hundreds
of thousands of innocent Japanese. The Great Evil that's today's USA got its start during
WW2, but its philosophical underpinnings are as old as the Republic.
If History is going to be remembered correctly, then ALL of that History must be
revealed--true and raw, just as Putin and the Russians propose to do with their historical
memory project.
another benefit for the u.s., all those german scientists via operation paperclip. helped
keep the mic running after it would normally ramp down postwar.
pretzelattack , Jan 22 2020 18:01 utc |
115karlof1 , Jan 22 2020 19:02 utc |
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bevin @103--
Yes, Standing Ovation!! So much of that's now swept under the rug. Henry Wallace was all
too correct about US Fascism in his 1944 essay. During WW2, Charles Beard wrote a book that
was initially serialized in Life magazine beginning on 17 Jan 1944, The Republic:
Conversations on Fundamentals , which was read by and sold more copies than any of his
works--ever--and was the last major book he produced. Yet, when you look at the short
bibliography at Wikipedia or the one provided by its link to the American History
Association, it is omitted--WHY? I used it as a teaching tool for both history and polisci
because of its brilliant construction--the way in which Beard composed it as a series of
conversations. This link provides a hint , or
you can join the
archive and "borrow" it as there's no open downloading of this book available--WHY? Lots
of his other works are feely available. It's not hard to find used first editions for under
$4, which attests to the number published. But it certainly seems like we're not supposed to
know of this work as its airbrushing from his AHA bibliography suggests.
Maybe what Beard wrote about was too contrary to The Plan. Aha!! Beard wrote that it was
his rebuttal to Henry Luce--the owner/publisher of Life and Time magazines--and
his idea of an American Century meaning American Empire a la Rome/Britain--Pax Americana. The
mystery gets deeper upon reading the introduction at the first link above. I wish I could
copy/paste, but I'm barred from doing that, so you'll need to read it yourself. One can
envision Bradbury's Firemen rushing out to eliminate just such a book with its heretical
ideas about how the US federal government's supposed to operate and for whom.
But back to bevin and his recounting of a critical historical chapter that's also being
airbrushed. Some of us barflies are akin to Bradbury's "Train People" from Fahrenheit
451 , but how confident are we that the stories we have to tell are being heard AND
remembered so they don't vanish with us?
This is more for Bubbles @71, but applies to all.
This is from 2017 upon the release of UN Holocaust files held back on request by the
Outlaw US Empire and its vassal Britain as reported in an excellent article by Finnian
Cunningham:
"In other words, the Cold War which the US and Britain embarked on after 1945 was but a
continuation of hostile policy towards Moscow that was already underway well before the
Second World War erupted in 1939 in the form of a build up of Nazi Germany. For various
reasons, it became expedient for the Western powers to liquidate the Nazi war machine, along
with the Soviet Union. But as can be seen, the Western assets residing in the Nazi machine
were recycled into American and British Cold War posture against the Soviet Union. It is a
truly damning legacy that American and British military intelligence agencies were
consolidated and financed by Nazi crimes.
"The recent release of UN Holocaust files – in spite of American and British
prevarication over many years – add more evidence to the historical analysis that these
Western powers were deeply complicit in the monumental crimes of the Nazi Third Reich. They
knew about these crimes because they had helped facilitate them. And the complicity stemmed
from Western hostility towards Russia as a perceived geopolitical rival.
" This is not a mere historical academic exercise . Western complicity with Nazi
Germany also finds a corollary in the present-day ongoing hostility from Washington, Britain
and their NATO allies towards Moscow. The relentless build up of NATO offensive forces around
Russia's borders, the endless Russophobia in Western propagandistic news media, the economic
blockade in the form of sanctions based on tenuous claims, are all deeply rooted in history.
[My Emphasis]
"The West's Cold War towards Moscow preceded the Second World War, continued after the defeat
of Nazi Germany and persists to this day regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union no
longer exists. Why? Because Russia is a perceived rival to Anglo-American capitalist
hegemony, as is China or any other emerging power that undermines that desired unipolar
hegemony.
"American-British collusion with Nazi Germany finds its modern-day manifestation in NATO
collusion with the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine and jihadist terror groups dispatched in proxy
wars against Russian interests in Syria and elsewhere. The players may change over time, but
the root pathology is American-British capitalism and its hegemonic addiction.
"The never-ending Cold War will only end when Anglo-American capitalism is finally
defeated and replaced by a genuinely more democratic system."
The picture becomes clearer as we begin to realize that today's monsters--Pompeo, Pence,
Bolton, Abrams, Rove, and others--are the same as yesterday's monsters, although they've
moved from one side of the Atlantic to the other. What's currently happening ought to make
informed people think again about who the Arc of Resistance is actually defending and what
message Trump's murder of Soleimani is meant to convey--it's TINA once again: Neoliberal
Fascism. It should also be noted that the release occurred soon after Trump became POTUS,
giving a strong secondary motive for Russiagate and the Skripals shortly afterward.
Thanks for your reply. Are you aware of Operation Unthinkable , Operation
Sunrise from which the former sprang, and Allen Dulles's activities in Italy and Germany
during 1945?
AntiSpin @121--
Good to hear from you! I had a hard time digging up a copy of Life to read Luce's
screed on the American Century which I photocopied. Today, a quick search now finds it
online here (PDF), while here's a
dissection that sets up the conflicting outlooks of Beard and Luce that IMO's useful.
Indeed, Luce's views are quite the read given what the USA's become--do note the political
party that feared and predicted such an outcome. It's a great misfortune that a discussion of
the two doesn't even enter into graduate seminars about WW2; at least my undergrads got some
exposure and learned of the two essay's existence.
One of two things is wrong with America: Either the entire system is broken or is on the
verge of breaking, and we need someone to bring about radical, structural change, or -- we
don't need that at all! Which is it? Who can say? Certainly not me, and that is why I am
telling you now which candidate to vote for.
"... with little more than a month before the extradition hearing for imprisoned ..."
"... publisher Julian Assange begins. This is the sixth in a series that is looking back on the major works of the publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring ..."
"... work, and is instead focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is ..."
"... uncovering of governments' crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange, ultimately leading to his arrest on April 11 last year and indictment under the U.S. Espionage Act. ..."
"... Special to Consortium News ..."
"... Der Spiegel ..."
"... to the Winter Fund Drive. ..."
"... World Socialist Website ..."
"... Foreign Policy ..."
"... The Guardian ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Green Left ..."
"... The Green Left Weekly ..."
"... The Guardian ..."
"... CORRECTION: CableDrum is an independent Twitter feed and is not associated with ..."
WikiLeaks ' publication of "Cablegate" in late 2010 dwarfed previous releases in both
size and impact and helped cause what one news outlet called a political meltdown for United
States foreign policy.
Today we resume our series The Revelations of WikiLeaks with little more than a
month before the extradition hearing for imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange
begins. This is the sixth in a series that is looking back on the major works of the
publication that has altered the world since its founding in 2006. The series is an effort to
counter mainstream media coverage, which is ignoring WikiLeaks' work, and is instead
focusing on Julian Assange's personality. It is WikiLeaks' uncovering of governments'
crimes and corruption that set the U.S. after Assange, ultimately leading to his arrest on
April 11 last year and indictment under the U.S. Espionage Act.
O f all WikiLeaks' releases, probably the most globally significant have been the
more than a quarter of a million U.S. State Department diplomatic cables leaked in 2010, the
publication of which helped spark a revolt in Tunisia that spread into the so-called Arab
Spring, revealed Saudi intentions towards Iran and exposed spying on the UN secretary general
and other diplomats.
The releases were surrounded by a significant controversy (to be covered in a separate
installment of this series) alleging that WikiLeaks purposely endangered U.S.
informants by deliberately revealing their names. That allegation formed a major part of the
U.S. indictment on May 23 of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under the Espionage
Act, though revealing informants' names is not a crime, nor is there evidence that any of them
were ever harmed.
WikiLeaks ' publication of "Cablegate," beginning on Nov. 28, 2010, dwarfed
previous WikiLeaks releases, in both size and impact. The publication amounted to 251,287 leaked
American diplomatic cables that, at the time of publication, Der Spiegel described
as"no less than a political meltdown for United States foreign policy."
Cablegate revealed a previously unknown history of diplomatic relations between the United
States and the rest of the world, and in doing so, exposed U.S. views of both allies and
adversaries. As a result of such revelations, Cablegate's release was widely condemned by the
U.S. political class and especially by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Twitter handle Cable Drum, called it,
" The largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public
domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into U.S.
Government foreign activities. The cables, which date from 1966 up until the end of February
2010, contain confidential communications between 274 embassies in countries throughout the
world and the State Department in Washington DC. 15,652 of the cables are classified
Secret."
Among the historic documents that
were grouped with Cablegate in WikiLeaks ' Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy are 1.7
million that involve Henry Kissinger, national security adviser and secretary of state under
President Richard Nixon; and 1.4 million related to the Jimmy Carter administration.
Der
Spiegel reported that the majority were "composed by ambassadors, consuls or their
staff. Most contain assessments of the political situation in the individual countries,
interview protocols and background information about personnel decisions and events. In many
cases, they also provide political and personal profiles of individual politicians and
leaders."
Cablegate rounded out WikiLeaks' output in 2010, which had seen the explosive
publication of previous leaks also from Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning including "
Collateral Murder ," the "
Afghan War Diaries " and "
Iraq War Logs ," the subject of earlier installments in this series. As in the case of the
two prior releases, WikiLeaks published Cablegate in partnerships with establishment
media outlets.
The impact of "Cablegate" is impossible to fully encapsulate, and should be the subject of
historical study for decades to come. In September 2015 Verso published " The WikiLeaks Files: The World
According to U.S. Empire ," with a foreword by Assange. It is a compendium of chapters
written by various regional experts and historians giving a broader and more in-depth
geopolitical analysis of U.S. foreign policy as revealed by the cables.
"The internal communications of the US Department of State are the logistical by-product of
its activities: their publication is the vivisection of a living empire, showing what substance
flowed from which state organ and when. Only by approaching this corpus holistically –
over and above the documentation of each individual abuse, each localized atrocity – does
the true human cost of empire heave into view," Assange wrote in the foreword.
' WikiLeaks Revolt' in Tunisia
The release of "Cablegate" provided the spark that many argue
heralded the Arab Spring, earning the late-November publication the moniker of the " WikiLeaks Winter
."
Eventually, many would also
creditWikiLeaks' publication of the diplomatic cables with initiating a
chain-reaction that spread from the Middle East ( specifically
from Egypt) to the global Occupy Wall Street movement by late 2011.
The first of the Arab uprisings was Tunisia's 28-day so-called Jasmine Revolution,
stretching from Dec. 17, 2010, to Jan. 14, 2011, described as the "first WikiLeaks
revolution."
Cables published by WikiLeaks revealed the extent of the Tunisian ruling family's
corruption, and were widely accessible in Tunisia thanks to the advent of social media
platforms like Twitter. Then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had been in power for over two
decades at the time of the cables' publication.
"President Ben Ali's extended family is often cited as the nexus of Tunisian corruption.
Often referred to as a quasi-mafia, an oblique mention of 'the Family' is enough to indicate
which family you mean. Seemingly half of the Tunisian business community can claim a Ben Ali
connection through marriage, and many of these relations are reported to have made the most of
their lineage."
A June 2008 cable said: "Whether it's cash, services, land, property, or yes, even your
yacht, President [Zine el Abidine] Ben Ali's family is rumored to covet it and reportedly gets
what it wants."
Symbolic middle finger gesture representing the Tunisian Revolution and its influences in
the Arab world. From left to right, fingers are painted as flags of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia,
Sudan and Algeria. (Khalid from Doha, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The cables revealed that Ben Ali's extended family controlled nearly the entire Tunisian
economy, from banking to media to property development, while 30 percent of Tunisians were
unemployed. They showed that state-owned property was expropriated to be passed on to private
ownership by family members.
"Lax oversight makes the banking sector an excellent target of opportunity, with multiple
stories of 'First Family' schemes," one cable read. ""With real estate development booming and
land prices on the rise, owning property or land in the right location can either be a windfall
or a one-way ticket to expropriation," said another.
The revolt was facilitated once the U.S. abandoned Ali. Counterpunch reported that:
"The U.S. campaign of unwavering public support for President Ali led to a widespread belief
among the Tunisian people that it would be very difficult to dislodge the autocratic regime
from power. This view was shattered when leaked cables exposed the U.S. government's private
assessment: that the U.S. would not support the regime in the event of a popular uprising."
The internet and large social media platforms played a crucial role in the spread of public
awareness of the cables and their content amongst the Tunisian public. "Thousands of home-made
videos of police repression and popular resistance have been posted on the web. The Tunisian
people have used Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites to organize and direct the
mobilizations against the regime," the World Socialist Website
wrote.
"WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is
probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site." The magazine added:
"The people of Tunisia shouldn't have had to wait for Wikileaks to learn that the U.S. saw
their country just as they did. It's time that the gulf between what American diplomats know
and what they say got smaller."
The
Guardian published an account in January 2011 by a young Tunisian, Sami Ben Hassine,
who wrote: "The internet is blocked, and censored pages are referred to as pages "not found"
– as if they had never existed. And then, WikiLeaks reveals what everyone was whispering.
And then, a young man [Mohamed Bouazizi] immolates himself. And then, 20 Tunisians are killed
in one day. And for the first time, we see the opportunity to rebel, to take revenge on the
'royal' family who has taken everything, to overturn the established order that has accompanied
our youth."
Protester in Tunis, Jan. 14, 2011, holding sign. Translation from French: "Ben Ali out."
(Skotch 79, CC0, Wikimedia Commons)
On the first day of Chelsea Manning's pretrial in December 2011, Daniel Ellsberg told Democracy Now:
"The combination of the WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning exposures in Tunis and the
exemplification of that by Mohamed Bouazizi led to the protests, the nonviolent protests,
that drove Ben Ali out of power, our ally there who we supported up 'til that moment, and in
turn sparked the uprising in Egypt, in Tahrir Square occupation, which immediately stimulated
the Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere. I hope
[Manning and Assange] will have the effect in liberating us from the lawlessness that we have
seen and the corruption -- the corruption -- that we have seen in this country in the last 10
years and more, which has been no less than that of Tunis and Egypt."
Clinton Told US Diplomats to Spy at UN
The cables' revelation that the U.S. State Department under then-Secretary-of-State Clinton
had demanded officials act as spies on officials at the United Nations -- including the
Secretary General -- was particularly embarrassing for the United States.
El Pais summarized the
bombshell: "The State Department sent officials of 38 embassies and diplomatic missions a
detailed account of the personal and other information they must obtain about the United
Nations, including its secretary general, and especially about officials and representatives
linked to Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran and North Korea.
El
Pais continued: "Several dispatches, signed 'Clinton' and probably made by the office
of Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, contain precise instructions about the myriad of
inquiries to be developed in conflict zones, in the world of deserters and asylum seekers, in
the engine room of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or about the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Russia and China to know their plans regarding the nuclear threat in Tehran."
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton & UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in 2012.
(Foreign and Commonwealth Office/Flickr)
CNN
described the information diplomats were ordered to gather: "In the July 2009 document, Clinton
directs her envoys at the United Nations and embassies around the world to collect information
ranging from basic biographical data on foreign diplomats to their frequent flyer and credit
card numbers and even 'biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats.' Typical
biometric information can include fingerprints, signatures and iris recognition data."
Der Spiegel reported that
Clinton justified the espionage orders by emphasizing that "a large share of the information
that the US intelligence agencies works with comes from the reports put together by State
Department staff around the world."
Der Spiegel added: "The US State Department also wanted to obtain information on
the plans and intentions of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his secretariat relating to
issues like Iran, according to the detailed wish list in the directive. The instructions were
sent to 30 US embassies around the world, including the one in Berlin."
Philip J. Crowley as assistant secretary of state for public affairs in 2010. (State
Department)
The State Department responded to the revelations, with then- State-Department-spokesman
P.J. Crowley reportedly disputing that American
diplomats had assumed a new role overseas.
"Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They represent our country around the
world and engage openly and transparently with representatives of foreign governments and civil
society. Through this process, they collect information that shapes our policies and actions.
This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of
years."
In December 2010, just after the cables' publication, Assange told Time : "She should resign if it can be shown that she
was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United
Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up."
Saudis & Iran
A diplomatic cable dated April 20, 2008, made
clear Saudi Arabia's pressure on the United States to take action against its enemy Iran,
including not ruling out military action against Teheran:
"[Then Saudi ambassador to the US Abbdel] Al-Jubeir recalled the King's frequent
exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program. 'He
told you to cut off the head of the snake,' he recalled to the Charge', adding that working
with the US to roll back Iranian influence in Iraq is a strategic priority for the King and
his government. 11. (S) The Foreign Minister, on the other hand, called instead for much more
severe US and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further
restrictions on bank lending. Prince Muqrin echoed these views, emphasizing that some
sanctions could be implemented without UN approval. The Foreign Minister also stated that the
use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out."
Dyncorp & the 'Dancing Boys' of Afghanistan
The cables indicate that Afghan authorities asked the United States government to quash U.S. reporting on a scandal stemming from the
actions of Dyncorp employees in Afghanistan in 2009.
Employees of Dyncorp, a paramilitary group with an infamous track-record of alleged involvement in sex trafficking
and other human rights abuses in multiple countries, were revealed by Cablegate to have been
involved with illegal drug use and hiring the services of a "bacha bazi," or underage dancing
boy.
A 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks described an event where Dyncorp had purchased
the service of a "bacha bazi." The writer of the cable does not specify what happened during
the event, describing it only as "purchasing a service from a child," and he tries to convince
a journalist not to cover the story in order to not "risk lives."
Although Dyncorp was no stranger to controversy by the time of the cables' publication, the
revelation of the mercenary force's continued involvement in bacha bazi provoked further
questions as to why the company continued to receive tax-payer funded contracts from the United
States.
Sexual abuse allegations were not the only issue haunting Dyncorp. The State Department
admitted in 2017 that it "could not account for" more than $1 billion paid to the company, as
reported by Foreign Policy .
The New York Times later
reported that U.S. soldiers had been told to turn a blind eye to the abuse of minors by those
in positions of power: "Soldiers and Marines have been increasingly troubled that instead of
weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as
the commanders of villages -- and doing little when they began abusing children."
Australia Lied About Troop Withdrawal
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia, left, with U.S. President Barack Obama, in the Oval
Office, Nov. 30, 2009, to discuss a range of issues including Afghanistan and climate change.
(White House/Pete Souza)
The Green
Left related that the cables exposed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's double
talk about withdrawing troops. "Despite government spin about withdrawing all 'combat forces,'
the cables said some of these forces could be deployed in combat roles. One cable said,
"[d]espite the withdrawal of combat forces, Rudd agreed to allow Australian forces embedded or
seconded to units of other countries including the U.S. to deploy to Iraq in combat and combat
support roles with those units."
US Meddling in Latin America
Cables revealed that U.S. ambassadors to Ecuador had opposed the presidential candidacy of
Raphael Correa despite their pretense of neutrality, as observed by The Green Left Weekly .
Additional cables revealed the Vatican attempted to increase its
influence in Latin America with the aid of the U.S. Further cables illustrated the history of Pope Francis while he was a cardinal
in Argentina, with the U.S. appearing to have a positive outlook on the future
pontiff.
Illegal Dealings Between US & Sweden
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote in his affidavit :
"Through the diplomatic cables I also learned of secret, informal arrangements between
Sweden and the United States. The cables revealed that Swedish intelligence services have a
pattern of lawless conduct where US interests are concerned. The US diplomatic cables
revealed that the Swedish Justice Department had deliberately hidden particular intelligence
information exchanges with the United States from the Parliament of Sweden because the
exchanges were likely unlawful."
Military Reaction
On Nov. 30, 2010, the State Department declared it would remove the diplomatic cables from
its secure network in order to prevent additional leaks. Antiwar.com added: "The cables had previously been
accessible through SIPRNet, an ostensibly secure network which is accessible by millions of
officials and soldiers. It is presumably through this network that the cables were obtained and
leaked to WikiLeaks ."
The
Guardian described SIPRNet as a "worldwide US military internet system, kept separate
from the ordinary civilian internet and run by the Defence Department in Washington."
Political Fury
On Nov. 29, 2010, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of the "Cablegate" release:
"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy; it is an attack on the
international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conventions and negotiations
that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."
The next day, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee called for Chelsea Manning's execution,
according to Politico .
Some political figures did express support for Assange, including U.K. Labor leader Jeremy
Corbyn, who wrote via Twitter days after
Cablegate was published: "USA and others don't like any scrutiny via wikileaks and they are
leaning on everybody to pillory Assange. What happened to free speech?"
Other notable revelations from the diplomatic cables included multiple instances of U.S.
meddling in Latin America, the demand by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that
diplomatic staff act as spies , the
documentation of misconduct by U.S. paramilitary forces, the fallout of the 2008 financial
crisis in Iceland, the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Germany and other European
countries, that the Vatican attempted to increase its
influence in Latin America with the aid of the U.S. , that U.S. diplomats had essentially spied on German Chancellor Angele
Merkel, and much more.
Der Spiegel reported on
Hillary Clinton's demand that U.S. diplomats act as spies:
"As justification for the espionage orders, Clinton emphasized that a large share of the
information that the U.S. intelligence agencies works with comes from the reports put together
by State Department staff around the world. The information to be collected included personal
credit card information, frequent flyer customer numbers, as well as e-mail and telephone
accounts. In many cases the State Department also requested 'biometric information,'
'passwords' and 'personal encryption keys.' "
Der Spiegel added: "The U.S. State Department also wanted to obtain information on
the plans and intentions of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his secretariat relating to
issues like Iran, according to the detailed wish list in the directive. The instructions were
sent to 30 U.S. embassies around the world, including the one in Berlin."
Elizabeth Vos is a freelance reporter and co-host of CN Live.
CORRECTION: CableDrum is an independent Twitter feed and is not associated with
WikiLeaks as was incorrectly reported here.
jmg , January 15, 2020 at 09:53
A truly great series, thank you.
The Revelations of WikiLeaks -- Consortium News Series
1. The Video that Put Assange in US Crosshairs -- April 23, 2019
2. The Leak That 'Exposed the True Afghan War' -- May 9, 2019
3. The Most Extensive Classified Leak in History -- May 16, 2019
4. The Haunting Case of a Belgian Child Killer and How WikiLeaks Helped Crack It -- July 11,
2019
5. Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Never Published Damaging Material on Russia -- September 23,
2019
6. US Diplomatic Cables Spark 'Arab Spring,' Expose Spying at UN & Elsewhere -- January
14, 2020
For an updated list with links to the articles, a Google search is:
"The Revelations of WikiLeaks" site:consortiumnews.com For an updated list with links to
the articles, a Google search is:
"The Revelations of WikiLeaks" site:consortiumnews.com
– – –
Consortium News wrote:
> Today we resume our series The Revelations of WikiLeaks with little more than a month
before the extradition hearing for imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange begins.
Yes and, shockingly, Julian has been allowed only 2 hours with his lawyers in the last
month, crucial to prepare the extradition hearings. See:
Summary from Assange hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court this morning -- Tareq Haddad
-- Thread Reader -- Jan 13th 2020
"... The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports. So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. ..."
"... After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement." ..."
"... It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive. ..."
After the feed was cut, MPs who were present wrote down Abdul-Mahdi's remarks, which were
then given to the Arabic news outlet Ida'at .
Per that transcript , Abdul-Mahdi stated that:
The Americans are the ones who destroyed the country and wreaked havoc on it. They
have refused to finish building the electrical system and infrastructure projects. They have
bargained for the reconstruction of Iraq in exchange for Iraq giving up 50% of oil imports.
So, I refused and decided to go to China and concluded an important and strategic agreement
with it. Today, Trump is trying to cancel this important agreement. "
Abdul-Mahdi continued his remarks, noting that pressure from the Trump administration over
his negotiations and subsequent dealings with China grew substantially over time, even
resulting in death threats to himself and his defense minister:
After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I
also refused, and he threatened [that there would be] massive demonstrations to topple me.
Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the
event of non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, whereby a third party [presumed to be
mercenaries or U.S. soldiers] would target both the demonstrators and security forces and
kill them from atop the highest buildings and the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and
submit to his wishes and cancel the China agreement."
"I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist to this day
on canceling the China agreement. When the defense minister said that those killing the
demonstrators was a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically threatened myself
and the defense minister in the event that there was more talk about this third party."
Very few English language outlets
reported on Abdul-Mahdi's comments. Tom Luongo, a Florida-based Independent Analyst and publisher of The Gold
Goats 'n Guns Newsletter, told MintPress that the likely reasons for the "surprising"
media silence over Abdul-Mahdi's claims were because "It never really made it out into official
channels " due to the cutting of the video feed during Iraq's Parliamentary session and due to
the fact that "it's very inconvenient and the media -- since Trump is doing what they want him
to do, be belligerent with Iran, protected Israel's interests there."
"They aren't going to contradict him on that if he's playing ball," Luongo added, before
continuing that the media would nonetheless "hold onto it for future reference .If this comes
out for real, they'll use it against him later if he tries to leave Iraq." "Everything in
Washington is used as leverage," he added.
Given the lack of media coverage and the cutting of the video feed of Abdul-Mahdi's full
remarks, it is worth pointing out that the narrative he laid out in his censored speech not
only fits with the timeline of recent events he discusses but also the tactics known to have
been employed behind closed doors by the Trump administration, particularly after Mike Pompeo
left the CIA to become Secretary of State.
For instance, Abdul-Mahdi's delegation to China ended on September 24, with the protests
against his government that Trump reportedly threatened to start on October 1. Reports of a
"third side" firing on Iraqi protesters were picked up by major media outlets at the time, such
as in this
BBC report which stated:
Reports say the security forces opened fire, but another account says unknown gunmen
were responsible .a source in Karbala told the BBC that one of the dead was a guard at a
nearby Shia shrine who happened to be passing by. The source also said the origin of the
gunfire was unknown and it had targeted both the protesters and security forces .
(emphasis added)"
U.S.-backed protests in other countries, such as in Ukraine in 2014, also saw evidence of a
"
third side " shooting both protesters and security forces alike.
After six weeks of intense protests , Abdul-Mahdi
submitted
his resignation on November 29, just a few days after Iraq's
Foreign Minister praised the new deals, including the "oil for reconstruction" deal, that had
been signed with China. Abdul-Mahdi has since stayed on as Prime Minister in a caretaker role
until Parliament decides on his replacement.
Abdul-Mahdi's claims of the covert pressure by the Trump administration are buttressed by
the use of similar tactics against Ecuador, where, in July 2018, a U.S. delegation at the
United Nations
threatened the nation with punitive trade measures and the withdrawal of military aid if
Ecuador moved forward with the introduction of a UN resolution to "protect, promote and support
breastfeeding."
The New York Times reported at the time that the U.S. delegation was seeking to
promote the interests of infant formula manufacturers. If the U.S. delegation is willing to use
such pressure on nations for promoting breastfeeding over infant formula, it goes without
saying that such behind-closed-doors pressure would be significantly more intense if a much
more lucrative resource, e.g. oil, were involved.
Regarding Abdul-Mahdi's claims, Luongo told MintPress that it is also worth
considering that it could have been anyone in the Trump administration making threats to
Abdul-Mahdi, not necessarily Trump himself. "What I won't say directly is that I don't know it
was Trump at the other end of the phone calls. Mahdi, it is to his best advantage politically
to blame everything on Trump. It could have been Mike Pompeo or Gina Haspel talking to
Abdul-Mahdi It could have been anyone, it most likely would be someone with plausible
deniability .This [Mahdi's claims] sounds credible I firmly believe Trump is capable of making
these threats but I don't think Trump would make those threats directly like that, but it would
absolutely be consistent with U.S. policy."
Luongo also argued that the current tensions between U.S. and Iraqi leadership preceded the
oil deal between Iraq and China by several weeks, "All of this starts with Prime Minister Mahdi
starting the process of opening up the Iraq-Syria border crossing and that was announced in
August. Then, the Israeli air attacks happened in September to try and stop that from
happening, attacks on PMU forces on the border crossing along with the ammo dump attacks near
Baghdad This drew the Iraqis' ire Mahdi then tried to close the air space over Iraq, but how
much of that he can enforce is a big question."
As to why it would be to Mahdi's advantage to blame Trump, Luongo stated that Mahdi "can
make edicts all day long, but, in reality, how much can he actually restrain the U.S. or the
Israelis from doing anything? Except for shame, diplomatic shame To me, it [Mahdi's claims]
seems perfectly credible because, during all of this, Trump is probably or someone else is
shaking him [Mahdi] down for the reconstruction of the oil fields [in Iraq] Trump has
explicitly stated "we want the oil."'
As Luongo noted, Trump's interest in the U.S. obtaining a significant share of Iraqi oil
revenue is hardly a secret. Just last March, Trump
asked Abdul-Mahdi "How about the oil?" at the end of a meeting at the White House,
prompting Abdul-Mahdi to ask "What do you mean?" To which Trump responded "Well, we did a lot,
we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking
about the oil," which was widely interpreted as Trump asking for part of Iraq's oil revenue in
exchange for the steep costs of the U.S.' continuing its now unwelcome military presence in
Iraq.
With Abdul-Mahdi having rejected Trump's "oil for reconstruction" proposal in favor of
China's, it seems likely that the Trump administration would default to so-called "gangster
diplomacy" tactics to pressure Iraq's government into accepting Trump's deal, especially given
the fact that China's deal was a much better offer. While Trump demanded half of Iraq's oil
revenue in exchange for completing reconstruction projects (according to Abdul-Mahdi), the deal
that was signed between Iraq and China would see around
20 percen t of Iraq's oil revenue go to China in exchange for reconstruction. Aside from
the potential loss in Iraq's oil revenue, there are many reasons for the Trump administration
to feel threatened by China's recent dealings in Iraq.
The Iraq-China oil deal – a prelude to something more?
When Abdul-Mahdi's delegation traveled to Beijing last September, the "oil for
reconstruction" deal was only
one of eight total agreements that were established. These agreements cover a range of
areas, including financial, commercial, security, reconstruction, communication, culture,
education and foreign affairs in addition to oil. Yet, the oil deal is by far the most
significant.
Per the agreement, Chinese firms will work on various reconstruction projects in exchange
for roughly 20 percent of Iraq's oil exports, approximately 100,00 barrels per day, for a
period of 20 years. According to Al-Monitor
, Abdul-Mahdi had the following to say about the deal: "We agreed [with Beijing] to set up a
joint investment fund, which the oil money will finance," adding that the agreement prohibits
China from monopolizing projects inside Iraq, forcing Bejing to work in cooperation with
international firms.
The agreement is similar to one negotiated
between Iraq and China in 2015 when Abdul-Mahdi was serving as Iraq's oil minister. That
year, Iraq joined China's Belt and Road Initiative in a deal that also involved exchanging oil
for investment, development and construction projects and saw China awarded several projects as
a result. In a notable similarity to recent events, that deal was put on hold due to "political
and security tensions" caused by unrest and the surge of ISIS in Iraq, that is until
Abdul-Mahdi saw Iraq rejoin the
initiative again late last year through the agreements his government signed with China
last September.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, center left, meet with Iraqi Prime Minister
Adil Abdul-Mahdi, center right, in Beijing, Sept. 23, 2019. Lintao Zhang | AP
Notably, after recent tensions between the U.S. and Iraq over the assassination of Soleimani
and the U.S.' subsequent refusal to remove its troops from Iraq despite parliament's demands,
Iraq quietly announced that it would dramatically increase its oil exports to China to
triple the
amount established in the deal signed in September. Given Abdul-Mahdi's recent claims about
the true forces behind Iraq's recent protests and Trump's threats against him being directly
related to his dealings with China, the move appears to be a not-so-veiled signal from
Abdul-Mahdi to Washington that he plans to deepen Iraq's partnership with China, at least for
as long as he remains in his caretaker role.
Iraq's decision to dramatically increase its oil exports to China came just one day after
the U.S. government
threatened to cut off Iraq's access to its central bank account, currently held at the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an account that
currently holds $35 billion in Iraqi oil revenue. The account was
set up after the U.S. invaded and began occupying Iraq in 2003 and Iraq currently removes
between $1-2 billion per month to cover essential government expenses. Losing access to its oil
revenue stored in that account would lead to the "
collapse " of Iraq's government, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to
AFP .
Though Trump publicly promised to rebuke Iraq for the expulsion of U.S. troops via
sanctions, the threat to cut off Iraq's access to its account at the NY Federal Reserve Bank
was delivered privately and directly to the Prime Minister, adding further credibility to
Abdul-Mahdi's claims that Trump's most aggressive attempts at pressuring Iraq's government are
made in private and directed towards the country's Prime Minister.
Though Trump's push this time was about preventing the expulsion of U.S. troops from Iraq,
his reasons for doing so may also be related to concerns about China's growing foothold in the
region. Indeed, while Trump has now lost his desired share of Iraqi oil revenue (50 percent) to
China's counteroffer of 20 percent, the removal of U.S. troops from Iraq may see American
troops replaced with their Chinese counterparts as well, according to Tom Luongo.
"All of this is about the U.S. maintaining the fiction that it needs to stay in Iraq So,
China moving in there is the moment where they get their toe hold for the Belt and Road
[Initiative]," Luongo argued. "That helps to strengthen the economic relationship between Iraq,
Iran and China and obviating the need for the Americans to stay there. At some point, China
will have assets on the ground that they are going to want to defend militarily in the event of
any major crisis. This brings us to the next thing we know, that Mahdi and the Chinese
ambassador discussed that very thing in the wake of the Soleimani killing."
Indeed, according to news reports, Zhang Yao -- China's ambassador to Iraq -- " conveyed
Beijing's readiness to provide military assistance" should Iraq's government request it
soon after Soleimani's assassination. Yao made the offer a day after Iraq's parliament voted to
expel American troops from the country. Though it is currently unknown how Abdul-Mahdi
responded to the offer, the timing likely caused no shortage of concern among the Trump
administration about its rapidly waning influence in Iraq. "You can see what's coming here,"
Luongo told MintPress of the recent Chinese offer to Iraq, "China, Russia and Iran are
trying to cleave Iraq away from the United States and the U.S. is feeling very threatened by
this."
Russia is also playing a role in the current scenario as Iraq initiated talks with Moscow
regarding the
possible purchase of one of its air defense systems last September, the same month that
Iraq signed eight deals, including the oil deal with China. Then, in the wake of Soleimani's
death, Russia
again offered the air defense systems to Iraq to allow them to better defend their air
space. In the past, the U.S.
has threatened allied countries with sanctions and other measures if they purchase Russian
air defense systems as opposed to those manufactured by U.S. companies.
The U.S.' efforts to curb China's growing influence and presence in Iraq amid these new
strategic partnerships and agreements are limited, however, as the U.S. is increasingly relying on China
as part of its Iran policy, specifically in its goal of reducing Iranian oil export to zero.
China remains Iran's main crude oil and condensate importer, even after it reduced its imports
of Iranian oil significantly following U.S. pressure last year. Yet, the U.S. is now attempting to
pressure China to stop buying Iranian oil completely or face sanctions while also
attempting to privately sabotage the China-Iraq oil deal. It is highly unlikely China will
concede to the U.S. on both, if any, of those fronts, meaning the U.S. may be forced to choose
which policy front (Iran "containment" vs. Iraq's oil dealings with China) it values more in
the coming weeks and months.
Furthermore, the recent signing of the "phase one" trade deal with China revealed another
potential facet of the U.S.' increasingly complicated relationship with Iraq's oil sector given
that the trade deal
involves selling U.S. oil and gas to China at very low cost , suggesting that the Trump
administration may also see the Iraq-China oil deal result in Iraq emerging as a potential
competitor for the U.S. in selling cheap oil to China, the world's top oil importer.
The Petrodollar and the Phantom of the Petroyuan
In his televised statements last week following Iran's military response to the U.S.
assassination of General Soleimani, Trump insisted that the U.S.' Middle East policy is no
longer being directed by America's vast oil requirements. He
stated specifically that:
Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before
and America has achieved energy independence. These historic accomplishments changed our
strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And
options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and
natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East
oil . (emphasis added)"
Yet, given the centrality of the recent Iraq-China oil deal in guiding some of the Trump
administration's recent Middle East policy moves, this appears not to be the case. The
distinction may lie in the fact that, while the U.S. may now be less dependent on oil imports
from the Middle East, it still very much needs to continue to dominate how oil is traded and
sold on international markets in order to maintain its status as both a global military
and financial superpower.
Indeed, even if the U.S. is importing less Middle Eastern oil, the petrodollar system --
first forged in the 1970s -- requires that the U.S. maintains enough control over the global
oil trade so that the world's largest oil exporters, Iraq among them, continue to sell their
oil in dollars. Were Iraq to sell oil in another currency, or trade oil for services, as it
plans to do with China per the recently inked deal, a significant portion of Iraqi oil would
cease to generate a demand for dollars, violating the key tenet of the petrodollar
system.
Chinese representatives speak to defense personnel during a weapons expo organized
by the Iraqi defense ministry in Baghdad, March, 2017. Karim Kadim | AP
The takeaway from the petrodollar phenomenon is that as long as countries need oil, they
will need the dollar. As long as countries demand dollars, the U.S. can continue to go into
massive amounts of debt to fund its network of global military bases, Wall Street bailouts,
nuclear missiles, and tax cuts for the rich."
Thus, the use of the petrodollar has created a system whereby U.S. control of oil sales of
the largest oil exporters is necessary, not just to buttress the dollar, but also to support
its global military presence. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the issue of the U.S. troop
presence in Iraq and the issue of Iraq's push for oil independence against U.S. wishes have
become intertwined. Notably, one of the architects of the petrodollar system and the man who
infamously described U.S. soldiers as "dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign
policy", former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has been advising
Trump and informing his China policy since 2016.
This take was also expressed by economist Michael Hudson,
who recently noted that U.S. access to oil, dollarization and U.S. military strategy are
intricately interwoven and that Trump's recent Iraq policy is intended "to escalate America's
presence in Iraq to keep control of the region's oil reserves," and, as Hudson says, "to back
Saudi Arabia's Wahabi troops (ISIS, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Al Nusra and other divisions of what are
actually America's foreign legion) to support U.S. control of Near Eastern oil as a buttress of
the U.S. dollar."
Hudson further asserts that it was Qassem Soleimani's efforts to promote Iraq's oil
independence at the expense of U.S. imperial ambitions that served one of the key motives
behind his assassination.
America opposed General Suleimani above all because he was fighting against ISIS and other
U.S.-backed terrorists in their attempt to break up Syria and replace Assad's regime with a
set of U.S.-compliant local leaders – the old British "divide and conquer" ploy. On
occasion, Suleimani had cooperated with U.S. troops in fighting ISIS groups that got "out of
line" meaning the U.S. party line. But every indication is that he was in Iraq to work
with that government seeking to regain control of the oil fields that President Trump has
bragged so loudly about grabbing. (emphasis added)"
Hudson adds that " U.S. neocons feared Suleimani's plan to help Iraq assert control of its
oil and withstand the terrorist attacks supported by U.S. and Saudi's on Iraq. That is what
made his assassination an immediate drive."
While other factors -- such as pressure
from U.S. allies such as Israel -- also played a factor in the decision to kill Soleimani,
the decision to assassinate him on Iraqi soil just hours before he was set to meet with
Abdul-Mahdi in a diplomatic role suggests that the underlying tensions caused by Iraq's push
for oil independence and its oil deal with China did play a factor in the timing of his
assassination. It also served as a threat to Abdul-Mahdi, who has claimed that the U.S.
threatened to kill both him and his defense minister just weeks prior over tensions directly
related to the push for independence of Iraq's oil sector from the U.S.
It appears that the ever-present role of the petrodollar in guiding U.S. policy in the
Middle East remains unchanged. The petrodollar has long been a driving factor behind the U.S.'
policy towards Iraq specifically, as one of the key triggers for the 2003 invasion of Iraq was
Saddam Hussein's decision to sell Iraqi oil in Euros opposed to dollars beginning in the year
2000. Just weeks before the invasion began, Hussein boasted that Iraq's Euro-based oil revenue
account was earning a higher interest rate than
it would have been if it had continued to sell its oil in dollars, an apparent signal to other
oil exporters that the petrodollar system was only really benefiting the United States at their
own expense.
Beyond current efforts to stave off Iraq's oil independence and keep its oil trade aligned
with the U.S., the fact that the U.S. is now seeking to limit China's ever-growing role in
Iraq's oil sector is also directly related to China's publicly known efforts to create its own
direct competitor to the petrodollar, the petroyuan.
Since 2017, China has made its plans for the petroyuan -- a direct competitor to the
petrodollar -- no secret, particularly after China eclipsed the U.S. as the world's largest
importer of oil.
The new strategy is to enlist the energy markets' help: Beijing may introduce a new way to
price oil in coming months -- but unlike the contracts based on the U.S. dollar that currently dominate global
markets, this benchmark would use China's own currency. If there's widespread adoption, as the
Chinese hope, then that will mark a step toward challenging the greenback's status as the
world's most powerful currency .The plan is to price oil in yuan using a gold-backed futures contract in
Shanghai, but the road will be long and arduous."
If the U.S. continues on its current path and pushes Iraq further into the arms of China and
other U.S. rival states, it goes without saying that Iraq -- now a part of China's Belt and Road
Initiative -- may soon favor a petroyuan system over a petrodollar system, particularly as the
current U.S. administration threatens to hold Iraq's central bank account hostage for pursuing
policies Washington finds unfavorable.
It could also explain why President Trump is so concerned about China's growing foothold
in Iraq, since it risks causing not only the end of the U.S. military hegemony in the country but
could also lead to major trouble for the petrodollar system and the U.S.' position as a global
financial power. Trump's policy aimed at stopping China and Iraq's growing ties is clearly having
the opposite effect, showing that this administration's "gangster diplomacy" only serves to make
the alternatives offered by countries like China and Russia all the more attractive.
One can see how all these recent wars and military actions have a financial motive at their
core. Yet the mass of gullible Americans actually believe the reasons given, to "spread
democracy" and other wonderful things. Only a small number can see things for what they really
are. It's very frustrating to deal with the stupidity of the average person on a daily basis.
This is not Trump's policy, it is American policy and the variation is in how he implements
it. Any other person would have fallen in line with it as well. US policy has it's own inner
momentum that can't change course. The US depends upon continuation of the dollar as the
world's reserve currency. Were that to be lost the US likely would descend into chaos without
end. When the USSR came apart it was eventually able to downsize into the Russian state. We
don't have that here; there is no core ethnicity with it's own territory left anymore, it's
just a jumble. For the US it's a matter of survival.
There were brutal sanctions against Iraq in the 90s. After that the country was devastated by
the invasion of 2003. Hostility against Iran has been continuous. It's no suprise that things
are not going well in the region and that American politics failed. But this was to be
expected.
Good relations with Iran were possible. Even recently Iran thought that the nuclear
agreement could lead to better relations with the West. Iran should be our best ally in the
region because the middle classes there feel close to the West and are very friendly with
Westerners who visit the country. We could have had better results if we had tryed a more
reasonable politics. But it seems that there were other forces that wanted conflict with Iran
and the destruction of Iraq independently of the interests of the US which would have gained
from a more reasonable position. We can say the same about Russia.
After wars and sanctions the only way to hold everything together is through military
means. There was as doctrine which promoted unbridled militarism and the use of force (wasn't
there a saying that "Americans are from Mars, Europeans from Venus"?). Everybody who didn't
submit to our rules and interests was viewed as an enemy, military force was seen as the
solution to everything.
This is not functioning well. Americans have been decieved by this militaristic doctrine,
this is not going to work. Russia has challenged this, a part of Europe isn't very happy, in
South America you can only run the system ressorting to radical politicians like Bolsonaro
who destroy the environment and create more poverty, in other places this politics created
instability and enemies. I think it should be the time for the American elites to discuss
seriously the ways that the country has been following simply because there are better ways
to have better results.
@anonymous Yes, for the American Empire to exist (and expand) it needs the Petro-dollar,
because only if it is widely used in the world can its collapse be prevented. But why is the
dollar so shaky? Because it is no real money, based on real value, but created out of thin
air as debt and it can only function in an ever expanding pyramid scheme.
The origin of this fraud is the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. And yes that
was mainly a Jewish creation. Nobody, not even Ron Paul, dares to mention that.
Iraq's decision to dramatically increase its oil exports to China came just one day
after the U.S. government threatened to cut off Iraq's access to its central bank account,
currently held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an account that currently holds $35
billion in Iraqi oil revenue. The account was set up after the U.S. invaded and began
occupying Iraq in 2003 and Iraq currently removes between $1-2 billion per month to cover
essential government expenses. Losing access to its oil revenue stored in that account
would lead to the "collapse" of Iraq's government, according to Iraqi government officials
who spoke to AFP.
A very revealing article.
It doesn't make sense for any country to hold reserves in the US. The Zio-Glob CIA
gangsters are ready to defraud or smash up any country that challenges their petrodollar
system. Witness Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Iran and their hostility to Russia and China.
You don't need to twist yourself into a pretzel to figure out why Trump whacked
–the Mafia term–Soleimani.
Jared the Snake's Tel Aviv masters told him they wanted Zion Don to pull the trigger and
their will was done.
I voted for a President Trump and instead, got President Shecky, beholden to Jew and
Israeli interests who has bent over backwards to please the Israeli terrorists, but who will
now go back to his old shtick; pretending to be MAGA or KAG until he gets re-elected, then it
will be gloves off and most likely, another War for Israel and Wall Street in 2021.
Having an Israeli-Firster in the WH isn't unusual, but when you have a vain simpleton who
doesn't understand foreign policy or is so damned lazy, he lets a slumlord take care of it is
a prescription for a major disaster.
"... In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did. ..."
"... The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact." ..."
In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its
ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for
all the good it did.
A few days later, Trump killed a high level Iranian military leader and I have decided a
post is in order, never mind that a round of tiddlywinks will have about the same influence as
a post here. The wars just keep on coming, no matter what we do.
Let's turn to social media where dimwits, neocon partisans, and clueless Democrats are
running wild after corporate Mafia boss and numero uno Israeli cheerleader Donald Trump ordered
a hit on Gen. Qasem Soleimani and others near Baghdad's international airport on Thursday.
Let's begin with this teleprompter reader and "presenter" from Al Jazeera:
"This is what happens when you put a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, former reality TV star
with a thin skin and a very large temper in charge of the world's most powerful military You
know who else attacks cultural sites? ISIS. The Taliban." – me on Trump/Iran on MSNBC
today: pic.twitter.com/YCRARB2anv
It is interesting how the memory of such people only goes back to the election of Donald
Trump.
The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing"
-- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property,
and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the
nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international
terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake
news "alternative fact."
Here's another idiot. He was the boss of the DNC for a while and unsuccessfully ran for
president.
Nice job trump and Pompeo you dimwits. You've completed the neocon move to have Iraq
become a satellite of Iran. You have to be the dumbest people ever to run the US government.
You can add that to being the most corrupt. Get these guys out of here. https://t.co/gQHhHSeiJQ
Once again, history is lost in a tangle of lies and omission. Centuries before John Dean
thought it might be a good idea to run for president, Persians and Shias in what is now Iraq
and Iran were crossing the border -- later drawn up by invading Brits and French -- in
pilgrimages to the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas in Karbala. We can't expect an arrogant
sociopath like Mr. Dean to know about Ashura, Shia pilgrimages, the Remembrance of Muharram,
and events dating back to 680 AD.
Shias from Iran pilgrimage to other Iraqi cities as well, including An-Najaf, Samarra,
Mashhad, and Baghdad (although the latter is more important to Sunnis).
Corporate fake news teleprompter reader Stephanopoulos said the Geneva Conventions
(including United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347) outlaw the targeting of cultural
sites, which Trump said he will bomb.
Trump said there are 52 different sites; the number is not arbitrary, it is based on the 52
hostages, many of them CIA officers, taken hostage during Iran's revolution against the
US-installed Shah and his brutal secret police sadists.
Pompeo said Trump won't destroy Iran's cultural and heritage sites. Pompeo, as a dedicated
Zionist operative, knows damn well the US will destroy EVERYTHING of value in Iran, same as it
did in Iraq and later Libya and Syria. This includes not only cultural sites, but civilian
infrastructure -- hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and mosques.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Geneva Conventions outlaws attacks on cultural objects & places of
worship. Why is Trump threatening Iran w/ war crimes?
POMPEO: We'll behave lawfully
S: So to be clear, Trump's threat wasn't accurate?
Although I believe Jill Stein is living in a Marxian fantasy world, I agree with her tweet
in regard to the Zionist hit on Soleimani:
Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment
– treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump
asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then
assassinated Soleimani – on a mediation mission. https://t.co/f0F9FEMALD
Trump should be impeached -- tried and imprisoned -- not in response to some dreamed-up and
ludicrous Russian plot or even concern about the opportunist Hunter Biden using his father's
position to make millions in uber-corrupt Ukraine, but because he is a war criminal responsible
for killing women and children.
As for the planned forever military occupation of Iraq,
USA Today reports:
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told lawmakers that a timetable for the withdrawal
of all foreign troops, including U.S. ones, was required "for the sake of our national
sovereignty." About 5,000 American troops are in various parts of Iraq.
The latest:
-- Iraqi lawmakers voted to oust U.S. troops
-- U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS has paused operations
-- Hundreds of thousands mourned General Suleimani in Iran
-- President Trump said the U.S. has 52 possible targets in Iran in case of retaliation
https://t.co/pmUuAQdKlc
No way in hell will Sec. State Pompeo and his Zionist neocon handlers allow this to happen
without a fight. However, it shouldn't be too difficult for the Iraqis to expel 5,000
brainwashed American soldiers from the country, bombed to smithereens almost twenty years ago
by Bush the Neocon Idiot Savant.
Never mind Schumer's pretend concern about another war. This friend of Israel from New York
didn't go on national television and excoriate Obama and his cutthroat Sec. of State Hillary
Clinton for killing 30,000 Libyans.
I'm concerned President Trump's impulsive foreign policy is dragging America into another
endless war in the Middle East that will make us less safe.
Meanwhile, it looks like social media is burning the midnight oil in order to prevent their
platforms being used to argue against Trump's latest Zionist-directed insanity.
It is absolutely crazy that Twitter is auto-locking the accounts of anyone who posts this
"No war on Iran" image, and forcing them to delete the anti-war tweet in order to unlock
their account.
This is complete and utter bullshit, but I'm sure the American people will gobble it down
without question. Trump's advisers are neocons and they are seriously experienced in the art of
promoting and engineering assassination, cyber-attacks, invasions, and mass murder.
Newsmax scribbler John Cardillo thinks he has it all figure out.
"In mid-October Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and
other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using
sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran "
Imagine this, however improbable and ludicrous: Iran invades America and assassinates
General Hyten or General McConville, both top members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now
imagine the response by the "exceptional nation."
We can't leave out the Christian Zionist from Indiana, Mike Pence. Mike wants you to believe
Iran was responsible for 9/11, thus stirring up the appropriate animosity and consensus for
mass murder.
Neither Iran nor Soleimani were linked to the terror attack in the "9/11 Commission
Report." Pence didn't even get the number of hijackers right. https://t.co/QtQZm2Yyh9
Finally, here is the crown jewel of propaganda -- in part responsible for the death of well
over a million Iraqis -- The New York Times showing off its rampant hypocrisy.
In Opinion
The editorial board writes, "It is crucial that influential Republican senators like
Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind President Trump of his promise to keep
America out of foreign quagmires" https://t.co/2swusvBWbg
Never mind Judith Miller, the Queen of NYT pro-war propaganda back in the day, spreading
neocon fabricated lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. America -- or
rather the United States (the government) -- is addicted to quagmires and never-ending war.
This is simply more anti-Trump bullshit by the NYT editorial board. The newspaper loves war
waged in the name of Israel, but only if jumpstarted by Democrats.
Trump the fool, the fact-free reality TV president will eventually unleash the dogs of war
against Iran, much to the satisfaction of Israel, its racist Zionists, Israel-first neocons in
America, and the chattering pro-war class of "journalists," and "foreign policy experts" (most
former Pentagon employees).
Expect more nonsense like that dispensed by the robot Mike Pence, the former tank commander
now serving as Sec. of State, and any number of neocon fellow travelers, many with coveted blue
checkmarks on Twitter while the truth-tellers are expelled from the conversation and exiled to
the political wilderness.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this
article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research.
I think any sane human being can agree that while war was never a good idea, war in the 21st
century is an absolutely intolerable one. The problem we currently face is that many of the
forces driving world events towards an all-out war of "Mutually Assured Annihilation" are
anything but sane.
While I'm obviously referring here to a certain category of people who fall under a
particularly virulent strain of imperial thinking which can be labelled "neo-conservative" and
while many of these disturbing figures honestly believe that a total war of annihilation is a
risk worth taking in order to achieve their goals of total global hegemony, I would like to
make one subtle yet very important distinction which is often overlooked.
What is this distinction?
Under the broad umbrella of "neo-conservative" one should properly differentiate those who
really believe in their ideology and are trapped under the invisible cage of its unexamined
assumptions vs. that smaller yet more important segment that created and manages the ideology
from the top. I brushed on this grouping in a recent 3 part study called Origins of the Deep State
and Myth
of the Jewish Conspiracy .
To re-state my meaning: This group doesn't necessarily believe in the ideological group they
manage any more than a parent believes in that tooth fairy which they promote in order to
achieve certain behavioral patterns in their children.
While belief in the tooth fairy is slightly less destructive than belief in a misanthropic
neocon worldview of a Bolton, Pompeo or Cheney, the analogy is useful to communicate the
point.
Cult Managers: Ancient Babylon and Now
Modern ideology-shapers serve the same role as those ancient high priests of Babylon, Persia
and Rome who managed the many cults and countless pagan mystery religions recorded throughout
the ages. It is well documented that any cult could comfortably exist under Rome's control, as
long as said cult denied any claim to objective truthfulness- making the rise of Abrahamic
monotheistic faiths more than a little antagonistic to empire.
Did the high priests necessarily BELIEVE in those dogmas which they created and managed?
Hell no.
Was it politically necessary to create them?
Of course.
Why?
Because an Empire, like everything in the world, exist as a whole with parts but since they
deny any principle of natural law (justice, love, goodness, etc) , empires are merely a sum of
parts and their rules of organization can be nothing but zero sum. Each cultish group may
coexist as an echo chamber alongside other groups sacrificing to whatever deity they wish
without judgement of moral right or wrong bounded only by a common blind faith in their group's
beliefs- but nothing universal about justice, creative reason, or human nature is otherwise
permitted. Here the a-moral "peace" of "equilibrium" can be achieved by an oligarchy which
wishes to lord over the slaves. Whether we are dealing with Caesar Augustus, Lord Metternich's
Congress of Vienna, Aldous Huxley, Sir Henry Kissinger, or Leo
Strauss (father of modern neo-conservativism), "Peace" can never be anything more than a
mathematical "balancing of parts".
Now it is a good moment to ask: What does this phenomenon look like in our modern age?
To answer this, let us leap over a couple of millennia and take a look at something a bit
more personal: Adam Smith and the doctrine of free trade.
Smith at Her Majesty's
Service
Do Smith's modern followers sincerely believe in the "self-regulating forces of the free
market"?
Sure they do.
Did Adam Smith actually believe in his own system?
Whether he did or not, according
to recent research conducted by historian Jeffrey Steinberg, Smith received his commission
to compose his seminal book Wealth of Nations
(published 1776) while riding with Lord Shelburne himself in a carriage ride from Edinburgh to
London in 1763. The date 1776 is not a coincidence as this was the same Lord Shelburne who
essentially managed the British Empire during the American Revolution and who always despised
all colonial aspirations to use protective tariffs, emit productive credit or channel said
credit towards internal improvements as Benjamin Franklin had championed in his 1729 Necessity
of Paper Currency and Colonial Script.
Why develop Industry, asked Smith, when the new "Law" of "absolute advantage" demanded that
everyone just do what they are good at for the best price possible? America has a lot of land,
so they should stick with agriculture and slave-driven cotton. Britain had a lot of industry
(don't ask how that happened because it wasn't through free trade), so they should stick with
that! India had advanced textiles, but Britain had to destroy that so that India could then
have a lot of opium fields so she could do that which China could then smoke to death under the
watch of British Gunships. "Free Trade" demanded it so.
Let's look at another example: Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection
A
Not-too-Natural Selection
Darwin's theory published in his Origins of Species (1859) was based on the assumption that
all changes in the biosphere are driven by "laws" of "survival of the fittest" within an
assumed closed ecosystem of diminishing returns. Just as Smith asserted that an "invisible
hand" brought creative order to the chaos of unregulated vice and self-interest, Darwin
asserted that creative order on the large scale evolution of species could be explained by
chaotic mutations on the micro level beyond a wall that no power of reason, free will or God
could pass.
Did Charles Darwin believe his system? Probably.
But how about Thomas Huxley (aka: "Darwin's Bulldog") whose efforts to destroy all competing
theories which included "purpose", "meaning", or "design" were crushed and ridiculed into
obscurity? Huxley himself was on record
saying he did not believe in Darwin's system. So why was this theory promoted by forces
(like
Huxley's X Club ) who recognized its many flaws? Well, here again it helps to refer to
Darwin's own account of his discovery from his
autobiography where he wrote:
"In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to
read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for
existence which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals
and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would
tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the
formation of a new species. Here then, I had at last got a theory by which to work".
Malthus's 'Dismal Science'
And here we have it! Reverend Thomas Malthus (the cold hearted "Man of God" who taught
economics at the British East India Company's Haileybury College) provided the very foundation
upon which Darwin's system stood! Thomas Huxley
and the other "high priests" of Huxley's X Club were always Malthusian (even before there
was Malthus) since empires have always been more focused on monopolizing the finite resources
of an age, rather than encouraging creative discoveries and new inventions which would bring
new resources into being- overcoming nature's "limits to growth" (a dis-equilibrium not to be
tolerated). Whether Malthus actually believed in the system which bears his name, as
generations of his adherents sincerely do, remains to be seen. However his own awareness of the
needed extermination of the "unfit" by the Ubermenschen of the British Aristocracy preceded
Social Darwinism by a full century when he coldly called for the encouragement of the plague
and other "natural forms of destruction" to cull the herd of the unfit in his Essay on the
Principle of Population ( 1799):
"We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the
operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation
of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction,
which we compel nature to use. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more
people into the houses, and court the return of the plague."
A little later, Malthus even argued for the early extermination of poor babies who were of
low value to society when he said:
"I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage
taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate
child born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance The
infant is, comparatively speaking, of little value to society, as others will immediately
supply its place."
The neo-Malthusian revivalists such as Princes Bernhardt, Philip Mountbatten and Huxley's
own grandson Sir Julian who birthed the misanthropic deformity
today called the Green New Deal were not ignorant to this tradition. The disastrous effect
of this worldview upon races deemed "unfit" in the global south should also not be ignored. It
is no coincidence that those three neo-Malthusian oligarchs founded the World Wildlife Fund,
1001 Nature Trust and Club of Rome which imposed a technological apartheid upon the third world
over the bodies of countless statesmen during the Cold War.
The Danger of Creative Thought to an Empire
Encouraging creative thought and cooperation among diverse nations, linguistic, religious
and ethnic groups tends to result in new uncontrolled systems of potential as humanity
increases its capacity to sustain itself while imperial systems lose their ability to
parasitically drain their host. In Lincoln's great 1859 speech ,
the martyred leader stood up against this Malthusian paradigm endemic of the British Empire
when he said:
"All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner. The whole earth, and all within it, upon
it, and round about it, including himself, in his physical, moral, and intellectual nature,
and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man, from the first,
was to dig out his destiny Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who
improves his workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions."
Lincoln's economic commitments to protective tariffs, state credit (greenbacks) and internal
improvements are inextricably linked to this view of man also shared by the earlier Ben
Franklin.
Today, the positive paradigm which Lincoln died to defend is most clearly represented by the
leaders of such nations as Russia and China- both of whom have come out repeatedly attacking
the post-truth neo-liberal order and also the win-lose philosophy of Hobbesian geopolitics. The
folly of America's new dance with impeachment and the neocon hand shaping Trump's disastrous
foreign policy agenda is tied to the oligarchy's absolute fear of losing America to a new
Eurasian partnership which Trump has promoted repeatedly since entering office in 2017.
Xi Jinping and Putin have not only responded to this obsolete system by creating an
alternative system of win-win cooperation driven by unbounded scientific and technological
progress but they have also managed to expose the Achilles heal of the empire. These statesmen
have demonstrated a clear recognition that those ideologies ranging from neo-liberalism to
neo-conservativism are entirely unsustainable, and defeatable (but not militarily) . Xi expressed this
insight most clearly during his recent trip to Greece.
Even though leaders like Putin and Xi understand this, citizens of the west will continue to
be woefully unequipped to either make sense of these chaotic systems of belief, extract them
from their own hearts if they are so contaminated or resist them effectively, without
understanding that those who fabricated and manage these belief structures never truly believed
in them.
Neoconservative founding fathers such as Leo Strauss, Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir Bernard
Lewis absolutely never believed in the ideologies their cultish golems like Bolton, Cheney or
Kristol have adhered to so religiously. Their belief was only that the sum-of-parts called
humanity must ultimately be governed by a Hobbesian Leviathan (aka: a new globalized Roman
Empire), and that Leviathan could only be created in response to an intolerably painful period
of chaos which their twisted tooth fairies would usher into this world.
As'ad AbuKhalil analyzes the Trump administration's decision
to escalate hostilities with Iran and its regional allies.
By As`ad AbuKhalil
January 21, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - S omething big
and unprecedented has happened in the Middle East after the assassination of one of Iran's
top commanders, Qasim Suleimani.
The U.S. has long assumed that assassinations of major figures in the Iranian
"resistance-axis" in the Middle East would bring risk to the U.S. military-intelligence
presence in the Middle East. Western and Arab media reported that the U.S. had prevented
Israel in the past from killing Suleimani. But with the top commander's death, the Trump
administration seems to think a key barrier to U.S. military operations in the Middle East
has been removed.
The U.S. and Israel had noticed that Hizbullah and Iran did not retaliate against previous
assassinations by Israel (or the U.S.) that took place in Syria (of Imad Mughniyyah, Jihad
Mughniyyah, Samir Quntar); or for other attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese commanders in
Syria.
The U.S. thus assumed that this assassination would not bring repercussions or harm to
U.S. interests. Iranian reluctance to retaliate has only increased the willingness of Israel
and the U.S. to violate the unspoken rules of engagement with Iran in the Arab East.
For many years Israel did perpetrate various assassinations against Iranian scientists and
officers in Syria during the on-going war. But Israel and the U.S. avoided targeting leaders
or commanders of Iran. During the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the U.S. and Iran collided
directly and indirectly, but avoided engaging in assassinations for fear that this would
unleash a series of tit-for-tat.
But the Trump administration has become known for not playing by the book, and for
operating often according to the whims and impulses of President Donald Trump.
Different Level of Escalation
The decision to strike at Baghdad airport, however, was a different level of escalation.
In addition to killing Suleimani it also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a key leader of Hashd
forces in Iraq. Like Suleimani, al-Muhandis was known for waging the long fight against ISIS.
(Despite this, the U.S. media only give credit to the U.S. and its clients who barely lifted
a finger in the fight against ISIS.)
On the surface of it, the strike was uncharacteristic of Trump. Here is a man who pledged
to pull the U.S. out of the Middle East turmoil -- turmoil for which the U.S and Israel bear
the primary responsibility. And yet he seems willing to order a strike that will guarantee
intensification of the conflict in the region, and even the deployment of more U.S.
forces.
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
The first term of the Trump administration has revealed the extent to which the U.S. war
empire is run by the military-intelligence apparatus. There is not much a president -- even a
popular president like Barack Obama in his second term -- can do to change the course of
empire. It is not that Obama wanted to end U.S. wars in the region, but Trump has tried to
retreat from Middle East conflicts and yet he has been unable due to pressures not only from
the military-intelligence apparatus but also from their war advocates in the U.S. Congress
and Western media, D.C. think tanks and the human-rights industry. The pressures to preserve
the war agenda is too powerful on a U.S. president for it to cease in the foreseeable future.
But Trump has managed to start fewer new wars than his predecessors -- until this strike.
Trump's Obama Obsession
Trump in his foreign policy is obsessed with the legacy and image of Obama. He decided to
violate the Iran nuclear agreement (which carried the weight of international law after its
adoption by the UN Security Council) largely because he wanted to prove that he is tougher
than Obama, and also because he wanted an international agreement that carries his imprint.
Just as Trump relishes putting his name on buildings, hotels, and casinos he wants to put his
name on international agreements. His decision, to strike at a convoy carrying perhaps the
second most important person in Iran was presumably attached to an intelligence assessment
that calculated that Iran is too weakened and too fatigued to strike back directly at the
U.S.
Iran faced difficult choices in response to the assassination of Suleimani. On the one
hand, Iran would appear weak and vulnerable if it did not retaliate and that would only
invite more direct U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian targets.
On the other hand, the decision to respond in a large-scale attack on U.S. military or
diplomatic targets in the Middle East would invite an immediate massive U.S. strike inside
Iran. Such an attack has been on the books; the U.S military (and Israel, of course) have
been waiting for the right moment for the U.S. to destroy key strategic sites inside
Iran.
Furthermore, there is no question that the cruel U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran have made
life difficult for the Iranian people and have limited the choices of the government, and
weakened its political legitimacy, especially in the face of vast Gulf-Western attempts to
exploit internal dissent and divisions inside Iran. (Not that dissent inside Iran is not
real, and not that repression by the regime is not real).
Nonetheless, if the Iranian regime were to open an all-out war against the U.S., this
would certainly cause great harm and damage to U.S. and Israeli interests.
Iran Sending Messages
In the last year, however, Iran successfully sent messages to Gulf regimes (through
attacks on oil shipping in the Gulf, for which Iran did not claim responsibility, nor did it
take responsibility for the pin-point attack on ARAMCO oil installations) that any future
conflict would not spare their territories.
That quickly reversed the policy orientations of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which
suddenly became weary of confrontation with Iran, and both are now negotiating (openly and
secretively) with the Iranian government. Ironically, both the UAE and Saudi regimes -- which
constituted a lobby for war against Iran in Western capitals -- are also eager to distance
themselves from U.S. military action against
Iran . And Kuwait quickly
denied that the U.S. used its territory in the U.S. attack on Baghdad airport, while
Qatar dispatched its foreign minister to Iran (officially to offer condolences over the death
of Suleimani, but presumably also to distance itself and its territory from the U.S.
attack).
The Iranian response was very measured and very specific. It was purposefully intended to
avoid causing U.S. casualties; it was intended more as a message of Iranian missile
capabilities and their pin point accuracy. And that message was not lost on Israel.
Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, sent a more strident message. He basically
implied that it would be left to Iran's allies to engineer military responses. He also
declared a war on the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, although he was at pains to
stress that U.S. civilians are to be spared in any attack or retaliation.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6yyC897UliI
Supporters of the Iran resistance axis have been quite angry in the wake of the
assassination. The status of Suleimani in his camp is similar to the status of Nasrallah
although Nasrallah -- due to his charisma and to his performance and the performance of his
party in the July 2006 war -- may have attained a higher status.
It would be easy for the Trump administration to ignite a Middle East war by provoking
Iran once again, and wrongly assuming that there are no limits to Iranian caution and
self-restraint. But if the U.S. (and Israel with it or behind it) were to start a Middle East
war, it will spread far wider and last far longer than the last war in Iraq, which the U.S.
is yet to complete.
As'ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California
State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the "Historical Dictionary of Lebanon"
(1998), "Bin Laden, Islam and America's New War on Terrorism (2002), and "The Battle for
Saudi Arabia" (2004). He tweets as @asadabukhal
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Iranian
counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif over the phone on Friday to discuss the killing of Iran's
military chief Qassem Soleimani, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Lavrov expressed his condolences over the killing," the statement said. "The ministers
stressed that such actions by the United States grossly violate the norms of international
law."
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi said that Tehran
continues to adhere to the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that the European powers' claims about
Iran violating the deal were unfounded.
Moscow warns Tehran against making 'reckless steps' to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said. He added that Russia urges
Iran to comply with its obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, giving those who oppose the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) further reasons for escalation is
"counterproductive".
Is there a friend anywhere? Kim or Khan of Pakistan to ship one in.
Alternative, Moscow could declare its nuclear capabilities are extended to Iran. Just can't
leave Iran hanging on a twig.
Posted by: Likklemore | Jan 20 2020 21:41 utc | 36
Maybe it's because trump has a history with Russian mobsters and money laundering?
Or maybe it's just smart to say that? What's to be gained by setting off man child trump and
spurring yet another temper tantrum via twitter?
trump did lotsa bidnezz with the International cabal that plundered Russia after the
disillusion of the USSR. They stole from the Russian people, and laundered their ill begotten
gains with chumps, like trump.
"... I have no confidence in Elizabeth Warren "doing the right thing"; she might be susceptible to the pressure and to the ignominy attached to doing the disastrously wrong thing. ..."
"... *Donald Trump, for his part, is reportedly " privately obsessed " with Sanders, not, it seems, with Biden. ..."
"... From a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, it's the cringe-worthy Warren "Selfie" Gimmick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g If this doesn't scream "political novice," I don't know what will. ..."
" if she does anything less than help elect the last and only progressive with a chance,
she damages them both to Biden's benefit "
If Elizabeth Warren's candidacy becomes unviable, the pressure on her to combine her
delegates with those of Sanders -- from those supporting Bernie Sanders and those
legitimately concerned with Joe Biden's chances against Trump* -- will be enormous .
And, if , instead, Warren helps nominate Biden and Biden then goes on to lose to
Donald Trump -- as I'm all but certain he will -- it will be all too clear just who
played a pivotal role in helping to make that match-up even possible.
I have no confidence in Elizabeth Warren "doing the right thing"; she might be
susceptible to the pressure and to the ignominy attached to doing the disastrously wrong
thing.
*Donald Trump, for his part, is reportedly "
privately obsessed " with Sanders, not, it seems, with Biden.
In Sanders' case, his surge in the polls coincided with his emergence as the chief
apologist for the Iranian regime. We needed to point out that he would be dangerous as
president since he made clear he would appease terrorists and terror-sponsoring
nations.
If this is really representative of a line of attack that the Trump campaign plans to use
on him, that would be great. I can't imagine anything that would resonate less with voters.
But I was a bit surprised to see this in a Bernie fundraising mail:
The wise course would have been to stick with that nuclear agreement, enforce its
provisions, and use that diplomatic channel with Iran to address our other concerns with
Iran, including their support of terrorism.
What groups are they referring to when they say this? Hezbollah, which is part of
Parliament in Lebanon? Iraqi PMF that are loosely integrated with the Iraqi army?
Yep, Warren is a political novice, and she's extremely naive. That Massachusetts senate
seat was practically handed to her on a silver platter. She has no idea that she was played
in '16 and she's being played now.
From a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, it's the cringe-worthy Warren "Selfie"
Gimmick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g
If this doesn't scream "political novice," I don't know what will.
She endorced Hillary in 2016. That tells a lot about her... Now she backstabbed Bernie. What's next?
Notable quotes:
"... Warren has a track record of lying: lied about her dad being a janitor, hers kids going to public school, getting fired for being pregnant, and obviously the Native American heritage. ..."
"... My gut is she is going to endorse Joe Biden and prob got a tease of VP or some other role and all she had to do was kamikaze into Bernie with this. It's backfiring but at this rate and given she's too deep into it now when she drops out she'll prob back Biden as she hasn't shown the integrity to back a guy like Berni. ..."
"... She's toxic now. No one will want her has VP. Sanders supporters despise her, she comes from a small, Democratic state and she's loaded with baggage. She brings nothing to a ticket. She torpedoed any hopes or plans she might have had in that regard. ..."
"... Bernie is labeled as a socialist. Actually he is a real Roosevelt democrat. ..."
"... The most impressive thing I have witnessed about Bernie is that he can extemporaneously recall and explain exactly why he voted as he did on every piece of legislation that he has cast a vote on. in. his. life. It is a remarkable talent. ..."
"... The outcome of the upcoming Iowa Caucus is too hard to predict. All the candidates are very close. Sanders needs to turnout young and working class voters to win. ..."
"... My impression is her supporters are mostly older, mostly female, and mostly centrist. Many want to elect a female pres before they die. Prior to the she said event her supporters second choice were split fairly evenly between Bernie and Biden but the latest fracas is driving her most progressive supporters to Bernie. ..."
Warren has a track record of lying: lied about her dad being a janitor, hers kids going to
public school, getting fired for being pregnant, and obviously the Native American
heritage.
As pointed here on NC she's great at grandstanding when bank CEOs are in front of her and
doing nothing following that.
My gut is she is going to endorse Joe Biden and prob got a tease of VP or some other role
and all she had to do was kamikaze into Bernie with this. It's backfiring but at this rate
and given she's too deep into it now when she drops out she'll prob back Biden as she hasn't
shown the integrity to back a guy like Berni.
I don't see how she is anyone's VP. She is too old. You want someone under 60, better 50,
particularly for an old presidential candidate. Treasury Secretary is a more powerful
position. The big appeal of being VP is maybe it positions you later to be President but that
last worked out for Bush the Senior.
She's toxic now. No one will want her has VP. Sanders supporters despise her, she comes
from a small, Democratic state and she's loaded with baggage. She brings nothing to a ticket.
She torpedoed any hopes or plans she might have had in that regard.
I've watched Bernie for years. Even long before he decided to run for president. He is the
same today as he was then. Bernie isn't afraid to advocate for something , even though he
will get a lot of backlash. I also believe he is sincere in his convictions. If he says
something he believes in it.Something you can't say for the other candidates. Bernie is by
far my first choice.
After that it would be Warren. Bernie is labeled as a socialist.
Actually he is a real Roosevelt democrat. As a life long democrat, I can't support or vote
for a Wall Street candidate. Unlike one of the other commenters, I will never vote for Trump
but instead wold vote for a third party candidate. Unfortunate the DNC will do anything to
prevent Bernie from being candidate. Progressive democrats need to get out and support a
progressive or the nomination will again be stolen by a what I call a light republican.
What is great about Bernie is that he is so sure-footed. It was visible in the hot-mic
trap Warren set for him where she got nothing, it actually hurt her.
The most impressive thing I have witnessed about Bernie is that he can extemporaneously
recall and explain exactly why he voted as he did on every piece of legislation that he has
cast a vote on. in. his. life. It is a remarkable talent.
The outcome of the upcoming Iowa Caucus is too hard to predict. All the candidates are
very close. Sanders needs to turnout young and working class voters to win. By many reports,
Warren has an excellent ground game in IA and The NY Times endorsement has given a path for
her to pick up Klobuchar voters after round one of the caucus.
Biden is a mystery to me. How
the heck is he even running. Obama pleaded with him not to. That being said, it wouldn't
surprise me if he finishes in the top two. Buttigieg is the wild card. I think the
"electability" argument will hurt him as he can't win after NH.
According to a recent poll, Elizabeth Warren is one of the most unpopular senators with
voters in her own state as measured against approval rates of all other senators in their
states. I find this very surprising for someone with a national profile. What do voters in
Massachusetts not like about her?
As for me, I find it more and more difficult to trust Warren because she takes the bait
and yields to pressure during a primary when the pressure to back down, moderate, and abandon
once championed policy positions and principles is a great deal less than it is during the
general election. Warren has gone from Medicare4All to a public option to, in the recent
debate, tweaks to the ACA. Despite her roll-out of an ambitious $10 trillion Green New Deal
plan, Warren is now to the right of Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer as evidenced by her support
of NAFTA 2.0 which utterly fails to address climate change. WTF! Where will she be during a
general election?
And her political instincts are awful as recently demonstrated by her woke, badly executed
girl power attack against a candidate who has been a committed feminist for his entire
political career.
She also has horrible constituent service. I had an issue with a federal student loan a
few years ago (I believe it was the servicer depositing money but not crediting my account
and charging me interest and late fees). After getting nowhere with the company, I tried
calling her office, figuring that as this was one of her core issues, I would get some
response, either help or at least someone who would want to record what happened to her
actual constituent. I didn't hear back for about a month, by which time I had resolved the
issue – no fees or additional interest through multiple phone calls and emails.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren's constituent service is worse than Sallie Mae's.
The stupid Ponds cold cream lie is the worst. Unless she teed up the "how do you look so
young!" question , the corrected answer is to point out the nonsense of talking about a
candidates looks and addressing actual sexism.
Instead she has a goofball answer about only using Ponds cold cream which lead to Derm
pointing out her alleged method was not good advice and also pointing out that she appears to
have used botex and fillers, which I don't think people were talking about before then, in
public.
The most generous explanation is she was caught flat-footed and, once again, showed she
has terrible instincts.
If Bernie Sanders can get it through the thick noggin of the nation that he stands for and
will implement the principles, policies, and values of the New Deal–the attitude that
got us through the Great Depression and Wotld War II–he has every chance of being
elected the next President of the United States.
Trust me. By the time it comes around you won't care who gets sworn in as you will just be
glad that all the vicious, wretched skullduggery of this year's elections will finally be
over.
And hoping you get one day of rest before the vicious, wretched skullduggery of
undermining the desires of the American people gets started. Obviously Sanders will make the
Trump years look a cake walk. Anyone else (Democrat or Trump) we will see lots of 'working
for' and 'resistance' type memes while largely doing nothing of the sort, but a whole lot of
'bipartisan' passage of terrible things.
It sounds like Sanders, in the famous 2018 conversation, may have been trying to politely
encourage EW to not run in 2020. Her moment was 2016 and she declined to run then when a
Progressive candidate was needed. Her run in 2020 to some extent divides the Progressive
vote. EW interpreted, perhaps intentionally, Sanders' words to imply that he thinks "no woman
can win in 2020", and then weaponized them against him.
The very fact that she is running at all suggests to me that she is not at heart a
Progressive and in fact does not want a Progressive candidate to win. If she had run in 2016,
Sanders would not have run in order to not divide the Progressive vote. EW knew that Sanders
would run in 2020 and planned to run anyway. It is hard for me to not interpret this to be an
intentional bid for some of the Progressive vote, in order to hold Sanders down.
I agree. She decides to do things based on her own self-interest, and uses progressives as
pawns to work her way up in DC. My guess is that Warren chickened out in 2016 and didn't run
because maybe she didn't think she had a chance against the Clintons. When Warren saw how
well Sanders did against Clinton, how close he was at winning, I think only then she decided
that 2020 was a good chance for a progressive, or someone running as a progressive candidate,
to win the nomination.
She saw how Sanders had fired up loyal progressive support in the Democratic Party. She
chickened out back then when she could have endorsed Bernie in '16, but chose not to,
probably hoping not to burn bridges with Clinton in order to get a plum role in her
administration. Her non-endorsement in '16 worries me because it shows once again that Warren
makes decisions largely based on what is good for her career, not what she thinks is better
for the country (if she really is the progressive she claims to be).
Knowing that there was now a strong progressive base ready to vote for a candidate left of
Democratic candidates like Biden and Clinton, Warren saw her entry into having a good chance
at winning the presidency. Rather than thinking about the implications for Bernie and the
possibility of dividing left-wing voters, her desire to become president was more important.
Remember, this is exactly what Bernie did not do in 2016 when he urged Warren to run, and was
willing to step aside, if she had agreed to do so.
If I had been in Sanders position, I probably would have sat down and talked to Warren
about the serious implications of the both of them running in 2020. How he had hoped to build
on the momentum from his last campaign and the sexism that was used against Clinton in 2016.
Hey, if I had been Sanders, I probably would have told Warren not to run. Not because she's a
woman, but because it would have been obvious to Bernie that with Warren running alongside
him, they would both end up splitting the progressive vote.
What is happening now between the two of them should have been no surprise to either
Bernie or Warren. They are both popular among Democrats who identify as progressive or
left-of-center. Democrats will always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. And I agree
that when it becomes evident that one of them cannot win, either Bernie or Warren must step
aside for the good of the country and fully back the other. There is no other option if
either of them truly wants the other to win the nomination rather than Biden. I'm hoping that
Warren will do so since it is becoming more clear that Sanders is the stronger progressive
and the stronger candidate who has a better chance at beating both Biden and Trump.
If sheepdog St. Bernard Sanders begins to look like the presumptive nominee, look for a
new candidate to throw her hat into the ring. Her name: Michelle Obama.
I'm so sick of that sheepdog meme (originated by, much as a respect BAR, by a GP activist
bitter, I would say, over many years of GP ineffectuality). The elites seem to be pretty
nervous about a sheepdog.
And now we have Sanders apologizing for an op-ed in the Guardian by Zephyr Teachout
accusing Biden of corruption.
The op-ed simply says what Sanders has said all along, the system is corrupted by big
donors. Then she explicitly states the obvious, which Sanders won't at this point say but
that Trump certainly will: Biden is a prime example of serving his donors' interests to the
detriment of most of the rest of us. Sanders subsequently apologizes for Teachout's baldly
true assertion, stating that he doesn't believe that Biden is corrupt.
I guess we're meant to draw a clear distinction between legalized and illegal corruption.
I don't know. They both look like ducks to me.
I have read that Sanders is the #2 choice of many Iowans who favor JB; it makes a lot of
sense for him to not "go negative" on JB in the run-up to the caucuses.
There will be time for plainer speaking. Sanders has been clear about his views on the
corrupting influence of corporate money in politics. JB is exhibit #1 within the D primary
field and there will be plenty of opportunity to note that.
I suspect that there is a great deal of "method" in what may look to us like "madness" in
the Senator's civility.
To put it another way, I doubt very much that Sanders believes that JB's legislative
agendas were not significantly influenced by the sources of his campaign funds. And I'm sure
that attention will be drawn to this at the right time.
One can charitably affirm that one believes that JB is not a consciously corrupt ,
pay-for-play, kind of person, while also affirming that of course he has been
influenced by the powerful interests that have funded his career, and that this has not
served the interests of the American people. All in due course.
The thing is Warren would make the right argument here: that it's the system that is
corrupted, and make it well. Too bad she has shown so completely that can't be trusted as a
person, because she often looks good on paper
I think Warren misses the key point that the reason why the system is corrupted is because
the players in it are corrupted. They can be bought and sold. That is why they have no
shame.
> The thing is Warren would make the right argument here: that it's the system that is
corrupted
That's not the right answer at all. The climate crisis, for example, is not caused by a
lack of transparency in the oil industry. It is caused by capital allocation decisions by the
billionaire class and their servicers in subaltern classes.
"The real game changer around here, though, might be Iowa State University's decision,
after years of pressure, to issue new student IDs, enabling 35,000 students to vote, even
under Iowa's restrictive new voter-ID law. That's a progressive victory, and in a different
media universe, it would be a story even juicier than a handshake." Iowa is not the
Twittersphere – Laura Flanders
Thanks for giving this the attention it needs, analysis of the primary has been too light
on estimation of delegate numbers and strategy.
Prior to Warren's apparent turn to some new direction, the setup for a 3way DNC with a
progressive "coalition" was not only conceivable, but actually expected from the polls.
We are on pace for Sanders+Warren's combined delegate total to exceed Biden by a healthy
amount (say 4:3) with all others falling below 15% state by state and getting few or no
delegates. Obviously subject to snowballing in either direction, but that's the polls now and
for most of the past year.
Warren's attack on Sanders, and NYT endorsement, say the national party doesn't expect any
such coalition. Therefore Warren has made her choice. That's that.
The path to winning the Dem primary is a little narrower for Sanders, and also for Biden,
since he seems to lack the confidence of his the top strata. The DNC screws a lot up but they
know how to read polls. I'm pretty sure that running Warren in the General is not their plan
A.
Voters in Iowa and the early states (incl. TX and CA) look like they will be deciding it
all this year. The tremendous enthusiasm of Sanders followers gives him, IMO, the best ground
game of the three. Will be an interesting 6 weeks.
I do not even trust Warren to hand any delegates she gets to Sanders at this point.
Because her campaign staff is so full of Clintonites and neoliberals, she might give them to
Biden instead.
She seems to have gone full establishment at this point.
> I do not even trust Warren to hand any delegates she gets to Sanders at this point.
Because her campaign staff is so full of Clintonites and neoliberals, she might give them to
Biden instead.
The youngish rehab therapist, a woman, said this morning that of the women running, she
likes Klobuchar. "If only her voice wasn't so screechy. And I'm saying this as a woman." She
was seriously disturbed by Clinton's attack on Sanders.
Several neighbors are leaning towards Yang.
My impression is her supporters are mostly older, mostly female, and mostly centrist. Many
want to elect a female pres before they die. Prior to the she said event her supporters
second choice were split fairly evenly between Bernie and Biden but the latest fracas is
driving her most progressive supporters to Bernie.
This means most of those remaining will probably migrate to Biden if when she drops out
even if she recommends Bernie. (If 1/3 of her supporters that had Bernie as their second
choice switch to Bernie, then 60% of her remaining supporters have Biden as their second
choice.)
2016 was different, Clinton already had the older females. But there was a period where
just a little support might have tipped the scale in what was a very tight race.
Anyway, I see going forward she will be mostly holding supporters whose second choice is
Biden even as she maybe doesn't reach the 15% barrier
and same with Amy. So I hope they both stay in at least until super tue.
And While I previously thought she was a reasonable choice for veep, I now realize she'd
be an awful choice. Maybe treasury if she does endorse which she will do if Bernie looks a
winner.
How can anyone be surprised at the lack of trustworthiness from a politician who chose to
endorse Clinton in 2016 rather than Bernie? Warren has been playing the DNC game for a long
time now, which ideologically is in line with her lifelong Republican stance before changing
to the more demographically favorable party when she was 47. She's not progressive now, and
never has been or will be.
Both campaigns are backing away from greater public conflict. Whether that holds true in the
long run is anyone's guess, but my guess is that it will. Still, the following is clear:
Warren has been damaged, perhaps permanently, in the eyes of many Sanders supporters who have
considered her a good, and perhaps equivalent, second choice. Her favorability has gone way
down in their eyes and may never recover.
Warren's charge of sexism has inflamed the existing anger of many Democratic and
liberal-leaning women and relit the fire that coursed through the Sanders-Clinton primary and
beyond.
>
Rightly or wrongly, Warren's polling numbers among voters have fallen, while Sanders' polling
has held steady or improved. It's yet to be seen if the incident alters long-term
fund-raising for either candidate, but it might. For his part, Sanders has seen a post-debate
surge in funding .
So far, in other words, most of the damage has been borne by Warren as a result of the
incident. She may recover, but this could also end her candidacy by accelerating a decline
that started with public reaction to her recent stand on Medicare For All. None of this is
certain to continue, but these are the trends.
... ... ...
But if Warren's candidacy becomes unviable, as it seems it might -- and if the goal of
both camps is truly to defeat Joe Biden -- it's incumbent on Warren to drop out and
endorse her "friend and ally" Bernie Sanders as soon as it's clear she can no longer win .
(The same is true if Sanders becomes unviable, though that seems much less likely.)
Ms. Warren can do whatever she wants, certainly. But if she does anything less than help
elect the last and only progressive with a chance, she damages them both to Biden's benefit,
and frankly, helps nominate Biden. She has the right to do that, but not to claim at the same
time that she's working to further the progressive movement.
Bottom line: the corporate press has gone all-in on Warren. She simply MUST be a whore, like Obama, or Hilary/Bill
Clinton. If Warren were a real progressive, the big money would never go for her like this.
I will vote for Bernie Sanders. But I will vote for Trump over Warren. Better the moron
and agent of chaos that you know, than the calculating vicious backstabber that you
don't.
She's got the Clinton's and now Obama folks behind her.
I doubt they are thrilled with her, but probably view as someone they can work with and
the other options are worse or too low in the poll numbers. I assume Buttigieg is fine with
them, but his numbers are stuck.
Personally I cannot consider voting for a drone murderer like Trump, who cozies up to the
Saudis and has tried to cut SS and Medicare. He's shown what he is, just as Warren has. We'll
never get M4A from either one of them.
If it's not Bernie I'm voting Green. I live in a blue state that almost went for Trump
last time – my vote potentially matters and will serve as a signal. Voting for the
lesser murderous corporatist scum is what got us into this mess. I'm over it. I will not vote
for evil.
In 2016 I might just have voted for Trump, as a middle finger to the Dem establishment
that crowned HRH HRC, since at that time he had not committed any war crimes. But now, no
way. One of my unshakeable principles is that I will not vote for a war criminal. Green ,
write-in, or leave the Pres slot blank. But I hope and pray (and I'm an atheist!) that it
doesn't come to this. We really don't have another 4 years to waste on this, the earth can't
wait.
It's very unfortunate that it has come to this, but I've always been uneasy about Warren.
This incident and her accusations against Bernie solidified my suspicions about her. Her
being a Republican until her late 40s, her lies about sending her child to public school, her
lies about her father being a janitor, her plagiarized cookbook recipes, and claiming to be
Native American. It's all so bizarre to me and for a while I had believed her to have a
personality disorder that caused compulsive lying. I wanted to feel good about my vote for
Warren, but now? If she wins the nomination I'll hold my nose and vote for her, but I don't
trust her to not sell out to the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party. I also don't trust
her to endorse Bernie if she drops out before the convention. She didn't endorse him in '16,
so what makes progressives think she'll do so this time. It would not surprise me in the
least if she endorsed Biden or agrees to be his running mate.
Warren is not agreement-capable. Much as it pains me to say this, the Obama administration
was correct to hold her at arm's length.
Adding, that doesn't mean that Sanders can't negotiate with her, if that must be done (to
defeat Trump). But any such negotiations cannot proceed on a basis of trust.
The most generous interpretation i can come up with is that i's possible she told the
story to several of her clintonite staffers in confidence. Those staffers went to CNN and
forced her to stand by her story, even if she didn't want to go public, because she was
threatened with staffers calling her a liar.
She might have been mad at Bernie for not bailing her out.
This version, which i don't believe, but consider it possible (not plausible) would be
arguably as bad because her staffers got the upper hand and pushed her around.
The problem is the country has become so irrational and susceptible to soundbites and
twitter shame and etc. that you can't even say "electing a women president would be
difficult" which might be true, or it becomes like Hillary's deplorable remark, we all know
it's true some Trump supporters fit the description, but it gets taken way out of context and
exaggerated beyond all recognition.
She didn't even have to deny it. Should could have just been "That was a private
conversation, I will not go into what was said in private. Bernie is a good friend of mine,
who has supported women candidates on many occasions".
"... "It looks like "Middle Class" Joe has perfected the art of taking big contributions, then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans. Converting campaign contributions into legislative favors and policy positions isn't being "moderate". It is the kind of transactional politics Americans have come to loathe. ..."
"It looks like "Middle Class" Joe has perfected the art of taking big contributions,
then representing his corporate donors at the cost of middle- and working-class Americans.
Converting campaign contributions into legislative favors and policy positions isn't being
"moderate". It is the kind of transactional politics Americans have come to loathe.
"... "We work with technological companies to help free flow of information and provide circumvention tools that helped in [last week's] protest ," ..."
"... they were actively assisting in organizing recent protests ..."
US Officials Admit Covert Tech Program Is Fueling Iran Protests by Tyler Durden Mon, 01/20/2020 - 21:55 0
SHARES
After major protests hit multiple cities across Iran in November following a drastic
government slash in gasoline subsidies which quickly turned anti-regime, broad internet outages
were reported -- some lasting as long as a week or more nationwide --
following Tehran authorities ordering the blockage of external access.
And during smaller January protests over downed Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752,
more widespread internet outages were reported recently, likely as Iranian security
services fear protest "crackdown" videos would fuel outrage in western media , and after months
ago Mike Pompeo
expressly urged Iranians in the streets to send the State Department damning videos that
would implicate Tehran's leaders and police.
But now Washington appears to have initiated the
"Syria option" inside Iran: covertly fueling and driving "popular protests " to eventually
create conditions for large-scale confrontation on the ground geared toward regime
change.
Financial Times reports Washington's 'covert' efforts are now increasing, and are
more out in the open :
US government-funded technology companies have recorded an increase in the use of
circumvention software in Iran in recent weeks after boosting efforts to help Iranian
anti-regime protesters thwart internet censorship and use secure mobile messaging .
The outreach is part of a US government program dedicated to internet freedom that
supports dissident pressure inside Iran and complements America's policy of "maximum
pressure" over the regime. A US state department official told the Financial Times that since
protests in Iran in 2018 -- at the time the largest in almost a decade -- Washington had
accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other
and the outside world .
Similar efforts had long been in place with anti-Assad groups prior to the outbreak of
conflict in Syria in 2011,
WikiLeaks cables previously revealed.
The US State Department is now openly boasting it's enacted this program for Iran , which
includes "providing apps, servers and other technology to help people communicate, visit banned
websites, install anti-tracking software and navigate data shutdowns," according to FT .
Confirmed: Drop in internet connectivity registered at #Sharif University,
Tehran from 11:50 UTC where students are protesting for colleagues and alumni killed on
flight #PS752 ; national
connectivity remains stable despite sporadic disruptions on third day of #Iran
protests📉 pic.twitter.com/LjaNNd4Ut2
And dangerously, many Iranians may not even realize they could be in some instances relying
on such US-funded countermeasures to circumvent domestic internet blockages:
"Many Iranians rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) that receive US funding or are
beamed in with US support , not knowing they are relying on Washington-backed tools."
Iran is on occasion
known to round of citizen-journalists and accuse them of being CIA assets -- thus
the State Department's open boasting about its program, which is further connected to a broader
$65.5 million "Internet Freedom program" in troubled spots throughout the world --
could only serve to increase this trend.
"We work with technological companies to help free flow of information and provide
circumvention tools that helped in [last week's] protest ," one US state department
official told the FT. "We are able to sponsor VPNs -- and that allows Iranians to use the
internet."
So there it is: US officials explicitly admitting they were actively assisting in
organizing recent protests which followed Soleimani's killing and the Ukrainian airliner
shoot down.
I have asked the Iranian protestors to send us their videos, photos, and information
documenting the regime's crackdown on protestors. The U.S. will expose and sanction the
abuses. https://t.co/korr5p0woA
At least one circumvention software is actually identified in the report as being produced
by Canada-based Psiphon, which receives American government funds. Of course the company sees
its role more as facilitating "free flow of information" and less as essentially a willing
asset in pursuing covert regime change in Tehran.
Interestingly, the revelation comes just as other US-funded propaganda campaigns related to
Iran are coming to light:
One of the most viral videos about Iran last week -- and a reason #IraniansDetestSoleimani
was trending -- was made by a lobbyist who had worked for a militia group in Libya https://t.co/fN7v6Vztyo
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public
believes is false" - Wm. Casey, former Director of the CIA under President (and Iranian arms
dealer) Ronald Reagan(R).
So, when does Trump send ISIS to Iran? Oh, MEK is already there.
I remember when Trump supporters pointed out how Hillary supported a coup in Honduras.
Well, Trump has Bolivia.
Then Obama created ISIS. Well, ISIS has been around since about 2000. And Trump signed
NDAA's that sent money to "freedom fighters" in Syria.. .guess who...
Obama is a loser in Afghanistan and so are the Generals. Well, there was Bush. And now?
Trump... going on 4 years of losing in Afghanistan with his own Generals.
Hillary and Libya. Trump and Libya.
Obama and NK? Trump and NK.
Obama and Venezuela? Trump and Venezuela. And what threat does Venezuela pose to The US?
No one can answer that question.
Trump says "no more wars", is engaged in wars and trying to start one with Iran.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME.
"The outreach is part of a US government program dedicated to internet freedom that
supports dissident pressure inside Iran and complements America's policy of "maximum
pressure" over the regime. A US state department official told the Financial Times that since
protests in Iran in 2018 -- at the time the largest in almost a decade -- Washington had
accelerated efforts to provide Iranians more options on how they communicate with each other
and the outside world ."...
VOA LIVE$...
Sure wish somebody in our government could have alerted Bobby McIIlvaine ( https://www.ae911truth.org/get-involved/bobby-mcilvaine-act
) with "emergency" internet services to his phone nearly 18 1/2 years ago to what his own
government was about to do to him before he went into the office that day along with the
other 2,976 victims?!!!
One thing I'll say for the American government since the banker bailouts, they "don't hide
what they are doing" when it comes to subverting governments for looting purposes (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_GShyGv3o
)!... At least the Iranian leadership knows what is coming before it happens these
days!...
The Iranian people are not stupid to commit suicide , they have seen the us handy work in
1953 when Iran had the first democracy in the middle east to be bamboozled by the cia who
removed their elected prime minister and installed the shah.
of course some university students want a sexual revolution like in the us are revolting
but they are a handful and they are being subdued .
The Iranian people lived through CIA/MOSSAD style "Democracy" from 1953-1980 and will
fight "Tooth and nail" not to return to those Horrific days of the Shah!
How naive do you have to be to think the US is just giving out free internet for the sake
of the Iranian people? even after they've done the same thing all throughout the middle east
to cause mass riots and civil unrest.
The last thing you will ever get from the US government is the truth.
In law courts, justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. In politics, too.
The problem
with what President Vladimir Putin announced
in his
Federal Assembly address this week, and what he did immediately after, is that
things don't look the way he says they should.
The difference was written on Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's face.
He thinks Putin has destroyed the political forces of the candidate with the best chance of winning the
presidential election of 2024 -- himself. The businessmen and government officials who have depended on Medvedev
are acknowledging this realization on the telephone.
An hour after this picture was taken, at a meeting with Putin of the assembled ministers at Government
House (Kremlin term for White House), Medvedev
announced
: "as the
Government of the Russian Federation we must give the President of this country an opportunity to make all the
necessary decisions for this. Under the circumstances, it would be correct for the entire Government of the
Russian Federation to resign in accordance with Article 117 of the Constitution."
He looked and sounded unconvinced that his exit was "correct".
The constitutional provision to which Medvedev referred is a notorious relic. Article 117 was created by
President Boris Yeltsin after he used the military to crush parliament's opposition in October 1993. Several
hundred people inside the White House were killed.
The new constitution was voted two months later by the disputable margin of 58% in a disputable turnout of
54%.
Article 117
then gave the
president the power to block a prime minister's resignation
; veto a vote of no-confidence in the
government by the State Duma; and the power to decide whether and when to dissolve parliament and hold new
elections.
In Putin's
speech
on
Wednesday, he began his proposals for a constitutional amendment with the announcement: "We have overcome the
situation when certain powers in the government were essentially usurped by oligarch clans." Usurpation of
power by Yeltsin at the expense of the Congress of People's Deputies in 1993 was not explained then, nor since,
by the operations of the oligarchs. They came later. In Russian public opinion, the oligarchs continue to be
extra-constitutionally powerful today. The polls show Putin's claim is not believed.
The proposals Putin has announced change the balance of power between the presidency and the parliament. But
they also change the balance of power between the houses of parliament, and also between the central power in
Moscow and the regions.
The State Duma, according to Putin, will have the new power to appoint "the
Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, and then all deputy prime ministers and federal ministers at the
Prime Minister's recommendation. At the same time the President will have to appoint them, so he will have no
right to turn down the candidates approved by the Parliament." This
implies
the State Duma will be able to exercise a veto over ministers' performance with votes of no-confidence the
president cannot override.
This is not yet certain.
Also unclear is who would prevail if the president decides to dismiss the
government which holds the confidence of parliament.
Putin said he proposes to keep "the right to
dismiss the prime minister, his deputies and federal ministers in case of improper execution of duties or due
to loss of trust."
The constitution is silent on the terms, improper
execution and loss of trust. They are powder the president aims to keep dry for himself.
The Kremlin has immediately convened what it calls a "working group on drafting proposals for amendments to
the Constitution". No elected constitutional convention; no constitutional assembly provided for in
Chapter
9
of the present charter; no principle of representation; no decision or voting rules for the novel body.
It was hand-picked by the President's staff -- "75 politicians, legislators,
scholars and public figures". The Kremlin has published photographs, but no list of the names yet.
The oligarch class, as Putin calls them, is
represented
by Alexander Shokhin (centre picture above, left); the working class – to whom no one refers –
is represented by the man seated by the Kremlin next to Shokhin, Mikhail Shmakov, head of the trade union
federation.
Noone in uniform is seated at the Kremlin table. The military appears to have one seat; that's occupied by
retired Army General Boris Gromov (above right), 76, now
titled
"Chairman
of the Brothers in Arms National Veteran Public Organisation". Gromov's political career after the Army rules
him out as representing the General Staff or the Defence Ministry.
Putin's proposals create a fork in the balance of power by assigning
domestic policy-making, including the budget, to the parliament's appointees to government; while reserving
defence, military, and security powers, and their budgets, to the executive. "The president also exercises
direct command over the Armed Forces and the entire law enforcement system.
In this regard, I believe
another step is necessary to provide a greater balance between the branches of power. In this connection, point
six: I propose that the president should appoint heads of all security agencies following consultations with
the Federation Council."
This preserves the imbalance – Putin's terminology -- let's say concentration of policy-making and
enforcement powers in the Kremlin; it also guards the incumbent president during the transition between now and
2024, as well as afterwards. "I believe," said Putin, "this approach will make the work of security and law
enforcement agencies more transparent and accountable to citizens." The Russian public opinion polls are very
sceptical.
The first test of what this step will mean in practice will be the names
of the new ministers of defence, internal affairs, foreign affairs, the Federal Security Service, the
intelligence agencies,
and the two state law enforcement organs, the Prosecutor-General and the
Investigative Committee.
In the small print of Putin's speech, he proposes
to centralize authority even more than the present
by reducing the power of regional authorities to
control their prosecutors. "I am confident that a greater independence of prosecution agencies from local
authorities would be beneficial for citizens regardless of the region," Putin said. Public distrust of both
federal and regional prosecutors, recorded in the polls, suggests otherwise.
The Putin scheme also creates a competing source of legislative power by
expanding the
State
Council
,
hitherto a talking shop;
and by expanding the powers
of the Constitutional Court
to rule, on the Kremlin's application, against parliament, as well as
against regional governors and regional parliaments.
The State Council in its last Kremlin session, December 26, 2019.
In
his speech on Wednesday Putin proposed to "cardinally increase the role of governors in decision-making at
the federal level
. As you know, back in 2000 the State Council was restored at my initiative, where
the heads of all regions participate. Over the past period the State Council has proven its high
effectiveness; its working groups provide for the professional, comprehensive and qualified examination of
issues that are most important for people and Russia. I believe it would be appropriate to fix the status
and role of the State Council in the Russian Constitution."
On Thursday
he ignored the State Council by appointing a different group to consider the constitutional amendments.
No Russian commentator has published the question, why
In theory, Putin is creating more checks and balances than have existed
before
. Differences of view and interest between experts, parties, factions, the military, and classes
– Putin's term – are inevitable and natural.
The vote to adopt the proposals
will, however, be an all-or-nothing one.
"I believe it necessary to hold a vote of Russian citizens on
the entire package of the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The final decision
must be made only on the basis of its results," the president concluded in his speech.
This looks like a referendum, but
Article
136
of the current Constitution is ambiguous. The 2008 amendments to the Constitution were
adopted
,
not by referendum but by votes of the State Duma and the Federation Council. There has been no referendum under
the present constitution.
How much of the proposed scheme is a fine distinction of powers without a change in their division? Putin
told Medvedev at the
meeting
with
the outgoing ministers:
"There is a clear-cut presidential block of issues, and there is a Government block of issues, even
though the President, of course, is responsible for everything, but
the
presidential block includes primarily matters of security, defence and the like.
Mr Medvedev has
always been in charge of these matters. From the point of view of increasing our defence capability and
security,
I consider it possible and have asked him to deal with these
matters in the future. I consider it possible and will, in the near future, introduce the position of Deputy
Chairman of the Security Council.
As you are aware, the
President is its Chairman.
If we need to amend the applicable law, I will do so soon and I want
State Duma deputies to support this as well. We just need the lawyers to provide assessments on this
account."
Sources in Russian business and government interpret Medvedev's new job
as a gold-plated watch -- consolation prize for losing the presidential succession race. Sources are unanimous
in judging what has happened to be the liquidation of the Medvedev faction.
Politically, the rationale is obvious. Public disapproval of the government's performance, and the stress
which the ongoing US war is inflicting on Russia's domestic growth, have been showing a consistent trend.
It is equally clear that the Medvedev faction, and also the pro-American
supporters behind Alexei Kudrin at the Accounting Chamber, German Gref at Sberbank, and Anatoly Chubais at the
state high-technology conglomerate Rusnano, are the short-term losers of the reorganisation
Putin has
proposed. The short-term gainers are not so obvious. Sources among them ask why the Kremlin staff calculated
that a renovation of the government ministers should be dressed up as a constitutional reform.
These sources suggest that on the sincerity test, Putin's proposals will not be believed for what he says
they are. They add they are encouraged, also hopeful, that
he is acting now
to restrict the damage that faction-fighting over the succession can do over the next three years. Liquidating
one of the factions has been an option advocated by many for some time.
On the other hand, the sources
point out that if Putin were sincere in his commitment to enhanced power-sharing with the parliamentary
political parties, why sack the present prime minister now, and not wait for the State Duma to vote its
approval for the new man under the new rules? This is a question which answers itself, most Russians think.
By the war test -- how the proposals will affect the regime-change strategy of the US and NATO – the
combination of constitutional plans and the replacement of Medvedev by Mikhail Mishustin (lead image, in car
next to Putin) is judged to be no gain, no concession to the other side. Not yet.
That leaves the poll test.
To choose Mishustin to become the prime
minister is the biggest surprise of the week
, and a curious selection to win public approval. If Gogol
were to use the name, he would be tagging its possessor with something like the caricature, "busy baker", since
to the Russian ear, the roots of the word suggest someone who makes his living mixing things, like a baker;
and who is visibly busy at that work. Mishustin himself likes to identify his recreation as ice-hockey. On
the rink he plays forward and back, but not goalie.
Left: Mikhail Mishustin makes his nomination speech at the State Duma, his debut as a national political
figure.
Watch the speech
,
which was read from a paper script and lacked direct eye or any other personal contact with the deputies.
They responded to the speech with brief, tepid applause. Right: Mishustin in his hockey uniform
The Russian biographic record for Mishustin, records his long technocratic training in computer science and
economics; his PhD was on tax administration. He first started in state tax agency in 1998.
A 53-year old native of Moscow, Mishustin is reported to be part-Armenian
by origin
; his Soviet birth certificate may indicate that at birth one of his parents held Armenian
nationality. If so, he would automatically hold
Armenian
citizenship
. According to Putin's constitutional proposals, the prime minister and other senior officials
may "have no foreign citizenship or residence permit or any other document that allows them to live permanently
in a foreign state."
A protégé of Boris Fyodorov in the Yeltsin-era finance administration, Mishustin spent a brief period,
2008-2010, working in the Moscow investment banking business of UFG Partners, first established by Fyodorov. By
the time Mishustin arrived, the company was owned by Deutsche Bank and run by Charles Ryan, an American;
Fyodorov died of a stroke a few months into Mishustin's term at UFG. In April 2010, Mishustin returned to run
the tax agency, and he has
remained
there
for a decade. Tax evasion and embezzlement of value added tax (VAT) fill the kompromat records which have
been
published
about Mishustin
over this period.
Mishustin
told
the
State Duma yesterday he is in favour of reducing the regulatory burden on Russian business.
The Communist Party faction announced it would abstain from voting to
confirm the prime minister because it was impossible to know what policies he stands for.
Suspicion
that Mishustin will try to cut social welfare benefits is widespread. The confirmation vote was 383 in favour;
41 abstentions; no one opposed. For the record of the Duma vote, read
this
.
One oligarch vote of confidence in Mishustin has been announced.
Vladimir
Lisin
, head of the Novolipetsk steel and coal-mining group,
told
a
Moscow newspaper: "We evaluate Mikhail Mishustin's work as head of the Federal Tax Service positively. Under
his leadership, the service increased tax collection, virtually eliminated schemes used by unscrupulous
businesses in competition, and reduced the number of on-site inspections several times by introducing a
risk-based approach. Despite the fact that we had quite difficult debates, we always found a common
civilized solution."
Mishustin has appeared only once before this week in Putin's Kremlin office. That was on November 21, 2016,
Tax Workers' Day. In their meeting Mishustin's recital of his agency's performance was unexceptional. Putin
said
nothing out of the ordinary.
In the Russian photo archive for Mishustin, not
one picture shows a smile on his face.
A reluctant grin he managed for his last birthday, March 3,
2019,
according
to the Russian Ice
Hockey Federation.
Putin has selected factotums before, men whose technical expertise was
their asset, along with their lack of political constituency and electoral ambition.
Mikhail Fradkov
was the first, between 2004 and 2008;
Victor
Zubkov
the second, between 2007 and 2008.
When Putin appointed them,
they made no changes to the power ministries.
Mishustin is the third in this line.
If he announces the end of the long terms in office of Sergei Shoigu and
Sergei Lavrov, and General Valery Gerasimov is replaced at the General Staff, then Putin is deciding much more
than he has admitted so far.
She made a blunder. That's for sure. but still Warren is a better candidate then Trump.
The shell game between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders has transmogrified. The brutal,
post-debate exchange between the duo has the progressive left fearing repeat business from '04:
it happened at just the wrong time, only weeks ahead of the first primaries.
sounds very much like it, in a kind of
ham-fisted, virtue-signaling way -- "Sometimes I fear the American people are still too bigoted
to vote for a woman," or something like that. Yet every Clinton staffer was muttering the same
thing under her breath at 3 a.m. on November 9, 2016.
What's more, Mrs. Warren never denied that Mr. Sanders only ran in the last election cycle
because she declined to do so. Nor can anyone forget how vigorously he campaigned for Mrs.
Clinton, even after she and the DNC rigged the primary against him. If Mrs. Warren and her
surrogates at CNN are claiming that Bernie meant that a person with two X chromosomes is
biologically incapable of serving as president, they're lying through their teeth.
This is how Liz treats her "friend" Bernie -- and when he denies that absurd smear, she
refuses to shake his hand and accuses him of calling her a liar on national television. Then,
of course, the #MeToo brigades line up to castigate him for having the temerity to defend
himself -- further evidence, of course, of his sexism. I mean, like, Bernie is, like,
literally Weinstein.
Then there's the "Latinx" thing, which is the absolute summit of progressive elites'
disconnect with ordinary Americans. In case you didn't know, Mrs. Warren has been roundly
panned for referring to Hispanics by this weird neologism, which was invented by her comrades
in the ivory tower as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina . The
thing is, Spanish is a gendered language. What's more, a poll by the left-wing market research
group Think Now found that just 2 percent of Hispanics call themselves "Latinx." (In fact, most
prefer the conventional "Hispanic," which is now verboten on the Left because it hearkens back
to Christopher Columbus's discovery of La Española .)
So here comes Professor Warren -- white as Wonder Bread, the mattress in her Cambridge
townhouse stuffed with 12 million big ones -- trying to rewrite the Spanish language because
she thinks it's sexist. How she's made it this far in the primary is absolutely mind-boggling.
She doesn't care about Hispanics, much less their culture. Like every employee of the modern
education system, she's only interested in processing American citizens into gluten-free offal
tubes of political correctness.
Of course, if one of her primary opponents or a cable news "Democratic strategist" (whatever
that is) dared to say as much, they'd be hung, drawn, and quartered. Partisan Democrats have
trained themselves not to think in such terms. That might not matter much if Mrs. Warren was
facing Mitt Romney or John McCain in the general. But she's not. If she wins the primary,
she'll be up against Donald Trump. And if you don't think he'll say all of this -- and a
whole lot more -- you should apply for a job at CNN.
... running against Mrs. Warren would be a walk in the park
Your imaginary Trump anti-Warren schtick might have worked in 2016, but boy does it come
off as unfunny and stale in 2020. He's done too much damage. Not funny anymore. I voted for
Trump. After all his betrayals, Warren could rip him to pieces just by standing next to him
without saying a word. Her WASP reserve and Okie roots might even seem refreshing after our
four-year long cesspool shower with this New York City creep.
Didn't vote for Trump, or Clinton for that matter, cast a protest Libertarian vote. In my
red state it hardly matters, but the electoral college is another story. But observed long
ago that indeed Warren is just what the author says, a too politically correct north east
liberal who would be demolished in the presidential election against Trump. Only Biden or
Klobuchar has a chance to unseat the orange man, or maybe better yet a Biden - Klobuchar
ticket.
I've sometimes voted red and sometimes blue, but a Trump Vs Biden contest might well make
me bored and disappointed enough to join you going libertarian.
If the Dems want to lose, Biden and Klobuchar would be a quick ticket to doing so. Warren
would get the job done not much slower, unless she pivoted away from social issues.
To quote Phyllis Schlafly's advice to conservatives and the GOP, what the Dems need is
"A choice, not an echo." Sanders is the closest the Dems have of offering the voters a real
choice, and is the best option to defeat Trump. The D establishment will still pull out all
the stops to try to block him, of course, because even they and their big donors would
prefer a second Trump term over a New Deal liberal with a socialist gloss, but they may not
succeed this time.
Bernie and Tulsi are the most honest and interesting of the Democratic field, even though
their politics generally aren't mine. Nonetheless, I wish them well, because they appear to
say what they actually think, as opposed to whatever their operatives have focus-group
tested.
Biden's corruption will come out in the general. We could write up articles of impeachment
now. After all, Biden, did actually bribe the Ukraine. He said so himself. On video.
I think Trump's unfortunately stronger now than he was in 2016. Clinton's attacks on him
were painting him as an apocalyptic candidate who would bring America crashing down. By
serving as president for 4 years with a mostly booming economy, Trump's proven them wrong.
The corporate media will continue their hysterical attacks on him though, and that will
boost his support. I think Hillary Clinton was more dislikeable back then than Warren is
now, but Warren is probably even more out of touch. The others might also lose, but she
really as a terrible candidate.
What damage has Trump done, as opposed to the damage the media/Dems/deepstate's RESPONSE to
Trump has done?
Trump has reduced illegal immigration with the expected subsequent increases in employment
and wages, saved taxpayer 1 TRILLION dollars by withdrawing from the Paris accord, killed 2
leading terrorists (finally showing Iran that we aren't their bakshi boys), cut taxes,
stood up for gun rights, reduced harmful governmental regulation, and appointed judges that
will follow the law instead of feelings and popular culture.
He is also exposing the deep underbelly of the corrupt government in Washington, especially
the coup organized between Obama, Hillary, the DNC, Brennan, Comey, Clapper and the
hyperpartisan acts of the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS and now the GAO (unless you believe that the
"non-partisan" GAO released their report which claimed Trump violated the law by holding up
Ukranian funds for a few months within the same fiscal year on the same day Nancy
forwarded the articles of impeachment by some amazing coincidence).
The problem isn't Trump. The problem is the liars opposing the existential threat Trump
poses to the elitists who despise America.
"For all my reservations about Mr. Trump -- his lagging commitment to
protectionism, his shafting of Amy Coney Barrett, his deportation of
Iraqi Christians, his burgeoning hawkishness, his total lack of
decorum -- he's infinitely preferable to anyone the Democrats could
nominate."
You gloss over a few dozen other failures, most of them bigger than anything you mention
here (immigration, infrastructure, more mass surveillance and privacy violations by govt
and corporations than even Obama).
You realize that the progress Trump has made on immigration is why unemployment is down and
wages are up, right?
Most Americans think that's a good thing.
Democrats, not so much.
I think I disliked the last thing I saw by Davis. Whatever. This one is better. Not perfect
-- some of it is out of touch -- but he makes a case. And, sad to say,
I concur with his prediction for the election, with or without Warren.
I'm starting to like her. I thought she handled herself well at the last debate.
"Presidential". It's been quite a while since we had a real president. Too long.
Forgive me, but Democratic voters put way too much store in presidents being Presidential.
And they spent way too much time talking about Bush's verbal gaffes and Trump's disgusting
personality to get Gore, Kerry or H. Clinton elected.
As the author wrote, it was invented by academics. One problem with the Democrat Party is
that it is teeming with Professor Kingsfield types who are as much connected with the rest
of the population as I am with aborigines.
Finally someone said what most people think. Love the imagined Trump comments to
Warren..."Relax. Put on a nice sweater, have a cup of tea, grade some papers." As i read
those I heard Trump's unique way of speech and was laughing out loud. BTW...Tulsi Gabbard
is such an attractive candidate...heard her interviewed on Tucker Carlson and I think could
present a real challenge to Trump if she ever rose up to face him in a debate. It's curious
someone like Warren shoots to the top, while she remains in the back of the line.
The media deliberately shut her down, just like they are shutting down Bernie. The DNC also
doesn't like her (possibly because she resigned as cochair and is critical of Hillary) and
seems to have chosen their debate criteria -which surveys they accept-in order to shut her
out. I liked her up until she objected to taking out Soleimani-a known terrorist in the
middle of a war zone planning attacks on US assets.
Sorry, Trump was spot on in this attack. Tulsi was completely wrong. However, she is
honest, experienced, knowledgeable and not psychotic, a refreshing change from the other
Dem Presidential candidates. If you haven't figured out yet that CNN is basically the media
arm of Warren's campaign, you haven't been paying attention. That is how Warren continues
to poll reasonably well.
These arguments amaze me. "Since your candidate is too school marmy, or elitist, or (insert
usual democrat insult here), you're giving the electorate no choice but to vote for the
most corrupt, openly racist, sexist, psychologically lying, dangerously mentally deranged
imbecile in the country".
Because rather than an educated person who maybe comes off as an elitist, we'd rather
have a disgusting deplorable who no sane parent would allow in the same room with their
daughter.
Lol, and yet writers like this don't even realize the insanity of what they're saying,
which is basically "that bagel is 2 days old, so I have choice but to eat this steaming
pile of dog crap instead".
"Because rather than an educated person who maybe comes off as an elitist, we'd rather have
a disgusting deplorable who no sane parent would allow in the same room with their
daughter."
No need for the ad hominem, you are overstating your case. Remember, Trump is "educated"
too. And a card-carrying member of the elite. Leave us not kid ourselves, they're all
"elites" of one stripe or another. It only matters which stripe we prefer, meaning of
course whether they are saying what we want to hear. Of all of the candidates, the only one
who does not come off as an "elite" is Tulsi Gabbard, an intelligent woman who is arguably
the most interesting of all the candidates--in part because of her active military service.
I'd even throw in Andrew Yang, a friendly, engaging person who didn't seem to have an ax to
grind. It matters not. Yang is out of the picture and Gabbard has as much of a crack at the
Democratic nomination in 2020 as Rand Paul had at the Republican nomination in
2016--essentially zero.
Lol trump is educated too? You've lose all credibility with such comical false
equivalencies.
Trump is an absolute imbecile who has failed up his entire life thanks to daddy's
endless fortune. If he we born Donald Smith he'd be pumping gas in Jersey, or in jail as a
low life con man.
While I find myself shocked to be found defending anything Trumpean, in all fairness, he is
a college grad-u-ate (shades of Lily Tomlin). The value, depth, or scope of his degree may
be in question, but he does possess a sheep-skin, and hence must be considered "educated".
If one wants to demean his "education" because of his personality, one must also demean a
rather broad segment of college grad-u-ates as well.
He graduated from Penn's Wharton School of Business, ergo he is educated. Because a person
doesn't hold the same political beliefs as another doesn't mean they can't be "educated."
Liz Warren may not hold the same political beliefs as I, but I cannot argue that she isn't
educated.
Lol wow, well I'd say it's hilarious that anyone can be so naive to actually think a
compete imbecile like trump, who so clearly has never read a book in his life, actually
earned his way into college; let alone actually studied and earned a degree.....but then I
remember this country is obviously filled with people this remarkable gullible and stupid,
as this walking SNL sketch is actually President.
I actually think you are spot on in your assessment of what Trump would have become if he
wasn't born to money, but you really are behaving like exactly that kind of Democratic
voter who gets more exorcised by Trump's personal faults than by his policy ones, the kind
of Democrats who couldn't get Al Gore, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton elected.
Really. You think someone that managed to become President of the United States with no
political or military experience would have failed at life if he hadn't had a wealthy
father. You really believe that. You don't think any of Trump's success and accomplishments
are due to his ambition, drive, energy, determination, executive skills, ruthlessness or
media savvy. It was all due to his having a rich father.
Fascinating.
Trump has had no success. He's failed at everything he's ever done. You obviously just know
nothing about his actual life, and believe the made up reality TV bullshit.
The only thing he's good at is playing a rich successful man on TV to really, really,
stupid, unread, unworldly, naive people....well that and giving racists white nationalists,
the billionaire owner class, sexists, bigots, and deplorables, a political home.
I think Trump is and would have been, sans his father's wealth, one hell of a con man. And
I hope to God that he would have ended up in jail for it rather than running a private
equity fund, but the latter would have been just as likely.
However, I should have made that distinction in my original comment. No, I do not think
that Trump would have ended up a gas station attendant.
It's very hard for me to understand how anyone could be so, shall we say sheltered, that
they couldn't see him coming a mile away and laugh their ass off.
He's so bad, so transparent with his obvious lies and self aggrandizing, so clearly
ignorant and unread and trying to fake it, he's literally like a cartoon's funny over the
top version of an idiot con man. I'll never understand how anyone could ever be fooled by
it.
In fact sometimes I think 90% of his base isn't fooled, they know he's a joke, but they
just don't care. He gives them the white nationalist hate and rhetoric they want, makes
"liberals cry", and that all they care about.
It's a lot easier for me to believe THAT then so many people can actually be so stupid
and gullible.
Say what? What policies? The trillion dollar hand out to the richest corporations in the
world, double the deficit? His mind blowing disastrous foreign policy decisions that have
done nothing but empowered Russia, Iran and North Korea while destabilizing western
alliances? The trade wars that have cost fairness and others billions (forcing taxpayers to
bail them out with tens of millions of dollars)? The xenophobia, separating and caging
children? Stoking violence and hate and anger among his white nationalist base? His attacks
on women reproductive rights? His attacks on all of our democratic institutions, from our
free press to our intelligence agencies and congressional oversights?
A pathologically lying racist sexist self serving criminal is enough to disqualify this
miscreant from being dog catcher, let alone president. But his policies are even worse.
You don't seem to know that the University of Pennsylvania is an Ivy League school, or what
the Wharton School of Business actually is. Imbeciles do not graduate from the Wharton
School.
Lol, trump is an imbecile, that's not even debatable. What amazes the rest of the entire
civilized world outside of the batshit fringe 20% of Americans who make up the Republican
voting base is how anyone could possible be conned by such a cartoonish idiot wanna be con
man.
It's truly something sane people can't even begin to wrap their heads around.
The Dowager Countess (Downton Abbey, for the un-initiated) nailed her type. In referring to
her do-gooder cousin Mrs. Isobel Crawley, she said: "Some people run on greed, lust, even
love. She runs on indignation." That sums up Warren perfectly.
I'll take it one step further. I bought one of her books, on the 'two-income trap' and how
middle-class families go to the wall to get into good school districts for their children.
She and her co-author make some valid points, but the book is replete with cliches about
men abandoning their families and similar leftist tropes. If that's the best Harvard Law
Warren has to offer, she's not as sharp as she thinks she is, and a bully like Trump will
school her fast.
Evidently Mr Davis dislikes Warren because of her personal style - but all of Trump's
substantive (or even, substance...) issues are acceptable. How shallow of him.
I can't say the two of us exactly line up on everything. But, like Wow: "gluten-free offal
tubes of political correctness." Now that's funny! Wish I'd thought of it.
I liked Warren until this attempt to stab Bernie in the back plus that childish refusal to
shake his hand on national TV. I still don't dislike her, but that was embarrassing. She
definitely has character flaws.
But this piece goes over the top. It's Trumpian. Warren certainly has flaws but if you
are going to judge a politician by their character, in what universe would Trump come out
on top?
Better than Warren.
The problem with affirmative action is when you abuse it, as Warren did, you actually rob a
genuine minority from a genuine disadvantaged background of their chance.
Warren deliberately misrepresented herself as a Native American, solely for career
advancement, and then abandoned her fake identity once she got tenure at Harvard. There was
another woman who was an actual minority that had a teaching appointment at Harvard, but
Warren beat her out, using her false claims of minority heritage to overcome her
competition's actual minority status.
Trump competes on his own.
There what's funny about these arguments. They're basically saying, "your candidate has
some flaws, she's very school marmy, and thinks she knows everything."
"Therefore, OBVIOUSLY people have no choice but to instead vote for the raging imbecile,
the pathologically lying, corrupt to his core, racist, morally bankrupt, sexist imbecile
with the literal temperament of of an emotionally troubled 10 year old."
What unpleasant memories Mister Davis has elicited - - - i once had a schoolmarm like that.
(Shudder)
It is, however, disturbing that Davis has almost captured the style of Trumptweets. The
give-away is a shade more literacy and better grammar in Davis' offerings.
But what of the possibility, as suggested above, that Trump loses to Biden or (Generic
Democratic candidate)?
As I tell my liberal friends, the country survived eight years of Priapic Bill, eight
years of Dubya and Dubyaer, eight years of BHO, and after four years of Trump is yet
standing, however drunkenly.
I think, contra many alarmists, the Republic is much stronger than the average pundit or
combox warrior gives it credit.
And, who knows? Maybe the outrage pornography we get from Tweeting birdies will grow
stale and passe, and people will yearn for more civil discourse? (Not likely, but one never
knows.)
I refuse to use "Bay Stater" for the same reason I dislike being called "Mike": nicknames
are irritating, unless they're outlandish, like "Beanie" or "Boko" or "Buttigieg."
Massachusetts is a beautiful name -- slow and smooth, like the Merrimack.
"Massachusettsian" adds a little skip at the end, as the river crashes into the Atlantic at
Newburyport. It's the perfect demonym.
Speaking of, I was born and spent the first 18 years of my life in Massachusetts --
about 10 minutes outside Newburyport, where my great-great-something grandparents lived
when the Revolution broke out. I don't know how much further back the family tree goes in
Mass., but probably further than yours.
Good luck with that utter nonsense word, then. Bay Stater is not a nickname - it's the
longstanding term (and, for some reason, the Massachusetts General Court also blessed it
legislatively), from long before my folk lived in New England since the mid-19th century
(Connecticut and Massachusetts - hence my reference to Nutmeggers, as my parents made quite
clear to us that there were no such things as Connecticutters or Massachusetters or the
like and not to go around sounding like fools using the like.)
Of course, I'd like to recover the old usage of the Eastern States to refer to New
England. Right now, its sole prominent residue is the Big E in Springfield....
"... In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from Israel" (p.6). ..."
"... This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world, including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be compelled to take. ..."
"... So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better! ..."
Let's be clear, there is a difference between substituting geopolitical power calculations
for a universal perspective on the good of humanity, and, on the other hand, recognizing that
the existing layout of the world has to be taken into account in attempts to open up a true
politics. (My larger perspective on the problem of "opening" is presented in the long essay,
"The Fourth Hypothesis," at counterpunch.org.)
Personally, I find the geopolitical analyses of George Friedman very much worthwhile to
consider, especially when he is looking at things long-range, as in his books The Next 100
Years and The Next Decade. The latter was published at the beginning of 2012, and so we are
coming to the close of the ten-year period that Friedman discusses.
One of the major arguments that Friedman makes in The Next Decade is that the
United States will have to reach some sort of accommodation with Iran and its regional
ambitions. The key to this, Friedman argues, is to bring about some kind of balance of power
again, such as existed before Iraq was torn apart.
This is the key in general to continued U.S. hegemony in the world, in Friedman's view --
regional balances that keep regional powers tied up and unable to rise on the world stage. (An
especially interesting example here is that Friedman says that Poland will be built up as a
bulwark between Russia and Germany.)
In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary
world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first
and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and
Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from
Israel" (p.6).
This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world,
including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter
of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be
compelled to take.
(As the founder, CEO, and "Chief Intelligence Officer" of Stratfor, Friedman aimed to
provide "non-ideological" strategic intelligence. My understanding of "non-ideological" is that
the analysis was not formulated to suit the agendas of the two mainstream political parties in
the U.S. However, my sense is that Friedman does believe that U.S. global hegemony is on the
whole good for the world.)
In his book that came out before The Next Decade (2011), The Next 100
Years (2009), Friedman makes the case that the U.S. will not be seriously challenged
globally for decades to come -- in fact, all the way until about 2080!
Just to give a different spin to something I said earlier, and that I've tried to emphasize
in my articles since March 2016: questions of mere power are not questions of politics.
Geopolitics is not politics, either -- in my terminology, it is "anti-politics."
For my part, I am not interested in supporting U.S. hegemony, not in the present and not in
the future, and for the most part not in the past, either.
For the moment, let us simply say that the historical periods of the U.S. that are more
supportable -- because they make some contribution, however flawed, to the greater, universal,
human project -- are either from before the U.S. entered the road of seeking to compete with
other "great powers" on the world stage, or quite apart from this road.
In my view, the end of U.S. global hegemony and, for that matter, the end of any "great
nation-state" global hegemony, is a condition sine qua non of a human future that is just and
sustainable. So, again, the brilliance that George Friedman often brings to geopolitical
analysis is to be understood in terms of a coldly-realistic perspective, not a warmly-normative
one.)
Of course, this continued U.S. hegemony depends on certain "wise" courses of action being
taken by U.S. leaders (Friedman doesn't really get into the question of what might be behind
these leaders), including a "subtle" approach to the aforementioned questions of Israel and
Iran.
Obviously, anything associated with Donald Trump is not going to be overly subtle! On the
other hand, here we are almost at the end of Friedman's decade, so perhaps the time for
subtlety has passed, and the U.S. is compelled to be a bit heavy-handed if there is to be any
chance of extricating itself from the endless quagmire.
However, there's a certain fly, a rather large one, in the ointment that seems to have
eluded Friedman's calculations: "the rise of China."
It isn't that Friedman avoids the China question, not at all; Friedman argues, however, that
by 2020 China will not only not be contending with the United States to have the largest
economy in the world, but instead that China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil
war, because of deep inequalities between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and
the rural interior.
Certainly I know from study, and many conversations with people in China, this was a real
concern going into the 2010s and in the first half of the decade.
The chapter dealing with all this in The Next 100 Years (Ch. 5) is titled, "China
2020: Paper Tiger," the latter term being one that Chairman Mao used regarding U.S.
imperialism. Friedman writes of another "figure like Mao emerg[ing] to close the country
off from the outside, [to] equalize the wealth -- or poverty " (p.7).
Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy, I certainly believe anything can happen in social
matters, but it seems as though President Xi Jinping and the current leadership of the
Communist Party of China have, at least for the time being, managed to head off fragmentation
at the pass, so to speak.
Friedman argued that the "pass" that China especially had to deal with is unsustainable
growth rates; but it appears that China has accomplished this, by purposely slowing its economy
down.
One of the things that Friedman is especially helpful with, in his larger geopolitical
analysis, is understanding the role that naval power plays in sustaining U.S. hegemony. (In
global terms, such power is what keeps the neoliberal "free market" running, and this power is
far from free.)
*
... ... ...
Two of the best supporters of Trump's stated agenda are Tucker Carlson and Steve Hilton.
Neither of them pull any punches on this issue when it comes to Republicans, and both of them
go some distance beyond Trump in stating an explicitly anti-war agenda.
They perhaps do not entirely fit the mold of leftist anti-imperialism as it existed from the
1890s through the Sixties (as in the political decade, perhaps 1964-1974 or so) and 1970s, but
they do in fact fit this mold vastly better than almost any major figure of the Democratic
Party, with the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang. (But
none of them has gone as far as Trump on this question!)
Certainly Elizabeth Warren is no exception, and at the moment of this writing she has made
the crucial turn toward sticking the knife back into Bernie's back. That is her job, in my
view, and part of it is to seem close to Bernie's positions (whatever their defects, which I'll
discuss elsewhere), at least the ones that are more directly "economic," while winking at the
ruling class.
There are a few things Carlson and Hilton say on the Iran situation and the Middle East in
general that I don't agree with. But in the main I think both are right on where these issues
are concerned.
As I've quoted Carlson a number of times previously, and as I also want to put forward
Hilton as an important voice for a politics subservient to neither the liberal nor the
conservative establishments, here let me quote what Hilton said in the midst of the Iran
crisis, on January 5, 2020:
The best thing America can do to put the Middle East on a path
that leads to more democracy, less terrorism, human rights and economic growth is to get the
hell out of there while showing an absolute crystal clear determination to defend American
interests with force whenever they are threatened.
That doesn't mean not doing anything, it means intervening only in ways that help
America.
It means responding only to attacks on Americans disproportionately as a deterrent, just as
we saw this week and it means finally accepting that it's not our job to fix the Middle East
from afar.
The only part of this I take exception to is the "intervening only in ways that help
America"-bit -- that opens the door to exactly the kinds of problems that Hilton wants the U.S.
to avoid, besides the (to me, more important) fact that it is just morally wrong to think it is
acceptable to intervene if it is in one's "interests."
My guess is that Hilton thinks that there is some built-in utilitarian or pragmatic calculus
that means the morally-problematic interventions will not occur. I do not see where this has
ever worked, but more importantly, this is where philosophy is important, theoretical work and
abstract thinking are important.
It used to be that the Left was pretty good at this sort of thing, and there were some
thoughtful conservatives who weren't bad, either. (A decent number of the latter,
significantly, come from the Catholic intellectual tradition.) Now there are still a few of the
latter, and there are ordinary people who are "thoughtful conservatives" in their "unschooled
way" -- which is often better! -- but the Left has sold its intellectual soul along with its
political soul.
That's a story for elsewhere (I have told parts of it in previous articles in this series);
the point here is that the utilitarianism and "pragmatism" of merely calculating interests is
not nearly going to cut it. (I have partly gone into this here because Hilton also advocates
"pragmatism" in his very worthwhile book, Positive Populism -- it is the "affirmative" other
side to Tucker Carlson's critical, "negative" expose, Ship of Fools.)
The wonderful philosophical pragmatism of William James is another matter; this is important
because James, along with his friend Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), were leading figures of the
Anti-Imperialist League back in the 1890s, when the U.S. establishment was beating the drums
loudly to get into the race with Europeans for colonies.
They were for never getting "in" -- and of course they were not successful, which is why
"get the hell out" is as important as anything people can say today.
What an insane world when the U.S. president says this and the political establishment
opposes him, and "progressives" and "the Left" join in with the denunciations!
It has often been argued that the major utilitarian philosophers, from Bentham and Mill to
Peter Singer, have implicit principles that go beyond the utilitarian calculus; I agree with
this, and I think this is true of Steve Hilton as well.
In this light, allow me to quote a little more from the important statement he made on his
Fox News Channel program, "The Next Revolution," on January 5; all of this is stuff I entirely
agree with, and that expresses some very good principles:
The West's involvement in the
Middle East has been a disaster from the start and finally, with President Trump, America is in
a position to bring it to an end. We don't need their oil and we don't need their problems.
Finally, we have a U.S. president who gets that and wants to get out. There are no prospects
for Middle East peace as long as we are there.
We're never going to defeat the ideology of Islamist terror as long as these countries are
basket cases and one of the reasons they are basket cases is that our preposterous foreign
policy establishment with monumental arrogance have treated the middle east like some chess
game played out in the board rooms in Washington and London.
– [foxnews.com, transcribed by Yael Halon]
So then there is the usual tittering about this and that regarding Carlson and Hilton from
liberal and progressive Democrats and leftists who support the Democrats, and it seems to me
that there is one major reason why there is this foolish tittering: It is because these
liberals and leftists really don't care about, for example, the destruction of Libya, or the
murder of Berta Caceres.
Or, maybe they do care, but they have convinced themselves that these things have to swept
under the rug in the name of defeating the pure evil of Trump. What this amounts to, in the
"nationalist" discourse, is that Trump is some kind of nationalist (as he has said numerous
times), perhaps of an "isolationist" sort, while the Democrats are in fact what can be called
"nationalists of the neoliberal/neoconservative compact."
My liberal and leftist friends (some of them Maoists and post-Maoists and Trotskyists or
some other kinds of Marxists or purported radicals -- feminists or antifa or whatever) just
cannot see, it simply appears to be completely beyond the realm of their imaginations, that the
latter kind of nationalism is much worse and qualitatively worse than what Trump represents,
and it completely lacks the substantial good elements of Trump's agenda.
But hey, don't worry my liberal and leftist friends, it is hard to imagine that Joe Biden's
"return to normalcy" won't happen at some point -- it will take not only an immense movement to
even have a chance of things working out otherwise, but a movement that likes of which is
beyond everyone's imagination at this point -- a movement of a revolutionary politics that
remains to be invented, as all real politics are, by the masses.
Liberals and leftists have little to worry about here, they're okay with a Deep State
society with a bullshit-democratic veneer and a neoliberal world order; this set-up doesn't
really affect them all that much, not negatively at any rate, and the deplorables can just go
to hell.
*
The Left I grew up with was the Sixties Left, and they used to be a great source of
historical memory, and of anti-imperialism, civil rights, and ordinary working-people
empowerment.
The current Left, and whatever array of Democratic-Party supporters, have received their
marching orders, finally, from commander Pelosi (in reality, something more like a lieutenant),
so the two weeks or so of "immense concern" about Iran has given way again to the
extraordinarily-important and solemn work of impeachment.
But then, impeachment is about derailing the three main aspects of Trump's agenda, so you
see how that works. Indeed, perhaps the way this is working is that Trump did in fact head off,
whatever one thinks of the methods, a war with Iran (at this time! – and I do think this
is but a temporary respite), or more accurately, a war between Iran and Israel that the U.S.
would almost certainly be sucked into immediately.
So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if
it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on
track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more
spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better!
Bill Martin is a
philosopher and musician, retired from DePaul University. He is completing a book with the
title, "The Trump Clarification: Disruption at the Edge of the System (toward a theory)." His
most recent albums are "Raga Chaturanga" (Bill Martin + Zugzwang; Avant-Bass 3) and "Emptiness,
Garden: String Quartets nos. 1 and 2 (Ryokucha Bass Guitar Quartet; Avant-Bass 4). He lives in
Salina, Kansas, and plays bass guitar with The Radicles.
Dungroanin ,
I have read through finally. And comments too.
My opinion is Bill Martin is on the ball except for one personage- Hilton. If he is
Camerons Hilton and architect of the Brexit referendum – for which he is rewarded with
a 'seat at the table' of the crumbling Empire. The Strafor man too is just as complicit in
the Empires wickedness.
But I'll let Bill off with that because he mentioned the Anti-Imperialist Mark Twain
– always a joy to be reminded of Americas Dickens.
On Trump – he didn't use the Nuclear codes 10 minutes after getting them as warned
by EVERYONE. Nor start a war with RocketMan, or Russia in Syria, or in Ukraine or with the
Chinese using the proxy Uighars, or push through with attempted Bay of Pigs in Venezuela or
just now Hong Kong. The Wall is not built and the ineffectual ripoff Obamacare version of a
NHS is still there.
Judge by deeds not words.
Soleimani aside – He may have stopped the drive for war. Trumps direct contact with
fellow world leaders HAS largely bypassed the war mongering State Department and also the
Trillion dollar tax free Foundations set up last century to deliver the world Empire, that
has so abused the American peoples and environment. He probably wasn't able to stop
Bolivia.
The appointments of various players were not necessarily in his hands as Assad identified-
the modern potus is merely a CEO/Chair of a board of directors who are put into place by the
special interests who pour billions, 10's of billions into getting their politicians elected.
They determine 'National Interests'. All he can do is accept their appointment and give them
enough rope to hang themselves – which most have done!
These are that fight clubs rules.
On the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – after 20 full years of working towards
cohesion- they have succeeded. Iran is due to become a full member – once it is free of
UN sanctions, which is why Trump was forced into pulling the treaty with them, so that
technicality could stop that membership. China is not having it nor is Russia – Putins
clear statement re the 'international rules' not being mandatory for them dovetails with the
US position of Exceptionality. Checkmate.
As for the Old Robber Baron Banker Pirates idea that they should be allowed a Maritime
Empire as consolation- ha ha ha, pull the other one.
The ancient sea trading routes from Africa to China were active for thousands of years
before the Europeans turned up and used unequal power to disrupt and pillage at their hearts
content.
What made that possible was of course explained in the brilliant Guns, Germs and
Steel.
These ancients have ALL these and are equal or advanced in all else including Space, Comms
and AI. A navy is not so vital when even nuclear subs are visible from low orbit satellites
except in the deepest trenches – not a safe place to hide for months and also pretty
crowded with all the other subs trying to hide there. As for Aircraft carrier groups –
just build an island! Diego Garcia has a rival.
Double Checkmate.
The Empire is Dead. Long live the Empire.
Dungroanin ,
And this is hilarious about potus turning the tables on the brass who tried to drag him into
the 'tank'.
'Grab the damn fainting couch. Trump told the assembled military leaders who had presided
over a military stalemate in Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS as "losers." Not a one of them
had the balls to stand up, tell him to his face he was wrong and offer their resignation.
Nope. They preferred to endure such abuse in order to keep their jobs. Pathetic.
This excerpt in the Washington Post tells the reader more about the corruption of the Deep
State and their mindset than it does about Trump's so-called mental state. Trump acted no
differently in front of these senior officers and diplomats than he did on the campaign
trail. He was honest. That is something the liars in Washington cannot stomach. '
Rhys Jaggar ,
I am not an expert on US Constitutional Law, but is there any legal mechanism for a US
President to hold a Referendum in the way that the UK held a 'Brexit Referendum' and Scotland
held an 'Independence Referendum'?
How would a US Referendum in 'Getting the hell out of the Middle East, bringing our boys
and girls home before the year is out' play out, I wonder?
That takes the argument away from arch hawks like Bolton et al and puts it firmly in the
ambit of Joe Schmo of Main Street, Oshkosh
wardropper ,
Great idea.
Main problem is that most Americans are brought up to think their government is separate from
themselves, and should not be seriously criticized.
By "criticized", I mean, taken to task in a way which actually puts them on a playing field
where they are confronted by real people.
Shouting insults at the government from the rooftops is simply greeted with indulgent smiles
from the guilty elite.
Richard Le Sarc ,
George Friedman is a bog standard Zionist, therefore, out of fear, a virulent Sinophobe,
because the Zionists will never control China as they do the Western slave regimes. China
surpassed the USA as the world' s largest economy in 2014, on the PPP calculus that the
CIA,IMF and just about everyone uses. It' s growing three times as fast as the USA, too. The
chance of China fragmenting by 2020 is minuscule, certainly far less than that of the USA.
The Chinese have almost totally eliminated poverty, and will raise the living standard of all
to a ' middle income' by 2049. It is, however, the genocidal policy of the USA, on which it
expend billions EVERY year, to do its diabolical worst to attempt to foment and foster such a
hideous fate inside China, by supporting vermin like the Hong Kong fascist thugs, the Uighur
salafist terrorist butchers, the medieval theocrats of the Dalai clique and separatist
movements in Inner Mongolia, ' Manchuria', Taiwan, even Guandong and Guangxi. It takes a real
Western thug to look forward to the ghastly suffering that these villainous ambitions would
unleash.
Antonym ,
In RlS's nut shell: China can annex area but Israel: no way!
Dungroanin ,
Which area is China looking to annex?
Richard Le Sarc ,
Ant is a pathological Zionist liar, but you can see his loyalty to ' Eretz Yisrael' , '
..from the Nile to the Euphrates', and ' cleansed' of non-Jews, can' t you.
alsdkjf ,
I'm surprised that this author can even remember the counter culture of the 60s given his
Trump love.
Yet more Trumpism from Off Guardian. One doesn't have to buy into the politics of post DLC
corporate owned DNC to know Trump for what he is. A fascist.
It's just amazing this Trump "left". Pathetic.
Antonym ,
Trump .. better than HRC but the guy is totally hypnotized by the level of the New York stock
exchanges: even his foreign policy is improvised around that. He simply thinks higher is
a proof of better forgetting that 90% of Americans don't own serious quantity of stock
and that levels are manipulated by big players and the FED. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html
Look at his dealing with China: tough as much as the US stock market stays benign in the
short term. Same for Iran etc.
Sure, he is crippled by Pelosi & the FBI / CIA, but he is also by his own stock
dependent mind. Might be the reason he is still alive ???
alsdkjf ,
Trump crippled by the CIA? Trump?
I mean the fascist jerk appointed ex CIA torture loving Pompeo to replace swamp creature
oil tycoon as Secretary of State, no?
He appointed torture queen within the CIA to become CIA Director, no?
He went to the CIA headquarters on day one of his Administration to lavish praise, no?
He took on ex CIA Director Woolsey as advisor on foreign policy during his campaign,
no?
I tell ya that Trump is a real adversary of the CIA!
Roger that. Trump appoints a dominatrix as DCI. Only a masochist or a sadist would Dream of
Gina..you know the head of the torture squad under Bush. Otherwise nice girl. PompAss is a
total clown but a dangerous one who even makes John Bolton look sane. Now that's scary!
This guy is Hilary Clinton in drag. The only thing missing is the evil triumphalist cackle
after whacking Soleimani. Maybe it wasn't recorded.
So much for "draining the swamp". The Whitehouse has become an even bigger swamp.
my take from this article:
There are, among the murderers and assassins in Washington, a couple of characters who appear
to have 2% of human DNA.
They author may confirm.
two ,
"israel is right in the cen "
sorry, the muderous regime israel has repeatedly proven, it's never never right . please
avoid this usage.
three ,
There are 53 or 54 'I's in the article, including his partner's Is. The author may confirm.
Dungroanin ,
Phew!
That is a lot of words mate. Fingers must be sore. I won't comment more until trying to
re-read again except quote this:
"Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy,.."
I must say i had a wtf moment at that point see ya later.
paul ,
The idea that Trump's recent actions in the Middle East were part of some incredibly cunning
plan to avoid war with Iran, strikes me as somewhat implausible, to put it (very) charitably.
Even Hitler didn't want war. He wanted to achieve his objectives without fighting. When
that didn't work, war was Plan B. Trump probably has very little actual control over foreign
policy. He is surrounded by people who have been plotting and scheming against him from long
before he was elected. He heads a chaotic and dysfunctional administration of billionaires,
chancers, grifters, conmen, superannuated generals, religious nut jobs, swamp creatures,
halfwits and outright criminals, lurching from one crisis and one fiasco to the next. Some of
these people like Bolton were foisted upon him by Adelson and various other backers and wire
pullers, but that is not to absolve Trump of personal responsibility.
Competing agencies which are a law unto themselves have been free to pursue their own turf
wars at the expense of anything remotely resembling a rational and coherent strategy. So have
quite low level bureaucrats, formulating and implementing their own policies with little
regard for the White House. In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department went
their own way, each supporting competing and mutually antagonistic factions and terrorist
groups. Agreements that were reached with Russia over Syria, for example, were deliberately
sabotaged by Ashton Carter in 24 hours. Likewise, Bolton did everything he could to wreck
Trump's delicate negotiations with N. Korea.
paul ,
Seen in this light, US policy (or the absence of any coherent policy) is more understandable.
What passes for US leadership is the worst in its history, even given a very low bar.
Arrogant, venal, corrupt, delusional, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven. The
only positive thing that can be said is that the alternative (Clinton) would probably have
been even worse, if that is possible.
That may also be the key to understanding the current situation. For all his pandering to
Israel, Trump is more of a self serving unprincipled opportunist than a true Neocon/ Zionist
believer in the mould of Pence, Bolton and Pompeo. For that reason he is not trusted by the
Zionist Power Elite. He is too much of a loose cannon. They will take all his Gives, like
Jerusalem and the JCPOA, but without any gratitude.
It has taken them a century of plotting, scheming and manoeuvring to achieve their
political, financial, and media stranglehold over the US. but America is a wasting asset and
they are under time pressure. It is visibly declining and losing its influence. And the
parasite will find it difficult to find a similar host. Who else is going to give Israel
billions a year in tribute, unlimited free weaponry and diplomatic cover? Russia? Are Chinese
troops "happy to die for Israel" asUS ones are (according to their general)?
paul ,
And they are way behind schedule. Assad was supposed to be dead by now, and Syria another
defenceless failed state, broken up into feuding little cantons, with Israel expanding into
the south of the country. The main event, the war with Iran, should have started lond ago.
That is the reason for the impeachment circus. This is not intended to be resolved one way
or the other. It is intended to drag on indefinitely, for months and years, to distract and
weaken Trump and make it possible to extract what they want. One of the reasons Trump agreed
to the murder of Soleimani and his Iraqi opposite number was to appease some Republican
senators like Graham whose support is essential to survive impeachment. They were the ones
who wanted it, along with Bolton and Netanyahu.
paul ,
It is instructive that all the main players in the impeachment circus are Jews, under
Sanhedrin Chief Priests Schiff and Nadler, apart from a few token goys thrown in to make up
the numbers. That even goes for those defending Trump.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Don' t forget that Lebanon up to the Litani is the patrimony of the Jewish tribes of Asher
and Naphtali, and, as Smotrich, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, said on Israeli TV a few years
ago, ' Damascus belongs to the Jews'.
bevin ,
" China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil war, because of deep inequalities
between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and the rural interior."
This is not Bill, but Bill's mate the Stratcor geopolitical theorist for hire.
What is happening in the world is that the only empire the globe, as a whole, has ever
seen- the pirate kingdom that the Dutch, then the British and finally the US, leveraged out
of the plunder and conquest of America -the maritime empire, of sea routes and navies is
under challenge by a revival of the Eurasian proto-empires that preceded it and drove its
merchants and princes on the Atlantic coast, to sea.
We know who the neo-liberals are the current iteration of the gloomy philosophies of the
Scots Enlightenment, (Cobbett's 'Scotch Feelosophy') utilitarianism in its crudest form and
the principles of necessary inequalities, from the Austrian School back to the various crude
racisms which became characteristic of the C19th.
The neo-cons are the latest expression of the maritime powers' fear of Eurasia and its
interior lines of communication. Besides which the importance of navies and of maritime
agility crumble.
Bill mentions that China has not got much of a navy. I'm not so sure about that, but isn't it
becoming clear that navies-except to shipyards, prostitutes and arms contractors- are no
longer of sovereign importance? There must be missile commanders in China drooling over the
prospect of catching a US Fleet in all its glory within 500 miles of the mainland. Not to
mention on the east coast of the Persian Gulf.
The neo-cons are the last in a long line of strategists, ideologists and, for the most part,
mercenary publicists defying the logic of Halford Mackinder's geo-strategy for a lot more
than a penny a line. And what they urge, is all that they can without crossing the line from
deceitfulness to complete dishonesty: chaos and destabilisation within Eurasia, surrounding
Russia, subverting Sinkiang and Tibet, employing sectarian guerrillas, fabricating
nationalists and nationalisms.. recreate the land piracy, the raiding and the ethnic
explosions that drove trade from the land to the sea and crippled the Qing empire.
The clash is between war, necessary to the Maritime Empire and Peace, vital to the
consolidation and flowering of Eurasia.
As to Israel, and perhaps we can go into this later: it looms much larger in the US
imagination (and the imaginations the 'west' borrows from the US) than anywhere else. It is a
tiny sliver of a country. Far from being an elephant in any room, it is simply a highly
perfumed lapdog which also serves as its master's ventriloquist's dummy. Its danger lies in
the fact that after decades of neglect by its idiotic self indulgent masters, it has become
an openly fascist regime, which was definitely not meant to happen, and, misled by its own
exotic theories of race, has come to believe that it can do what it wants. It can't-and this
is one reason why Bill misjudges the reasoning behind the Soleimani killing- but it likes to
act, or rather threaten to act, as if it could.
(By the way-note to morons across the web-Bill's partner quotes Adorno and writes about
him too: cue rants about Cultural Marxism.)
Hugh O'Neill ,
Thanks, Bevin. The article was so long, I had quite forgotten that he laid too much emphasis
on the Stratcor Unspeakable. Clever he may be, but not much use without a moral compass.
Talking of geo-strategists, you will doubtless be aware of the work of A.T. Mahan whose
blueprint for acquisition of inspired Teddy Roosevelt and leaders throughout Europe, Russia,
Japan.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Friedman is a snake oil peddler. He tells the ruling psychopaths what they want to hear, like
' China crumbling', their favourite wet-dream.
bevin ,
I agree about Mahan's importance. He understood what lay behind the Empire on which the sun
never set but he had enough brains to have been able to realise that current conditions make
those fleets obsolete. In fact the Germans in the last War realised that too- their strategy
was Eurasian, it broke down over the small matter of devouring the USSR. The expiry date on
the tin of Empire has been obvious for a long time- there is simply too much money to be made
by ignoring it.
Russia has always been the problem, either real (very occasionally) or latent for the
Dutch/British/US Empire because it is just so clear that the quickest and most efficient
communications between Shanghai and Lisbon do not go through the Straits of Malacca, the Suez
Canal, or round the cape . Russia never had to do a thing to earn the enmity of the Empire,
simply existing was a challenge. And that remains the case- for centuries the Empire
denounced the Russians because of the Autocracy, then it was the anarchism of the Bolsheviks,
then it was the autocracy again, this time featuring Stalin, then it was the chaos of the
oligarchs and now we are back with the Tsar/Stalin Putin.
Hugh O'Neill ,
Phenomenal diagnosis, Bevin. However, one suspects that there is still too much profit to be
made by the MIC in pursuing useless strategies. I imagine Mahan turning in his grave in his
final geo-strategic twist.
Richard Le Sarc ,
Yes-Zionist hubris will get Israel into a whole world of sorrow.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing
as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain't.
Any article with mention of mother-'Tucker' Carlson is one that is pure propagandistic
tripe in the extreme. Off-G is a UK blog yet this Americanism & worn out aged propaganda
still prevails in the minds of US centric myopics writ large across all states in the
disunity equally divided from cities to rural towns all.
MOU
johny conspiranoid ,
"More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing
as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain'"
Is this even a sentence?
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
It was a sentence when I was smoking marijuana yesterday, Johnny C. Today it is still a
sentence IMHO, but you transcribed it incorrectly, and forgot the end of the sentence.
NOTE: When I smoke marijuana I am allowed to write uncoordinated sentences. These are the
rules in CANADA. If you don't like it write to your local politician and complain
bitterly.
MOU
Charlotte Russe ,
Bush, Obama, and Clinton are despicable. In fact, they're particularly disgusting, inasmuch,
as they were much more "cognizant" than Trump of how their actions would lead to very
specific insidious consequences. In addition, they were more able to cleverly conceal their
malevolent deeds from the public. And that's why Trump is now sitting in the Oval
Office–he won because of public disgust for lying politicians.
However, Trump is "dangerous" because he's a "misinformed idiot," and as such is extremely
malleable. Of course, ignorance is no excuse when the future of humanity is on the line
In any event, Trump is often not aware of the outcome of his actions. And when you're
surrounded and misinformed by warmongering neoconservative nutcases, especially ones who
donated to your campaign chances are you'll do stupid things. And that's what they're
counting on.
alsdkfj ,
Trump is some virtuous example of a truth teller? Trump?
The biggest liar to every occupy the White House and that is saying a lot.
Swamp Monster fascist Trump. So much to love, right?
He could murder one of your friends and you'd still apologize for him, is my guess.
Hugh O'Neill ,
It was a long read, but I got there. In essence, I agreed with 99%, but I hesitate to share
too much praise for Trump's qualities as a Human Being – though he may be marginally
more Human than the entire US body politic. I was walking our new puppy yesterday when he did
his usual attempt to leap all over other walkers. I pleaded their forgiveness and explained
that his big heart was in inverse proportion to his small brain. It occurred to me later that
the opposite would be pure evil i.e. a small heart but big brain. Capitalism as is now
infects the Human Experiment, has reduced both brains and hearts: propagandists believe their
own lies, and too few trust their own instincts and innate compassion, ground down by the
relentless distractions of lies and 'entertainment' (at least the Romas gave you free
bread!).
I get the impression that Trump's world view hasn't altered much since he was about 11 years
old. I do not intend to insult all eleven-year-olds, but his naivety is not a redeeming
feature of his spoilt brat bully personality. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker every
John Wayne cowboy movie and thinks the world can be divided into good guys and bad guys
depending on what colour hat they wear. In the days of Black & White TV, it was either
black or white. The world seemed so much simpler aged 11 .(1966).
Dungroanin ,
Yet I have yet to see one photo of Trump with a gun or in uniform.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The Duck learned to dress appropriately for business, I'll give him that. As a New York Real
Estate scion you will never see him dress otherwise. Protocol in business is a contemporary
business suit. No other manner of dress is allowed for the executive class in North America
or UK.
The U.S. was having some success with turning protest messaging against Iran – until,
that is – its killing and wounding of so many Iraqi security force members last week
(Ketaib Hizbullah is a part of Iraq's armed forces).
Escalation of maximum-pressure was one thing (Iran was confident of weathering that); but
assassinating such a senior official on his state duties, was quite something else. We have not
observed a state assassinating a most senior official of another state before.
And the manner of its doing, was unprecedented too. Soleimani was officially visiting Iraq.
He arrived openly as a VIP guest from Syria, and was met on the tarmac by an equally senior
Iraqi official, Al-Muhandis, who was assassinated also, (together with seven others). It was
all open. General Soleimani regularly used his mobile phone as he argued that as a senior state
official, if he were to be assassinated by another state, it would only be as an act of
war.
This act, performed at the international airport of Baghdad, constitutes not just the
sundering of red lines, but a humiliation inflicted on Iraq – its government and people.
It will upend Iraq's strategic positioning. The erstwhile Iraqi attempt at balancing between
Washington and Iran will be swept away by Trump's hubristic trampling on the country's
sovereignty. It may well mark the beginning of the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq (and
therefore Syria, too), and ultimately, of America's footprint in the Middle East.
Trump may earn easy plaudits now for his "We're America, Bitch!", as one senior White House
official defined the Trump foreign policy doctrine; but the doubts – and unforeseen
consequences soon may come home to roost.
Why did he do it? If no one really wanted 'war', why did Trump escalate and smash up all the
crockery? He has had an easy run (so far) towards re-election, so why play the always
unpredictable 'wild card' of a yet another Mid-East conflict?
Was it that he wanted to show 'no Benghazi'; no U.S. embassy siege 'on my watch' –
unlike Obama's handling of that situation? Was he persuaded that these assassinations would
play well to his constituency (Israeli and Evangelical)? Or was he offered this option baldly
by the Netanyahu faction in Washington? Maybe.
Some in Israel are worried about a three or four front war reaching Israel. Senior Israeli
officials recently have been speculating about the likelihood of regional conflict occurring
within the coming months. Israel's PM however, is fighting for his political life, and has
requested immunity from prosecution on three indictments – pleading that this was his
legal right, and that it was needed for him to "continue to lead Israel" for the sake of its
future. Effectively, Netanyahu has nothing to lose from escalating tensions with Iran -- but
much to gain.
Opposition Israeli political and military leaders have warned that the PM needs 'war' with
Iran -- effectively to underscore the country's 'need' for his continued leadership. And for
technical reasons in the Israeli parliament, his plea is unlikely to be settled before the
March general elections. Netanyahu thus may still have some time to wind up the case for his
continued tenure of the premiership.
One prime factor in the Israeli caution towards Iran rests not so much on the waywardness of
Netanyahu, but on the inconstancy of President Trump: Can it be guaranteed that the U.S. will
back Israel unreservedly -- were it to again to become enmeshed in a Mid-East war? The Israeli
and Gulf answer seemingly is 'no'. The import of this assessment is significant. Trump now is
seen by some in Israel – and by some insiders in Washington – as a threat to
Israel's future security vis à vis Iran. Was Trump aware of this? Was this act a gamble
to guarantee no slippage in that vital constituency in the lead up to the U.S. elections? We do
not know.
So we arrive at three final questions: How far will Iran absorb this new escalation? Will
Iran confine its retaliation to within Iraq? Or will the U.S. cross another 'red line' by
striking inside Iran itself, in any subsequent tit for tat?
Is it deliberate (or is it political autism) that makes Secretary Pompeo term all the Iraqi
Hash'd a-Sha'abi forces – whether or not part of official Iraqi forces – as
"Iran-led"? The term seems to be used as a laissez-passer to attack all the many Hash'd
a-Sha'abi units on the grounds that, being "Iran-linked", they therefore count as 'terrorist
forces'. This formulation gives rise to the false sequitur that all other Iraqis would somehow
approve of the killings. This would be laughable, if it were not so serious. The Hash'd forces
led the war against ISIS and are esteemed by the vast majority of Iraqis. And Soleimani was on
the ground at the front line, with those Iraqi forces.
These forces are not Iranian 'proxies'. They are Iraqi nationalists who share a common Shi'a
identity with their co-religionists in Iran, and across the region. They share a common
zeitgeist, they see politics similarly, but they are no puppets (we write from direct
experience).
But what this formulation does do is to invite a widening conflict: Many Iraqis will be
outraged by the U.S. attacks on fellow Iraqis and will revenge them. Pompeo (falsely) will then
blame Iran. Is that Pompeo's purpose: casus belli?
But where is the off-ramp? Iran will respond Is this affair simply set to escalate from
limited military exchanges and from thence, to escalate until what? We understand that this was
not addressed in Washington before the President's decision was made. There are no real U.S.
channels of communication (other than low level) with Iran; nor is there a plan for the next
days. Nor an obvious exit. Is Trump relying on gut instinct again?
"... "Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani – justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime disruption ..."
"... "The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's incompetence and corruption. ..."
"... "Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its leaders are weak. ..."
"... "Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone [in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo. ..."
"... In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)." Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's domestic legitimacy crisis. ..."
That was how the English protestant leader saw Catholic Spain in 1656. And it is very close
to how key orientations in the U.S. sees Iran today : The evil of religion – of
Shi'ism – subjecting (they believe) Iranians to repression, and to serfdom. In Europe,
this ideological struggle against the 'evil' of an imposed religious community (the Holy
'Roman' Axis, then) brought Europe to 'near-Armageddon', with the worst affected parts of
Europe seeing their population decimated by up to 60% during the conflict.
Is this faction in the U.S. now intent on invoking a new, near-Armageddon – on this
occasion, in the Middle East – in order, like Cromwell, to destroy the religious
'community known' as the Shi'a Resistance Axis, seen to stretch across the region, in order to
preserve the Jewish "peoples' desire for simple liberties"?
Of course, today's leaders of this ideological faction are no longer Puritan Protestants
(though the Christian Evangelicals are at one with Cromwell's 'Old Testament' literalism and
prophesy). No, its lead ideologues are the neo-conservatives, who have leveraged Karl Popper's
hugely influential The Open Society and its Enemies – a seminal treatise, which
to a large extent, has shaped how many Americans imagine their 'world'. Popper's was history
understood as a series of attempts, by the forces of reaction, to smother an open society with
the weapons of traditional religion and traditional culture:
Marx and Russia were cast as the archetypal reactionary threat to open societies. This
construct was taken up by Reagan, and re-connected to the Christian apocalyptic tradition
(hence the neo-conservative coalition with Evangelists yearning for
Redemption , and with liberal interventionists, yearning for a secular millenarianism). All
concur that Iran is reactionary, and furthermore, the posit, poses a grave threat to Israel's
self-proclaimed 'open society'.
The point here is that there is little point in arguing with these people that Iran poses no
threat to the U.S. (which is obvious) – for the 'project' is ideological through and
through. It has to be understood by these lights. Popper's purpose was to propose that only
liberal globalism would bring about a "growing measure of humane and enlightened life" and a
free and open society – period.
All this is but the outer Matryoshka – a suitable public rhetoric, a painted image
– that can be used to encase the secret, inner dolls. Eli Lake,
writing in Bloomberg , however, gives away the next doll:
"Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani –
justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's
advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime
disruption
"The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John
Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who
then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in
the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek
an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the
Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's
incompetence and corruption.
"Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions
taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a
U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them
upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser
writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its
leaders are weak.
"Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against
Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone
[in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a
message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This
could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top
deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo.
In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says
the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)."
Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's
domestic legitimacy crisis.
So there it is – David Wurmser is the 'doll' within: no military invasion, but just a
strategy to blow apart the Iranian Republic. Wurmser, Eli Lake reveals, has quietly been
advising Bolton and the Trump Administration all along. This was the neo-con, who in 1996,
compiled Coping with Crumbling States (which flowed on from the infamous Clean
Break policy strategy paper, written for Netanyahu, as a blueprint for destructing
Israel's enemies). Both these papers advocated the overthrow of the Secular-Arab nationalist
states – excoriated both as "crumbling relics of the 'evil' USSR" (using Popperian
language, of course) – and inherently hostile to Israel (the real message).
Well (
big surprise ), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to 'implode' and destroy
Iran. And his insight? "A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani"; split the Iranian
leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran's domestic
legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and pretend that
the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government.
Eli Lake seems, in his Bloomberg piece, to think that the Wurmser strategy has
worked. Really? The problem here is that narratives in Washington are so far apart from the
reality that exists on the ground – they simply do not touch at any point. Millions
attended Soleimani's cortege. His killing gave a renewed cohesion to Iran. Little more
than a dribble have protested.
Now let us unpack the next 'doll': Trump bought into Wurmser's 'play', albeit, with Trump
subsequently admitting that he did the assassination under
intense pressure from Republican Senators. Maybe he believed the patently absurd narrative
that Iranians would 'be dancing in the street' at Soleimani's killing. In any event, Trump is
not known, exactly, for admitting his mistakes. Rather, when something is portrayed as his
error, the President adopts the full 'salesman' persona: trying to convince his base that the
murder was no error, but a great strategic success – "They like us", Trump claimed of
protestors in Iran.
Tom Luongo has
observed : "Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week, and it's clear that
this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the
Republicans hold the Senate, simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first
place. It is [occurring because it offers] the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose
desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C.
Swamp." Ah, so here we arrive at another inner Matryoshka.
This is Luongo's point: Impeachment was the leverage to drive open a wedge between
Republican neo-conservatives in the Senate – and Trump. And now the Pelosi pressure on
Republican Senators is
escalating . The Establishment threw cold water over Trump's assertion of imminent
attack, as justification for murdering Soleimani, and Trump responds by painting himself
further into a corner on Iran – by going the full salesman 'monte'.
On the campaign trail, the President goes way over-the-top, calling Soleimani
a "son of a b -- -", who killed 'thousands' and furthermore was responsible for every U.S.
veteran who lost a limb in Iraq. And he then conjures up a fantasy picture of protesters
pouring onto the streets of Tehran, tearing down images of Soleimani, and screaming abuse at
the Iranian leadership.
It is nonsense. There are
no mass protests (there have been a few hundred students protesting at one main Tehran
University). But Trump has dived in pretty deep, now
threatening the Euro-Three signatories to the JCPOA, that unless they brand Iran as having
defaulted on JCPOA at the UNSC disputes mechanism, he will slap an eye-watering 25% tariff on
their automobiles.
So, how will Trump avoid plunging in even deeper to conflict if – and when –
Americans die in Iraq or Syria at the hands of militia – and when Pompeo or Lindsay
Graham will claim, baldly, 'Iran's proxies did it'? Sending emollient faxes to the Swiss to
pass to Tehran will not do. Tehran will not read them, or believe them, even if they did.
It all reeks of stage-management; a set up: a very clever stage-management, designed to end
with the U.S. crossing Iran's 'red line', by striking at a target within Iranian
territory. Here, finally, we arrive at the innermost doll.
Cui bono ? Some Senators who never liked Trump, and would prefer Pence as
President; the Democrats, who would prefer to run their candidate against Pence in November,
rather than Trump. But also, as someone who once worked with Wurmser observed tartly: when you
hear that name (Wurmser), immediately you think Netanyahu, his intimate associate.
Neoliberals are mostly neocons and neocons are mostly neoliberals. They can't understand the
importance of Brexit and the first real crack in neoliberal globalization facade.
She really was on the wrong side of history: a tragedy for a politician. EU crumles with the
end of her political career which was devoted to straightening EU and neoliberalism, as well as
serving as the USA vassal. While she was sucessful in extracting benefits for Germany
multinationals she increased Germany dependency (and subservience) on the USA. She also will be
remembered for her handing of Greece crisis.
Notable quotes:
"... The UK's departure will continue to hang over Brussels and Berlin -- the countdown for a trade deal will coincide with Germany's presidency of the EU in the second half of this year. ..."
"... Brexit is a "wake-up call" for the EU. Europe must, she says, respond by upping its game, becoming "attractive, innovative, creative, a good place for research and education . . . Competition can then be very productive." This is why the EU must continue to reform, completing the digital single market, progressing with banking union -- a plan to centralise the supervision and crisis management of European banks -- and advancing capital markets union to integrate Europe's fragmented equity and debt markets. ..."
"... its defence budget has increased by 40 per cent since 2015, which is "a huge step from Germany's perspective". ..."
"... Ms Merkel will doubtless be remembered for two bold moves that changed Germany -- ordering the closure of its nuclear power stations after the Fukushima disaster of 2011, and keeping the country's borders open at the height of the 2015 refugee crisis. That decision was her most controversial, and there are some in Germany who still won't forgive her for it. But officials say Germany survived the influx, and has integrated the more than 1m migrants who arrived in 2015-16. ..."
It's a grim winter's day in Berlin, and the political climate matches the weather.
Everywhere Angela Merkel looks there are storm clouds, as the values she has upheld all her
career come under sustained attack. At the start of a new decade, Europe's premier stateswoman
suddenly seems to be on the wrong side of history.Shortly, the UK will leave the EU. A volatile
US president is snubbing allies and going it alone in the Middle East. Vladimir Putin is
changing the Russian constitution and meddling in Libya and sub-Saharan Africa. Trade tensions
continue, threatening the open borders and globalised value chains that are the cornerstones of
Germany's prosperity.
Ms Merkel, a former physicist renowned for her imperturbable, rational manner is a
politician programmed for compromise. But today she faces an uncompromising world where liberal
principles have been shoved aside by the law of the jungle.
Her solution is to double down on Europe, Germany's anchor. "I see the European Union as our
life insurance," she says. "Germany is far too small to exert geopolitical influence on its
own, and that's why we need to make use of all the benefits of the single market."
Speaking in the chancellery's Small Cabinet Room, an imposing wood-panelled hall overlooking
Berlin's Tiergarten park, Ms Merkel does not come across as under pressure. She is calm, if
somewhat cagey, weighing every word and seldom displaying emotion.
But the message she conveys in a rare interview is nonetheless urgent. In the twilight of
her career -- her fourth and final term ends in 2021 -- Ms Merkel is determined to preserve and
defend multilateralism, a concept that in the age of Trump, Brexit and a resurgent Russia has
never seemed so embattled. This is the "firm conviction" that guides her: the pursuit of "the
best win-win situations . . . when partnerships of benefit to both
sides are put into practice worldwide". She admits that this idea is coming "under increasing
pressure". The system of supranational institutions like the EU and United Nations were, she
says, "essentially a lesson learnt from the second world war, and the preceding decades". Now,
with so few witnesses of the war still alive, the importance of that lesson is fading.
Of course President Donald Trump is right that bodies like the World Trade Organization and
the UN require reform. "There is no doubt whatsoever about any of that," she says. "But I do
not call the world's multilateral structure into question. "Germany has been the great
beneficiary of Nato, an enlarged EU and globalisation. Free trade has opened up vast new
markets for its world-class cars, machines and chemicals. Sheltered under the US nuclear
umbrella, Germany has barely spared a thought for its own security. But the rise of "Me First"
nationalism threatens to leave it economically and politically unmoored. In this sense, Europe
is existential for German interests, as well as its identity.
Ms Merkel therefore wants to strengthen the EU -- an institution that she, perhaps more than
any other living politician, has come to personify. She steered Europe through the eurozone
debt crisis, albeit somewhat tardily: she held Europe together as it imposed sanctions on
Russia over the annexation of Crimea; she maintained unity in response to the trauma of
Brexit.
The UK's departure will continue to hang over Brussels and Berlin -- the countdown for a
trade deal will coincide with Germany's presidency of the EU in the second half of this
year. Berlin worries a post-Brexit UK that reserves the right to diverge from EU rules on
goods, workers' rights, taxes and environmental standards could create a serious economic
competitor on its doorstep. But Ms Merkel remains a cautious optimist. Brexit is a "wake-up
call" for the EU. Europe must, she says, respond by upping its game, becoming "attractive,
innovative, creative, a good place for research and
education . . . Competition can then be very productive." This is
why the EU must continue to reform, completing the digital single market, progressing with
banking union -- a plan to centralise the supervision and crisis management of European banks
-- and advancing capital markets union to integrate Europe's fragmented equity and debt
markets.
In what sounds like a new European industrial policy, Ms Merkel also says the EU should
identify the technological capabilities it lacks and move fast to fill in the gaps. "I believe
that chips should be manufactured in the European Union, that Europe should have its own
hyperscalers and that it should be possible to produce battery cells," she says. It must also
have the confidence to set the new global digital standards. She cites the example of the
General Data Protection Regulation, which supporters see as a gold standard for privacy and
proof that the EU can become a rulemaker, rather than a rule taker, when it comes to the
digital economy. Europe can offer an alternative to the US and Chinese approach to data. "I
firmly believe that personal data does not belong to the state or to companies," she says. "It
must be ensured that the individual has sovereignty over their own data and can decide with
whom and for what purpose they share it."
The continent's scale and diversity also make it hard to reach a consensus on reform. Europe
is deeply split: the migration crisis of 2015 opened up a chasm between the liberal west and
countries like Viktor Orban's Hungary which has not healed. Even close allies like Germany and
France have occasionally locked horns: Berlin's cool response to Emmanuel Macron's reform
initiatives back in 2017 triggered anger in Paris, while the French president's unilateral
overture to Mr Putin last year provoked irritation in Berlin. And when it comes to reform of
the eurozone, divisions still exist between fiscally challenged southern Europeans and the
fiscally orthodox new Hanseatic League of northern countries.
Ms Merkel remains to a degree hostage to German public opinion. Germany, she admits, is
still "slightly hesitant" on banking union, "because our principle is that everyone first needs
to reduce the risks in their own country today before we can mutualise the risks". And capital
markets union might require member states to seek closer alignment on things like insolvency
law. These divisions pale in comparison to the gulf between Europe and the US under president
Donald Trump. Germany has become the administration's favourite punching bag, lambasted for its
relatively low defence spending, big current account surplus and imports of Russian gas. German
business dreads Mr Trump making good on his threat to impose tariffs on European cars.
It is painful for Ms Merkel, whose career took off after unification. In an interview last
year she described how, while coming of age in communist East Germany, she yearned to make a
classic American road trip: "See the Rocky Mountains, drive around and listen to Bruce
Springsteen -- that was my dream," she told Der Spiegel.
The poor chemistry between Ms Merkel and Mr Trump has been widely reported. But are the
latest tensions in the German-US relationship just personal -- or is there more to it? "I think
it has structural causes," she says. For years now, Europe and Germany have been slipping down
the US's list of priorities.
"There's been a shift," she says. "President Obama already spoke about the Asian century, as
seen from the US perspective. This also means that Europe is no longer, so to say, at the
centre of world events."She adds: "The United States' focus on Europe is declining -- that will
be the case under any president."The answer? "We in Europe, and especially in Germany, need to
take on more responsibility."
Germany has vowed to meet the Nato target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence by the
start of the 2030s. Ms Merkel admits that for those alliance members which have already reached
the 2 per cent goal, "naturally this is not enough". But there's no denying Germany has made
substantial progress on the issue: its defence budget has increased by 40 per cent since
2015, which is "a huge step from Germany's perspective".
Ms Merkel insists the transatlantic relationship "remains crucial for me, particularly as
regards fundamental questions concerning values and interests in the world". Yet Europe should
also develop its own military capability. There may be regions outside Nato's primary focus
where "Europe must -- if necessary -- be prepared to get involved. I see Africa as one
example," she says.
Defence is hardly the sole bone of contention with the US. Trade is a constant irritation.
Berlin watched with alarm as the US and China descended into a bitter trade war in 2018: it
still fears becoming collateral damage.
"Can the European Union come under pressure between America and China? That can happen, but
we can also try to prevent it. "Germany has few illusions about China. German officials and
businesspeople are just as incensed as their US counterparts by China's theft of intellectual
property, its unfair investment practices, state-sponsored cyber-hacking and human rights
abuses in regions like Xinjiang.
Once seen as a strategic partner, China is increasingly viewed in Berlin as a systemic
rival. But Berlin has no intention of emulating the US policy of "decoupling" -- cutting its
diplomatic, commercial and financial ties with China. Instead, Ms Merkel has staunchly defended
Berlin's close relationship with Beijing. She says she would "advise against regarding China as
a threat simply because it is economically successful".
"As was the case in Germany, [China's] rise is largely based on hard work, creativity and
technical skills," she says. Of course there is a need to "ensure that trade relations are
fair". China's economic strength and geopolitical ambitions mean it is a rival to the US and
Europe. But the question is: "Do we in Germany and Europe want to dismantle all interconnected
global supply chains . . . because of this economic competition?"
She adds: "In my opinion, complete isolation from China cannot be the answer."Her plea for
dialogue and co-operation has set her on a collision course with some in her own party.
China hawks in her Christian Democratic Union share US mistrust of Huawei, the Chinese
telecoms equipment group, fearing it could be used by Beijing to conduct cyber espionage or
sabotage. Ms Merkel has pursued a more conciliatory line. Germany should tighten its security
requirements towards all telecoms providers and diversify suppliers "so that we never make
ourselves dependent on one firm" in 5G. But "I think it is wrong to simply exclude someone per
se," she says.
The rise of China has triggered concern over Germany's future competitiveness. And that
economic "angst" finds echoes in the febrile politics of Ms Merkel's fourth term. Her "grand
coalition" with the Social Democrats is wracked by squabbling. The populist Alternative for
Germany is now established in all 16 of the country's regional parliaments. A battle has broken
out for the post-Merkel succession, with a crop of CDU heavy-hitters auditioning for the top
job.
Many in the political elite worry about waning international influence in the final months
of the Merkel era.While she remains one of the country's most popular politicians, Germans are
asking what her legacy will be. For many of her predecessors, that question is easy to answer:
Konrad Adenauer anchored postwar Germany in the west; Willy Brandt ushered in detente with the
Soviet Union; Helmut Kohl was the architect of German reunification. So how will Ms Merkel be
remembered?
She brushes away the question. "I don't think about my role in history -- I do my job." But
what about critics who say the Merkel era was mere durchwurschteln -- muddling through? That
word, she says, in a rare flash of irritation, "isn't part of my vocabulary". Despite her
reputation for gradualism and caution, Ms Merkel will doubtless be remembered for two bold
moves that changed Germany -- ordering the closure of its nuclear power stations after the
Fukushima disaster of 2011, and keeping the country's borders open at the height of the 2015
refugee crisis. That decision was her most controversial, and there are some in Germany who
still won't forgive her for it. But officials say Germany survived the influx, and has
integrated the more than 1m migrants who arrived in 2015-16.
She prefers to single out less visible changes. Germany is much more engaged in the world:
just look, she says, at the Bundeswehr missions in Africa and Afghanistan. During the Kohl era,
even the idea of dispatching a ship to the Adriatic to observe the war in Yugoslavia was
controversial. She also mentions efforts to end the war in Ukraine, its role in the Iran
nuclear deal, its assumption of ever more "diplomatic, and increasingly also military
responsibility". "It may become more in future, but we are certainly on the right path," she
says.
The Merkel era has been defined by crisis but thanks to her stewardship most Germans have
rarely had it so good. The problem is the world expects even more of a powerful, prosperous
Germany and its next chancellor.Letter in response to this article:At last, I understand
Brexit's real purpose / From John Beadsmoore, Great Wilbraham, Cambs, UK
"... For starters, don't be surprised if his "fortification" of ISIS means Donald Trump can't pull out of Syria after all. Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil. ..."
"... There's the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to get in there and sort things out. Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in future. It's much less messy that way. ..."
For starters, don't be surprised if his "fortification" of ISIS means Donald Trump can't
pull out of Syria after all. Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking
their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil.
There's the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to
get in there and sort things out. Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in
future. It's much less messy that way.
Or, hell, maybe we'll return to the hits of the 90s and early 2000s, and Islamic jihadists
will get back to work in Chechnya.
Whatever happens, ISIS are back baby. And that means that some way, somehow, Mr al-Salbi is
about to make the foreign policy goals of the United States much easier.
That's what Goldsteins are for.
harry law ,
.... The US have used Islamic state against both Syria and Iraq, [the enemy of my enemy is my
friend].
There can be no doubt that the US are going to use Islamic state to disrupt Iraq, just as
they had no qualms about watching [from satellites and spotter aircraft] Islamic state travel
100's of kilometres from Syria to Northern Iraq [Mosul] across the desert, whipping up tons
of dust in their Toyota jeeps to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Also as they watched
on with equanimity when the Islamic state transported thousands of tanker loads of oil from
Syria to Turkey, that is until the Russians bombed those convoys, the US must think everyone
is as stupid as they are. If the Iraqis don't drive the US out using all means including
violence, they deserve to be slaves.
"Sergey Lavrov earlier called the US-led coalition's refusal to combat al-Nusra
"absolutely unacceptable."
I think Paul is wrong. Neo-fascist movements are based on far right party. Trump does not
have its own party. He has a faction with the Republican Party, and this faction is not even a
majority.
Notable quotes:
"... an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing, democratically elected government, whether Léon Blum's or Barack Obama's, is in league with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and "success." ..."
"... The idea that it can be bounded in by honest conservatives in a Cabinet or restrained by normal constitutional limits is, to put it mildly, unsupported by history ..."
"... Paul Street's latest book is They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014) ..."
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
– Maya Angelou
"It's amazing," fellow CounterPuncher Eric Draitser recently wrote me, "that people
ever thought a Trump administration would be something other than this."
"This" is the demented neofascistic Trump-Pence regime, which openly violates basic
constitutional norms and rules while conducting itself in barefacedly racist, sexist, and
eco-cidal ways.
The long record of this presidency's transgressions now includes the open dog-wagging
assassination – on brazenly false pretexts – of a foreign military commander atop a
state (Iran) with which the United States is not at war and without the permission of a
government (Iraq) on whose soil the monumental war crime took place.
... ... ...
Another person likely unsurprised by Trump's horrifying presidency is New
Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik. "Trump," Gopnik wrote in July of 2016, summarizing elementary
facts of Trump' life: "is unstable, a liar, narcissistic, contemptuous of the basic norms of
political life, and deeply embedded among the most paranoid and irrational of conspiracy
theorists. There may indeed be a pathos to his followers' dreams of some populist rescue for
their plights. But he did not come to political attention as a 'populist'; he came to politics as
a racist, a proponent of birtherism." As Gopnik had explained two months before, the correct
description of Trump needed to include the world "fascist" in one way or another:
"There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a
hyphen, and the word "fascist." The sum may be crypto-fascist, neo-fascist, latent fascist,
proto-fascist, or American-variety fascist -- one of that kind, all the same. Future political
scientists will analyze (let us hope in amused retrospect, rather than in exile in New Zealand
or Alberta) the precise elements of Poujadisme, Peronism and Huck Finn's Pap that compound in
Trump's 'ideology.' But his personality and his program belong exclusively to the same dark
strain of modern politics: an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a
contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing,
democratically elected government, whether Léon Blum's or Barack Obama's, is in league
with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical
militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally
hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism
entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and "success." It is always alike, and always
leads inexorably to the same place: failure, met not by self-correction but by an inflation of
the original program of grievances, and so then on to catastrophe. The idea that it can be
bounded in by honest conservatives in a Cabinet or restrained by normal constitutional limits
is, to put it mildly, unsupported by history (emphasis liberally added) ." [Adam
Gopnik, "Going There With Donald Trump," The New Yorker , May 11, 2016].
But the article was flimsy even by Russiagate standards, and so certain questions inevitably
arise. What was it really about? Who's behind it? Who's the real target?
Here's a quick answer. It was about boosting Joe Biden, and its real target was his chief
rival, Bernie Sanders. And poor, inept Bernie walked straight into the trap.
The article was flimsy because rather than saying straight out that Russian intelligence
hacked Burisma, the company notorious for hiring Biden's son, Hunter, for $50,000 a month job,
reporters Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Rosenberg had to rely on unnamed "security experts" to
say it for them. While suggesting that the hackers were looking for dirt, they didn't quite say
that as well. Instead, they admitted that "it is not yet clear what the hackers found, or
precisely what they were searching for."
So we have no idea what they were up to, if anything at all. But the Times then quoted
"experts" to the effect that "the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians
could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens – the same kind of
information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the
Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment." Since Trump and
the Russians are seeking the same information, they must be in cahoots, which is what Democrats
have been saying from the moment Trump took office. Given the lack of evidence, this was
meaningless as well.
But then came the kicker: two full paragraphs in which a Biden campaign spokesman was
permitted to expound on the notion that the Russians hacked Burisma because Biden is the
candidate that they and Trump fear the most.
"Donald Trump tried to coerce Ukraine into lying about Joe Biden and a major bipartisan,
international anti-corruption victory because he recognized that he can't beat the vice
president," the spokesman, Andrew Bates, said. "Now we know that Vladimir Putin also sees Joe
Biden as a threat. Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign
interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our
elections."
If Biden is the number-one threat, then Sanders is not, presumably because the Times sees
him as soft on Moscow. If so, it means that he could be in for the same neo-McCarthyism that
antiwar candidate Tulsi Gabbard encountered last October when Hillary Clinton blasted her as
"the favorite of the Russians." Gabbard had the good sense to
blast her right back.
"Thank you @Hillary Clinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and
personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally
come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a
concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know
– it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and
war machine ."
If only Sanders did the same. But instead he put out a statement filled with the usual
anti-Russian clichés:
"The 2020 election is likely to be the most consequential election in modern American
history, and I am alarmed by new reports that Russia recently hacked into the Ukrainian gas
company at the center of the impeachment trial, as well as Russia's plans to once again meddle
in our elections and in our democracy. After our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that
Russia interfered in the 2016 election, including with thousands of paid ads on Facebook, the
New York Times now reports that Russia likely represents the biggest threat of election meddle
in 2020, including through disinformation campaigns, promoting hatred, hacking into voting
systems, and by exploiting the political divisions sewn [sic] by Donald Trump ."
And so on for another 250 words. Not only did the statement put him in bed with the
intelligence agencies, but it makes him party to the big lie that the Kremlin was responsible
for putting Trump over the top in 2016.
Let's get one thing straight. Yes, Russian intelligence may have hacked the Democratic
National Committee. But cybersecurity was so lax that others may have been rummaging about as
well. (CrowdStrike, the company called in to investigate the hack, says it found not one but
two cyber-intruders.) Notwithstanding the Mueller report, all the available evidence
indicates
that Russia did not then pass along thousands of DNC emails that Wikileaks published in July
2016. (Julian Assange's statement six months later that "our source
is not the Russian government and it is not a state party" remains uncontroverted.) Similarly,
there's no evidence that the Kremlin had anything to do with the $45,000 worth of Facebook ads
purchased by a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency – Robert
Mueller's 2018 indictment of the IRA was completely silent
on the subject of a Kremlin connection – and no evidence that the ads, which were
politically all over the map, had a remotely significant impact on the 2016 election.
All the rest is a classic CIA disinformation campaign aimed at drumming up anti-Russian
hysteria and delegitimizing anyone who fails to go along. And now Bernie Sanders is trying to
cover his derrière by hopping on board.
It won't work. Sanders will find himself having to take one loyalty oath after another as
the anti-Russia campaign flares anew. But it will never be enough, and he'll only wind up
looking tired and weak. Voters will opt for the supposedly more formidable Biden, who will end
up as a bug splat on the windshield of Donald Trump's speeding election campaign. With
impeachment no longer an issue, he'll be free to behave as dictatorially as he wishes as he
settles into his second term.
After inveighing against billionaire's wars, he'll find himself ensnared by the same
billionaire war machine. The trouble with Sanders is that he thinks he can win by playing by
the rules. But he can't because the rules are stacked against him. He'd know that if his
outlook was more radical. His problem is not that he's too much of a socialist. Rather, it's
that he's not enough.
Its chosen candidates are: Elizabeth Warren, the Republican-turned-progressive who for years posed as a Native American to game
America's system of affirmative action - and Amy Klobuchar, the midwestern senator from the great state of Minneapolis with a reputation
for being an unhinged dragon-lady boss.
That the NYT selected the two remaining women among the top tier of contenders is hardly a surprise: This is, after all, the same
newspaper that kicked off #MeToo by dropping the first expose about Harvey Weinstein's history of abusing, harassing and assaulting
women just days before the New Yorker followed up with the first piece from Ronan Farrow.
...After all, if the editors went ahead with their true No. 1 choice, Klobuchar, a candidate who has very little chance of actually
capturing the nomination, they would look foolish.
Warren is a much better candidate than Biden is in my view.
Warren seems to get into trouble sometimes for all kinds of reasons like most people do, but the problems are usually trivial,
more silly than dangerous. There is tendency in her to stick to her guns even when she does not know what she is doing.
When i run into something unexpected or something that seems to be something i don't understand, i usually backtrack and look
at the problem from some distance to see what happened and why before trying to correct or fix the problem, rather than just doing
something.
Its not a perfect plan, but it seems to work most of the time.
NYT remains a joke. Their endorsement is straight up virtue-signalling.
Here's some reality: Warren's latest antics have cemented her image as dishonest and high-strung. Knoblocker has no charisma
and remains practically unknown.
I've personally sat down and talked with Klobuchar. Not a lot of depth of intelligence in her, that's for sure, easily manipulated
by lobbyists. Warren, at least, knows what the problem is, although she might have swallowed the proverbial Democratic party "kool
aid".
Warren is the deep state establishment pick. If you must vote Dem, pick someone that isn't, or one the establishment seems
to work against. Better yet, vote Trump, safe bet on gun rights, freedoms.
American interests are to protect oil companies, and fight the inevtible douche (british
definition) American's will feel once the dollar is deflated. In a lesser way, wars and
interventions are indeed to protect americans – from a massive, sudden, econimic
depression of the likes the world has never seen. China and the rest of the world no American
empire is going to retract. I only hope we have a sensible leader who can parlay Ameria's
role in the world to become a partner in the BRI – ion some way.
The Asia Pivot was never destined to be anything but bluster. Asia is lost, the Asian
nations will satellite around China. Southeast Asia is even more lost, Cambodia mioght as
well fly the Chinese flag, Thailand will pretend, as it always has, to never have been
colonized. Well, Thailand was/is a dog of a nation that's laid down on its back for every
nation advancing on it's border.
Myanmar just signed on to the BRI and has given China its derired dams. It's already full
of Chinese. The only thing holding China back in Myanmar is the amount of money it has to
give spoon to the military, generals, cronies,etc. China already owns almost all of Manadaly
and thousands of square milies surrounding Mandalay. It has gas and oil fields in a warm
water where those pesky Bengali Jihadis once tried to dominate.
https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/myanmar-china-sign-dozens-deals-bri-projects-cooperation-xis-visit.html
So, it's no wonder Iraq is the last stop of the retreat from the Middle East. The Chinese
are moving forward with only the Saudis standing in the way. And who the hell really likes
the House of Saud? They're doomed soon, and good riddence. The Iraqis want American out, and
one day American will leave.
"During the Iran-Iraq war Iraq's Saddam Hussein ordered the use of chemical weapons
against Iranian front lines and cities. Ten thousand Iranians died of those and many more
were wounded by them"
Nope, in fact the estimate body count is much higher:
"According to a 2002 article in the Star-Ledger, 20,000 Iranian combatants and combat
medics were killed on the spot by nerve gas." (this was only a part, there were also many
civilians killed)
"In a declassified 1991 report, the CIA estimated that Iran had suffered more than 50,000
casualties from Iraq's use of several chemical weapons,[10] though current estimates are more
than 100,000"
"Reporter Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post stated that Reagan's administration was
well aware that the materials sold to Iraq would be used to manufacture chemical weapons for
use in the war against Iran"
"According to Reagan's foreign policy, every attempt to save Iraq was necessary and
legal.[4]"
All of this is in the wikipedia, hardly a "hardcore iranian trolls" web:
Some people, in the US, still do not understand why Iranian people do not "love"
America...If you had around 100.000 casualties by nerve gas that was sold by the US and his
poodles (forget other western countries, you know who is "the boss" in the game) full aligned
with Iraq, and then you attack Iran with sanctions and threats again and again, and at the
peak of hypocrisy in 2003 USA invaded Iraq "to counter the threat of WMD" (sold by the
US)...What do you think of the US if you are an Iranian were living all your live under the
"Damocles sword" of the threats and sactions of the Empire?
@ Posted by: Laguerre | Jan 20 2020 21:48 utc | 38
Let me see if I understand your point:
First US give permissions in September 1980 (if not encouraged) to Saddam to invade Iran,
to finish the new Islamic regime that was seen as an enemy by Washington; and then when
Iranians, at a huge costs, retaliates and turn the tide, then the US thought it was justified
to supply Iraq with the chemicals (the "dual-use" technology) to make huge amounts of nerve
gases and support the use against Iranian soldiers (with some unavoidable thousands of
"collateral damages"), and also helping them with intelligence, satellite imagery and
etc...Is that your point?
Do you think US would have permitted Iraq attacks Iran if the Shah was governing Iran? Do
you think all the US did is justified? Do you think the people of Iran has no reasons for not
"loving" America?
Looks like Trump engaged his chances for reelection by killing Soleimani: he lost part of military votes and all anti-war-republican
votes in one broad stroke. The core voters will remain but the question is whether there are enough of them. Please remember that part
of sunders supports also voted for Trump. This will never happen again. Add to this desgrunted famers and Trump chances are considerably
lower then in 2016, when his victory was a big surprise.
Due to impeachment his chances will increase, as impeachment definitely mobilize his base and he might even manage to
get back some anti-war republican s and independents, but still his situation is rather complex. The impartment charged produced
by the Schiff-Pelosi gang are fake and people understand that. The real impeachment ground -- killing high level Iran military
officer on diplomatic mission as well as Douma false flag bombing of Syrian objects -- exists, but Dems are too complicit to use it.
"... Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between Germany's behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and externally. ..."
"... The argument is correct. (Although the mafia label bespeaks a limited frame of reference and it's inappropriate in any event -- crime families do not have the reach or power of state assassination squads.) ..."
"... The truth of it is Trump murdered General Soleimani because the general was very effective in defeating ISIS - the U.S. created and funded - terrorists in Syria and Iraq. The neocons were none too pleased. ..."
"... In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as gangsternomics in directing the course of Iraq's future economic and political development.[/] ..."
"... Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S. It is the fulcrum now on which the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests. The entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S. ..."
"... Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in Syria cannot be hidden behind the false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/] ..."
"... Gangsternomics seems a good term for Trump's vision of US world power. Trump is pragmatic or realist in that he knows there is no court or authority to hold the US to account. ..."
"... This demonstrates that US attacks in Iraq over the last 30-40 years was mostly about the control (including transportation routes) and than profiting from its oil and gas reserves. ..."
"... A secondary reason is to put troop on the border with Iran to further destabilize it via state terrorism to overthrow the government and then take its oil and gas too. ..."
"... The Kurdish President of Iraq has stated that "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and preserve civil peace, I apologize for not naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued. "I am ready to submit my resignation to parliament." ..."
"... "Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demanded that Iraqis stage a "million-man march" against the continued US military presence in the country" ..."
"... I believe Trump needs to be thought of as a CEO brought in to pull a company back from the edge of bankruptcy. I think that is the way he sees himself, and as I have put in previous comments, there are no rules. ..."
"... Basically, the value of the dollar that is low enough to re-industrialize America is far below the tipping point that would trigger a global sell-off of dollars. How could that mass sell-off be prevented? Threatening to nuke any country whose central bank sells their dollar reserves? ..."
"... the Gangsternomics have been going on for some time as chronicled in 'Shock Doctrine' and 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman'. ..."
"... the assassination plans and techniques by the exceptionalists... just ask the Cuban aides of Fidel Castro. Most of them alive today. They have a a helluva expertise on this business having foiled them for over 45 years. Against all odds cause at 90 miles from the enemy, the logistics were vastly against the cubans. ..."
Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between Germany's behaviour under Hitler
and the current behaviour of the US both internally and externally. Is it just me, or have other's noted the similarity of
Pompeo to Herman Goering in looks and behaviour?
"This is not a Warning, it is a Threat," Trump declared in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon, adding that Iran will "pay a very
BIG PRICE" for the embassy siege earlier in the day."
They sure did. So who is next? Yesterday Trump warned the supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameni:
US President Donald Trump has warned the supreme leader of Iran to watch his language, following a heated sermon in which Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei slammed American leaders as "clowns."
Leading a prayer in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei boasted that
Iran had the "spirit to slap an arrogant, aggressive global power" in its retaliation to the assassination of Quds Force commander
Qassem Soleimani, which he said struck a "serious blow" to Washington's "dignity" – triggering a response from the US president.
"The so-called 'Supreme Leader' of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United
States and Europe," Trump tweeted. "Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with
his words!"
In his sermon, Khamenei blasted "American clowns," who he said "lie in utter viciousness that they stand with the Iranian
people," referring to recent comments by Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Lets face it, assassinations are not a new thing. It became more organized with Lord Palmerstons gangs of thugs in the mid 19th
century (one of which took out Lincoln) . Since the end of WWII the global mafia jumped across the pond and assassinations have
been covert actions arranged by the CIA , with operations having a high degree of plausible deniability. But most higher ups had
a pretty good idea who was behind it . Trumps just continued this but like Bush and Obama have made clear its their right to do
so against terrorists . Of course the definition of terrorist has become rather broad. Trump recently said he authorized the hit
because he said bad things about America. Maybe saying bad things about Trump can get you labelled the same. Watch out for those
drones barflies.
So basically the main change is they no longer care about plausible deniability . They are proud to admit it. And nobody seems
to care enough to express any outrage. Name any countries leader who has except in muted terms. Europe, Russia, China, etc everyone
quiet as a mouse. China so outraged they signed a trade deal giving them nothing. UN? Might as well move it to Cuba , Iran or
Venezuela for all the clout it has.
So you know, maybe the deterrence is working. Terrorism works both ways. The world seems terrorized and hardly anyone in the
US dares criticize Trumps action without saying the general was evil and deserved it. Its not just drones they fear as financial
terrorism (sanctions, denied access to USD) works quite well also (except in Irans case).
The argument is correct. (Although the mafia label bespeaks a limited frame of reference and it's inappropriate in any
event -- crime families do not have the reach or power of state assassination squads.)
Ferencz does not have the moral standing to make the argument. It's like granting Ted Bundy credibility for criticizing
police brutality.
The truth of it is Trump murdered General Soleimani because the general was very effective in defeating ISIS - the U.S. created
and funded - terrorists in Syria and Iraq. The neocons were none too pleased.
Release Jan.18 2020 21st centurywire audio Interview with Dr. Mohammad Marandi, Tehran University
@ ChasMark 7 - not an ounce of integrity! Trump or Ferencz?
How is it I posted days ago that link to Ferencz's letter to New York Times and not a pips. Are you defending Trump's war crimes
as against bringing the Nazis to justice?
How about the U.S. waterboarding and torturing Muslims at Gitmo? 19 years on with NO TRIALS!!! That's OK, right?
As far as b's premise goes, he's proven it IMO. Looks like the CIA made the next move in Lebanon. IMO, Asia plus Russia & Belarus
hold the geoeconomic and geopolitical deterrence cards. The Financial Parasite continues hollowing out what remains of US industry
and retail helped along by Trump's Trade War. I presented the fundamental economic info and arguments on the prior threads, so
I don't have anything to add.
the price of fake freedom is remaining ever vigilant to prevent peace breaking out. trump's as much a warmonger as any of them
(which is to say impeachment won't make a bit of difference).
[Before] the US assassination of Soleimani, there were numerous back-channel efforts for détente in the costly wars that
have raged across the region since the US-instigated Arab Spring between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran and Iraq. Russia and
China have both in different ways been playing a key role in changing the geopolitical tensions. At this juncture the credibility
of Washington as any honest partner is effectively zero if not minus.
[.] The US president just tweeted his support for renewed anti-government Iran protests, in Farsi. We are clearly in for
some very nasty trouble in the Middle East as Washington tries to deal with the unintended consequences of its recent Middle
East actions.[.]
Run home as fast as you can. In this election year, an observation; 10% of companies are losing money but thanks to the Feds,
the Markets are making ATH ...all time highs. On main street Joe and Jane are in a well of hurt "it's the economy, stupid."
There is nothing ambiguous about Pompeo's statement. It is evidence of a profound psychotic break. It is a megalomaniac delusion
of godlike power, a deterance not attainable on a human scale. "In all cases, we have to do this."
The masters of the universe will kill those who do not comply. The projection of their psychic power to intimidate the world
goes well beyond Iraq and Iran, brushing aside all the little insubstantial nations that are constantly underfoot. Russia and
China are to take heed now, it is they too who must sleep with one eye open. The deterrence necessary to keep us all safe means
to go ahead and challenge those islands China built in the South China Sea.
The smiling villains do not accept that Crimea is part of Russia. Pompeo compares Soleimani to bin Laden. There are so many
departures from reality in the speech amidst all the levity that it seems like someone has opened the doors of the Asylum.
In the Orwellian value system of America, Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really NewSpeak for America's brazen war crimes,
wars of aggression, and shredding of international law.
America is a mafia nation masquerading as a democracy.
And Donald Trump is a two-bit New York mafioso don in charge of this America Mafia state.
Trump recounts minute by minute details of Soleimani assassination at a fundraiser held at his Florida resort. Cause that's what
normal people do; brag about murdering someone. I'll bet his fat cat Zionist friends emptied their coffers. SICK.
ak74 @62: Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really NewSpeak ...
Exactly. And we might add:
"America First" means America is the Empire's Fist;
"Stand with the people of " is 'New World Order' psyop;
"Economic sanctions" is the economic part of hybrid warfare;
"War on terror" is the war on ALL enemies of the empire via terrorist destabilization;
"Russiagate" is McCarthyist war on dissent;
"Trump" is the latest dear leader whose flaws are blessings and whose 'gut instinct' is God's will. We know this
because his fake enemies (like the Democrats, "fake news", and ISIS) always fail when they confront him.
!!
tjfxh , Jan 19 2020 3:54 utc |
76 Why does anyone gives either the president or US officials credence regarding what they say, especially Secretary Pompeo,
not to mention POTUS? Taking Pompeo at this word and responding to it strikes me as a waste of time. These people are never going
to say publicly what they are up to, which is world domination. Nor is it their own ideal. This has been the policy of the US
elite at least since WWII, which was simply a transfer of the seat of power from London to Washington as the British Empire morphed
into the Anglo-American Empire. Global domination through sea power was British policy for centuries and the US just recently
joining the game, especially when the game expanded to air power as well. Arguably, this goes back to the end of WWI, if not the
Spanish-American war that embarked the US on empire.
Deterrence, I guess is the politically correct term for what Trump is doing. He sees that the Dollar hegemonic empire was crumbling
same as most who don't rely on MSM for their news. Trump believes US can hold its position in the world through pure military
power, or the threat of military power.
He wants to regain what he calls importance from early 90s when US was sole undisputed superpower. Iran though, he believes
is a blot on USA's past that needs erasing. Throughout the election campaign, Trump's big thing was rebuilding US military. He
believes this will restore US power in the world. Ruling through the world fear rather than soft power and blackmail.
The basis of the American Empire and its parasitic economy and Way of Life(TM) itself are premised on what should be called America's
Dollar Dictatorship.
Because of the US Dollar, America is able to wage economic siege warfare (aka economic sanctions) on multiple nations around
the planet--all in order to impose the Land of the Free's imperial dictates on them.
This is American global gangsterism in everything but name--and disguised behind the founding American deceptions of "Freedom
and Democracy."
The vast majority Americans--including some fake "alternative media" shills--will attempt to spindoctor this issue by avoiding
such blunt description of this system.
Instead, they prefer to employ Orwellian euphemisms about the "US PetroDollar" or the "US Dollar Reserve Currency" or how America's
superpower status is dependent on this dollar syistem.
But former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accurately calls out this system for what it is: America's global dictatorship
of the Dollar.
This is another reason why America has such hatred for Iran:
Tom Luongo, who frequently cites b, has coined a new word for Trump's and his minions tactics. Tom asks:
Does Gangsternomics Meet its End in the Iraqi Desert?
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions hung in the air. The big one was,
in my mind, "Why now?"
There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
who tried to let the world know through official (and unofficial) channels of the extent of the pressure he was under by the
U.S.
In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as gangsternomics in directing the course
of Iraq's future economic and political development.[/]
Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S. It is the fulcrum now on which
the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests. The entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S.
And this started with Russia moving into Syria in 2015 successfully. We are downstream of this as it has blown open the
playbook and revealed it for how ugly it is.
Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in Syria cannot be hidden behind the
false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/]
What began in Syria with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and China standing up together and saying, "No," continues today in Iraq.
To this point Iran has been the major actor. Tomorrow it will be Russia, China and India.
And that is what is ultimately at stake here, the ability of the U.S. to employ gangsternomics in the Middle East and make
it stick.[.]
By the time Trump is done threatening people over S-400's and pipelines the entire world will be happy to trade in yuan
and/or rubles rather than dollars.[.]
Thanks. Gangsternomics seems a good term for Trump's vision of US world power. Trump is pragmatic or realist in that he
knows there is no court or authority to hold the US to account.
As to US holding power purely through military power, that can only happen long term if he gets hold of a good chunk of the
worlds energy reserves (as in Persian gulf and Venezuela oil). If he doesn't achieve that, then the US goes down. Iran needs to
ensure it stays under Russia's nuclear umbrella as there are no rules.
Sickening series of Trump interviews and speeches demanding that Iraq pay America and its allies over a trillion dollars for liberating
Iraq (time stamp 8:20 to 12:00).
This demonstrates that US attacks in Iraq over the last 30-40 years was mostly about the control (including transportation
routes) and than profiting from its oil and gas reserves.
A secondary reason is to put troop on the border with Iran to further destabilize it via state terrorism to overthrow the
government and then take its oil and gas too.
It will get interesting when a pro Iranian new Prime minister takes office and China offers Iraq a line of credit equivalent
to the funds that would be frozen in Western bank accounts if Iraq actually demands the troops to leave.
"The Iran-linked Binaa parliamentary voting bloc has nominated Asaad al-Edani, a former minister and governor of oil-rich Basra
province. Binaa's bloc is mostly made up of the Fatah party led by militia leader turned politician Hadi al-Ameri, who is close
to Tehran."
The Kurdish President of Iraq has stated that "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and preserve civil peace, I apologize
for not naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued. "I am ready to submit my resignation to parliament."
Currently, the rival Sairoon bloc, headed by populist Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, said it would not participate in the process
of nominating a new premier."
However, "Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr demanded that Iraqis stage a "million-man march" against the continued US military
presence in the country"
I close with a visionary French rock opera Starmania "story of an alternate reality where a fascist millionaire (read Trump)
famous for building skyscrapers is running for president on an anti-immigration policy, and where the poor are getting more and
more desperate for their voices to be heard."
2. Lebensraum was indeed a specific war aim of Hitler;
3. Under the Shah Anglo-American (not mention Dutch, French and other) interests skimmed all Iranian energy resources, kept the
USSR under pressure on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and provided a key friendly power in the most important region of
central Asia. Petro-dollar supremacy could not have been established without control of the Persian Gulf. The Persian elite
were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know what the rest get.
The Persian elite were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know what the rest get.
Not just the elite. Persian middle class was pretty well off too. Spending vacation in Europe was easy, quite affordable. Not
any more. I know I know, those dang sanctions... well that is what you get when you piss off the big dawg.
psychedelicatessen "Thinking he's successfully rebuilt the U.S. military could be the single most critical failure of his presidency."
I would be in agreement on the overall gist of your reply, but on Trump thinking he's successfully rebuilt the US military,
I'm not so sure. He is a pragmatic gangster when it comes to world affairs which is why his Nuclear Posture Review lowered the
threshold of first use of nukes. b's previous post on 'How Trump rebelled against the generals' also fits in with this line of
thought.
I believe Trump needs to be thought of as a CEO brought in to pull a company back from the edge of bankruptcy. I think
that is the way he sees himself, and as I have put in previous comments, there are no rules.
I had thought Trump may be adverse to pure terrorism but depending on what comes of the Ukie airliner shootdown in Iran, there
may be absolutely no rules as far as Trump is concerned.
The attack on Solemani had little or nothing to do with policy, it was an attempt to distract from the other scandals coming to
light with the opening of his Senate trial by provoking hostilities with Iran.
Peter AU1 @103: "Monetary collapse as in low US$ but not US economic collapse"
I wonder how that could be arranged? There are far more US$ sitting in bank vaults as reserves and investment hedges than there
are in circulation. If the dollar goes low enough to bring manufacturing home then it will also be low enough to no longer be
a sound or wise investment in and of itself. Wise bankers and investors will attempt to realign their portfolios if the dollar
shows signs of dropping like that.
Basically, the value of the dollar that is low enough to re-industrialize America is far below the tipping point that would
trigger a global sell-off of dollars. How could that mass sell-off be prevented? Threatening to nuke any country whose central
bank sells their dollar reserves?
As I see it, the dollar's value stays high or it tanks totally. I don't see how there could be a moderate balance point in
between these extremes. There are just too many dollars in the world.
Likklemore @ 83. thanks for the great article by Tom Luongo.
Of course the Gangsternomics have been going on for some time as chronicled in 'Shock Doctrine' and 'Confessions of an
Economic Hitman'.
But as Trump has often done, probably mostly by mistake, he has brought these actions more clearly into the public eye.
This in combination with the new power dominance of Russia, China and Iran is definitely leading to a new reality.
---------
I like this quote from Perkins' 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman'
""Nearly every culture I know prophesies that in the late 1990s we entered a period of remarkable transition. At monasteries
in the Himalayas, ceremonial sites in Indonesia, and the indigenous reservations in North America, from the depths of the Amazon
to the peaks of the Andes and into the ancient Mayan cities of Central America, I have heard that ours is a special moment
in human history, and that each of us was born at this time because we have a mission to accomplish.
The titles and words of the prophecies differ slightly. They tell variously of a New Age, the Third Millennium, the Age
of Aquarius, the Beginning of the Fifth Sun, or the end of old calendars and the commencement of new ones. Despite the varying
terminologies, however; they have a great deal in common, and "The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle" is typical. It states
that back in the mists of history; human societies divided and took two different paths: that of the condor (representing the
heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational and material). In the 1490s, the prophecy
said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years
later, in the 1990s, a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and the eagle will have the opportunity to reunite and
fly together in the same sky, along the same path. If the condor and eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most
remarkable offspring, unlike any ever seen before.
"The Prophecy of the Condor and Eagle" can be taken at many levels - the standard interpretation is that it foretells the
sharing of indigenous knowledge with the technologies of science, the balancing of yin and yang, and the bridging of northern
and southern cultures. However, most powerful is the message if offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a
time when we can benefit from the many diverse ways of seeing ourselves and the world, and that we can use these as a springboard
to higher levels of awareness. As human beings, we can truly wake up and evolve into a more conscious species.
The condor people of the Amazon make it seem so obvious that if we are to address questions about the nature of what it
is to be human in this new millennium, and about our commitment to evaluating our intentions for the next several decades,
then we need to open our eyes and see the consequences of our actions - the actions of the eagle - in places like Iraq and
Ecuador. We must shake ourselves awake. We who live in the most powerful nation history has ever known must stop worrying so
much about the outcome of soap operas, quarterly balance sheets, and the daily Dow Jones average, and must instead reevaluate
who we are and where we want our children to end up. The alternative to stopping to ask ourselves the important questions is
simply too dangerous.""
---------------------
Now that Trump has, probably inadvertently, helped open our eyes I see Tulsi Gabbard as the best person to help us fit in to
a more multipolar world in a more responsible manner.
Damascene, as to the assassination plans and techniques by the exceptionalists... just ask the Cuban aides of Fidel Castro.
Most of them alive today. They have a a helluva expertise on this business having foiled them for over 45 years. Against all odds
cause at 90 miles from the enemy, the logistics were vastly against the cubans.
As to the purposeful intent of bringing more pressure to foes in the future... just recall what happened to Muammar Khadafi.
After the attempt to blow up his family tent in the desert he fairly but surely managed to build up FRIENDSHIP with the bosses
of France, Italy and UK.
To no avail, since the rest if history. The lesson has been learned.
Condoleeza Rice on the 2006 War on Lebanon ( quoted by Qassem Soleimani in the interview posted above..): "These are the "birth
pangs" of the Middle East"....
"... Of course, Biden in 2019 said "I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else -- even distant family -- about their business interests. Period." ..."
"... James Biden : Joe's younger brother James has been deeply involved in the lawmaker's rise since the early days - serving as the finance chair of his 1972 Senate campaign. And when Joe became VP, James was a frequent guest at the White House - scoring invites to important state functions which often "dovetailed with his overseas business dealings," writes Schweizer. ..."
"... According to Fox Business 's Charlie Gasparino in 2012, HillStone's Iraq project was expected to "generate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years," more than tripling their revenue. According to the report, James Biden split roughly $735 million with a group of minority partners . ..."
"... David Richter - the son of HillStone's parent company's founder - allegedly told investors at a private meeting; it really helps to have "the brother of the vice president as a partner." ..."
Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer is out with a new book, "
Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite," in which he reveals
that five members of the Biden family, including Hunter, got rich using former Vice President
Joe Biden's "largesse, favorable access and powerful position."
While we know of Hunter's profitable exploits in Ukraine and China - largely in part thanks
to Schweizer, Joe's brothers James and Frank, his sister Valerie, and his son-in-law Howard all
used the former VP's status to enrich themselves.
Of course, Biden in 2019 said "I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else --
even distant family -- about their business interests. Period."
As Schweizer puts writes in the
New York Post ; "we shall see."
James Biden : Joe's younger brother James has been deeply involved in the lawmaker's rise since the early days - serving
as the finance chair of his 1972 Senate campaign. And when
Joe became VP, James was a frequent guest at the White House - scoring invites to important
state functions which often "dovetailed with his overseas business dealings," writes Schweizer.
Consider the case of
HillStone International , a subsidiary of the huge construction management firm, Hill
International. The president of HillStone International was Kevin Justice, who grew up in
Delaware and was a longtime Biden family friend. On November 4, 2010, according to White
House visitors' logs, Justice visited the White House and met with Biden adviser Michele
Smith in the Office of the Vice President .
Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that James Biden would be joining the
firm as an executive vice president . James appeared to have little or no background in
housing construction, but that did not seem to matter to HillStone. His bio on the company's
website noted his "40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political,
legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally "
James Biden was joining HillStone just as the firm was starting negotiations to win a
massive contract in war-torn Iraq. Six months later, the firm announced a contract to build
100,000 homes. It was part of a $35 billion, 500,000-unit project deal won by TRAC
Development , a South Korean company. HillStone also received a $22 million U.S. federal
government contract to manage a construction project for the State Department. -
Peter Schweizer, via NY Post
According to Fox Business 's Charlie Gasparino in 2012, HillStone's Iraq project was
expected to "generate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years," more than tripling
their revenue. According to the report, James Biden split roughly $735 million with a group of
minority partners .
David Richter - the son of HillStone's parent company's founder - allegedly told investors
at a private meeting; it really helps to have "the brother of the vice president as a
partner."
Unfortunately for James, HillStone had to back out of the major contract in 2013 over a
series of problems, including a lack of experience - but the company maintained "significant
contract work in the embattled country" of Iraq, including a six-year contract with the US Army
Corps of Engineers.
In the ensuing years, James Biden profited off of Hill's lucrative contracts for dozens of
projects in the US, Puerto Rico, Mozambique and elsewhere.
Frank Biden , another one of Joe's brothers (who said the Pennsylvania Bidens
voted for Trump over Hillary), profited handsomely on real estate, casinos, and solar power
projects after Joe was picked as Obma's point man in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Months after Joe visited Costa Rica, Frank partnered with developer Craig Williamson and the
Guanacaste Country Club on a deal which appears to be ongoing.
In real terms, Frank's dream was to build in the jungles of Costa Rica thousands of homes,
a world-class golf course, casinos, and an anti-aging center. The Costa Rican government was
eager to cooperate with the vice president's brother.
As it happened, Joe Biden had been asked by President Obama to act as the Administration's
point man in Latin America and the Caribbean .
Frank's vision for a country club in Costa Rica received support from the highest levels
of the Costa Rican government -- despite his lack of experience in building such
developments. He met with the Costa Rican ministers of education and energy and environment,
as well as the president of the country. -
NY Post
And in 2016, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education inked a deal with Frank's Company,
Sun Fund Americas to install solar power facilities across the country - a project the Obama
administration's OPIC authorized $6.5 million in taxpayer funds to support.
This went hand-in-hand with a solar initiative Joe Biden announced two years earlier, in
which "American taxpayer dollars were dedicated to facilitating deals that matched U.S.
government financing with local energy projects in Caribbean countries, including Jamaica,"
known as the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI).
Frank Biden's Sun Fund Americas announced later that it had signed a power purchase
agreement (PPA) to build a 20-megawatt solar facility in Jamaica.
Valerie Biden-Owens , Joe's sister, has run all of her brother's Senate campaigns - as well
as his 1988 and 2008 presidential runs.
She was also a senior partner in political messaging firm Joe Slade White & Company ,
where she and Slade White were listed as the only two executives at the time.
According to Schweizer, " The firm received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie
was running . Two and a half million dollars in consulting fees flowed to her firm from
Citizens for Biden and Biden For President Inc. during the 2008 presidential bid alone."
Dr. Howard Krein - Joe Biden's son-in-law, is the chief medical officer of StartUp Health -
a medical investment consultancy that was barely up and running when, in June 2011, two of the
company's execs met with Joe Biden and former President Obama in the Oval Office .
The next day, the company was included in a prestigious health care tech conference run by
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) - while StartUp Health executives became
regular White House visitors between 2011 and 2015 .
StartUp Health offers to provide new companies technical and relationship advice in
exchange for a stake in the business. Demonstrating and highlighting the fact that you can
score a meeting with the president of the United States certainly helps prove a strategic
company asset: high-level contacts. -
NY Post
Speaking of his homie hookup, Krein described how his company gained access to the highest
levels of power in D.C.:
"I happened to be talking to my father-in-law that day and I mentioned Steve and Unity were
down there [in Washington, D.C.]," recalled Howard Krein. "He knew about StartUp Health and was
a big fan of it. He asked for Steve's number and said, 'I have to get them up here to talk with
Barack.' The Secret Service came and got Steve and Unity and brought them to the Oval
Office."
And then, of course, there's Hunter Biden - who was paid millions of dollars to sit on the
board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma while his father was Obama's point man in the
country.
But it goes far beyond that for the young crack enthusiast.
With the election of his father as vice president, Hunter Biden launched businesses fused
to his father's power that led him to lucrative deals with a rogue's gallery of governments
and oligarchs around the world . Sometimes he would hitch a prominent ride with his father
aboard Air Force Two to visit a country where he was courting business. Other times, the
deals would be done more discreetly. Always they involved foreign entities that appeared to
be seeking something from his father.
There was, for example, Hunter's involvement with an entity called Burnham Financial Group
, where his business partner Devon Archer -- who'd been at Yale with Hunter -- sat on the
board of directors. Burnham became the vehicle for a number of murky deals abroad, involving
connected oligarchs in Kazakhstan and state-owned businesses in China.
But one of the most troubling Burnham ventures was here in the United States, in which
Burnham became the center of a federal investigation involving a $60 million fraud scheme
against one of the poorest Indian tribes in America , the Oglala Sioux.
Devon Archer was arrested in New York in May 2016 and
charged with "orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal
entity of tens of millions of dollars." Other victims of the fraud included several public
and union pension plans. Although Hunter Biden was not charged in the case, his fingerprints
were all over Burnham . The "legitimacy" that his name and political status as the vice
president's son lent to the plan was brought up repeatedly in the trial. -
NY Post
Trump has been a kind of part deranged, part clever political monkey wrench thrown into the
works of the USA military machine
Notable quotes:
"... I begin with the premise that the United States is a longstanding cultural catastrophe, and is far along the way in the process of destroying itself, after having destroyed or damaged the prospects of much of the planet. ..."
"... Within the context of the attack on Indochina, on the ground and taking place within the spaces left alive after the B52 bombers et al, there was the 'Phoenix Program'. euphemism for the CIA's ambitious program of technocratic torture, assassination, bribery, corruption, and so on, with tens of thousands of murdered victims. And the military destroyed uncounted villages, a la My Lai. ..."
"... Note then that Trump has almost patented the 'fake news' meme. The idea that the msm is lying about and hiding the truth, non-stop propaganda, is an idea that Trump has pushed repeatedly. Most people on the MofA etc are well aware of that. But for many 'normies', that's not quite as obvious. ..."
"... And yes, he himself could be described as the liar in chief. But doesn't deflect from the great collapse in the status of the msm propaganda machine. And that propaganda machine has been very much associated with the CIA via operation Mockingbird and its generations long progeny. ..."
"... So the attack on the media via fake news is a direct attack on the basic indispensable control mechanism of the deep state, and CIA. ..."
"... Note too that after three Years of Trump, the long standing criminality and corruption of the FBI has never looked as obvious. Again, we don't have to give Trump credit. But it happened on his 'watch'. ..."
"... We're not talking miracle cures here. But Trump has been a kind of part deranged, part clever political monkey wrench thrown into the works. As to whether his disruptive arrival has provided openings for more sensible political and cultural innovations remains to be seen. ..."
"... Many of the internal difficulties that the US faces are distinct from militarism, but related to militarism in the sense that a police state keeping control via surveillance and bs, etc, and spending its money on empire, is not going to prioritize clear honest discourse. In the end, one overarching question for the US like the rest of us is: can we achieve honesty and common sense? ..."
Previously, most discussions of the Trump presidency reflexively proceeded to either visceral
disgust etc or accolades of some species. Trumps words and manners dominated. As things
developed, and actual results were recorded, a body of more sober second thought developed.
And a variation on these more experience/reality based assessments is what b has delivered
above.
Some of my points that follow are repeats, some are new. On the whole I see Trump as a
helpful and positive-result really bad President.
I begin with the premise that the United States is a longstanding cultural
catastrophe, and is far along the way in the process of destroying itself, after having
destroyed or damaged the prospects of much of the planet.
As one aspect of this cultural catastrophe, let's refer back to the United States attack
on Indochina, which accomplished millions of dead and millions of wounded people, and birth
defects still in uncounted numbers as a legacy of dioxin etc laden chemical warfare. The
millions of dead included some tens of thousands of American soldiers, and even more wounded
physically, and even more wounded 'mentally'.
Within the context of the attack on Indochina, on the ground and taking place within
the spaces left alive after the B52 bombers et al, there was the 'Phoenix Program'. euphemism
for the CIA's ambitious program of technocratic torture, assassination, bribery, corruption,
and so on, with tens of thousands of murdered victims. And the military destroyed uncounted
villages, a la My Lai.
When asked what it was all about, Kissinger lied in an inadvertently illuminating way:
"basically nothing" was how he put it, if memory serves.
During and after the attack on Indochina, the US trained, aided, financed, etc active
death squads in Central and South America, demonstrating that the United States was an equal
opportunity death dealer.
Now this was a bit of a meander away from the Trump topic, but note that Trump came to
power within the above cultural context and much more pathology besides, talking about ending
the warfare state. Again, this is not an attempt to portray Trump as either sincere or
insincere in that policy. In terms of ideas, it was roughly speaking a good idea.
Another main part of the Trump message was 'let's rebuild America'. And along with the
de-militarization and national program of rejuvenation there was the 'drain the swamp' meme,
which again resonated. And once again, I am not arguing that Trump was sincere, or for that
matter insincere. That's irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make: which could essentially
by reduced to: what will be the actual meaning and potential impact of Trump?
Note then that Trump has almost patented the 'fake news' meme. The idea that the msm
is lying about and hiding the truth, non-stop propaganda, is an idea that Trump has pushed
repeatedly. Most people on the MofA etc are well aware of that. But for many 'normies',
that's not quite as obvious.
And yes, he himself could be described as the liar in chief. But doesn't deflect from
the great collapse in the status of the msm propaganda machine. And that propaganda machine
has been very much associated with the CIA via operation Mockingbird and its generations long
progeny.
So the attack on the media via fake news is a direct attack on the basic indispensable
control mechanism of the deep state, and CIA.
Note too that after three Years of Trump, the long standing criminality and corruption
of the FBI has never looked as obvious. Again, we don't have to give Trump credit. But it
happened on his 'watch'.
Now the deep cultural, including political, pathology in the United States, in its many
manifestations remain. We're not talking miracle cures here. But Trump has been a kind of
part deranged, part clever political monkey wrench thrown into the works. As to whether his
disruptive arrival has provided openings for more sensible political and cultural innovations
remains to be seen.
The frantic attempt to deflect attention from and give mainly derisive media coverage to
Tulsi Gabbard is a case in point. Is she the harbinger of a growing political movement aiming
to dismantle the military empire project?
Many of the internal difficulties that the US faces are distinct from militarism, but
related to militarism in the sense that a police state keeping control via surveillance and
bs, etc, and spending its money on empire, is not going to prioritize clear honest discourse.
In the end, one overarching question for the US like the rest of us is: can we achieve
honesty and common sense?
Is Warren Warren the Jussie Smollet of politics. I wonder if she claims Bernie attacked her
while wearing a red hat and screaming, "A woman can't win! This is MAGA country!"
Being one of Liz' constituents and familiar with her career and her base (consisting of
people like me,) I think she faces so little consequence for her "embellishments" at least in
part because "we" (her base) inhabit an environment in which, with ease, we adjust facts and
perceptions to conform to whatever our self-serving narrative of the moment may be.
We know that Liz will say anything she imagines will be to her advantage and it's okay
with "us" that she does. In a way, she's our ideal candidate and media darling because she
reflects and affirms our plastic values.
"... They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary fear and plays into the administration's hands. ..."
"... The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. ..."
"... "Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue." ..."
"... Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst. ..."
"... Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due to its own complex ties to Israel. ..."
"... The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil. ..."
"... Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations. ..."
Friedman's
latest column obviously wasn't
fact-checked before it was published:
And then, a few weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the
region and tell Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted
Iran to restart its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action. And then, a few
weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the region and tell
Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted Iran to restart
its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action.
Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did,
and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like
that for more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days
following the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has
not repudiated its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they
have. Trump's recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a
nuclear weapons program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.
Friedman is not the only one to make this blunder, but it is the sort of sloppy mistake we expect from him. If this were just
another error from Friedman, it would be annoying but it wouldn't matter very much. This has to do with the nature of our debate
over Iran policy and the nuclear issue in particular. This matters because there is a great deal of confusion in this country about
Iran's nuclear program that the Trump administration has deliberately encouraged. They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA
and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying
to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime
change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary
fear and plays into the administration's hands.
The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare
Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. The second
part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to think that the U.S. would somehow be justified
in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon. He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons
program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances would be illegal and a war of choice
just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman seems to be skeptical of something
that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to the idea of preventive war.
Friedman's
claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is
irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like that for
more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days following
the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has not repudiated
its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they have. Trump's
recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a nuclear weapons
program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.
... ... ...
He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances
would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman
seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to
the idea of preventive war. The second part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to
think that the U.S. would somehow be justified in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon.
He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances
would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman
seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to
the idea of preventive war.
"Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is
completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is
irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue."
Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods
you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst.
Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due
to its own complex ties to Israel.
The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil.
Friedman's readers are the choir, and he's just singing to them. People who have seen through his fabrications stopped reading
him years ago. Friedman will always have his little clique of deluded pseudo-intellectuals, but truly intelligent people don't
waste their time with him.
I think the picture of Friedman that accompanies this article tells a big part of the story. His furrowed brow, the intensity
of his studied gaze, his penetrating and knowing look into the the complexities that only someone of his intelligence can unravel.
It is really the picture of a stuffed shirt.
Friedman represents something really wrong with our society and culture: The incompetent, the ignorant, and the arrogant ones
are given positions of power and influence, and the wise and knowledgeable are marginalized.
It is difficult to name a more odious shill for Israel war mongering than friedman but than he does have competition in the NYT
staff. NYT is a bugle for Israel.
Mr. Friedman recently called Gen. Soleimani "the dumbest man in Iran" for sponsoring terrorist forces in Lebanon, Syria, and
Yemen backing paramilitary forces fighting terrorism in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Mr. Friedman is one of the dumbest pundits
in the media class and almost certainly the dumbest ever to work for The New York Times. He just can't help himself...
Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But
hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed
and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned
since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations.
In accordance with the agreement closed between the Tunisian and Turkish presidents,
Kaïs Saïed and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Christmas Day, the migration of
jihadists from Syria via Tunisia to Libya has begun. [ 1 ]
The pendulum has swung back, when considering that the Free Syrian Army was created by the
jihadists of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), who had joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda in
Iraq, then served as NATO's footsoldiers in Libya. [ 2 ]
According to Middle East Eye , the Sultan Murad Division, the Suqour al-Sham Brigades
(Hawks of the Levant) and especially the Faylaq al-Sham (Legion of the Levant) (photo) are
already on the move. [ 3 ] The SOHR, a British association
linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, has confirmed the arrival in Tripoli of the first 300
combatants.
The Sultan Murad division is made up of Syrian Turkmen. The Hawks of the Levant comprise
numerous French fighters and the Legion of the Levant is an imposing army of at least 4,000
men. The latter group is directly affiliated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Turkey has urged several other jihadist groups to follow suit and to flee ahead of the
liberation of the Idlib governorate by the Syrian Arab Army.
The jihadists sent to Libya are expected to balance out the forces present in the country by
supporting the government installed by the UN, while elements of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces
and the Russian mercenaries have lined up with the Bengazi-based government.
In 22 December 2019, Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs, Conservative lawyer Nikos Dendias,
travelled to Benghazi to meet the ministers designated by the Tobruk House of Representatives
and their military leader, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. He then moved on to Cairo and
Cyprus.
Simultaneously, during a ceremony at the Gölcük Naval shipyard, President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan announced the decision to expedite Turkey's submarine construction program.
The 6 New Type 214 submarines which Turkey is building with German Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft
(HDW) should be near completion.
Under the agreement signed with the Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Fayez
Al-Sarraj, in addition to military ports in occupied Cyprus, Turkey could have access to a home
port in Libya, from where it could extend its influence over the entire eastern
Mediterranean.
After the delivery of Turkish military equipment to Tripoli flown in by a civilian Boeing
747-412, Field Marshal Haftar proclaimed that he would not hesitate to shoot down any civilian
aircraft carrying weapons for the GNA.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has entered into a military alliance with the
Libyan "government of national accord" (GNA), chaired by Fayez Al-Sarraj, based in Tripoli and
backed by the United Nations. Erdoğan has already arranged for the delivery of armored
vehicles and drones, but has yet to deploy regular troops.
In Ankara, the Grand National Assembly is expected imminently to authorize the Turkish army
to send regular soldiers to Libya.
At the same time, however, the Turkish army is keeping out of Idlib (Syria) where the
jihadists are under attack by the Syrian Arab army, in coordination with the Russian air force,
and where two Turkish observation posts have been hemmed in by the Syrian Arab army. Tens of
thousands of jihadists have been moving into Turkey.
On 25 December 2019, President Erdoğan paid a spur-of-the-moment visit to Tunisia. He
was notably flanked by Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey's national intelligence (Millî
İstihbarat Teşkilatı), as well as by his Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministers.
The delegation was received by Tunisia's President Kaïs Saïed, a jurist, who is
supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. He gave his Turkish counterpart the green light to use the
airport and the port of Djerba for the mass transfer of jihadists to Tripoli and Misrata.
"... Furthermore, if you don't agree with Sen. Warren's version of events, or if you mention her history of "embellishing," you are a sexist and a misogynist just like Sanders. So fall in line with the establishment narrative, quick. ..."
"... In a statement to CNN, Sanders said before the debate that's not what happened at all. ..."
"... "It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," said Sanders, chalking up the story to "staff who weren't in the room lying about what happened." ..."
"... Warren's staff knows she is prone to "embellish" things ..."
"... No wonder Sanders was complaining about liberals' obsession with identity politics . As an elderly, Jewish socialist, he might be an endangered species, but he's one minority group that intersectional politics has no use for. ..."
The media cannot forgive Bernie Sanders for refusing to "bend the knee" to Elizabeth Warren
regarding her recounting of a now infamous December 2018 meeting between the two, in which the
Vermont senator allegedly said a woman could not be elected president.
Furthermore, if you don't agree with Sen. Warren's version of events, or if you
mention her history of "embellishing," you are a sexist and a misogynist just like Sanders. So
fall in line with the establishment narrative, quick.
That is the clear takeaway after the media took off its fig leaf of journalistic
impartiality at the seventh Democrat presidential debate in Iowa Tuesday.
During the debate, CNN moderator Abby Phillips had this exchange:
Phillips: You're saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman couldn't win
the election?
Bernie: Correct.
Phillips: Senator Warren, what did you think when Sanders said a woman couldn't win the
election?
Warren: I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with
Bernie.
This is "when did you stop beating your wife" level debate questioning from CNN. The
question is premised around an
anonymously-sourced story CNN reported Monday describing a meeting between Sanders and
Warren in December 2018, where the two agreed to a non-aggression pact of sorts. For the sake
of the progressive movement, they reportedly agreed they would not attack each other during the
campaign:
They also discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two
main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument
about the economy and earn broad support from female voters. Sanders responded that he did
not believe a woman could win.
In a statement to CNN, Sanders said before the debate that's not what happened at
all.
"It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she
was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," said Sanders,
chalking up the story to "staff who weren't in the room lying about what happened."
"I thought a woman could win; he disagreed," said Warren in a statement.
Cue CNN's gladiatorial presidential debates.
Eager to strike all the right girl-power notes for the night, Phillips followed up by asking
Sen. Amy Klobuchar the substantive policy question, "what do you say to people who say that a
woman can't win this election?" and Warren earned cheers for a line about women successfully
winning elections.
"Look at the men on this stage," Warren said. "Collectively, they have lost 10 elections.
The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the
women: Amy (Klobuchar) and me."
After the debate, media commentators roundly declared Warren the winner, and pundits
attacked the very idea of questioning the veracity of Warren's account.
Here's CNN, just after the debate:
Chris Cillizza, CNN politics reporter: Sanders, look, a lot of it is personal
preference. I didn't think his answer vis-a-vis Elizabeth Warren and what was said in that
conversation was particularly good. He was largely dismissive. "Well, I didn't say it.
Everyone knows I didn't say it, we don't need to talk about it."
Jess McIntosh, CNN political commentator: And I think what Bernie forgot was that this
isn't a he-said-she-said story. This is a reported-out story that CNN was part of breaking.
So to have him just flat out say "no," I think, wasn't nearly enough to address that for the
women watching.
Joe Lockhart, CNN political commentator: And I can't imagine any woman watching last
night and saying, I believe Bernie. I think people believe Elizabeth.
Van Jones, CNN political commentator: This was Elizabeth Warren's night. She needed to
do something and there was a banana peel sitting out there for Bernie to step on when it came
to his comments about women. I think Bernie stepped on it and slid around. She knocked that
moment out of the park.
But isn't this story the literal definition of a he-said, she-said story?
The accusation may have appeared in a "reported-out story," but these are its sources:
"The description of that meeting [between Sanders and Warren in December 2018] is based
on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the
encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting."
Is it sexist to question why this story would come out on the eve of the debate -- after
months of the two candidates getting along as they had promised to do, when
Sanders pulls ahead of Warren in polling ?
In addition to Warren's tenuous relationship with the truth, there also happens to be video
from the 1980s where Sanders says a woman could be president:
1988, @BernieSanders , backing
Jackson:"The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a man
*in my view, a woman could be elected POTUS* The real issue is are you on the side of workers
& poor ppl, or are you on the side of big money &corporations?" pic.twitter.com/VHmfzvyJdy
-- Every nimble plane is a policy failure. (@KindAndUnblind) January
13, 2020
Yet, you wouldn't know any of that, listening to the coverage of the debate, where
commentators waxed poetic about Warren's "win" and how any attacks on her predilection for
lying were misogyny itself.
Over on Sirius XM POTUS channel Tuesday, an executive producer on Chris Cuomo's show (Chris
Cillizza filling in) said that the suggestion from Sanders surrogates that Warren's staff
knows she is prone to "embellish" things
is "a misogynistic thing to put out there like, 'oh well, look at the quaint housewife, she is
prone to embellishment.'"
The New York Times also embraced the questionable sexism premise, writing that in"a
conflict heavily focused on which candidate is telling the truth, Ms. Warren faces a real risk:
Several studies have
shown that voters punish women more harshly than men for real or perceived dishonesty If
voters conclude that Ms. Warren is lying, it is most likely to hurt her more than it will hurt
Mr. Sanders if voters conclude that he is lying."
Over at Vox:
The over-the-top language -- likening criticism of an opponent to aknife in the back-- was familiar. When powerful men have been accused of
sexual misconduct in recent years, they and othershave
often complainedthat they've been "killed" or that their "lives are over" The
situation between Warren and Sanders is very different from those that have arisen as part of
the Me Too movement. But the exaggerated language around a woman's decision to speak out is
strikingly similar.
This sort of language is an insult to all women who have had to deal with sexism and
misogyny, both in the workplace and in society, and this need to glom on to any aggrieved
group, no matter how ill-fitting, is getting really stale.
Meanwhile, former Hillary Clinton and Obama Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri
tweeted, "I just rewatched the footage from last night and found it odd that Sanders never says
'a woman could beat Trump.' His formulation is he believes a 'woman could be president.' It's
only when he speaks about his own abilities that he talks about what it takes to 'beat
Trump.'"
This is the old sexist standby: "I'd vote for a woman, just not that woman."
What is it that these people want, for Sanders to endorse his opponent, simply because she
is female? Isn't that the very definition of sexism? By virtue of the fact that Sanders is
still in this race, he obviously thinks he can do a better job as president than Warren. There
isn't going to be another presidential race against Trump, but Palmieri still essentially wants
Sanders to say, in a five-way race three weeks before the Iowa caucus, "Warren can beat Trump
in November."
The question here should be whether this is a person that we can trust, not whether the
candidate is male or female. Does this person have a history of being honest, or do they have a
history of lying?
No wonder Sanders was complaining about
liberals' obsession with identity politics . As an elderly, Jewish socialist, he might be
an endangered species, but he's one minority group that intersectional politics has no use
for.
What are you talking about? If you want to know what Sanders says on this issue, rad his
interview with the NYT which was conducted before this cynical hit job occurred. He says
many voters are misogynistic, but not that a woman can't win.
I think both were telling the truth in that Warren probably took it to mean a woman
can't win, but her campaign cynically released thi story over a year later because she was
slipping in tge pollls behind Bernie.
That's ridiculously generous of you, at least towards Warren. She knows perfectly well his
position on the possibility of a woman president, and women running for office generally.
she knows he campaigned vigorously for HRC after the nomination, and she knows that Sanders
knows that HRC took the popular vote by over 3 million votes, so he obviously knows that it
is highly possible for a woman to win the presidency. This is simply a bald-faced lie on
Warren's part, but she has gained nothing electorally for this desperate smear. Sanders not
only had a record fundraising day after this surfaced, but at least one poll has him up 2
points in Iowa, where he was already in the lead, with Warren stuck at 12%.
Six corporations own something like 90% of the media now.
And CNN is part of the corporate-media-complex.
So not too much of a surprise that they are going after Sanders.
The billionaires are worried he might win, so in a way, this is a good
sign.
The 24 hour news channels depend on Trump to bring in the outrage required to keep up their
viewing figures. So it makes sense that they should help give him a democrat opponent he
can't lose against, like Elizabeth Warren.
While it should be fairly obvious to most that Bernie Sanders political rivals are trying
everything they can to get ahead of him, it's also true that the DNC and the Main Stream
Media, are also trying to trash Bernie in an attempt to take him out as a candidate. The
DNC and the MSM did the same thing the last time he attempted to win the nomination, and it
appears they are doing so now.
The corporate MSM machine should be careful. Another candidate they trashed during the
last election cycle, and ever since, became the President. It seems some voters have tied
the corporate MSM together with the D.C. establishment, and voters that want an outsider to
lead them may just see the MSM's attempts to denigrate a candidate as a ringing endorsement
for the outsider.
As a side note, I find it humorous that the MSM attempts to diminish Bernie's supporters
as zealots and too extreme to be taken seriously... I thought that political candidates
actually worked to gain the support of enthusiastic and motivated supporters? Or, is that
just for the candidates that are acceptable to the Main Stream Media and the political
Parties?
Voted for Trump in great part because Hillary Clinton was such a liar. Now he turned out to
be an even bigger liar than she was. It sure would be nice to have a candidate who didn't
lie so much, but now I don't know whether that would be Sanders or Warren.
Strictly speaking, socialism was an abject failure which ended with the fall of the Iron
Curtain, There is an unfortunate tendency to conflate "socialism" with what is called the
"welfare state." The United States is a welfare state but can hardly be mistaken for a
socialist state.
I think I see it mostly the same way you do, but with semantic differences. I would argue
that communism - the totalitarian version of socialism - was the abject failure. Any first
world modern state is a blend of market-based economies and socialism. The question is
always which exchanges are best left to market forces and which are best managed from
above. And then, how much management to provide. I caution against seeing socialism vs
capitalism as some binary switch to flip.
And the fact is that many of these welfare states were implemented by self-declared
socialists, including many parties that were members of the Socialist, or Second,
International.
Unfortunately, many of these socialist and labor parties hopped on the neo-liberal train
in the 1980's, and are today deathly afraid of their own Bernie Sanders (see Corbyn,
Jeremy), and even more afraid of scaring off international finance and the German Central
Bank.
Point taken. Perhaps "radical socialism" would have been more accurate. Your description of
the modern state as a "blend" is spot-on. An economics professor I once had called ours a
"mixed economy", which was a phrase that has always stuck in my mind.
Social democratic and labor parties around the world turned neo-liberal in the 1980's,
including the Scandinavian ones. They've been helping to rip up the "social contract"
between Capital and Labor, and the social welfare state, ever since, as well as reversing
previous nationalizations and launching privatization. This phenomenon has included
Scandinavia, which is why the parties there are so sensitive to all this talk in the U.S.
about them being models of "socialism."
Fact is, all non-Marxist "socialist" countries are market based, and are in fact capitalist
at the economic base. When did any Scandinavian "socialist" country ever expropriate any
major corporations?
You might actually want to do a bit of research on that point. Going back 60, 70 or 80
years, there might be some nationalizations of railroads, utilities, energy companies and
other major industries not involved in the actual manufacturing of goods in Scandinavia.
Great Britain certainly saw such nationalizations, although revolutionary leftists
sometimes dismissed them as "lemon socialism" because the capitalist class was fobbing off
money-losing or capital-intensive sectors of the economy on the government, in order to
concentrate on more profitable enterprises.
Ellie Geranmayeh is a senior policy fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North
Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. She specializes in European
foreign policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers and
sanctions policy.
... ... ...
The response from Tehran could be immediate or more long term, ranging from military action
in the region to cyber attacks inside the U.S. and heavy political pushback. Iranian Supreme
Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly warned that there would not be war with the U.S. and
Iran has so far acted in a calculated and rational fashion to Trump's "maximum pressure"
campaign. If this position holds, Tehran will attempt to manage the risk of direct conflict,
continuing to deploy asymmetric tactics to undermine U.S. interests, albeit with the red lines
now redrawn.
The gravity and scale of Iranian compliance will be influenced by the recent escalation
with the U.S.
The extensive U.S. military presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan means the U.S. is
likely to bear the brunt of retaliation. Iran has deep ties to both state and non-state actors
across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Yemen that can be utilized to inflict pain on
America. Soleimani's death has already triggered a new decline in the Trump administration's
relations with Baghdad that may extend to Kabul, and is also likely to heat up the long debate
inside Tehran over how far to push U.S. military forces out of neighboring Iraq and
Afghanistan.
... ... ...
If Tehran takes drastic steps on the nuclear file, it could mark the total collapse of the
agreement.
... ... ...
In the space of six months, the U.S. and Iran have gone from targeting drones, oil
installations and bases, to killing personnel. It is still unclear how and when Iran will
choose to respond to Soleimani's assassination. But the new commander of the Quds Force --
appointed within 12 hours of Soleimani's death -- will no doubt be eager to demonstrate his
willingness to exact revenge against America.
When that happens, neither the Middle East nor Europe will be isolated from the
blowback.
The murder of Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis will resonate hugely throughout Iraq.
Trump in so many ways represents the bad ruler Gilgamesh who is poorly advised in his
conquest by Enkidu (Pompeo) and they brutally slay the guardian of the forest to steal the
precious timber. Then they murder the sacred bull of heaven (Soleimani and al-Muhandis) for
prowess and nothing more. This slaughter of the sacred bull enrages the gods and they slay
Enkidu which breaks Gilgamesh heart. etc etc. (drastically simplified and likely contested).
This tale is deeply known throughout the lands of the Middle East in all manner of old and
modern iterations.
Trump is so unwise and devoid of subtlety that he has ended any chance of salvation in
that land and has started every chance of retribution on a scale he could not conceive. His
assault on all culture and sacred leaders is bonded to the deepest sense of existential being
that any further aggression will simply escalate the payback. The USA urgently needs some
cooler heads to intervene but they are not yet impacting on him. Indeed Trump is so eager to
pat himself on the back with his adrenalin rush of murdering other leaders that it is
disgusting.
Almost all of the "terrorism" affecting the West has been Wahabbi Salafist Sunni driven.
Iran, despite their religious head, is a more modern sectarian nation than Saudi Arabia. ISIS
had become a proxy army of the CIA; that's likely why Soleimani had to be killed. It is time
to align with Iran and the Shia for a change. They also have oil! Would send a nice message
to our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia as well.
After only a week or so after this heinous crime, we are assisting already to a new
campaign on whitewashing Trump at each of the US military blogs...SST at the head...as
always...but following the rest...be it a editorial level, be it at commentariat level...
What part of Trump admitting he personally ordered the murder you have not understood?
What part of Soleimani and Al Muhandis being the main strategic heads of real anti-IS
front have you not understood?
What manner of nation does these things? What manner of man? Why are these criminals not
facing arrest and trial at this very moment? Is it because they all had their magical 'I'm a
special guy' hats on? Justice will come to us all.
I don't think what Pompeo was saying is vague, it is really just a way to con the US media
into believing that what they did was anything other than what it really was. They are trying
to couch their violent threatening behavior aimed at Iraqi leaders to keep them out of the
China-Iran orbit, as part of "The Patriotic Duty of Team America World Police". It is like a
mafioso saying to the police about their protection racket: "I'm doing you'se a favor by
keeping everyone in the neighborhood safe from criminals."
"It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a
mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless
they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name."
It's odd to see Reuters get the name of the Hoover Institution wrong, and also be wrong about
the Institution's association with Stanford University. The Institution is on the Stanford
campus but has a separate board of directors.
Okay, Reuters is making typically sloppy errors about the name and the amount of control
Stanford has over the rightwing "Institute" on its campus. Stanford, the university, has
plenty of US military intelligence (and actual black world) ties, but almost no one working
at Stanford would think killing Soleimani a good idea. Though plenty of the "thinkers" at The
Hoover Institution would.
Right, Pompeo is delusional. Murdering Soleimani will deter no one. Nor of course do the
Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Iraq mean the end of Iran's response to the act of
war.
I am surprised at how many establishment media have actually labelled this murder as
"assassination" instead of the usual euphemisms. I think nearly everyone in the world
understands that bragging about international murder completely changes international
relations. Except for Pompous and Trumpet, of course.
Everyone will be filing their hair-triggers. There seems to be a general world-wide
mobilization but no one is calling it that. It is all "war games" and such. At some point
before the 2003 Iraq invasion it was clear to me that the decision for open war had been
made. It is now clear to me that there will be an invasion of Iran, starting with Iraq. I
think the B-52s sent to the area are for killing Iraqis, since they have no air defense.
At the same time, the US asset bubbles are nearly "priced to perfection". That means they
have no where to go except down. Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. All it takes is a
break in the chain of payments and the next financial panic is ON! Can Uncle Sam greatly
expand his War on the World in the middle of financial chaos? I think he will probably
try.
I speculate that Uncle Sam believes Iran and Iraq will simply cower and wait for the next
blow. I predict they will not. Soleimani's assassination and the subsequent Iranian attack
have not substantially changed the strategic situation, except to tie down the boiler relief
valve and turn up the heat. God, if there is one, help us all. We're sure gonna need it.
Does this idiot Pompeo not realize the door swing both ways? Unless he plans to live his
remaining days bunkered in NORAD, he's just as vulnerable as the rest.
Pompeo is the spokesman for the rules based Western empire mafia don, Trump.
The event is now being turned into a US media event (real time movie making here) by Trump
letting out text versions of the backroom chatter around the murder. This will not sit well
with the ME, IMO.
What late empire keeps pushing for is some event that can be blown into global support for
war escalation....but it hasn't happened, yet
And all this over public/private global control of value sharing in the social human
contract....what a way to run a railroad/species......
Not only will it not deter anyone, it is loudly signaling that third rate neocons are the
only decision makers left in the room.
You're likely to see more provocations, since it's now such an easy button to push. i.e.
for any regional or global powers who need US forces to be diverted for a while. Any bullshit
they manage to sell to the young Bolton's in the bureaucracy will do.
While not exactly unprecedented, the change is how much the mask is off now.
The part of Pompeo's speech quoted by b above is American to the core: every sentence or
short paragraph contains at minimum one outright lie; the entire quote selected is also both
palpably delusional and stupid.
But having said that, there is something uniquely refreshing about the Trump/Pompeo tag
team's capacity for blurting out lies and inanities, and furthermore, they do it with gusto.
Guile is not Pompeo's strong suit.
One might say that the criminality of the 'new deterrence' is as American as apple pie,
except that apple pie in my experience is innocent of all that, unless I suppose it contains
a deadly poison, and is fed to a political or ideological foe.
What is new about the 'new deterrence' that will surely make life far more dangerous for
Americans, is that it publicly declares itself as a policy with no bounds, no ethical, or
logical, or legal constraints. So what the Americans have been doing for generations, often
but not by any means always with 'plausible denial', and sometimes quite brazenly, is now
explicitly underlined policy.
Previously, the fight was 'against communism', or 'for democracy', or for 'national
security'.
So for example, when Nicaragua during the "Reagan Revolution' was sanctioned, attacked,
vilified, subjected to uncounted atrocities, because those dastardly Nicaraguans had replaced
their loathsome monster dictator with a government trying to do the right thing for the
people, the war against that country was under the rubric of protecting American 'national
security', with bits of domino theory and communist hordes concerns thrown in.
So what is the difference between deploying tens of thousands of maniacal murderous
'contras' as 'deterrence' against a small country's attempts at making a decent life for its
people, and a drone attack on Soleimani and his companions?
I think one main difference is that the 'world has changed' around the perpetrators, but
they are still living the delusions of brainwashed childhood, the wild west, white hat
un-self conscious monstrosities riding into town, gonna clean the place up. Pathetic and
extremely dangerous.
There's another logical flaw in Pompeo's argument.
The USA is a nuclear power. If you claim to assassinate other countries' generals as a
deterrent, then that signals America's true enemies - Russia and China - that it will
vacilate in using its own nuclear deterrent if an American target is to be neutralized. That
would bring more, not less, instability to the world order.
But maybe that's the American aim with this: to shake the already existing international
order with the objective to try to destroy Eurasia with its massive war machine and,
therefore, initiate another cycle of accumulation of American capitalism.
Another potential unintended blowback of Soleimani's assassination lies in the fact that
the USA is not officially at war with Iran. Iran was being sanctioned by the UN. That poses a
threat in the corners of the American Empire, since it sends a message that the USA doesn't
need to be at war with a nation in order to gratuitously attack it; it also sends the message
that it is not enough to play by the rules and accept the UN's sanctions - you could still do
all of that and submit yourself and still be attacked by the Americans.
The endgame of this is that there's a clear message to the American "allies" (i.e.
vassals, provinces): stay in line and obey without questioning, even if that goes directly
against your national interests. This will leave the Empire even more unstable at its
frontier because, inevitably, there'll come a time where the USA will directly command its
vassals/provinces to literally hurt their own economies just to keep the American one afloat
(or not sinking too fast). Gramsci's "Law of Hegemony" states that, the more coercion and the
less consensus, the more unstable is one's hegemony.
>Tottering as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be
> ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't yet
> strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
> Posted by: Zee | Jan 18 2020 21:30 utc | 27
Indeed. But the longer Iran can delay the inevitable, the stronger and better prepared it
becomes, while Uncle Sam is busy burning the furniture and getting financially more
precarious. US planners seem to think that one can build an economy around poor people giving
each other haircuts while rich people keep trading the exact same assets back and forth while
steady driving asset prices higher.
Somewhere in the economic cycle someone has to actually make stuff and grow food. But
planners have allowed the manufacturing (and associated engineering, etc.) to leave while
driving farmers into bankruptcy. They are mortgaged to the hilt. When land prices quit
rising, there is no additional collateral and no new credit. With no additional credit, no
one will sell them seeds and equipment. So they are out of business. It's scary to think how
few people actually grow all the food to feed millions and millions.
Asset bubbles have real consequences, such as millions can not afford rent anymore while
millions of housing units remain empty because their value still goes up even without rental
income. Scenes from Soylent Green come to mind, thinking about how more and more people are
crammed into fewer living quarters.
Our brain-dead leaders have created a situation where they must continue to inflate
bubbles to keep increasing collateral to back more debt. But the bubbles impoverish the rest
of us. And bubbles always pop. Always.
I'm not sure how much the next financial crisis will affect the US killing machine, but I
doubt it would make the war machine stronger.
>The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they
> wanted to be able to say they were the tough guys. The
> media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
> destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
> Posted by: Curtis | Jan 18 2020 21:37 utc | 29
Yes to this. There is no disagreement in DC on the goals, just fussing over the tactics
and who takes credit. Two right wings on the war bird. Maybe that is why it is on a downward
spiral.
Describing that the drone strike took out "two for the price of one" -- in reference to
slain Iraqi Shia paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who had been at the airport to
greet Soleimani, Trump gave a more detailed accounting than ever before of proceedings in the
'situation room' (which had been set up at Mar-a-Lago) that night.
He went on to recount listening to military officials as they watched the strike from
"cameras that are miles in the sky."
"They're together sir," Trump recalled the military officials saying. "Sir, they have two
minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. '2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the
car, they're in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30
seconds. 10, 9, 8 ...' "
"Then all of a sudden, boom," he went on. "'They're gone, sir. Cutting off.' "
"I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him."
"We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military
deterrence."
"diplomatic isolation" - when I read this I thought of the Ukrainian plane and the demand
for an "investigation according to international guidelines" (well, Syria got that
investigation according to international guidelines with the OPCW and we know how that went)
- it may lead to diplomatic isolation. Watch it. As such, Pompeo might have laid out a motive
for a potential US involvement.
"economic pressure" - while the E3 did not sanction Iran, with their lack of action in
regards to find working mechanisms and their depending on the US, that goal has been
achieved.
"military deterrence" - Pompeo thinks in CIA terms which can be seen as a covert weapons
trafficking organization (Timber Sycamore) and something like a secret military organization.
The murder of Suleimani is a war crime and as such a criminal act; it can hardly be
considered a military deterrence - although the murder was carried out by the US military
(maybe by CIA embedded in base?).
I don't know. It's a lot of speculation. Iran may have a reason to not state their systems
got hacked. But in the current context it may be advisable to do so, turn a potential
cyberattack back to its place of origin.
Pompeo and Trump have no concept of personal honour as they come from a sub-culture that has
none.
In the rest of the world, honour-integrity is very important. Throughout MENA to Pakistan,
the US was viewed as treacherous for using Sadaam to fight Iran then turning on him in
service of Israel's goals. Bush 2 contributed, through his blatant financial criminality
(much of this remains unknown to average Americans), to the perception that the US is
incapable of honouring ANY agreement (re:oil and other sub-rosa deals the US made).
The decimation of Syria, Iraq and Libya was not enough; criminal elites in the US have now
completely exposed themselves to the Muslim world. I am firmly convinced that the Arab
'street' has concluded the US and Israel are inseparable in their policy of murder and
mayhem. I am betting the elites view reconciliation within the Arab and Islamic world as the
way forward with input from Russia, China when and if needed. Turning away from US-Israeli
meddling and treachery will be a primary concern for the 20's.
I don't believe Pompeo or Trump have the foresight to understand killing Soleimani has sealed
how the US is perceived: Indonesia, Malaysia, Muslim India (all 250+million), Afghanistan and
Pakistan will accelarate the turning away.
This 'decision' to murder Soleimani will be cited by future non_court historians as seminal.
The US murdered the 2nd most important person in Iranian politics. This has to be one of THE
STUPIDEST DECISIONS I have seen come out of the Washington, D.C--Tel Aviv--London axis. I
really cannot think of any other official action by the US that compares in stupidity.
Unofficially, 911 was the stupidest act of the last 2 decades but as for official I believe
this takes the cakes.
In essence, screaming to the world that you are a gangster is not a very graceful way to wind
down an Empire. Pompeo-Trump-BoBo should have looked at a map. I see a hemisphere that is
geographically isolated that has to make a case for why anyone should interact with it.
Currently, all they have is the petrodollar system that supports 1, 000 military bases.
Problem: they have just given many of the (often unwilling) participants in that system a big
reason to leave it. I believe this is referred to as 'suicide'?
Correct me if I'm wrong. I would be happy to be.
Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between
Germany's behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and
externally. Is it just me, or have other's noted the similarity of Pompeo to Herman Goering
in looks and behaviour?
The leadership in the US need to stop thinking that they are impervious to revenge. Very
small drones can fly autonomously and each can carry 2 Kg of cargo which can be explosives,
chemical or bioweapons or a combination. They are cheap, easy to build and can operate
autonomously. With only using relatively simple algorithms they can be made to fly in groups
and track using already extant facial recognition software. I can envision a scenario where
drones are flown to the top of a semi-trailer somewhere south to hitch a ride north on I-95
until they get into DC near Fort Belvoir or Andrews AFB. They could then lift off and loiter
perched on transmission lines where they can easily recharge using rf energy and wait. Once a
target arrives, say a President on the golf course or perhaps Air Force 1 taxiing on the
runway or even perhaps perch outside a window, they can then lift off and conduct an attack
either directly or as limpet mines. With swarming you can send a mass of drones all flying
autonomously with varied patterns. It would be impossible to stop them. Because they are
autonomous jamming won't work. They would be impossible to trace back to their origin and
most could be 3D printed and use off the shelf parts. If I can think this way, I am certain
others are as well. Snake drones would be particularly difficult to stop.
Old hippe @128.yes, but these were being guided remotely from a US Navy aircraft and somewhat
controllable from remote which is what happened. I think inside the US they don't think that
far ahead and jamming would interfere with wifi etc. so not palatable. I Ave in mind they
would be sitting in the grass or on a nearby telephone pole waiting for the target and travel
less than 100 meters to hit. Autonomous means flying without any external controls and would
be committed once set out. One perched on a window with 2kg of C4 waiting for whatever
executive to sit down next to it would be another scenario. A snake drone could navigate in
the sewers up to an executive toilet. The possibilities are endless. It is just a matter of
time.
The Trump administration sees the U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani as a form of
deterrence not only with regards to Iran but also towards Russia, China and others. That view
is wrong.
The claim that the murder of Soleimani was necessary because of an 'imminent threat' has
been
debunked by Trump himself when he tweeted that 'it
doesn't really matter' if there was such a threat or not.
In a speech at the Hoover Institute Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the
assassination was part of a new deterrence strategy. As Reuters
reported:
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday said Qassem Soleimani was killed as part of a
broader strategy of deterring challenges by U.S. foes that also applies to China and Russia,
further diluting the assertion that the top Iranian general was struck because he was
plotting imminent attacks on U.S. targets.
In his speech at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, Pompeo made no mention of the
threat of imminent attacks planned by Soleimani.
On the 3rd of this month, we took one of the world's deadliest terrorists off the battlefield
for good.
...
But I want to lay this out in context of what we've been trying to do. There is a bigger
strategy to this.
President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing
deterrence – real deterrence ‒ against the Islamic Republic. In strategic terms,
deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior
exceed its benefits. It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must
understand not only do you have the capacity to impose costs but that you are, in fact,
willing to do so.
...
And let's be honest. For decades, U.S. administrations of both political parties never did
enough against Iran to get the deterrence that is necessary to keep us all safe.
...
So what did we do? We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and
military deterrence.
...
Qasem Soleimani discovered our resolve to defend American lives.
...
We have re-established deterrence, but we know it's not everlasting, that risk remains. We
are determined not to lose that deterrence. In all cases, we have to do this.
...
We saw, not just in Iran, but in other places, too, where American deterrence was weak. We
watched Russia's 2014 occupation of the Crimea and support for aggression against Ukraine
because deterrence had been undermined. We have resumed lethal support to the Ukrainian
military.
China's island building, too, in the South China Sea, and its brazen attempts to coerce
American allies undermined deterrence. The Trump administration has ramped up naval exercises
in the South China Sea, alongside our allies and friends and partners throughout the
region.
You saw, too, Russia ignored a treaty. We withdrew from the INF with the unanimous support
of our NATO allies because there was only one party complying with a two-party agreement. We
think this, again, restores credibility and deterrence to protect America.
This understanding of 'deterrence' seems to be vague and incomplete. A longer piece I am
working on will further delve deeper into that issue. But an important point is that deterrence
works in both directions.
Iran responded with a missile strike on U.S. bases in Iraq. The missiles hit the targets they were
aimed at . This was a warning that any further U.S. action would cause serious U.S.
casualties. That strike, which was only the first part of Iran's response to the murdering of
Soleimani, deterred the U.S. from further action. Iran also declared that it will expel the
U.S. from the Middle East. How is Iran deterred when it openly declares that it will take on
such a project?
Reuters makes it seem that the U.S. would not even shy away from killing a Russian or
Chinese high officer on a visit in a third country. That is, for now, still out of bounds as
China and Russia deter the U.S. from such acts with their own might.
Russia and China already had no doubts that the U.S. is immoral and willing to commit war
crimes. And while 'western' media avoid that characterization for the assassination of
Soleimani there is no doubt that it was one.
In a letter to the New York Times the now 100 years old chief prosecutor of the
Nuremberg trials, Benjamin B. Ferencz, warned of the larger effects of such deeds when he
writes :
The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had
"taken out" (which really means "murdered") an important military leader of a country with
which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the
subject, I view such immoral action as a clear violation of national and international law.
The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In
this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the
hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.
The killing of a Soleimani will also only have a short term effect when it comes to general
deterrence. It was a onetime shot to which others will react. Groups and people who work
against 'U.S. interests' will now do so less publicly. Countries will seek asymmetric
advantages to prevent such U.S. action against themselves. By committing the crime the U.S. and
Trump made the global situation for themselves more complicated.
Posted by b on January 18, 2020 at 19:28 UTC | Permalink
next page " "And let's be honest." anyone who starts off with those words - run the
other way when they say that.. pomparse is a real embarrassment to the usa on the world stage
at this point... there is no international law that the usa will not completely bypass / lie
/ or obfuscate to push its uni-polar exceptional agenda at this point.. anyone paying any
attention can see this clearly.
If push comes to shove, the Iranians are well aware that the US would, by its bombing and
missiles that the Iranians cannot completely withstand, cause many deaths and massive
destruction to its cities and infrastructure ... BUT the Americans are very much aware that
the Iranian response would be devastating -- all US ME military assets would come under
massive fire resulting in many deaths; all Gulf State oil infrastructure would be destroyed;
Tel Aviv and Riyadh would be attacked; the Strait of Hormuz would be blocked, and on and on.
It seems highly unlikely that the US would take such a risk -- let us call it Mutual
Assured Destructiveness
It is interesting that the commentary closes with a letter by Benjamin Ferencz, perhaps the
last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. As he indicates, the assassination is a war crime, and,
in my view, even the threat of such an assassination is a serious breach of international
law. Regimes following such a policy have gone rogue, and cabinet ministers making such a
pronouncement that the assassination was carried out as a deterrent are, in effect,
confessing to war crimes. In future the reach of the offending regime may be much less than
it is now, and, if that occurs, the rogue minister better be careful if he travels outside of
his home country.
Thanks B, for your continued articles that are never mentioned elsewhere. I completely agree
with your assessment. War used to have rules. Any american army brass or higher ups in USA,
Britain, Israel and allies will have to keep looking over their shoulder when they leave
their own country. Israel already cancelled trips to Saudi Arabia over security concerns. The
gloves are off and targeted assignation will hit allies of USA. The president family are fair
game, People who sponsor the the orange prophet of misery, Pompous Pompeoo, Esper or any
general will have a very paranoid time knowing that the rules of war that once protected them
from targeted assignation no longer apply. After all if america can do this, what's stopping
their adversaries from doing the same.
Benjamin B. Ferencz, his touted Harvard Law School pedigree Nuremberg Trial experience have
precisely ZERO persuasive value.
Ferencz was one of the most vicious and manipulative of the Nuremberg prosecutors. In a
BBC interview he stated boldly that he threatened to kill detainees or their families unless
they confessed:
Interviewer: "In previous interviews you've described how in gathering testimonies you did
resort to duress, for instance, lining up villagers and threatening to shoot them if they
lied. Such methods now would amount to witness harassment of the most extreme order.
Ferencz: Perhaps it would. but it's only because the people who make allegations don't
understand what war is about -- bring a room of 20 people together -- this is an actual
case -- and say I want you all to write out what happened, what your role was, what others
did. Anybody who lies will be shot.
"Oh, how can you do a thing like that!" You're threatening them, it's torture! What am I
going to tell 'em? That you won't get your patty-cake tonight? ' Please be honest, please
confess that you're a murderer. Please do that, I don't want to have to ____ you of
anything.'
What are you talking about? There's a war going on! They will kill you if they could. They
were killing some of their buddies before. So what am I going to do? I didn't shoot them.
But I threatened to , and that's the only weapon I had. And if that be torture, then call
me a torturer."
Moreover, Rabbi Stephen Wise, one of the key instigators of World War II and US
involvement in it, recorded a Personal Letter he sent to his wife / daughter (probably)
shortly after Germany's surrender. The Rabbi wrote that he and Nahum Goldmann had lunch with
Justice Robert Jackson, and that
"Justice [Robert] Jackson. . . .has grand and spacious ideas on the Nuremberg trials in
mid-October, with Weizmann, Goldmann or S.S.W. [Stephen S. Wise] as Jewish witnesses to
present the Jewish Case –not permitted as Amicus Curiae!
In itself it becomes the greatest trial in history, with what Jackson calls its broad
departure from Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.
Retroactively "aggressive war-making" becomes criminally punishable–with membership
in the Gestapo prima facie proof of criminal participation."
If Ferencz has an ounce of integrity, he will condemn as "aggressive war-making" every
person who voted for an illegal war against Iraq, and every person involved in imposing
sanctions on Iran -- themselves acts of "aggressive war."
"By committing the crime the U.S. and Trump made the global situation for themselves more
complicate."
USA is not exactly the sole economic superpower, but as long as the allies, EU, NATO,
major allies in Asia and Latin America, behave like poodles, USA pretty much controls what is
"normal". After Obama campaigns of murder by drone, now Trump raises it to a higher level,
and Europe, the most critical link in the web of alliances, applauds (UK) or accepts and
cooperates. That can be a useful clarification for US establishment.
So the bottom line is that while it is hard to show constructive goals achieved by raising
murder policies to a more brazen level, nothing changes for the worse. Allies tolerate
irrationality, cruelty etc. and to some extend, join the fun.
IMO, from what I understand of Shia mentality, after immoral assassination of general
Soleimani the only thing can prevent a violent revenge against US military or political staff
would be a Fatwa by a grand ayatollah to nullify a fatwa by any junior Ayatollah authorizing
(sanctioning) specific action. It was an incalculably caster F* mistake that can last for a
generation at least.
"t̶h̶e̶ U̶.̶S̶.̶ Israel and Trump made the global
situation for themselves more complicate"
Not if the purpose was more pressure by complication. The goal then to create a pretext: a
pressure cooker which will cause military exchange or, especially after some limited violent
exchange, increasing internal strife inside Iran which can't afford more war.
The conditions for this tactic would be clear: containing all the likely fall-out of the
above unraveling, namely:
- contain China with the trade war no one can win but will make it near impossible for
China to deal with Iran, Iraq and Syria.
- increased containment Palestine and Lebanon by Israel. Make very move there seem way too
expensive for especially Hezbollah.
- prevent any kind of weapon transport or technology transfer to Lebanon which could break
above containment.
- vastly improved border security and travel limitations
- increasing War on T̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶ Blow Back related powers for
Homeland Security, NSA etc.
Russia is seen as less of a problem as any potential military support would be simply too
costly and too little gain for Putin.
And make no mistake, Trump is fully ready to display nuclear might the moment Iran would
demonstrate their own remarkable advances. And he would make it very clear that the US is
willing. The new policy of deterrence is very simple and yet horrible: examples have to be
made to demonstrate that "all options are still on the table". If he wants to keep declining
America great but not have expensive wars and yet force others to still follow American lead:
there's only one cold logical solution to that.
The glaring fact of the matter is that the us president and his accomplices useld false
allegations as an excuse to murder these men. They also did so in a cowardly manner, under a
false invitation to negotiate (and, Yes I do believe that).
In my country, when a person orders someone to murder someone else in exchange for
compensation (in this case salaries), the police call it murder for hire.
Idle speculation on my part, but I am not alone in wondering if the Soleimani
assassination accelerated Putin's restructuring agenda. (I'm not suggesting it was generated
or even influenced in substance by the strike, just that the timing may have been.) Given the
power of the President in Russia, as the CIA itself very well understands, there is perhaps
no more tempting target for an overt military assassination strike than President Putin.
Of course, deterrence of rational actors is precisely what would prevent this, but I
imagine Russian strategic thinkers have wondered whether or for how long the US remains a
rational actor. Moreover, this would be the sort of thing that a fanatical faction could pull
off. In some Strangelovean bunker somewhere, there may be those who would actually welcome a
last gasp of large-scale warfare before the Eurasian Heartland is lost and the
Petrodollar-fueled global finance empire, nominally sheltered in the US, dies away.
Creative destruction ... a last chance to shuffle the cards, and perhaps reset a losing
game to zero.
What manner of nation does these things? What manner of man? Why are these criminals not
facing arrest and trial at this very moment? Is it because they all had their magical 'I'm a
special guy' hats on? Justice will come to us all.
I don't think what Pompeo was saying is vague, it is really just a way to con the US media
into believing that what they did was anything other than what it really was. They are trying
to couch their violent threatening behavior aimed at Iraqi leaders to keep them out of the
China-Iran orbit, as part of "The Patriotic Duty of Team America World Police". It is like a
mafioso saying to the police about their protection racket: "I'm doing you'se a favor by
keeping everyone in the neighborhood safe from criminals."
"It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a
mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless
they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name."
"This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from
Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make
an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image
of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would
be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a
mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number
of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything."
yeah - mafia tactics as offered by trump /pompeo and etc is exactly what it is... and when
Benjamin B. Ferencz calls it what it is, apologists show up to can ferencz @ 7.. so what will
persuade you chasmark?? do i need to send a hit man over to your place?
It's odd to see Reuters get the name of the Hoover Institution wrong, and also be wrong about
the Institution's association with Stanford University. The Institution is on the Stanford
campus but has a separate board of directors.
Okay, Reuters is making typically sloppy errors about the name and the amount of control
Stanford has over the rightwing "Institute" on its campus. Stanford, the university, has
plenty of US military intelligence (and actual black world) ties, but almost no one working
at Stanford would think killing Soleimani a good idea. Though plenty of the "thinkers" at The
Hoover Institution would.
Right, Pompeo is delusional. Murdering Soleimani will deter no one. Nor of course do the
Iranian missile strikes on US bases in Iraq mean the end of Iran's response to the act of
war.
all this rhetoric says the obvious: the USA wants to destroy physically the Near East (Iran,
Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, etc). either he destroys the whole region or he cannot be
reelected or better he gets impeached in the Senate.
I am surprised at how many establishment media have actually labelled this murder as
"assassination" instead of the usual euphemisms. I think nearly everyone in the world
understands that bragging about international murder completely changes international
relations. Except for Pompous and Trumpet, of course.
Everyone will be filing their hair-triggers. There seems to be a general world-wide
mobilization but no one is calling it that. It is all "war games" and such. At some point
before the 2003 Iraq invasion it was clear to me that the decision for open war had been
made. It is now clear to me that there will be an invasion of Iran, starting with Iraq. I
think the B-52s sent to the area are for killing Iraqis, since they have no air defense.
At the same time, the US asset bubbles are nearly "priced to perfection". That means they
have no where to go except down. Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. All it takes is a
break in the chain of payments and the next financial panic is ON! Can Uncle Sam greatly
expand his War on the World in the middle of financial chaos? I think he will probably
try.
I speculate that Uncle Sam believes Iran and Iraq will simply cower and wait for the next
blow. I predict they will not. Soleimani's assassination and the subsequent Iranian attack
have not substantially changed the strategic situation, except to tie down the boiler relief
valve and turn up the heat. God, if there is one, help us all. We're sure gonna need it.
Does this idiot Pompeo not realize the door swing both ways? Unless he plans to live his
remaining days bunkered in NORAD, he's just as vulnerable as the rest.
Should have add to my earlier comment (10) , the missile attack on American bases on Iraq was
Iran's military/ government response for killing General Soleimani, by no means was the Shia'
response since that would need a Fatwa and not necessary by an Iranian cleric or even by
Iranian Shia. Is now a religious matter for all believers.
Sooner or later, Saudi Arabia will make peace with Iran. It will improve relations with
Russia and China, and will reduce ties with Israel. Soon, Turkey will be completely out of
Syria, and Idlib will be entirely liberated. The US, in Iraq, will slowly be drained of
vitality with a death of a thousand cuts. Medium range missile production in conjunction with
Russian S-300 air defense will will spread throughout the Middle East, and Israel's air force
will be neutralized. Then the pipeline from Iran to Syria will be completed.
- I think that EVERYONE who is involved in the Middle East will think twice before one makes
a (provocative) move. Tensions will remain high. But some people may (and will) do
(deliberately) something (provocative) that will ratchet up tensions even more. With the
intent of ratcheting tensions higher.
- There was someone who said that in 2020 World War III would start. For a long time I
thought this person was nuts. But now I am not so sure anymore that this person was nuts.
- There were also people who said that we were "sleepwalking" into WW III, something along
the lines of what happened before WW I. These persons were talking about a war between the US
(+ NATO) and Russia. But now I think that if a war would break out that then not only Russia
but also China and Iran are going to be part of that war. No, I am not sure anymore that this
going to end well.
- I also think that everyone haas become (more) cautious. And that an act of A-symmetric
warfare has become (more) unlikely.
Pompeo is the spokesman for the rules based Western empire mafia don, Trump.
The event is now being turned into a US media event (real time movie making here) by Trump
letting out text versions of the backroom chatter around the murder. This will not sit well
with the ME, IMO.
What late empire keeps pushing for is some event that can be blown into global support for
war escalation....but it hasn't happened, yet
And all this over public/private global control of value sharing in the social human
contract....what a way to run a railroad/species......
The most depressing thing about the assassination's aftermath is that Western Europe's
leaders are as bad as America's - "It's the economy, stupid!" So, a threat to their auto
manufacturers is a threat to jobs, and one has to consider the next election. They were
already controlled thanks to the NSA's eavesdropping on their cell phones, a threat to
individual politicians - no need for them to worry about physical elimination, then; Trump
threatened via economics their parties' chances of reelection, meaning they have support for
knuckling under. China, Russia and Iran are on their own - China was still working on its
economic might, Russia was still working on building a strong political foundation, and Iran
already has its hands full with internal and external threats. The fence-sitters (India,
smaller Asian and African countries) will sit on the sidelines, working to improve their own
economies and waiting to see who looks more powerful before joining one side or the other to
break down or uphold the international norms and laws it took centuries to build. Tottering
as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't
yet strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
Trailer Trash 20
The only reason I wouldn't be surprised at big media calling Soleimani's murder an
"assassination" is how the media politics is played by party. Since the media tends to lean
left, they want to be thorns in Trump's side. Neither party is against war; they want to be
the instigators to get the glory (while shifting/limiting blame). Amid the media's stories on
this were the talking points of Trump going too far by DEMs in congress.
Recall Libya. The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they wanted to be able to
say they were the tough guys. The media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
Trump is simply a third-rate Godfather type gangster, with a touch of the charm and a lot
of the baggage. I think his murder of General Qassem Soleimani was not something he would
have done if he had any choice. It was a very stupid move, and Trump is just not that stupid.
I really think this was demanded by the 'churnitalists'. These churnitalists are probably the
psychos of the predatory arm of the CIA, and their billionaire allies.
See, it all works like this:
These churnitalists (who supposedly provide us with 'protection', or 'security') are the
real rulers (because everybody who defies them ends up dead). Now just ask your self: How
does rulership actually really work? It's really kind of simple. The only actual way to
establish rulership over other people is to prove, again and again, that you can force them
to do stupid things, for absolutely no reason. This is called 'people-churning', and all you
have to do is just keep churning out low-class 'history' by constantly forcing the weaker
ones to do stupid things. Again and again. This happens constantly in a churnitalist gangster
society. Even in schools and legislatures, and so on. Haven't you noticed it yet?
@ 24 willy2... i have been talking about war in 2020 for some time based off the astrology..i
have mentioned it in passing here at moa a few times in the past couple of years.. see my
comments in this skyscript link from june
2015..
Not only will it not deter anyone, it is loudly signaling that third rate neocons are the
only decision makers left in the room.
You're likely to see more provocations, since it's now such an easy button to push. i.e.
for any regional or global powers who need US forces to be diverted for a while. Any bullshit
they manage to sell to the young Bolton's in the bureaucracy will do.
While not exactly unprecedented, the change is how much the mask is off now.
The part of Pompeo's speech quoted by b above is American to the core: every sentence or
short paragraph contains at minimum one outright lie; the entire quote selected is also both
palpably delusional and stupid.
But having said that, there is something uniquely refreshing about the Trump/Pompeo tag
team's capacity for blurting out lies and inanities, and furthermore, they do it with gusto.
Guile is not Pompeo's strong suit.
One might say that the criminality of the 'new deterrence' is as American as apple pie,
except that apple pie in my experience is innocent of all that, unless I suppose it contains
a deadly poison, and is fed to a political or ideological foe.
What is new about the 'new deterrence' that will surely make life far more dangerous for
Americans, is that it publicly declares itself as a policy with no bounds, no ethical, or
logical, or legal constraints. So what the Americans have been doing for generations, often
but not by any means always with 'plausible denial', and sometimes quite brazenly, is now
explicitly underlined policy.
Previously, the fight was 'against communism', or 'for democracy', or for 'national
security'.
So for example, when Nicaragua during the "Reagan Revolution' was sanctioned, attacked,
vilified, subjected to uncounted atrocities, because those dastardly Nicaraguans had replaced
their loathsome monster dictator with a government trying to do the right thing for the
people, the war against that country was under the rubric of protecting American 'national
security', with bits of domino theory and communist hordes concerns thrown in.
So what is the difference between deploying tens of thousands of maniacal murderous
'contras' as 'deterrence' against a small country's attempts at making a decent life for its
people, and a drone attack on Soleimani and his companions?
I think one main difference is that the 'world has changed' around the perpetrators, but
they are still living the delusions of brainwashed childhood, the wild west, white hat
un-self conscious monstrosities riding into town, gonna clean the place up. Pathetic and
extremely dangerous.
There are 2 beasts, the first is either America or NATO, or basically "The Empire" or The
Neocon Oligarchy--all work well but America is a bit too broad since there are many good
people in America. The second beast whose number is 666, is Trump. Search: Trump 666 and be
amazed.
There's another logical flaw in Pompeo's argument.
The USA is a nuclear power. If you claim to assassinate other countries' generals as a
deterrent, then that signals America's true enemies - Russia and China - that it will
vacilate in using its own nuclear deterrent if an American target is to be neutralized. That
would bring more, not less, instability to the world order.
But maybe that's the American aim with this: to shake the already existing international
order with the objective to try to destroy Eurasia with its massive war machine and,
therefore, initiate another cycle of accumulation of American capitalism.
Another potential unintended blowback of Soleimani's assassination lies in the fact that
the USA is not officially at war with Iran. Iran was being sanctioned by the UN. That poses a
threat in the corners of the American Empire, since it sends a message that the USA doesn't
need to be at war with a nation in order to gratuitously attack it; it also sends the message
that it is not enough to play by the rules and accept the UN's sanctions - you could still do
all of that and submit yourself and still be attacked by the Americans.
The endgame of this is that there's a clear message to the American "allies" (i.e.
vassals, provinces): stay in line and obey without questioning, even if that goes directly
against your national interests. This will leave the Empire even more unstable at its
frontier because, inevitably, there'll come a time where the USA will directly command its
vassals/provinces to literally hurt their own economies just to keep the American one afloat
(or not sinking too fast). Gramsci's "Law of Hegemony" states that, the more coercion and the
less consensus, the more unstable is one's hegemony.
>Tottering as it appears to be, the U.S. looks to be
> ready to burn the world; its "adversaries" aren't yet
> strong enough to avoid the flamethrower.
> Posted by: Zee | Jan 18 2020 21:30 utc | 27
Indeed. But the longer Iran can delay the inevitable, the stronger and better prepared it
becomes, while Uncle Sam is busy burning the furniture and getting financially more
precarious. US planners seem to think that one can build an economy around poor people giving
each other haircuts while rich people keep trading the exact same assets back and forth while
steady driving asset prices higher.
Somewhere in the economic cycle someone has to actually make stuff and grow food. But
planners have allowed the manufacturing (and associated engineering, etc.) to leave while
driving farmers into bankruptcy. They are mortgaged to the hilt. When land prices quit
rising, there is no additional collateral and no new credit. With no additional credit, no
one will sell them seeds and equipment. So they are out of business. It's scary to think how
few people actually grow all the food to feed millions and millions.
Asset bubbles have real consequences, such as millions can not afford rent anymore while
millions of housing units remain empty because their value still goes up even without rental
income. Scenes from Soylent Green come to mind, thinking about how more and more people are
crammed into fewer living quarters.
Our brain-dead leaders have created a situation where they must continue to inflate
bubbles to keep increasing collateral to back more debt. But the bubbles impoverish the rest
of us. And bubbles always pop. Always.
I'm not sure how much the next financial crisis will affect the US killing machine, but I
doubt it would make the war machine stronger.
>The GOP criticized Obama for Libya but only because they
> wanted to be able to say they were the tough guys. The
> media was oh-so-happy to harp on the Iraq after Bush's
> destruction of Iraq but very quiet on the aftermath of Libya.
> Posted by: Curtis | Jan 18 2020 21:37 utc | 29
Yes to this. There is no disagreement in DC on the goals, just fussing over the tactics
and who takes credit. Two right wings on the war bird. Maybe that is why it is on a downward
spiral.
Describing that the drone strike took out "two for the price of one" -- in reference to
slain Iraqi Shia paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, who had been at the airport to
greet Soleimani, Trump gave a more detailed accounting than ever before of proceedings in the
'situation room' (which had been set up at Mar-a-Lago) that night.
He went on to recount listening to military officials as they watched the strike from
"cameras that are miles in the sky."
"They're together sir," Trump recalled the military officials saying. "Sir, they have two
minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. '2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They're in the
car, they're in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30
seconds. 10, 9, 8 ...' "
"Then all of a sudden, boom," he went on. "'They're gone, sir. Cutting off.' "
"I said, where is this guy?" Trump continued. "That was the last I heard from him."
b: Usage or typo alert - about 2/3 of the way through your piece.
Reuters makes it seem that the U.S. would not even shy away from killing a Russian or
Chinese high officer on a visit in a third country. That is, for now, still out of
bounce as China and Russia deter the U.S. from such acts with their own might...
The English language expression is "out of bounds" as in, of course, outside the bounding
lines defining a field of play.
"We put together a campaign of diplomatic isolation, economic pressure, and military
deterrence."
"diplomatic isolation" - when I read this I thought of the Ukrainian plane and the demand
for an "investigation according to international guidelines" (well, Syria got that
investigation according to international guidelines with the OPCW and we know how that went)
- it may lead to diplomatic isolation. Watch it. As such, Pompeo might have laid out a motive
for a potential US involvement.
"economic pressure" - while the E3 did not sanction Iran, with their lack of action in
regards to find working mechanisms and their depending on the US, that goal has been
achieved.
"military deterrence" - Pompeo thinks in CIA terms which can be seen as a covert weapons
trafficking organization (Timber Sycamore) and something like a secret military organization.
The murder of Suleimani is a war crime and as such a criminal act; it can hardly be
considered a military deterrence - although the murder was carried out by the US military
(maybe by CIA embedded in base?).
I don't know. It's a lot of speculation. Iran may have a reason to not state their systems
got hacked. But in the current context it may be advisable to do so, turn a potential
cyberattack back to its place of origin.
Pompeo and Trump have no concept of personal honour as they come from a sub-culture that has
none.
In the rest of the world, honour-integrity is very important. Throughout MENA to Pakistan,
the US was viewed as treacherous for using Sadaam to fight Iran then turning on him in
service of Israel's goals. Bush 2 contributed, through his blatant financial criminality
(much of this remains unknown to average Americans), to the perception that the US is
incapable of honouring ANY agreement (re:oil and other sub-rosa deals the US made).
The decimation of Syria, Iraq and Libya was not enough; criminal elites in the US have now
completely exposed themselves to the Muslim world. I am firmly convinced that the Arab
'street' has concluded the US and Israel are inseparable in their policy of murder and
mayhem. I am betting the elites view reconciliation within the Arab and Islamic world as the
way forward with input from Russia, China when and if needed. Turning away from US-Israeli
meddling and treachery will be a primary concern for the 20's.
I don't believe Pompeo or Trump have the foresight to understand killing Soleimani has sealed
how the US is perceived: Indonesia, Malaysia, Muslim India (all 250+million), Afghanistan and
Pakistan will accelarate the turning away.
This 'decision' to murder Soleimani will be cited by future non_court historians as seminal.
The US murdered the 2nd most important person in Iranian politics. This has to be one of THE
STUPIDEST DECISIONS I have seen come out of the Washington, D.C--Tel Aviv--London axis. I
really cannot think of any other official action by the US that compares in stupidity.
Unofficially, 911 was the stupidest act of the last 2 decades but as for official I believe
this takes the cakes.
In essence, screaming to the world that you are a gangster is not a very graceful way to wind
down an Empire. Pompeo-Trump-BoBo should have looked at a map. I see a hemisphere that is
geographically isolated that has to make a case for why anyone should interact with it.
Currently, all they have is the petrodollar system that supports 1, 000 military bases.
Problem: they have just given many of the (often unwilling) participants in that system a big
reason to leave it. I believe this is referred to as 'suicide'?
Correct me if I'm wrong. I would be happy to be.
Anyone who has studied the history of the Third Reich would note a curious similarity between
Germany's behaviour under Hitler and the current behaviour of the US both internally and
externally. Is it just me, or have other's noted the similarity of Pompeo to Herman Goering
in looks and behaviour?
That's one of the good aspect of Trump administration, in the long run. With these psychos
openly plagiarizing Grand Moff Tarkin ("Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of
this battle station."), it will be pretty had for any sane and sensible observer not to come
to the conclusion that, deep down, the USA *is* an Evil Empire that has to be fought and
brought down - and thankfully, this time, one saner Obama-like presidency, if it ever happens
after Trump, won't be enough to change that perception.
I can only guess what Toynbee would think of the US now, it certainly looks like suicide to
me and if the US actually had any friends left they would be busy trying to talk the US out
of it. From this point of view the relative silence speaks loudly and says something quite
different than at least some people think.
US NATO "allies" haven't exactly been enthusiastic. Maybe I'm wrong in thinking the UK
came closest with Johnson's "not crying" remark, everything else seems to be tortured
statements walking on eggshells. 2nd biggest NATO member Turkey cooperates with Iran and
plenty of others in NATO have wanted and worked towards normal relations despite differences,
some more publicly than others. It might not have amounted to anything but that's my
impression at least.
Any support for war against Iran is microscopic. Against Russia? Except for the rarest of
the worst of fools not a chance. Against China? People would have trouble comprehending the
question itself due to how absurd the notion is.
"Is it just me" who makes the argument reductio ad Hitlerum?
No, it's you and every other moron who gets his history from teevee and Hollywood.
If the compulsion to resort to WWII analogies is too compelling to overcome, flip the
script:
US and Britain 'won' the war in Germany by deliberately firebombing civilian targets, over
and over and over and over again.
United States Dept. of Interior records in detail how Standard Oil engineers, USAF, Jewish
architects, and Jewish Hollywood studio set designers constructed and practiced creating
firestorms with the stated goal of killing working class German civilians, including "infants
in cribs."
In a discussion of his book, The Fire, Jörg Friedrich emphasized that Allied bombers
dropped leaflets telling the Germans they were about to kill that their only recourse was to
overthrow their government -- to topple or kill Hitler: the "greatest generation" killed
civilians as "deterrents" to Wehrmacht's defensive actions against Allied invasion.
Since at least 1995 US tactics against Iran have been similar: Ed Royce spelled them out:
US will sanction Iranian citizens in an effort to make life so miserable for them that they
will riot and overthrow their government.
So yes, it IS "just like the Nazis" -- US-zionists are running a similar playbook as that
used to prostrate Germany.
And Iraq.
And Libya.
And Syria.
Notice that wrt Syria, having reduced that ancient place to rubble, much like Allies
reduced Germany's cultural heritage to rubble, US 'diplomats' are steadfastly refusing to
allow Syria access to resources with which to finance its reconstruction, and are also
blocking any other country's attempt to aid Syria in reconstruction: Destroying Syria was
'hi-tech eminent domain,' and now USA intends to be the only entity to finance and rebuild
Syria -- or else US will continue the destruction of Syria.
Most Americans think Marshall plan was an act more generous than Jesus Christ on the
cross, but in fact it was a cynical strategy to completely dominate Germany in saecula
saeculorum. (US LOANED the money, and far more-- about 2.5 X more-- was committed to
England -- relatively undamaged -- than to Germany, where 70% of infrastructure was
rubble.)
You won't learn that from the Hollywood version of WWII.
"This is not a Warning, it is a Threat," Trump declared in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon,
adding that Iran will "pay a very BIG PRICE" for the embassy siege earlier in the day."
They sure did. So who is next?
Yesterday Trump warned the supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameni:
US President Donald Trump has warned the supreme leader of Iran to watch his language,
following a heated sermon in which Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed American leaders as
"clowns."
Leading a prayer in Tehran on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei boasted that Iran had the
"spirit to slap an arrogant, aggressive global power" in its retaliation to the
assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, which he said struck a "serious
blow" to Washington's "dignity" – triggering a response from the US president.
"The so-called 'Supreme Leader' of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some
nasty things to say about the United States and Europe," Trump tweeted. "Their economy is
crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!"
In his sermon, Khamenei blasted "American clowns," who he said "lie in utter viciousness
that they stand with the Iranian people," referring to recent comments by Trump and
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Lets face it, assassinations are not a new thing. It became more organized with Lord
Palmerstons gangs of thugs in the mid 19th century (one of which took out Lincoln) . Since
the end of WWII the global mafia jumped across the pond and assassinations have been covert
actions arranged by the CIA , with operations having a high degree of plausible deniability.
But most higher ups had a pretty good idea who was behind it . Trumps just continued this but
like Bush and Obama have made clear its their right to do so against terrorists . Of course
the definition of terrorist has become rather broad. Trump recently said he authorized the
hit because he said bad things about America. Maybe saying bad things about Trump can get you
labelled the same. Watch out for those drones barflies.
So basically the main change is they no longer care about plausible deniability . They are
proud to admit it. And nobody seems to care enough to express any outrage. Name any countries
leader who has except in muted terms. Europe, Russia, China, etc everyone quiet as a mouse.
China so outraged they signed a trade deal giving them nothing. UN? Might as well move it to
Cuba , Iran or Venezuela for all the clout it has.
So you know, maybe the deterrence is working. Terrorism works both ways. The world seems
terrorized and hardly anyone in the US dares criticize Trumps action without saying the
general was evil and deserved it. Its not just drones they fear as financial terrorism
(sanctions, denied access to USD) works quite well also (except in Irans case).
The argument is correct.
(Although the mafia label bespeaks a limited frame of reference and it's inappropriate in any
event -- crime families do not have the reach or power of state assassination squads.)
Ferencz does not have the moral standing to make the argument.
It's like granting Ted Bundy credibility for criticizing police brutality.
The beast rises from the bottomless pit, it is written in the book you quoted!
How do you suggest a mere mortal and retard like trump does that?
The murcanized xtianity eschatology you have been reading is stupid and in NO WAY SHAPE OR
FORM Orthodox(Orthodox=Christian)
"ORTHODOXESCHATOLOGYdotBLOGSPOTdotCOM"
"orthodoxinfoDOTcom"
"preteristarchiveDOTcom"
You will find info that is not xtian but Christian @ those blogs..
The last one is a library with ancient and old texts about Christianity!
If you search "THEOSIS THE TRUE PURPOSE OF HUMAN LIFE" on orthodoxinfo you will also find a
book WELL worth reading if you are/want to be Christian.
Per
Russian Orthodox
Norway
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the
bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them."
Kali @35
i messed up and hit post b4 i pasted this..
"'The beast that thou didst see: it was, and it is not; and it is about to come up out of the
abyss, and to go away to destruction, and wonder shall those dwelling upon the earth, whose
names have not been written upon the scroll of the life from the foundation of the world,
beholding the beast that was, and is not, although it is."
Per
Russian Orthodox
Norway
first speculation. however it happened, "deep state" power or factions now have a
jacket
on Trump. he can't disown what happened. Brennan and Stephen Schwarzman are safe.
the Money and the MIC get what they want. Trump's agenda of converting the common good
to corporate profit is acceptable. they can use Trump to defeat Sanders.
and lastly this outlier from ibm.com. a new, more powerful battery made from sea
water.
charges in 5 min. in California this means electricity off your roof for everything
including
your car plus a surplus for export. how soon? doesn't say. oil dependent economies
want to know. and we won't need the "petro" for the petrodollar. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/12/heavy-metal-free-battery/
The truth of it is Trump murdered General Soleimani because the general was very effective in
defeating ISIS - the U.S. created and funded - terrorists in Syria and Iraq. The neocons were
none too pleased.
Release Jan.18 2020 21st centurywire audio Interview with Dr. Mohammad Marandi, Tehran
University
@ ChasMark 7 - not an ounce of integrity! Trump or Ferencz?
How is it I posted days ago that link to Ferencz's letter to New York Times and not a
pips. Are you defending Trump's war crimes as against bringing the Nazis to justice?
How about the U.S. waterboarding and torturing Muslims at Gitmo? 19 years on with NO
TRIALS!!! That's OK, right?
As far as b's premise goes, he's proven it IMO. Looks like the CIA made the next move in
Lebanon. IMO, Asia plus Russia & Belarus hold the geoeconomic and geopolitical deterrence
cards. The Financial Parasite continues hollowing out what remains of US industry and retail
helped along by Trump's Trade War. I presented the fundamental economic info and arguments on
the prior threads, so I don't have anything to add.
the price of fake freedom is remaining ever vigilant to prevent peace breaking out. trump's
as much a warmonger as any of them (which is to say impeachment won't make a bit of
difference).
[Before] the US assassination of Soleimani, there were numerous back-channel efforts for
détente in the costly wars that have raged across the region since the US-instigated
Arab Spring between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran and Iraq. Russia and China have both in
different ways been playing a key role in changing the geopolitical tensions. At this
juncture the credibility of Washington as any honest partner is effectively zero if not
minus.
[.] The US president just tweeted his support for renewed anti-government Iran protests,
in Farsi. We are clearly in for some very nasty trouble in the Middle East as Washington
tries to deal with the unintended consequences of its recent Middle East actions.[.]
Run home as fast as you can. In this election year, an observation; 10% of companies are
losing money but thanks to the Feds, the Markets are making ATH ...all time highs. On main
street Joe and Jane are in a well of hurt "it's the economy, stupid."
There is nothing ambiguous about Pompeo's statement. It is evidence of a profound psychotic
break. It is a megalomaniac delusion of godlike power, a deterance not attainable on a human
scale. "In all cases, we have to do this."
The masters of the universe will kill those who do not comply. The projection of their
psychic power to intimidate the world goes well beyond Iraq and Iran, brushing aside all the
little insubstantial nations that are constantly underfoot. Russia and China are to take heed
now, it is they too who must sleep with one eye open. The deterrence necessary to keep us all
safe means to go ahead and challenge those islands China built in the South China Sea.
The smiling villains do not accept that Crimea is part of Russia. Pompeo compares
Soleimani to bin Laden. There are so many departures from reality in the speech amidst all
the levity that it seems like someone has opened the doors of the Asylum.
Your retorts don't make sense relative to anything I've posted.
"not an ounce of integrity! Trump or Ferencz?"
Neither.
"How is it I posted days ago that link to Ferencz's letter to New York Times and not a
pips."
U can't fool all of the people all of the time. I wasn't fooled by Ferencz's claim to
righteousness based on Harvard when his Nuremberg activities were outrageous and the
Nuremberg set-up itself was that of a kangaroo court.
"Are you defending Trump's war crimes as against bringing the Nazis to
justice?"
Trump's war crimes are indefensible; the Nuremberg trials were not about "bringing Nazis
to justice," they involved, as Rabbi Wise said, a largely Jewish exercise in revenge. If
Nuremberg were about "justice," Wise himself would have been in the dock along with FDR (post
mortem), Churchill, Stalin, and Truman + + +
If Congress were just, it would be impeaching Trump, Pompeo, Pence etc. for war crimes.
But that does not make the Nuremberg trials the model of justice: they were not: as Rabbi
Stephen Wise wrote to his family, months before the trials began, they were set up by FDR's
man Robert Jackson as a
" broad departure from Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. [in which]
Retroactively "aggressive war-making" becomes criminally punishable–with membership
in the Gestapo prima facie proof of criminal participation."
Ferencz's co-ethnics participated in the creation of the kangaroo court that Ferencz
himself utilized more to vent his spleen than to establish international models of
justice.
That is why the so-called Nuremberg principles have not and cannot be properly applied to
the war crimes committed by Bush (I and II), by Clinton (Bill & Hill), Obama, Trump --
not to mention FDR, Truman & Churchill.
Further, as Ferencz surely realizes, "The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague" are toothless: if
they were effective bodies for meting justice, even the sanctions on Iran would be subject to
judgment under United Nations Charter, along with Victoria Kagan Nuland's subversion of
Ukraine and every other 'color revolution' US has engaged in: the UN Charter proscribes
interference in the internal affairs of member states.
In the Orwellian value system of America, Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really
NewSpeak for America's brazen war crimes, wars of aggression, and shredding of international
law.
America is a mafia nation masquerading as a democracy.
And Donald Trump is a two-bit New York mafioso don in charge of this America Mafia
state.
Trump recounts minute by minute details of Soleimani assassination at a fundraiser held at
his Florida resort. Cause that's what normal people do; brag about murdering someone. I'll
bet his fat cat Zionist friends emptied their coffers. SICK.
ak74 @62: Mike Pompeo's idea of "deterrence" is really NewSpeak ...
Exactly. And we might add:
"America First" means America is the Empire's Fist;
"Stand with the people of " is 'New World Order' psyop;
"Economic sanctions" is the economic part of hybrid warfare;
"War on terror" is the war on ALL enemies of the empire via terrorist
destabilization;
"Russiagate" is McCarthyist war on dissent;
"Trump" is the latest dear leader whose flaws are blessings and whose 'gut
instinct' is God's will. We know this because his fake enemies (like the Democrats, "fake
news", and ISIS) always fail when they confront him.
!!
V , Jan 19 2020 3:12 utc |
69 Dr. George W Oprisko | Jan 19 2020 2:46 utc | 65
You are a CIA/NSA TROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You condone pre-meditated MURDER!!!
Are you sure you actually read Chasmark @ 61?
Nowhere does he; You condone pre-meditated MURDER!!!
What Chasmark did, was to post the truth of the Nuremberg Trials.
They were an out and out sham...
You definitely need to up your reading comprehension and or, your knowledge of history...
And the other countries of the world whine, but do nothing. I'm afraid they've become as
shallow and self-absorbed as most Americans, afraid to confront the world's bully.
Torches and pitchforks are needed, and we get marches. I'm afraid the depravity has to get
worse before direct action is taken.
I only hope to live long enough to see the debacle that is inevitable, even if takes me
with it.
Justice and truth demand a reckoning..
Sounds dark, I know, but these are very dark days.
Among some of very good points you made, I take issue:
"Your retorts don't make sense relative to anything I've posted."
Perhaps you should re-read my comment vs what you posited. Look to Gitmo; is it any
different to your critique of Nuremberg where there was a trial, albeit with deficiencies, vs
holding and torturing prisoners over 18 years without a trial? that was my point.
You continue to offer up Rabbi Wise who proffered the Nuremberg trials were [.] "a
largely Jewish exercise in revenge"
I may add, they are also continuing to take out their revenge on Palestinians who had
nothing to do with events in Germany. The once oppressed have become oppressors.
If Congress were just, it would be impeaching Trump, Pompeo, Pence etc. for war
crimes.
Don't expect justice from Congress they are all too busy at the money trough to recognize
war crimes.
War crimes are prosecuted by the ICC which the US and Israel do not recognize. US is not a
state party; have threatened,
denied visas and barred entry to ICC investigators of war crimes
Further, as Ferencz surely realizes, "The United Nations Charter, the International
Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague" are toothless:
Toothless! Perhaps but Don't tell that to
Africans or Slobodan Milosevic while ELITES residing on that sliver of the "occupied
lands of Palestine" continue to roam free. Oh wait, they are the chosen ones who rule the
world!
Pompeo's speech may just be an attempt to reduce the cost of a future false flag
assassination that could be blamed on one of the enemies. If the enemy does what we do, no
need for an all out war. There will be a range of response options including just firing a
few missiles. Cost of war with the chosen enemy may be too high or the timing just not right.
William Gruff @ 9 Expressions of <=reality-disconnected human behavior=> describes
victim response to rules, enforcement behaviors and media products that bathe the
differentiation space that allows to produce human automatons. An examination of the forces
at work inside of the nation state container (differentiation space) will likely reveal
private and external forces that produce in these public containers, reality-disconnected
human responders (human behavior is a function of its environment; all learning is a result
of personal experience). No one can learn from another, but everyone can learn from the
behaviors of that other.
The physical environment is nature's doing, but the non physical environment is man's
doing. We can organize content as a product of the physical environment ( we build a home) or
as a product of the virtual environment (we produce a movie).
Conscious physical man is a highly differentiated product of both environments. A person
growing up in the jungles of Belize, will not learn to operate a sled designed to operate in
snow, and a person in the cold north will not learn to survive in the topical jungles of the
Amazon. Experience is the only teacher, human expression is the experience modified product
of sets of expressed genes. Experience in both the physical environment and the virtual
environment contribute to the human response to the challenges of life. The virtual
environment is about knowledge, habit, privilege, opportunity and a host of other non
physical components. see Law, Moral attitudes, and behavioral change, p. 243 ref and to be
clear behavior has three components. ref 7
What is this virtual space (environment) that allows differentiated humans to be
manufactured from genetic material in to adult automatons. How are these automatons
programmed? Since is it rarely possible to modify the physical space; most human
differentiation occurs in virtual space. How many such digital spaces are there? virtual
content means<= the verbal and non verbal (ref.12) discourse that engages interactively
with the mind (conscious and unconsciousness). Environments can be natural or manufactured.
Environment then is the container space. The contents of the manufactured environment are
psycho-econo-socio-metically designed, media engineered, sets of media products. Each nation
state supports a different set of contents within its container space. The order, arrangement
and time of environments presented controls the mental behaviors of the media connected
humans who reside within the container space environment.
The content of each nation state in the system is a set of environment variables operative
in each human container. Two hundred and six different container spaces (the global nation
state system=NSS) divides and separates the 8 billion humans in the world. Human
differentiation is a product of the 206 different container environments. Your observation
that "Pompeo is a psycho"; expresses the real problem for humanity; its leaders are the
products of the physical and virtual content of the host nation state within the system of
nation states. Each nation state is led by a few. I say to solve this always war condition it
is necessary to control the humans that occupy the positions in the nation states or to
eliminate the nation state system, and find some better way to address human need for
governance.
That strike, which was only the first part of Iran's response to the murdering of
Soleimani, deterred the U.S. from further action.
Is USA really 'deterred' or just didn't want war at this time? USA is 'deterred' if the
Iranian response actually stopped them in some way.
But they took Iran's 'slap' and RESPONDED (though not militarily) with more sanctions and
even tried to turn the attack to their advantage by saying (initially) that Iran missed on
purpose (
as I explained here ) and conducting Electronic Warfare/Info War that may have
contributed to Iran's mistaken downing of a commercial airliner.
And, as bar patrons know only too well, Pompeo has refused to negotiate a USA exit from
Iraq, saying that "USA is a force for good in the Middle East".
IMO USA wants to put on UN sanctions (now in progress) and, when war comes, USA will
portray it as entirely Iran's fault. The claim will be that Iran is "lashing out" due
to "sanctions imposed by the world community" .
Why does anyone gives either the president or US officials credence regarding what they say,
especially Secretary Pompeo, not to mention POTUS? Taking Pompeo at this word and responding
to it strikes me as a waste of time. These people are never going to say publicly what they
are up to, which is world domination. Nor is it their own ideal. This has been the policy of
the US elite at least since WWII, which was simply a transfer of the seat of power from
London to Washington as the British Empire morphed into the Anglo-American Empire. Global
domination through sea power was British policy for centuries and the US just recently
joining the game, especially when the game expanded to air power as well. Arguably, this goes
back to the end of WWI, if not the Spanish-American war that embarked the US on empire.
Deterrence, I guess is the politically correct term for what Trump is doing.
He sees that the Dollar hegemonic empire was crumbling same as most who don't rely on MSM for
their news.
Trump believes US can hold its position in the world through pure military power, or the
threat of military power.
He wants to regain what he calls importance from early 90s when US was sole undisputed
superpower.
Iran though, he believes is a blot on USA's past that needs erasing.
Throughout the election campaign, Trump's big thing was rebuilding US military. He believes
this will restore US power in the world. Ruling through the world fear rather than soft power
and blackmail.
Today is Theophany in the Orthodox Christian Church, the baptism of Christ in the River
Jordan:
Today Thou hast appeared to the universe
and Thy light, O Lord, hast shone on us,
who with understanding praise Thee:
Thou hast come and revealed Thyself
O Light Unapproachable!
The 2000 page report about Afganistan sums up USA's criminal insanity. Further, Trump says
the response attack from Iran did not harm troops nor do anything of significant damage.
Indeed Iran's missiles are far superior than the USA's and the counter attack for the
General's assassination. I have mused, that, perhaps the USA was/is set up in this scenario
via Iran, Et Al.
The basis of the American Empire and its parasitic economy and Way of Life(TM) itself are
premised on what should be called America's Dollar Dictatorship.
Because of the US Dollar, America is able to wage economic siege warfare (aka economic
sanctions) on multiple nations around the planet--all in order to impose the Land of the
Free's imperial dictates on them.
This is American global gangsterism in everything but name--and disguised behind the
founding American deceptions of "Freedom and Democracy."
The vast majority Americans--including some fake "alternative media" shills--will attempt
to spindoctor this issue by avoiding such blunt description of this system.
Instead, they prefer to employ Orwellian euphemisms about the "US PetroDollar" or the "US
Dollar Reserve Currency" or how America's superpower status is dependent on this dollar
syistem.
But former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accurately calls out this system for what
it is: America's global dictatorship of the Dollar.
This is another reason why America has such hatred for Iran:
Best explanation I've seen yet of the 752 jet takedown. It was a false flag attack by the US
or its allies intended to frame Iran. The Iranian missile hit second after the plane had
already been hit by the Stinger and was several seconds from crashing anyway. The rich kids
of Tehran were in the housing complex at 6 AM to film the Stinger shootdown by their
terrorist buddies. They have properly been arrested. There have been other arrests too. I
wonder what they will come up with.
This makes more sense than any other theory I have seen.
Tom Luongo, who frequently cites b, has coined a new word for Trump's and his minions
tactics. Tom asks:
Does Gangsternomics Meet its End in the Iraqi Desert?
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions
hung in the air. The big one was, in my mind, "Why now?"
There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by
caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who tried to let the world know through
official (and unofficial) channels of the extent of the pressure he was under by the
U.S.
In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as
gangsternomics in directing the course of Iraq's future economic and political
development.[/]
Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S. It
is the fulcrum now on which the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests. The
entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S.
And this started with Russia moving into Syria in 2015 successfully. We are downstream of
this as it has blown open the playbook and revealed it for how ugly it is.
Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in
Syria cannot be hidden behind the false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about
bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/]
What began in Syria with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and China standing up together and
saying, "No," continues today in Iraq. To this point Iran has been the major actor.
Tomorrow it will be Russia, China and India.
And that is what is ultimately at stake here, the ability of the U.S. to employ
gangsternomics in the Middle East and make it stick.[.]
By the time Trump is done threatening people over S-400's and pipelines the entire world
will be happy to trade in yuan and/or rubles rather than dollars.[.]
Pompeo omitted a crucial part of this sentence: "deterrence to protect [the financial and
energy hegemony of] America".
While this might be obvious to us, the narrative that US foreign policy is about
protecting citizens, values and apple pie from 'bad guys' -- and indeed that the militaries
of all Western countries are benign police forces preventing ISIS from burning your old
Eagles albums and other violations of 'freedom' -- is such a regular part of the MSM/cinema
diet masticated by the general public that we have completely forgotten that the basic
function of the armed forces is the pursuit of vested interests through superior violence. It
always seemed strange to me that the post-ww2 cinematic template for war-movies, and by
extension the basic plot of all reporting of western military activity in the media, always
represented the enemy as evil precisely because they use militaries in an instrumental
way (i.e for the purpose they were designed). The Germans, or for that matter the
Persians in 300 , or any baddies in war films, seek to extend and protect their
interests (real or imagined) by deploying armed forces. The good guys are always identifiable
through this idea of 'deterrence': "hey man, all we want is just to live and let live, but
you pushed us so we pushed back." Then one stirs in a little 'preemptive deterrence': you
looked like you were going to push so we acted. If we 'accidentally' go too far, it's because
there is a deranged C-in-C: Hitler, or Xerxes, or some other naughty boy who can be the
fall-guy, scapegoat, etc. To get serious we need to go back a very long way, to, say, the
Iliad , which, like all Greek (and Roman) literature, assumes as a premise (and it's
tragedy) that the warrior's basic function is to kill, pillage, rape and occasionally protect
others from the same. But mostly take by force . No qualms or BS 'deterrence', armies
are for taking other people's stuff by force (land-grabs, etc). I would respect Pompeo a
whole lot more (but not much more...) if he just once came out and said: "Iran is run by
people who don't want us to take their stuff; we want to undermine them and replace them with
paid yes-men who will let us take Iran's stuff. We will use violence and armed force to make
this happen. But we have no intention of distributing this loot evenly among our citizens.
Instead it will be paid as dividends to select shareholders and spent retooling the military
for next poor bastards who stand up to us."
Patroklos 84
Xerxes wanted water from Spartans, Hitler wanted land from "subhumans", but I don't see what
kind of stuff Americans want from Iranians. When they had Iran under control during Pahlavi
rule, what stuff did they take from Iran? They were giving Iran lots of money - didn't give
them USD printing press machine too?
Mike Javaras @82: The Iranian missile hit second after the plane had already been hit by
the Stinger ...
MANPADs like Stingers are heat-seeking. They go after ENGINES. On a big plane like PS732,
a MANPADs is unlikely to have stopped the transponder and communications.
Philip Giraldi points a finger at US/Israeli Electronic Warfare:
Giraldi thinks the transponder was hacked. But the article he cites also talks about a device
on board that would've allowed for EW. And he notes that Israel probably ALSO has the
capability to have been responsible for the EW and/or device on board.
Thanks. Gangsternomics seems a good term for Trump's vision of US world power. Trump is
pragmatic or realist in that he knows there is no court or authority to hold the US to
account.
As to US holding power purely through military power, that can only happen long term if he
gets hold of a good chunk of the worlds energy reserves (as in Persian gulf and Venezuela
oil). If he doesn't achieve that, then the US goes down. Iran needs to ensure it stays under
Russia's nuclear umbrella as there are no rules.
MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated there is unverified information
that at least six American F-35 jets were in the Iranian border area at the time when Tehran
accidentally downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 last week.
Sickening series of Trump interviews and speeches demanding that Iraq pay America and its
allies over a trillion dollars for liberating Iraq (time stamp 8:20 to 12:00). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWZfDJerI0o
This demonstrates that US attacks in Iraq over the last 30-40 years was mostly about the
control (including transportation routes) and than profiting from its oil and gas
reserves.
A secondary reason is to put troop on the border with Iran to further destabilize it via
state terrorism to overthrow the government and then take its oil and gas too.
It will get interesting when a pro Iranian new Prime minister takes office and China
offers Iraq a line of credit equivalent to the funds that would be frozen in Western bank
accounts if Iraq actually demands the troops to leave.
"The Iran-linked Binaa parliamentary voting bloc has nominated Asaad al-Edani, a former
minister and governor of oil-rich Basra province. Binaa's bloc is mostly made up of the Fatah
party led by militia leader turned politician Hadi al-Ameri, who is close to Tehran."
The Kurdish President of Iraq has stated that "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and
preserve civil peace, I apologize for not naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued.
"I am ready to submit my resignation to parliament." https://time.com/5755588/iraq-president-resignation/
I close with a visionary French rock opera Starmania "story of an alternate reality where
a fascist millionaire (read Trump) famous for building skyscrapers is running for president
on an anti-immigration policy, and where the poor are getting more and more desperate for
their voices to be heard." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LytR-6Xmk
Xerxes wanted water from Spartans, Hitler wanted land from "subhumans", but I don't see
what kind of stuff Americans want from Iranians. When they had Iran under control during
Pahlavi rule, what stuff did they take from Iran? They were giving Iran lots of money -
didn't give them USD printing press machine too?
Assuming that your post was serious...
1. Water from the Spartans? That makes absolutely no sense as a glance at any historical
map of the Achaemenid Empire will show;
2. Lebensraum was indeed a specific war aim of Hitler;
3. Under the Shah Anglo-American (not mention Dutch, French and other) interests skimmed all
Iranian energy resources, kept the USSR under pressure on the southern coast of the Caspian
Sea and provided a key friendly power in the most important region of central Asia.
Petro-dollar supremacy could not have been established without control of the Persian
Gulf. The Persian elite were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know
what the rest get.
@ krollchem #90 with the Starmania link that is not working
I get the following error from Oregon, USA
"
Video unavailable
This video contains content from WMG, who has blocked it in your country on copyright
grounds.
"
Thanks for the rest of the comment and agree with the sickness of demanding Iraq pay for
being invaded.
1. Water from the Spartans? That makes absolutely no sense as a glance at any
historical map of the Achaemenid Empire will show;
That was in the movie 300. I guess you did not watch it. :-)
The Persian elite were given wonderful opportunities while the rest... well we know
what the rest get.
Not just the elite. Persian middle class was pretty well off too. Spending vacation in
Europe was easy, quite affordable. Not any more. I know I know, those dang sanctions... well
that is what you get when you piss off the big dawg.
Anybody know what's up with Andrew Peek getting sacked from the NSC Russia desk tonight?
Odd that, and he seemed like such a trustworthy chap as indicated in his twitter feed.
Perhaps he has some Ciaramella connections that would make Trump uncomfortable. Or Trump is
taking absolutely no more chances with any insider he has no control over when attending high
level meetings.
Are you talking about 'earth and water' ? The symbolic gesture
of submission to the Great King? That's a very different thing altogether. You make it sound
like 'water rights'... I did indeed watch the film I'm sad to say, but Xerxes was not after
water.
I'd like to know what proportion of the pre-1979 population of Iran qualified as
'middle-class' and what that meant in real terms. Outside of Tehran, Shiraz, etc there
probably weren't a lot of Iranians skiing in St Moritz.
There are certain signs that nations exhibit when they slide into becoming
'regimes'...targeted, illegal assassinations of opponents is one of these; America's recent
political trajectory has been from oligarchy to kakistocracy and now, it seems, to regime -
banana republic next, perhaps?...
Soleimani had delivered an speech on 2 August 2018 in Hamadan, in his speech he read 5 verses
poems from Rumi the famous Persian poet lived on 13 century. You can watch and listen minute
35:45 of the film ,
if you know Farsi. He said let enemy pay attention to these poems.
He has selected 5 verses from two locations from Book3 of Masnavi.
V-96 : Men dance and whirl on the battle-field // They dance in their own blood.
V-97 : They clap a hand when they are freed from the hand of ego // They make a dance when
they jump out from their own imperfection,
V-98: The inner musicians strike the tambourine // The Oceans burst into foam from their
ecstasy
I think Soleimani selected last 3 verses from this story of baby elephant killer, and
revenge of the mother elephant, without intending the content of story. But the coincidence
is striking.
No fault in your reasoning, particularly when expressing this from Trump's point of view.
I'd go a bit further and suggest he understands Iran, North Korea and Cuba are the only
remaining nations without a Rothschild central bank. Thinking he's successfully rebuilt the
U.S. military could be the single most critical failure of his presidency. Upgrading hardware
with a tactical nuclear weapon preference, isn't synonymous with rebuilding. What's neglected
are the people operating any apparatus. As an example, there is no timely military action to
counter mining of the Strait of Hormuz as illustrated by
Death and Neglect in the 7th Fleet . A firsthand account from a U.S. Naval officer is eye
opening (emphasis mine).
He'd seen his ship, one of the Navy's fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and
maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its
crew was only able to conduct its most essential training -- how to identify and defuse
underwater mines -- for fewer than 10 days the entire next year . During those
training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship's faulty
navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000.
Sonar which identifies dishwashers, crab traps and cars as possible mines, can hardly be
considered a rebuilt military. The Navy's eleven minesweepers built more than 25 years ago,
have had their decommissioning continually delayed because no replacement plan was
implemented. I'll await the deeper understanding of 'deterrence' from b, even as I consider
willingness to commit and brag about war crimes as beyond the point of no return.
psychedelicatessen "Thinking he's successfully rebuilt the U.S. military could be the single
most critical failure of his presidency."
I would be in agreement on the overall gist of your reply, but on Trump thinking he's
successfully rebuilt the US military, I'm not so sure. He is a pragmatic gangster when it
comes to world affairs which is why his Nuclear Posture Review lowered the threshold of first
use of nukes. b's previous post on 'How Trump rebelled against the generals' also fits in
with this line of thought.
I believe Trump needs to be thought of as a CEO brought in to pull a company back from the
edge of bankruptcy. I think that is the way he sees himself, and as I have put in previous
comments, there are no rules. I had thought Trump may be adverse to pure terrorism but
depending on what comes of the Ukie airliner shootdown in Iran, there may be absolutely no
rules as far as Trump is concerned.
The article linked by Mike Jarvis @86 makes observational comments about the behavior of
the first missile strike in PS752 and that it must have been a stinger/manpad (and not a
Tor). The same article also concludes that EW must also have been involved. Everything I have
read indicates that the first missile strike behaved like a stinger/manpad - until this can
be disproved it must remain a valid theory.
"... The "movement conservatives" leader was Barry Goldwater who Trump's dad was a big supporter of, and Trump was raised in and among AND represents that faction of elite power. ..."
"... The LIEO or Rules Based Order is based on being closely allied with European elites against Russia to contain the Middle East and Central Asia (Iran and Afghanistan) based on Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard theory. ..."
"... The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led to supranational trade institutions. Democracies were relegated to a secondary status and run by technocrats for the benefit of oligarchs until Donald Trump. He is a nationalist plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level technocrat but no politician. ..."
"... The endless wars are fought to make a profit for the plutocracy and destabilize nations to make foreign corporate exploitation possible. That was why Hunter Biden was in Ukraine. The conflicts are not meant to be won. ..."
"... He makes stupid mistakes. Through the barrage of propaganda, reports of shell shocked troops, destroyed buildings and 11 concussion causalities from Iran's missile attack made it into the news. The military must be pissed. The aura of invincibility is gone. ..."
"... Donald Trump should be removed by the 25th amendment before he mistakenly triggers the Apocalypse. Except the 1% politician VP, Mike Pence, believes that the End of Time is God's Will and necessary for his Ascension. ..."
"... The power triangle theory is less in line with the facts than a simple duality: Wall Street & the MIC, you have to advance interests of both or you're out. ..."
"... Second, the 'meeting in the Tank' sounds like complete b.s. designed to sell books ..."
"... And the 'rules-based international order' rings very false as something that would be said with a straight face by real MIC insiders, which those generals are. ..."
"... Not only sick of wars, his mobster approach to foreign policy and allies is an embarrassment to RINO and Independents. ..."
"... Humanity is in a civilization war about public/private finance being fought by proxies and character actors like Trump. Maybe after this war is over, and if we survive, we can all communicate about the social contract directly instead of through proxy fronts. Do you want to live in a sharing/caring world or a selfish/competitive one?....socialism or barbarism? ..."
That Power Elite theory which was written in the 50s by C.W. Mills is incomplete for today
because in the 60s there was a split among the power elite between the new "movement
conservatives" and the old eastern bank establishment. The conservatives were more focused on
the pacific region and containing China, and the liberal establishment were more focused on
Europe and containing Russia.
The "movement conservatives" leader was Barry Goldwater who Trump's dad was a big supporter
of, and Trump was raised in and among AND represents that faction of elite power. In fact he
is the 1st president from that faction of the elites to hold the oval office, many people
thought Reagan was, but he was brought under the control of George Bush and the liberal
elites after taking office after he was injured by a Bush related person. The different
agendas of the the two factions are out in the open today with one being focused on
anti-Russia and the other being focused on anti-China. It has been like that since the
1960s.
The anti-China conservative faction which Trump represents (and which unleashed the VietNam
War) is screwing up the "rules based order" aka "Liberal International
Economic Order" aka Pax Americana which was set up after WWII at Bretton Woods and then
altered in the 1970s with the creation of the petrodollar and petrodollar recycling into
Treasury Bonds, by destroying the monetary scam they set up to control the world
It needed
the cooperation of the elites of Europe and elsewhere, which Trump and his faction doesn't
care about -- they only care about short term profits on Wall St.
The LIEO or Rules Based Order is based on being closely allied with European elites
against Russia to contain the Middle East and Central Asia (Iran and Afghanistan) based on
Zbigniew Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard theory. China trade is important for them, Russia is
their main enemy. ( War of the Worlds:
The New Class ). Trump and his movement conservative faction is ruining their world order
for their own short term gain on Wall St.
The 1950's triangle of power was superseded by the oligarch's counter revolution that led
to supranational trade institutions. Democracies were relegated to a secondary status and run
by technocrats for the benefit of oligarchs until Donald Trump. He is a nationalist
plutocrat; admittedly a lower level one, a NY casino owner who went bankrupt. Mike Bloomberg
represents the other side, a globalist billionaire. Elizabeth Warren is a top level
technocrat but no politician.
The endless wars are fought to make a profit for the plutocracy and destabilize nations to
make foreign corporate exploitation possible. That was why Hunter Biden was in Ukraine. The
conflicts are not meant to be won.
Donald Trump is way for over his head and getting old. His competent staff are in jail or
fired. Apparently no one told him about the thousands of ballistic missiles that can destroy
the Gulf States' oil facilities at will and make the buildup for the invasion of Iran
impossible. He makes stupid mistakes. Through the barrage of propaganda, reports of shell
shocked troops, destroyed buildings and 11 concussion causalities from Iran's missile attack
made it into the news. The military must be pissed. The aura of invincibility is gone.
Donald Trump should be removed by the 25th amendment before he mistakenly triggers the
Apocalypse. Except the 1% politician VP, Mike Pence, believes that the End of Time is God's
Will and necessary for his Ascension.
The power triangle theory is less in line with the facts than a simple duality: Wall Street
& the MIC, you have to advance interests of both or you're out.
Second, the 'meeting in the Tank' sounds like complete b.s. designed to sell books, with
an obvious sales strategy, as b said, of pleasuring both the pro/anti Trump sides of the
book-buying bourgeoisie.
And the 'rules-based international order' rings very false as
something that would be said with a straight face by real MIC insiders, which those generals
are.
Finally, whether Trump ridiculed the generals or not, that's a sideshow to entertain the
rubes. Trump's always been on side with the big picture Neocon approach essential to the MIC.
Their global dominance or chaos approach is essential to keeping military budgets gigantic
until 'forever'. True that Trump whined about endless wars as a 2016 campaign strategy, but
he was either b.s.-ing or at the time didn't get that they are part of the overall Neocon
approach he backs.
Not a very good analysis by b because this does not explain why 90 % of US corporate media
is hostile to Trump. This does not happen without significant elite support.
That Trump is backed by the military faction is something i have been saying often. But
there are forces within the government faction that dislike him, for example the CIA.
As for the corporate faction, it is not true that free money made them supportive of
Trump. Rather the faction is divided - between the globalist corporate faction, relying on
globalisation, including most tech companies, and US nationalist faction, such as local US
businesses, big oil, shale gas, etc.
Another point - jews have large influence within the US, and 80 % voted against Trump
regardless of his Israeli support. They again voted 80 % Dem in 2018. Having 80 % of US jews
against you means encountering significant resistance.
Demographically speaking, most women, jews, muslims, latinos, asians, afroamericans, lgbt
people, young people, etc. are strongly against him so i think that he will lose. Unless for
some reason they do not vote.
Even if he somehow wins again, this will lead to civil war like situation and extreme
polarisation in the US.
The US military, the various factions within the Deep State, political and corporate
cabals has the attitude of a spoiled 3-year-old: If I can't have it, I'll break it so it is
of little use to others.
Unfortunately, breaking other countries is just fine for the MIC... arms sales all around
and chaos to impede non-military commerce with other major power centers like Russia or
China.
Trump is the product of a dysfunctional family, a "greed is good" trust-fund social circle
and a sociopathic US bully/gun culture.
The fact "bone spurs" Trump weaseled out of the draft will also not play well with the
generals, let alone the grunts who suffer most from endless POTUS idiocy (not limited to
Trump, see Prince Bush/Bandar the 2nd)
All the more proof that most Western "democracies" would be better served with a lottery
to choose their Congressional and POTUS chair-warmers. Joe Sixpack could do a better job. A
200-lb sack of flour would do better than any POTUS since Kennedy.
your: "Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the
wars if the rulers veto it."
May be, I think is, true in one sense. But Trump is far from the sole agent capable of
starting a war. War, as opposed to simple murder, involve 2 or more parties. Whatever the
intentions, the recent murders by drone in Baghdad hav,e it seems, brought Iran to consider
war exists now...and they have a nifty MAGA policy. On Press TV today they hosted an expert
who called for the execution of several exceptional American leaders...sounds like war to
me.
(Make America Go Away)
The system is so screwy and peopled by such uneducated and delusional people that it's
quite simple that they would do some stupid that that caused a war. Looks like war to me. I
await the horrors.
Decaying empires usually start wars that bring about their rapid ruin. Does it matter how
they do this?
............
The thesis of the triangle of elite factions is fascinating.
Walter recalls that JFK got the reports from Vietnam that said we were winning, while at
the same time Johnson got the true story. And also what happened then with the "correction"
of 1963 (their words) and the immediate change of war policy. Can't help an old guy from
remembering old folly. And noting that history repeats as farce.
The Iran affair is liable to coordinate with NATO. Lavrov spoke to the NATO preparations
today @ TASS...
Some say Trumpie screwed up the schedule, which goes hot in April as a showdown with the
Roooskies. I take that with a grain of salt. But I think the sources I've seen might be
right. They say that if Barbarossa had not been delayed, the nazis woulda won in Russia.
Screwups can be very important.
I can't see any way the US won't use atomic bangers. But maybe...
I agree with wagelaborer in comment #3 and worth a repeat of most of it
"Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the wars if
the rulers veto it.
US foreign policy is not run by White House puppets.
The US trash-talked Saddam Hussein and starved Iraqis for 14 years, but didn't actually
invade until he started trading oil in Euros.
The US trash-talked Ghaddafi for decades, and even launched missiles which killed his
child in the 80s, but didn't destroy Libya until Ghaddafi decided to sell oil in dinars.
The US has trash-talked and sanctioned Iran for decades, but it was the threat of Iran and
Saudi Arabia making peace that pushed them to assassinate General Soleimani, as he arrived at
the airport on that diplomatic mission.
If Iran and Saudi Arabia make peace, and the Saudis drop the petro-dollar, the US Empire
crumbles.
It doesn't matter at all who is in the White House at the time, the Empire will never allow
that."
Humanity is in a civilization war about public/private finance being fought by proxies and
character actors like Trump. Maybe after this war is over, and if we survive, we can all
communicate about the social contract directly instead of through proxy fronts. Do you want
to live in a sharing/caring world or a selfish/competitive one?....socialism or
barbarism?
"... Pompeo omitted a crucial part of this sentence: "deterrence to protect [the financial and energy hegemony of] America". ..."
"... a regular part of the MSM/cinema diet masticated by the general public that we have completely forgotten that the basic function of the armed forces is the pursuit of vested interests through superior violence. ..."
"... No qualms or BS 'deterrence', armies are for taking other people's stuff by force (land-grabs, etc). I would respect Pompeo a whole lot more (but not much more...) if he just once came out and said: "Iran is run by people who don't want us to take their stuff; we want to undermine them and replace them with paid yes-men who will let us take Iran's stuff. We will use violence and armed force to make this happen. ..."
"... But we have no intention of distributing this loot evenly among our citizens. Instead it will be paid as dividends to select shareholders and spent retooling the military for next poor bastards who stand up to us." ..."
Pompeo omitted a crucial part of this sentence: "deterrence to protect [the financial
and energy hegemony of] America".
While this might be obvious to us, the narrative that US foreign policy is about
protecting citizens, values and apple pie from 'bad guys' -- and indeed that the militaries
of all Western countries are benign police forces preventing ISIS from burning your old
Eagles albums and other violations of 'freedom' -- is such a regular part of the
MSM/cinema diet masticated by the general public that we have completely forgotten that the
basic function of the armed forces is the pursuit of vested interests through superior
violence.
It always seemed strange to me that the post-ww2 cinematic template for war-movies, and by
extension the basic plot of all reporting of western military activity in the media, always
represented the enemy as evil precisely because they use militaries in an instrumental
way (i.e for the purpose they were designed). The Germans, or for that matter the
Persians in 300 , or any baddies in war films, seek to extend and protect their
interests (real or imagined) by deploying armed forces.
The good guys are always identifiable through this idea of 'deterrence': "hey man, all we
want is just to live and let live, but you pushed us so we pushed back." Then one stirs in a
little 'preemptive deterrence': you looked like you were going to push so we acted. If we
'accidentally' go too far, it's because there is a deranged C-in-C: Hitler, or Xerxes, or
some other naughty boy who can be the fall-guy, scapegoat, etc.
To get serious we need to go back a very long way, to, say, the Iliad , which, like
all Greek (and Roman) literature, assumes as a premise (and it's tragedy) that the warrior's
basic function is to kill, pillage, rape and occasionally protect others from the same. But
mostly take by force .
No qualms or BS 'deterrence', armies are for taking other people's stuff by force
(land-grabs, etc). I would respect Pompeo a whole lot more (but not much more...) if he just
once came out and said: "Iran is run by people who don't want us to take their stuff; we want
to undermine them and replace them with paid yes-men who will let us take Iran's stuff. We
will use violence and armed force to make this happen.
But we have no intention of distributing this loot evenly among our citizens. Instead
it will be paid as dividends to select shareholders and spent retooling the military for next
poor bastards who stand up to us."
She may, especially if Bernie Sanders falters, win the nomination in Milwaukee next
July.
But here's something you might consider:
Once upon a time, there was a liberal Democratic Senator from Massachusetts who won the Iowa
caucuses and New Hampshire primary easily, and then swept to the nomination.
His opponent was a largely unpopular Republican president who had deeply divided the
country. Democrats thought they could smell victory. On Election Day, their candidate did sweep
the northeast and the Pacific west. But except for a few states around Chicago, he lost
everything else -- and the presidential election.
His name was John Kerry, and that was 2004.
Once upon another time, there was a Democratic candidate from Massachusetts who made a
better-than-expected showing in Iowa, swept New Hampshire, and breezed to the nomination.
By summer, he was 17 points ahead in the polls, and the race looked about over. But then the
Republican spin doctors went to work on his record, and his campaign went into a tailspin. In
the end, he lost 40 states. His name was Michael Dukakis, and that was 1988.
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Now, it is a new century, and one of the front-running candidates for the Democratic
nomination is Ms. Warren, another liberal senator from, yes, Massachusetts who is leading in
some polls in early key states. Every election is different, of course.
The political landscape isn't the same as it was in 1988 or even 2004. But it would be hard
to blame any Democrat who looks at this and asks themselves – haven't we seen this show
before?
Doesn't it have an unhappy ending?
This analysis could be faulty. No two campaigns are the same, and most people are still not
paying a lot of attention.
To be sure, nobody like Donald Trump has ever been in the White House, and given his
negative approval ratings and other obvious weaknesses, an economic downturn could possibly
doom his reelection no matter who the Democrats run.
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, is no fan of Warren's
– but thinks she may win because by that time, the nation will realize they have to get
rid of Trump, no matter what.
Incidentally, he also thinks it would be the duty of any thinking American to support her if
she and Trump are the nominees.
But a New York Times /Siena College poll released Nov. 5 indicates that nominating
Elizabeth Warren could be the biggest gift the Democrats could give President Trump. Their
survey showed former Vice President Joe Biden beating Trump in virtually every swing state,
except for North Carolina.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont led the President narrowly in the three states that
decided the last election, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But Warren trailed in every
swing state except Arizona.
Polls are notoriously unreliable, especially this early in any election cycle, and a
Washington Post-ABC News poll the same day showed Warren with a 55 to 40 percent lead over
Trump.
But even that poll showed the more moderate Biden doing better. The New York Times survey
found that many voters just plain did not like Warren, some because they did not like her
"Medicare for all," health insurance plan; others because they disliked her personality or
speaking style.
Some said they felt like she was lecturing them; others, like Elysha Savarese, a 26-year-old
Floridian, said "I just don't feel like she's a genuine candidate. I find her body language to
be very off-putting. She's very cold basically a Hillary Clinton clone."
That may be unfair, and it is clear from Warren rallies that many women and men adore
her.
There are also a few older Democrats who note that John F. Kennedy was a Democratic senator
from Massachusetts, and he was elected. That is true – but it was also six decades
ago.
Kennedy, who was perceived as a middle-of-the-road moderate, could count on states like
Louisiana and Arkansas and Georgia that no Democrat – certainly not one on the left
– has much if any hope of winning today. Additionally, the playing field is
different.
Voting strength and electoral votes have shifted dramatically from the Northeast, which was
and is JFK and Warren's base, to the South and West. New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
had a combined 93 electoral votes in 1960. They have a mere 60 today.
Florida, which President Kennedy, (like Hillary Clinton) narrowly lost, had 10 electoral
votes in 1960; it has 29 today. Geography has become less favorable to a Massachusetts
Democrat. The day after Paul Tsongas won the 1992 Democratic primary, the legendary Texas Gov.
Ann Richards, a often irreverent Democrat, dryly told a friend of mine, "So they want to give
us another liberal from Massachusetts, and this one has a lisp."
Democrats did not, however, nominate Tsongas, but instead chose Bill Clinton, the governor
of Arkansas who was perceived as a moderate. That fall, he won.
History does not always repeat itself. But it does, sometimes, provide signposts for the
future.
(Editor's Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
If you wonder what the post-Trump Republican Party will look like,
take a glimpse at Tom Cotton, one of the US senators from Arkansas (where I live). Cotton has
waged a
relentless campaign for war against Iran and has supported every horror produced by the US
foreign-policy establishment for the last 20 years. He makes other American hawks look like
pacifists. Cotton once said that his only criticism of the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
where people are held indefinitely without charge or trial, is that too many beds are empty.
Typical of take-no-prisoners warmongers, Cotton savages critics of the pro-war policy that
has characterized US foreign policy in the 21st century. No baseless charge is beneath him. He
recently attacked the Quincy Institute in the course of remarks about anti-Semitism. (You can
see what's coming.) According to Jewish Insider , Cotton
said that anti-Semitism "festers in Washington think tanks like the Quincy Institute, an
isolationist blame America first money pit for so-called 'scholars' who've written that
American foreign policy could be fixed if only it were rid of the malign influence of Jewish
money."
This is worse than a series of malicious lies – every word is false. In fact, it's an
attempt to incite hostility toward and even disruption of one of the bright spots on the mostly
desolate foreign-policy-analysis landscape.
The Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft (QI) started last year with money from, among others, the Charles Koch
Foundation and George Soros's Open Society Foundations. Its officers and staff include
respected and sober foreign-policy analysts and journalists such as Andrew Bacevich, Trita
Parsi, Jim Lobe, and Eli Clifton. Also associated with the institute are the well-credentialed
foreign-policy authorities John
Mearsheimer, Paul Pillar, Gary Sick, Stephen Walt, and Lawrence Wilkerson. This is indeed a
distinguished team of foreign-policy "realists" who are heroically resisting America's
endless-war-as-first-resort policy.
Named for John Quincy Adams – who as secretary of state famously declared that
"America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" – QI "promotes ideas that
move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of
international peace." The QI website goes on to state:
The US military exists to defend the people and territory of the United States, not to
act as a global police force. The United States should reject preventive wars and military
intervention to overthrow regimes that do not threaten the United States. Wars of these kinds
not only are counterproductive; they are wrong in principle.
It then goes on to indict the current foreign-policy establishment:
The foreign policy of the United States has become detached from any defensible
conception of US interests and from a decent respect for the rights and dignity of humankind.
Political leaders have increasingly deployed the military in a costly, counterproductive, and
indiscriminate manner, normalizing war and treating armed dominance as an end in
itself.
Moreover, much of the foreign policy community in Washington has succumbed to
intellectual lethargy and dysfunction. It suppresses or avoids serious debate and fails to hold
policymakers and commentators accountable for disastrous policies. It has forfeited the
confidence of the American public. The result is a foreign policy that undermines American
interests and tramples on American values while sacrificing the stores of influence that the
United States had earned.
This may not be pure libertarian foreign policy ("US interests" is too slippery a term for
my taste), but compared to what passes for foreign-policy thinking these days, it's pretty damn
good.
So why is Tom Cotton so upset? It should be obvious. QI opposes the easy-war policy of the
last 20 years. Of course Cotton is upset. Take away war, and he's got nothing in his toolbox.
He certainly doesn't want to see the public turn antiwar before he's had a shot at high office,
say, secretary of state, secretary of defense, CIA director, or even the presidency.
Cotton's charges against QI are wrong on every count.
QI is not isolationist as long as it supports trade with the world and diplomacy as the
preferred method of resolving conflicts.
It's not a blame-America-first outfit because the object of its critique is not America or
Americans, but the imperial war-loving elite of the American political establishment. Cotton is
part of that elite, but that does not entitle him to identify the mass of Americans with his
lethal policy preferences.
It's not a money pit. As you can see, QI boasts an eminent lineup thinkers and writers. So
the money is obviously well-spent on badly needed analysis. QI should have been set up long
ago. Cotton shows his pettiness by putting the word scholars in sarcasm quotes. He
should aspire to such scholarship as Bacevich, Parsi, et al. have produced.
But where Cotton really shows his agenda is his absurd claim that anti-Semitism "festers" in
QI (and other think tanks – which ones?).
Cotton here is performing that worn-out trick that, alas, still has some life in it:
conflating criticism of Israel and its American lobby with people who are Jewish (and who may
well oppose how the Israeli state mistreats the Palestinians). I'm sure he knows better: this
is demagogy and not ignorance.
On its face, the proposition that virtually anyone who criticizes Israel's conduct toward
the Palestinians and its Arab and Iranian neighbors probably hates Jews as Jews is patently
ridiculous. Any clear-thinking person dismisses that claim out of hand.
Undoubtedly Cotton has in mind primarily Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of
The Israel Lobby and Foreign Policy , published in 2008. (It began as an essay
in The London Review of Books .) In that work, Walt and Mearsheimer reasonably attribute
the lion's share of influence on US policy in the Middle East to the Israel lobby, "a loose
coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move US foreign policy in a
pro-Israel direction." They add, "[I]t is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that 'controls'
US foreign policy. It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles,
whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case within the United States and influence
American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state."
This is hardly controversial stuff, although reasonable people can disagree over whether the
lobby was decisive in any given case.
But does anyone doubt that American champions of Israel work overtime and spend a lot of
money to advance what they see as Israel's interests? If so, see this and my book
Coming to Palestine . (Many non-Zionist Jews disagree with them about those
interests.) Organizations like AIPAC often boast about their influence. That they sincerely
believe Israel's interests coincide with America's interests is beside the point. (I won't
address that dubious contention here.) That influence, which supports massive annual military
aid to Israel, has helped to facilitate the oppression of the Palestinians, wars against
Lebanon, and attacks on Syria, Iraq, and Iran. It has also provoked hostility to America and
vengeful terrorism against Americans. (For example, the 9/11
attacks as acknowledged by the
government's commission .) Pro-Israel American political and military officials acknowledge
this.
Cotton need not wonder why the lobby has succeeded so often since he himself is using the
anti-Semitism canard to inhibit Israel's critics. No one wants to be condemned as anti-Semite
(or as any other kind of bigot), so we can easily imagine prominent people in the past
withholding criticism of Israel for fear of being thought anti-Jewish. (It's Israel and its
champions, not Israel's critics, who insist that Israel is the state of all Jews, no
matter where else they may be citizens.) Thankfully, despite the efforts of Cotton, Kenneth
Marcus, Bari Weiss , Bret Stephens, and others, the invidious conflation has lost much of
its force. More than ever, people understand that to oppose the entangling alliance with Israel
and to express solidarity with the long-suffering Palestinians do not constitute bigotry
against Jews.
Can Cotton produce any evidence that anyone at QI believes that pro-Israel Jewish Americans
should be barred from lobbying and making political donations or that such an obvious violation
of liberty would fix American foreign policy? Of course not. There is no evidence. Moreover,
I'm sure the QI realists understand that other interests also propel the pro-war US foreign
policy, including glory-seeking politicians and generals and the profit-craving
military-industrial complex.
Those who reflexively and slanderously tar Israel's critics as anti-Semites seem not to
realize that the worthy effort to eliminate real anti-Semitism is undermined by their efforts
to immunize Israel and its American champions from good-faith criticism.
Tom Luongo, who frequently cites b, has coined a new word for Trump's and his minions
tactics. Tom asks:
Does Gangsternomics Meet its End in the Iraqi Desert?
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions
hung in the air. The big one was, in my mind, "Why now?"
There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by
caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who tried to let the world know through
official (and unofficial) channels of the extent of the pressure he was under by the
U.S.
In short, President Trump was engaged in months of what can best be described as
gangsternomics in directing the course of Iraq's future economic and political
development.[/]
Iraq's importance goes much farther than just protecting the petrodollar to the U.S.
It is the fulcrum now on which the entire U.S. defense against Eurasian integration rests.
The entire region is slipping out of the grasp of the U.S.
And this started with Russia moving into Syria in 2015 successfully. We are downstream
of this as it has blown open the playbook and revealed it for how ugly it is.
Trump's crude gangster tactics in Iraq, Venezuela, Bolivia and to a lesser extent in
Syria cannot be hidden behind the false veil of moral preening and virtue signaling about
bringing democracy to these benighted places.[/]
What began in Syria with Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and China standing up together and
saying, "No," continues today in Iraq. To this point Iran has been the major actor.
Tomorrow it will be Russia, China and India.
And that is what is ultimately at stake here, the ability of the U.S. to employ
gangsternomics in the Middle East and make it stick.[.]
By the time Trump is done threatening people over S-400's and pipelines the entire world
will be happy to trade in yuan and/or rubles rather than dollars.[.]
The general gist of this article is on target, but I feel some of the details are off.
First off, Iran does want to be a region hegemon, they have wanted that for 5,000 years.
But they only succeeded, and then only temporarily, when the opposition was weak. Today they
are opposed by Israel, which is far stronger them Iran militarily, and by the Saudis, who are
far richer. Those two can contain Iran by themselves with little US support.
Secondly, Iran getting nuclear weapons is a problem. If they do, next will be the Turks
and Saudis, then the Egyptians and then who know who else. Having several nuclear powers in
an unstable part of the world is a bad thing in general, and when (not if, but when) one of
those state collapses like Iran did in 1979 or the USSR did in 1989, the risk of loose nukes
floating around is far too real. Better nobody has them (I am not a particular friend or foe
of Israel, but I trust them more than the Arab states on this score).
But our aggressive policy and troop deployments give the Iranians every incentive to build
nukes. Their previous incentive was to counter Saddam Hussien's Iraq, but we graciously
eliminated threat. But then we provided them with our own incentive to nuclearize. Very
dumb.
I don't fully agree that Iran having nuclear weapons would be a problem for us. To the extent
that any country's having them is a problem, sure. But Iran lacks the means to deliver such a
weapon to US territory, and their regime, which has, for better or for worse, been rather
stable over 40 years, has, notwithstanding aggressive rhetoric, been pragmatic: they know the
awful consequences that would come from unleashing a nuclear attack on us. They wouldn't even
think of it. Even attacking Israel, something within their capabilities, would certainly
unleash nuclear retaliation and mutually assured destruction. The mullahs are not into that.
I think that nuclear non-proliferation became a dead letter when Pakistan and India
acquired nuclear weapons and the world shrugged. Pakistan has one of the least stable
governments around, having frequent coups, an intelligence service brimming with religious
and ideological fanatics, and a history of repeated wars with neighboring India. If ever a
red line should have been drawn, that was it. But nothing was done, barely anything was even
said. From that point on, nobody really has any basis to complain if Iran (or any of the
other countries you mention) goes nuclear.
Worse, US foreign policy is almost perfectly designed to maximize nuclear proliferation
around the world. We have clearly and repeatedly sent the message to all nations that nuclear
weapons are the only deterrent to US aggression, and that giving up your nuclear weapons (or
agreeing not to make them, as Iran did) is suicidal. The world already knows that the US is a
lawless, rogue nation, and that its treaty promises are not worth the paper they are written
on. You really have to question the sanity of any government that has the resources to
develop nukes and isn't doing that.
to the extent that any country's having them is a problem, sure.
This is a pretty big "but", though? Nuclear proliferation is a huge danger and it's
why a country like Germany without a huge middle east presence or danger of getting attacked
with Iranian nuclear weapons would so forcefully back the JCPOA.
The existence and success of the JCPOA should be indictivative of the correct method to
fight proliferation and the importance of doing so. To the degree that the US should be
involved with the affairs of the Middle East, it should be done through the State Department
(or what's left of it when the Republicans are finished with it).
As for Pakistan's nukes means "nobody really has any basis to complain if Iran (or any of
the other countries you mention) goes nuclear." IR doesn't run on moral consitency. We should
complain about countries that start up nuclear programs, but we should also complain about
how the US's action have made nuclear proliferation more likely and not less. I'd rather not
the US give up on non-proliferation just because Pakistan has the bomb. We just need to
pretending our military can find solutions to political problems.
It's not relevant that they can't strike America. They have the means to deliver a nuclear
warhead to Israel, which is all that matters to the people in charge of this country.
And Iran does not even need nuclear weapons to completely destroy the Israeli state. They
have more than enough conventional missiles to do the job. And such anti-missile defense
systems such as the Patriot and Iron Dome implementations have both been shown to be
completely
inadequate against the type of missile onslaught Iran could deliver against Israel...
Yes, Iran could strike Israel with a nuke. Or, as Steve Naidamast has pointed out in his
response to you, they could obliterate Israel with conventional ballistics as well. In 40
years, they haven't done that. And they know that Israel would respond in kind, or with
nuclear weapons, and they would be destroyed. So they will not do that.
In any case, while it is true that the people running the country view the defense of
Israel as our responsibility, even as a top priority. In my opinion, and I think many readers
here agree, that is precisely the problem. There is no reason we should commit to the
defense of Israel: its existence and well being is not relevant to the defense of the United
States. In fact, our unconditional support of everything Israel does, no matter how blatantly
wrong it may be, is one of the things that fuels anti-American hatred around the world and
motivates terrorists. Pulling away from our connection to Israel would be one of the best
things we could do to enhance our national security.
The US is in the Mid East for Israel's interests and Israel's interests only. This article
completely ignores this reality and tries to obfuscate it with a lot of air over how another
analyst views the situation there.
Had the US not recognized partition in 1947/1948 and then the subsequent state of Israel,
much of the violence in the Mid East would have never occurred in the first place. This
combined with assassination of the Iranian head of state in 1953 (over the move to
nationalize Iranian oil and thus pushing out the British and Dutch oil industry) by
Eisenhower only served to seriously complicate the matters in this region.
Iran would have most likely never had felt the need to develop nuclear weapons if the
United States had simply just left well enough alone.
Unfortunately, the United States with few exception has never had anything but dim light
bulbs in the presidency. Even Truman's senior military leaders, Mid East Foreign Service
policy experts, and Secretary of State Marshall all warned him of the consequences of
recognizing an Israel state and they were all correct...
You know it, I know it, and pretty much everyone lurking around knows it: The US is in the
ME for very basic things that insure its primacy:
- the control of the oil flow;
- the control of the way that oil is being transaction-ed, must be US dollars. The flow of
dollars, especially the excess dollars needs to be controlled and be returned back to fund US
deficit - which of course US has no intention of repaying (external creditors only), and the
Feds, which are private bodies of financiers which benefit tremendously from controlling the
world's reserve currency, understand this;
- Oiled ME countries must be run by autocracies in fear of revolutions so they need US
support;
- Nationalist movements and republicanism are to be killed and persecuted;
- While a nuclear Iran might pose a threat to Israel, like India/Pakistan, US/Russia, it
would be all MAD, so not much to worry about.
US will stay in the ME as long as it will take to insure its primacy. And they will kill
any external or internal threats to this primacy.
Furthermore, there is a stirred appetite in the US and what its elites stand for. Look at
TPP, at the proposed treaty on services, etc. The intention is to privatize everything in the
world and have it in the hands of some, few. Thus State Owned Enterprises are to be shunned
and ultimately appropriated. This is all what TPP was about, this is all what the trade war
with China is about, and this is all the upset with Russia and Putin is about.
It is a very simple equation, that had the US population (military/intelligence) harnessed
to be the slave drivers of the rest of the world, while they themselves think they are free,
and liberators. This is the content of the red pill.
Not much different than the story told in the "Against the Grain A Deep History of Earlier
States" by James C. Scott
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lse...
And how can it be the other way if there are only two parties making decisions, and both of
them are committed as hell to staying bogged down in the Middle East whatever the cost
even to American troops and America's own economy , not to even mention the poor
peoples of that region? Just the latest example: Democrats received a totally free and
unprovoked electoral gift from Trump in the form of his administration committing an
unmitigated idiocy regarding Iran (which, probably, resulted in dead American
soldiers, not only wounded ones, given that even those wounded were concealed in the
beginning). A real, not clownish cause for an impeachment investigation, against which
Republican senators would have a very hard time looking honest and non-partisan in defending
the president. A dream for any half-literate opposition political strategist in an election
year. Their actions? They didn't think even for a minute that maybe - just maybe - they
should not squander that gift. Instead they threw it - a real (and their last)
opportunity to look solid in trying to impeach Trump - down the drain, industriously flushed
the closet and kept on digging some clownish personalities from Ukraine, who are not even
Ukrainian residents due to living in the US for years. You know how it looks like? The
Democratic Party's neolib bosses (also known as the Republican Party's neocon bosses) called
the DNC and said: keep on playing in your political sandbox, babies, but don't even dare to
pester the POTUS on those issues that further our policies.
To say that I'm eager to read a reply from that miserable partisan hack which shall have a
cheek to claim that either of the American institutional parties is not controlled by
neocons/neolibs after all this is to say nothing.
There are too many Jews and Christian Zionists involved with America's foreign policy, who
are happy to sacrifice America's well being for the sake of israel.
Until that changes, which I can't see how it will while America exists in its current form,
we are doomed to continue wasting blood and treasure in the region. It's tragic really, that
this nations elite doesn't care much for America, but only what America can do to further
their interests abroad.
ZOG is considered to be a conspiracy theory. These days, I'm not so sure it is.
At least part of the blame should go to the religious conservatives on the US Supreme Court
which, with its Citizens United decision in 2010, opened the floodgates for large scale
campaign contributions in Federal elections. The five Catholic conservatives voted in favor
of Citizens United. The three Jewish members of the court along with the sole liberal
Catholic (a woman) voted against it.
If you happened to watch candidate Trump's address to the 2016 AIPAC convention on TV
(which I did), you might recall that he promised to be the best president that Israel ever
had. It reminds me of that old Chinese proverb "Be careful what you wish for." Trump appears
to be more popular in Israel than in the US.
Being on the Supreme Court means that you never have to say that you are sorry.
I couldn't read the article because I don't subscribe to the WSJ, but I was wondering what he
meant by solving the Israel- Palestine conflict. I don't think we should " solve" it by
supplying the Israelis with weapons and almost unlimited support. We have been pretending to
be an honest broker for decades and we aren't. I doubt we could be. A President Sanders might
try, but I doubt he would succeed. He would have enough battles to fight on both domestic
policy and ( hopefully) pulling back from our endless interventions to put too much effort
into the I- P conflict. Most of the other possible Presidents would probably just be Israel's
lapdog, as usual.
I think the US government should pull back from Israel. Have relations, but don't treat
them like they are the 51st state. In theory I wish we could be an honest broker, but it
hasn't happened so far.
I have to say that the style of comments being posted as they regard Israel demonstrate that
a tide may be changing. I have noticed a slow but increasing negative response by serious
commenters on several sites not only toward the US commitment to Israel also to Israeli
policies and military capabilities as not being what everyone has promoted them to being.
This could be indicative of a sea change in US opinion, isolating most US
politicians...
@ Posted by: psychedelicatessen | Jan 19 2020 9:14 utc | 98
You are right one of the pillars of the Iranian asymmetric strategy to counter the USN is
using thousands of mines in the Strait of Hormuz and beyond, and probably also around the US
bases inside the Persian Gulf.
Back in the day when Iran was a pariah state in 1988 (under full embargo from USA and the
USSR), they almost sunk the frigate Samuel B Roberts with a very old WWI mine:
But forget it, they have now thousands of modern mines of Russian, Chinese, north Koreans
origin and inverse engineered Iranian mines, even better than those.
To try to clear the mines with wooden minesweepers in the Strait of Hormuz is a joke; to
clear the mines they have to move sloooowly and they will be sitting ducks to the Iranian
coastal defenses in this narrow pass; good luck using slow moving helicopters also, and using
hi-tech subs drones taking one by one will take months or years to clear them, if not
detected and destroyed before.
As in the case of the missiles threat, USN has no good solutions to the massive minelaying
in the Strait of Hormuz, and without massive resupply of the troops inside the Persian Gulf
by sea (of weapons, men, spare parts, evacuate wounded, etc...) they do not have a good
prospect to continue the war after few weeks; remember that the Iranians missiles have the
capacity to destroy all the airstrips of the US air bases in ME and cut dry the use of them
for bombing Iran and re-supply (trying to re-suppy a complete army only with helicopters is
not an option)
The iranians even do not need high-tech supersonic anti-ship missiles to close the Strait
of Hormuz, but they need them to maintain the US air carriers far enough from the iranians
eastern shores that their air wings will sit iddle inside the carriers (the operational range
of the F15, F16, F18 is around 700-800 Km), so they cannot support the troops in the opposite
side of the Persian Gulf, and even the SCG cannot use their cruise missiles (range 1700 Km)
against the western part of Iran where their missile force is allocated pounding the US bases
all around the Gulf
For US the only remained option would be to use long range bombers and cruise missiles
from subs, but they do not have enough of them to stop the rain of missiles and really
destroy the command and control centers, especially if they have not destroyed the huge
multilayered aerial defense Iran has (that seems to be much better than the american one)
The US then could think to use nukes, and then call a draft, but I do not recommend it, it
is better to ask for a truce
@psychedelicatessen #117
You are making a number of assumptions which I don't necessarily agree with.
1) That Sanders and Warren are on the same "side" and are viewed the same by the
"establishment". They clearly are not. Warren is the fallback should Sanders not be beaten by
Biden. Warren is not a real progressive.
2) Trump vs. Sanders - again, depends on which part of the deep state. It is an error to
assume the deep state is any more monolithic than anything else. The most credible breakdown
I've seen is that the "deep state" is really 3 parts: the corporates who are happy with
Trump, the intel agencies who are not, and the military which was unhappy originally but is
now ok since they've come out ahead of the intel agencies and still have representation at
the highest levels.
Looking at these same 3 with Sanders: the corporates would/are not happy. The intel agencies
are fine with Sanders and so is the military (F35, baby!). So it isn't clear at all the "deep
state" overall cares about/hates one more than the other - the constituent groups simply have
different goals.
3) Control over petro-dollar dominance. Frankly, I don't see how Trump or Sanders matters
there. The tactical plays are very clear: keep the Saudis happy so they won't accede to China
wanting to buy Saudi oil in RMB, because the Saudis don't have any other reason to stipulate
dollar payments any more.
4) Economic collapse: I am curious as to how you think this will happen. Specifically what is
the driver?
If it is de-dollarization - that is going to take decades, unless the US has a debt crisis
before then. And frankly, I don't see it coming soon because there is simply too much
international trade dollar cushion for the US debt accumulation to be a visible problem for
quite some time.
If it is domestic collapse not due to de-dollarization - what is the driver? The economy is
already no longer a major manufacturing, etc - with helicopter money going to the 1%. As much
as the neoliberals hate it, the reality is that the pain Trump inflicts via the trade war
ultimately is net positive for domestic production. It takes a while to make an impact, but
the trade war and the anti-China machinations have already caused Chinese manufacturers to
move production abroad - and to increase in-US production.
Plus there are ways to extend the runway: health care in particular. That's a big, deep and
very popular pot of gold which could be attacked, should Trump desire to do so. As far as I
can see, he doesn't have any particular fondness or historical partnerships with the health
care/pharma industry.
In 2016, HRC received $32.6M from health care (#1 overall) vs. Trump's $4.9M (#5
overall). source
Compare with defense: Trump and Clinton were about equal (tied for #1 but only $1M or
so).
Trump has also pushed through some laws which definitely aren't liked by the health care
folks, like the hospital bill transparency law.
"... Warren is that person you can never rely on–the one that has no defining characteristic other than self-elevation. Over the years, if it benefited her, she backed a few seemingly decent causes, but it was never about doing the right thing. It was all political expediency and shape shifting. She was a Republican during so many tumultuous years -- even during the Reagan era that propelled us towards what we are going through now hell, she was a Republican until her late 40s. But now she has reinvented herself as a populist, but won't even talk out against Biden, the man from Creditcardlandia. She's a promiscuous virgin, a carnivorous vegan. ..."
"... The treachery of Warren towards Sanders is most likely from some back room deal with Biden. ..."
To say Elizabeth Warren is a political opportunist is not giving
her enough credit. She has taken the struggles, as well as the identities of others (women,
school teachers, Native Americans, public school supporters, people who are able to tweet with
humor, actual humans) and has weaponized these categories until the meaning of it all is lost.
Her tweet about leaving your ghosting boyfriend and getting a dog despite your roommate's
objections should have placed her in the pandering hall of fame, and with that should have
included a one way trip to some kind of holding cell for the criminally trite.
Her obvious lies (she's not even good at them, shaking and being sketchy with a
tweaker-looking-body-vibe-thing when she tries to pull them off) -- well that bit regarding
Bernie Sanders has electrified her twitter feed with images of snakes and has even managed to
get #RefundWarren trending. At this rate, maybe she can pull in a negative donation for this
quarter. What an achievement. The first female candidate to pull that off! Grrrrl Power! Her
political instincts are as feeble as her lies -- to have her tell it, she was a selfless public
servant most of her career (more like a teacher long enough to mention it, and a corporate
lawyer as the subsequent defining profession). Her kids only went to public schools (umm no),
she is of native heritage (shouldn't she have helped a bit at Standing Rock with that
1/16600600606006 ancestry that she is so proud of?) . Oh yes, her father was a janitor (again,
what? No). She is but a champion for the veracity challenged. That's true at least.
Warren is that person you can never rely on–the one that has no defining
characteristic other than self-elevation. Over the years, if it benefited her, she backed a few
seemingly decent causes, but it was never about doing the right thing. It was all political
expediency and shape shifting. She was a Republican during so many tumultuous years -- even
during the Reagan era that propelled us towards what we are going through now hell, she was a
Republican until her late 40s. But now she has reinvented herself as a populist, but won't even
talk out against Biden, the man from Creditcardlandia. She's a promiscuous virgin, a
carnivorous vegan.
This current trend to take on the struggles of others as your own has been powerful of late.
Cops pretend to have coffee cups served to them with pig slurs and Warren puts forth that the
very individual who actually urged her to run for president in 2016, changed course and told
her women can't win (despite ample evidence that Sanders has a track record that is decidedly
feminist). I think she said Bernie offered her a cup of coffee in their meeting that had
written on it something like "Women can't win, you're a bitch, how's menopause treating you,
and also your hair is dry and brittle." (It was a Starbucks Trenta cup so he could go full on
misogynist because there was a lotta space to write on–thanks Starbucks, first a war on
Christmas, now a war on Women).
So I'd say this is weaponizing a status and taking the struggles of others to pretend they
are your own. Stolen valor, really.
For many of us Sanders is a compromise. The changes needed are massive, but he's the closest
thing we've got at this point. The hulking size of our nation and the lack of immediacy to
those in power over us lends a situation of creating an infantalized population. This is where
we are at now. There should be direct accountability and of course we have nothing of the sort.
I suspect far in the future, if humans are to survive in any manner, it will go back to some
sort of mutual aid, and direct accountability from those making life and death decisions over
others, in short, more of a tribal situation. But right now, in our lifetimes, we are tasked
with attempting to keep the planet below 150 degrees, to not bake our children before next
week.
We have utter nonsense pouring in from the Warren corporate shills and it is wasting our
precious time. The recent CNN debate should render that channel irrelevant at best, a direct
threat at the worst. Fox comes in with obvious bias, but the CNNs and MSNBCs slip in behaving
as if they are reasonable and neutral, assaulting those of us unlucky enough to have to watch
them as captives at dental offices. They most certainly help the Warrens and other corporate
shills by providing red herring distractions and pleas for incrementalism. This is akin to only
turning up your boiling water that you bath in a degree or two every 5 minutes rather than
trying to stop the boil. They care about immediate profits and in truth are terribly stupid.
Many of us have been raised to be polite and not utter this about others, especially those in
power. We look for reasons and conditions for their behavior and choices, but the stark fact is
that a lot of these people are ignorant as fuck and want to remain that way -- little or no
intellectual curiosity and full of base greed. And this will kill us all.
The treachery of Warren towards Sanders is most likely from some back room deal with Biden.
He probably told her that he needs help against Corn Pop and while sniffing her hair and
unwashed face, (I'm not being snarky without reason, she shared her beauty routine with the
media since that's so pressing in these days of turmoil) well Biden decided that she would be
the one to stroke his leg hairs in the oval office as VP.
They are the golden hairs of a golden
white man, he says. This is the way of Washington–lots of white men thinking their leg
hair is the best, but her instincts were shit to have taken a deal like this. No way in hell is
Biden going to win, even if the DNC does manage to prop him up as their candidate.
Trump will
have a field day with him (Biden of the reasonable Republican fable) and if they do debate, the
entire country might have a collective intracranial bleed from the batshittery that will be
spoken.
Trump will be there, all eyes dilated, snorting and speaking gibberish; Biden will be
there, all blood eyed and smarmy, talking about how poor kids can be smart too (the more you
know). I cry in a corner even considering such a spectacle. I'd rather see Topsy electrocuted
than watch that.
Anyway, it's not unlikely that Warren will get a challenger for her senate seat due to this
Judas move. The Bernie supporters will be generous with political donations if that individual
materializes, I'm sure. But I'm guessing she will try something again in terms of reinvention
and she will refer to herself as the politician formally known as Elizabeth Warren and try to
get a judge show on antennae tv. I won't watch it even if she hits the gavel and says to leave
the ghosting boyfriend and get a dog in the event of a sassy landlord tenant dispute brought
before her court.
I plan on ghosting Elizabeth Warren and her lying ass.
Warren is no "progressive," as her beating a retreat from Medicare for All demonstrates. She
now has shown herself to be a bald-faced liar as well as a political phony.
Warren is the Jussie Smollet of politics. I wonder if she claims Bernie attacked her while
wearing a red hat and screaming, "A woman can't win! This is MAGA country!"
It's hillarious that even after the shafting they got in 2016 by CNN there are still some
Bernie supporters who are finally catching on to what Trump supporters have been saying the
whole time, the MSM are a bunch of lying propagandists. I wonder who these people are who
think Bernie is going to fight against the Establishment when he can't even stand up for
himself against CNN, Warren, Hillary, the DNC,.... or anyone.
I'm with you, Me. I expected to see Bernie come out swinging after that exchange with Senator
Warren if he was to have any chance against Trump. Sucking it up for "the team" is loser
talk. Warren accused him of blatantly lying on national TV, and he's okay with that?
This manufactured 'controversy' has absolutely no relevance to electoral chances of
either, outside of the campus/media bubble - whose battle lines are already entrenched.
Once they delved into "Conquest and Exploitation", the Military were OverScoped and Few
People thought of rebuilding/modernizing Civil Infrastructure and Economy of the
Conquered.
Also, IMHO, every Govt-Job that affect the Military and Veterans' Lives should be held by
Veterans. Need them to be where the Rubber Meets the Road before sending others into harm's
way. I'd go as far to require WH, Congress, Supremes to be Previously Assigned to Combat
Units/Hot Zones (FatBoy Pompeo Fails here) - and have Combat Eligible Family be in Active
Duty or Drilling Reserves - ready to be sent to the Front Lines should they call for War
while running the Republic-turned-Hegemon.
That would include BoneShards' Adult Children and Spouses.
WH have been on a PetroUSD/MIC/PNAC7/AIPAC Bandwagon - which drive down Non-Yielding
Nation-States with Sanctions.
Now BoneShards Opened the Pandora's Box of Open State Level Assassinations using
Diplomatic Peace Missions as Venues. Worse? Against a Nation-State which can Respond in Kind
- AND Develop+Deploy Nuclear WMDs. Not Ethical - Inhumane and Imbecilic, really. That's why I
am voting for Gabbard this Time. A 2nd Gen Navy Vet. Been to War Zones in the Gulf.
Then CNN turned to a story that it had reported on just prior to the debate, alleging that
Sanders had told Senator Elizabeth Warren that he did not believe a woman could be elected U.S.
president. The CNN moderator ignored Sanders' assertions that he had a public record going back
decades of stating that a woman could be elected president, that he had stayed out of the race
in 2015 until Warren decided not to run, and that in fact he had told Warren no such thing.
Then came this exchange: CNN: So Senator Sanders -- Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you're saying that
you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?
SANDERS: That is correct.
CNN: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not
win the election? You don't have to know that you'd be better off with free
college and Medicare for All than with yet another war to recognize the bias here.
Many viewers recognized the slant. Many even began to notice the strange double standard in
never mentioning the cost of any of the wars, but pounding away on the misleading assertions
that healthcare and other human needs cost too much. Here's a question asked by CNN on
Tuesday:
" Vice President Biden, does Senator Sanders owe voters a price tag on his health care
plan? "
There was even time for this old stand-by bit of name-calling: " Senator Sanders, you
call yourself a Democratic Socialist. But more than two-thirds of voters say they are not
enthusiastic about voting for a socialist. Doesn't that put your chances of beating Donald
Trump at risk? "
Totally agree with Daniel: "Trump is president and commander in chief. The buck stops with
him. If he is too weak or stupid to prevent himself from getting manipulated by his creepy
cadaverous son-in-law and the bunch of fanatics he hired and surrounds himself with he is
unfit for the job. But given his many transgressions and war mongering ways, it's more likely
he's just another fraud like every other POTUS."
American hubris and bully-ism in the international arena has steadily grown since the end of
the Cold War, since they somehow believe their system won. With Trump, the mask is off. "I'm
taking the oil". In fact, he's taking the oil even though he can't do much with it (can't
develop it, limited selling options, etc). Pure child-like "it's mine, i'd rather break it
than give it back".
I have decreasing confidence that there will not be a nuclear war. It seems to be
increasingly likely that an overstretched American army will, at some point somewhere, be so
outmaneuvered that they will hit the panic button. The world is currently counting on the
Russians, Iranians, Chinese to be the sober ones, the cooler heads, the ones who hurriedly
clear the roads for the drunk adolescent American roaming the streets.
The U.S. has occasionally exerted pressure on democratic allies, but never treated them like
servile pawns. Until now. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (C) and his wife Susan (R) wait to
board a helicopter to the US embassy at the terminal at Baghdad International Airport on
January 9, 2019.(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
January 17, 2020
|
12:01 am
Ted
Galen Carpenter A policy statement that the State Department issued on January 10 asserts that "America is a
force for good in the Middle East." It adds, "We want to be a friend and partner to a
sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq." Yet the Trump administration's recent conduct toward
Iraq indicates a very different (and much uglier) policy. Washington is behaving like an
impatient, imperial power that has concluded that an obstreperous colony requires a dose of
corrective discipline.
Washington's
late December airstrikes on Iraqi militia targets, in retaliation for the killing of an
American civilian contractor working at a base in northern Iraq, greatly provoked the Iraqi
government and population. Massive anti-American demonstrations erupted in several cities, and
an assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad forced diplomats to take refuge in a special "
safe room ."
The drone strike on Iranian General Qassem Soleimani outside Baghdad a few days later was an
even more brazen violation of Iraq's sovereignty. Carrying out the assassination on Iraqi
territory when Soleimani was there at the invitation of Prime Minister Adel Abdull Mahdi to
discuss
a new peace feeler from Saudi Arabia was especially clumsy and arrogant. It created
suspicions that the United States was deliberately seeking to maintain turmoil in the Middle
East to justify its continued military presence there. The killing of Soleimani (as well as two
influential Iraqi militia leaders) led Iraq's government to pass a resolution calling on Mahdi
to expel U.S. forces stationed in the country, and he promptly began to prepare legislation
to implement that goal.
Trump's initial reaction to the prospect that Baghdad might order U.S. troops to leave was
akin to a foreign policy temper tantrum. He threatened America's democratic ally with harsh economic
sanctions if it dared to take that step. As Trump put it, "we will charge them sanctions
like they've never seen before, ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Over the following days, it became apparent that the sanctions threat was not just a
spontaneous, intemperate outburst on the part of President Trump. Compelling Iraq to continue
hosting U.S. forces was official administration policy. Senior officials from the Treasury
Department and other agencies began
drafting specific sanctions that could be imposed. Washington explicitly warned the Iraqi
government that it
could lose access to its account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Such a
freeze would amount to financial strangulation of the country's already fragile economy.
U.S. arrogance towards Baghdad seems almost boundless. When Mahdi asked the administration
to "
prepare a mechanism " for the exit of American forces and commence negotiations towards
that transition, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flatly
refused . Indeed, the State Department's January 10 statement made it clear that there
would be no such discussions: "At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to
discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop
withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East."
Throughout the Cold War, U.S. leaders proudly proclaimed that NATO and other American-led
alliances were voluntary associations of free nations. Conversely, the Warsaw Pact alliance of
Eastern European countries formed in response to NATO was a blatantly imperial enterprise of
puppet regimes under the Kremlin's total domination. Moscow's brutal suppression of even modest
political deviations within its satellite empire helped confirm the difference. Soviet tanks
rolled into East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush reform
factions and solidify a Soviet military occupation. Even when the USSR did not resort to such
heavy-handed measures, it was clear that the "allies" were on a very short leash.
Although the United States has occasionally exerted pressure on its allies when they've
opposed its objectives, it has not attempted to treat democratic partners as servile pawns.
That is why the Trump administration's current behavior towards Iraq is so troubling and
exhibits such unprecedented levels of crudeness. America is in danger of becoming the
geopolitical equivalent of a middle school bully.
If Washington refuses to withdraw its forces from Iraq, defying the Baghdad government's
calls to leave, those troops will no longer be guests or allies. They would constitute a
hostile army of occupation, however elaborate the rhetorical facade.
At that point, America would no longer be a moral "force for good" in the Middle East or
anywhere else. The United States would be behaving as an amoral imperial power imposing its
authority on weaker democratic countries that dare adopt measures contrary to Washington's
policy preferences. America might not yet have replaced the Soviet Union as (in Ronald Reagan's
words) the "evil empire," but it will be disturbingly far along the path to that status.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at The American Conservative , is the author of 12
books and more than 850 articles on international affairs.
"America is in danger of becoming the geopolitical equivalent of a middle school bully"?
Its not a mere prospect, its history. The US has been a bully for many years, at least
for the last 20 years, if not more.
It is 100% irrelevant what American think of their "moral standing" in the world. In
terms of foreign policy, it only matter what OTHER countries think, right or wrong. The
rest of the world already think the US govt is a bully. The fact that Trump, became
president is simply the icing on the big reveal cake. Yes, foreign powers helped Trump win
the election, but that was simply an effect on the margin. The majority of Trump supporters
do not need Russian interference to be swayed by him. Trump action embodies that which his
supports wanted for many many years.
What Trump has done is give foreign allies something tangible, indisputable proof to
point to, every time the US come knocking on their door ask for help on "this", "that" and
the "other thing". From now on, they will make sure the get favorable terms in writing,
rather than verbal agreements.
Upvoted, even though you repeat the BS allegations of Russian "interference". Social media
traffic mining by a privately-owned clickbait operation and an email leak to Wikileaks from
the DNC by a disgruntled insider is not "Russian interference". A handful of FB ads taken
out both before and after the elections, and slamming BOTH trump and Shrillary is likewise
evidence of nothing.
"Russiagate" is a hoax, a monumental LIE foisted onto the US public by a vengeful
Democrat party, their political-appointees within government agencies, the corporate media
and the Deep State reptiles who need eternal hostility to Russia to justify the $1T per
annum gravy train that so enriches them.
Russiagate and other forms of Anti-Russian yapping are but an effort for a risingly
dysfunctional society to blame outsiders for failure and dysfunction.
Iran has long been viewed as central for securing US hegemony over Eurasia and the US/UK have
not recovered from the 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran has: 1) large reserves of oil and
natural gas, 2) key Geo-strategic position- near the convergence of three continents,
straddling the Middle East and Central Asia, and abutting the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of
Oman, a strategic "choke point" through which circa 25% of the world's energy transits. As
summarized by Dan Glazebrook- "The reason for this obsession with destroying Iran –
shared by all factions of the Western ruling class, despite their differences over means
– is obvious: Iran's very existence as an independent state threatens imperial control
of the region – which in turn underpins both US military power and the global role of
the dollar."
During the 2016 campaign, then candidate Trump constantly railed against the JCPOA ('Iran
nuclear deal'), as the 'worst' treaty the US ever signed. After becoming President, Trump
withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and immediately imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran,
vowing to reduce energy exports to zero, effectively declaring economic war on Iran. I
suspect Trump represents a faction in the US ruling establishment committed to regime change
in Iran. Trump may have believed that Iran would buckle under the weight of US economic
sanctions and capitulate to US demands. These include instillation of a US- friendly
government that will: 1) stop supporting Hezbollah, Bashar Assad in Syria and the
Houthi-Ansarullah movement in Yemen, and 2) allow US energy firms to loot Iran's energy
reserves. As this approach has not worked, Trump is now aggressively pursuing the military
arm of this policy.
The New Year started with a proverbial 'bang' with Trump giving the go ahead for the targeted
assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi General Abu Madhi al-Muhandis,
which had been long in planning. As pointed out by Pepe Escobar- 'It does not matter where
the green light for the assassination.... came from....This is an act of war. Unilateral,
unprovoked and illegal.' Not surprisingly, Trump's actions have been generally well received
by Congress and corporate media. We are now seeing US vassals- UK, France and Germany line up
behind Trump to enact the dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) and sanctions snapback
provision, resulting in the re-imposition of UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Apparently, this action was prodded by Trump's threats to apply 25% tariffs to EU auto
exports to the US.
It appears Pentagon war plans for Iran are being put in place. As per a recent piece by
William Arkin in Newsweek- prior to Trump's inauguration, the US military carried out an
exercise "Global Thunder 17", simulating a nuclear response against Iran in retaliation for
the sinking of an American aircraft carrier and use of chemical weapons against US troops.
This war scenario was chosen because it "allowed the greatest integration of nuclear weapons,
conventional military, missile defense, cyber, and space into what nuclear strategists call
'21st Century deterrence.'" The Pentagon now has a 'low yield' nuclear warhead- W76–2,
apparently developed for an Iran-type of scenario. These weapons are deliverable by
submarine-launched Trident II missiles.
So where do we stand?
It is doubtful that Trump will be convicted by the Republican- controlled Senate. This will
only embolden him more. US vassals- UK, France and Germany are lining up behind Trump to
enact the dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) and sanctions snapback provision, resulting in
the re-imposition of UN sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Apparently, this action was
prodded by Trump's threats to apply 25% tariffs to EU auto exports to the US. Canada,
Australia and New Zealand have also expressed support for Trump's position. France is
deploying her only aircraft carrier to the ME to 'fight ISIS'.
Corporate media is largely on board with Trump's plan.
Over the last two decades, the US has expended (squandered) astronomical sums of taxpayer
money (>$6 Trillion) and lives of thousands of troops on ME wars. After committing such
large amounts of financial and human capital, the Pentagon has no intention of admitting
their mistakes or changing their behavior. Doing so is an acknowledgement of failure and by
extension military weakness. Further, the strength and stability of the dollar and more
broadly US global power, is contingent on maintaining control of ME energy reserves. The
financial elite/directors of US foreign policy are well aware of continuing US economic
decline and looming strategic debacles confronting the Pentagon in Afghanistan (longest war
in US history), Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Logic dictates that the US cannot 'win' a war
with Iran, but this assumes one is dealing with rational thinking. By exiting the JCPOA,
Trump put the US on a collision course with Iran. Alea iacta est (l. 'The die is cast').
Links of potential interest follow.
Notes
1. With a New Weapon in Donald Trump's Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going NuclearBy William
Arkin Jan 13, 2020; Link:
www.newsweek.com/trump-iran-new-nuclear-weapon-increases-risk-crisis-nuclear-1481752
2. Washington continues war buildup against Iran By Bill Van Auken Jan 17, 2020; Link:
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/17/iran-j17.html
Jim Webb: The Iran crisis isn't a failure of the executive branch alone - When did it become acceptable to kill a top leader of a country we aren't even at war with?
Visitors walk around the stairs inside of the Rotunda to the top of the
Capitol dome last month in Washington. (Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images)
By
Jim Webb
January 9
Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2013
and was secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1988.
Strongly held views are unlikely to change regarding the morality and tactical wisdom
of President Trump's decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani as he traveled on a road outside
the Baghdad airport after having arrived on a
commercial flight
. But the debate regarding the long-term impact of this act on America's place in
the world, and the potential vulnerability of U.S. government officials to similar reprisals, has just
begun.
How did it become acceptable to assassinate one of the top military officers of a
country with whom we are not formally at war during a public visit to a third country that had no
opposition to his presence? And what precedent has this assassination established on the acceptable
conduct of nation-states toward military leaders of countries with which we might have strong
disagreement short of actual war -- or for their future actions toward our own people?
With respect to Iran, unfortunately, this is hardly a new issue.
In 2007, the Senate
passed a
non-binding resolution
calling on the George W. Bush administration to categorize Iran's
Revolutionary Guard Corps as an international terrorist organization. I opposed this proposal based on
the irrefutable fact that the organization was an inseparable arm of the Iranian government. The
Revolutionary Guards are not independent actors like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. They are part of the
Iranian government's formal military structure, with an estimated strength of
more than 150,000 members
. It is legally and logically impossible to define one part of a national
government as an international terrorist organization without applying the term to that entire
government.
Definitions define conduct. If terrorist organizations are actively involved against
us, we attack them. But a terrorist organization is by definition a nongovernmental entity that operates
along the creases of national sovereignties and international law. The Revolutionary Guards are a part of
the Iranian government. If they are attacking us, they are not a terrorist organization. They're an
attacking army.
The 2007 proposal did not succeed. But last April
the State
Department unilaterally designated
the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist entity.
Although more than 60 organizations are listed in this category, this is the only time our government has
ever identified an element of a nation-state as a terrorist organization. And the designation was by many
accounts made despite the opposition of the CIA and the Defense Department.
Which leads us to Soleimani.
The assassination of the most well-known military commander of a country with which
we are not formally at war during his visit to a third country that had not opposed his presence invites
a lax moral justification for a plethora of retaliatory measures -- and not only from Iran. It also holds
the possibility of more deeply entrenching the U.S. military in a region that most Americans would very
much prefer to deal with from a more maneuverable distance.
No thinking American would support Soleimani's conduct. But it is also indisputable
that his activities were carried out as part of his military duties. His harm to American military units
was through his role as an enabler and adviser to third-country forces. This, frankly, is a reality of
war.
I fought as a Marine in Vietnam. We had similar problems throughout the Vietnam War
because of Vietnam's propinquity to China, which along with the Soviet Union provided continuous support
to the North Vietnamese, including most of the weapons used against us on the battlefield. China was then
a rogue state with nuclear weapons. Its leaders continually spouted anti-U.S. rhetoric. Yet we did not
assassinate its military leaders for rendering tactical advice or logistical assistance. We fought the
war that was in front of us, and we created the conditions in which we engaged China aggressively through
diplomatic, economic and other means.
Now, despite Trump's previous assertions that he wants to dramatically reduce the
United States' footprint in the Middle East, it seems clear that he has been seduced into making unwise
announcements similar to the rhetoric used by his immediate predecessors of both parties. Their blunders
-- in Iraq, Libya and Syria -- destabilized the region and distracted the United States from its greatest
long-term challenge: China's military and economic expansion throughout the world.
At a time when our political debates have come to resemble Kardashian-like ego
squabbles, the United States desperately needs common-sense leadership in its foreign policy. This is not
a failure of the executive branch alone; it is the result of a breakdown in our entire foreign policy
establishment, from the executive branch to the legislative branch and even to many of our once-revered
think tanks. If partisanship in foreign policy should end at the water's edge, then such policies should
be forged through respectful, bipartisan debate.
The first such debate should focus on the administration's unilateral decision to
label an entire element of a foreign government an international terrorist organization. If Congress
wishes to hold Iran to such a standard, it should then formally authorize the use of force against Iran's
government. The failure of congressional leadership to make these kinds of decisions is an example of why
our foreign policy has become so militarized, and of how weak and even irrelevant Congress has allowed
itself to become in the eyes of our citizens.
"... In diplomatic terms, the US drive to force Iran into neo-colonial subjugation is expressed in Trump and Pompeo's demand that Tehran negotiate a replacement to the "flawed" Iran nuclear deal -- a "Trump deal" that would severely limit Iran's military, "roll back" its influence across the Middle East, and permanently bar it from a civil nuclear program. ..."
"... it is animated by the calculation that a "grand bargain" more favorable to US imperialism can be extorted from the crisis-ridden and deeply divided Iranian bourgeoisie, under conditions where it is facing not only ever-escalating external pressure, but also massive social opposition, above all from the working class. ..."
"... The Iranian regime was shaken by an explosion of popular anger against austerity and social inequality at the beginning of 2018. Last November, when massive gas price hikes sparked demonstrations in more than 100 cities, some of them violent, the Iranian government again responded with brutal repression, reportedly killing scores of protesters ..."
"... The assassination of Suleimani was itself clearly targeted at more than "just" threatening and destabilizing the Islamic Republic. It was aimed at shifting the internal dynamics of the Iranian regime. ..."
As with any sudden turn in world geopolitics, the true purpose and full implications of
Washington's criminal assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Suleimani
are emerging only with the passage of time.
The Trump administration's claims that the assassination was in response to an imminent
threat to American lives have been exposed as blatant lies. Suleimani's murder was months in
the planning and long advocated by key figures in the US military-foreign policy
establishment, including CIA head Gina Haspel, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former
Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton.
The killing of the military leader, who was widely viewed as second only to Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran's power structure, constitutes a dramatic escalation of the Trump
administration's campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran. This campaign combines unrelenting
diplomatic and military pressure with devastating economic sanctions -- that are themselves
tantamount to an act of war -- cyber-warfare and other "special ops."
It is aimed at "turning" Iran and bringing to power -- whether through the reconfiguration or
outright overthrow of Iran's Shia clergy-led bourgeois nationalist regime -- a government in
Tehran, akin to the Shah's bloody quarter-century-long dictatorship, that will be at American
imperialism's beck and call.
Iran has long been viewed by US imperialist strategists as central to its drive to secure
hegemony over all Eurasia. This is because of its vast oil wealth and its geo-strategic
position, near the convergence of three continents and straddling the Middle East and Central
Asia, the world's two most important oil exporting regions.
In diplomatic terms, the US drive to force Iran into neo-colonial subjugation is
expressed in Trump and Pompeo's demand that Tehran negotiate a replacement to the "flawed"
Iran nuclear deal -- a "Trump deal" that would severely limit Iran's military, "roll back"
its influence across the Middle East, and permanently bar it from a civil nuclear
program.
Washington's maximum pressure campaign against Iran is predicated on the "credible" threat
of all-out war, and is intimately bound up with its preparations for "strategic conflict"
with Russia and China. It could rapidly cascade into a catastrophic war with Iran that would
engulf the entire Mideast and draw in the other great powers.
But it is animated by the calculation that a "grand bargain" more favorable to US
imperialism can be extorted from the crisis-ridden and deeply divided Iranian bourgeoisie,
under conditions where it is facing not only ever-escalating external pressure, but also
massive social opposition, above all from the working class.
The Iranian regime was shaken by an explosion of popular anger against austerity and
social inequality at the beginning of 2018. Last November, when massive gas price hikes
sparked demonstrations in more than 100 cities, some of them violent, the Iranian government
again responded with brutal repression, reportedly killing scores of protesters .
The assassination of Suleimani was itself clearly targeted at more than "just"
threatening and destabilizing the Islamic Republic. It was aimed at shifting the internal
dynamics of the Iranian regime. It removed the military leader responsible for
overseeing Iran's attempts to counteract US pressure through a network of foreign militia
groups, most of them based on Shia populism. Suleimani, moreover, was a leader, as the
subsequent mass demonstrations protesting his murder and the US war threats attested, who had
a broad base of popular support.
Given the manner in which Suleimani died, including his evident lack of security, it is
legitimate to ask whether factional opponents within the Iranian state facilitated his
murder.
What is incontrovertible is that in the wake of his assassination and the tumultuous
events it precipitated, the factional warfare has intensified, culminating in last week's
inadvertent downing of a Ukrainian International Airlines plane by an Iranian Revolutionary
Guard missile, its cover-up, and the outbreak of student demonstrations denouncing government
negligence and repression.
Yesterday, President Hassan Rouhani, who spearheaded the push for the rapprochement with
the European imperialist powers and Washington that resulted in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, denounced the military for failing to "apologize" for
the downing of the passenger jet. He also criticized the recent decision of the Guardian
Council to exclude many sitting parliamentarians from standing in the coming elections. He
called for "national reconciliation" -- a slogan long raised by supporters of the Greens, a
movement based in dissident sections of the bourgeoisie and upper-middle class, which, with
imperialist backing, disputed the outcome of the 2009 presidential election.
Meanwhile, on a visit to New Delhi in which he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, Iranian Foreign Minister Javed Zarif declared that the Indian government, a key US
ally, could play an important "role in de-escalating tensions in the Gulf."
A major element in the Trump administration's drive to leverage the crisis of the Iranian
regime and the longstanding cleavages within it has been the effort to cajole the European
imperialist powers -- Germany, France and Britain -- into joining Washington in repudiating
the Iran nuclear accord.
On Tuesday, the so-called E-3 took a giant step in this direction by initiating the
accord's disputes resolution mechanism, thereby placing themselves on a fast track to join
Washington in imposing and policing the sanctions that are strangling Iran's economy.
It is Washington that trashed the nuclear accord and is pursuing "maximum aggression"
against Iran. Through its dominance of the world financial system, it has successfully shut
down the world's trade with Iran, thereby making the quid pro quo underlying the nuclear
accord -- the removal of sanctions in exchange for the dismantling of much of Iran's civil
nuclear program -- null and void.
Yet, in what could only be music to Trump and Pompeo's ears, France, Germany and Britain
are blaming Iran for violating the agreement, cynically citing Tehran's attempts to gain
leverage by exceeding various JCPOA stipulations and accusing it of seeking nuclear
weapons.
The European imperialist powers have been rattled by provocative and unilateral US actions
that cut across their interests. Suleimani's assassination was just the latest rude
shock.
Britain and the EU powers fear Washington's ever-escalating aggression against Iran will
spark an all-out war that will redound against their own imperialist interests, even if it
doesn't immediately draw in Russia and China. A war would send oil prices soaring, roil the
European economy, spark another massive refugee crisis and further radicalize a growing
working class counter-offensive.
No doubt Pompeo and others have told the Europeans that if they want to restrain Trump,
avert a major conflagration and retain influence in the Middle East, they must rally behind
Washington and its maximum pressure campaign.
To these dubious incentives, the Trump administration added a trade war threat, according
to a report published yesterday by the Washington Post under the title, "Days before
Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25
percent tariff on European autos if they didn't."
That said, as in the case of Washington, a key factor in the Europeans' calculations is
the character of Iran's bourgeois regime and its manifest crisis.
The European imperialist powers have clearly been emboldened by the Iranian regime's
response to Suleimani's assassination, which was limited to missile strikes of which the
Pentagon was given advance warning and which resulted in no casualties, and by its ham-fisted
attempt to cover up its responsibility for the downing of Ukraine Air Flight 752.
For all its anti-American bluster, the Iranian regime is a bourgeois national regime. In
so far as it has come into conflict with Washington, it has always been from the standpoint
of increasing its own possibilities for exploiting the working class and boosting its
regional influence.
The growing opposition from the working class impels Iran to intensify what has been a
decades-long attempt to effect a rapprochement with every US administration, dating back at
least to that of George H.W. Bush.
If it can, the Islamic Republic's elite, or sections of it, will strike a deal with
imperialism at the expense of the masses. Even before Rouhani came to power in 2014 on a
program that coupled overtures toward Washington and Europe with further privatizations,
subsidy cuts and other anti-working class measures, the Iranian regime was involved in
behind-the-scenes talks with the Obama administration on removing the sanctions.
Similar talks could happen in the future or even be underway though back channels now.
Trump has shown in his dealings with North Korea that he is capable of pursuing such a
two-track policy.
As for the so-called Iranian "hardliners," they are no less hostile to the working class
than their factional opponents, as evidenced by the implementation of neo-liberal "reform"
measures by every Iranian government since the late 1980s, and their readiness to unite with
their factional opponents to suppress any challenge from below.
Ultimately, the "hardliners" supported the nuclear deal and the pursuit of closer
relations with the US and the EU. Even more importantly, their strategy for opposing
Washington--based on seeking close military-strategic ties with Russia and China and the use
of Shia populism and religious sectarianism to rally support across the Middle East--is a
blind alley that risks plunging the region and the world into a conflagration.
"The Marxist political parties, including the Social Democrats and their followers, had
fourteen years to prove their abilities. The result is a heap of ruins. All around us are
symptoms portending this breakdown. With an unparalleled effort of will and of brute force the
Communist method of madness is trying as a last resort to poison and undermine an inwardly
shaken and uprooted nation.
In fourteen years the November parties have ruined the German farmer. In fourteen years they
created an army of millions of unemployed. The National Government will carry out the following
plan with iron resolution and dogged perseverance. Within four years the German farmer must be
saved from pauperism. Within four years unemployment must be completely overcome.
Our concern to provide daily bread will be equally a concern for the fulfillment of the
responsibilities of society to those who are old and sick. The best safeguard against any
experiment which might endanger the currency lies in economical administration, the promotion
of work, and the preservation of agriculture, as well as in the use of individual
initiative."
Adolf Hitler, Radio Appeal to the German People, February 1, 1933
"Both religion and socialism thus glorify weakness and need. Both recoil from the world as
it is: tough, unequal, harsh. Both flee to an imaginary future realm where they can feel safe.
Both say to you. Be a nice boy. Be a good little girl. Share. Feel sorry for the little people.
And both desperately seek someone to look after them -- whether it be God or the State.
A thriving upper class accepts with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings,
who, for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings,to slaves, to
instruments... One cannot fail to see in all these noble races the beast of prey, the splendid
blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory; this hidden core needs to
erupt from time to time, the animal has to get out again and go back to the wilderness."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"At a certain point in their historical cycles, social classes become detached from their
traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties, in their particular
organisational bias, with the particular men who constitute, represent and lead them, are no
longer recognised by their class as their own, and representing their interests. When such
crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicate and dangerous, because the field is open
for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic 'men of
destiny' [demagogues].
The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of
monsters."
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 1930-35
"Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God.
You agree? Good. Then go with my blessing. But I warn you, do not expect to make many friends.
One of the awful facts of our age is the evidence that it is stricken indeed, stricken to the
very core of its being by the presence of the Unspeakable."
Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable
"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and
desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and
domestic subjects."
R. J. Rummel, Death by Government: A History of Mass Murder and Genocide Since
1900
"This is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin. It is the power of the darkness of the world,
and of spiritual wickedness in high places. The only difference is that it is not happening in
the past, or in a book, or in some vaguely frightening prophecy -- it is happening here and
now."
Jesse
"The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power
as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others
only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Plunder, rape, and murder they
falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Tacitus
"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in
America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and
humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as
bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage.
And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid
enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream
turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with
gas, went bang in the noonday sun."
Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
"Day by day the money-masters of America become more aware of their danger, they draw
together, they grow more class-conscious, more aggressive. The [first world] war has taught
them the possibilities of propaganda; it has accustomed them to the idea of enormous campaigns
which sway the minds of millions and make them pliable to any purpose.
American political corruption was the buying up of legislatures and assemblies to keep them
from doing the people's will and protecting the people's interests; it was the exploiter
entrenching himself in power, it was financial autocracy undermining and destroying political
democracy. By the blindness and greed of ruling classes the people have been plunged into
infinite misery."
Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check
"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the
need without ever reaching satisfaction."
Erich Fromm
"We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way
and pray another.
If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what
you have chosen instead."
Britain and the EU powers fear Washington's ever-escalating aggression against Iran will
spark an all-out war that will redound against their own imperialist interests, even if it
doesn't immediately draw in Russia and China. A war would send oil prices soaring, roil the
European economy, spark another massive refugee crisis and further radicalize a growing working
class counter-offensive.
No doubt Pompeo and others have told the Europeans that if they want to restrain Trump,
avert a major conflagration and retain influence in the Middle East, they must rally behind
Washington and its maximum pressure campaign.
To these dubious incentives, the Trump administration added a trade war threat, according to
a report published yesterday by the Washington Post under the title, "Days before
Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25
percent tariff on European autos if they didn't."
In another sense, however, the passing of the cold war could not have been more
disorienting. In 1987, Georgi Arbatov, a senior adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev , had warned:
"We are going to do a terrible thing to you – we are going to deprive you of an
enemy."
...Winning the cold war brought Americans face-to-face with a predicament comparable to that
confronting the lucky person who wins the lottery: hidden within a windfall is the potential
for monumental disaster.
That too. Ukraine is a split country on pro/anti-Russian attitudes
Rather strong and somewhat anachronistic statement. Ukraine was split prior to 2014.
There are still pro-Russian areas but being free of Crimea and Donbas means Ukraine can no
longer be characterized as "split." Probably 1/4 of the population can be considered to be
politically friendly to Russia. Given, say, Latvia's ethnic Russian population, that country is
nowadays probably more "split" than Ukraine.
@AP d in
a frozen conflict zone. After they were fucked by industrial collapse and job loss. Before
that they were fucked by wars, famines and the Bolsheviks. They really can't seem to catch a
break.
Europeans seem to be on the precipice of disaster everywhere. It would be nice to band
together, rather than die while getting hung up on the narcissism of small differences.
Probably just wishful thinking on my part though. I guess Americans can't understand how
important it is for Ukrainians on one side of the Dniepr to show how different they are from
Ukrainians on the other or how different they are from Russians for that matter.
Yankistan most potent weapon isn't military, it's economic, and through it the US government
controls the world. That weapon is the US Dollar and ever since Nixon took it off the gold
standard it has been used to further the Empire's imperial hold on the global economy.
"While the US assassination of Qassem Soleimani was an act of international barbarity,
emblematic of the thuggish nature of US foreign policy, it was neither the only de facto act
of war the United States has undertaken against Iran, nor the most harmful. Indeed, against
the total embargo Washington has imposed on Iran with the intention of starving Iranians into
submission or inducing them to overthrow their government, the killing of Soleimani is a act
of little consequence, even if its significance in provoking widespread outrage and
galvanizing opposition to US aggression is undoubted."
Significantly, events appear to have escalated from the 25 December killing of five
PMF guys on the Syria-Iraq border by an unattributed drone or missile strike. Our media
is doing its best to obscure this event as the probable starting point. Two days later on
27 December, the rocket fire near Kirkuk killed the US contractor. Then came the strike
on KH troops back out in the West and now the assassination of Soleimani et al.
[ ]
So the trigger was the 25 December attack, and all the timing flows from that, not
from any great real estate developer savvy. Frankly, in my view, you give Trump way to
much credit for systematic thought. I don't think he really does that at all.
This is also the view of the Middle-East veterans over at Patrick Lang's blog:
Last weekend, in response to a rocket attack on a base outside Kirkuk that left one US
contractor dead and four US servicemen wounded, we launched drone strikes on five Iraqi
PMU outposts in Iraq and Syria near Abukamal killing 25 members and wounding scores more
of the Kata'ib Hezbollah brigades of the PMU.
We blamed Iran and the Kata'ib Hezbollah for the rocket attack near Kirkuk. That may
be true, but the Kata'ib Hezbollah is not some rogue militia controlled out of Teheran.
It is an integral part of the PMU, its 46th and 47th brigades and has been for years. The
PMU is an integral part of the Iraqi military and has been for years. The PMU played a
major role in defeating IS in both Iraq and Syria. Our attack on the Kata'ib Hezbollah
outposts was an attack on the Iraqi military and government. We informed PM
Abdul-Mahdi of our intended attacks. Abdul-Mahadi warned us not to do it, but, of course,
we conducted the attacks despite his warning. We were proud of the attacks. The Pentagon
even released footage of the attacks. It was supposed to be a clear message to
Teheran.
Unfortunately for us, the message was also heard by Iraqis. After the funerals of
many of the victims of our attacks on the PMU outposts, a large crowd of protestors
headed for the US Embassy in the Green Zone. For weeks prior to this, Iraqi security
forces kept protestors from entering the Green Zone and approaching the US Embassy. Not
this time. The crowds, including mourners fresh from the funerals of their family
members and many PMU soldiers, unarmed but in uniform, poured into the Green Zone right
to the gates of the Embassy itself. A reception area was entered and burned. Iraqi
security forces of the PrimeMinister's Counter Terrorism Command were among the
protestors. I surmise that PM Abdul-Mahdi was sending his own message back to the US.
The protests at the American embassy, then, were over Iraqi servicemen murdered in
American drone strikes
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian soldier. He lived by the sword and died by the sword.
He met a soldier's destiny. It is being said that he was a BAD MAN. Absurd! To say that
he was a BAD MAN because he fought us as well as the Sunni jihadis is simply infantile.
Were all those who fought the US BAD MEN? How about Gentleman Johhny Burgoyne? Was he a
BAD MAN? How about Sitting Bull? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Aguinaldo? Another BAD MAN?
Let us not be juvenile.
The Iraqi PMU commander who died with Soleimani was Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. He was a
member of a Shia militia that had been integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. IOW, we
killed an Iraqi general. We killed him without the authorization of the supposedly
sovereign state of Iraq.
We created the present government of Iraq through the farcical "purple thumb"
elections. That government holds a seat in the UN General Assembly and is a sovereign
entity in international law in spite of Trump's tweet today that said among other things
that we have "paid" Iraq billions of US dollars. To the Arabs, this statement that brands
them as hirelings of the US is close to the ultimate in insult.
The audio from the moment where Elizabeth Warren refused to shake Bernie Sanders' hand has
been released.
The #DemDebate
scuffle came after Warren accused Bernie Sanders of saying, a woman can't win, a claim that
contradicts his public comments over decades and one he denies. pic.twitter.com/yVTRkyCb2d
-- BERNforBernie2020RegisterToVote(@BernForBernie20) January
16, 2020
Yep that woman is full of it. You can decide what 'it' is.
Aaron Mate:
Joy Reid should invite this body language expert back, tell the story about the time when
a computer hacker inserted homophobic statements into her old blog posts, and ask the expert to
analyze whether she's lying.
More from Aaron.
Did this Orwell quote inspire you in the present to make the false claim that a computer
hacker wrote your homophobic posts in the past? https://t.co/HsMUGrJj9S
This campaign is owed an apology.
What are they going to do next, phrenology?
This is why no one trusts the media. These people are digging their own professional
graves.
People aren't buying what Joy is selling.
joy reid brings on a phrenologist to prove that liz warren's cheekbones make her native
and dna test was wrong
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) once told a fellow left-wing activist that the Democratic
Party was too "intellectually bankrupt" to allow the progressive movement to flourish within
it.
In a 1985 letter newly obtained by HuffPost in which Sanders debated running for governor,
he wrote: "Whether I run for governor or not is really not important. What would be a
tragedy, however, is for people with a radical vision to fall into the pathetic camp of the
intellectually bankrupt Democratic Party."
----
Sanders' three-paragraph missive was addressed to Marty Jezer, an author and progressive
activist in the state. Then-Mayor Sanders was writing in response to an August letter from
Jezer in which he apologized that a memo he wrote to Sanders had leaked to the press. While
the exact contents of the memo are unclear, Jezer's letter indicates that it encouraged
Sanders to run for Congress instead of challenging Kunin.
"1986 is the wrong time for such a race," Jezer, who died in 2005, wrote. "I hope you will
listen to the voices of the committed activists around the state. We sink or swim with this
together."
Sanders ultimately reached a different conclusion: He ran against Kunin as an independent.
But the decision was not without dissent. An editorial from the socialist magazine In These
Times criticized Sanders for dividing the left.
"In choosing to create a three-way race, Sanders is dividing the left and making more
likely the defeat of an incumbent liberal woman governor by a more conservative Republican,"
In These Times wrote. (At the time, Kunin was one of only two female governors in the
country.)
The editorial prompted Sanders to reply: "I believe that the real changes that are needed
in this country are not going to be brought about by working within the Democratic Party or
the Republican Party."
----
The Vermont senator's critiques of the Democratic Party are well documented, as CNN reported
last July. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he was adamant that a progressive movement could
not be built within the party and was highly critical of the moderate "New Democrats" who
argued that the party's progressivism in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s had alienated
voters.
"I think that nationally, the party has on issue after issue sold out so many times that
if you go before the people and say, 'Hey, I'm a Democrat,' you don't usually generate a lot
of enthusiasm," Sanders said in 1991 about the idea of a progressive trying to work within
the party.
Commenting on civil rights activist Jesse Jackson's Democratic presidential runs in the
1980s, Sanders said he did not agree with Jackson's decision to work "within the Democratic
Party." (Sanders endorsed Jackson's candidacy.) His skepticism of the party continued in
subsequent decades. In 2011, he said Democrats could be called "Republican-lite" for
considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare in order to lessen the deficit. And his
first presidential campaign in 2016 didn't shy away from blasting the party apparatus.
Sanders' willingness to criticize the Democratic Party speaks to the progressive bona
fides highlighted by his supporters. His campaign often relies on decades-old videos of
Sanders warning against the Iraq war, multinational trade deals and the climate crisis using
the same rhetoric he still uses today.
But the senator's view of the party -- and the role of progressive politics within it --
has evolved. He's since refined his critiques to focus on the "corporate wing of the
Democratic Party," which is composed of the same centrists, including organizations like
Third Way, that pushed the party to the right during the 1980s and '90s.
----
That hasn't been enough for many of his critics, who accuse him of only half-heartedly
campaigning for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 after dragging out the
primary, and question whether he would be willing to support down-ballot Democratic
candidates who don't share his progressive ideology.
I recently watched Jimmy's show where he played a clip of Rachel praising Bernie for
campaigning so hard for Her. Her wrote him a letter telling him thanks for working so hard to
get her elected.
Bernie did 37 rallies for her in 14 days. Hillary only did 8 for Obama. Let's talk about
this, Hillary! You worthless ^*#%^! - strife delivery
It turns out media sources might have leaked to one another about Warren-Sanders dispute
& that didn't come from @ewarren campaign. Anyone still
denying national media has hostility toward @BernieSanders campaign is
being purposely obtuse. No one hates progressives more than MSM.
Anyone who thinks impeachment will succeed needs to exit the Russiagate/DNC/CNN black
hole.
And while I do believe Sanders could beat Trump, I have little faith the Clinton controlled
DNC will allow that to happen.
Warren has showed her true colors
Biden is a less competent male HRC and the rest of the field ranges from billionaires to
Intel agency drones.
Sure, Trump could lose "if". What matters is the candidate, though and none of the
candidates besides Sanders can energize enough people to beat Trump.
@Daniel (13). You hit the nail on the head, brother. Trump bears responsibility for all of
the shit he has pulled, which includes hiring the worst possible people to advise him and run
his administration. Throwing blame on the jackasses around him only proves that he is the
biggest jackass of all.
And for the record, U.S. elections rarely turn on foreign policy issues. As Bill Clinton
(another jackass, though much smarter) famously said: "It's the economy, stupid."
"... "They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial," ..."
"... "Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong edge to Sleepy Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that's the way the Democrats play the game. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch." ..."
"... Trump's theory isn't plucked entirely out of thin air. With the impeachment trial set to begin on Tuesday, Sanders will have to disrupt his campaign activity in Iowa and return to Washington DC to sit in the Senate, two weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Crucially for Sanders, the trial begins as he edges Biden out of the lead in the polls. ..."
"... Friday's tweet isn't the first time Trump has accused the Democrats of stacking the cards against Sanders. Last April, he suggested that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was "again working its magic in its quest to destroy Crazy Bernie Sanders for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden." ..."
"... whether the impeachment trial is an intentional move to muscle Sanders out of contention or not, The Democratic Party looks in danger of repeating the mistakes that cost it the White House in 2016. ..."
The
impeachment trial against Donald Trump is not just a "witch hunt," but a ploy to "rig" the
Democratic nomination against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Joe Biden, the US president has
claimed. "They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time,
only even more obviously," Trump tweeted on Friday.
They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time, only even
more obviously. They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator,
he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial. Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong edge to
Sleepy...
"They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit
through the Impeachment Hoax Trial," he continued. "Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong
edge to Sleepy Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that's the way the
Democrats play the game. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch."
Trump's theory isn't plucked entirely out of thin air. With the impeachment trial set to
begin on Tuesday, Sanders will have to disrupt his campaign activity in Iowa and return to
Washington DC to sit in the Senate, two weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Crucially for
Sanders, the trial begins as he edges Biden out of the lead in the polls.
The caucuses are the first major contest in the presidential primary season, and eight out
of the last 12 caucus winners went on to win the Democratic party's nomination.
Sanders' fellow 2020 frontrunner Elizabeth Warren will also return to DC to hear the case
against Trump, while Biden, the former Vice President, will be free to stump for support with
impunity.
Trump has savaged the case against him from multiple angles, alternately calling it
"presidential harassment," a "partisan hoax," and a "witch hunt" led by
the "Do Nothing Democrats." Lately, however, the president has taken to stoking division
among his opponents, talking up "Crazy Bernie Sanders" surge in the polls and amplifying
a brewing feud between Sanders and Warren – two candidates representing the leftist,
progressive wing of the Democratic party.
Bernie Sander's volunteers are trashing Elizabeth "Pocahontus" Warren. Everybody knows her
campaign is dead and want her potential voters. Mini Mike B is also trying, but getting tiny
crowds which are all leaving fast. Elizabeth is very angry at Bernie. Do I see a feud
brewing?
Friday's tweet isn't the first time Trump has accused the Democrats of stacking the cards
against Sanders. Last April, he suggested that the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) was "again working its magic in its quest to destroy
Crazy Bernie Sanders for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden."
The Democratic establishment is widely believed to have "rigged" the 2016 primaries
in favor of Hillary Clinton, with an email leak from within the DNC revealing the extent of the
bias
. Clinton was notified of debate questions in advance, her foundation was allowed to staff and
fund the DNC, and Sanders' campaign strategy was secretly passed to the Clinton camp.
The rest is history, and whether the impeachment trial is an intentional move to muscle
Sanders out of contention or not, The Democratic Party looks in danger of repeating the
mistakes that cost it the White House in 2016.
"... The full spectrum support for the murder shows that the Establishment is firmly on board with it, which proves that it was not simply a whim of Trump's, or an action taken because a few neo-cons talked him into ordering it. Again, he can order military actions all he wants, (like the withdrawal of troops from Syria), but he isn't allowed to do anything that our rulers don't want done. ..."
"... There is no major FUNCTIONAL difference between the Rep/Dem when it comes to military/covert activities. So whether Trump or any of the Dem puppets fill the Oval Office. ..."
"... The "differences" are purely for domestic consumption, no foreign politician or diplomat with two functioning neurons is fooled by the quadrennial, prearranged "election" BS. ..."
Trump can't start a war without ruling class backing any more than he can end the wars if the
rulers veto it.
US foreign policy is not run by White House puppets.
The US trash-talked Saddam Hussein and starved Iraqis for 14 years, but didn't actually
invade until he started trading oil in Euros.
The US trash-talked Ghaddafi for decades, and even launched missiles which killed his
child in the 80s, but didn't destroy Libya until Ghaddafi decided to sell oil in dinars.
The US has trash-talked and sanctioned Iran for decades, but it was the threat of Iran and
Saudi Arabia making peace that pushed them to assassinate General Soleimani, as he arrived at
the airport on that diplomatic mission.
If Iran and Saudi Arabia make peace, and the Saudis drop the petro-dollar, the US Empire
crumbles.
It doesn't matter at all who is in the White House at the time, the Empire will never
allow that.
The elections are a farce, by the way. We have no way to know how people vote, because
they put in electronic voting machines after the 2000 election was stolen by the Supreme
Court. We no longer have any idea how people voted, the talking heads on the TV just give us
the name of the selected on, on Election Night.
As Lavrov frequently points out, the "rules-based order" is the US attempt to overthrow
established international law, and replace it with "rules" invented by the US and changed to
suit US goals, i.e. total spectrum dominance.
Note that although Trump has been attacked by the Deep State, the Democrats and the media
24/7 since 2016, the only complaint they have about his blatantly illegal assassination of
Soleimani is that "he didn't tell us first". There is NO mention of international or national
laws which outlaw such assassinations.
The full spectrum support for the murder shows that the Establishment is firmly on
board with it, which proves that it was not simply a whim of Trump's, or an action taken
because a few neo-cons talked him into ordering it. Again, he can order military actions all
he wants, (like the withdrawal of troops from Syria), but he isn't allowed to do anything
that our rulers don't want done.
@juliania: There is no major FUNCTIONAL difference between the Rep/Dem when it comes to
military/covert activities. So whether Trump or any of the Dem puppets fill the Oval
Office.
The "differences" are purely for domestic consumption, no foreign politician or
diplomat with two functioning neurons is fooled by the quadrennial, prearranged "election"
BS.
Americans may be sick of the US' forever war policy, but not as sick of it as the rest of
the world is. And USicans aren't sick enough of it to turf out both parties and start
again...
st
century is an absolutely intolerable one. The problem we currently face is that many of the forces
driving world events towards an all-out war of "Mutually Assured Annihilation" are anything but sane.
While I'm obviously referring here to a certain category of people who fall under a particularly virulent
strain of imperial thinking which can be labelled "neo-conservative" and while many of these disturbing
figures honestly believe that a total war of annihilation is a risk worth taking in order to achieve
their goals of total global hegemony, I would like to make one subtle yet very important distinction
which is often overlooked.
What is this distinction?
Under the broad umbrella of "neo-conservative" one should properly differentiate
those who
really believe in their ideology
and are trapped under the invisible cage of its unexamined
assumptions vs. that smaller yet more important segment that created and manages the ideology from the
top. I brushed on this grouping in a recent 3 part study called
Origins of the Deep State
and
Myth of
the Jewish Conspiracy
.
To re-state my meaning: This group doesn't necessarily
believe in
the ideological group they
manage any more than a parent believes in that tooth fairy which they promote in order to achieve certain
behavioral patterns in their children.
While belief in the tooth fairy is slightly less destructive than belief in a misanthropic neocon
worldview of a Bolton, Pompeo or Cheney, the analogy is useful to communicate the point.
Cult Managers: Ancient Babylon and Now
Modern ideology-shapers serve the same role as those ancient high priests of Babylon, Persia and Rome
who managed the many cults and countless pagan mystery religions recorded throughout the ages. It is well
documented that any cult could comfortably exist under Rome's control, as long as said cult denied any
claim to objective truthfulness- making the rise of Abrahamic monotheistic faiths more than a little
antagonistic to empire.
Did the high priests necessarily BELIEVE in those dogmas which they created and managed?
Hell no.
Was it politically necessary to create them?
Of course.
Why?
Because an Empire, like everything in the world, exist as a whole with parts but since they deny any
principle of natural law (justice, love, goodness, etc)
, empires are merely a sum of parts
and their rules of organization can be nothing but zero sum (1). Each cultish group may coexist as an
echo chamber alongside other groups sacrificing to whatever deity they wish without judgement of moral
right or wrong bounded only by a common blind faith in their group's beliefs- but nothing universal about
justice, creative reason, or human nature is otherwise permitted. Here the a-moral "peace" of
"equilibrium" can be achieved by an oligarchy which wishes to lord over the slaves. Whether we are
dealing with Caesar Augustus, Lord Metternich's Congress of Vienna, Aldous Huxley, Sir Henry Kissinger,
or
Leo Strauss
(father of modern neo-conservativism), "Peace" can never be anything more than a
mathematical "balancing of parts".
Now it is a good moment to ask: What does this phenomenon look like in our modern age?
To answer this, let us leap over a couple of millennia and take a look at something a bit more
personal: Adam Smith and the doctrine of free trade.
Smith at Her Majesty's Service
Do Smith's modern followers sincerely believe in the "self-regulating forces of the free market"?
Sure they do.
Did Adam Smith actually believe in his own system?
Whether he did or not, according
to recent research
conducted by historian Jeffrey Steinberg, Smith received his commission to compose
his seminal book
Wealth of
Nations
(published 1776) while riding with Lord Shelburne himself in a carriage ride from
Edinburgh to London in 1763. The date 1776 is not a coincidence as this was the same Lord Shelburne who
essentially managed the British Empire during the American Revolution and who always despised all
colonial aspirations to use protective tariffs, emit productive credit or channel said credit towards
internal improvements as Benjamin Franklin had championed in his
1729 Necessity of Paper Currency
and Colonial Script.
Why develop Industry, asked Smith, when the new "Law" of "absolute advantage" demanded that everyone
just do what they are good at for the best price possible? America has a lot of land, so they should
stick with agriculture and slave-driven cotton. Britain had a lot of industry (don't ask how that
happened because it wasn't through free trade), so they should stick with that! India had advanced
textiles, but Britain had to destroy that so that India could then have a lot of opium fields so she
could do that which China could then smoke to death under the watch of British Gunships. "Free Trade"
demanded it so.
Let's look at another example: Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection
A Not-too-Natural Selection
Darwin's theory published in his
Origins of Species
(1859) was based on the assumption that
all changes in the biosphere are driven by "laws" of "survival of the fittest" within an assumed closed
ecosystem of diminishing returns. Just as Smith asserted that an "invisible hand" brought creative order
to the chaos of unregulated vice and self-interest, Darwin asserted that
creative order
on the large scale
evolution of species could be explained by
chaotic mutations on the micro level beyond a wall that no power of reason, free will or God could pass
(2)
.
Did Charles Darwin believe his system? Probably.
But how about Thomas Huxley (aka: "Darwin's Bulldog") whose efforts to destroy all competing theories
which included "purpose", "meaning", or "design" were crushed and ridiculed into obscurity? Huxley
himself
was on record saying
he did not believe in Darwin's system. So why was this theory promoted by forces
(like
Huxley's X Club
) who recognized its many flaws? Well, here again it helps to refer to Darwin's own
account of his discovery from
his autobiography
where he wrote:
"In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for
amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species. Here then, I had
at last got a theory by which to work".
Malthus's 'Dismal Science'
And here we have it! Reverend Thomas Malthus (the cold hearted "Man of God" who taught economics at
the British East India Company's Haileybury College) provided the very foundation upon which Darwin's
system stood! Thomas Huxley
and the other "high priests" of Huxley's X Club
were always Malthusian (even before there was
Malthus) since empires have always been more focused on monopolizing the finite resources of an age,
rather than encouraging creative discoveries and new inventions which would bring new resources into
being- overcoming nature's "limits to growth" (a dis-equilibrium not to be tolerated). Whether Malthus
actually believed in the system which bears his name, as generations of his adherents sincerely do,
remains to be seen. However his own awareness of the needed extermination of the "unfit" by the
Ubermenschen of the British Aristocracy preceded Social Darwinism by a full century when he coldly called
for the encouragement of the plague and other "natural forms of destruction" to cull the herd of the
unfit in his
Essay on the Principle of Population (
1799):
"We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of
nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of
famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. In
our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of
the plague."
A little later, Malthus even argued for the early extermination of poor babies who were of low value
to society when he said:
"I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking
place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years
from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance The infant is, comparatively speaking,
of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place."
The neo-Malthusian revivalists such as Princes Bernhardt, Philip Mountbatten and Huxley's own grandson
Sir Julian who birthed the misanthropic deformity
today called the Green New Deal
were not ignorant to this tradition. The disastrous effect of this
worldview upon races deemed "unfit" in the global south should also not be ignored. It is no coincidence
that those three neo-Malthusian oligarchs founded the World Wildlife Fund, 1001 Nature Trust and Club of
Rome which imposed a technological apartheid upon the third world over the bodies of countless statesmen
during the Cold War.
The Danger of Creative Thought to an Empire
Encouraging creative thought and cooperation among diverse nations, linguistic, religious and ethnic
groups tends to result in new uncontrolled systems of potential as humanity increases its capacity to
sustain itself while imperial systems lose their ability to parasitically drain their host. In Lincoln's
great 1859 speech
, the martyred leader stood up against this Malthusian paradigm endemic of the
British Empire when he said:
"All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner. The whole earth, and
all within it, upon it, and round about it, including himself, in his physical, moral, and intellectual
nature, and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man, from the first, was
to dig out his destiny Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his
workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions."
Lincoln's economic commitments to protective tariffs, state credit (greenbacks) and internal
improvements are inextricably linked to this view of man also shared by the earlier Ben Franklin.
Today, the positive paradigm which Lincoln died to defend is most clearly represented by the leaders
of such nations as Russia and China- both of whom have come out repeatedly attacking the post-truth
neo-liberal order and also the win-lose philosophy of Hobbesian geopolitics (3). The folly of America's
new dance with impeachment and the neocon hand shaping Trump's disastrous foreign policy agenda is tied
to the oligarchy's absolute fear of losing America to a new Eurasian partnership which Trump has promoted
repeatedly since entering office in 2017.
Xi Jinping and Putin have not only responded to this obsolete system by creating an alternative system
of win-win cooperation driven by unbounded scientific and technological progress but they have also
managed to expose the Achilles heal of the empire. These statesmen have demonstrated a clear recognition
that those ideologies ranging from neo-liberalism to neo-conservativism are entirely unsustainable, and
defeatable (but not
militarily)
.
Xi
expressed this insight
most clearly during his recent trip to Greece.
Even though leaders like Putin and Xi understand this, citizens of the west will continue to be
woefully unequipped to either make sense of these chaotic systems of belief, extract them from their own
hearts if they are so contaminated or resist them effectively, without understanding that those who
fabricated and manage these belief structures never truly believed in them.
Neoconservative founding fathers such as Leo Strauss, Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir Bernard Lewis
absolutely never believed in the ideologies their cultish golems like Bolton, Cheney or Kristol have
adhered to so religiously. Their belief was only that the sum-of-parts called humanity must ultimately be
governed by a Hobbesian Leviathan (aka: a new globalized Roman Empire), and that Leviathan could only be
created in response to an intolerably painful period of chaos which their twisted tooth fairies would
usher into this world.
Matthew Ehret
January 18, 2020 |
Featured Story
The Geopolitics of Epistemological Warfare: From Babylon to Neocon
I think any sane human being can agree that while war was never a good idea, war in the 21
st
century is an absolutely intolerable one. The problem we currently face is that many of the forces
driving world events towards an all-out war of "Mutually Assured Annihilation" are anything but
sane.
While I'm obviously referring here to a certain category of people who fall under a
particularly virulent strain of imperial thinking which can be labelled "neo-conservative" and
while many of these disturbing figures honestly believe that a total war of annihilation is a risk
worth taking in order to achieve their goals of total global hegemony, I would like to make one
subtle yet very important distinction which is often overlooked.
What is this distinction?
Under the broad umbrella of "neo-conservative" one should properly differentiate
those who really believe in their ideology
and are trapped under the invisible cage
of its unexamined assumptions vs. that smaller yet more important segment that created and manages
the ideology from the top. I brushed on this grouping in a recent 3 part study called
Origins of the Deep State
and
Myth of the Jewish Conspiracy
.
To re-state my meaning: This group doesn't necessarily
believe in
the ideological group
they manage any more than a parent believes in that tooth fairy which they promote in order to
achieve certain behavioral patterns in their children.
While belief in the tooth fairy is slightly less destructive than belief in a misanthropic
neocon worldview of a Bolton, Pompeo or Cheney, the analogy is useful to communicate the point.
Cult Managers: Ancient Babylon and Now
Modern ideology-shapers serve the same role as those ancient high priests of Babylon, Persia and
Rome who managed the many cults and countless pagan mystery religions recorded throughout the ages.
It is well documented that any cult could comfortably exist under Rome's control, as long as said
cult denied any claim to objective truthfulness- making the rise of Abrahamic monotheistic faiths
more than a little antagonistic to empire.
Did the high priests necessarily BELIEVE in those dogmas which they created and managed?
Hell no.
Was it politically necessary to create them?
Of course.
Why?
Because an Empire, like everything in the world, exist as a whole with parts but since they
deny any principle of natural law (justice, love, goodness, etc)
, empires are merely a
sum of parts
and their rules of organization can be nothing but zero sum (1). Each
cultish group may coexist as an echo chamber alongside other groups sacrificing to whatever deity
they wish without judgement of moral right or wrong bounded only by a common blind faith in their
group's beliefs- but nothing universal about justice, creative reason, or human nature is otherwise
permitted. Here the a-moral "peace" of "equilibrium" can be achieved by an oligarchy which wishes
to lord over the slaves. Whether we are dealing with Caesar Augustus, Lord Metternich's Congress of
Vienna, Aldous Huxley, Sir Henry Kissinger, or
Leo Strauss
(father of modern neo-conservativism), "Peace" can never be anything more than a
mathematical "balancing of parts".
Now it is a good moment to ask: What does this phenomenon look like in our modern age?
To answer this, let us leap over a couple of millennia and take a look at something a bit more
personal: Adam Smith and the doctrine of free trade.
Smith at Her Majesty's Service
Do Smith's modern followers sincerely believe in the "self-regulating forces of the free
market"?
Sure they do.
Did Adam Smith actually believe in his own system?
Whether he did or not, according
to recent research
conducted by historian Jeffrey Steinberg, Smith received his commission to
compose his seminal book
Wealth of Nations
(published 1776) while riding with Lord Shelburne himself in a
carriage ride from Edinburgh to London in 1763. The date 1776 is not a coincidence as this was the
same Lord Shelburne who essentially managed the British Empire during the American Revolution and
who always despised all colonial aspirations to use protective tariffs, emit productive credit or
channel said credit towards internal improvements as Benjamin Franklin had championed in his
1729 Necessity of Paper
Currency and Colonial Script.
Why develop Industry, asked Smith, when the new "Law" of "absolute advantage" demanded that
everyone just do what they are good at for the best price possible? America has a lot of land, so
they should stick with agriculture and slave-driven cotton. Britain had a lot of industry (don't
ask how that happened because it wasn't through free trade), so they should stick with that! India
had advanced textiles, but Britain had to destroy that so that India could then have a lot of opium
fields so she could do that which China could then smoke to death under the watch of British
Gunships. "Free Trade" demanded it so.
Let's look at another example: Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection
A Not-too-Natural Selection
Darwin's theory published in his
Origins of Species
(1859) was based on the assumption
that all changes in the biosphere are driven by "laws" of "survival of the fittest" within an
assumed closed ecosystem of diminishing returns. Just as Smith asserted that an "invisible hand"
brought creative order to the chaos of unregulated vice and self-interest, Darwin asserted that
creative order
on the large scale
evolution of
species could be explained by
chaotic mutations on the micro level beyond a wall that
no power of reason, free will or God could pass
(2)
.
Did Charles Darwin believe his system? Probably.
But how about Thomas Huxley (aka: "Darwin's Bulldog") whose efforts to destroy all competing
theories which included "purpose", "meaning", or "design" were crushed and ridiculed into
obscurity? Huxley himself
was on record saying
he did not believe in Darwin's system. So why was this theory promoted by
forces (like
Huxley's X Club
) who recognized its many flaws? Well, here again it helps to refer to Darwin's
own account of his discovery from
his autobiography
where he wrote:
"In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read
for amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence
which everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it
at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved,
and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species. Here
then, I had at last got a theory by which to work".
Malthus's 'Dismal Science'
And here we have it! Reverend Thomas Malthus (the cold hearted "Man of God" who taught economics
at the British East India Company's Haileybury College) provided the very foundation upon which
Darwin's system stood! Thomas Huxley
and the other "high priests" of Huxley's X Club
were always Malthusian (even before there was
Malthus) since empires have always been more focused on monopolizing the finite resources of an
age, rather than encouraging creative discoveries and new inventions which would bring new
resources into being- overcoming nature's "limits to growth" (a dis-equilibrium not to be
tolerated). Whether Malthus actually believed in the system which bears his name, as generations of
his adherents sincerely do, remains to be seen. However his own awareness of the needed
extermination of the "unfit" by the Ubermenschen of the British Aristocracy preceded Social
Darwinism by a full century when he coldly called for the encouragement of the plague and other
"natural forms of destruction" to cull the herd of the unfit in his
Essay on the Principle of Population (
1799):
"We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations
of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid
form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel
nature to use. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses,
and court the return of the plague."
A little later, Malthus even argued for the early extermination of poor babies who were of low
value to society when he said:
"I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage
taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child
born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance The infant is,
comparatively speaking, of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place."
The neo-Malthusian revivalists such as Princes Bernhardt, Philip Mountbatten and Huxley's own
grandson Sir Julian who birthed the misanthropic deformity
today called the Green New Deal
were not ignorant to this tradition. The disastrous effect of
this worldview upon races deemed "unfit" in the global south should also not be ignored. It is no
coincidence that those three neo-Malthusian oligarchs founded the World Wildlife Fund, 1001 Nature
Trust and Club of Rome which imposed a technological apartheid upon the third world over the bodies
of countless statesmen during the Cold War.
The Danger of Creative Thought to an Empire
Encouraging creative thought and cooperation among diverse nations, linguistic, religious and
ethnic groups tends to result in new uncontrolled systems of potential as humanity increases its
capacity to sustain itself while imperial systems lose their ability to parasitically drain their
host. In Lincoln's
great 1859 speech
, the martyred leader stood up against this Malthusian paradigm endemic of the
British Empire when he said:
"All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner. The whole earth,
and all within it, upon it, and round about it, including himself, in his physical, moral, and
intellectual nature, and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man,
from the first, was to dig out his destiny Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the
only one who improves his workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and
Inventions."
Lincoln's economic commitments to protective tariffs, state credit (greenbacks) and internal
improvements are inextricably linked to this view of man also shared by the earlier Ben Franklin.
Today, the positive paradigm which Lincoln died to defend is most clearly represented by the
leaders of such nations as Russia and China- both of whom have come out repeatedly attacking the
post-truth neo-liberal order and also the win-lose philosophy of Hobbesian geopolitics (3). The
folly of America's new dance with impeachment and the neocon hand shaping Trump's disastrous
foreign policy agenda is tied to the oligarchy's absolute fear of losing America to a new Eurasian
partnership which Trump has promoted repeatedly since entering office in 2017.
Xi Jinping and Putin have not only responded to this obsolete system by creating an alternative
system of win-win cooperation driven by unbounded scientific and technological progress but they
have also managed to expose the Achilles heal of the empire. These statesmen have demonstrated a
clear recognition that those ideologies ranging from neo-liberalism to neo-conservativism are
entirely unsustainable, and defeatable (but not
militarily)
.
Xi expressed this insight
most clearly during his recent trip to Greece.
Even though leaders like Putin and Xi understand this, citizens of the west will continue to be
woefully unequipped to either make sense of these chaotic systems of belief, extract them from
their own hearts if they are so contaminated or resist them effectively, without understanding that
those who fabricated and manage these belief structures never truly believed in them.
Neoconservative founding fathers such as Leo Strauss, Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir Bernard Lewis
absolutely never believed in the ideologies their cultish golems like Bolton, Cheney or Kristol
have adhered to so religiously. Their belief was only that the sum-of-parts called humanity must
ultimately be governed by a Hobbesian Leviathan (aka: a new globalized Roman Empire), and that
Leviathan could only be created in response to an intolerably painful period of chaos which their
twisted tooth fairies would usher into this world.
(1) From this standpoint, it is worth reviewing the character of Calicles in
Plato's Gorgias dialogue
or Thrasymachus in
book one of the Republic
– both of whom exemplify the oligarchical world view by denying the
existence of moral principles- relegating them to merely useful tools by which the "wise" may lord
over the "slaves" born into lower classes.
Neoconservative founding fathers like Leo Strauss or Alan Bloom
who call themselves
"neo-Platonist" merely take a literal reading of chosen selections from the Republic and then
assert without evidence that Plato really believed in Thrasymacus and Calicles' worldview.
(2) For those interested in digging a bit deeper into this topic, the author delivered a lecture in
2010 titled
The Matter Over Darwin's Missing Mind
.
(3) Throughout the post JFK years, America's clearest representative of this anti-oligarchical
tradition was found consistently in the efforts of the late economist and
Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche
.- a selection of whose works
can be
reviewed here
.
While I'm obviously referring here to a certain category of people who fall under a particularly virulent
strain of imperial thinking which can be labelled "neo-conservative" and while many of these disturbing
figures honestly believe that a total war of annihilation is a risk worth taking in order to achieve
their goals of total global hegemony, I would like to make one subtle yet very important distinction
which is often overlooked.
What is this distinction?
Under the broad umbrella of "neo-conservative" one should properly differentiate
those who
really believe in their ideology
and are trapped under the invisible cage of its unexamined
assumptions vs. that smaller yet more important segment that created and manages the ideology from the
top. I brushed on this grouping in a recent 3 part study called
Origins of the Deep State
and
Myth of
the Jewish Conspiracy
.
To re-state my meaning: This group doesn't necessarily
believe in
the ideological group they
manage any more than a parent believes in that tooth fairy which they promote in order to achieve certain
behavioral patterns in their children.
While belief in the tooth fairy is slightly less destructive than belief in a misanthropic neocon
worldview of a Bolton, Pompeo or Cheney, the analogy is useful to communicate the point.
Cult Managers: Ancient Babylon and Now
Modern ideology-shapers serve the same role as those ancient high priests of Babylon, Persia and Rome
who managed the many cults and countless pagan mystery religions recorded throughout the ages. It is well
documented that any cult could comfortably exist under Rome's control, as long as said cult denied any
claim to objective truthfulness- making the rise of Abrahamic monotheistic faiths more than a little
antagonistic to empire.
Did the high priests necessarily BELIEVE in those dogmas which they created and managed?
Hell no.
Was it politically necessary to create them?
Of course.
Why?
Because an Empire, like everything in the world, exist as a whole with parts but since they deny any
principle of natural law (justice, love, goodness, etc)
, empires are merely a sum of parts
and their rules of organization can be nothing but zero sum (1). Each cultish group may coexist as an
echo chamber alongside other groups sacrificing to whatever deity they wish without judgement of moral
right or wrong bounded only by a common blind faith in their group's beliefs- but nothing universal about
justice, creative reason, or human nature is otherwise permitted. Here the a-moral "peace" of
"equilibrium" can be achieved by an oligarchy which wishes to lord over the slaves. Whether we are
dealing with Caesar Augustus, Lord Metternich's Congress of Vienna, Aldous Huxley, Sir Henry Kissinger,
or
Leo Strauss
(father of modern neo-conservativism), "Peace" can never be anything more than a
mathematical "balancing of parts".
Now it is a good moment to ask: What does this phenomenon look like in our modern age?
To answer this, let us leap over a couple of millennia and take a look at something a bit more
personal: Adam Smith and the doctrine of free trade.
Smith at Her Majesty's Service
Do Smith's modern followers sincerely believe in the "self-regulating forces of the free market"?
Sure they do.
Did Adam Smith actually believe in his own system?
Whether he did or not, according
to recent research
conducted by historian Jeffrey Steinberg, Smith received his commission to compose
his seminal book
Wealth of
Nations
(published 1776) while riding with Lord Shelburne himself in a carriage ride from
Edinburgh to London in 1763. The date 1776 is not a coincidence as this was the same Lord Shelburne who
essentially managed the British Empire during the American Revolution and who always despised all
colonial aspirations to use protective tariffs, emit productive credit or channel said credit towards
internal improvements as Benjamin Franklin had championed in his
1729 Necessity of Paper Currency
and Colonial Script.
Why develop Industry, asked Smith, when the new "Law" of "absolute advantage" demanded that everyone
just do what they are good at for the best price possible? America has a lot of land, so they should
stick with agriculture and slave-driven cotton. Britain had a lot of industry (don't ask how that
happened because it wasn't through free trade), so they should stick with that! India had advanced
textiles, but Britain had to destroy that so that India could then have a lot of opium fields so she
could do that which China could then smoke to death under the watch of British Gunships. "Free Trade"
demanded it so.
Let's look at another example: Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection
A Not-too-Natural Selection
Darwin's theory published in his
Origins of Species
(1859) was based on the assumption that
all changes in the biosphere are driven by "laws" of "survival of the fittest" within an assumed closed
ecosystem of diminishing returns. Just as Smith asserted that an "invisible hand" brought creative order
to the chaos of unregulated vice and self-interest, Darwin asserted that
creative order
on the large scale
evolution of species could be explained by
chaotic mutations on the micro level beyond a wall that no power of reason, free will or God could pass
(2)
.
Did Charles Darwin believe his system? Probably.
But how about Thomas Huxley (aka: "Darwin's Bulldog") whose efforts to destroy all competing theories
which included "purpose", "meaning", or "design" were crushed and ridiculed into obscurity? Huxley
himself
was on record saying
he did not believe in Darwin's system. So why was this theory promoted by forces
(like
Huxley's X Club
) who recognized its many flaws? Well, here again it helps to refer to Darwin's own
account of his discovery from
his autobiography
where he wrote:
"In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for
amusement Malthus on Population, and being prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and
unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result would be the formation of a new species. Here then, I had
at last got a theory by which to work".
Malthus's 'Dismal Science'
And here we have it! Reverend Thomas Malthus (the cold hearted "Man of God" who taught economics at
the British East India Company's Haileybury College) provided the very foundation upon which Darwin's
system stood! Thomas Huxley
and the other "high priests" of Huxley's X Club
were always Malthusian (even before there was
Malthus) since empires have always been more focused on monopolizing the finite resources of an age,
rather than encouraging creative discoveries and new inventions which would bring new resources into
being- overcoming nature's "limits to growth" (a dis-equilibrium not to be tolerated). Whether Malthus
actually believed in the system which bears his name, as generations of his adherents sincerely do,
remains to be seen. However his own awareness of the needed extermination of the "unfit" by the
Ubermenschen of the British Aristocracy preceded Social Darwinism by a full century when he coldly called
for the encouragement of the plague and other "natural forms of destruction" to cull the herd of the
unfit in his
Essay on the Principle of Population (
1799):
"We should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of
nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of
famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. In
our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of
the plague."
A little later, Malthus even argued for the early extermination of poor babies who were of low value
to society when he said:
"I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking
place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law, and no illegitimate child born two years
from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance The infant is, comparatively speaking,
of little value to society, as others will immediately supply its place."
The neo-Malthusian revivalists such as Princes Bernhardt, Philip Mountbatten and Huxley's own grandson
Sir Julian who birthed the misanthropic deformity
today called the Green New Deal
were not ignorant to this tradition. The disastrous effect of this
worldview upon races deemed "unfit" in the global south should also not be ignored. It is no coincidence
that those three neo-Malthusian oligarchs founded the World Wildlife Fund, 1001 Nature Trust and Club of
Rome which imposed a technological apartheid upon the third world over the bodies of countless statesmen
during the Cold War.
The Danger of Creative Thought to an Empire
Encouraging creative thought and cooperation among diverse nations, linguistic, religious and ethnic
groups tends to result in new uncontrolled systems of potential as humanity increases its capacity to
sustain itself while imperial systems lose their ability to parasitically drain their host. In Lincoln's
great 1859 speech
, the martyred leader stood up against this Malthusian paradigm endemic of the
British Empire when he said:
"All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner. The whole earth, and
all within it, upon it, and round about it, including himself, in his physical, moral, and intellectual
nature, and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man, from the first, was
to dig out his destiny Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his
workmanship. This improvement, he effects by Discoveries, and Inventions."
Lincoln's economic commitments to protective tariffs, state credit (greenbacks) and internal
improvements are inextricably linked to this view of man also shared by the earlier Ben Franklin.
Today, the positive paradigm which Lincoln died to defend is most clearly represented by the leaders
of such nations as Russia and China- both of whom have come out repeatedly attacking the post-truth
neo-liberal order and also the win-lose philosophy of Hobbesian geopolitics (3). The folly of America's
new dance with impeachment and the neocon hand shaping Trump's disastrous foreign policy agenda is tied
to the oligarchy's absolute fear of losing America to a new Eurasian partnership which Trump has promoted
repeatedly since entering office in 2017.
Xi Jinping and Putin have not only responded to this obsolete system by creating an alternative system
of win-win cooperation driven by unbounded scientific and technological progress but they have also
managed to expose the Achilles heal of the empire. These statesmen have demonstrated a clear recognition
that those ideologies ranging from neo-liberalism to neo-conservativism are entirely unsustainable, and
defeatable (but not
militarily)
.
Xi
expressed this insight
most clearly during his recent trip to Greece.
Even though leaders like Putin and Xi understand this, citizens of the west will continue to be
woefully unequipped to either make sense of these chaotic systems of belief, extract them from their own
hearts if they are so contaminated or resist them effectively, without understanding that those who
fabricated and manage these belief structures never truly believed in them.
Neoconservative founding fathers such as Leo Strauss, Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir Bernard Lewis
absolutely never believed in the ideologies their cultish golems like Bolton, Cheney or Kristol have
adhered to so religiously. Their belief was only that the sum-of-parts called humanity must ultimately be
governed by a Hobbesian Leviathan (aka: a new globalized Roman Empire), and that Leviathan could only be
created in response to an intolerably painful period of chaos which their twisted tooth fairies would
usher into this world.
(1) From this standpoint, it is worth reviewing the character of Calicles in
Plato's
Gorgias dialogue
or Thrasymachus in
book
one of the Republic
– both of whom exemplify the oligarchical world view by denying the existence of
moral principles- relegating them to merely useful tools by which the "wise" may lord over the "slaves"
born into lower classes.
Neoconservative founding fathers like Leo Strauss or Alan Bloom
who call themselves "neo-Platonist"
merely take a literal reading of chosen selections from the Republic and then assert without evidence
that Plato really believed in Thrasymacus and Calicles' worldview.
(2) For those interested in digging a bit deeper into this topic, the author delivered a lecture in 2010
titled
The Matter
Over Darwin's Missing Mind
.
(3) Throughout the post JFK years, America's clearest representative of this anti-oligarchical tradition
was found consistently in the efforts of the late economist and
Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche
.- a selection of whose works
can be
reviewed here
.
(1) From this standpoint, it is worth
reviewing the character of Calicles in
Plato's
Gorgias dialogue
or Thrasymachus in
book
one of the Republic
– both of whom exemplify the oligarchical world view by denying the existence of
moral principles- relegating them to merely useful tools by which the "wise" may lord over the "slaves"
born into lower classes.
Neoconservative founding fathers like Leo Strauss or Alan Bloom
who call themselves "neo-Platonist"
merely take a literal reading of chosen selections from the Republic and then assert without evidence
that Plato really believed in Thrasymacus and Calicles' worldview.
(2) For those interested in digging a bit deeper into this topic, the author delivered a lecture in 2010
titled
The Matter
Over Darwin's Missing Mind
.
(3) Throughout the post JFK years, America's clearest representative of this anti-oligarchical tradition
was found consistently in the efforts of the late economist and
Presidential Candidate Lyndon LaRouche
.- a selection of whose works
can be
reviewed here
.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture
Foundation.
Tags:
Colonialism
Imperialism
Neocons
United
States
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Trump doesn't give a crap about wars killing people. He's about the bottom line. The
business of the US is business. Further consider the Belt And Road Initiative (karlof1
briefly mentioned this). There's an underlying strategy of the empire. Only thing is a
difference in how to make sure that it achieves it's goal: domination of world currency and
business. The strategy is how to break the Russia-China coalition. Some believe that making
friends with Russia could have caused them to detach from China (with the target being to
tamp down China [again, think Belt and Road Initiative]). I cannot say for sure, but I do
kind of think that this was the position that Trump had/has. This suspicion has legs if you
consider the Russia-gate crap. And, the wars in the ME that Trump has vocalized against don't
necessarily line up with being on the strategy path of using Russia to smack down China.
Others believe it's better to go directly against China (and allow Russia to just kind of be
isolated). The ME wars are, essentially, taking out the Road in Belt and Road. Having the
area in a perpetual war makes business really difficult. This go-after-China-directly
approach is seen in the Uyghur and Hong Kong battle fronts. Iran is made common to both
strategy paths because, well, because of Israel (its overarching influence over US
policies).
It's a left wing or a right wing of the same bird. The mechanism (bird) isn't the issue,
it's the strategy (which wing). Chomsky really spells this out:
Perhaps the US doesn't want China to perfect the same authoritarian system the US is
looking to achieve? The attempt to block Huawei from international markets is about who
controls information (information flow).
"I want to win," he said. "We don't win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7
trillion, everybody else got the oil and we're not winning anymore."
These wars where never intended to be won. If you win a war you have to go home. It's
pretty difficult to exploit natural resources and threaten other countries geopolitically
without military and covert agency bases all over the region.
I'm not sure Trump even understands this strategy. As disgusting as it may be, the thought
of someone actually believing we entered these wars for any other reason than to cripple and
control them for the interest of our (not so)leader elite class is astonishing.
But, at the same time we are left with few alternatives due to the coup de 'etat
perpetrated by the elite who stack the slate we vote from and use the legacy media to
propagandize as many as possible into supporting this sociopathic/psychopathic foreign policy
agenda.
All we are ever offered is slight changes in tactics while maintaining the original goal
of world domination and total control of everyone in order to keep those on top, on top.
Nothing will change until the enforcers begin to fight back against the people showering
them with unlimited budgets and propagandize adoration to the point of military/police
worship.
"the US is already and has been for the longest time at war with Iran. "
Add to that the fact that in 1946 (or maybe '47?) Truman specifically threatened the Red
Army in Northern Iran with the atom bomb. They withdrew. But the point is that Iran was the
first defined target after Japan nuked in a display of "Overwhelming Power" (Stimson)
deliberately to bring USSR to obey the US, or at least to intimidate Stalin.
Threatening Russians is just plain stupid. Threats are almost always stupid, unless you're
trying to force an opponent into an attack-trap. Which "attack-trap" is what the Imperial
Wizards are doing. The assumption, a chauvinist and incorrect assumption, is that the
opponent is stupider than the attacker. Don't bet on that...it's a sucker bet.
"... The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair. ..."
"... But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now. ..."
"... Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate, but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) ..."
"... The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something. ..."
"... The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ? ..."
I feel like robber barons in Kyiv have harmed you more through their looting of the country than impoverished Eastern Ukrainians,
who were the biggest losers in the post-Soviet deindustrilization, have harmed you by existing and dying of diseases of poverty
and despair.
It reminds me of how coastal shit-libs in America talk about "fly-over" country and want all the poor whites in Appalachia
to die. I'm living in a country whose soul is totally poisoned. A country that is dying. While all this is happening, whites have
split themselves into little factions focused on political point scoring.
I doubt people like Zelensky, Kolomoisky, Poroshenko and all the rest are going to turn Ukraine into an earthly paradise. They're
more likely to be Neros playing harps, while Ukraine burns.
Looks like your understanding of Ukraine is mostly based of a short trip to Lvov and reading neoliberal MSM and forums. That's
not enough, unless you want to be the next Max Boot.
Ukraine is a deeply sick patient, which surprisingly still stands despite all hardships (Ukrainians demonstrated amazing, superhuman
resilience in the crisis that hit them, which greatly surprised all experts).
The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is now fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central
heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations
and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each, which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted
(which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair.
And, what is really tragic Ukraine now it is a debt state. Usually the latter is the capital sentence for the county. Few managed
to escape even in more favorable conditions (South Korea is one.) So chances of economic recovery are slim: with such level of parasitic
rent to the West the natural path is down and down. Don't cry for me Argentina.
And there is no money to replace already destroyed due to bad maintenance infrastructure, but surprisingly large parts of Soviets
era infrastructure still somehow hold. For example, electrical networks, subway cars. But other part are already crumbling.
For example, in Kiev that means in some buildings you have winter without central heating, you have elevators in 16-storey buildings
that work one or two weeks in month, you have no hot water, sometimes you have no water at all for a week or more, etc). Pensioners
have problem with paying heating bills, so some of them are forced to live in non-heated apartments.
And that's in Kiev/Kyiv (Western Ukrainians love to change established names, much like communists) . In provincial cities it
is a real horror show when even electricity supply became a problem. The countryside dwellers at least has its own food, but the
situation for them is also very very difficult.
Other big problem -- few jobs and almost no well paid job, unless you are young, know English and have a university education
(and are lucky). Before 2014 approximately 70% of Ukrainian labor migrants (in total a couple of million) came from the western part
of the country, in which migration had become a widespread method of coping with poverty, the absence of jobs and low salaries.
Now this practice spread to the whole county. That destroyed many families.
The USA plays its usual games selling vassals crap at inflated prices (arms, uranium rods, coal, locomotives, cars, etc) , which
Ukrainians can't refuse. Trump is simply a typical gangster in this respect, running a protection racket.
The rate of emigration and shrinking population is another fundamental problem. Mass emigration (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
) is continuing even after Zelensky election. Looting by the West also continues unabated. This is disaster capitalism in action.
Add to those problems inflated military expenses to fight the civil war in Donbass which deprives other sectors of necessary funds
(with the main affect of completely alienating Russia) and "Huston, we have a problem."
May be this is a natural path for xUSSR countries after the dissolution of the USSR, I don't know.
But the destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic: they wanted better life and got a really harsh one. Especially pensioners
(typical pension is something like $60-$70) a month in Kiev, much less outside of Kiev. How they physically survive I do not fully
understand.
There are still pro-Russian areas but being free of Crimea and Donbass means Ukraine can no longer be characterized as "split."
I agree that there is a substantial growth of anti-Russian sentiments. It is really noticeable. As well as growth of the usage
of the Ukrainian language (previously Kiev, unlike Lvov was completely Russian-language city).
And in Western Ukraine Russiphobia was actually always a part of "national identity". The negative definition of national identity,
if you wish. See popular slogan "Hto ne skache toi moskal" ("those who do not jump are Moskal" -- where Moskal is the derogatory
name for a Russian). Here is this slogan in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rfqr9afMc
;-)
But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different
ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. There is no more unity now then existed
before 2014. I would say there is less unity now.
Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine. In Kiev the derogatory term for both
categories is "ponaekhali" ("come to overcrowd the place and displace us", or something along those lines; it's difficult to translate,
but the term carries strong derogatory meaning) .
"Donetskie" (former Donbass dwellers, often displaced by the war) are generally strongly resented and luxury cars, villas, etc
and other excesses of neoliberal elite are attributed mostly to them (Donbass neoliberal elite did moved to Kiev, not Moscow)
, while "zapadentsi" are also, albeit less strongly, resented because they often use clan politics within institutions, and often
do not put enough effort (or are outright incompetent), as they rely on its own clan ties for survival.
This sentiment is stronger to the south of Kiev where the resentment is directed mainly against Western Ukrainians, not against
"Donetskie" like in Kiev. And I am talking not only about Odessa. Western Ukrainians are now strongly associated with corrupt ways
of getting lucrative positions (via family, clan or political connections), being incompetent and doing nothing useful.
What surprise me is that this resentment against "zapadentsi" and "Poloshenko clan" is shared by many people from Western Ukraine.
The target is often slightly more narrow, for example Hutsuls in Lviv (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls )
The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist
and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That's
why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling
you something.
The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down.
De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders
from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what? Selling land (like Zelensky
is trying to do) ?
Ukraine will probably eventually lose a large part of its chemical industry because without subsidies for gas it just can't complete
even taking into account low labor costs. And manufacturing because without Russian market it is difficult to find a place for their
production in already established markets, competing only in price and suffering in quality (I remember something about Iraq returning
Ukrainians all ordered armored carriers due to defect is the the armor
https://sputniknews.com/military/201705221053859853-armored-vehicles-defects-extent
/). Although at least for the Ukrainian arm industry there is place on the market in countries which are used to old Soviet armaments,
because those are rehashed Soviet products.
Add to this corrupt and greedy diaspora (all those Jaresko, Chalupas, Freelands, Vindmans, etc ) from the USA and Canada (and
not only diaspora -- look at Biden, Kerry, etc) who want their piece of the pie after 2014 "Revolution of dignity" (what a sad joke)
and you will see the problems more clearly. Not that much changed from the period 1991-2014 where Ukraine was also royally fleeced
by own oligarchs allied with Western banksers, simply now this leads to quicker deterioration of the standard of living.
None of Eastern European countries benefited from a color revolution staged by the USA. This is about opening the country not
only to multinationals (while they loot the county they at least behave within a certain legal bounds, demonstrating at least decency
of gangsters like in Godfather), but to petty foreign criminals from diaspora and outside of it who allies with the local oligarchs
and smallernouveau riche and are siphoning all the county wealth to western banks as soon as possible. Greed of the disapora is simply unbounded.
https://neweasterneurope.eu/2016/08/26/the-ukrainian-diaspora-as-a-recipient-of-oligarchic-cash/
Of course, Ukrainian diaspora is not uniform. Still, outside well-know types from the tiny Mid-Eastern country, the most dangerous
people for Ukraine are probably Ukrainians from diaspora with dual citizenship
Of course the USA do not care, but the trend ofter 2014 color revolution financed and
organized by the USA (with Germany Poland and Sweden in supporting roles) is devastating...
@Anatoly
Karlin Donbass people ran with the territories. In addition, half a million Ukrainian
citizens got Russian citizenship in 2019. Optimists put Ukrainian population at 35 million,
pessimists at 22-24 million, but half a million in a single year is a huge number in either
case.
Finally, my interest in the opinions of me (or anything else, for that matter) of various
"svidomy" and "svyadomy" personages is about the same as my interest in the opinions of
cockroaches or ants. In one case, what they fought for has already befallen them, in the
other – the same thing is likely to happen. In both cases Russia should not burden
itself with unnecessary dead weight.
A report by a research unit of the German Bundestag, just released in Berlin, has defied the
narrative of the European Union, NATO and the US, with the conclusion that since the Ukraine
civil war began in early 2014, there has been no reliable evidence of Russian troop invasion or
intervention by regular Russian military forces in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
After a review of the press, official public releases and reports, as well as European court
rulings, the Bundestag's experts have described the outcome with the German phrase, ohne
belastbares Faktenmaterial – "without reliable fact material."
The Bundestag report, which runs to 17 pages and was completed on December 9, has been noted
in the German-language media. To date, however, it has been ignored by the Anglo-American
press, including the alt-media.
The new German report is entitled "Intervention in civil war zones: The role of Russia
during the east Ukraine conflict". It was prepared by the foreign, international law and
defence department (WD-2) of the Scientific Services Bureau of the Bundestag.
In a preface to the report, the authors say they "support the members of the German
Bundestag with mandate-related activity. Their works do not express the view of the German
Bundestag, its individual organs, or the management of the Bundestag." Responsibility for the
research reporting is "the technical responsibility of the authors as well as the department
management." No authors have been identified by name.
The full German report can be read at the
official website link. No official English translation is available.
For five years Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian separatists have been fighting against
each other in the Donbass/Donets Basin," the report says. " The territorial conflict shows
classical identifiers of a non-international (internal) armed conflict. About the extent,
quality and magnitude of the military involvement of Russia during the Ukraine conflict, there
are few reliable facts and analyses aside from the numerous speculations, part-contradictory
reports and press announcements, and denials from different sources. Altogether, however, the
picture of the situation is not unequivocal."
"Also, the Federal [German] Government holds no reliable knowledge, according to its own
information apparently, on how much influence today Russia actually exercises on the
separatists in the East Ukraine that can be described as credible."
The report summarizes western media reports, social media posts, as well as NATO press
releases in order to cast doubt on their veracity. "Reliable information about the parts of the
region of the Ukrainian-Russian border not controlled by Kiev is rare." The German researchers
are also sceptical of claims published by the monitoring mission of the area from the
Organization for Security and Economic Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) which "has, in spite of its
comprehensive mandate, only limited access to this area."
For background details of the anti-Russian leadership of the OSCE's special monitoring
mission (SMM) in Ukraine, read
this .
"The question of whether pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region are currently under
control and directed from Moscow, or whether regular Russian troops still remain on Ukrainian
territory cannot be answered without reliable factual material, in particular without the
appropriate and reliable secret service intelligence."
When the Vindman story broke last week, we were pathetically reminded that there is a
conspiracy against Ukraine and the Diaspora in America. Conspiracy theorists labeled the
Ukrainian government integral nationalists plotting against the current President of the United
States even before the final ballots were tallied 2016.
Although this article will contain many of the elements of the still-developing Vindman
story that have been reported on, the focus shifts over to the bigger question- Why? I propose
we take a walk into the back of Vindman's mind, which easier done than said. As will be shown,
this in part is due to the fact that his thought pattern about Ukraine is reflexive.
There is no need to question his military service before this juncture because it posed no
conflict for him. Although the US Army is backing his right as a whistleblower now, his
motivations in this situation could end up
with Vindman receiving a court-martial . It's all about his motivation.
Alexander Vindman's ties to Ukraine should have made him disclose a few large conflicts of
interest before being assigned in the capacity he has.
Vindman had business interests in
Ukraine which would suffer if the relationship between both countries was jeopardized. Was it
Vindman's American patriotism or Diaspora nationalism that led him to share the Oval Office
transcript with Ukraine's president?
According to the Gateway Pundit , "Colonel Vindman may have violated the federal leaking
statute 18 USC 798 when he leaked the president's classified call to several other
operatives."
As the in-house expert, Vindman would have known this and yet he still conducted himself in
the service of Ukraine. In Vindman's world view it must be acceptable behavior for a foreign
government official to threaten his own country's Commander-in-Chief.
What are his motivations? In his own words, Vindman lays out his priorities.
I
was concerned by the call,"Vindman said, according to his testimony obtained by the
Associated Press. "Idid not think it was properto demand that a foreign
government investigate a U.S. citizen, andI was worried about the implicationsfor the U.S. government's support of Ukraine."-Vindman
Vindman's real concern is the implications of US foreign policy toward Ukraine and keeping
it on track with what he thought it should be. I'm sure every Lt Colonel that has a concern
intercedes in foreign policy everywhere across the US army.
"In this situation, a strong
and independent Ukraine is critical to U. S. national security interests because Ukraine is a
frontline state and a bulwark against Russian aggression. In spite of beingunder
assault from Russia for more than five years, Ukrainehas taken major steps towards
integrating with the West." When I joined the NSC in July 2018, I began implementing the
administration's policy on Ukraine. In the Spring of 2019,I became aware of outside
influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine inconsistent with the consensus views of the
interagency. This narrative was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency
colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine's prospects,this
alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.-Vindman
" Once Ukraine determined that the RF (Russian Federation) was not going to attack and
Russia was not a credible threat, they launched their Anti-Terrorist Operations against the
rebels (p 65)." Russia's Hybrid War in Ukraine: Breaking the Enemy's Ability to Resist Finnish
Institute of International Studies by András Rácz
What false narrative was Vindman talking about? It was the fact there was no Russian
aggression, assaults or invasions going on. Where did this "false narrative" originate?
In 2014, Ukrainian-American Mark Paslawsky joined Ukraine's Donbas battalion. He was the
nephew of one of WWII's most sadistic torturers, Mikola Lebed. Lebed was 3 rd in the
Bandera OUN command chain.
Paslawsky was reported to be an officer in the 75 th Ranger Battalion during the
1990s which puts him on the same pedestal as Alexander Vindman in terms of patriotic duty in
the US military.
The volunteer battalions like Ukraine's Donbas are police and cleansing battalions.
Paslawsky was true to his Ukrainian Diaspora upbringing and family heritage. As soon as it was
opportune, he forgot about honor, service, and codes of conduct when he entered Ukraine.
By July 2014, one month before Paslawsky was killed, Oleg Dube, 2 nd in command
of the battalion complained on Twitter that the battalion was full of cowards shooting
everything that moved and throwing grenades into the houses, cellars, and every structure
killing everyone and everything they came across.
These were civilians they murdered. But Paslawsky, who tweeted his adventures under the
handle "bruce springnote" made one thing abundantly clear- There were no Russian troops or
invasion going on as of August 2, 2014.
This means Vindman's tale saying there as five years of Russian aggression is getting
sketchy.
November 6 th , 2015
In an interview with Gromadske.TV , Markian Lubkivsky, the adviser to the head of the SBU
(the Ukrainian version of the CIA) stated there are NO RUSSIAN TROOPS ON UKRANIAN SOIL! This
unexpected announcement came as he fumbled with reporters' questions on the subject. According
to his statement, he said the SBU counted about 5000 Russian nationals, but not Russian
soldiers in Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples Republics. During a briefing with General Muzenko he announced that "To
date, we have only the involvement of some members of the Armed Forces of the Russian
Federation and Russian citizens that are part of illegal armed groups involved in the fighting.
We are not fighting with the regular Russian Army. We have enough forces and means in order to
inflict a final defeat even with illegal armed formation present. " – Ukrainian Armed
Forces Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Muzenko said. Is
Russia About to Invade Ukraine? UkraineAlert by Alexander J. Motyl published at the
Atlantic Council December 13, 2018
These are primary sources that LTC (Lieutenant Colonel) Vindman and the Wall Street
Journal's Pulitzer Prize winner Scott Shane call conspiracy theorists. The Ukrainian government
from Torchinov to Poroshenko to Zelenskiy has kept Russia as their primary trade partner this
entire time. This is a bit unusual for a country that says another is committing aggression
against it. Furthermore, where are the international court cases if this is happening?
If the White House Ukraine expert isn't fact-checking, what is he basing his position on?
Hate, just pure unadulterated hate.
"The second reason I mention Paslawsky is that he was, after all, a Ukrainian American.
In killing him -- and make no mistake about it: Putin killed him -- Putin has taken on, in
addition to the entire world, the Ukrainian American Diaspora. He probably thinks it's a joke.
But in killing a Ukrainian American, he's made the war in Ukraine personal for Ukrainian
Americans. Their intellectual, material, and political resources are far greater than Putin can
imagine. Be forewarned, Vlad: diasporas have long memories.And this one will give you
and your apologists in Russia and the West no rest.-Alexander Motyl Loose Cannons and Ukrainian Casualties
The Diaspora's hatred for Russia is hardwired into their culture in America. It was here the
concept was fleshed out, not in Ukraine.
Lonhyn Tsehelsky was Secretary of Internal Affairs and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs for
the government of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic in 1917-18. When the almost formed
republic collapsed, he immigrated to America. Tsehelsky formed the Ukrainian Congressional
Committee of America (UCCA) and brought W. Ukrainian nationalism to America. He is the great
uncle to Ukraine's ultra-nationalist Rada minister, Oleh Tyanhybok.
According to Wikipedia In 1902 Tsehelsky published Rus'-Ukraïna but
Moskovshchyna-Rossia (Rus-Ukraine but Moscow-Russia) which had a significant impact on
Ukrainian ideas in both Galicia and in Russian-ruled Ukraine. In this book, he highlighted
differences that he claimed existed between Ukrainians and Russians in order to show that any
union between the two peoples was impossible. Tsehelsky claimed that Ukrainians historically
wanted self-rule, while Russians historically sought servitude. Tsehelsky wrote that Ukrainians
who opposed Ivan Mazepa were traitors and that Ukrainian history consisted of a constant
struggle of Ukrainian attempts at autonomy in opposition to Russian attempts to impose
centralization.
Because the formation of the UCCA is based in this thought and OUNb Bandera lead the
Ukrainian-American Diaspora, the politics of hate is what drives them, nothing
else.
According
to LTC Jim Hickman who served on a combined US-Russian exercise with Vindman, "At that
point, I verbally reprimanded him for his actions, & I'll leave it at that, so as not to be
unprofessional myself. The bottom-line is LTC Vindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far
back as 2012. So much so, junior officers & soldiers felt uncomfortable around him. This is
not your professional, field-grade officer, who has the character & integrity to do the
right thing. Do not let the uniform fool you he is a political activist in uniform. I pray our
nation will drop this hate, vitriol & division, & unite as our founding fathers
intended!" and allow Ukraine to realize its dream of a vibrant democracy and economic
prosperity .-Vindman
US military officers are not in the business of vibrant economies or democracy. Ukraine
can't realize Vindman's dream of a vibrant democracy because Ukraine has a nationalism built on
Italian fascist philosopher Julius Evola.
"We are not speaking, of course,
of Nationalist ideology, which a radical fringe (or, if you prefer, a leading
elite) of Western Ukrainian society adopted in the 1930s and pursued through violent means.
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky condemned it at the time, contrasting it with Christian
patriotism.
Some see the result as a defeat for nationalism. Certainly, it looks like a repudiation
of the traditional type of nationalism based on ethnicity, language, history, culture, and
religion.
That is the "old" nationalism of President Poroshenko – and most of our
diaspora"-The Ukrainian Weekly May 11, 2019
Poroshenko made W. Ukraine the model for Ukrainian society today, but what about the
Diaspora? That radical fringe was the OUN political model that the Diaspora stayed immersed in
and is trying to change the United States into.
In their own words- " Unity to act when required has been the diaspora's mantra –
this cannot be disputed. As time moves on, we see that things take a natural course. We see
that two wings of the OUN – Banderivtsi, and Melnykivtsi – are working actively on
the international level, working in partnership and currently are in strong negotiations about
becoming a single entity again".-Ukraine Weekly Aug 26, 2016
Ukraine's Zelenskiy was able to run for president based on how he negotiated through these
two groups. Poroshenko was OUNb Banderivtsi's candidate. Zelenskiy was OUNm Melnykivtsi's
candidate. The difference between the two is nominal. They both have a history built on torture
and murder.
For a background this shows what's going on in Ukrainian politics in 2019.
The Ukrainian Diaspora openly claims not just the violent legacy of Stepan Bandera but also
the mantle and mandate to attack anything they see threatening their power in Ukraine and
influence on the US government. LTC Vindman is part of this culture.
Why are Ukrainian-Americans at the forefront of every attempt to impeach Donald Trump as
well as the deep-state coup going on? Today, Donald Trump is threatening to remove this rancid
influence from American politics.
Looking at the patriotic image the Ukrainian Diaspora tries to project, let's go back to
their charter statement on American civics.
In 1936 the OUN publication, The Nationalist, stated its position pretty clearly about the
United States to the native groups that revolved around the UCCA after the war as well as the
position they deserved in society.
"Nationalism is the love of country and the willingness to sacrifice for her A person
brought up asa Ukrainian Nationalist will make a one hundred percent better AMERICAN
CITIZEN than one who is not.
Was it Nazis or Fascism that guided Washington, Lincoln, or other statesmen to make the
U.S. a world power? Or was it American Nationalism?"
As you can see, they haven't changed methods or politics since the 1930s. If they don't like
a US president, they try to get rid of him or her in the most convenient way possible. Their
issue with Roosevelt is he would never accept Nationalism. Today, they still call the Democrat
president Roosevelt, a socialist.
But, how far across Ukrainian-American society does this go?
"I do care about social and economic issues affecting every American, but given the war
in Ukraine, there is onlyone issue that we as Ukrainian Americans must focus on:
UkraineThe Central and East European Coalition is a coalition of U.S.-based
organizations that represent their countries of heritage,a voting group of over 20
million people A vote for Trump is a vote against Ukraine!The upcoming presidential
election will be the most important election in which Ukrainian Americans will participate. We
can make a difference with deeds not words.Anybody
but Trump!- Ukrainian Weekly
This linked series documents
how the Diaspora does it and the impact they have. This article shows
why Donald Trump won the 2016 election. If the Democrats are successful removing the
Electoral College, the actual vote will be determined by 15 cities. Your vote, win or lose, no
longer counts if you don't live in one of them. This is the reason all the Diasporas are
strategically located for political impact.
The history and involvement of Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa in both the 2014 Ukraine coup
and the election hacking, as well as Russian interference stories, is well known. These two
Ukrainian Diaspora sisters are the originators of the impeachment movement of Donald Trump
which started just after he declared victory in 2016. Inside the above links, we have another
20 million Diaspora people who think the same way politically and socially.
Although this goes beyond partisan lines in Congress, the Democratic Party is overflowing
with Diaspora operatives today. Adam Parkhomenko is a great example of this. He
describes himself as Democratic Strategist, Consultant, Political Adviser. Dad.
Ukrainian-American. Whatever order, son Cameron's my life.
Parkhomenko works with the
DNC, Atlantic Council groups, and other groups trying to illegally overthrow the presidency.
Members of Congress celebrate this same Ukrainian nationalist brutality in Ukraine and its
sister nationalists ISIS in Syria as well as Ukraine. ISIS also adheres to Julius Evola
politically. If you want to know what Ukrainian nationalism looks like with no one buffering
them, ISIS is ideal to study. This is what they want to do in Donbass. This is what they want
America to become.
"I don't want to dwell on Islamicist ideology; I don't know that much about it. Still, we
should note that recent Islamicist terrorists quote Evola with facility One of the features of
political Tradition has been the search for a school of the transcendent that could serve as
the organizing principle of a new society.
Theoretically, any of the great religious traditions might serve. In practice, though,
Traditionalists have usually chosen a radical version of Islam or some kind of neopaganism;
Tradition can be scary, however. Sometimes this knowledge of the inevitable collapse of the
modern world inspires nothing more than the formation of groups of adepts who hope to manage
the transition when civilization collapses. Sometimes, however, Tradition has sparked the
creation of anarchist political groups that hope to accelerate the collapse." After the Third
Age Eschatological Elements of Postwar International Fascism, presented by Professor John
Reilly at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Center for Millennial Studies, Boston
University, November 2 to 4, 2002
Julius Evola was one of the founders of what became known as the "Tradition" and has
adherents infecting all major religions with a fascist/ nationalist construct. According to the
fascist Evola (esoteric fascism), immortality is attained by the conscious act that ignores the
ramifications of death while plunging headlong into it without a thought. This has nothing to
do with the type of religion an adherent is or its afterlife traditions.-
The Millennial Studies project at Boston University is engaged in the study of groups and
ideology that pose existential threats and will eventually destroy the modern world.
Hence, they named the dangerous time we live in post-modern. It is quite literally the study
of an impending apocalypse. The project reports to the government on the real nature of these
groups and ideologies to give the government a basis for dealing with them.
This takes us back to Alexander Vindman as a just another sample of this rabidly nationalist
community.
A Tale of Two Diasporas
Vindman grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn NY. Its nickname, Little Odessa stems from the
large Russians and Ukrainian enclave that grew big from the 1970s onward. Critiques argue that
because of the dense population of Russian speaking people, it's hardly the place you'd find
Ukrainian nationalists. The statement is false.
In reality, what you had during the 1970s and 80s through the end of the Cold War was a
dense anti-Communist population of which the leading edge was the Ukrainian nationalist
Yaroslav Stetsko. After WWII, the Russian anti-communist émigré's that fought
against the Soviet Union relocated from the Displaced Person camps to the US.
This anti-Communist wave sought to be active in US countermeasures against the Soviet Union
alongside the Ukrainian nationalists. Because the Ukrainians refused to work with Russian
nationals, they were rejected.
This is a slice of the Russian emigration experience. The Russians kept the important
cultural ties but assimilated politically into US democracy politically. Many did maintain a
staunch anti-Communist stance throughout the Cold War which transformed into a strong
anti-Putin stance during the years after the wall came down.
For the Ukrainians, almost 50 years of Cold War intrigue kept them bound inside the politics
of extreme nationalism. For Soviet émigrés from Ukraine, Little Odessa's Russian
speaking Ukrainian community which developed in the 1970s would be the most comfortable place
to live.
The most uncomfortable fact about Ukrainian émigrés to the US is even through
this period, the anti-Communist tag meant they came from one side of the Bandera experience or
the other. Ukrainian anti-Communism is synonymous with Ukrainian nationalism.
In Ukraine during the 1970s, your grandparents either fought for the Soviet Army or they
fought against them. This means you were a victim of Nazi aggression, fought for Nazis, or
fought against Nazism. This in itself isn't a smudge or a smear on Vindman or anyone else.
Growing up in Brighton Beach inside a mixed Ukrainian-Russian population would have buoyed
his family's political beliefs. Little Odessa is part of Brooklyn and isn't an island separated
from the Ukrainian nationalist groups critics are arguing applies to Alexander Vindman.
New York is the headquarters of the Ukrainian Congressional Committee of America (UCCA). If
you take part in public Ukrainian cultural life in New York, you rub shoulders with Bandera's
OUNb.
During and after the Cold War, NGOs formed claiming representation in Congress for entire
Diasporas like the UCCA does for Ukrainian-Americans. Today is no different.
The political makeup of the Russian Diaspora in Brooklyn is much the same as it was when
Vindman's family moved there. The Russian-Ukrainian population is staunchly anti-communist
which translated into anti-Putin Russians for many of them. They want to change the face of the
Russian Federation.
"And so it was on a spring day in 2014 that Gindler, in his deep Russian voice, started
talking about Vladimir Putin and called the leader a "nano-Führer."His
distrust and distaste for Russia's president is shared by many in the community.""You shouldn't talk to any Russian-speaking person here in the West and expect any
positive words about Putin," said Gindler, a registered independent voter who cast his ballot
for Trump in November Gindler immigrated to New York from Ukraine in 1995, a few years after
the fall of the Soviet Union.-Business Insider
These sentiments aren't unique in the Russian-Ukrainian Diasporas. It gives a clear insight
into the environment Vindman grew up in except for one thing. The Russian Diaspora found their
expression through voting and adding to the American experience like many Diasporas. According
to official numbers, about 35% of the Russian Diaspora feels this way.
Even after Vindman's family emigrated to Little Odessa in the 1970s, the Ukrainian Diaspora
were known as political animals, or to be kind, the activists-activist. They still are today.
Not content with the American civic experience, they showed how much they are willing to tilt
the table during election 2016.
What does this mean in 2019 for the Russian Diaspora? It means going forward the only
representation they have in Congress today is provided by Ukrainian nationalists. The Ukrainian
Diaspora of which Alexander Vindman is a solid part of represents Russian émigré
interests at the Congressional level.
That's tilting the table.
"We represent and coordinate the Russia diaspora. We pay special attention to those who
haverecently left Russia due to the considerable deterioration of the political and
economic situation.
The Free Russia Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental U.S.-based
organization, led by Russians abroad that seeks to be a voice for those who can't speak under
the repression of the current Russian leadership. We represent and coordinate the Russia
diaspora. We pay special attention to those who have recently left Russia due to the
considerable deterioration of the political and economic situation. We are focused on
developing a strategic vision of Russia 'After Putin' and 'Without Putinism' and a concrete
program for the transition period. We will continue to inform international policy-makers, mass
media and opinion leaders on the real situation in Russia We maintain our extensive networks of
key political, business and civil society leaders throughout Russia. This gives us access to
news and events in real-time. In addition, we are a hub for recently transplanted Russians and
experts on every aspect of Russian society."Free Russia Foundation
They U.S.
policymakers on events in Russia in real-time Support the formulation of an effective and
sustainable Russia policy in the U.S.
This is an Atlantic Council production and Michael D. Weiss is on the Board of Directors.
What's notable is they have two locations. One in Washington DC to be close to policymakers and
the other is Free Russia House in Kyiv vul. Kyrylivska, 26/2 Kyiv, Ukraine 04071
Like I said, Ukrainians like Alexander Vindman are trying to represent the Russian Diaspora
and promote Ukraine and the Ukrainian Diaspora's interests.
The basis for understanding why Vindman is clumsily trying to push Donald Trump's
impeachment can be found in the following post. This girl left a mid-west university to relive
the NAZI experience her grandparents had. If they were UPA, her grandparents were involved with
committing the Holocaust and mass murder. This was written just after Maidan ended and months
before the civil war in Ukraine began.
" I have
often thought of my ancestors and how they must have felt during WWII (and earlier
liberation movements) and the partisan struggle to liberate Ukraine from totalitarian powers.
I've always been fascinated by WWII and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), but never in my
life did I think I would feel what they felt, get a taste of war, death, and the fight for
freedom, such uncertainty, and love for Ukraine in a context similar to theirs These sentiments
which were felt by Ukrainians in WWII have been transferred to a new generation of Ukrainians
who are reliving the liberation movement, re-struggling for a free, prosperous, and democratic
Ukraine. Of course, EuroMaidan and Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine . I feel that I was
guided to Ukraine because the love for and attachment to Ukraine was passed down from my
grandparents, and as they couldn't return My grandparents' generation fight for freedom didn't
succeed, there was no independent Ukraine after the war, and so being intelligentsia and having
taken part in the liberation struggle, my relatives would have been persecuted under the
Soviets.
Thus in 1944 when the Soviets were again approaching western Ukraine, my grandparents had to
flee west Eventually sotnias(defense/ military units) were formed during EuroMaidan and I
couldn't help but think that the last time sotnias were formed was during the war by the UPA
The UPA slogan "Glory to Ukraine" and response "Glory to the Heroes" as well as the UPA songs
sounded from maidan's across the country, and the black and red UPA flags flew next to the
yellow and blue ones. There are in fact a lot more parallels between WWII and EuroMaidan/ the
Russian invasion And once we finally had a taste of victory, finally ousted the corrupt
president, finally felt we had a chance to completely reboot the country, root out the Soviet
mentality once and for all."- Areta Kovalsky
To drive it home, long after LTV Vindman's youth was over, NAZI monsters are still to be
emulated in New York and CT.
Can Waffen SS officers and mass murderers like Stepan Bandera be Catholic patron saints in
cities like New York, Philadelphia, Stamford CT, or Boston in the year 2015?
"On October 16, 2011, members
of the 54th branch of CYM "Khersones" in Stamford, CTattended a mass and requiem
service in honor of the great Ukrainian hero and freedom fighter, Stepan Bandera. It was the
first time since its' inception that the branches' members took part in an organized activity
together with the greater Ukrainian community of Stamford.
The SUM members and the faithful present that day enjoyed a beautiful and emotional
homily about the life and achievements of Stepan Bandera delivered by Reverend Bohdan Danylo,
Rector of St. Basil's Seminary in Stamford. He instructed the children on how they can model
their own lives on Bandera's by following his example of self-sacrifice and unwavering
dedication to his country. Following the homily, Father Bohdan distributed candles to each
child which burned brightly during a stirring execution of the prayer "Vichnaya Pam'yat" in
honor of the great hero of the Ukrainian nation."
If you understand the tender emotion expressed watching protesters and police die, you can
understand the mind of a Ukrainian nationalist. Vindman is no exception. His history, heroism,
and sense of duty don't cover him or excuse him. He reported no crimes that were committed by
the sitting President he is trying to impeach. He only said he felt bad for Ukraine. That's not
good enough.
In this sense Soleimani assassination opened such a huge can of worms that the results can
be judged only in several years.
It exposes Trump and his cronies as one trick ponies who does not think strategically or are
manipulated (for all practical purposes the hypothesis that Trump is a puppet is stronger that
then the hypothesis that he is an independent player)
In some way It might well be that Trump put the final nail into the global, led by the
USA,neoliberal empire and legitimized the existence of two competing economic blocks. That's a
huge change, if true (the fact that China folded contracts that)
He also implicitly acknowledged that the USA no longer can attack on Iran military without
the danger of suffering large losses and profound negative consequences itself. Including
Russia and China support for Iran in such a war, which would make it the second Vietnam. That's
another huge change -- the end of "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine as we know it. .
Now we known that Trump bullied EU threating auto-tariff to support him. That a clear return
to the Wild West in international relations and it another nail into the empire coffin. Esper
recently blabbed that the US has the right under Article II of its Constitution to attack
Iranian territory in response to offensive action by Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. So UN does
not matter, right ? The UN Charter was created to stop WWIII. Under Trump, it again became a
real possibility with the USA taking the central the role in creating the conditions for
unleashing it.
Here is an interesting quote from yesterday (Jan 15, 2020) article by Pepe Escobar in Asia
Times (
Retired US Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2001 to
2005, cuts to the chase: "America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19
straight years of war and no end in sight? It's part of who we are. It's part of what the
American Empire is. We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as Pompeo is doing right now, as
Trump is doing right now, as Esper is doing right now and a host of other members of my
political party, the Republicans, are doing right now. We are going to lie, cheat and steal
to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That's the truth of it. And
that's the agony of it."
Moscow, Beijing and Tehran are fully aware of the stakes. Diplomats and analysts are
working on the trend, for the trio, to evolve a concerted effort to protect one another from
all forms of hybrid war – sanctions included – launched against each of them.
For the US, this is indeed an existential battle – against the whole Eurasia
integration process, the New Silk Roads, the Russia-China strategic partnership, those
Russian hypersonic weapons mixed with supple diplomacy, the profound disgust and revolt
against US policies all across the Global South, the nearly inevitable collapse of the US
dollar. What's certain is that the Empire won't go quietly into the night. We should all be
ready for the battle of the ages.
.P.S. To me it looks that Trump lost all antiwar republicans and independents , as well as a
part of military who voted for him in 2016 (and who now are Tulsi supporters)
The Senate trial, if it materializes, now can become the leverage point to drive a wedge
between moderate Republicans and Trump via his Iran policies.
Pakistan should slip one across the border in a rail car of elephants.
We now shift the focus unto the Impeachment Trial. Shifty Schiff leads the prosecution.
Should be interesting spectator sport. Never be too certain of the outcome. Some are positing
Trump could be removed. Many Republicans are uneasy. The guy is unfit to have the nuclear
codes, displays impaired emotion - schizophrenia. Others, Independent and Republican
turncoats consider Trump embarrassing. Over the last days Trump's Sec. of Defense, Esper
threw him under the bus.
The events of the past twelve days since Trump murdered IRGC General Qassem Soleimani
prove this beyond any doubt. Impeachment was the leverage point to drive open a wedge
between Republicans and Trump through Iran.
Pelosi slow-walking the articles of impeachment to the Senate was all part of the
pantomime, folks. She gets what she wants: Congress asserting more power and the Democrats
shoring up their base by taking out an eyesore in Trump.
She waits just long enough for Trump to do something questionable and for it to be made
known publicly.[.]
The Swamp Strikes Back and puts Trump in a no-win situation.
The Wall St. Journal article from this weekend which intimated that Trump made the
decision to kill Soleimani was motivated by shoring up his support in the Israeli Occupied
Senate is further proof.
"Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen.
Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment
trial in the Senate, associates said," the newspaper reported.[.]
"That is why Trump's presidency is a blessing for Iran. "
It's real blessing to the entire world, otherwise how else the world would have come to see
the real ugly face of Americans
@Rd | Jan 15 2020 1:01 utc | 98
This is now beyond government and oligarchy , and laws, this is now about a
national/religious demand for revenge, on killing a true national shia muslim hero away from
any political or difference in opinion.
IMO, the demand for revenge can not be even controlled by military and it's leaders, the
order for revenge can even be sanctioned by a relative unknown cleric in a shia village.
@moon | Jan 15 2020 7:52 utc | 136
Thanks, PL banned me over a year ago , for calling US military (yeman) a mercenary force, Now
Trump is proud he sold 3000 US trops to Bone saw for 1 billion.
I also believe that Iranian military has understood for some time now, that US (Military) is
not willing to enter a war with Iran at this time, which makes me believe that a low
intensity, long, covert attritional war across the western Asia will finally make US to
leave. IMO pre announced without casualty attack on AalA US base by Iran Military was to
allow any future covert low intensity attack by Iranian regional allies on US forces as
non-sanctioned or related by Iranian government or military.
Which makes it hard to fight directly.
Journalism PoliticsFurther Followup
On The Soleimani Assassination I wish to point out some matters not getting a lot of
attention in the US media.
An important one of those was reported two days ago by Juan Cole . It is that
apparently it has not been determined for certain that the initial attack that set off this
current round of deaths when a militia in Iraq attacked an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk in
which an American contractor was killed, almost certainly a matter of collateral damage
although not recognized as such, was actually done by Kata'b Hezbollah, the group reported to
have done it. That group was commanded by al-Mushani, who was also assassinated with Soleimani,
with whom he was allied. But it is not certain that they did it. As it is, the Kirkuk base is
dominated by Kurdish Pesh Merga, with whom it is not at all obvious the pro-Iranian militias
like the Kat'b Hezbollah have hostile differences. This may have been cooked up to create an
excuse for assassinating Soleimani.
Indeed, it has now been reported that seven months ago Trump had approved killing Soleimani
essentially at the first instance there would be a good excuse for doing so. In fact it is now
reported that although Trump had not heard of Soleimani during th 2016 election, within five
minutes of his inauguration he suggested killing Soleimani. SecState Pompeo been encouraging
and pushing this action, but it has been something Trump has been hot to do for some time.
Going up for an impeachment trial looks like a really good time.
We have now seen quite a dance around reasons to justify this. We must keep clear that it is
a matter of both US and international law that this sort of killing of a foreign national
official such as General Soleimani is that there be an "imminent threat." I shall not drag
through the various versions of what was supposedly the imminent threat was here, but it has
finally become clear that there was none. And as of today both Pompeo and AG Barr have now
pivoted to saying that it was done for "deterrence," but that leaves this assassination as
illegal, with US troops in Iraq now declared to be"terrorists."
Now indeed the further followup has become quite a mess, although hopefully the escalation
has stopped and war will not happen, despite getting very close to the brink. So Iran made its
strike on two bases with US troops in Iraq. While it initially looked like the Iranians were
going out of their way to avoid killing any Americans, local US commanders now say that it
appears that the strikes were in fact aimed at killing some Americans, and some were in fact
injured. I do not know if this is true or not, but it is disturbing and shows how close we have
gotten to heightened war.
Then we had this disaster of the Iranians themselves shooting down a commercial Ukrainian
airplane (oh, the irony), killing 176 civilians, mostly Iranians, Canadians, and Ukrainians,
plus some others. With the admission by the regime, anti-government demonstrations have broken
out at universities especially in Tehran where many of the Iranians on the plane were from, and
many of the university students heading to Canada. Those demos have gone on for three days
bringing forth a harsh put down from the government, but with news people quitting their jobs
out of disgust. The government has now arrested some supposedly responsible for the erroneous
shootdown under heightened alert status, which would not have come to pass without the illegal
assassination. It is unclear if these arrests will bring an end to the demonstrations, but it
should be kept in mind that these involve much smaller numbers of people than turned out in the
aftermath of Soleimani's assassination.
Underlying this most recent uprising is the fact that Iran is suffering serious econoimic
problems. Much of this is due to the Trump sanctions, but they also reflect entrenched
corruption and spending on foreign adventures, such as support for foreign militias. These are
difficult times, and let us hope that all sides step back and reduce the heightened
tensions.
Barkley
run75441 , January 15, 2020 12:23 pm
Barkley:
Good post and thanks for the follow-up.
Normally when something happens in the Middle East, I head over to Informed Comment to
see what Juan is saying about the situation. You have added information I was not aware
of as I had not been over to Juan Cole's Informed Comment in several days. Also from a
January 11th column of his:
"Lest the Trumpies imply that only Obama de facto allied with Soleimani and his
Iraqi Shiite militias, it should be pointed out that they played an important role in
the defeat of ISIL at Mosul during Trump's presidency. Although they did not fight
their way into the city, they fanned out to the west and north to prevent ISIL
terrorists from escaping to Raqqa in Syria. That was why Kata'ib Hizbullah had a base
at Qa'im, a checkpoint between Iraq and Syria, where they were preventing ISIL agents
from going back and forth. Trump kicked off the current crisis by bombing his allies at
Qa'im, killing some 26 militiamen. And then he droned his sometime ally Soleimani to
death at Baghdad airport as Soleimani was about to begin covert peace talks with Saudi
Arabia."
I must walk back one speculation I made in this post. It is not the case that the base
attacked near Kirkuk held Kurdish Pesh Merga. It indeed houses US and Iraqi national troops
dedicated to fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Four US service people were injured along with two
national Iraqi troops. The US citizwn killed was naturalized and born in Iraq.
It remains possible that it was IAIA/ISIL/Daesh carried out the attack as they are active in
that area. However, most think it was Kata'b Hezbollah, enocuraged and suppliled by
Soleimani.
run75441 , January 15, 2020 8:21 pm
Barkley:
Ok, so you missed some detail. The drone attack on Soleimani and others did not have to
occur. Furthermore, it appears this was planned months earlier and just never carried through.
To me, it is just another Trump distraction away from his impeachment.
Thanks for the shrewd analysis. The problem is that Trump appears to be morphing from
the mad negotiator into someone who really is mad. I think he knows he screwed up with
Soleimani and there's no taking it back, only doubling down . You can't talk your way out
of some mistakes. Trump is shrewd, but not very smart and like most bullies he's also weak.
He gets by being such an obvious bluffer and blowhard but when you start assassinating people
and expect to be praised for it it's no longer a game.
I'd say the solution is to give Trump the heave ho this November and not play his game of me
me me. Indeed the Iranians seem to be biding their time to see what happens.
Trump was always only tolerable as long as he spent his time shooting off his mouth rather
than playing the imperial chess master. This reality show has gone on long enough.
Not sure he "screwed up" with Suleimani. He now has something to point to when Adelson
and the Israel Firsters ring up. He has red meat for his base ("look what a tough guy I
am"). He can tell the Saudis they now owe him one.
He added slightly to the fund of hatred for America in the hearts of Sunnis but that fund is
already pretty full. If they respond with a terror attack Trump wins because people will rally
around the national leader and partisan differences will be put aside. Notice how fast
de-escalation happened, certainly feels alot like pre-orchestrated kayfabe.
In this sense only Sanders, Warren and Tulsi are authentic democrats... Major Pete is
definitely a wolf in sheep clothing.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that fate. ..."
"... A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all. ..."
Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to
destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime
Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that
fate.
A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in
existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would
conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all.
The ClintoBama Pelosicrats have no standing on which to pretend to support some very
popular social programs and hope to be believed any longer. Maybe that is why they feel there
is no point in even pretending any more.
Bearing in mind the fact that the DemParty would prefer a Trump re-election over a Sanders
election, I don't think anyone will be giving Trump any heave ho. The only potential nominee to
even have a chance to defeat Trump would be Sanders. And if Sanders doesn't win on ballot
number one, Sanders will not be permitted the nomination by an evil Trumpogenic DemParty
elite.
Even if Sanders wins the nomination, the evil Trumpogenic Demparty leadership and the
millions of Jonestown Clintobamas in the field will conspire against Sanders every way they
feel they can get away with. The Clintobamas would prefer Trump Term Two over Sanders Term One.
They know it, and the rest of us need to admit it.
If Sanders is nominated, he will begin the election campaign with a permanent deficit of
10-30 million Clintobama voters who will Never! Ever! vote for Sanders. Sanders will have to
attract enough New Voters to drown out and wash away the 10-30 million Never Bernie
clintobamas.
Now that Warren has been exposed as the charlatan ( The Damned Debates ) many of
us knew she was all along, the media is all freaked out that her plan to attack Bernie
Sanders is backfiring and that she is losing support rather than gaining it.
It looks to many like she made a deal with the Wall St. crowd funding the DNC who support
Biden to attack Bernie for them in exchange for a VP spot.
They are obviously very worried about Biden though because the Trump-GOP attack on Biden
over Burisma is coming, and they know they have nothing to stop it. That is what the
impeachment is all about (
Impeachment For Dummies: or How progressives were conned into supporting Joe Biden for
President ), and what the recent claim of Russia hacking to harm Biden is all about. It
is all about trying to protect Biden from the upcoming Trump-GOP Burisma related attack on
Biden. So with Biden in trouble and Warren stumbling, expect Hillary to save the day?
LOL.
They are worried, but unless Bernie is far ahead when it matters then the superdelegates
will save them. But if they do that then they fear many people will go 3rd party next
election cycle, meaning the DNC has no chance to beat the GOP in the future if that
happens.
What will they do? Right now they are full on trying to threaten their way to keep their
new world order as it crumbles around them ( Pax
Americana: Between Iraq and A Hard Place ). Times they are a changin.
But what was actually good in Soleimani killing? He was an Iranian official and only the fact
that the USA is 300 pound gorilla save us from the war for this extra-judicial killing. Because
it was essentially a declaration of the war.
Is some weaker state tried the same the result would be complete devastation of both this
state and Iran in a protracted war. Israel hides in such cases over Uncle Sam (in other version
uncle Schmuel ;-) back so it essentially is allowed the same privileges in extrajudicial killings
as the USA, but that will last only as long as the USA dominance in world affairs. After that
bill with came due for Isreal and it will not be pretty.
Talking about centrists following strictly Trump's playbook, another good example is
Warren's take on Soleimani's killing.
If she believes that she has any chance of defeating Trump as a strong defender of the US
against terrorism, she must be drinking some new kind of kool-aid.
Fortunately, in this sense, Sanders is being much more clever than Warren. I see Sanders
as the only and last opportunity to avoid the worst.
The US is trying to stop Eurasia's economic and political integration in order to delay its
own demise, say international observers, explaining what message the US sent to the
Russia-China-Iran "triumvirate" by killing Quds Commander Qasem Soleimani. The assassination of
Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and
commander of the Quds Force, in a targeted US air strike on 3 January came on the heels of
joint naval exercise launched by Russia, Iran and China in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of
Oman.
The "growing Russia-China-Iran trilateral convergence", as The Diplomat
dubbed it in late December, is seemingly
hitting a raw nerve in Washington :
speaking to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on 2 January, Rear Admiral
Khanzadi, the Iranian navy commander, said that Washington and its allies had held an emergency
meeting aimed at disrupting the drills.
US Opposes Rapprochement of Russia, China and
Iran Amid Policy of 'Maximum Pressure'
"Recent violent US attacks against Iranian allies in Iraq and Syria, culminating in the
killing of Iran's Major General Qasem Soleimani, are, in the wider geopolitical sense, meant
to send signals to the building Eurasian triumvirate to cease their collaborative activities,
let alone longer-term strategic and Belt and Road Initiative-linked designs," says Pye Ian,
an American economic analyst and private equity executive.
According to Ian, the US decision to step up pressure on Tehran might be stemming from
Washington's apparent belief that Iran is "the 'weakest link' in the strengthening Eurasian
alliance".
However, "Russia, China and Iran cannot be attacked overtly, let alone invaded, occupied or
'regime changed'," the economic analyst highlights.
Christopher C. Black, a Toronto-based international criminal lawyer with 20 years of
experience in war crimes and international relations, echoes the American economist.
"It is in response to the close relationship between Russia, Iran and China and it is no
coincidence that this murder took place just as the joint naval exercises in the Persian Gulf
came to an end," he said. "Further, it is a threat to Russian strategic interests in Syria
and to Syria itself."
Apart from this, the move indicates that "one of the reasons for US pressure on Iran is to
control the oil supply to China in order to cripple China's development," Black suggests.
Russia and its military successes in the region have become yet another irritant for
Washington, according to Max Parry, an independent American journalist and geopolitical
analyst.
"The US likely feels the need to re-assert itself as a hegemonic power in the region,
considering it is Moscow that emerged as the new honest peace broker in the Middle East with
the Syrian conflict," Parry notes. "Russia completely outmanoeuvred Washington and by the end
of the war, Turkey was practically in Moscow's camp. Trump has reset US foreign policy with
the withdrawal from Syria and the targeting of Iran."
By killing Soleimani, the US "has completely overplayed its hand and this could be the
beginning of the end for Washington because a war with Iran would be no cakewalk", he
emphasises.
According to Ian, in addition to being a thorn in Washington's flesh, Moscow, Beijing and
Tehran have something else in common: the three nations have increasingly been drifting away
from the US dollar.
The trend followed the Trump administration's:
· unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) in
May 2018;
· trade war waged against the People's Republic of China by Washington since March
2018;
· series of anti-Russian sanctions imposed against Moscow under the pretext of the
latter's interference in the US 2016 presidential elections, something that Russia resolutely
denies.
The economic analyst explains that "the dollar's universal confidence trick requires uniform
adherence, by natural adoption or by force". While the US allies remain obedient to the dollar-
dominated system, those who resisted it such as Iraq under Saddam, Libya under Gaddafi and
Venezuela under Chavez "triggered some Atlanticist force, either overtly or clandestinely, in
order to try and put those nations back on a compliant page."
However, "the current state of dollar printing by the US Fed ad infinitum cannot last
forever," Ian stresses.
"The global East and South are already ahead of Transatlantic banking, in a sense, by
shifting further out of the dollar and Treasury securities into their own, or bilateral,
currency exchanges, gold, and/or domestic or collaborative cryptocurrency endeavours," he
says.
Russia, China, Iran, as well as India and some other Eurasian nations are switching to
trading in local currencies and
continuing to amass gold at a steady pace . Thus, for instance, Russia produced over 185.1
tonnes of gold in the first six months of 2019; the country's bullion reserves reached 72.7
million troy ounces (2,261 tonnes) as of 1 December 2019. For its part, the People's Bank of
China (PBoC) has accumulated 1,948.3 tonnes of the precious metal as of December 2019,
according to World Gold Council.
Ian foresees that if the world's nations continue to shift
out of US Treasury obligations and choose alternative currencies for energy pricing,
trading and reserves recycling, it may "cause US interest rates to fly higher, cratering
consumer, institutional and public debt obligations and re-importing an obscene level of
inflation back into the US".
The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of
Sputnik.
The U.S. effort to coerce European foreign policy through tariffs, a move one European
official equated to "extortion," represents a new level of hardball tactics with the United
States' oldest allies, underscoring the extraordinary tumult in the transatlantic
relationship.
...
U.S. officials conveyed the threat directly to officials in London, Berlin and Paris rather
than through their embassies in Washington, said a senior European official, who like
others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Yes the US extorted their own "allies" to get them to betray Iran and destroy their own
reputations. I must say the one thing i begrudgingly like about Trump is his honest upfront
thuggist actions. After the backroom betrayals of Obama bush clinton merkel and the rest its
almost refreshingly honest. Also i can think of no quicker way of destroying the US empire
than by threatening your own allies the MIC must be desperate to start a new never ending
war, although perhaps they should be careful of what they wish for
"... On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests. It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield." ..."
One of the new bogus explanations that the administration has been offering up is that there was a threat to one or more U.S. embassies
that led to the assassination. Rep. Justin Amash notes this morning that they have presented no evidence to Congress to back up any
of this or their original claim of an "imminent" attack:
The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies claim seems to be totally
made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without congressional approval --
with respect to any of this. The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies
claim seems to be totally made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without
congressional approval -- with respect to any of this. https://t.co/Eg0vaCnqFd
-- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash)
January 12, 2020
The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what they did. The president
invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because they are implicated
in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important as this despite
their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have trashed their credibility
long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there is much more healthy and
appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are still piecing together what
happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by
determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing
this. John Cassidy The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what
they did. The president invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because
they are implicated in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important
as this despite their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have
trashed their credibility long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there
is much more healthy and appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are
still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are
getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the
leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading
up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action
against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened
at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined
hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John
Cassidy
reports :
On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani
months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's
Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the
Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he
moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests.
It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from
public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield."
Pompeo has Pompeo has
lied constantly
about Iran and the nuclear deal before and after he became Secretary of State, so it is not surprising that he has been the administration's
public face as they lie to Congress and the public about this illegal assassination. No wonder
he doesn't want to appear before Congress to testify.
Add to this the concomitant attempt made in Yemen, where there is no American presence other than the bombs dropping from the
sky, against an Iranian operative, and it shows the push of the administration to go for the kill as the main factor. The US is
becoming more and more like Israel: kill first, no excuses, we are the chosen ones - The "revenge" of Dinah's brothers, Genesis
34:25. This is The US of A's diplomacy nowadays. The world has really been put on notice. And the world will be reacting, see
the visit of Chancellor Merkel to Moscow immediately after that.
The question is what the American citizens are going to do? What are they going to vote for?
Why shouldn't Trump and his Administration's creatures "expect to be believed"? He and his toadies have misstated, misled, BS-ed
and outright lied to the public for three years now; and - despite a "credibility gap" of Vallis Marineris proportions - have
gotten no appreciable pushback from the media.
The right-wing media simply cheerlead him, as usual: and everybody else just sort of nods, grunts, and moves on.
s the debate over presidential war powers intensifies in Congress, a coterie of key Trump
officials hit the Sunday talk shows last weekend to ratchet up the rhetoric on the "imminence"
of the attack Iranian General Qassem Soleimani had allegedly planned.
"It was this attitude that we don't have to tell Congress, we don't have to include
Congress," said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. He added that after various scenarios
were presented by senators, the administration refused to provide any "commitment to ever come
to Congress" no matter what the circumstances.
On Friday, Pompeo said the
attacks were justified because there was "a series of imminent attacks that were being
plotted by Qasem Soleimaini, we don't know precisely when and we don't precisely where."
Members of Congress and the media seized upon the quote, charging that it does not sound
like the definition of "imminent."
President Trump himself seemed to grasp the importance of stressing that the attack was
"imminent" when he added details Friday on Fox News, asserting that Soleimani was plotting
attacks on four U.S. embassies.
"I think it would have been four embassies," Trump said. "Could have been military bases,
could have been a lot of other things too. But it was imminent."
"We did it because they were looking to blow up our embassy," Trump added. "He was looking
very seriously at our embassies, and not just the embassy in Baghdad. I can reveal that I
believe it would have been four embassies."
But members of Congress say they were not told that four embassies had been targeted. And
when Trump officials were asked Sunday whether that claim was true, one by one they were left
sputtering.
Pentagon Chief Mark Esper conceded he "didn't see" intelligence indicating that on CBS's
Face the Nation .
"I didn't see one with regard to four embassies," Esper
said . "What I'm saying is I share the president's view."
"What the president said was he believed there probably and could've been attacks against
additional embassies. I shared that view," said Esper.
National Security adviser Robert O'Brien seemed to imply that members of Congress were at
fault for not extracting that information from their intelligence briefing.
"It does seem to be a contradiction. [Trump is] telling Laura Ingraham [about imminent attacks], but in
a 75-minute classified briefing, your top national security people never mentioned this to
members of Congress. Why not?" Chris Wallace asked O'Brien on Fox News Sunday .
"I wasn't at the briefing," O'Brien answered, "and I don't know how the Q&A went back
and forth. Sometimes it depends on the questions that were asked or how they were phrased."
On Meet the Press , O'Brien asserted that "exquisite" intelligence he was privy to
showed that "the threat was imminent."
When pressed by Chuck Todd about what the U.S. did to protect the other three embassies
under alleged imminent threat, O'Brien declined to give details.
"Is 'imminent' months, not weeks? Are people misinterpreting that word?" asked Todd.
"I think imminent, generally, means soon, quickly, you know, in process. So you know, I
think those threats were imminent. And I don't want to get into the definition further than
that," said O'Brien.
Pompeo's claim that an attack could be "imminent" even though the U.S. did not "know where
or when" it would come is "pretty inconsistent," Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky,
replied Sunday on Meet the Press.
"To me there's a bigger question too. This is what really infuriated me about the briefing
[Trump officials] maintain both in private and in public that a vote by Congress in 2003 or
2002 to go after Saddam Hussein was a vote that now allows them to still be in Iraq and do
whatever they want, including killing a foreign general from Iran," said Paul. "And I don't
think that's what Congress meant in 2002. We really need to have a debate about whether we
should still be in Iraq or in Afghanistan. There needs to be authorization from Congress."
Paul argued that presidents from both parties have, for decades, usurped Congress's war
powers, and that it is time for Congress to claw them back.
Said Paul, the founders "wanted to make it difficult to go to war, and I think we've been
drifting away from that for a long time, but that's why I'm willing to stand up, not because I
distrust President Trump -- actually think he has shown remarkable restraint -- but I'm willing
to stand up even against a president of my party because we need to stand up and take back the
power."
While the debate over war powers continues, Trump supporters have counter-attacked by
questioning the patriotism of those who don't fall in line with their narrative.
Former White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee-Sanders
"can't think of anything dumber" than Congress deciding matters of war and peace. Nikki
Haley accused Democrats of "mourning" General Soleimani. Congressman Doug Collins said
Democrats are "
in love with terrorists ." And Lindsey Graham said senators like Lee and Paul are
"empowering the enemy" by trying to rein in Trump's war powers.
On Monday, Trump added on Twitter: "The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are
working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was
'imminent' or not, & was my team in agreement. The answer to both is a strong YES., but it
doesn't really matter because of his horrible past!" If Trump's team was really in agreement,
they sure had a good way of hiding it. about the author Barbara Boland is TAC's
foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the
Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered , a
book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work has appeared on Fox News, The
Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University
in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC .
It was not a "request" from Iraq; it was a command from them; and the U.S. and Iraq relate as conqueror and
conquered, not as "partners." Consequently: the U.S. Government, now that it has been so unequivocally ordered to leave,
is back again, unequivocally, to its invader-occupier role in Iraq.
The AP report went on to say that,
"The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination
to push ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq."
Again there was that false word "request."
The AP report said that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asserted, in reply:
"Our mission set there is very clear. We've been there to perform a training mission to help the Iraqi security
forces be successful and to continue the campaign against ISIS, to continue the counter-Daesh campaign."
Though that's the invader-occupier's excuse, the reality is that the US needs Iraq in order to invade Iran, which is
the US Government's objective, though not overtly stated.
Already, America's assassination in Iraq of Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani on January 3rd is an enormous act of
war against Iran.
It is intended to obliterate Iran's main strategist, and this successful attack against Iran inside Iraq is a
devastating first strike, by the U.S. Government against Iran.
So: now, the U.S. is at war against both Iraq and Iran.
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Harry Stotle
,
I see Tony is inconsolable after the death of a dictator who failed to hold an election for 50 years?
Britains foremost war criminal said, "I heard the news about His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman
with great sadness. He was a leader of vision and purpose who took over the leadership of his country at
a difficult time and raised it to an entirely new level of development and prosperity. He was a man of
culture, humanity and deep conviction who strove to make his nation and the world better and more
peaceful. He was kind, thoughtful and with a big heart. He had great wisdom and insight from which I
benefited often as did so many others. My deepest sympathy, prayers and condolences are with the people
of Oman. He will be sorely missed. – Tony Blair.
https://twitter.com/InstituteGC/status/1215920898966020096
Yes, I'm sure you did 'benefit', Tony – blood money I think they call it, you amoral scumbag.
Frank Speaker
,
I'm really disappointed to read yet another article on OffG about Iran. It's getting really boring and
those backward desert dwellers deserve all they get anyway. Let's get it over and done with and takeover
their oilfields and make lots of money. What I really want to see here instead are lots of articles about
Meghan and Harry.
(note to non-British readers, it's called irony)
MASTER OF UNIVE
,
The ever cowardly United States of America is officially at war with everyone in the world except the
uneducated dolts & imbeciles that support the Imbecile-in-Chief narcissist whackjob nutbar effin' retard
run amok.
Fuck America & the Republican Party that lives on forever war with everyone in the world
including American taxpayers.
Screw the imbecile-in-Chief to a wall of his making.
Death to America!
MOU
Harry Stotle
,
Oh, you are a wag, Eric – is the US killing machine that just incinerated the Quds foremost military
strategist 'now at War Against Iraq AND Iran' – well its hardly an act of peace, is it?
By the way, has
anyone been listening to Raab pontificate about 'international law' – apparently the minister for Tory
lies appears to be oblivious to the fact that Soleimani's execution was almost certainly illegal, and was
only possible because Britain and American actions are always placed above the law.
Lets just remind Raab, and murder apologists like him that, "Outside of an on-going armed conflict,
the first use of military force is regulated under the jus ad bellum. The first principle of the jus ad
bellum is the prohibition on the use of force, a peremptory norm codified in United Nations Charter
Article 2(4). The only possible exception to the prohibition applicable in this case is self-defense. The
exception is narrow. Some restrictions are provided in UN Charter Article 51; others in the general
principles of international law. Article 51 permits the use of military force in such as the Hellfire
missiles carried by Reaper drones, if "an armed attack occurs". The International Court of Justice has
emphasized that the attack must be "grave".
https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-killing-of-soleimani-and-international-law/
Neocons want to start killing Iranians (which they already are doing via economic sanctions) – time
for the west to grasp this inescapable reality.
nottheonly1
,
What do these countries have in common?
U.S. IR UK FR AUS DE CAN NZ PL UK ES BR COL SA UAR NL SW NOR ET
AL?
They are all
M O ☐ H ☐ R ☐ A R ☐ H ☐ ☐ C K ☐ R ☐
Yes, you may buy an 'F'.
That includes its populations, that do it by default. They are programmed and conditioned from early
on to be in harmony with the Pompeos, the Busches, Obamas, Trumps and whatever their names are that have
this planet in stranglehold.
U.S. MUST PAY for all damages it inflicted over the last ~213 years. The ticket is endless – and with
the indiscrininate use of weapons of mass destruction, very expensive.
In a world of justice, the rich people would be given the shittiest places in these countries and the
rest be divided among the victim Nations of these pathetically religiously fascist psychopaths.
Is the use of the term 'religiously fascist psychopath' now reason for a drone strike?
Well, what are you waiting for? You are okay with the above fascist nations to do pre-emptive murders,
but hesitate to do the same?
What an epic Upfuckery.
Because – in other words – nobody capable to do the one act that is excempt from Karmic retribution?
Rather than doing that, saner beings are actually leaning back in the most fatalistic way. What is it
good for, if the sane let the insane do whatever they please – or their mental illness dictates them to
do?
Hitler was a good example. He was not mandated to undergo a psychological evaluation. And I don't care
where you set the red line. Being part of genocide is plenty enough at any given day. And there can be no
more limitations of terms.
Maybe the prevailing opinion about all this is for it to be a joke. But that only appears to be so,
because the populations of the above listed nations et al, are murdering innocent women and children
(future population reduction) in the Nations on the receiving fascist shit end of the stick.
On a side note and only marginally related:
Listening to the early Beatles and their 'depressing' songs, the mind drifted to 'The Man in Black'
(that I adore) and his song about why he is wearing black and likely to do so into his grave, which he
did. The song I have on mind changes the lyrics a bit, but stays true, or emphasizes the new expression.
Well, you wonder why I'm always using 'fuck'.
Why you'll never hear me leaving out the muck.
And why my words have such a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things I'm bringing on.
Oh, and yes, for what its worth: invest yourself in aeroponics. Learn everything about it and start
your own food production – using very little, very clean water and clean air, delivering healthy greens.
It will work in an apartment as well as in a large greenhouse. The REAL Foodevolution.
Dungroanin
,
Yes the US has been at war in the ME for a very very long time Eric.
Their advance was halted and is now in retreat, bar a few 'battles of Bulges' false hopes – they are
heading back to their bunkers and throwing the kiddy corps into the front lines to take on hardened
campaigners. They have even resorted to assassination of the Generals and leaders – opening the way and
hoping for equal retaliation, to sway the public perception.
The Iraqis want the US out – and are threatened with economic sanctions and freezing of their US$
accounts!
Just like Venezuela and Iran and Libya and Yemen ..,
The Iraqis are proceeding with their closer ties with the winners – the Eurasian conglomerate, the
Belt & Road investments; the superior Russian weapons systems and no doubt the disengagement from the
petrodollar, ball and chain of a slave.
Like an abused woman who wants to remove the 'ex boyfriend' who moved in a decade ago – has never paid
any bills, doesn't do housework or maintenance and brings round his mates to wreck the place
Iraq has served a legal order to remove the abusive bastard !
Get the fuck out – or the bailiffs will be called to do it – and that will mean MORE cost you bully!
If that is MORE war then retreating Empire will see a REAL war on all fronts including for the first
time ever in their own country – the bodybags will be required domestically – just like the poor
civilians have been dying in theit tens of thousands at the proxy US forces hands for decades.
The people of the US need to get past their daily diet of super sugared Hollywood superiority and
understand THEY are the EVIL EMPIRE and THEY are LOSING as the downtrodden ewoks of the many countried
are fighting back!
GEOFF
,
After the USS Vincennes in 1988 had shot down Iran Air Flight 655 and killed 290 people, including many
children, the U.S. government denied any culpability. George H. W. Bush, the vice president of the United
States at the time, commented: "I will never apologize for the United States – I don't care what the
facts are I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." Despite its "error" the crew was given medals
and the captain was even awarded a Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding service as commanding officer
GEOFF
,
The above is from moon of Alabama I forgot to mention
Granted that it's not the whole of the USA – but it's not just the CIA and it's certainly not
merely "today". Incidentally, Brando said his attraction towards playing the Godfather is that he
thought it was a prefect demonstration of how the American political system really works.
Protect
,
From Zero Hedge / The Strategic Culture Foundation:
"Abdul-Mehdi [The Iraqi prime minister] spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and
now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil
revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.
The complete (translated) words of Abdul-Mahdi's speech to parliament:
"This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the construction
instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement. When I refused, he
threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my premiership.
"Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that if I did not
comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings target protesters and
security personnel alike in order to pressure me.
"I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal
with the Chinese.
"After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting both
protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I received a new call
from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we kept on talking about this
"third party"."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/deeper-story-behind-assassination-soleimani
and there is this:
"I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to deliver a
message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from the Saudis."
lundiel
,
Here's your answer
from the state department, it appears to be both yes and no (depending on
financial incentives).
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the
fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis,
and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial our D-ISIS mission is in
Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit
to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture
in the Middle East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's
role in Iraq, in line with the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense
efforts. There
does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding
security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and
partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.
Typical imperialistic boiler plate. America being a "force for good in the Middle East" or anywhere
else is a lie. Remember Vietnam? As for "continu(ing) the fight against ISIS" the SOS really means to
continue to finance and supply ISIS while pretending to "fight against" them. There whole statement is
a Stygian Stable full of total BS.
The Iraqis should tell them again to get the f-k outta Dodge or they'll go Wyatt Earp on their
sorry lying asses.
Pardonnez-moi, but why do Canada and Australia also UK (Boris) take their 'cue' on foreign policy from
the USA? Sending defence forces to fight Washington's wars and banker's wars for resources?
That assertion by Mike("We lied we cheated we stole" ..)Pompeo is a total lie. The USA invaded Iraq under
a complete pack of lies, about Saddam Hussein's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" back in 2003 and are still
there after having murdered Hussein and now occupy Iraq.
The Elected Leader of Syria has also told the USA to "Get out of Syria", but the USA has not done so.
The USA(and it's 'owners" Israel, are the problem in the Middle East, NOT IRAN or Iraq.
Israel's anaesthetised donkey, The USA, is completely controlled by Israel .It's pathetic. but it's
true.
In the sixties we all knew that "NO" meant "YES" and these guys are from that era.
Brian Harry
,
I think that the World has grown sick and tired of the LIES, spewing out of the Military Industrial
Complex ..In the highest levels of the USA Government, "if their lips are moving, they're LYING .
Yep, with you 100% and the bulk of the 99% are getting the message too.
Yarkob
,
"the bulk of the 99% are getting the message too."
Don't kid yourself, Peter. I'd love to
agree with you, but there is little evidence of that on those sites that allow comment on
this. the masses have drunk the kool aid long and deep. Yes, there's some pearl-clutching
going on but he was "still a trrst" so it's all ok. Back to sleep.
Take your point Yarkob, thank you. I was trying to be optimistic – in my world my network
is gradually becoming more aware – I hope that my book, due to publish this quarter, will
ride the wave; fingers crossed!
:-))))
Where are you seeing this BTL? Bear in mind that comments in most corporate media sites
are heavily censored these days, and replete with sock puppets manipulating debate &
seeding talking points.
George Mc
,
As I have often said, the MSM not only lies but gives a false image of public opinion.
Granted that it is not easy – or even possible – to really know what the population is
tending towards in their opinion, I think we can safely say that the MSM always bullshits
about it. I love it especially when they not only bullshit about what "everyone thinks"
abut also about what everyone "WILL" think e.g. the blathering about what party is
"electable".
I am not, by any stretch, a subscriber to David Icke but he did come up with one
wonderful expression when he described what the MSM pump out as "the movie". That is
exactly what it is. And I'd like to believe that less and less people believe it. Of
course the big problem is that even if you reject it, you have to put up with the fact
that, obviously as far as the "mainstream" goes, it's the only show in town. And a lot of
people still regurgitate what they hear. So e.g. a lot of people go along with the
manufactured outrage over Corbyn "refusing to apologise" while these same people have no
idea what he is apologising for – other than a vague notion that he must be some kind of
Hitler guy. It all comes down to vibrations set up in the MSM. If you shit enough and
often enough then eventually many will swallow it.
Since when has pax-americana not been at war. The only administration since ww2 that has not been at war
was the Peanut farmer from Georgia The Carter administration and it was his secretary of state Brezinski
that created the Takfiri army to disrupt Afghanistan in 1979.
Post Scriptum: The Iranian missile strike in western Iraq and Erbil was a historical event.
It is the second time in Us military history that pax-americana had not responded to a direct attack on a
military barracks , the first time was in 1982 in Beirut where a suicide bomber killed over 200 people.
Docius in Fondem:Wesley Clarke statement from when he was alluded to the Likudniks plan & countries in 5
years Iran was last on the list.
US have declared war on both Iraq and Iran with the assassination of the IRGC General and the PMU
General. Simple facts tend to allude we the exceptional civilized west
love the Latin:
Caesar ad sum iam forte
Pompei ad erat
Caesar sic in omnibus
Pompei sic in hat
Brian Harry
,
"Don't talk to me about the bloody Romans, what have they ever done for us"?
Try as I may, I cant get Google to translate that .what does it mean, please?
Brian Harry
,
.although, when I read it 'phonetically', it sounds like a "big night out, and lots of vomit
sprayed around but, I'm Australian, and we don't do things like that .much
Monty Python the Greatest .There weren't many Romans in Australia 2000 years ago. Too busy
invading and really irritating Europeans and British people, but, somehow, it all worked out
ok Always look on the bright side of life, huh ?
Yep, and you Brian are in the right place to see the sunny side. We here in old Blighty
are suffering the gloom, doom and damp. I lived in Cape Town for ten years (same latitude
as Sydney and similar climate) and miss it dreadfully – the climate that is – the rest is
isht; power cuts (load shedding they call it), water shortage (drought they call it),
pollution and infrastructure failure all round, Nuff said! Go well cobber.
Actually Jimbo the Peanut Farmer was involved in a covert war in Angola and also covertly arming the
Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Not to mention operation Eagle Claw that failed against the Iranians.
GEOFF
,
In 240 years since its inception warmongering yanky land has been at war in the last 224 years with
someone, 50 in the last 10 years, not a bad record.
"... Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this. ..."
"... Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO, the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards. ..."
"... The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and exceptional' supremacist US. ..."
Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long
as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this.
I always learn some thing here. For example imagine my surprise to learn the EU had a
reputation worth protecting. All you need to know about the EU is bitches will do what
bitches are told. This is just one more step on the road to war with China, is that really
what the citizens of the EU want? Are the people of the EU ready to die for the Trump and the
Republican party?
Think tanks, think tanks, think tanks. In 2009, the Brookings Institute's paper Which Path to
Persia, proposed offering Iran a very good deal and then sabotaging it. Good cop, Obama, bad
cop, Trump. Mission accomplished.
Only a matter of when and how. The warmongers have Trumps balls in a vice, he can't even
resign without making it worse by letting Pence take over. The art of the squeal, very high
pitched is whats happening in DC.
1st of all The UK was always going to side with DC over Iran. 2ndly for France and Germany
they probably aren't ready to put themselves plus their EU partners in the US doghouse for
Iran. When they break it will be a time of their own choosing.
Thanks b, for this detailed coverage of the 3 wimps' efforts to kill JCPOA. You did not
disappoint. Love the image showing mother residing in "occupied Palestine" .. (term coined by
MoA barfly)
I commented in the previous post, Russia warned of unintended consequences
LINK
Moscow is calling on the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal not to escalate tensions
and to abandon their decision to trigger the treaty's Dispute Resolution Mechanism, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
"We strongly urge the Eurotroika [of parties to the JCPOA] not to inflame tensions and
to abandon any steps which call the prospects of the nuclear deal's future into question.
Despite all the challenges it has faced, the JCPOA has not lost its relevance," the
ministry said in a statement.
Ex-US vice-president, Joseph Biden is also suspected of corruption, according to a
member of the Ukrainian parliament
KIEV, January 14. /TASS/. Ukraine's Supreme Anti-Corruption Court has obliged the
National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) to launch a probe into seizure of government power
and corruption suspicions. The cases mention the names of the United States' 44th
president, Barack Obama, former Ukrainian president, Pyotr Poroshenko and ex-US
vice-president, Joseph Biden, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Opposition
Platform - For Life party, Renat Kuzmin, said[.]
"investigate the suspicions over the seizure of government power in Ukraine and of the
embezzlement of state budget money and international financial assistance by members of the
Obama administration"
If it ever was possible to sign a treaty with the US and expect them to abide by it, it
hasn't been possible for a long time. Here as everywhere else, Trump merely openly proclaims
the systemic lawlessness he shares with the rest of the US political class. (His contemptuous
withdrawal from the JCPOA never has been one of the things the establishment and media
criticize him for.)
For as long as US imperial power lasts, anyone who doesn't want to be a poodle (or to get
regime-changed because they foolishly attempt to sit the fence) has to accept that there can
be no legitimate agreements with the US or its poodles. If you sign a treaty with them, you
have to view it exactly the same way you know they do, as nothing but propaganda, otherwise
not worth the paper it's written on. No doubt North Korea, if they were in any doubt before,
registered how Trump and the US media immediately proceeded to systematically lie about the
agreement they'd supposedly just concluded, before the ink was even dry.
Here's hoping that if Iran was in any doubt before, they too are getting the message: As
far as the US and Europe are concerned, the only purpose of the JCPOA is to serve as a weapon
against them.
Face it B, there will be blood. It's a matter of time. It's unavoidable. The empire will
force its own destruction - and perhaps the rest of humanity's. The demons of nihilism will
prevail.
(Sounds like I have been hearing death metal. I swear I did not. And I not under the
influence either.)
The Oct 2020 deadline is important for more than one reason- Irans application to the SCO is
being held up because of it. The SCO membership would obligate support from countries like
India in response to politically motivated sanctions.
Surprised at Germany since Merkel just met with Putin. When I read of this earlier this
morning, that it's based on lies was 100% clear, that the trio are feckless and deserve all
the social instability that will soon come their way. Why did I mention social instability:
"The Fed is considering a plan to allow them to lend cash DIRECTLY TO HEDGE FUNDS in order
to ease the REPO Crisis. [Emphasis original]
"Where is 'bailing out private investment funds' in their alleged 'dual mandate'?"
Which gets us back to the reason Iran's targeted: Because it lies outside the dollar
economy, refuses to engage in petrodollar recycling, and has a quasi-socialist economy with
no private banking. Plus, we now see that Iraq will pursue evicting NATO and Outlaw US Empire
forces and likely join the Arc of Resistance's/Iran's policies which are what the Outlaw US
Empire went to war over to begin with.
Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's
replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO,
the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio
proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards.
The EU is a hopeless craven vassal of the US. The US dropping out of the JCPOA was the acid
test which the EU has spectacularly failed. We are in a historical pivot with the rise of the
coalescing multifarious East which is forcing the EU to make a decision: stay under the US
wing, go it alone, or ally with the East. The EU seems to know it at least should get more
distance between itself and the US but every time there is a major geopolitical event it
starts to talk like it is going independent but then always drops back into the US hand. How
many times does this have to happen for us to admit what the EU is about?
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jan 14 2020 19:58 utc |
15
If we accept that EU nations lack sovereignty and go further to suggest that such nations are
more simulations than real, what would an analysis of such events as the fallout from the
demise of the JCPOA look like? How should one talk about international events when corporate
sovereignty and oligarchical decision making are the real? How would we describe this exact
context based not on the simulation but on the real workings of power?
Yes indeed! At least blighty knows the score! The leash is no place for the British bulldog.
When brexit is complete they will be free to crawl straight up muricas bum! Lol!
Haha, great drawing. This pile on the left is incomparable. But the picture is incomplete -
there is not enough proudly walking in front of the masters of a small Polish poodle with a
bone in his teeth.
Agree with Nemo, #1. This is a matter of sovereignty. At the moment, European countries
are not sovereign, and, btw, this is a kind of double non-sovereignty: the submission of a
separate European country to the Americans, plus the submission of the same country to a
Brussels bureaucracy called the EU leadership. What independent, bold decisions can we talk
about? None.
The Trump administration has given various justification for its assassination of Major
General Qassem Soleimani and commander Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. It claimed that there was an
'imminent threat' of an incident, even while not knowing what, where or when it would happen,
that made the assassination necessary. Trump later said the thread was a planned bombing of
four U.S. embassies. His defense secretary denied that.
Soleimani and Muhandis during a battle against ISIS
That has raised the suspicion that the decision to kill Soleimani had little to do with
current events but was a long planned operation. NBC News now
reports that this is exactly the case:
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani seven
months ago if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an American, according to
five current and former senior administration officials.
The presidential directive in June came with the condition that Trump would have final
signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said.
The idea to kill Soleimani, a regular General in an army with which the U.S. is not war,
came like many other bad ideas from John Bolton.
After Iran shot down a U.S. drone in June, John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at
the time, urged Trump to retaliate by signing off on an operation to kill Soleimani,
officials said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also wanted Trump to authorize the
assassination, officials said.
But Trump rejected the idea, saying he'd take that step only if Iran crossed his red line:
killing an American. The president's message was "that's only on the table if they hit
Americans," according to a person briefed on the discussion.
Then unknown forces fired 30 short range missiles into a U.S. base near Kirkuk. The salvo
was not intended to kill or
wound anyone:
The rockets landed in a place and at a time when American and Iraqi personnel normally were
not there and it was only by unlucky chance that Mr. Hamid was killed, American officials
said.
Without presenting any evidence the U.S. accused Katib Hizbullah, an Iraqi Popular Militia
Unit, of having launched the missiles. It launched airstrikes against a number of Katib
Hizbullah positions near the Syrian border, hundreds of miles away from Kirkuk, and killed over
30 Iraqi security forces.
This led to demonstrations in Baghdad during which a crowd breached the outer wall of the
U.S. embassy but soon retreated. Trump, who had attacked Hillary Clinton over the raid on the
consulate/CIA station in Benghazi, did not want to get embarrassed with a full embassy
breach.
The media claim that it was the embassy breach that the led to the activation of an
operation that had already been planned for a year before Trump signed off on it seven month
ago. As the New York Timesdescribes it :
For the past 18 months, officials said, there had been discussions about whether to target
General Suleimani. Figuring that it would be too difficult to hit him in Iran, officials
contemplated going after him during one of his frequent visits to Syria or Iraq and focused
on developing agents in seven different entities to report on his movements -- the Syrian
Army, the Quds Force in Damascus, Hezbollah in Damascus, the Damascus and Baghdad airports
and the Kataib Hezbollah and Popular Mobilization forces in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper presented a series of response options to the president two
weeks ago, including killing Soleimani. Esper presented the pros and cons of such an
operation but made it clear that he was in favor of taking out Soleimani, officials said.
Trump signed off and it further developed from there.
There was no intelligence of any 'imminent threat' or anything like that.
This was an operation that had been worked on for 18 month. Trump signed off on it more than
half a year ago. Those who had planned it just waited for a chance to execute it.
We can not even be sure that the embassy bombing had caused Trump to give the final go. It
might have been that the CIA and Pentagon were just waiting for a chance to kill Soleimani and
Muhandis, the leader of Katib Hizbullah, at the same time. Their meeting at Baghdad airport was
not secret and provided the convenient opportunity they had been waiting for.
Together Soleimani and Muhandis were the glue that kept the many Shia factions in Iraq
together. The armed ones as well as the political ones. Soleimani's replacement as Quds brigade
leader, Brigadier General Ismail Qaani, is certainly a capable man. But his previous field of
work was mainly east of Iran in Afghanistan and Pakistan and it will be difficult for him to
fill
Soleimani's role in Iraq :
After Soleimani's death, Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Soleimani's deputy Ismail Qaani to
succeed him. Qaani does not speak Arabic, does not have an in-depth knowledge of Iraq, nor
the insight of Soleimani and his ability to balance the different positions of Iraq's
factions with the opinions of Ayatollah Khamenei and the religious authorities in Najaf.
The question is how the successor of Soleimani will manage his new responsibility
including the thorny issues in Iraq. The escalation of the Iranian-American conflict is,
according to many, an escalation towards war and the destabilization of the region in which
the rules of engagement have changed. The question remains how, and not whether all of this
will impact the situation in Iraq.
Today the Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has his on militia, and Iraqi PMU leaders
met in
Qom , Iran, to discuss how the foreign troops can be expelled from Iraq. Gen. Qaani will
likely be there to give them advice.
Yesterday Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah, gave another speech . In it
he called on the Kurds in Iraq to pay back their debt to Soleimani and Hizbullah, which is
owned for their fight against ISIS, and to help to evict the foreign soldiers from Iraq:
85-Nasrallah: Now, the rest of the path. 1) Iraq: Iraq is the first country concerned
w/responding to this crime, because it happened in Iraq, and because it targeted Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, a great Iraqi commander, and because Soleimani defended Iraq.
86-Nasrallah: I ask Masoud Barazani to thank Soleimani for his efforts in defending Erbil
and Kurdistan Region, because Soleimani was the only one to respond to your call. Soleimani
and with him men from Hezbollah went to Erbil.
87-Nasrallah: Barazani was shaking from fear, but Soleimani and the brothers from
Hezbollah helped you repulse this unprecedented threat; and now you must repay this good by
being part of the effort to expel the Americans from Iraq and the region.
The Barzani family, which governs the Kurdish part of Iraq, has
since long sold out to the Zionists and the United States. It will certainly not support
the resistance effort. But Nasrallah's request is highly embarrassing to the clan and to Masoud
Barzani personally.
So far I only found this rather confusing response from him:
The Kurdistan Regional Government's response to the immoral speech uttered by Hassan
Nasrallah through the anti-terror apparatus is a clear message from the regional government
to those terrorists that the response to the terrorists must be through the anti-terror
apparatus.
As military leader both Soleimani and Muhandis are certainly replaceable. The militia groups
they created and led will continue to function.
But both men also played important political roles in Iraq and it will take some time to
find adequate people to replace them in that. That makes it likely that the already simmering
political situation in Iraq will soon boil over as the Shia factions will start to fight each
other over the selection of a new Prime Minister and government.
The U.S. will welcome that as it will try do install a candidate that will reject the Iraqi
parliament decision to remove the foreign forces from Iraqi grounds.
Posted by b on January 13, 2020 at 17:32 UTC |
Permalink
The United States has truly become a rogue state. John Helmer pointed out that when Putin
visited Damascus recently to meet with Assad, he did so at a Russian military facility as a
safety precaution because you can no longer put it by the USA that it won't target people of
such hierarchy.
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and explaining the importance of Qassem Suleiman in the Iran hierachy of
government????
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and explaining the illegality of assassinating such a leader when he was traveling
openly to discuss matters of defense on a mission of diplomacy???????????
Was there not anyone in all of those previous discussions and planning sessions
objecting and resigning or going public to attempt to stop this infamy????????????
So were the Saudis genuine in their "peace attempt" or were they simply working with
CIA/Mossad to lure Soleimani and Muhandis into a situation where they could be droned?
If the Saudis were genuine, they would be much more vocal in their opposition to these
murders, which completely derail any potential Iraq-brokered peace process.
To the best of my recollection, Elijah Magnier, on a recent appearance with Joanne Leon on
the Around the Empire Podcast, says it is erroneous to identify Muhandis as the leader of
Katib Hizbullah. Actually, he was the highest military official of the PMU (excepting only
its nominal head, a civilian), the umbrella organization of the (mainly) Shia militia which
are part of the Iraqi military.
US biz persons in NY RE, in Florida, (etc.) as well as tv 'moguls' - do transactional
power-play interactions, not Int'l diplomacy. (Whatever that is, pretty worthless actually,
but = other topic.)
Obviously, Trump's order to murder Soleimani was partly due to impeachment pressure, as he
has said himself.
Plus, Soleimani insulted him gravely. From tabloids and women's mags, which I read on
occasion.
NK (Kim + spokespersons) called Trump a heedless and erratic old man. Also a dotard iirc,
but all this was in an exchange of insults which could be taken as mimicking that between
equals, Trump calling Kim Rocket Man, etc. (Everyone knew nothing would happen.) There was
also that kerfuffle when Trudeau (sleazy hypocrite) and others were caught open-mick
gossiping about Trump taking too long for his pressers or whatever. No doubt others and Dem
public insults are politically calibrated in a known landscape and Trump of course initiates
and has no problem with riposte.
2018. Soleimani speech. The Sun: vid. eng subs.
Very demeaning: gambler - bartender - casino manager that hits hard.
When much is hung on 'identity politics' and 'personalia' - ppls identity, character,
beliefs, personal interaction with others, etc. take up too much air (like in Hollywood
movies), institutional or other long-worked out arrangements (like Int'l law based on
upholding the existence of Wilsonian Nation-States..) are simply scuttered.
Thanks for the reporting b and I am not surprised about the background behind the
assassination of Soleimani and Muhandis
I would also not be surprised to read that my country was complicit to some degree in the
Ukraine plane shoot down by Iran.
The West is a very sick world run by the dictators that own global private finance. Those
dictators have managed to even brainwash the public into not understanding their illness and
believing it is a good force in our world.
I am glad to read less of the belief that Trump is being played by the system and not an
active actor within it. I continue to hope that other groups of our species continue to stand
up to the anti-humanistic social contract of the West and end its centuries old reign of
terror.
Before Putin left for Damascus he already mentioned something about he wont be so easily
removed without any consequence.. most likely meaning Russia would probably neutralize all US
bases in close proximity and get on the stick to fire strategic nukes for any US response..
But we know the US has hit a lot of Russian assets without seeing any Russian response. So
who knows..
War without limits: using all domains (pol, fin, econ, media, com, legal inst) to subvert
and destroy an enemy, where the objective is to obliterate the state itself as a
political entity
Aside from genocide, what greater crime can there be than the complete annihilation of
the state itself, as we saw happening in the NATO-attack on Libya and the state's total
destruction and re-invention in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the NATO-attack against
Yugoslavia and now Ukraine and Syria.
.. a complete negation of the concept of state sovereignty and self-determination of
peoples enshrined in the UN-Charta. It is a form of aggression of the worst kind and the
type of total war that the Nazis waged against the SU. (obliterate state, people, social
& econ system and culture).
...So the term HW first appears in American military literature and as practised by
NATO means the commission of multiple war-crimes against the people of the targeted
state. In Libya we saw conventional military style ops by NATO (massive bombing over many
months) simultaneous with unconventional operations (local and imported proxy forces,
subversion, assassinations, terrorism against civilians, use of social and mass-media to
distribute false information about the regime, criminal actions, cyberattacks to shut
down communication and the use of quasi legal bodies (ICC) to criminalize the leadersip,
to accuse Gadhafi of being a war-criminal; use of mercenaries, destruction of
infrastructure to break the will of the people to resist.
The subject is one of immediate concern because the Americans have begun using the
term hybrid warfare in their propaganda accusing Russia of engaging in it in Ukraine and
now raising the alarm that (they believe) Russia will engage in HW in the Baltic.
Therefore the Americans argue, they have to react to prepare for this eventuality which
they claim to be inevitable. And that indicates to me where we can expect the next
operations against Russia to take place (and it may explain the exercises NATO has been
running all summer, landing of airborne troops, combined sea-operations, etc.)
But the American claim of Russia using HW is in fact a mirror of their own
image as we see these methods being used by them as a matter of routine.
(... used in the Indian wars, in 19th century, starvation, prop and other techniques
to destroy their cultures, in Mexico, Philipines, Korea and Vietnam, in Central America
(i.e. Nicaragua) and in Ruanda....
All the accusations against Iran ("greatest sponsor of terrorism", aligning Iran with
AQ, etc.) are a projection of their own crimes ..
It was explained by Craig Murray in his blog (replicated in a few websites) that the usage of
"imminent" adjective is created by a certain lawyer who first worked for Netanyahu, then for
Blair etc. The usage does not convey ANY information about the nature of a "danger", but the
attitude, judgement if you will, of the institution that commissioned the opinion.
And "immanent" or "eminent" (Trumpian tweet) would fit equally well, but legalistically,
the confusion raised by "imminent" is more useful.
Noirette @ 6, it is my belief that an irrational US president, under the constant pressure of
attack from the Russiagate and Ukraingate instigators (you know who you are) from the instant
he became president and took on those responsibilities, volatile and insecure as he was from
the getgo, has finally cracked and is now very much in need of retirement from the
highpressure stage of politics in a time of potential war. It would be in the interests of
everyone in the world for his family to ask him, for his doctors to require of him,
that he resign. Certainly the alternatives to his remaining in office are grim, but not as
grim as having a president who is mentally incapacitated.
It would seem that an entire warmaking apparatus of government is similarly dysfunctional.
I don't know how that can be remedied, but it must.
whose militia is "on", active, rather than "off"? In any case, separating this guy from
microphones would require an Amored Personal Carrier or something heavier.
juliania@3
The answer to your questions lies in the reality that for years a sure means of not being
promoted or even being fired from a government job in the US is to know anything about the
Arab or Islamic world. Or to act as if knowing anything about such inferior beings is
necessary for making judgements.
This idea, that ignorance is bliss, has spread from Israel, not because the Israelis practise
it-they don't- but because they want DC to be entirely reliant on them for intelligence and
direction in the Middle East.
Although only one battle in what will be a longer war, Trump has won that round. More
confusion and disarray in Iraq, bad PR for Iran after the Uki plane shootdown. Bad PR allows
western vassals to move closer to the US side of the fence, and also provides fuel for US
regime change operations within Iran.
The two generals that were assassinated - there will be others that can plan military
strategy, but a big part, perhaps more important than strategy, is the personality to be able
to hold disparate groups together so they act as one and all tactics by separate groups fit
into a larger strategy.
Thank you, bevin. That is a sad explanation, though to me it doesn't obviate what should be
inherent in any normal human person, as I myself know very little about the Middle East,
relying indeed upon b's excellent and nearly objective (as objective as any human can be)
reporting on the facts and his interpretation of them. That which ought to be inherent is the
human desire not to inflict pain on another human if that can be avoided. Those who are in
government service ought to have that moral incentive front and center. We see it in the
great leaders, and surely in this country there are some among the elite who haven't lost
this natural instinct? It is very problematic if that has been thoroughly weeded out in those
now occupying powerful positions.
This country has been fortunate in the past to select persons of high moral compass as our
heroes. We the people still want to do that, I am convinced. Perhaps there is still time, and
we can re-order our own hierarchy now that what has been done is this terrible, an enormous
reductio ad absurdum, front and center.
"TEL AVIV: Five days ago, an undisclosed intelligence agency intercepted a telephone call
made by the head of Iran's Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in which he was heard
ordering his proxies in Iraq to attack the US embassy in Baghdad, as well as other Israeli
and American targets, with the aim of taking hostages, Israeli sources say.
It's unclear whether this was a lapse in tradecraft on the part of the usually savvy
Soleimani or whether the notorious Iranian military leader's phone calls were being routinely
intercepted. Nor is it clear whether it was the US or another foe of Iran that made the
intercept. Regardless, the intelligence seems to have led directly to Soleimani's killing
yesterday, which has thrown the Mideast into uproar."
In the chain of cause & effect, the Outlaw US Empire is definitely responsible for the
airliner shootdown; that must be seen as 100% irrefutable. The Outlaw US Empire has executed
numerous high ranking political and military people beginning with Yamamoto in 1943, although
I'll admit he was a legitimate target; yet, the seed was planted then. I recall Diem being
killed with the approval of JFK just weeks prior to his own execution. As I wrote at
Escobar's Facebook over the weekend, the Great Evil in the world resides within the Outlaw US
Empire and must be expunged even if Nukes must be used. Yes, that conclusion was painful to
arrive at and write, but the horrors have lasted for 3,000+ years now. The crop of Current
Oligarchs are the most aggressive ever and won't stop their rampage until they Own
Everything . In the overall scheme of things, getting Imperial forces ousted from
Southwest Asia will be a good thing but only a small portion of what must occur.
What does a single word of Nihad N. Arafat's response even mean? How is Nasrallah's speech
immoral by any stretch of the imagination? Do the Kurd's have no gratitude for Hezbollah and
Qud's laying down their lives to save them from mass rape and genocide? What is the
"anti-terror apparatus", does he mean fighting terrorism in Iraq and Syria must be done only
by US supported forces like the SDF? The Kurds siding with the US occupiers and Israel is one
of the most disgusting developments in recent history, its no wonder these people have been
so distrusted and abused for so long, their power hungry leadership betrays their allies like
snakes.
Russia takes its vengeance cold, often with no flair or notoriety. They often take in
multiples for their losses.
In Syria, a Russian missile into a mountain cave where US, Israeli, Saudi and AQ Intel
leaders were meeting cost over 50 high value lives. It was Russian payback for when some
Colonels and a General were hit by Coalition air strikes. Auslander, on the Saker blog, has
written about this. 2016, as I recall.
In Donbass, there have been many paybacks by Russia for Ukie and NATO acts. Some even
taken inside Russia.
A number of the culprits who killed over a hundred people and set fire to the Trade Union
building in Odessa have met Russian justice. Same with some of the criminal SBU who tortured
Berkut who came from Crimea. And others have been liquidated for murders done by Ukies in
Mariupol.
People who know and need to know are aware that Russia always more than evens the
score.
They just recently eliminated the head Turkmen who was responsible for shooting the pilot
of the jet the Turks shot down as he parachuted. It wasn't enough that when they rescued the
co-pilot navigator of the jet (rescue led by General Soleimani), the Aerospace forces bombed
the hell out of the area the Turkmen populated. They got the names and tracked for years the
commander.
Never assume because you don't know, it hasn't happened. And if it hasn't yet, it
will.
I don't like to say it but b's article doesn't support his headline. And I don't like to
repeat myself, but I've already commented this subject earlier today
@ open thread 55 , but he doesn't seem to have taken it into account. We should not
expect a powerful Iraqi reaction to the events.
Firstly remember that Abd ul-Mahdi is a weak leader, only there because the US agreed to
him. The US has made sure that the Iraqi leadership is not strong. Secondly, there was
always going to be a time necessary for a new militia leader to emerge. Instant reaction
was just about impossible.
However in the long term, the prospects are good. The Shi'a are in power in Iraq without
question. The Sunnis are out of it, the Kurds no longer intervene outside KRG. All the cr*p
about civil war is nonsense. The Shi'a factions all have basically the same interest, and
conflict is only between different leaders of the same grouping. Things could turn around
in an instant.
The anti-US movement is popular sentiment, not govt led. The more the US offends that
sentiment, as will inevitably happen, the stronger the movement will be. We already have
seen the way things will go. US bases are being sprayed with rockets. That will make life
difficult for the US. The more they punish the culprits, the more resentment there will be.
There's no way things can work out well for the US.
b has been reading the instant reaction, breast-beating, woe-is-me, articles
like Salhy in Middle East Eye, without looking further.
US aggression is at the stage of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan around the start of
WWII.
Rather than seeing that their unipolar world is ending, the US is prepared to use military
power to hold its position in the world.
The exceptionalist mindset is not just one small faction in the US hierarchy, it is the
mindset of the hierarchy plus a good proportion of the population.
Throughout history, countries or nations like that always end up destroyed as they fight for
their position until the very end rather than step down.
What does a single word of Nihad N. Arafat's response even mean?
Posted by: Jase | Jan 13 2020 18:53 utc | 19
Upon quick inspection, N.N. Arafat is not a real person. For few months he (it?) only
retweeted, mostly a pro-Kurdish US senator, and now produced a test of his (its?) own. The
text is weird, which may corroborate the purported education -- radiologist who graduated in
Dohuk (the capital of one of the three provinces of Kurdistan autonomous area in Iraq).
Actual on-line Kurdish publication have a rather sketchy English, although not as bad.
>>Although only one battle in what will be a longer war, Trump has won that round.
More confusion and disarray in Iraq, bad PR for Iran after the Uki plane shootdown. Bad PR
allows western vassals to move closer to the US side of the fence, and also provides fuel for
US regime change operations within Iran.
The two generals that were assassinated - there will be others that can plan military
strategy, but a big part, perhaps more important than strategy, is the personality to be able
to hold disparate groups together so they act as one and all tactics by separate groups fit
into a larger strategy.
Yup. Some people like to underestimate the US Empire, because it is easier to wear rose
coloured glasses, rather than face unpleasant reality.
Even b changed from US will leave Iraq to there will be chaos in Iraq and the US will try
to stay.
Although personally i think that the US will be kicked out because most of the Shia
leaders would like to be killed by a US drone for whatever. Especially Sadr, who has the
biggest political block, and whose Mahdi Army killed plenty of americans back then. He knows
that he is a potential target too, so he will work to make this expulsion happen.
There was also an assasination attempt against iranian official in Yemen. This is all part
of a Cold War, a hybrid war against Iran. To break it. There is no isolationism. No one will
leave Iran or Syria unless they are actually kicked out.
And yes, Trump is a willing imperialist. He likes it. He can't do much on the domestic
front but he is allowed to show his violent tendencies on the foreign front. As a zionist and
a military puppet.
Trump loves the sanction weapons and financial-banking weapons the US possesses. He's all
in on using every coercion to strangle, starve and screw everyone, friend, foe, ally,
adversary. A power-hungry guy who has all the power to dominate the globe, yet not his own
country, break sovereignties, ignore laws and trample opponents to get his way.
And he likes it.
Trump has taken on the personification of the Hegemon. It is a form of Wizard of Oz
syndrome. If the Deep State and MIC allows him, he is "powerful". This suits his
dysfunctionality as a man. He has big inadequacies. They manifest in his need to be big,
wealthy, #1, first, triumphant in all deals.
In the Oval Office, he is powerless to get the wall built, infrastructure legislation
passed, health reform, or even announce he will consider pardons for all those entrapped by
Comey and the Russiagate hoax. He's being impeached.
But as the Hegemon, when the handlers around him allow it (advise him), he gets to kill
people. This is heady stuff that captivates him.
I would predict that Assad is on the top of Trump's hit list too.
sponsor of terrorism", aligning Iran with AQ, etc.) are a projection of their own crimes
..by: Pandora @9..<=many Domestic Americans may be at risk for elimination ..If I were an
aspiring Democrat I would wear my anti-drone outfit ?
Americans used to pride themselves that their government promised those accused of
wrongdoing to be treated as "innocent" until guilt was established by a due process procedure
known as a fair open trial. These trials were a source of information that allowed the
governed to keep somewhat honest those who were running the government. many Americans chose
to become American Citizens in order to gain access to the due process procedures. Humanity
in the world has a problem it needs to define and solve because death by drone is not an
acceptable line item in the statistics.
I was quite interested by the remarks of Ayatullah Sistani last Friday, I think it was,
criticising Iran and the US equally for illegal attacks on Iraqi soil.
The context is of course that Sistani is Iranian, but has never taken a pro-Iranian
position. He is aged now, and his view is expressed by his aides, so it can be taken that
this is the view of the Sistani organisation, not so necessarily of the man himself. It is
quite nationalistic, and not subservient to Iran, as everybody is currently claiming. Iraqi
Shi'a independence from Iran has always been the policy, and its being reaffirmed. Iran
remains an ally, naturally.
That doesn't mean that the Iraqi state is strong and can dictate to the US. The
US ensures that doesn't happen. But the positions of Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr and the others
are all pretty similar, and concentrate on Iraqi nationalism, which equals opposition to the
US, and non-dependence on Iran.
Of course Shi'a Iraqi nationalism is a little bit particular, as no concessions are made
to the Sunnis. It's as though they don't exist. For the moment that doesn't matter, as the
Sunnis are thoroughly defeated, and if they have rebels, they join Da'ish, who are
discredited. The Kurds have had their fingers burned, and won't venture outside KRG again. If
the US wants to stir them up, it won't work.
I agree with all of that, though on Trump as trying to make up for inadequacies I would
differ.
More a very aggressive, competitive mindset and very self confidant in his abilities.
He had held no political positions in the past, runs for president of the US and wins.
It looks as though much rides on whether the Shia groups can put aside domestic
differences for the duration and agree on and stick to a common strategy to oust the US.
This tweet by Mike Pompeo has triggered a large response condemning USA hypocrisy.
But the murder of the Iranian General does highlight the difficulty of the militias
throughout the Middle East.
Middle East is tribal, militias, as far as I understand, can be paid by Sheiks, by local
religous leaders, by some arm of the relevant government, by foreign governments. And by
foreign governments, I mean Turkey, USA, Iran, UK and so on.
Or a mix of all the above.
So Pompeo has a point - the sooner Middle East governments bring militias fully into the
armed forces, the clearer the applicable law will be.
What caused this mess?
Lack of a robust governmental process.
Whose problem is it? At base, the national government in question.
If clear lines of control and command and full integration can't happen due to political
divisions and corruption, poor popular control of politicians, then the country (and others
around the region) are doomed to endless trouble, from home, from abroad.
Sad fact, IMO.
Sovereignty starts with responsive, effective, reliable, accountable, transparent, and
widely accepted, clear, principles-based governance.
@ Posted by: Passer by | Jan 13 2020 19:30 utc | 27
with the comment about Trump with which I agree...thanks
Trump is a very hurt human being that is not recognized as such because of a skewed view
of what mental health is.....aggression, bullying, and murder have all been normalized to be
acceptable mental health in top/down world that is never discussed as being the source of the
Trump type of mentality.
I agree with your call out:
"
I would predict that Assad is on the top of Trump's hit list too.
"
and want to add that I expect there are active hit list plans for all world leaders that
conflict with the dictatorship of global private finance.
"...The U.S. will welcome that [the Shia factions will start to fight each other over the
selection of a new Prime Minister and government] as it will try do install a candidate that
will reject the Iraqi parliament decision to remove the foreign forces from Iraqi
grounds."
If the US hopes this will happen to deflect Iraqis from their shock at US assassination on
their soil of their military leader as well as Iran's, surely they are as mistaken as they
were in perpetrating the atrocity. That's not what happens - we saw it first in Russia. There
will be unity against a common enemy, would be my take. As has been happening all along with
less important 'sanctions' than this. They always backfire.
My view is that the iraqi shia will work towards expulsion of the US and will make it happen.
They will also buy capable anti-air defense from Russia, no matter the threats. Because
having US drones over your head is simply unacceptable, and many leaders, including Sadr,
know that they are a potential target for "misbehaving" or past grievances. This lurking
theat is simply too much. That's not to mention the israeli strikes in Iraq. They also do not
want Iraq to turn into US-Iran battlefield. Which will inevitably lead to killings of Shia
leaders and groups.
But there will be lots of bullying coming from Trump and some US companies could get large
deals as a price for the withdrawal, maybe some expensive military equipment will be sold
too.
The middle east, particularly the Arab world have always been susceptible to divide and
conquer.
Clans, Tribes, Religions, Ethic groups and nations - all fault lines that the imperial
countries have and still do, easily drive wedges into and turn one against another.
Putin jokes Assad should invite Trump to visit Damascus. The leaders were referring to the
Straight Street, which leads to Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, & to Apostle Paul whose
life was transformed after a vision he had as he walked on that road.
Since the attack on Suleimani, Al Muhandis and that officer in Yemen, Reza Shahlai, were the
result of long planning the question is what else is part of the plan, and its possible
opportunistic addons. Trump was very fast in following up with new sanctions. The current
demonstrations in Iran were probably(my guess) planned. I don't understand how they can get
traction so close to the funeral.
Also I wonder to what extent the US/Israel are strenghtening IS near the Syrian border.
Passer by "They also do not want Iraq to turn into US-Iran battlefield."
This is the part that annoys me about the Iraqi's. Trump stated bluntly that US is in Iraq
and will be staying in Iraq to watch Iran. That was at the time of the Syrian pullback and
oilfield grab.
US is using Iraq to attack Iran. It killed and Iran military officer and diplomat on Iraqi
soil. It is constantly striking Iraqi militia groups on Iraqi soil.
By stating Iran violated Iraqi sovereignty with its strike on the US base, Iraq is giving
sanctuary to the US.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Jan 13 2020 20:15 utc | 39
>>the question is what else is part of the plan
The plan seems to be israeli one, and it will be about what will benefit Netanyahoo.
This means a continuous near war situation between the US and Iran, but without the actual
large scale war. A covert war involving killings, sabotage, everything other than a large
scale war. The US will be the meat-shield for Israel. Untill the elections. Then we will
see.
I think no one believed that the US will start killing senior iraqis and iranians.
Soleimani was even seen together with US troops in Iraq, and was visiting often. Iran
certainly did not believe that either. But now things changed.
May need to invoke the 25th Amendment. 11 months is a very long time and we may not all be
here. In the previous post I linked to a Tass report Iran has declared their revenge is not
over. More to come.
"Several troops CNN spoke to said the event (al-Assad base) had shifted their view of
warcraft: the US military is rarely on the receiving end of sophisticated weaponry, despite
launching the most advanced attacks in the world.
"You looked around at each other and you think: Where are we going to run? How are you going
to get away from that?" said Ferguson.
"I don't wish anyone to have that level of fear," he said. "No one in the world should ever
have to feel something like that.""
Yeah, the way I see things going, I wouldn't call it a strategy, is that the Iraqi
parliament continues to vote against any proposal the US makes, while at the same time random
militias continue to fire off Katyushas against US bases, making life difficult.
US pressure on Abd ul-Mahdi can't disarm the militias, as he doesn't have the power to do
so. There's no scenario where the US could agree to the appointment of a strong PM, who might
master the militias, and be accepted by the parliament, and yet guarantee to stop militia
attacks. The different elements are contradictory.
Yeah, Peter AU1 is right. Iran lost that round.
With the plane shot down, they fucked it totally up. Trump can (somewhat with a basis in
reality) point to Iran, the "evil Regime" that prefers to shoot down 100+ civilians instead
of closing airspace for "a strategic gain" (Bernards words defending this).
A PR nightmare for Iran. And sadly a deserved one in this case of not closing the airspace.
Had this catastrophe not happend, it would have been a brilliant operation, which would
have turned the US standing upside down militarily.
But with shooting themselves in the foot, they managed to paint themselves as the paraiah
regime that cares not about human life, as Trump and the NeoCons have painted them all
along.
Now i understand why Trump did not respond that night and happily went to bed tweeting
that all is well. The US knew Iran shot it down in that night, and they knew that Iran would
have hurt itself more then they hurt the US from a PR and propaganda standpoint.
And with Soleimani gone, and a replacement that does not even speak Arabic (WTF?!), how
can they even dream of rallying all the tribes in Syria and Iraq behind their game plan??
Personality is key in politics. And when such a person can not even speak the language of the
people he should unite, then this looks futile IMHO.
All in all, a very telling development. Telling about both the US and Iran, but also about
Alt Media and us readers+commenters.
IMO, the sad truth is, that the new 4th Reich owns the globe, because of their grasp of the
reserve currency system, and NO nation, at this point in time, can reverse that fact.
I've been reading people talking about the demise of the empire for years now. Until the
reserve currency issue is changed,
NO NATION on earth can challenge the monstrosity of the new 4th Reich.
The empire will continue to control the world with economic and military terrorism.
To coin an old saying, "It's just business, get over it"....
Suppose that the US wants to stay in Iraq, as they've said. What strategy could they follow
to make it possible? I'm at a bit of a loss there. Full military occupation, with 100,000 US
troops? Unacceptable in the US. Change the Iraqi PM? Would someone else be better? Another PM
would still be subject to parliament votes. Impose a dictator? Dictators aren't in fact
absolute rulers, but still depend on public acquiescence.
"Now i understand why Trump did not respond that night and happily went to bed tweeting that
all is well. The US knew Iran shot it down in that night, and they knew that Iran would have
hurt itself more then they hurt the US from a PR and propaganda standpoint."
Except Trump's stupid tweet came 4 hours BEFORE the plane was downed. Seriously delusional
stuff you are spouting.
We have been talking for about 7 days venting our anger and frustration with US empire and
its puppets. Also, talking about the why's and The Who's and How's.
I think it is time to concentrate on the " now what" question. What can be done to get the
US out of West Asia and keep them away?
The key to all of this and the future of West Asia's peace, IMHO, is Saudi Arabia. Iran
and its allies have to concentrate and preempt in changing the Saudi regime. Time is ripe for
this and they are on the defensive as well. Taking out the Saudis will:
1. Finish the Wahabi- Saud axis and weaken it tremendously (weaken ISIS, AlQueda, etc if
not end them)
2. It will cut off the financial source of much of evil going on in West Asia and beyond
3. No oil, no Americans in the region and a gradual end of petrodollar and hopefully the
empire(of course, easier said than done but it has to start somewhere)
4. That will also have a chain reaction in the gulf monarchies with the majority non-Sunni
population. So it goes for the other West Asian fiefdoms.
5. The end of ERETZ ISRAEL
6. Realignment of North African alliances and shift away from US and the west, especially
Egypt.
7. Bring OPEC under a more democratic control
8. Facilitating Belt and Road and possibly more prosperity for the region as a whole although
China and Russia should be watched and dealt with very carefully. They are not the angels
that they have been made to be in these forums. They are just the lesser evils,
comparatively. Much less.
9. A gradual growth away fanaticism and more toward secularism. Maybe even Iran can restart
the first true democracy in the region, if such a thing exists outside of books and
novels.
I'm sure others can add to this list. It sounds like fantasy but like i said before it has
to start somewhere and Iran is in a position to make this happen and it should be sooner than
later. Once Saudis have been dealt with, comes next, Israel. 1967 lines or get the hell out
of West Asia. No ifs or buts. No negotiations.
It is a nice dream anyway. I truly believe it is the only hope for the region, otherwise
we are looking at 50 more years of this shit if a global war hasn't happened in between.
"...the Great Evil in the world resides within the Outlaw US Empire and must be expunged
even if Nukes must be used. Yes, that conclusion was painful to arrive at and write, but the
horrors have lasted for 3,000+ years now."
Is this the real karlof1? Or his alter ego Major karlof1 Kong riding the bomb.
When you say "...Nukes must be used." Would it be correct to assume you mean on
yourselves? or some innocent third party in the Middle East?
I thought I despised you Americans, but there is a lot of self loathing here.
Guy THORNTON @45 - should be mandatory viewing. The American needs to feel abject fear,
helplessness and loss before anything can even begin to change.
Sorry to confound you with my 18! Cause & Effect in this case began in 1953. If 1953
hadn't occurred and nothing similar in-between, then the dead would be alive. Peter AU 1's 24
explained the middle portion well enough. The 3,000+ years refers to the amount of time an
oligarchy consisting of landed rich, rentiers and such have subjugated humanity in the West
as seen by the numerous proofs offered in the numerous publications by the team Hudson
assembled at the Peabody Museum at the same time the Berlin Wall was falling, which Hudson's
trying to make more accessible via a series beginning with and forgive them their
debts... which I very much encourage you--and everyone reading this comment--to read as
it really is that important. The bits and pieces provided in the related essays at Hudson's
website are not a sufficient substitute for the series of books, although they ought to be
enough to motivate.
Juliania 16
"This country has been fortunate in the past to select persons of high moral compass as our
heroes."
Really?
Who?
Can you be more specific?
I am sure there are a few genuine heroes, but I am curious as to whom you mean
specifically?
Anyone in the Oval Office?
Finally a top Canadian businessman who points the finger for this tragedy to Trump:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51095769.
Of course there's not a single politician who has the guts to speak this truth out loud.
Trump, the narcissist cum laude, demonstrates how the whole world has to count on others
having more common sense than the crazy Americans who bully whoever they don't like, damn the
consequences. Let's not forget that it is this ongoing verbal adolescent barrage and
unnecessary hyping that almost got us into a nuclear holocaust twice (1963 and 1983) - and
both times we were saved by the sound and sober Russians. What if the Russian then would have
been the Iranian now?
I've been reading people talking about the demise of the empire for years now. Until
the reserve currency issue is changed,
NO NATION on earth can challenge the monstrosity of the new 4th Reich.
The USD$ will follow all the others that went before.
just a little more faith ben. The collapse is not one event like an explosion, "boom" it's
a process over time. U.S'. 'perceived prosperity' is built on debt or by another name,
printing fiat which is unsustainable.
Watch the new QE repo fail, also derivatives and prepare.
U.S. Fed is working hard to save the financial system that is leaking like a sieve. One Fed
governor said it [the Repo] was a plumbing exercise. How apt. In 2006 global debt was $125
trillion now stands at $260 trillion.
I mentioned watch derivatives. These banks with the biggest derivative positions - DB,
JPM, Citigroup and GS - list their official position a tad below $200 trillion. When it
blows? could be another 6 years but collapse it will.
Actually, imo we are in the collapse. Why are interest rates in negative territory? It is
a theft of pensioners' savings to keep the casino standing. I suspect the warmongering is a
distraction.
DontBelieveEitherPr. 47 "A PR nightmare for Iran. And sadly a deserved one in this case of
not closing the airspace."
It is not deserved. Decisions are easy to ridicule in hindsight, very difficult to make
make at the time. War is all about deception. Did Iran know US had the ability to spoof what
they were seeing on their radar screens. There is a good chance the US have made some
deliberately failed attempts in the past to set them up for something like this. Iran is in a
fight with an exceptionally dirty fighter that knows all the tricks. They will take more hits
before this is over.
not understanding that and disparaging Iran when it does take hits is part of US
calculations. That is human character. Everyone likes a winner type mindset. Part of human
character.
Thanks b, Elijah's newest article touches on this very subject, the situation will get hot in
Iraq should the Us occupiers do not leave the country. The situation will aggravate, maybe
slowly, then speed up, the US will most likely retaliate with sanctions and other usual
crimes.
I do see China and Russia stepping up in Iraq and Iran, there is a clear alignment forming,
backstage talks must be very busy at the moment, many countries aligning such as Qatar and
Turkey, while the traditional allies of Israel and US continue to drag on their knees, such
as UAE and KSA.
I do expect the war of aggression in Yemen to get hotter, since KSA is kicking the can down
the road instead of true commitment to a peace deal, while in eastern Syria we may see US
mercenaries being most likely killed by Syrian insurgency, lots of mercenaries there vs US
soldiers.
Trump US has had problems getting vassals on board for war against Iran. With the recent
incident, more have moved to Trumps side. Winning the PR war means puppet leaders are free to
do as US tells them as even puppet leaders are keeping an eye on re-election and public
opinion and so forth.
Trumps war on Iran will not be well publicised build up to Iraq shock and awe. It will be
Trident missiles with no warning.
"Something very odd is happening in the past 24 hours and today:
"The Qatari Emir was in Tehran yesterday, long talks with Iranian leadership.
"Also yesterday, basically all top Syrian Gov leaders (except President Assad apparently),
went to Iran as well, a very rare and could say rather risky move of a large group from the
Syrian leadership."
Do you have anything to add or further speculation about those events? And thanks for all
your efforts!!
Almasdarnews had a piece on the Syrian delegation vist.
""Today, a high-level government delegation headed by Prime Minister Imad Khamis, began a
trip to the Iranian capital, Tehran, during which they will discuss with senior officials
there the current bilateral relations between the two countries and work to strengthen them
at all levels, as well as accelerating developments in the regional and international
arenas," Al-Watan reported, quoting a diplomatic source.
The Al-Watan source said that consultation and coordination between the two countries at
this stage is necessary because after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the two allies
need to strengthen their alliance.
I think this is the first time the American military has tasted a pushback like this. A
clear feeling of defeat and demoralization among those interviewed. It is good for them to be
at the receiving end and feel helpless and to know what they have been wreaking on the region
for the past 16 years. Maybe they will start questioning their role in these atrocities and
pass on the word to new recruits: " Don't join in".
Meanwhile, the US Pivot to Asia grand plan seems to be in a state of hiatus. Skirmishes and a
potential uprising in the Provinces have disrupted the once all important thrust to confront
China and curb it's expansion on all fronts.
OBOR strategy continues undeterred, drawing more and more interest and solidifying
influence as the months pass. China quietly gives support to the Empire's targets on 2
continents and expands largely unopposed in a 3rd. The Empire's debts to finance it's
interests and militarism grows at a never b4 seen rate. It's own military industrial complex
robbing it's treasury almost at will, while it's foes grow in size and number.
Looking at it all in Grand Chess Board sort of way, it brings to mind Muhammed Ali's 'Rope
a dope' strategy. Let the big dope punch himself out before taking him down was the essence
of it.
Another of his most memorable quotes, "No Vietcong ever called me n****r".
No Chinese ever called people in the Provinces hadji either. But hey why go to all that
bother of wining hearts and minds and investing in local economies when bribery, corruption
and killing dissenters has worked so well in achieving your goals?
'We have the right to stay as a force of good.' Buffalo Wings Mike Pompeo
In my very most humble opinion, I think this whole 'episode' (starting with the USSA droning
of the very high profile military officers in Iraq) must be all just theater. A very large
crowd of the most knowledgeable experts in (real) economics are quite certain that the USSA
is on the brink of total collapse. So the population is in dire need of distractions. I also
am pretty sure that if the USSA were to attack Iran the result would be 'instant' collapse,
so that won't happen unless 'they' are slightly stupider that I suspect them to be. I think
the 'world' is simply death-watching the USSA. All they have to really do is to avoid being
crushed when the Big Dummy goes full Humpty Dumpty.
@ 63 dh.. thanks.. i guess that is similar to the link @ 45 guy thornton shared? bbc verses
cnn... they are all tied at the hip..
quote from one of the men at the site - ""I don't wish anyone to have that level of fear,"
he said. "No one in the world should ever have to feel something like that." well holy
fuck... welcome to the reality you have been putting on all of the people in middle east in
what seems like forever!! maybe you want to think that thru??
@64 peter au... you're right... this war porn for the kiddies back home is all used for
the same purpose.. keeping all the folks back home as braindead as possible.. and yes - when
the shit hits the fan, it will be without warning.. great place to be in.. thanks trump, usa,
neo con warmongering group.. great place to be here in 2020..
Tehran Plans to Take Trump to International Court for Soleimani's Assassination –
Iran's Top Judge
Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp's Quds Force, died in
Baghdad on January 3 when the vehicle he was traveling in was struck by a missile launched by
a US drone. Soleimani's death brought relations between Iran and the US to a new low.
The Iranian government will seek to prosecute US President Donald Trump for the
assassination of Maj. Gen. Soleimani, Iranian Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi has said
etc
@72 To be fair james the average US servicemen/women are probably pretty decent guys. They
genuinely don't know why anyone would try to kill them. It never occurs to them that they are
being manipulated.
Assad Awarded Qassem Soleimani, the Highest Medal in Syria (Photo + Video)
5 hours ago News 809 visits
Assad awarded Qassem Soleimani, the highest honor in Syria (photo + video)
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad granted the highest honor in the Republic to the
commander of the "Quds Force" Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in an air strike carried
out by the American forces, on January 3, 2020, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
On Monday, Syrian Prime Minister, Imad Khamis, said that President al-Assad granted the
commander of the "Quds Force" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, the
highest honor in Syria.
"I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region,
those Canadians would be right now home with their families," Trudeau said in the
interview.
Trudeau said Canada did not receive a heads up before the United States killed
Soleimani, and that he "obviously" would have preferred one.
"The U.S. makes its determinations. We attempt to work as an international community on
big issues. But sometimes countries take actions without informing their allies," he
said
@76 dh.. i agree with you and i think the same applies to the average westerner, whether
american, canuck or etc. etc.. people are manipulated without much awareness of it.. however,
thinking something thru would be a good exercise for many, especially those cheering for the
west in it's war on iran.. that is the part i have a hard time comprehending, absent the
constant pr sell... thus the pr becomes a pivotal piece in the war movement.. they have to
sell it to the public.. from reading the cbc comments on the maple leaf foods ceo, it is not
apparent to me that the pr act is working fully here.. in fact, some people seem to be waking
up to where this is all headed and don't like what it looks like..
@ 78 likklemore.. thanks for that.. the maple leaf ceo is getting a lot of airplay, but that
bit from trudeau is a departure from his usual acceptance of the official agenda here.
thanks..
"A very large crowd of the most knowledgeable experts in (real) economics are quite
certain that the USSA is on the brink of total collapse. So the population is in dire need of
distractions. ..."
This crowd of 'economists' and their like have been sprouting this scenario for decades.
Why believe any of these characters? The whole basic premise of std economics is now dated
and largely BS. Obviously, they have not updated on "modern monetary theory"?
There is no market economy in 'equilibrium' run on rational basis. That ideology's shell
cracked with Nixon and completely broke with blow-job Willy Clinton when he had time not
playing with the kids on Epstein's Express (and Island).
It is a political economy now. Hegemony first, second and third. Vassal states
(plantations) and Colony-economic all the way with LBJ (& the Fed) etc. The only place
'normal' economics applies is at the margins for the working class -- like your credit card
and the local hardware store.
However, your general sentiment is on the mark if you change the key phrase from "brink of
total collapse" to " brink of major reset."
He is probably in the hope that someone would retaliate by killing him so as to he becomes
an American hero....but to no avail...in his insignificance...
The current state of affairs in the US and for extension in the resto fo the world is a
byprosuct of at least three men in the WH who feel so littel that they think they need to
produce so much noise to be noticed...
Do you have anything to add or further speculation about those events? And thanks for all
your efforts!!
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 13 2020 22:13 utc | 66
RT is now reporting on the reason for the assassination. Iran and KSA were about to settle
differences. the empire was not too happy about that. these meeting may well be related to
regional settlements among the regional countries.
JFK did not order the Diem assassinaton. The "cables" that purport to show that were long
ago revealed to have been forged by the infamous EH Hunt. Kennedy's Ambassador Lodge (a
Republican) conspired with CIA station chief Lucien Conein and a small group of administation
officials in Washington to remove Diem when JFK was away on a weekend. I believe Lodge was on
his way back to US where JFK was going to fire him to his face over this when he was himself
assassinated.
Apparently one of the issues for Iraq is that its oil revenue gets directed to an account at
the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and access to that account would be the first order of
any prospective retaliatory sanctions by the U.S., and it was likely that account that Trump
referred to when warning of crippling sanctions if Iraq should attempt to remove US / NATO
forces.
@85, remarkable video. Damage is more extensive than I expected. Grateful none of our troops
was killed or physically injured (if that report is correct). However, those soldiers
certainly experienced trauma and will likely endure long-lasting mental and emotional
effects.
It all makes me angry that our President so cavalierly put our young men and women in
harms way. They should be home with family.
Quite the turn. On Saturday Trudeau wanted "clarity" asked Iran " if it [the downing of
the plane] was a mistake?"
I suspect Trudeau received a lot of emails from Quebec..Trudeau's party lost out to BQ;
understand a majority of Quebecois are not enamoured or impressed by the brain dead D.C.
leadership.
I hope that Iran can get the protests under control peacefully. ISTM that the Iranian
protesters and the Venezuelan protesters both appear to be upper class. I don't see peasants
protesting; I see a privileged class that probably stand to gain in the event there is a
regime change.
Soraya Sepahpour and Finian Cunningham has a very interesting take on this. Their hypothesis
fits remarkably well, in regard to motive, means, and opportunity.
Thanks but props go to Canthama, vid purloined from his twitter feed. Recommend bookmarking
his twitter, Link to Canthama's
twitter feed he is one of those extraordinary persons. No twitter account necessary.
@90 likklemore... i think its true what you say about quebec.. ask lozion, lol! either way i
commend him for putting some space in our position from the usas!
Jen
Not all are cartoon characters. Would be well worth Iran taking a look at who receives medals
and awards in the US. Captain of a certain ship comes to mind. But forget the heroes. Pompeo
would make a good 'eye for an eye'. Secretary of state and a nasty one at that. His job is
somewhat similar to Soleimani's.
If Trump is not reelected, I don't give much of his head. Thousands are ready to make him pay
for his crimes. He and his advisors will remain the targets of revenge for years to come
Writer Kim Sengupta from The Independent explains this incredible twist in the story:
Iraq's prime minister revealed that he was due to be meeting the Iranian commander to discuss
moves being made to ease the confrontation between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia –
the crux of so much of strife in the Middle East and beyond.
Adil Abdul-Mahdi was quite clear: "I was supposed to meet him in the morning the day he
was killed, he came to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had
delivered from the Saudis to Iran."
The prime minister also disclosed that Donald Trump had called him to ask him to
mediate following the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad. According to Iraqi officials
contact was made with a number of militias as well as figures in Tehran. The siege of the
embassy was lifted and the US president personally thanked Abdul-Mahdi for his help.
There was nothing to suggest to the Iraqis that it was unsafe for Soleimani to travel
to Baghdad – quite the contrary. This suggests that Trump helped lure the Iranian
commander to a place where he could be killed.
I posted what I believe might be a translated version of the document you linked to above,
but I as well do not speak the language.
This may be a related Twitter stream on the Iranians ruling out human error and pointing
the finger at U.S. electronic warfare malfeasance being used to trick the Iranians or their
systems into making the shoot down.
On the matter of the Ukrainian plane accident in Iran, the role of human error has been
ruled out [as it has been discovered that] deception operations were carried out on the air
control & command system.
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Donald Trump occasionally utters unspeakable truths. In March 2018 he called Bush Jr.'s
decision to invade Iraq "the worst single mistake in US history." Earlier, Trump had said that
Bush should have been impeached for launching that disastrous war.
Yet on January 2 2020 Trump made a much bigger mistake: He launched all-out war with Iran --
a war that will be joined by millions of anti-US non-Iranians, including Iraqis -- by murdering
Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the legendary hero who defeated ISIS, alongside the popular Iraqi
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Gen. Soleimani was by far the most popular figure in Iran,
where he polled over 80% popularity, and throughout much of the Middle East. He was also adored
by millions even outside that region, non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Many Christians
throughout the world loved Gen. Soleimani, whose campaign against ISIS saved the lives of
thousands of their co-religionists. Even Sunni Muslims (the people, not the billionaire playboy
sheikhs) generally loved and admired the Shia Muslim Gen. Soleimani, a saintly warrior-monk who
was uncommonly spiritual, morally impeccable, and the most accomplished military genius of this
young century.
The strategic stupidity of Trump's order to murder Soleimani cannot be exaggerated. This
shocking, dastardly murder, committed while Soleimani was on an American-encouraged peace
mission, has unleashed a "Pearl Harbor effect" that will galvanize not just the nation of Iran,
but other forces in the region and around the world. Just as the shock effect of Pearl Harbor
helped the American war party overcome domestic political divisions and unite the nation in its
resolve for vengeance, so has the Soleimani murder galvanized regional groups, led by Islamic
Iran and Iraq, in their dedication to obliterate every last trace of any US-Israeli presence in
the region, no matter how long it takes, by any means necessary.
Most Americans still don't understand the towering stature of Soleimani. Perhaps some
comparisons will be helpful.
To understand the effect on Iran and the region, imagine that Stalin had succeeded in
murdering George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, and Douglas MacArthur, all on the same day, in
1946. These US generals, like Soleimani, were very popular, in part because they had just won a
huge war against an enemy viewed as an embodiment of pure evil. How would Americans have
reacted to such a crime? They would have united to destroy Stalin and the Soviet Union, no
matter how long it took, no matter what sacrifices were necessary. That is how hundreds of
millions of people will react to the martyrdom of Gen. Soleimani.
But even that comparison does not do justice to the situation. Patton, Eisenhower, and
MacArthur were secular figures in an increasingly secular culture. Had Stalin murdered them,
their deaths would not have risen to the level of religious martyrdom. Americans' motivation to
avenge their deaths would not have been as deep and long-lasting, nor as charged with the avid
desire to sacrifice everything in pursuit of the goal, in comparison with the millions of
future avengers of the death of Gen. Soleimani.
The tragedy, from the US point of view, is that this didn't need to happen. Iran, a
medium-sized player in a tough neighborhood, is a natural ally of the United States. As
Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard , "Iran provides stabilizing support
for the new political diversity of Central Asia. Its independence acts as a barrier to any
long-term Russian threat to American interests in the Persian Gulf region." (p. 47) Obama,
guided by Brzezinski and his acolytes, set the US on a sensible path toward cordial relations
with Iran -- only to see his foreign policy triumph sabotaged by the pro-Zionist Deep State and
finally shredded by Netanyahu's puppets Trump and Pompeo. Iran, dominated by principled
anti-Zionists, is a thorn in the side of Israel, so the unstable Iranophobe Trump was inserted
into the presidency to undo Obama's handiwork and reassert total Israeli control over US policy
-- the same total control initially cemented by the 9/11 false flag.
If the murder of Soleimani bears comparison to Pearl Harbor, it also echoes the October 1914
killing of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the first domino in a series that ended in a world
war. The dominos are lined up the same way today, though it may take longer for all of them to
fall. Due to the enormity of its psychological effect, the Soleimani assassination irreversibly
sets the US at permanent war with Iran and the rest of the Axis of Resistance. That war can end
in only two ways: The destruction of Islamic Iran, or the complete elimination of the US
military presence in the region. The first alternative is unacceptable not only to Iran, its
regional friends, and the conscience of the world, but also to Russia and China, who would be
next in line for destruction if Iran is annihilated. The second alternative is probably
unacceptable to the permanent National Security State that governs the US no matter who is in
office, and to Israel and its global network (and its agents in the "US" National Security
State). So the irresistible force will soon be meeting the immovable object. It is difficult to
see how this could possibly end well.
Ironically, given Trump's well-justified scorn for Bush's invasion of Iraq, the first front
of the world war unleashed by Soleimani's killing will be in that long-suffering nation, whose
government has just ordered US troops to depart posthaste. If Trump wants to keep US forces in
Iraq he is going to have to re-invade that nation, attack and destroy its government and
military, fight a long-term counterinsurgency (this time against the vast majority of the
population) and take far more casualties than Bush Jr. did.
Trump's decision to martyr the great Iranian general and the celebrated Iraqi commander was
perfectly timed to unite Iraq against the American occupation. Prior to the murder, Iraq was in
the midst of color-revolution chaos, as demonstrators protested against not just the US and
Israel, the real culprits in the destruction of their country, but also Iran, Iraqi
politicians, and other targets. Those demonstrations, and the murders that marred them, were
orchestrated by Gladio style covert US forces. As Iraqi Prime Minster Abdul Mahdi
explained :
" I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the
construction instead (of an American company). Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to
reject this agreement. When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against
me that would end my premiership.
"Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that
if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings
target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me. I refused again and
handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us rescinding our deal with the
Chinese.
"After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting
both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened, he would do), I
received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we
kept on talking about this 'third party'.
"I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came
to deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians
from the Saudis (as part of a peace initiative)."
So Trump lured Soleimani to Tehran with a peace initiative, then ambushed him. That's why
Soleimani was traveling openly on a commercial flight to Baghdad International Airport. He
thought he was under US protection.
Abdul Mahdi's explanation rings true. It reflects the views of most Iraqis, who will be
galvanized by Trump's atrocious actions to resume their insurgency against US occupation.
As Iraqis continue to attack the hated US presence in their country, Trump will undoubtedly
blame Iran, whatever its actual role. So this time the Iranians will have no motivation to
avoid helping the Iraqi liberation struggle -- they would be blamed even if they didn't. Though
Soleimani was a relatively America-friendly stabilizing force after the US invasions of Iraq
and Afghanistan -- the claim that he was behind IEDs that killed US troops is a ridiculous lie
-- in the wake of his death Iran will respond positively to Iraqi requests for help in its
national liberation struggle against the hated US occupier.
A rekindled anti-US insurgency in Iraq, and various forms of ambiguous/deniable retaliation
for the murder of Gen. Soleimani throughout the region and the world, will force Trump up the
escalation ladder. Iran, and the larger eject-the-US-from-the-Mideast project, will not back
down, though they may occasionally stage tactical retreats for appearance's sake. The only way
Trump could "win" would be by completely destroying Iran. Even if Russia and China allowed
that, an unlikely prospect, Trump or any US president who "won" that kind of war would be
remembered as the worst war criminal in world history, and the US would lose all its soft power
and with it its empire.
Russia now faces the same kind of decision it had to make when the Zionist-dominated US
tried to destroy Syria: stand by and let Tehran be annihilated, with Moscow next in line; or
use its considerable military power to save its ally. Putin will have no choice but to support
Iran, just as he supported Syria. China, too, will need to ensure that the USA loses its
Zionist-driven war on Iran. Otherwise Beijing would risk facing the same fate as Tehran.
Even if the only help it gets from Russia and China is covert, Iran is in a strong position
to wage asymmetric war against the US presence in the Middle East. Almost two decades ago, the
$250 million war game Millennium Challenge 2002 blew up in the neocons' faces, as Lt. Gen. Paul
Van Riper commanded Iranian forces against the US and steered them to victory. Though some
technological developments since then may favor the US, as Dr. Alan Sabrosky recently
pointed out on my radio show , others favor Iran, which now has missiles of sufficient
quality and quantity to rain down hell on US bases, annihilate much of if not all of Israel,
and send every US ship anywhere near the Persian Gulf to the bottom of the ocean. (Anti-ship
missiles have far outstripped naval defenses, and Iran has concealed immense reserves of them
deep in the Zagros Mountains overlooking the Persian Gulf.)
So Trump or whoever follows him will eventually face a choice: Accept defeat and withdraw
all American bases and forces in the region; or continue up an escalation ladder that
inexorably leads to World War III. The higher up the ladder he goes, the harder it will be to
jump off.
The apocalyptic scenario may not be accidental. Mike Pompeo, who is widely believed to have
duped Trump into ordering the killing of Gen. Soleimani, may have done so not only on behalf of
the extremist Netanyahu faction in Israel, but also in service to an apocalyptic
Christian Zionist program that yearns for planetary nuclear destruction . Pompeo is
ardently awaiting "the rapture," the culmination of Christian Zionist history, when a global
nuclear war begins at Megiddo Hill in Occupied Palestine and consumes the planet, sending
everyone to hell except the Christian Zionists themselves, who are "beamed up" Star Trek
fashion by none other than Jesus himself.
Whether it goes down in radioactive flames or in a kinder and gentler way, the US empire, as
unstable as its leaders, is nearing the final stages of collapse. "Very stable genius" Trump
and Armageddonite Pompeo may have hastened the inevitable when they ordered the fateful killing
of Gen. Soleimani.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777
Trump
First OK'd Killing Soleimani 7 Months Ago "If Americans Killed"
by
Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/13/2020 - 13:05
0
SHARES
There's been a number of theories to emerge surrounding President Trump's incredibly risky
decision to assassinate IRGC Guds Force chief Qasem Soleimani, including that it was
all the
brainchild
of hawkish Secretary of State and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
But an emerging reporting consensus does indicate that the public justification for the strike
--
that
Soleimani posed an "imminent" threat as he was orchestrating an attack against American troops and
sites in the region
--
was manufactured based on flimsy intelligence. The
evolving and contradictory statements
within the administration itself demonstrates at least
this much.
And now according to the latest NBC bombshell it's becoming clear that the top IRGC general's
killing was
actually months in the works
:
President Donald Trump authorized the killing of Iranian Gen.
Qassem
Soleimani seven months ago
if Iran's increased aggression resulted in the death of an
American, according to five current and former senior administration officials.
Apparently the "option" to take him out was already on the "menu" of Pentagon contingencies long
before Soleimani's fateful Jan.3 early morning passage through Baghdad International Airport.
Reports NBC based on
multiple officials
,
"The presidential directive in June came with the condition that
Trump would have final signoff on any specific operation to kill Soleimani, officials said."
The Dec.27 Kataeb Hezbollah rocket attack on a US base in Kirkuk then became a core element of
the official rationale, given it killed an American contractor
later identified
as 33-year old Sacramento resident
Nawres Waleed Hamid, who
had been assisting the Army as a linguist.
The new report confirms further that it was both National Security Advisor at the time
John Bolton as well as Mike Pompeo that had Trump's ear on the subject
.
"There have been a number of options presented to the president over the course of time" related
to bold steps to curtail Iranian aggression, a senior administration official told NBC, which
reports further:
The president's message was "that's only on the table if they hit Americans,"
according to a person briefed on the discussion.
The origins of the plan to assassinate the top IRGC elite force general and popular "national
hero" inside Iran actually evolved initially out of 2017 discussions involving Trump's national
security adviser at the time, retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
The idea of killing Soleimani came up in discussions in 2017 that Trump's national security
adviser at the time, retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, was having with other administration
officials about the president's broader national security strategy, officials said. But it was
just one of a host of possible elements of Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran and
"was not something that was thought of as a first move,"
said a former senior
administration official involved in the discussions.
The idea did become more serious after McMaster was replaced in April 2018 by Bolton
,
a longtime Iran hawk and advocate for regime change in Tehran. Bolton left the White House in
September -- he said he resigned, while
Trump
said he fired him
-- following policy disagreements on Iran and other issues.
So there it is: Bolton's ultra-hawkish influence is still in effect at the White House.
Congratulations to all involved in eliminating
Qassem Soleimani. Long in the making, this was a decisive blow against Iran's malign Quds Force
activities worldwide. Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.
And the torch is being carried further by Mike Pompeo.
But again while none of this should come as a surprise, it's yet further proof on top of a
growing body of evidence that Washington is yet again telling bald-faced lies to the public about a
major event that could lead America straight back into another disastrous Middle East quagmire.
Tags
Politics
January 4, 2020 2,300 Words
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In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of
Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning
"Imminent attacks" on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically
referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence .
Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu's government and then
Blair's, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of "pre-emptive self-defence"
against "imminent" attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts
and judges, would accept. Including me.
What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the
Bethlehem Doctrine – that here "Imminent" – the word used so carefully by Pompeo
– does not need to have its normal meanings of either "soon" or "about to happen". An
attack may be deemed "imminent", according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no
details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike
– and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of
"intelligence" you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is
nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged
in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.
I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for
drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade.
Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service
(the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is
classified information ).
So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were "imminent" he is not using the word in the
normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these
"imminent" attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you
can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.
The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack
you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained
widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles
outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists. Daniel Bethlehem
became the FCO's Chief Legal Adviser, brought in by Jack Straw, precisely because every single
one of the FCO's existing Legal Advisers believed the Iraq War to be illegal. In 2004, when the
House of Commons was considering the legality of the war on Iraq, Bethlehem produced a
remarkable paper for consideration which said that it was legal
because the courts and existing law were wrong , a defence which has seldom succeeded in
court.
(b) following this line, I am also of the view that the wider principles of the law on
self-defence also require closer scrutiny. I am not persuaded that the approach of doctrinal
purity reflected in the Judgments of the International Court of Justice in this area provide
a helpful edifice on which a coherent legal regime, able to address the exigencies of
contemporary international life and discourage resort to unilateral action, is easily
crafted;
The key was that the concept of "imminent" was to change:
The concept of what constitutes an "imminent" armed attack will develop to meet new
circumstances and new threats
In the absence of a respectable international lawyer willing to argue this kind of tosh,
Blair brought in Bethlehem as Chief Legal Adviser, the man who advised Netanyahu on Israel's
security wall and who was willing to say that attacking Iraq was legal on the basis of Saddam's
"imminent threat" to the UK, which proved to be non-existent. It says everything about
Bethlehem's eagerness for killing that the formulation of the Bethlehem Doctrine on
extrajudicial execution by drone came after the Iraq War, and he still gave not one second's
thought to the fact that the intelligence on the "imminent threat" can be wrong. Assassinating
people on the basis of faulty intelligence is not addressed by Bethlehem in setting out his
doctrine. The bloodlust is strong in this one.
There are literally scores of academic articles, in every respected journal of international
law, taking down the Bethlehem Doctrine for its obvious absurdities and revolting special
pleading. My favourite is this one by
Bethlehem's predecessor as the FCO Chief Legal Adviser, Sir Michael Wood and his ex-Deputy
Elizabeth Wilmshurst.
I addressed the Bethlehem Doctrine as part of my contribution to
a book reflecting on Chomsky 's essay "On the Responsibility of Intellectuals"
In the UK recently, the Attorney General gave a
speech in defence of the UK's drone policy, the assassination of people – including
British nationals – abroad. This execution without a hearing is based on several
criteria, he reassured us. His speech was repeated slavishly in the British media. In fact,
the Guardian newspaper simply republished the government press release absolutely verbatim,
and stuck a reporter's byline at the top.
The media have no interest in a critical appraisal of the process by which the British
government regularly executes without trial. Yet in fact it is extremely interesting. The
genesis of the policy lay in the appointment of Daniel Bethlehem as the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office's Chief Legal Adviser. Jack Straw made the appointment, and for the first
time ever it was external, and not from the Foreign Office's own large team of world-renowned
international lawyers. The reason for that is not in dispute. Every single one of the FCO's
legal advisers had advised that the invasion of Iraq was illegal, and Straw wished to find a
new head of the department more in tune with the neo-conservative world view. Straw went to
extremes. He appointed Daniel Bethlehem, the legal 'expert' who provided the legal advice to
Benjamin Netanyahu on the 'legality' of building the great wall hemming in the Palestinians
away from their land and water resources. Bethlehem was an enthusiastic proponent of the
invasion of Iraq. He was also the most enthusiastic proponent in the world of drone
strikes.
Bethlehem provided an opinion on the legality of drone strikes which is, to say the least,
controversial. To give one example, Bethlehem accepts that established principles of
international law dictate that lethal force may be used only to prevent an attack which is
'imminent'. Bethlehem argues that for an attack to be 'imminent' does not require it to be
'soon'. Indeed you can kill to avert an 'imminent attack' even if you have no information on
when and where it will be. You can instead rely on your target's 'pattern of behaviour'; that
is, if he has attacked before, it is reasonable to assume he will attack again and that such
an attack is 'imminent'.
There is a much deeper problem: that the evidence against the target is often extremely
dubious. Yet even allowing the evidence to be perfect, it is beyond me that the state can
kill in such circumstances without it being considered a death penalty imposed without trial
for past crimes, rather than to frustrate another 'imminent' one. You would think that
background would make an interesting story. Yet the entire 'serious' British media published
the government line, without a single journalist, not one, writing about the fact that
Bethlehem's proposed definition of 'imminent' has been widely rejected by the international
law community. The public knows none of this. They just 'know' that drone strikes are keeping
us safe from deadly attack by terrorists, because the government says so, and nobody has
attempted to give them other information
Remember, this is not just academic argument, the Bethlehem Doctrine is the formal policy
position on assassination of Israel, the US and UK governments. So that is lie one. When Pompeo
says Soleimani was planning "imminent" attacks, he is using the Bethlehem definition under
which "imminent" is a "concept" which means neither "soon" nor "definitely going to happen". To
twist a word that far from its normal English usage is to lie. To do so to justify killing
people is obscene. That is why, if I finish up in the bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing
about the experience will be the company of Daniel Bethlehem.
Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by
Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the "deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of
Americans". This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Really? Who were they? When and where? While the Bethlehem Doctrine allows you to kill
somebody because they might be going to attack someone, sometime, but you don't know who or
when, there is a reasonable expectation that if you are claiming people have already been
killed you should be able to say who and when.
The truth of the matter is that if you take every American killed including and since 9/11,
in the resultant Middle East related wars, conflicts and terrorist acts, well over 90% of them
have been killed by Sunni Muslims financed and supported out of Saudi Arabia and its gulf
satellites, and less than 10% of those Americans have been killed by Shia Muslims tied to
Iran.
This is a horribly inconvenient fact for US administrations which, regardless of party, are
beholden to Saudi Arabia and its money. It is, the USA affirms, the Sunnis who are the allies
and the Shias who are the enemy. Yet every journalist or aid worker hostage who has been
horribly beheaded or otherwise executed has been murdered by a Sunni, every jihadist terrorist
attack in the USA itself, including 9/11, has been exclusively Sunni, the Benghazi attack was
by Sunnis, Isil are Sunni, Al Nusra are Sunni, the Taliban are Sunni and the vast majority of
US troops killed in the region are killed by Sunnis.
Precisely which are these hundreds of deaths for which the Shia forces of Soleimani were
responsible? Is there a list? It is of course a simple lie. Its tenuous connection with truth
relates to the Pentagon's estimate –
suspiciously upped repeatedly since Iran became the designated enemy – that back
during the invasion of Iraq itself , 83% of US troop deaths were at the hands of Sunni
resistance and 17% of of US troop deaths were at the hands of Shia resistance, that is 603
troops. All the latter are now lain at the door of Soleimani, remarkably.
Those were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias –
whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea
that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible.
Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was "responsible for hundreds of American deaths" is
intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved
in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right
to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws
of war.
As I understand it, there is very little evidence that Soleimani had active operational
command of Shia militias during the invasion, and in any case to credit him personally with
every American soldier killed is plainly a nonsense. But even if Soleimani had personally
supervised every combat success, these were legitimate acts of war. You cannot simply
assassinate opposing generals who fought you, years after you invade.
The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence's attempt to link
Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most
strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to
9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed.
Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But
there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what
they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved. This is total bullshit. 9/11 was
Sunni and Saudi led, nothing to do with Iran.
Soleimani actually was involved in intelligence and logistical cooperation with the United
States in Afghanistan post 9/11 (the Taliban were his enemies too, the shia Tajiks being a key
part of the US aligned Northern Alliance). He was in Iraq to fight ISIL.
The final aggravating factor in the Soleimani murder is that he was an accredited combatant
general of a foreign state which the world – including the USA – recognises. The
Bethlehem Doctrine specifically applies to "non-state actors". Unlike all of the foregoing,
this next is speculation, but I suspect that the legal argument in the Pentagon ran that
Soleimani is a non-state actor when in Iraq, where the Shia militias have a semi-official
status.
But that does not wash. Soleimani is a high official in Iran who was present in Iraq as a
guest of the Iraqi government, to which the US government is allied. This greatly exacerbates
the illegality of his assassination still further.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British
Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of
Dundee from 2007 to 2010. (Republished from
CraigMurray.org by permission of author or representative)
We know Israel does this all the time but to non state actors. I dont think in recent history
anyone has openly target a state actor in such a criminal fashion because it is an act of war
and not only that but considered barbaric. To ask for mediation and then to assassinate the
messengers is an act that not even the mongols took part in and they considered it enough to
wipe out any such parties..
Good expose about the creative criminal minds twisting language and decency to justify murder
and war crimes...
A new legal doctrine to justify crimes in an industrial scale for the good of
UK-USrael.
However they might be right in claiming that Gen. Soleimani had killed or was about to
kill many "Americans" – not strictly US citizens – but the honorary American
terrorist foot soldiers fighting American wars in the Middle East.
Do terrorists act legally? The U.S. is a terrorist organisation. It is misleading to call the
US a nation or a country. Soleimani is widely-acknowledged as the architect of the successful
campaign to defeat the U.S.-Israel sponsored terrorists (ISIS and al-Qaeda) in Syria and
Iraq. The sad irony is that Iran was a major U.S. "ally" during the U.S. aggression against
Afghanistan and more importantly against Iraq. Without Iran (the Eastern front) the U.S.
would not have invaded Iraq. Iran played a major military role helping the U.S. against the
Iraqi Resistance.
How hideous that this is named Bethlehem, "The place of healing; place of birth of the Prince
of Peace.'
More appropriate to call it the ESTHER doctrine, or PURIM doctrine.
The Hebrew text provides no solid evidence that Haman sought to kill Jews: the notion is
based on Mordecha the Spy and self-serving Snitch.
Netanyahu has made public statements linking today's Iran to the Purim doctrine that Jews
celebrate to this day.
In other words, Jews demonstrate a clear patter of "imminent threat" to kill those who
resist Zionist – Anglo dominence.
Under this Purim (Bethlehem) doctrine, therefore, it is not only legitimate, it is
necessary -- a Constitutional obligation -- that the American government Kill Jews who pose
an Imminent Threat to the American -- and Iranian -- people.
As a retired international lawyer I am of the opinion Mr. Murray sets out fact and law
impressively . He says everything that is needed to be said
Good for the FCO legal team in resisting the invasion of Iraq. I do know at least one
British regiment sought independent legal advice before accepting orders.
Great article Mr. Murray, very needed in these times of almost universal deceit.
Mr. Bethlehem displays the famous Jewish quality of chutzpah – the quality of a bit
who has killed his parents in cold blood but begs the judge for mercy because he is an orphan
– when he decided to simply change the law.
I wish I had some of that Jewish privilege, that way I too could go around robbing and
killing and then simply change the law to get away Scot free.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani attended Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland,
graduating in 1995 with an M.Phil. degree in Law. Rouhani is close to Jack Straw and Straw is
very close to Lord Levy. And Lord Levy is very close to Lord Rothschild. Jack Straw says "in
Hassan Rouhani's Iran, you can feel the winds change." "Winds changing" is an understatement.
They are gust winds blowing at high velocity directly from the City of London and from
Israel's direction. All very high level British intrigue going on here in Iran. It was Jack
Straw who appointed Daniel Bethlehem who developed the "Bethlehem Doctrine" used in
justifying the assassination of General Soleinami under false pretenses Pompeo probably knew
about when he informed President Trump. From 1979 to 2013, Rouhani held a number of important
positions in the Velayat-e Faqih's key institutions, as "the man in power but in the
shadows." Hassan Rouhani's job it appears considering his education and position is through
Shia law is to continue to perpetuate the spread of the "revolution." The "revolution" is
designed to keep confrontation in place. Why not gradually move from "revolutionary Shia" to
a more conciliatory peaceful religious position? Iran's Mohammad Javad Zarif who is now an
Iranian career diplomat, spent 20 years from the age of 17 studying in the United States.
Kind of makes us look harder at John Kerry and whether or not his connections to Mohammad
Javad Zarif have anything to do with all that is unfolding here?
They all have fake names. Netanyahu is really Mileikowski. Ben Gurion was really Gruen. But
for a British Jew to grab the name Bethlehem is a real attack on Christianity.
The sad irony is that Iran was a major U.S. "ally" during the U.S. aggression against
Afghanistan and more importantly against Iraq. Without Iran (the Eastern front) the U.S.
would not have invaded Iraq. Iran played a major military role helping the U.S. against the
Iraqi Resistance.
Well, what can one say? First, there is the official narrative; then there are the
alternative narratives in their many fashions and narrations; and then there is the oddball
narrative that defies logic and reason. Iran allied with Usrael?
It may look (and is) an exorbitant stretch of imagination to come to such a view. But it
is not unique; it is not much different from the often-heard impossible claim here at UR that
Nazi Germany was allied with the Soviet Union in 1939!
Can I be the only person to think that from the moment Hitler transported his
first shipment of Haavara Agreement Jews to Palestine there has not been a moments piece in
that corner of the globe.
Can you be the only person . . .?
Possibly.
"There has not been a moment's piece [sic] in that corner of the globe" since Herzl began
attempting to co-opt the Ottoman Empire in ~1895.
Balfour ramped it up a notch in 1917; at the urging of Louis Brandeis, Woodrow Wilson
endorsed Balfour's plan.
@Wally Note here that Wally fails to condemn Trump's illegal act of war on a national of
a nation which Congress has not declared war upon.
Yes Wally, Obama was a war criminal who deserves to hang for his crimes, but if you are to
retain any credibility with which to continue your mission to expose the Holohoax, you should
also acknowledge that Trump is a war criminal too who, based on precedent, also deserves to
hang. Your loyalty is clearly misplaced.
@Dube I believe that what he actually said was that, "Israel would disappear from the
pages of history". The usual liars reported this as "Iran would wipe Israel off the map".
If the West is to fight back and survive then the first battle should surely be against
the lying media organs that bear so much responsibility for the shit-storm that is on the
way.
@Parfois1 Hillary Mann Leverett negotiated with Iranian counterparts at United Nations
and gained Iranian assistance in finding partners to defeat Taliban
March 31, 2015
"Unlike Mr. Dubowitz and many in Washington, I have actually negotiated with current
Iranian officials, and it was an effective negotiation. [it resulted] in a state enormously
not only overthrow the Taliban, but set up a proper government in Afghanistan. There is
just no evidence whatsoever that continuing to bludgeon them and pressure them is going to
do anything to give us concessions."
Leverett participated in a 'round-table discussion' with Mark Dubowitz of Foundation for
Defense of Democracy (FDD).
Dubowitz's spiel was boilerplate: "Saddam killed 200,000 of his own people, he is pursuing
nuclear weapons," blah blah blah.
On Jan 12 2020 on C Span, https://www.c-span.org/event/?467915/washington-journal-01122020
first Ilan Goldenberg of Center for New American Security (George Soros, major funder), then
Michael Rubin of American Enterprise Institute * recited the same talking points: only the
names were changed, a tacit acknowledgement that the original, Iraqi-based set of names were
dead.
*AEI Board of Trustees:
AEI is governed by a Board of Trustees, composed of leading business and financial
executives.
Daniel A. D'Aniello, Chairman
Cofounder and Chairman The Carlyle Group
Clifford S. Asness
Managing and Founding Principal
AQR Capital Management, LLC
The Honorable Richard B. Cheney
Peter H. Coors
Vice Chairman of the Board
Molson Coors Brewing Company
Harlan Crow
Chairman
Crow Holdings
Ravenel B. Curry III
Chief Investment Officer
Eagle Capital Management, LLC
-- also interesting comments from the audience @ 11 min
Leverett has also repeated, on numerous occasions, that sanctions –" a weapon of
war" -- are counterproductive and, in the case of Iraq, "killed a million Iraqis, half of
them children."
@Dube Indeed, the Jews cunningly arranged for the Arab states to look like they might
attack them in 1967. Then they swooped like a prescient eagle and blew up all the Egyptian
planes on the ground before this attack, which might not have happened otherwise, actually
happened. Its definitely a winning philosophy, but only if you are sure you are going to win
in the first place.
Leave it to a Jew and his Bethlehem Doctrine, to crush the four centuries old Treaty of
Westphalia where the principle of national sovereignty was instituted. Killing the leaders of
a sovereign nation breaks the treaty.
Assassination is a Jew tool. Killing is the Jew way.
@RouterAl"Jew Jack Straw was everything you would expect from Jew"
I seem to recall a piece in an Israeli paper saying he wasn't Jewish. It was quite witty,
saying IIRC that although he looked like a shul trustee and his career trajectory (student
politics then law then media) was classically Jewish, he has (as wiki says) only one Jewish
great-grandparent.
From wiki
"In 2013, at a round table event of the Global Diplomatic Forum at the UK's House of
Commons, Straw (who has Jewish heritage) was quoted by Israeli politician Einat Wilf, one of
the panelists at the forum, as having said that among the main obstacles to peace was the
amount of money available to Jewish organizations in the US, which controlled US foreign
policy, and also Germany's "obsession" with defending Israel."
@dimples"Its definitely a winning philosophy, but only if you are sure you are going
to win in the first place."
Yes, it didn't do the losers much good at Nuremberg, although Germany had explained the
attack of June 22 as a pre-emptive strike – " Therefore Russia has broken its
treaties and is about to attack Germany. I have ordered the German armed forces to oppose
this threat with all their strength ".
"The Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of "pre-emptive self-defence"
against "imminent" attack. That is something most people, and most international law
experts and judges, would accept."
Additionally, 400,000 of the Waffen SS were non-Germanic, yet wiki prefaces its
description of Barbarossa as "The operation put into action Nazi Germany's ideological
goal of conquering the western Soviet Union so as to repopulate it with Germans." .
The more things change, the more the lies stay the same. Like Hitler, Soleimani was a
"bad, hateful terrorist" who they smear by claiming "he deserved to die". In the end this is
really about the mother of all modern jewish lies, the "holocaust".
#1 – "When Pompeo says Soleimani was planning "imminent" attacks, he is using the
Bethlehem definition under which "imminent" is a "concept" which means neither "soon" nor
"definitely going to happen". To twist a word that far from its normal English usage is to
lie. To do so to justify killing people is obscene. That is why, if I finish up in the
bottom-most pit of hell, the worst thing about the experience will be the company of Daniel
Bethlehem."
#2 – [1] Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which
the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should
not eat of every tree of paradise? [2] And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of
the trees that are in paradise we do eat: [3] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch
it, lest perhaps we die. [4] And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the
death. [5] For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall
be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.
What do we get when we add #1 and #2?
#3 – The CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency are all
offshoots from, are all in origin product of, Brit WASP secret service.
When we add the answer to the above question to #3, what then is the sum?
@Biff Agree that 9/11 had " nothing to do with Iran" but to say that "9/11 was Sunni and
Saudi led " is disinformation . Is Craig Murray , a former British Diplomat , a 9/11
gatekeeper? Murray has written
"I do not believe that the US government or any of its agencies were responsible for 9/11."
Like Noam Chomsky , Murray fails the 9/11 "litmus test ".
Trump is continuing the state terrorism by drone as carried out by Bush and Obama : "Why is
Obama still killing children [by drome] ?" cato.org :
.".. thousands of civilians , including hundreds of children , have fallen victim to his
preemptive drone strikes over the last seven years 'America's actions are legal ', Obama said
,'we were attacked on 9/11′"
So Obama had the chutzpah to blame his murder of civilians on 9/11. The Democratic and
Republican parties are truly wings which belong to the same bird of prey .
Historically, nations act in what serves their interests. Western involvement in the Middle
East has been primarily about energy security and commerce. They seek to justify it through
different means, including legalistic sophistry. The real danger of the US-Iran confrontation
is consequences that lead to no alternative but escalation. One scenario, a Tehran 79 type
hostage stand-off in Baghdad where President Trump (in an election year) could find himself
with no choice but up the ante. The spector of humiliation and defeat convincing him the only
hope is to persevere. But that could be an illusion, moving deeper into a sequence of events
leading unstoppably to the real danger in the Middle East – confrontation with Russia.
Many say it couldn't happen. History suggests otherwise. Living by the law might be the
future: learning from history the way to create that future. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Sunni this, Sunni that !@# You, Craig Murray, you whitrash piece of shit!!
If this scum was a career diplomat of that pissant island, which has never been up to any
good, then he must fundamentally be an evil scumbag, working for the pleasure of that old
thieving witch.
Just various masks of controlled opposition. Mofers all!!
Yet another mixed bag. Invoking an official government lie, thus poisoning the well.
" Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to
Afghanistan. "
" The hijackers "?
I suppose this is an inserted reference to the alleged "hijackers" that were not even on the
airline flight manifests yet became central to the phony 9/11 story that no serious person
believes.
Israel and its colony the ZUS are the most dangerous countries in the world because of their
total disregard of international law as evidenced by their joint attack on the WTC on 911 and
their using this as the excuse to destroy the middle east for Israel, which has killed
millions and kept America at war for Israel for decades!
The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a blight on
humanity!
The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a blight on
humanity!
What is your criterion for comparison, Desert Fox?
I don't know much about Stalin, so can't deal with that.
Hitler was defending Germany: he told Herbert Hoover that his three " idees fixes "
were:
"to unify Germany from its fragmentation by the Treaty of Versailles;
to expand its physical resources by moving into Russia or the Balkan States . . .[to
prevent a recurrence of] the famine;
to destroy the Russian Communist government . . .[consequent to] the brutalities of the
Communist uprisings in German cities during the Armistice period." ( Freedom
Betrayed, by Herbert Hoover).
ZUS and Israel are aggressing, invading, occupying, displacing and ethnically cleansing
forces; they are not acting defensively, as NSDAP was, by any application of logic.
This is total bullshit. 9/11 was Sunni and Saudi led, nothing to do with Iran.
The Saudis may have enabled the creation of the legends of the hijackers, but had little
or nothing to do with the execution of the operation. 9/11 certainly was carried out
preponderantly by Israeli operatives for the economic benefit of Zionist Jews and their
criminal co-conspirators in the world of finance and the councils of government.
The sentence ought to be reordered thus:
'9/11 was Sunni and Saudi led. ' That is total bullshit. In any case, it had nothing to
do with Iran.
Sean promptly serves up the CIA line, more slogans for people who are not too bright. Today
it's a little pun to muddle up the law and give CIA a desperately-sought loophole for the
crime of aggression, for which there is no justification. Sean is thinking fast as he can to
try and distract you from the necessity and proportionality tests which accompany any use of
force and govern the status of the act as countermeasure, internationally wrongful act, or
crime. Sean's indoctrination has protected his stationary hamster-wheel mind from the black
letter law of Chapter VII, including Articles 47 and 51, which place self-defense forces at
the disposal of the UNSC under direction of the Military Staff Committee. Sean also seizes up
with Orwellian CIA CRIMESTOP when he hears anything about the case law governing use of
force, such as the minimal indicative examples below.
CIA has been running from the law for 85 years now, but despite their wholesale corruption
of the Secretariat, they're losing control of the UN charter bodies and treaty bodies. Some
SIS scapegoats are going to be faking palsy in the dock to get a break. Brennan first.
@SolontoCroesus Recommend you do the research, Hitler was put into power by the zionist
banking kabal, the same kabal that rules the ZUS, read the book Wall Street and the Rise of
Hitler, and they wanted Hitler and Stalin to destroy each other, that was the zionist plan
and they used the ZUS and Britain to do it, just as they have destroyed the mideast for
Israels greater Israel agenda.
The ZUS is just like Hitler invading and destroying the mideast for Israel using the
attack on WTC as an excuse, which was a joint attack on the WTC on 911 by traitors in the ZUS
and Israel, the whole deal is a zionist driven holocaust on the people of the middle
east.
By the way Israel is perpetrating a holocaust of the people of Palestine and this
holocaust is backed by the ZUS, which is Israels military arm ie a subsidiary of the IDF.
Recommend the archives section on henrymakow.com on Hitler and Stalin.
@Jake There were no hijackers , there were no planes , they were likely CGI's in videos
produced in a "Holywood production" prior to 9/11 , see septemberclues. info "The central
role of the news media on 9/11" .
@Wally I am sure, if asked, he would condemn Obama's war crimes as well (and Bush I, Bush
II, Clinton, etc. probably going back to Lincoln at least). But the subject was about
Soleimani's assassination, which, as much as I am sure you would like to do, cannot be pinned
on Obama.
@Igor Bundy Right. The Mongols rolled the murderers of their emissaries or ambassadors in
carpets and had them trampled to death by horses. This was followed by razing the city/state.
I'm told Nuttyyahoo of Israel provided the info and encouraged it.
1) Elizabeth Warren has lied about her ethnicity and has benefited from it thus lying can
be natural for her she would most likely give a lap dance to Bibi if demanded to get
elected,
2) Arabs are being absolved of 9/11 by their Ashkenazi cousins who mistakenly believe that
they are semites despite having overwhelmingly slavic blood there must be trace amounts of
meshuggah genes mixed up with the Indo-European and thus the hatred of Iranians,
3) Jesus came once before, therefore it must reason that he is coming back the second time
and now the arrival is imminent so Daniel Bethlehem must become Christian now or go to
hell
@Jake 20 Hijackers. One, a black Moroccan Muslim, chickened out and is in jail somewhere
in the USA. The leader, Atta, was from Egypt. The lead guy to the flight that only had four
hijackers because of the Moroccan, which crashed in PA, was from Lebanon and could pass for
an American/Jew. Two were from the United Arab Emirates and the rest, 15 , were
Saudis.
Mafia-style assassination of Soleimani was undoubtedly an act of state terrorism. What's
more, it was an act of war against Iran. It was a crime committed by the US military on
orders of Trump, who publicly confessed that he gave that criminal order.
Limited Iranian response just shows that Iran government is sane, in sharp contrast to the
US government.
"to unify Germany from its fragmentation by the Treaty of Versailles;
to expand its physical resources by moving into Russia or the Balkan States . . .[to
prevent a recurrence of] the famine;
to destroy the Russian Communist government . . .[consequent to] the brutalities of the
Communist uprisings in German cities during the Armistice period." (Freedom Betrayed, by
Herbert Hoover).
Your #2 and #3 are naked aggression. Exactly as Soleimani murder.
May 8, 2019 Afghanistan, the Forgotten Proxy War. The Role of Osama bin Laden and Zbigniew
Brzezinski
The original "moderate rebel"
One of the key players in the anti-Soviet, U.S.-led regime change project against
Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born millionaire who came from a wealthy, powerful
family that owns a Saudi construction company and has had close ties to the Saudi royal
family.
@Been_there_done_that While I am sure that the official story of the September 11th 2001
'attack' is false, I frequently wonder why the 'truthers' seem never to be able to get all
their ducks in a row. Many claim that the film footage of the aircraft strikes were
pre-manufactured CGIs, issued to the media in order to mask the real culprits which they
allege were cruise missiles. But a cruise missile doesn't have a flight manifest. Either
those four flights that the official story says were hijacked took off that day, or they did
not. The CGI theory rests, of course, on there being no such flights. Yet you claim that 'the
hijackers' were not on flight manifests for those flights. This is surely the craziest
interpretion: either the flights were fictional (as in the CGI theory) and thus there were no
manifests, or they really did take place, and therefore had manifests, and were hijacked. If,
as you claim, the flights actually took place, but no hijackers boarded them, how on earth
did they fly into the twin towers? It makes no sense at all I fear.
Americans are now as gods. asserting their inherent right to kill anyone, anytime, anywhere,
for any reason.
"Did we just kill a kid?" In 2012 a USAF drone operator named Bryant reported he was "flying"
drones out of New Mexico and painted a 6000 mile away Afghan shack with his laser, and with
permission released a Hellfire missile. During the time the missile took to arrive, he saw on
his screen a child toddle from behind the shack. Mesmerized, in slow motion, he saw the shack
explode and the child disappear. Having killed hundreds remotely, he still wasn't ready for
this and asked his copilot: "Did we just kill a kid?". The operator answered: "I guess so".
Suddenly on the screen appeared the words of some unknown anonymous supervisor: "No, it was a
dog". Bryant responded: "A dog on two legs?"
Even the resident boomer Nam hero, Rich, might have trouble justifying this kind of activity
.but then again in a jewed out society ..maybe not.
@Desert Fox 'The ZUS and Israel are in the same league as Stalin and Hitler and are a
blight on humanity!'
Ah. I see that you are still drinking the Kool Aid regarding Herr Hitler. I used to
believe it all too. You'll learn in time, as will enough people. Only then will the gigantic
criminal enterprise fomented by 'the International Race' that we call World War II be seen
for the monstrous crime against humanity that it was. Perhaps – just perhaps –
that same sick and depraved race will then finally be so deservedly called to account for its
foul deeds.
Make no mistake: understanding just who and what Adolf Hitler really was, and especially
his role in saving at least part of the West from Communism, is absolutely central to an
appreciation of this awful world in which we now live.
@GeeBee I am under no illusions about Hitler or Stalin as both were funded by the
international zionist banking kabal, read the book Hitlers Secret Bankers by Sidney Warburg
and Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler and Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution,by
Anthony Sutton, zionists were behind the whole deal.
Recommend henrymakow.com and his
archive section on Hitler and Stalin.
@AnonFromTNLimited Iranian response just shows that Iran government is sane, in sharp
contrast to the US government.
There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy
and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions.
What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?"
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
What's ironic is that Pompeo and his fellow Americans would cry like the little girls they
are if the rest of the world starting assassinating Americans based on the same grounds. Lol
There is no such thing as international law or legality. Might makes right as shown by the US
doing as it pleases and thumbing it's nose at everyone. Some person with legal credentials
gets trotted out to declare whatever has been done is legal, just rubber-stamping it. It's
too bad but that's the reality.
@Z-man With all due respect which is 0. How pray tell did the those "hijackers" manage to
plant the explosives in the 3 World Trade towers buildings with which to imploded them? Of
course they didn't. Israel and Jews have their fingerprints all over the 911 attack.
911 was an Israeli/ Jew false flag attack that resulted in the murder of 3000 innocent
goyim before noon that day. It's purpose was to create hatred towards Arabs, Muslims and
Persians so that stupid Americans would send their children to die for the squatter colony of
Israel.
Folks the Jew controlled US government is saying that those 3 sky-scrapers collapsed into
their own footprint at free fall speed due to one cause: office furniture fires. Not the
impact of the "plane" and not the fuel carried by the "planes". This has never happened
before or since in the history of the world. It is complete bullshit. The JewSA's story is
totally impossible and defies the laws of physics. Namely the Law of the conservation of
energy.
As anyone who observers the fall of all 3 towers can see those building fall at free fall
speed. For this to happen it means that the underlying structure is offering NO resistance to
the above falling structure. How can this be? The many floors below the impact zone were in
no way effected by the fire. Yet we see them vaporized into dust as the buildings collapse
into their own footprint.
No folks this is impossible. Therefore the entire government's story is suspect and I
would suggest total bullshit.
I'll admit that in the heat of the moment I fell for this lie. But what really got my
attention was when I found out about the collapse of Building 7. A 57 story that was not hit
by any "plane". And yet it followed the same script as the Twin Towers. Use critical thinking
Americans.
I realize for many the truth about 911 is going to blow up their entire world view
regarding the exceptionalness of the US and our good buddy Israel. But it is vital for the
survival of our nation that the real criminals behind 911 be held accountable.
@AnonFromTN If so, AnonFromTn, while begging pardon for a Whataboutery argument, How does
#2 differ from the activities of Israelis, that are supported by American taxpayers; and how
does #3 differ from the activities of Americans toward Iran, whose government US / Israel has
been seeking to topple and re-form to "western" preferences, since at least 1979? *
Moreover, Desert Fox is partly (but only minimally-partly) correct in that zionist Jews
and Allies set-up or duped or manipulated or otherwise used Germany to attempt to destroy
Bolshevism in Russia, similar to the way that US used Saddam against Iran, then killed
Saddam; used Soleimani against ISIS in Iraq, then killed Soleimani.
So are the actions of USA / ZUSA excusable, unaccountable, but those of Germany were
demonstrably not?
Or should the American people remain warily alert for the next shoe to drop, when that
"arc of justice" bends inexorably their way?
* I still, perhaps stubbornly, maintain that Germany had far more justification for its
actions in seeking to vanquish a political regime that was observably committing mass murder
with the "imminent" danger of carrying out the same against the German people -- as, in fact,
was done; and that seeking to protect its people from starvation, of which 800,000 people had
died within the present memory of surviving Germans, is an obligation of the state, a far
more compelling obligation than that of "protecting American interests" 7000 miles from the
homeland, when the homeland has more than adequate capacity to provide for its people, and
when the interests being protected are those of a very few very rich individuals or
corporations.
Competing and trading fairly is far less costly than waging war, and not nearly so
ignoble.
@SolontoCroesus I am not trying to whitewash the Empire. Many of its actions are clearly
criminal, including bombing of Serbia, the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
assisting murderous Saudis in Yemen, etc. Assassination of Soleimani is yet another similarly
criminal action, not the first and likely not the last.
However, the criminality of the Empire does not justify Hitler in any way. His troops
behaved in a totally barbaric manner in the former Soviet Union. I know that not from
propaganda, but from the accounts of real people who lived through German occupation in
1941-44.
The Empire being a criminal enterprise does not make the Third Reich any less criminal.
FYI, bandits often clash with each other, and both sides in those clashes remain bandits.
Jan 13, 2020 Assassination-gate! Trump Officials Say No 'Imminent Threat.' With Guest Phil
Giraldi
Trump officials – including Trump himself today – have been steadily pulling
back from initial claims after the January 3rd assassination of Iranian top general Soleimani
that he was killed because of "imminent threats" of attack led by the Iranian.
@Paul "Noam Chomsky and the gatekeepers of the left " is a chapter in Barrie Zwicker's
book "Towers of Deception ", this chapter is available in pdf format at 9/11conspiracy.tv
.
Zwicker argues that Chomsky " In supporting the official story is at one with the right-wing
gatekeepers such as Judith Miller of the New York Times Chomsky's function is identical to
Miller's: support the official story Chomsky systematically engages in deceptive discourse on
certain key topics such as 9/11 , the Kennedy assassination and with regard to the CIA . ..A
study of Chomsky's stands show him to be a de facto defender of the status quo's most
egregious outrages and their covert agency engines To the New World Order he is worth 50
armored divisions ."
As filmmaker Roy Harvey has stated " the single greatest obstacle to the spread of 9/11 truth
is the Left media ."
"If, as you claim, the flights actually took place, but no hijackers boarded them,
how on earth did they fly into the twin towers?"
Remote control – a proven and trusted technology.
It could have been possible that some of the airline planes were electronically "switched"
in mid-air, remotely flown with their beacons turned off, to simply disappear into the South
Atlantic Ocean once their fuel ran out, while replaced by a fuel tanker in one case, to
create a bigger fireball upon impact in Manhattan, or a much smaller plane to penetrate into
the Pentagon.
The public ought to demand a thorough investigation resulting in concrete answers and
prosecutions.
Some of the alleged hijackers were actually alive after the event and outraged to have had
their identities stolen and misused.
@Biff Great article, but Craig is taking the easy way out on 9/11. Of course, the Arabs
were Sunnis, but were bit players only, and no way was 9/11 Saudi led.
Everyone keeps dancing around it: Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani
was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. Who profits from
Peace? Who does not?
The killing of Soleimani, while a tragic even with far reaching consequences, is just
an illustration of the general rule: MIC does not profit from peace. And MIC dominates
any national security state, into which the USA was transformed by the technological
revolution on computers and communications, as well as the events of 9/11.
The USA government can be viewed as just a public relations center for MIC. That's why
Trump/Pompeo/Esper/Pence gang position themselves as rabid neocons, which means MIC
lobbyists in order to hold their respective positions. There is no way out of this
situation. This is a classic Catch 22 trap.
The fact that a couple of them are also "Rapture" obsessed religious bigots means that
the principle of separation of church and state does no matter when MIC interests are
involved.
The health of MIC requires maintaining an inflated defense budget at all costs. Which,
in turn, drives foreign wars and the drive to capture other nations' resources to
compensate for MIC appetite. The drive which is of course closely allied with Wall Street
interests (disaster capitalism.)
In such conditions fake "imminent threat" assassinations necessarily start happening.
Although the personality of Pompeo and the fact that he is a big friend of the current
head of Mossad probably played some role.
It's really funny that Trump (probably with the help of his "reference group," which
includes Adelson and Kushner), managed to appoint as the top US diplomat a person who was
trained as a mechanic engineer and specialized as a tank repair mechanic. And who was a
long-time military contractor. So it is quite natural that he represents interests of
MIC.
IMHO under Trump/Pompeo/Esper trio some kind of additional skirmishes with Iran are a
real possibility: they are necessary to maintain the current inflated level of defense
spending.
State of the US infrastructure, the actual level of unemployment (U6 is ~7% which some
neolibs call full employment ;-), and the level of poverty of the bottom 33% of the USA
population be damned. Essentially the bottom 33% is the third world country within the
USA.
"If you make more than $15,000 (roughly the annual salary of a minimum-wage employee
working 40 hours per week), you earn more than 32.2% of Americans
The 894 people that earn more than $20 million make more than 99.99989% of
Americans, and are compensated a cumulative $37,009,979,568 per year. "
NYT posted editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton (nincompoop, Arkansas) lauding the murder of
Suleimani. This is one of the readers' comments:
Bill
Nova ScotiaJan. 10
Times Pick I don't understand how the USA can kill a military leader of a country we are not at war
with in a third country no less and claim it was legal. The resulting high-pressure in the
aftermath has left 63 Canadian citizens dead. Yes, at the hands of an Iranian missile - but
many of those dead were dual Iranian Canadians. The blood is not just on Iran's hands, it is
on the USA and on trump.
The United States has murdered one of Iran's top personalities who was officially visiting
a friendly country on a diplomatic mission.
The message of the assassination of Gasem Soleimani is the persistence of Washington in
the effort to keep the world's first energy region revolt and prevent any distension
between Iran and Saudi Arabia...
(...)Soleimani was a great strategist who achieved three notable victories in the last
seventeen years: He was one of the organizers of the armed resistance to the American
occupier in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, played a great role in the expulsion of the
Islamic State from Iraq and defeated then the jihadist conglomerate in Syria (Islamic
State, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, etc.) financed and supported by the CIA and the Gulf oil
monarchies. It was Soleimani who in 2015 convinced Vladimir Putin of the advisability of
helping the Syrian government militarily, which has ended up restoring its control of the
country by thwarting a new regime change operation that has resulted in another huge
slaughter.
(...)Since Friday, January 3, all commentators announced an Iranian response to this
"declaration of war" by Trump, or his generals, does not matter. It is forgotten that this
war has been a fact for many years. Historically it began with the coup d'etat against
Mossadeq, the Iranian prime minister who nationalized oil, and continued with the reaction
to the Khomeinist Revolution of 1979, which induced the West to provoke the bloody war
between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s with hundreds of thousands of dead.
(...)The unilateral withdrawal of the United States, in May 2018, from the nuclear
agreement reached with Iran, as well as the sanctions suffered by that country, the murders
of Iranian scientists and the attacks, sanctions and the financial and oil blockade that
suffocates the Iranian economy, form Part of that war. For 19 months, Iranian oil exports,
which in 2017 were 2.5 million barrels per day, have fallen to a few hundred thousand as a
result of Trump's sanctions.
(...)And in the meantime in Europe ...
On Sunday, January 5, 48 hours after the murder in Baghdad, the leaders of the three
main European powers, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johson, released their joint
statement. In it the murder of Soleimani is not even mentioned. "We have denounced the
recent attacks on coalition troops in Iraq and are deeply concerned about the negative role
played by Iran in the region, especially through the guards of the revolution and of the
al-Quds unit under the command of General Soleimani", says the statement. "We especially
call on Iran to refrain from more violence", it continues. In other personal statements
Johnson told Trump that Soleimani "posed a threat to all our interests" and that "we do not
regret his death". Macron expressed concern about the destabilizing role of the forces led
by the assassinated general and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stated that the General
"had left a trail of devastation and blood in the Middle East" and that "the European Union
had good reasons to have him on its list of terrorists". This statement prompted Tehran to
summon the German ambassador and censor him for his support of the "terrorist attack by the
United States". For its part, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der
Leyen, has held Iran alone responsible for escalating tensions in the Middle East and has
justified the murder as a reaction to the provocations suffered by the Americans in Iraq.
Once again the "European foreign policy" is portrayed.
It is in Germany, at the base of Ramstein, where the command and control point of
drone attacks by US forces is located. An anonymous German citizen has filed a complaint in
the town of Zweibrücken to be elucidated if the murder was piloted from Ramstein. Such
action being a violation of international law and German law, it has filed a complaint
"against all suspects of such crime in Germany and the United States." Those who still
believe in the European "rule of law" for international purposes, can hold on to this
symbolic gesture without the slightest future.
... He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in
Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr. It
appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for
Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his
hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's
Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was
responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out
there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that
supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were
(and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a
position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the
various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead
in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really
was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths
cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military
personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of
whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff
happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported
by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be
the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are
not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the
IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against
ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most
recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor
caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi
group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with
the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military.
Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump
threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US dating back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia
with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US
as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations
against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially
were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the
JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been
replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also
have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to
some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However,
when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It
really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
Barkley Rosser
JDM , January 10, 2020 12:32 pm
I think this quote is apropos in this situation: "It was worse than wrong. It was a
mistake."
Bert Schlitz , January 10, 2020 3:46 pm
They had a handshake agreement, which was why Solemiani wasn't under protection. The
Solemiani killed Americans stuff cracks me up. He was a military advisor for the Shia militia's
who were attacked by US forces during a unsanctioned war in 2003 .uh derp derp. There have been
many other generals that have committed "death of american" crimes that the Trump Admin seems
to love.
As my father used to say "homosexuals make great commie fighters"(homosexuals like Joe
McCarthy of Wisconsin agree lol). The zionists so badly want this war in the Trump
administration, but Trump doesn't have the guts to just invade like Iraq.
it appears i had a comment on this same post removed from Naked Capitalism
i asked "was his assassination due to the impeachment proceedings, and should the Democrats
in Congress be held responsible for the deaths on Ukrainian flight 752?"
sure, that's off the wall, but i still think it addresses a legitimate question i don't
think one can separate the personal situation a megalomaniac president like Trump finds himself
in from his behavior .i was a news junky back during the Iraq war era, & what i remember
most about the runup was that the big story in all the news mags the week before the war
started was that Neil Bush, George's son, had lost millions of depositor's money playing poker
in the back offices of Silverado Savings and Loan in Denver, and that you then could't find a
word about that story anywhere the next week cause George & Saddam had all the coverage .so
i have always felt that Bush might have pushed that war forward to take the media heat off his
kid
run75441 , January 10, 2020 5:38 pm
No surprise, when I preempt their article on healthcare with commentary; my comments
disappear. Get used to it when you can say more than they can.
well, here you go, Trump actually admitting to what i've been banned for suggesting via
Jonathan Chait:
Report: Trump Cited Impeachment Pressure to Kill Soleimani – Deep inside a long,
detailed Wall Street Journal
report about President Trump's foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: "Mr. Trump,
after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP
senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate,
associates said." This is a slightly stronger iteration of a fact the New York Timesreported
three days ago, to wit, "pointed out to one person who spoke to him on the phone last week that
he had been pressured to take a harder line on Iran by some Republican senators whose support
he needs now more than ever amid an impeachment battle."This would not mean Trump ordered the
strike entirely, or even primarily, in order to placate Senate Republicans. But it does
constitute an admission that domestic political considerations influenced his decision.
That would, of course, constitute a grave dereliction of duty. Trump is so cynical he wouldn't
even recognize that making foreign policy decisions influenced by impeachment is
the kind of thing he shouldn't say out loud. Of course, using his foreign policy authority for
domestic political gain is the offense Trump is being impeached for. It would be
characteristically Trumpian to compound the offense as part of his efforts to avoid
accountability for it. What kind of pressure could Trump have in mind? It seems highly doubtful
that he is worried 20 Republican senators would vote to remove him from office. He could be
concerned that one or two of them would defect, denying him the chance to present impeachment
as totally partisan (as he did following the House vote.) More plausibly, Trump might be
worried a handful of Republicans would join Democrats to allow testimony from witnesses, like
John Bolton, Trump has managed to block.
likbez , January 11, 2020 10:24 pm
@JDM, January 10, 2020 12:32 pm
I think this quote is apropos in this situation: "It was worse than wrong. It was a
mistake."
This is a very deep observation. Thank you. BTW the original quote is attributed to
Talleyrand and is more biting:
C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.
It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.
Reaction to the 1804 drumhead trial and execution of Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of
Enghien, on orders of Napoleon. Actually said by either Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe,
legislative deputy from Meurthe (according to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations) or
Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's chief of police (according to John Bartlett, Familiar
Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), http://www.bartleby.com/100/758.1.html ).
Rephrasing Kissinger: " Assassination is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of
one".
"... What no one is mentioning is: the US airstrikes on Iraqi military bases, and Soleimani's murder contributed greatly to the hair trigger response of Iran's air defense forces. If Washington did not turn the heat up on both Iraq and Iran there would have been no need for Iran's retaliation, and thus the level of Iran's domestic defense forces would not have been so nervous as to pull the trigger downing the airliner. ..."
"... Former CIA high-ranking official accidentally reveals the type of the false flag operation that the US imperialists will orchestrate to start a war with Iran https://failedevolution.blogspot.com/2020/01/former-cia-high-ranking-official.html ..."
"... It reminds me too much of MH-17, which was not hit with a BUK but with bullets. Iran should have closed its airspace because such tricks are to be expected, irrespective of the cause of the current accident. ..."
When the Pentagon confirmed the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, U.S.
President Donald Trump took to social media to post a single image of the American flag to the
adulation of his followers. Unfortunately, most Americans are ignorant of the other flag
synonymous with U.S. foreign policy, that of the 'false flag' utilized to deceive the public
and stir up support for endless war abroad. While the chicken hawk defenders of Trump's
reckless decision to murder one of the biggest contributors in the defeat of ISIS salivated
over possible war with Iran, their appetite was spoiled by Tehran's retaliatory precision
strikes of two U.S. bases in Iraq that deliberately avoided casualties while in accordance with
the Islamic Republic's right to self defense under Article 51 of the United Nations charter.
The reprisal successfully deescalated the crisis but sent a clear message Iran was willing to
stand up to the U.S. with the backing of Russia and China, while Washington underestimated
Tehran which forewarned the Iraqi government of its impending counterattack so U.S. personnel
could evacuate.
In the hours following the ballistic missile strikes, reports came in that a Boeing 737
international passenger flight scheduled from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine had crashed shortly after
takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 passengers and flight crew on
board. Initial video of the crash of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) showed
that the aircraft was already in flames while descending to the ground, leading to speculation
it was shot down amid the heightened political crisis between Iran and Washington. In the days
following, a second obscure video surfaced which only increased this suspicion. Meanwhile,
Western governments quickly concluded that an anti-aircraft surface-to-air missile brought
PS752 down and were eager to point the finger at Iran before any formal investigation. Many
people, including this author, were admittedly skeptical as to how a plane taking off from
Tehran could have been mistaken five hours after the strikes in Iraq.
Nevertheless, those with reservations turned out to be wrong when days later the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) came clean that its aerospace forces made a "human error" and
accidentally shot the passenger plane down after mistaking it for a incoming cruise missile
when it flew close to a military base during a heightened state of alert in anticipation of
U.S. attack. Many have noted that Iran's honorable decision to take responsibility for the
catastrophe is in sharp contrast with Washington's response in 1988 when the U.S. Navy shot
down Iran Air Flight 655 scheduled from Tehran to Dubai over the Strait of Hormuz in the
Persian Gulf, killing all 290 occupants, after failing to cover it up. Just a month later, Vice
President George H.W. Bush would notoriously state he would " never apologize for the United
States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are ." Although he was not directly
referring to the incident, one can only imagine what the reaction would be if Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani were to say the same weeks after shooting down the Ukrainian plane, let alone an
American one. Predictably, Tehran's transparency has gone mostly unappreciated while the Trump
administration is already trying to use the disaster to further demonize Iran.
Oddly enough, Ukrainian International Airlines is partly owned by the infamous
Ukrainian-Israeli oligarch, politician and energy tycoon Igor Kolomoisky, who was notably one
of the biggest financiers of the anti-Russian, pro-EU coup d'etat which overthrew the
democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. Kolomoisky is also a principal
backer of current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky whose dubious phone call with Trump
resulted in the 45th U.S. president's impeachment last month. In another astounding
coincidence, Kolomoisky's Privat Group is believed to control Burisma Holdings, the
Cypress-based company whose executive board 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden's son Hunter
was appointed to following the Maidan junta. The former Vice President admitted that he bribed
Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor who was looking into his son's corruption by threatening
to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees.
Kolomoisky, AKA "the Chameleon", is one of the wealthiest people in the ex-Soviet country
and was formerly appointed as governor of an administrative region bordering Donbass in eastern
Ukraine following the 2014 putsch. He has also funded a battalion of volunteer neo-Nazi
mercenaries fighting alongside the Ukrainian army in the War in Donbass against
Russian-speaking separatists which the military aid temporarily withheld by the Trump
administration that was disputably contingent upon an investigation of Biden and his son goes
to. In 2014, another infamous plane shootdown made international headlines when Malaysian
Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) scheduled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over the
breakaway Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and
crew.
From the get-go, the Obama administration was adamant that the missile which shot down the
Boeing 777 came from separatist rebel territory. However, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin
Mohamad denounced the charges brought against the Russian and Ukrainian nationals indicted in
the NATO-led investigation, dismissing the entire probe as a politically motivated effort
predetermined to scapegoat Moscow and exclude Malaysian participation in the inquiry from the
very beginning. Mohamad is featured in the excellent documentaryMH17: Call for Justice
made by a team of independent journalists which contests the NATO-scripted narrative and
reveals that the Buk missile was more likely launched from Ukrainian Army-controlled territory
than the DPR. One of Kolomoisky's hired guns could also have been responsible.
Shamefully, Iran's admission of guilt in the PS752 downing is already being used by
establishment propagandists to discredit skeptics and conflated with similar contested past
events like MH17 in order to intimidate dissenting voices from speaking up in the future. The
Bellingcat 'investigative journalism' collective which made its name incriminating Moscow for
the MH17 tragedy are the principle offenders. Bellingcat bills itself as an 'independent'
citizen journalism group even though its founder Eliot Higgins is employed by the Atlantic
Council think tank which receives funding from NATO, the U.S. State Department, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), George Soros' Open Society Foundation NGO, and numerous other
regime change factories. Despite its enormous conflict of interest, Bellingcat remains highly
cited by corporate media as a supposedly reputable source. At the outset, nearly everything
about the PS752 tragedy gave one déjà vu of the MH17 disaster, including the rush
to judgement by Western governments, so it was only natural for many to distrust the official
narrative until more facts came out.
None of this changes that the use of commercial passenger jets as false flag targets for
U.S. national security subterfuge is a verifiable historical fact, not a 'conspiracy theory.'
In 1997, the U.S. National Archives declassified a 1962 memo proposed by the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and Department of Defense for then-Secretary of State Robert McNamara entitled
" Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba ." The document outlined a series
of 'false flag' terrorist attacks, codenamed Operation Northwoods, to be carried out on a range
of targets and blamed on the Cuban government to give grounds for an invasion of Havana in
order to depose Fidel Castro. These scenarios included targets within the U.S., in particular
Miami, Florida, which had become a haven of right-wing émigrés and defectors
following the Cuban Revolution. In addition to the sinking of a Cuban refugee boat, one
Northwoods plan included the staging of attacks on a civilian jet airliner and a U.S. Air Force
plane to be pinned on Castro's government:
"8. It is possible to create and incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban
aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States
to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the
flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a
holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a
non-scheduled flight.
9. It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban
MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack."
Although Operation Northwoods was rejected by then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy which many
believe was a factor in his subsequent assassination, Cuban exiles with the support of U.S.
intelligence would later be implicated in such an attack the following decade with the bombing
of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 in 1976 which killed all 73 passengers and crew on board. In
2005, documents released by the
National Security Archive showed that the CIA under then-director George H.W. Bush had advanced
knowledge of the plans of a Dominican Republic-based Cuban exile terrorist organization, the
Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU), at the direction of former CIA
operative Luis Posada Carriles to blow up the airliner. The U.S. later refused to extradite
Carriles to Cuba to face charges and although he never admitted to masterminding the bombing of
the jet, he publicly confessed to other attacks on tourist hotels in Cuba during the 1990s and
was later arrested in 2000 for attempting to blow up an auditorium in Panama trying to
assassinate Castro.
In 1962, the planners of Operation Northwoods concluded that such deceptive operations would
shift U.S. public opinion unanimously against Cuba.
"World opinion and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the
international image of Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and
unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."
The same talking points are used by the U.S. government to demonize Iran today. Initially,
some Western intelligence sources also
concluded that it was a malfunction or overheated engine that brought PS752 down in
corroboration with the Iranian government's original explanation until the narrative abruptly
shifted the following day. That they were so quick to hold Iran accountable without any
investigation gave the apparent likelihood that PS752 could have fallen prey to a
Northwoods-style false flag operation designed to further isolate Iran and defame its leaders
after they took precautions to avoid U.S. casualties in their retaliatory strikes for the
killing of Soleimani. Maintaining the image of Iran as a nefarious regime is crucial in
justifying hawkish U.S. policies toward the country and Iran's noted restraint in its
retaliation put a dent in that impression, so many were suspicious and rightly so.
It was also entirely plausible that U.S. special operations planners could have consulted
the Northwoods playbook replacing Cuba with Iran and the right-wing gusanos who were to assist
the staged attacks in Miami with the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahedin e-Khalq
(MEK/People's Mujahedin of Iran) to do the same in Tehran. In July of last year, Trump's
personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani gave a paid speech at the
cult-like group's compound in Albania where he not only referred to the group as Iran's
"government-in-exile" but stated
the U.S's explicit intentions to use them for regime change in Iran. The MEK enjoys high level
contacts in the Trump administration and the group was elated at his decision to murder
Soleimani in Baghdad.
From 1997 until 2012, the MEK was on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations
until it was removed by the Obama administration after its expulsion from Iraq in order to
relocate the group to fortified bases in Albania and the NATO protectorate of Kosovo. The
latter disputed territory is a perfect fit for the rebranded group having been founded by
another deregistered foreign terrorist organization, the al-Qaeda linked Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA), whose leader, Hashim Thaçi, presides over the partially-recognized state. The MEK
are no longer designated as such despite the State Department's own account of its
bloody history:
"During the 1970s, the MEK staged terrorist attacks inside Iran to destabilize and
embarrass the Shah's regime; the group killed several US military personnel and civilians
working on defense projects in Tehran. The group also supported the takeover in 1979 of the
US Embassy in Tehran. In April 1992 the MEK carried out attacks on Iranian embassies in 13
different countries, demonstrating the group's ability to mount large-scale operations
overseas."
Declassified documents revealing the sinister plans in Operation Northwoods which shockingly
made it all the way to the desk of the president of the United States and the foreknowledge of
Cubana Airlines Flight 455 are just two examples of solid proof that false flag attacks against
civilian passenger planes are a part of the Pentagon's modus operandi as disclosed in its own
archives and there is no reason to believe that such practices have been discontinued. That the
U.S. is still cozy with "former" terror groups like MEK seeking to repatriate is good reason to
believe its use of militant exiles for covert operations like those from Havana has not been
retired. If there were jumps to conclusions that proven serial liars could be looking for an
excuse to stage an attack to lay the blame on Iran, it is only because the distinct probability
was overwhelming. Even so, a stopped clock strikes the right time twice per day and that is
all Iran's acknowledgment of its liability proves -- that even the world's most
unreliable and criminal sources in Washington and Langley can be accurate sometimes
What no one is mentioning is: the US airstrikes on Iraqi military bases, and Soleimani's
murder contributed greatly to the hair trigger response of Iran's air defense forces. If
Washington did not turn the heat up on both Iraq and Iran there would have been no need for
Iran's retaliation, and thus the level of Iran's domestic defense forces would not have been
so nervous as to pull the trigger downing the airliner.
But, if's a huge word.
Israel has had control of Iran's Russian middle systems for years. Russia gave them the
codes.
I think Israel blew up the aircraft. I can't find a link but I heard a huge number of
Soleimani loyalists were arrested in Iran. Someone should have a link to that from Twitter or
somewhere.
I think that there was some kind of collaboration between Khamenei, Israel and the US to
remove Soleimani who had designs on a coup.
I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.
I also don't know who was on that plane. So it's unclear if it was good or bad it was
destroyed. Who knows who those 176 dual Iranian Nationals were.
I just know that if Israel had control of those missile units and it would embarrass Iran
for that to be revealed it makes sense for Iran to claim the lesser of two deep shames.
Particularly if there has been some kind of tacit acceptance of a status as a vassal state
to either the US or Israel behind the scenes to preserve the regime.
Perhaps the MEK or a different vassal ruler who is really crypto Jewish will be appointed
in Solemeinis place, and Iran will hence offer a symbolic enemy to justify the continuation
of the military industrial complex in both Israel and the US.
Even a blind squirrel, even a broken clock twice a day.. The Empire's statements and blind
accusations could have been for any tragedy in a country they were psyopsing, only a matter
of chance for them to be right at some time. In any case, it wasn't intentional on Iran's
part.
Only if accidental means a joint Russian/Iranian hit on a Ukrainian plane carrying fleeing
cia/mossad agents.
This whole situation has once again displayed how easy it is for the zio-media to control
what we see and hear and believe. Disturbingly, that means that things like metoo and
"believe all women" are operations too.
@the grand wazoo I wouldn't be surprised it the FDR shows that the plane strayed off its
registered Flightpath and was involved in a covert recon mission that went bad.
It reminds me too much of MH-17, which was not hit with a BUK but with bullets. Iran should have closed its airspace
because such tricks are to be expected, irrespective of the cause of the current accident. There is no immediate reason
for Iranians to fly to Ukraine, or anywhere else. It may sound silly but flying is still a special and dangerous thing and
should not be taken for granted.
For someone who doesn't watch television or read Iranian newspapers it was only reported
on Twitter and then repeated by PressTV and others on internet. Which parts of the story are
real?
Of course, it was a huge and most regrettable mistake. Doubtless, the Iranians will
compensate the victims for what that is worth. Most of the passengers were Iranians. I
suspect that many of the "Canadians" Trudeau is on about are of Iranian descent. They would
certainly be considered to be Iranians in Iran.
The series of coincidences highlighted in this article are remarkable. It has
synchronicity splashed all over it.
I worked at Tehran airport for some years prior to the Revolution. After the Revolution, I
volunteered to return on behalf of Raytheon (of all companies) to get some money owing. No
one else was prepared to go there. Iran Air personnel were delighted to meet me again and
they promptly paid the bill. I took a holiday to the Caspian with my ex-girlfriend.
A further piece of synchronicity is that I am currently visiting Kiev. The world is a
truly incestuous place.
Set aside the beatup of two operations that neither the CIA or any American agency carried
out the author has apparently failed to see the obvious. That is that the Iranians had no
possibility of covering up the missile strike. Or did he imagine that everyone who might tell
the truth could be kept permanently separated from plane parts and bodies which would have
shown unmistakeable and undeniable evidences of the strike.
"... The 16-month study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) called Iran's Networks of Influence claims that the networks, including Shia militias fighting in what it says is a "grey zone", for instance, are something Iran heavily relies on, even to a greater extent than conventional military forces. ..."
"... Although the report concedes that overall military balance is still in favor of the US and allies, the balance of effective forces has shifted towards Iran and is currently in the Islamic Republic's favour. The study goes on to claim that "Iran is fighting and winning wars 'fought amongst the people', not wars between states". ..."
"... The study has also come up with a number of calculations: the extraterritorial al-Quds force and various militias reportedly amount to 200,000 fighters. Meanwhile, the total cost of Iran's activities in Iraq and Yemen was $16 billion, and Lebanon's Hezbollah reportedly receives $700 million in grants from the Islamic Republic. ..."
A fresh in-depth study of Iran's military capabilities and balance of power in the embattled
Middle East has assumed that regional wars are being waged on two layers - between states and
in a so-called "grey zone", where no conventional force can counterbalance Iran's sovereign
dominance. As one of the most detailed assessments of Iran's military strategy suggests, the
Islamic Republic's "third party capability" has becomes Tehran's most prominent weapon of
choice.
The 16-month study by the International
Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) called Iran's Networks of Influence claims that the
networks, including Shia militias fighting in what it says is a "grey zone", for instance, are
something Iran heavily relies on, even to a greater extent than conventional military
forces.
The network is said to be operating differently in most countries, having been designed by
Tehran as a key means of countering regional instability and international pressure alike, with
the policy "having consistently delivered Iran advantage without the cost or risk of direct
confrontation with adversaries".
Although the report concedes that overall military balance is still in favor of the US and
allies, the balance of effective forces has shifted towards Iran and is currently in the
Islamic Republic's favour. The study goes on to claim that "Iran is fighting and winning wars
'fought amongst the people', not wars between states".
The report details at length the balance of power in the region painting it as "complex and
congested battle spaces involving no rule of law or accountability, low visibility and
multiple players who represent a mosaic of local and regional interests".
The study has also come up with a number of calculations: the extraterritorial al-Quds force
and various militias reportedly amount to 200,000 fighters. Meanwhile, the total cost of Iran's
activities in Iraq and Yemen was $16 billion, and Lebanon's Hezbollah reportedly receives $700
million in grants from the Islamic Republic.
The report comes as Iran continues to battle US-imposed economic sanctions, which closely
followed Washington's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in
May 2018.
On 8 May, the first anniversary of the move, Tehran announced that it would start
scrapping its nuclear obligations stipulated by the JCPOA every 60 days unless European
signatories did their best to save the agreement, safeguarding Iran's interests amid
Washington's re-imposed sanctions.
"... What i find truly amazing is that American Zionists still believe crushing Iran is easy enough. Israel, with 8 million jews stuffed in a small country, is nothing more than a carrier battle group marooned on land ..."
The tramp & nutNyahoo machismo show continues to be fun to watch. Both
show off their penis worms as they arrogantly claim they can crush iran. Both the usa and
israel keep banging on the doors and walls of their pissed-off neighbors' houses. That
eventually gets you murdered whether in baltimore or baghdad.
A crushable iran is true if and only if they can mount a full-on nuclear war on Iran.
But such horrendous cheating means all bets are off, and iran's allies will provide the
nukes required to melt down the American homeland too. Nobody, not even Russia and china,
can afford to stay in the sidelines in a nuclear war in the 2020s.
What i find truly amazing is that American Zionists still believe crushing Iran is easy
enough. Israel, with 8 million jews stuffed in a small country, is nothing more than a
carrier battle group marooned on land. Sitting ducks, with nice armor, nukes and all, are
... still sitting ducks. nutNyahoo should ask his technical crew just how few megatons are
needed, or just a few thousand modern missiles are required to transform sitting ducks into
nicely roasted peking ducks.
So a conventional war it is. The usa and israel has exactly zero, zilch and nada chances
of winning a war with iran. The usa keeps forgetting that it is a dying empire with dying
funding value and mental resources. Just like israel which oddly thinks dozens of f-35s
will give it immunity through air superiority. Proof of this fact that iran will win comes
from simply asking american and israeli war experts to go on cnn or the washington post on
how they intend to win a war with iran.
Im sure these expert bloviators will say that it is as easy as winning a naval war
against china, which is capable of launching only 3 new warships in a week. Or an even
easier time against russia, which can launch only a few thousand hypersonic nuke missiles
because its GDP is no bigger than that of texas.
The Pentagon is super slow to adapt and learn. If you understand that
bureaucracy is an ancient organizational structure and that the organizational culture of
the Pentagon is pathologically dysfunctional you could have predicted the moral and
financial bankruptcy of America 15-20 years ago. The "Why?", finally made sense when I
discovered what a sociopath was.
It's about time the US practices what it preachs and start behaving like a normal
country instead of a spoiled narcissistic brat. see more
US military & strategic thought became lazy during the
late days of the Cold War. It mirrored the decline & fall of the foundations of its
opponent, USSR. Post-Cold War, US military & strategic thinking flushed into the sewer.
It was all about maintaining the military as some sort of a social policy jobs program,
operating legacy tech as the mission. And then came the "world-improvers" -- beginning w
the Clinton Admin -- who worked to turn the world into a global "urban renewal" project;
meaning to mirror the success US Big Govt showed in the slums of American cities from sea
to sea. The past 30 yrs of US strategic thinking and related governance truly disgusts me.
see more
Soviet union fall had very different reasons and Soviet military thought was
doing quite well then along with military. Current russian military wonders is completion
of what was started then and not finished earlier because of the disintegration of the
Soviet state. The soviet fall however is extremely regrettable because there was a new way how things can
be done that Soviet union was showing to the world. USA fall long term is a very good thing
because USA is a paragon of how things should be done the old way and basically a huge
parasite. Many negative trends that are afflicting the world were started by USA. Unlimited
individualism and consumerism would be a couple of those. see more
Why does almost every person on Earth feel the need to force others to
bend the knee to their beliefs?
Religious beliefs are what one thinks should be done to promote survival in an
afterlife, political beliefs are what one thinks should be done to promote survival in this
world.
The world would be a far better, more civilized, of world if such beliefs were only
shared on a voluntary basis.
As for individualism, I would rather be free than live in a modern day egalitarian
hunter-gatherer tribe run by modern day psychopathic alpha-males.
That is certainly not a recipe for success. see more
It also mirrors the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It was Emperor
Augustus that decided the costs to further expand the Empire were too great after losing
one (or two?) legions against the Germanic tribes.
The US has reached its greatest extent. We are living through it. The US didn't go forward
into war with Iran twice. The odds of humanity surviving this immense turn of history is
looking better. see more
Frankly, nothing in common. I read this comparison all the
time.
Yes, Augustus decided not to continue along with expansion into Germany after losing 3
Varus legions due to ambush.
But he famously noted that it does not worth to go fishing with golden hook. Basically
speaking, Germany was not worth fighting for. Poor and remote it had nothing to offer. Just
a drain on resources. As long as conquest was moving smoothly it was ok, but after losses
were inflicted Augustus decided it was not worth it.
Roman expansion under augustus was carried mostly to consolidate previous conquests and
create strategical debth along core and strategical provinces also creating linkage.
When enemy far stronger than germans posed resources which made the whole conquest worthy
no amount of resistance saved Dacians and Parthia also almost died under Trajan attack.
Roman policies were adequate and wise. Treaties were respected, allies supported and
benefited. Empire was build around Mediterranean creating good communication and routes
considering obviously limits of that day technology.
Rome did not behave like crazy and did not deliver threats that she could not follow
through. When war was decided upon thorough preparations were taken. Political goals were
achieved. Wars were won. When Adrian considered that empire was overextended in Parthis, he
simply abandoned all conquered territories. Just like that.
Logical calm thinking USA,is not capable of. Rome truly based upon superior military and
diplomacy dominance lasted many centuries. USA few decades. One hit wonder, lucky fool I
would call it. see more
Yes, this is somewhat puzzling. As I said, let's wait and see where it all
develops to, but as Twisted Genius succinctly observed -- Iran now controls tempo because she
has conventional superiority. Anyone who has precision-guided, stand off weaponry in good
numbers will be on top. see more
The old submarine saying is, "There are two kinds of ships; submarines, and
targets." . The new version for land ops is, "There are two kinds of land-based military assets;
precision-guided missiles, and targets." (And per the photos, those Iranian missiles were
quite precise; bulls-eyes.) . Iran and its missiles demonstrated that the entire strategic foundation for US mil presence
in the Middle East is now obsolete. Everything the US would ever want to do there is now
subject to Iran's version of "steel rain." Every runway, hangar, aircraft parking area;
every supply depot or warehouse; every loading pier, fuel site, naval pier. Everything...
is a target. And really... there's no amount of US "airpower" and "tech" than can mitigate
the Iran missile threat. . Meanwhile, related thinking... Iran's true strategic interest is NOT fighting a near-term
war w/ USA. Iran wants US to exit Middle East; and Iran wants to be able to pursue its
nuclear program. Soleimani or no, Iran appears to have its eyeballs fixed on the long-term
goals. see more
The new version for land ops is, "There are two kinds of land-based military assets;
precision-guided missiles, and targets."
Exactly, and Iran has long-range TLAMs in who knows what numbers, That, in its turn,
brings about the next issue of range for Iranian indigenous anti-ship missiles. Not, of
course, to mention the fact of only select people knowing if Russia transferred P-800 Onyx
to Iran She certainly did it for Syria. If that weapon is there--the Persian Gulf and
Hormuz Strait will be shut completely closed and will push out CBGs far into the Indian
Ocean. see more
It is simply pathetic after decades of talking non stop about developments of
anti missiles and huge amounts wasted and nobody is responsible. This is the way capitalism
works.profits is everything and outcomes secondary. Thankfully russia has got soviet
foundation and things so far are working well. I come to think that in our times no serious
industrial processes should be allowed to stay in private hands. Only services and so.e
other simpler stuff under heavy state control to ensure quality. Otherwise profit
orientation will eventually destroy everything like with Boeing.
I know, i already wrote a full scale war scenario in one of
the comments. Iran can destroy all US bases in 2000 km range. But this does not mean that
it can not be bombed back to the stone age, if the US really wishes so. The problem for the
US is the high cost as well as the high debt levels, but it does have the technical
capability to do that after 2 - 3 years of bombing.
Also low yield tactical nukes are designed to lower the treshold of the use of nukes in
otherwise conventional war, producing less international outrage than the megaton city
buster bombs. Why do you think the US is developing them again? Because they would want to
use them in conventional conflicts.
Here btw is Yurasumy, he also says that the US can technically bomb Iran back to the
stone age, but the cost will be too high.
Again--what's the plan and what's the price? Iran HAS Russia's ISR on her side in case
of such SEAD.
Does the United States want to risk lives of thousands of its personnel (not
to speak of expensive equipment) in Qatar, KSA, Iraq. Does Israel want to "get it"?
There
are numbers which describe such an operation (it was. most likely, already planned as
contingency). Immediate question: when was the last time USAF operated in REAL dense ECM
and ECCM environment? I do not count some brushes with minimal EW in Syria.
Russia there
uses only minimally required option, for now. Iran has a truck load EW systems, including
some funny Russian toys which allowed Iran to take control of US UAVs, as an example. As I
say, this is not Iraq and by a gigantic margin. see more
I already said that debt levels do not allow it and the price
would be too high, but yes, the US does have the military capability to destroy Iran. By
conventional means. It is another question that it is not in good fiscal shape. Anyway, US
ballistic missiles (non nuclear armed) will be hard to stop by EW. Even if Iran gets rid of
50 % of incoming TLAMs, the US will keep sending more and more until most infrastructure,
bridges, oil refineries, power plants, factories, ports etc. are destroyed. This is why i
said it would take 2 - 3 years. see more
but yes, the US does have the military capability to destroy Iran. By conventional
means
That is the whole point: NO, it doesn't. Unless US goes into full mobilization mode and
addresses ALL (plus a million more not listed) requirements for such a war which I listed
in the post. Well, that or nukes. see
more
Yurasumy is a pretty good analist and he thinks that they can. I do not
see it for the US being too hard to produce more TLAMS, ICBMs and IRBMs (conventional) to
sustain the effort for 2 years, by that time most iranian infrastructure will be destroyed.
If the fiscal situation allowes it. see more
I don't know who Yarasumy is and what is his background, but unlike him I
actually write books, including on modern warfare. This is not to show off, but I am sure I
can make basic calculations. This is not to mention the fact that even Sivkov agrees with
my points and Sivkov, unlike Yarsumy, graduated Popov's VVMURE, served at subs, then
graduated Kuznetsov Academy, then Academy of the General Staff and served in Main
Operational Directorate (GOU) until retiring in the rank of Captain 1st Rank from the
billet of Combat Planning group. So, I would rather stick to my opinion.
see more
Why do you think that the US can not destroy Iran with IRBMs? Actually this
is their strategy vs China. If they think its viable vs China, then it should be viable vs
Iran too. see more
Because unlike the US, Russia's Air Defenses have a rather
very impressive history of shifting the balance in wars in favor of those who have them,
when used properly. But then I can quote for you a high ranking intelligence officer:
A friend of mine who has expertise in these matters wrote me:
Any air defense engineer with a securityclearance that isn't lying through his teeth
will admit that Russia'sair defense technology surpassed us in the 1950's and we've never
been able to catch up. The systems thy have in place surrounding Moscow make our Patriot
3's look like fucking nerf guns.
Mathematics is NOT there for the United States for a real combined operations war of
scale with Iran. Unless US political class really wants to see people with pitch-forks.
see more
"Mathematics is not there..." . Neither is the industrial base, including supply lines. Not the mines, mills, factories to
produce any significant levels of warfighting materiel such as we're talking about here.
Not the workforce, either. Meanwhile, where are the basic designs for these weps? The years
of lab work, bench tests, pilot specimens & prototypes, the development pipeline? The
contractors to build them? the Tier 2, 3, 4 suppliers? Where are the universities that
train such people as are needed? Where is the political will? Where is the government
coordination? Where is the money? Indeed, every Democrat and probably half the Republicans
who run for office campaign on controlling military spending; not that USA gets all that
much benefit from the current $800 billion per year. see more
You see, here is the difference--I can calculate approximate required force
for that but I don't want to. It is Friday. You can get some basic intro into operational
theory (and even into Salvo Equations) in my latest book. Granted, my publisher fought me
tooth and nail to remove as much match as possible. But I'll give you a hint--appearance of
S-500 on any theater of operations effectively closes it off effectively for any missile or
aircraft operations when deployed in echeloned (multi-layer) AD. see more
"... Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living. ..."
"... So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor. ..."
My comment @342 should have read: "The petrodollar is the way in which the US gets the
rest of the world to fund its wars,"
---------
Your comment about capitalist accumulation doesn't hold (as a motivator for the US) when
we have a capitalist monopolist situation. Rate of profit is not about growth (of real
goods); it is about reducing competition and scarcity. When you are the monopolist you can
charge what you like but profit becomes meaningless - the monopolist power comes from the
control of resources - the monopolistic capitalist becomes a ruler/monarch. You no longer
need ever-increasing customers so you can dispense with them if you so chose (by reducing the
population). One bottle of water is far more valuable and a lot less trouble to produce that
100 millions bottles of water. There is no point in AI to provide for the needs of "the
many"; AI becomes a means to dispense with "the many" altogether.
Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free
or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living.
So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of
retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's
capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor.
"... We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce any evidence of "imminent" plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. ..."
"... As Sergey Lavrov and President Putin have stated for a long time (and long before President Trump came along), the USA is 'agreement incapable'. However, now you have to wonder if any country really trusts any agreement they will make with the USA. Without trust on any level, cooperation/trade treaties and so on on are impossible or eminently disposable, i.e., not worth the paper upon which they are written. ..."
"... 603 Americans killed in Iraq, he says Trump supporters claim, but we had millions of Iraqi's, Syrians, Libyans and others killed or their lives uprooted by Bush and Obama and company – yet they were not assassinated. ..."
"... NO. Shockingly bad decision; you can just manage to glimpse around the edges of the war propaganda the embarrassment and backpedaling for having willingly stepped into such a gigantic steaming pile of excrement. The parade of smooth-faced liars on the MSM asserting that the US is now safer (the "war is peace" crowd) is sickening. Some even have the gall to assert that the enormous crowds in Iran are forced to attend by the repressive regime. Of course, there's no evidence of a provocation and they'll never produce any. ..."
"... I find it interesting that Pompeo was "disappointed" – what did he think would happen? For a Secretary of State, he's obviously extremely out of touch with the rest of the world if he didn't have some realistic idea of how this would go down. ..."
"... One other glaring omission from the article – the only reason there was a US military contractor in Iraq available to be killed in the first place is due to the illegal war based on false premises launched almost two decades ago by the US, which continues to occupy the country to this day. ..."
"... Pretty clear who the terrorists are on this case. ..."
"... Fascinating developments on this issue today. Pompeo admits that nothing was "imminent." Given the very specific definitions of Imminence that draw red lines between what is or is not legal in international law, this could get big very quickly. ..."
"... War hawks dressed in red or blue can become mercenaries and create Go Fund Me drives to protect their investments and any particular country which they have a personal affinity or citizenship. ..."
"... Lest we forget: "War is a racket." ..."
"... How does this meet the internationally recognized legal requirement of "imminent" danger to human life required to kill a political or military leader outside of a declared war? All public statements by the U.S. political and military leadership point to a retaliatory killing, at best, with a vague overlay of preemptive action. ..."
"... If you agree that the "Bethlehem Doctrine" has never been recognized by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, or the legislatures of the three rogue states who have adopted it, the assassination of Suleimani appears to have been a murder. ..."
"... "I cross-checked a Pentagon casualty database with obituaries and not 1 of the 9 American servicemen killed fighting in Iraq since 2011 died at the hands of militias backed by Suleimani. His assassination was about revenge and provocation, not self-defense." ..."
"... The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally stated. ..."
"... For some "exceptional" reason we don't recognize international law! We are the terrorists not them. ..."
Can The US Assassination Of Qassem Soleimani Be Justified? Posted on
January 10, 2020 by Yves Smith Yves here. Even though the
angst over "what next" with the US/Iran confrontation has fallen a bit, there is still a
depressingly significant amount of mis- and dis-information about the Soleimani assassination.
This post is a nice high level treatment that might be a good candidate for circulating among
friends and colleagues who've gotten a hefty dose of MSM oversimplifications and social media
sloganeering.
Update 6:50 AM: Due to the hour, I neglected to add a quibble, and readers jumped on the
issue in comments. First, it has not been established who launched the attack that killed a the
US contractor. The US quickly asserted it was Kat'ib Hezbollah, but there were plenty of groups
in the area that had arguably better motives, plus Kat'ib Hezbollah has denied it made the
strike. Second, Kat'ib Hezbollah is an Iraqi military unit.
By Barkley Rosser, Professor of Economics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia. Originally published at EconoSpeak
We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce
any evidence of "imminent" plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have
made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. The public statements by
administration figures have cited such things as the 1979 hostage crisis, the already dead
contractor, and, oh, the need to "reestablish deterrence" after Trump did not follow through on
previous threats he made. None of this looks remotely like "imminent plans," not to mention
that the Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a
reply to a Saudi peace proposal. What a threatening imminent plan!
As it is, despite the apparent lack of "imminent plans" to kill Americans, much of the
supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters (with bragging about
it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding website) involves charges that
Soleimani was "the world's Number One terrorist" and was personally responsible for killing 603
Americans in Iraq. Even as many commentators have noted the lack of any "imminent plans,"
pretty much all American ones have prefaced these questions with assertions that Soleimani was
unquestionable "evil" and "bad" and a generally no good guy who deserved to be offed, if not
right at this time and in this way. He was the central mastermind and boss of a massive
international terror network that obeyed his orders and key to Iran's reputed position as "the
Number One state supporter of terrorism," with Soleimani the key to all of that.
Of course, in Iran it turns out that Soleimani was highly respected, even as many oppose the
hawkish policies he was part of. He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh
in Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr.
It appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for
Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his
hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's
Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was
responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out
there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that
supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were
(and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a
position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the
various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead
in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really
was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths
cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military
personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of
whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff
happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported
by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be
the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are
not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the
IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against
ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most
recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor
caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi
group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with
the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military.
Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump
threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US datinrg back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia
with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians.
Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US
as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations
against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially
were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the
JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been
replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also
have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to
some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However,
when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It
really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
I guess I should note for the record that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime, much less
the IGRC and its former and new commander. It is theocratic and repressive, with many political
prisoners and a record of killing protestors. However, frankly, it is not clearly all that much
worse than quite a few of its neighboring regimes. While Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei was not
popularly elected, its president, Rouhani, was, who obeyed popular opinion in negotiating the
JCPOA that led to the relaxation of economic sanctions, with his power reduced when Trump
withdrew from the agreement. Its rival Saudi Arabia has no democracy at all, and is also a
religiously reactionary and repressive regime that uses bone saws on opponents and is
slaughtering civilians in a neighboring nation.
with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor caught on a base
where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi group.
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this, but it appears to be presented here as a fact.
Kat'b Hezbollah have denied responsibility for that rocket attack. To the best of my
knowledge, no proof whatsoever has been presented that it was not an attack by jihadis in the
area, whom Khat'b Hezbollah were fighting, or by others with an interest in stirring the
pot.
They are having a hard time coming up with public evidence to support any justification,
aren't they?
The latest was Pence's "keeping it secret to protect sources and methods" meme. Purely
speculating here, but I immediately thought, "Oh, Israeli intelligence." Gotta protect allies
in the region.
Debka, run by supposedly-former Israeli military intelligence, was enthusing about
upcoming joint operations against Iran and its allies a month or two ago. In contrast,
they've been uncharacteristically quiet, though supportive of the US, regarding recent
developments.
Secretary of State Pompeo claimed that Soleimani was responsible for hundreds of thousands
of deaths in Syria. Basically blaming Iran for all deaths in the Syrian war.
People more commonly do this with Assad. A complicated war with multiple factions fighting
each other, armed by outside sources including the US, most with horrific human rights
records, but almost every pundit and politician in the US talks as though Assad killed
everyone personally.
Once in a while you get a little bit of honesty seeping in, but it never changes the
narrative. Caitlin Johnstone said something about that, not specifically about Syria. The
idea was that you can sometimes find facts reported in the mainstream press that contradict
the narrative put out by pundits and politicians and for that matter most news stories, but
these contradictory facts never seem to change the prevailing narrative.
That sounds suspiciously like sour grapes and another possible motive for the killing
– revenge.
Soleimani led a number of militias that were successful in defeating the Saudi (and CIA)
sponsored Sunni jihadis who failed to implement the empire's "regime change" playbook in
Syria.
No doubt a lot of guys like Pompeo wanted him dead for that reason alone.
The simple answer NO, killing a sitting army general of a sovereign state on a diplomatic
mission resides in the realm of the truly absurd. Twisting the meaning of the word "imminent"
far beyond its ordinary use to justify the murder is even more absurd. And the floating
subtext to all this talk about lost American lives is that the US can invade and occupy
foreign lands, engage in the sanctimonious slaughter of locals and whoever else gets in the
way of feeding the bloodlust of Pompeo and his ilk (to say nothing of feeding the outsized
ego of a lunatic like Trump), and yet expect to suffer no combat casualties from those
defending their lands. It's the most warped form of "exceptional" thinking.
As an aside, I wonder if the msm faithfully pushing the talk about Iran downing that
Ukrainian commercial jet is designed to take the heat off a beleaguered Boeing. The
investigation hasn't even begun but already we have the smoking gun, Iran did it.
Even the question is wrong. The killing was cowardly, outside all international norms
(this from a country that dares to invoke "international order" whenever it is suitable), a
colossal mistake, a strategic blunder, and plain destructive.
The more one learns about QS' activities, the more it seems that he was "disposed of"
precisely because of his unique talent and abilities to bring together the various local
factions (particularly, in Iraq), so that then – unified – they could fight
against the common enemy (guess who?). He was not guilty of killing amrikans – nor was
he planning to – his "sin" was to try and unite locals to push the us out of ME. It was
always going to be an uphill battle, but in death he may – in time – achieve his
wish.
I'm in this camp too. But with a twist. Pure speculation here – and I'm sure it
would never be exposed, but is there even any proof we did it? Was it an apache helicopter or
a drone; whom have we supplied with these things? Who is this bold? Since our military has
been dead-set-against assassinating Soleimani or any other leader it seems highly unlikely
they proposed this to Trump. Mattis flatly refused to even consider such a thing. So I keep
wondering if the usual suspect might be the right one – the Israelis. They have the
proper expertise. And the confusion that followed? If we had done it we'd have had our PSAs
ready to print. Instead we proffered an unsigned letter and other "rough drafts" of the
incident and then retracted them like idiots. As if we were frantic to step in and prevent
the Rapture. We could have taken the blame just to prevent a greater war. Really, that's what
it looks like to me.
Surely the whole point of the strike is that it was illegal: that is to say that it was a
message to the Iraqis that they are NOT allowed to help Iran evade sanctions, NOT allowed to
do oil-for-infrastructure deals with China and NOT allowed to invite senior Iranians around
for talks: i.e. Iraq is not yet sovereign and it is the US that makes the rules around there;
any disobedience will summarily be punished by the de facto rulers even if that violates
agreements and laws applicable in Iraq.
If you disagree, then what should the US do if Iraq does not toe the Western line?
" The killing was cowardly, outside all international norms (this from a country that
dares to invoke "international order" whenever it is suitable), a colossal mistake, a
strategic blunder, and plain destructive "
I think the immediate impact which has long terms implications for how other countries
view USA foreign policy is simply that any high ranking individual from any other country on
earth has got to be aware that essentially no international norms now exist. It's one thing
to 'whack' a bin Laden or dispose of a Gaddafi but another whole kettle of fish to
assassinate a high ranking official going about their business who's no immediate security
threat to the USA and when no state of war exists.
For example, might a EU general now acquiesce to demands about NATO? Not saying this is
going to happen by a long shot, but still a niggling thought might linger. Surely the
individual will be resentful at the very least. I'm also reminded of a story about John
Bolton allegedly telling a negotiator (UN or European?) that Bolton knew where the
negotiator's family resided. These things add up.
As Sergey Lavrov and President Putin have stated for a long time (and long before
President Trump came along), the USA is 'agreement incapable'. However, now you have to
wonder if any country really trusts any agreement they will make with the USA. Without trust
on any level, cooperation/trade treaties and so on on are impossible or eminently disposable,
i.e., not worth the paper upon which they are written.
This is where the middle term ramifications start to kick-in. We know that Russia and
China are making some tentative steps towards superficial integration in limited areas beyond
just cooperation. Will they find more common ground? Will European countries (and by
extension the EU) really start to deliver on an alternative financial clearing system? How
will India and Japan react? Does nationalism of the imperial variety re-emerge as a world
force – for good or bad?
Will regional powers such as Russia, China, India, France or Iran quietly find more common
ground also? But alliances are problematic and sometimes impose limitations that are
exploitable. So, might a different form of cooperation emerge?
Long term its all about advantage and trust. Trust is a busted flush now. (My 2 cents, and
properly priced.)
As Thuto above says, the simple answer is "No". IF S was guilty of all those things
ascribed to him, he'd have been judged and sentenced (yes, I do realise Iran would never
extradite him etc. etc. – but there would have been a process and after the process,
well, some things would be more justifiable). But we have the process because it's important
to have a process – otherwise, anyone can find themselves on a hit list for any reason
whatsoever.
If the US doesn't want to follow and process, then it can't be suprised if others won't.
Ignoring the process works for the strongest, while they are the strongest. And then it
doesn't.
603 Americans killed in Iraq, he says Trump supporters claim, but we had millions of
Iraqi's, Syrians, Libyans and others killed or their lives uprooted by Bush and Obama and
company – yet they were not assassinated.
I think – just a guess – the reason Soleimani was killed can be summed up in
one word:
Netanyahu.
That, and on a broader, bird's eye view level in broad strokes – Michael Hudson's
recent article outlining U.S. policy of preserving USD hegemony at all costs, that has
existed since at least the 1950's, which depicts Soleimani's assassination as not a Trump
qwerk but a logical application of that policy.
You might say the swamp drainers came to drain the swamp and ended filling it up
instead.
The mostest terriblest guy in the history of this or any other universe, but the average
Joe never heard of until they announced they killed him. His epochal terribleness really flew
under the radar.
The swamp drainers are so busy guzzling as much as they can quaff, without drowning;
writhing each others' dead-eyed, bloated feeding frenzy; that obscene media distractions need
to escalate in sadistic, off-hand terror. But, it's so ingrained into our governance, we just
call it democracy?
Hudson's take on USD hegemony is reasonable, but I don't think we'd assassinate Soleimani
in anticipation of losing it. We have dealt with all the sects in the middle east for a long
time and we have come to terms with them, until now. In a time that requires the shutting
down of oil and gas production. I think (Carney, Keen, Murphy, etc.) oil is the basis for our
economy, for productivity, for the world, that's a no brainer. But my second thoughts go more
along the lines that oil and natural gas will be government monopolies directly – no
need to use those resources to make the dollar or other currencies monopolies. Sovereign
currency will still be a sovereign monopoly regardless of the oil industry. That also
explains why we want hands-on control of this resource. And with that in mind, it would seem
Soleimani might have been more of an asset for us.
I hate to tell you but as much as we are fans of Hudson, he's all wet on this one. The
dollar is the reserve currency because the US is willing to run sustained trade deficits,
which is tantamount to exporting jobs. Perhaps more important, my connected economists say
they know of no one who has the ear of the military-intel state who believes this either.
This may indeed have been a line of thought 50 years ago but it isn't now.
much of the supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters
(with bragging about it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding
website)
I thought I had a pretty strong stomach for this stuff, but it's been really nauseating
for me to see the displays of joy and flag waving over the assassination of someone the
overwhelming majority of people were wholly unaware of prior to his death. My guess is that
it's mostly just a sort of schadenfreude at the squirming of Democrats as they (with few
exceptions) fail to articulate any coherent response.
The response should be clear without any caveats, "Trump is a coward who would never
gamble with his life, but will happily gamble with the lives of your kids in uniform." This
should resonate with most people, I don't believe that neocons really have any grassroots
support.
NO. Shockingly bad decision; you can just manage to glimpse around the edges of the war
propaganda the embarrassment and backpedaling for having willingly stepped into such a
gigantic steaming pile of excrement. The parade of smooth-faced liars on the MSM asserting
that the US is now safer (the "war is peace" crowd) is sickening. Some even have the gall to
assert that the enormous crowds in Iran are forced to attend by the repressive regime. Of
course, there's no evidence of a provocation and they'll never produce any.
Politico Europe is
reporting that behind Europes seemingly supine response, officials and politicians are
'seething' over the attack. Its clearly seen around the world as not just illegal, but an
appalling precedent.
So far, American efforts to convince Europeans of the bright side of Soleimani's
killing have been met with dropped jaws .
The silence from other countries on this event has been deafening. And that should tell
Trump and Pompeo something, but I doubt if they are smart enough to figure it out.
I find it interesting that Pompeo was "disappointed" – what did he think would
happen? For a Secretary of State, he's obviously extremely out of touch with the rest of the
world if he didn't have some realistic idea of how this would go down.
On one hand, the life of each and every victim of head-separation and droning is as
precious as that of one Soleimani.
On the other, the general's is more precious and thus, the behind the scene seething by
Europe's politicians and officials. (They and many others are all potential targets now,
versus previously droning wedding guests – time to seethe).
The more I think about it, the more it seemed like the Administration and its allies were
probing to see how far they could go. They bombed PMUs and appeared to get away with it. So
then they upped the ante when the Iraqis complained and finally got some moderate push-back.
Not taking American lives in the missile strike seems to prove they Iranians didn't want to
escalate. Still, I dont know about the Pentagon, but I was impressed with the accuracy.
Yes. From the picture at Vineyard of the Saker, they hit specific buildings. There were
comments after the drone attack on Abqaiq and Khurais oil fields in KSA that they showed
surprising accuracy, but perhaps this time surprised the intelligence agencies. Perhaps that
was why Trump declared victory instead of further escalating. This is speculation, of
course.
There is also a good article giving more detail of these attacks and underlining the fact
that not a single solitary missile was intercepted. What percentage did the Syrians/Russians
manage to intercept of the US/UK/French missiles attack back in 2018? Wasn't it about seventy
percent?
The Iranians are not done retaliating. They have a history of disproportionate
retaliation, but when the right opportunity presents itself, and that routinely takes years.
The limited strike was out of character and appears to have been the result of the amount of
upset internally over the killing.
I have more a lot more respect for the strategic acumen of the Iranian regime than I do
for that of the American regime. Now it's led by a collection of fragile male egos and
superstitious rapture ready religious fanatics. Before them the regime was led by cowardly
corporate suck ups. They all take their cues from the same military intelligence complex.
One other glaring omission from the article – the only reason there was a US
military contractor in Iraq available to be killed in the first place is due to the illegal
war based on false premises launched almost two decades ago by the US, which continues to
occupy the country to this day.
Aye! This!
assume a ladder on a windy day, with a hammer irresponsibly left perched on the edge of the
top rung.
if i blithely walk under that ladder just as the wind gusts and get bonked in the head by the
falling hammer whose fault is it?
we shouldn't be there in the first damned place.
and as soon as the enabling lies were exposed, we should have left, post haste .leaving all
kinds of money and apologies in our wake.
to still be hanging around, unwanted by the locals, all these years later is arrogant and
stupid.
during the Bush Darkness, i was accused to my face(even strangled, once!) of being an
american-hating traitor for being against the war, the Bush Cabal, and the very idea of
American Empire.
almost 20 years later, I'm still absolutely opposed to those things not least out of a care
for the Troops(tm) .and a fervent wish that for once in my 50 years i could be proud to be an
American.
what a gigantic misallocation of resources, in service of rapine and hegemony, while my
fellow americans suffer and wither and scratch around for crumbs.
Another of many questions that remain involve the warped interpretation of "imminent" of
the Bethlehem Doctrine. What institution will put a full stop to that doctrine of terror?
It is a global hazard to continue to let that be adopted as any kind of standard.
Under the Bethlehem Doctrine the entire political class in the USA, and possibly a few
other countries, could be assassinated. What is legal or justified for one is justified for
all.
Rosser is an economist rather than a philosopher or. jurist, and so he doesn't appear to
realize that "justification" in the abstract is meaningless. An act can only be justified or
not according to some ethical or legal principle, and you need to say what that principle is
at the beginning before you start your argument. He doesn't do that, so his argument has no
more validity than that of someone you get into a discussion with in a bar or over coffee at
work.
Legally, of course, there is no justification, because there was no state of armed conflict
between the US and Iran, so the act was an act of state murder. It doesn't matter who the
person was or what we was alleged to have done or be going to do. There's been a dangerous
tendency developing in recent years to claim some kind of right to pre-emptive attacks. There
is no such legal doctrine, and the ultimate source of the misrepresentation – Art 51 of
the UN Charter – simply recognizes that nothing in the Charter stops a state resisting
aggression until help arrives. That's it.
Oh, and of course if this act were "justified" then any similar act in a similar situation
would be justified as well, which might not work out necessarily to America's advantage.
General Jonathan Shaw, former commander of UK forces in Iraq, put it well: Iran's
objectives are political, not military. Their aim is not to destroy any American air base,
but to drive a wedge between the US and its Arab allies -- and the Soleimani assassination
has achieved more to this end than anything that could have been cooked up in Tehran. The
Sunnis are standing down and the US and Israel now once again face being without real
friends in the region. When push came to shove, all Kushner's efforts amounted to nothing.
How elated the Iranians must be, even in the midst of such a setback.
Which if true means that instead of divide and conquer Trump and Pompeo may instead be
practicing unite and be conquered when it comes to US meddling in the Middle East.
I think that I see a danger for Israel here with a very tight pucker factor. I had assumed
that if there was a war between Israel and Hezbollah, that Hezbollah would let loose their
older rockets first to use up the Israeli anti-missile ordinance that they have. After that
would come their modern accurate missiles.
But part of that Iranian attack on those US bases was the use of older missiles that had been
retro-fitted with gear for accurate targeting which obviously worked out spectacularly.
Israel could assume that Iran would have given Hezbollah the same technology and the
implication here is that any first wave of older Hezbollah missiles would just be as accurate
as the following barrages of newer missiles.
I wonder if it is remotely possible that all countries, say at the UN, could design
acceptable language to make oil and natural gas a universal resource with a mandated
conservation – agreed to by all. Those countries which have had oil economies and have
become rich might agree to it because the use of oil and gas will be so restricted in future
that they will not have those profits. But it would at least provide them with some steady
income. It would prevent the oil wars we will otherwise have in our rush to monopolize the
industry for profit; it would conserve the use of oil/gas and extend it farther out into the
future so we can build a sustainable worldwide civilization and mitigate much of the damage
we have done to the planet, etc. How can we all come together and make energy, oil and natgas
access a universal human right (for the correct use)?
Actually Soleimani was guilty of the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Tens of
thousands of ISIS fighters that is. Do they count? The Saudis, Gulf States and the CIA may
shed a tear for them but nobody else will. When Soleimani arrived in Baghdad, he was
traveling in a diplomatic capacity to help try to ease off tensions between the Saudis and
the Iranians. And this was the imminent danger that Trump was talking about. Not an imminent
danger to US troops but a danger that the Saudis and Iranians might negotiate an
accommodation. Michael Hudson has said similar in a recent article.
I think that what became apparent from that attack last year on the Saudi oil
installations was that they were now a hostage. In other words, if the US attacks Iran, then
Iran will take out the entirety of Saudi oil production and perhaps the Saudi Royal family
themselves. There is no scenario in an Iran-US war where the Kingdom come out intact. So it
seems that they have been putting out feelers with the Iranians about coming to an
accommodation. This would explain why when Soleimani was murdered, there was radio silence on
behalf of the Saudis.
Maybe Trump has worked out that all of the Saudi oil facilities becoming toast would be
bad for America too but, more importantly, to himself personally. After all, what is the
point of having the Saudis only sell their oil in US dollars if there is no oil to sell? What
would such a development do to the standing of the US dollar internationally? The financial
crisis would sink his chances for a win this November and that is something that he will
never allow. And I bet that he did not Tucker Carlson to tell him that.
Fascinating developments on this issue today. Pompeo admits that nothing was "imminent."
Given the very specific definitions of Imminence that draw red lines between what is or is
not legal in international law, this could get big very quickly.
What percent of the presumed Trump base, and imperial Big Business and Banksters, not to
mention the sloshing mass of other parts of the electorate subject to "spinning" in the
Bernays Tilt-a-Whirl, would give a rat's aff about "war crimes" charges? Drone murders to
date, the whole stupid of profitable (to a few, externalities ignored) GWOT, all the sh!t the
CIA and CENTCOM and Very Special Ops have done with impunity against brown people and even
people here at home, not anything more than squeaks from a small fraction of us.
And Trump is the Decider, yes, who signed off (as far as we know) on killing Soleimani
that was lined up by the Borg, but really, how personalized to him would any repentance and
disgust or even scapegoat targeting by the Blob really be, in the kayfabe that passes for
"democracy in America?"
I always though de Tocqueville titled his oeuvre on the political economy he limned way
back when as a neat bit of Gallic irony
I don't know. Might Trump benefit from charges of war crimes, spinning them as further
proof that the United Nations, International Criminal Court, etc. are controlled by commies
and muslims out to get the USA?
As for the imminence of the hypothetical attacks, "There is no doubt that there were a
series of imminent attacks being plotted by Qassem Soleimani," Pompeo told the Fox News host.
"We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real."
Remember that imminent=possible at some time in the near or distant future, and Vice President Dick Cheney articulated shortly after 9/11: in Mr. Suskind's words, "if
there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction -- and
there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time -- the United States
must now act as if it were a certainty." That doctrine didn't prevent Bush's
re-election. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html
Declare victory and bring them all home. Leave behind W's Mission Accomplished banner and
pallets of newly printed $100s with Obama's picture.
Along the lines of Bismarck, not worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Not my
20 year old, not anybody else's in my name, either, especially since this began before they
were born.
And to whom will they sell their oil and natural gas? Who cares – its a fungible
commodity of perhaps only of concern to our "allies" in Western Europe. Not my problem and
great plan to mitigate carbon emissions!
War hawks dressed in red or blue can become mercenaries and create Go Fund Me drives to
protect their investments and any particular country which they have a personal affinity or
citizenship.
The whole episode reminds me of a Martin Scorsese plot line. A disagreement among "Made
Men". The unfortunate symbolism and 'disrespect' of the embassy protest demanded a response,
especially after all the fuss Trump made about Benghazi. Some things cannot be allowed. The
Iranians, Russians and Americans probably decided between themselves what would be sufficient
symbolism to prevent a war, and so Soleimani was sacrificed to die as a hero/martyr. A small
price to prevent things spiraling out of control. The Iranian response seems to add weight to
this hypothesis.
Forgive me for taking this a little more in the direction of theory, but can the rest of
the world justify the assassination of CIA/Pentagon/CENTCOM officials in a similar manner
given the opportunity? Are these organizations not an analog to Quds? That seems to be more
in line with the type of questions we need to be asking ourselves as US citizens in a
multi-polar world. This article, despite its best intentions, still hints at an American
exceptionalism that no longer exists in the international mind. The US could barely get away
with its BS in the 90s, it definitely can't in 2020.
The US no longer has the monopoly on the narrative ("Big Lie") rationalizing its actions,
not to say the other countries have the correct narrative, just that, there are a whole bunch
of narratives ("Lies") out there being told to the world by various powers that are not the
US, and the US is having a difficult time holding on to the mic. The sensible route would be
to figure out how to assert cultural and political values/power in this world without the
mafiosi methods. Maybe some old fashioned (if not icky, cynical) diplomacy. It is better than
spilled blood, or nuclear war.
The US military/intelligence wonks overplayed their hand with Soleimani. I think the
Neo-Cons gave Trump a death warrant for Soleimani, and Trump was too self-involved (stupid)
to know or care who he was offing. His reaction to the blow back betrays that.
Now he is f*****, along with the chicken-hawks, and they all know it. They just have to
sit back and watch Iran bomb US bases because the alternative is a potential big war,
possibly involving China and Russia, that can't be fought by our Islamist foreign legions.
It'll demand the involvement of US troops on the ground and the US electorate won't tolerate
it.
Anyone who has worked in the counter-terrorism field knows that when a credible and
imminent threat is received the first act is to devise a response to counter the threat. It
may involve raising security measures at an airline security checkpoint, it may involve
arrests, if possible, of the would-be terrorist(s). It may involve evacuating a building and
conducting a search for a bomb. It may involve changing a scheduled appearance or route of
travel of a VIP.
The point is to stop the operators behind the threat from completing their terrorist act.
What it certainly does NOT involve is assassinating someone who may have given the order but
is definitely not involved in carrying out the act. Such an assassination would not only be
ineffective in countering the threat but would likely be seen as increasing the motivation
behind the attack. Such was the assassination of Soleimani, even if one believes in the
alleged imminent threat. This was simply a revenge killing due to Soleimani's success at
organizing the opposition to US occupation.
We don't know precisely when and we don't know precisely where, but it was real.
How does this meet the internationally recognized legal requirement of "imminent" danger
to human life required to kill a political or military leader outside of a declared war? All
public statements by the U.S. political and military leadership point to a retaliatory
killing, at best, with a vague overlay of preemptive action.
If you agree that the "Bethlehem Doctrine" has never been recognized by the United
Nations, the International Criminal Court, or the legislatures of the three rogue states who
have adopted it, the assassination of Suleimani appears to have been a murder.
This is absolutely chilling. These "End Times/Armageddon" lunatics want to destroy the
world. Who would Jesus have murdered? They stand the lessons of his state-sanctioned murder
on their heads
My two-pennyworth? The US press and the circles surrounding Trump are already crowing that
he 'won' the exchange. If, as speculated, he went against military advice in ordering this
assassination, his 'victory' will only confirm his illusions that he is a military genius,
which makes him even more dangerous. There are some rather nasty parallels with the rise of
Hitler appearing here.
The claim that Soleimani had killed hundreds of Americans was repeated, word for word, in
many articles in the papers of record (e.g., New York Times, 1/7/20; Washington Post, 1/3/20,
1/3/20) as well as across the media (e.g., Boston Globe, 1/3/20; Fox News, 1/6/20; The Hill,
1/7/20).
These "hundreds of Americans" were US forces killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
during the Iraq War, supposedly made in Iran and planted by Iranian-backed Shia militias. As
professor Stephen Zunes pointed out in the Progressive (1/7/20), the Pentagon provided no
evidence that Iran made the IEDs, other than the far-fetched claim that they were too
sophisticated to be made in Iraq -- even though the US invasion had been justified by claims
that Iraq had an incredibly threatening WMD program. The made-in-Iran claim, in turn, was the
main basis for pinning responsibility for IED attacks on Shia militias -- which were, in any
case, sanctioned by the Iraqi government, making Baghdad more answerable for their actions
than anyone in Tehran. Last year, Gareth Porter reported in Truthout, (7/9/19) that the claim
that Iran was behind the deaths of US troops was part of Vice President Dick Cheney's plan to
build a case for yet another war.
IIRC the "sophistication claim" was made years ago. Apparently the basic technology is
applied in oilfields to pierce oil well lining tubes at the oil layer. So the Iraqis knew all
about the basic technique, only needed some more information.
About those "603 American deaths" that Soleimani is posthumously being charged with .
"I cross-checked a Pentagon casualty database with obituaries and not 1 of the 9 American
servicemen killed fighting in Iraq since 2011 died at the hands of militias backed by
Suleimani. His assassination was about revenge and provocation, not self-defense."
"The U.S. Government and almost all of the media continue to declare that Iran is the
biggest sponsor of terrorism. That is not true. That is a lie. I realize that calling this
assertion a lie opens me to accusations of being an apologist for Iran. But simply look at
the facts."
"The Trump Administration needs to stop with its infantile ranting and railing about Iran and
terrorism. The actual issues surrounding Iran's growing influence in the region have little
to do with terrorism. Our policies and actions towards Iran are accelerating their
cooperation with China and Russia, not diminishing it. I do not think that serves the
longterm interests of the United States or our allies in the Middle East"
The strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a financier and key commander of Iran's elite
Quds Force who has been active in Yemen, did not result in his death, according to four U.S.
officials familiar with the matter.
The unsuccessful operation may indicate that the Trump administration's killing of Maj. Gen.
Qasem Soleimani last week was part of a broader operation than previously explained, raising
questions about whether the mission was designed to cripple the leadership of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps or solely to prevent an imminent attack on Americans as originally
stated.
"Justification"?????
You're kidding right?
"They", those who we firstly "embrace" for our own interests are "for us" until we decide we
are "against them"!
What a farce our foreign policies are!
For some "exceptional" reason we don't recognize international law!
We are the terrorists not them.
Prediction for this stupidest of all worlds: Iraq really does boot us out, T-bone siezes
on this for its obvious popularity among his base, and uses "He Kept Us Out Of War" for
re-election.
Where is my peace dividend after fall of Berlin Wall and Soviet Union?
Poppy and MIC wouldn't have it, hence April Galaspie's "no instructions" response to
Saddam's initial inquiry over the Iraq / Kuwait surveying and mineral rights dispute on
Kuwait's drilling at the border 30 years ago.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defence Secretary Mark Esper, and General Mark Milley,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had gone to Palm Beach, Florida, to brief Trump on
airstrikes the Pentagon had just carried out in Iraq and Syria against Iranian-sponsored Shiite
militia groups.
"... Pompeo has forged "very close relationships" with Haspel and Esper, alliances that bolstered his ability to make the case to Trump. "They all work together very, very closely," said the former Republican national security official. ..."
As planning got underway, Pompeo worked with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark
Milley and the commander of CENTCOM Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie to assess the profile of
troops in the field. Multiple sources also say that hawkish Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of
Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were kept in the loop and also pushed Trump to
respond.
Trump was not at all reluctant to target Soleimani, multiple sources said, adding that the
President's other senior advisers -- Esper, Milley, CIA Director Gina Haspel and national
security adviser Robert O'Brien -- "were all on board."
Pompeo has forged "very close relationships" with Haspel and Esper, alliances that
bolstered his ability to make the case to Trump. "They all work together very, very closely,"
said the former Republican national security official.
That said, the former official expressed concern about the lack of deep expertise in Trump's
national security team. Several analysts pointed to this as one factor in Pompeo's outsized
influence within the administration.
The government is so compromised by Trump and by all the vacancies and lack of experience,
this former official said, that "everything is being done by a handful of principles -- Pompeo,
Esper, Milley. There are a lot of things being left on the floor."
'Such a low bar'
Pompeo is arguably the most experienced of the national security Cabinet, the former
national security official said, "but it's such a low bar."
"It's such a small group and there's so much that needs to be done," the former official
said. "Everyone in this administration is a level and a half higher than they would be in a
normal administration. They have no bench," they said.
The Trump administration has been handicapped by the President's refusal to hire Republicans
who criticize him. Other Republicans won't work for the administration, for fear of being
"tainted" or summarily fired, the former official said.
As layers of experience have been peeled away at the White House, some analysts say
safeguards have been removed as well. CNN's Peter Bergen has written in his new book, "Trump
and his Generals," that former Defense Secretary James Mattis told his aides not to present the
President with options for confronting Iran militarily.
Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, argues that since the departure of
Mattis, former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and former White House chief of
staff and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, there are very few voices at the White House to offer
"deeply considered advice."
"We don't have those people who have that experience and could look Trump in the eye and who
have his respect and who could say, 'Hey, hey, hey -- wait!'," Slim said.
For years, "Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him
popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative
Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals,"
the Post explains . "Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship
with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad," and "at the State
Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places
the country far above other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world."
Read more at The Washington Post . Peter Weber
Trump is betraying his voters and threatening millions of lives.
In a full-blown U.S. war
with Iran, up to a million people could die initially.
Hundreds of thousands more could die in the vacuum to follow. Millions would be made
refugees. That's the conclusion of experts surveyed
by Vox reporter Alex Ward . "The worst-case scenarios here are quite serious,"
Middle East scholar Michael Hanna warned.
With the brazen assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq,
President Trump has brought us leaps and bounds closer to that conflagration -- a decision
Trump appears to have made while
golfing at Mar-a-Lago .
Lawmakers need to move before it's too late.
The Iranians may
respond cautiously , perhaps forestalling a full-blown conflict. But there can be no doubt
the White House has been driving in that direction from day one.
In a few short years, Trump has blown up the Iran nuclear deal, put a horrific economic
stranglehold on the country, and sent a stunning
14,000 new troops to the Middle East since just last spring. Some
3,500 more are now on their way.
"Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran," John Bolton
tweeted about the assassination . Bolton may have left the White House, but clearly his
spirit lives on.
What next? Get ready to hear a lot about what a "
bad guy " Soleimani was, and how Iran is a "state sponsor" of terrorism.
No doubt, Soleimani had blood on his hands -- he was a general. Yet after two decades of
U.S. wars in the Middle East, that's the pot calling the kettle black. It was the U.S. who
invaded Iraq, started a civil war, and paved the way for a literal terrorist state, ISIS, to
occupy the country afterward (a force Soleimani himself was instrumental in dismantling).
That senseless war caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, exploded the terrorist threat,
and is destabilizing the region to this day. Yet somehow, war hawks like Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo can go on TV and -- with a straight face -- predict ordinary Iranians will
essentially thank the U.S. for murdering their general.
"People not only in Iraq but in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them
freedom,"
Pompeo said the morning after the assassination. You couldn't caricature a better callback
to Dick Cheney's infamous prediction that Iraqis would "greet us as liberators" if you
tried.
This war-mongering should be as toxic politically as
it is morally . Trump rode into office promising to end America's wars, winning him crucial
votes in swing states with large military and veteran populations. Huge bipartisan majorities,
including 58 percent of Republicans, say they want U.S. troops out of the Middle East.
Trump is betraying them spectacularly.
Yet too many Democrats are
merely objecting to Trump's failure to consult them. Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained the
strike "was taken without the consultation of the Congress." South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg
offered colorlessly that "there are serious questions about how this decision was made." Others
complained about the apparent lack of a "strategy."
It's illegal for a president to unilaterally launch a war -- that's important. But these
complaints make it sound like if you want to kill a million people for no reason, you just have
to go to the DMV first. As if Trump's base doesn't love it when he cuts the line in
Washington.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who warned that "Trump's dangerous escalation brings us closer to
another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more
dollars," came closer to communicating the real threat.
Millions of lives are at stake. Trump's aggression demands -- and voters will more likely
reward -- real opposition. Call him on it
before it's too late.
Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and editor of
Foreign Policy In Focus.
The 2016 presidential elections are proving historic, and not just because of the surprising
success of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, the lively debate among
feminists over whether to support Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump's unorthodox candidacy.
The elections are also groundbreaking because they're revealing more dramatically than ever
the corrosive effect of big money on our decaying democracy.
Following the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision and related rulings,
corporations and the wealthiest Americans gained the legal right to raise and spend as much
money as they want on political candidates.
The 2012
elections were consequently the most expensive in U.S. history. And this year's races are predicted to cost even
more. With the general election still six months away, donors have already sunk $1 billion into
the presidential race -- with $619 million raised by candidates and another $412 million by
super PACs.
Big money in politics drives grave inequality in our country. It
also drives war.
After all, war is a profitable industry. While millions of people all over the world are
being killed and traumatized by violence, a small few make a killing from the never-ending war
machine.
During the Iraq War, for example, weapons manufacturers and a cadre of other corporations
made billions on federal contracts.
Most notoriously this included Halliburton, a military contractor previously led by Dick
Cheney. The company made huge profits from George W. Bush's decision to wage a costly,
unjustified, and illegal war while Cheney served as his vice president.
Military-industrial corporations spend heavily on political campaigns. They've given
over $1 million to this year's presidential candidates so far -- over $200,000 of which
went to Hillary Clinton, who leads the pack in industry backing.
These corporations target House and Senate members who sit on the Armed Forces and
Appropriations Committees, who control the purse strings for key defense line items. And
cleverly, they've planted
factories in most congressional districts. Even if they provide just a few dozen
constituent jobs per district, that helps curry favor with each member of Congress.
Thanks to aggressive lobbying efforts, weapons manufacturers have secured the
five largest contracts made by the federal government over the last seven years. In 2014,
the U.S. government awarded over $90 billion worth of contracts to Lockheed Martin, Boeing,
General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.
Military spending has been one of the top three biggest federal programs every year since
2000, and it's far and away the largest discretionary portion. Year after year, elected
officials spend several times
more on the military than on education, energy, and the environment combined.
Lockheed Martin's problematic F-35 jet illustrates this disturbingly disproportionate use of
funds. The same $1.5 trillion Washington will spend on the jet, journalist Tom Cahill
calculates , could have provided tuition-free public higher education for every student in
the U.S. for the next 23 years. Instead, the Pentagon ordered a fighter plane that
can't even fire its own gun yet.
Given all of this, how can anyone justify war spending?
Some folks will say it's to make
us safer . Yet the aggressive U.S. military response following the 9/11 attacks -- the
invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Libya, and drone strikes in Pakistan and
Yemen -- has only destabilized the region. "Regime change" foreign policies have collapsed
governments and opened the doors to Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS.
Others may say they support a robust Pentagon budget because of the
jobs the military creates . But dollar for dollar, education spending creates nearly three
times more jobs than military spending.
We need to stop letting politicians and corporations treat violence and death as "business
opportunities." Until politics become about people instead of profits, we'll remain crushed in
the death grip of the war machine.
And that is the real national security threat facing the United States today.
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"... Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits the IPS publication Inequality.org. Follow her at @SarahDAnderson1. ..."
CEOs of major U.S. military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran.
This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military official last
week. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies' share prices spiked, inflating the value of
their executives' stock-based pay.
I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most
recent SEC information on their stock holdings.
Northrop Grumman executives saw the biggest increase in the value of their stocks after the U.S. airstrike that
killed Qasem Suleimani on January 2. Shares in the B-2 bomber maker rose 5.43 percent by the end of trading the
following day.
Wesley Bush, who turned Northrop Grumman's reins over to Kathy Warden last year, held
251,947 shares
of company stock in various trusts as of his final SEC Form 4 filing in May 2019. (Companies
must submit these reports when top executives and directors buy and sell company stock.) Assuming Bush is still
sitting on that stockpile, he saw the value grow by $4.9 million to a total of $94.5 million last Friday.
New Northrop Grumman CEO Warden saw the
92,894 shares
she'd accumulated as the firm's COO expand in value by more than $2.7 million in just one day of
post-assassination trading.
Lockheed Martin, whose
Hellfire missiles
were reportedly used in the attack at the Baghdad airport, saw a 3.6 percent increase in
price per share on January 3. Marillyn Hewson, CEO of the world's largest weapon maker, may be kicking herself for
selling off a considerable chunk of stock last year when it was trading at around $307. Nevertheless, by the time
Lockheed shares reached $413 at the closing bell, her
remaining stash
had increased in value by about $646,000.
What about the manufacturer of the
MQ-9 Reaper
that carried the Hellfire missiles? That would be General Atomics. Despite raking in
$2.8
billion
in taxpayer-funded contracts in 2018, the drone maker is not required to disclose executive
compensation information because it is a privately held corporation.
We do know General Atomics CEO Neal Blue is worth an estimated
$4.1 billion
-- and he's a
major
investor
in oil production, a sector that
also stands to profit
from conflict with a major oil-producing country like Iran.
*Resigned 12/22/19. **Resigned 1/1/19 while staying on
as chairman until 7/19. New CEO Kathy Warden accumulated 92,894 shares in her previous position as Northrop
Grumman COO.
Suleimani's killing also inflated the value of General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic's fortune. As the weapon
maker's share price rose about 1 percentage point on January 3, the former CIA official saw her
stock holdings
increase by more than $1.2 million.
Raytheon CEO Thomas Kennedy saw a single-day increase in his stock of more than half a million dollars, as the
missile and bomb manufacturer's share price increased nearly 1.5 percent. Boeing stock remained flat on Friday.
But Dennis Muilenberg, recently ousted as CEO over the 737 aircraft scandal, appears to be well-positioned to
benefit from any continued upward drift of the defense sector.
As of his final
Form 4
report, Muilenburg was sitting on stock worth about $47.7 million. In his yet to be finalized exit
package, the disgraced former executive could also pocket huge sums of currently unvested stock grants.
Hopefully sanity will soon prevail and the terrifyingly high tensions between the Trump administration and Iran
will de-escalate. But even if the military stock surge of this past Friday turns out to be a market blip, it's a
sobering reminder of who stands to gain the most from a war that could put millions of lives at risk.
We can put an end to dangerous war profiteering by denying federal contracts to corporations that pay their top
executives excessively. In 2008, John McCain, then a Republican presidential candidate, proposed
capping CEO pay
at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts at no more than $400,000 (the salary of the U.S.
president). That notion should be extended to companies that receive massive taxpayer-funded contracts.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, has
a plan
to deny federal contracts to companies that pay CEOs more than 150 times what their typical worker
makes.
As long as we allow the top executives of our privatized war economy to reap unlimited rewards, the profit
motive for war in Iran -- or anywhere -- will persist.
Share this:
Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-edits the IPS
publication Inequality.org. Follow her at @SarahDAnderson1.
The main problem of the United States in the existing political and economic system, which
began to be intensively created by the American banking layer since 1885 and was fixed in
1913. This became possible only thanks to the Civil War of 1861-1865. I will explain. Before
the Civil War, each state had its own banking structure, its own banknotes (there were not so
many states, there were still territories that did not become states yet). Before the
American Civil War, there was no single banking system. Abraham Linkol was a protege of the
banking houses of the cities of New York and Chicago, they rigged the election (bought the
election). It may sound rude to the Americans, but Lincoln was a rogue in the eyes of some US
citizens of that time. And this became the main reason for the desire of some states (not
only southern, and some northern) to withdraw from the United States. Another good reason for
the exit was the persistent attempts of bankers in New York and Chicago to take control of
the banking system of the South. These are two main reasons, as old as the World, the
struggle for control and money. The war (unfortunately) began the South. Under a federal
treaty, South and North were supposed to jointly contain US forts for protection. The
fighting began on April 12, 1861 with an attack by southerners on such a fort Sumter in
Charleston Bay. These are the beginnings of war.
This is important - I advise everyone to read the memoirs of generals, and especially the
memoirs of Ulysses Grant, the future president of the United States. The war was with varying
success, but the emissaries of the banks of New York and Chicago always followed the army of
the North, who, taking advantage of the disastrous situation in the battlefields, bought up
real estate, land and other assets. They were called the "Carpetbagger". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger
They were engaged in the purchase throughout the war and up to 1885.
To make it clear to you, in the history of the USA, the period from 1865 to 1885 is called
the "Great American Depression" (this is the very first great depression and lasted 20
years). During this time, the bankers of New York and Chicago completely subjugated the US
banking system to themselves and their interests, trampled the South (robbed), after which
the submission of the US as a state directly to the banking mafia began. At present (since
1913) in the USA there is not capitalism, but an evil parody of capitalism.
I can call it this: American clan-corporate oligarchic "capitalism" (with the suppression
of free markets, with unfair competition and the creation of barriers to the dissemination of
reliable information). Since such "capitalism" cannot work (like socialism or utopian
communism), constant wars are needed that bring profit to the bankers, owners of the
military-industrial complex, political "service staff", make oligarchs richer, and ordinary
Americans poorer. We are now observing this, since this system has come to its end and
everything has become obvious.
For example, in the early 80s, the middle class of the United States was approximately 70%
of the population employed in production and trade, now it is no more than 15%.
The gap between the oligarchs and ordinary Americans widened. My essay is how I see what
is happening in the USA and why I do not like it. It's my personal opinion. In the end, my
favorite phrase is that Americans are suckers and boobies (but we still love them). Good luck
everyone.
In Iraq The U.S. Is Again An Occupation Force As It Rejects To Leave As Demanded
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi is following
Iraq's Parliament decision to remove all foreign forces from Iraq. But his request for
talks with the U.S. about the U.S. withdrawal process was answered with a big "F*** You":
Iraq's caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an
American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the
request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to "recommit" to their
partnership.
Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the capital and southern Iraq, many
calling on both Iran and America to leave Iraq, reflecting anger and frustration over the two
rivals -- both Baghdad's allies -- trading blows on Iraqi soil.
The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination to push
ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, stoked by the American drone strike on Jan.
3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. In a phone call Thursday night, he told U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that recent U.S. strikes in Iraq were an unacceptable breach
of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of their security agreements, his office said.
He asked Pompeo to "send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism" to carry out the Iraqi
Parliament's resolution on withdrawing foreign troops, according to the statement.
"The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its
airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral
agreements," the statement added.
The Associated Press errs when it says that the move was "stoked by the American drone
strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani". The move was stoked five days
earlier when the U.S.
killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi
prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S.
assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes , the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and
a national hero in Iraq.
The State Department issued a rather aggressive response to
Abdul-Mahdi's request:
By killing Soleimani the USA formally declared war of Iran. So sactions is jus secondary
effect of this decition.
Notable quotes:
"... Since its unilateral exit from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Washington has been mounting pressure on Tehran through a series of sanctions. Iran has maintained a tough stance and scaled back its nuclear commitments in response. ..."
The latest move included sanctions on metal manufacturing and other sectors of the Iranian
economy, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin told reporters at a White House press
briefing, noting that the sanctions are both primary and secondary.
Mnuchin also said the Treasury had designated eight senior Iranian officials, including Ali
Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Mohammad Reza Ashtiani,
deputy chief of staff of Iranian armed force, and others.
"The United States is targeting senior Iranian officials for their involvement and
complicity in Tuesday's ballistic missile strikes," Mnuchin claimed in a statement issued by
the Treasury.
Also on Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a White House statement that the
punishing measures aimed at denying Iran's revenue that "may be used to fund and support its
nuclear program, missile development, terrorism and terrorist proxy networks, and malign
regional influence."
The Pentagon confirmed that Iran had launched 16 ballistic missiles against two military
bases housing U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq earlier this week.
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had claimed responsibility for the missile
attacks, saying that they were meant to retaliate the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani, former
commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC.
Trump said Wednesday in an address to the nation that "the United States will immediately
impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions
will remain until Iran changes its behavior."
Since its unilateral exit from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Washington has been
mounting pressure on Tehran through a series of sanctions. Iran has maintained a tough stance
and scaled back its nuclear commitments in response.
When
the United States, the United Kingdom, and the "coalition of the willing" attacked Iraq in
March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of "shock and awe" was just the
beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority
bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.
It's not just a question of security. Although the breathtaking violence that attended
Iraq's descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the
10-year-old war, what's often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United
States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.
It's not that Iraq was flourishing before the occupation. From 1990 to 2003, the UN Security
Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq that were the harshest in the history of global
governance. But along with the sanctions, at least, came an elaborate system of oversight and
accountability that drew in the Security Council, nine UN agencies, and General Secretary
himself.
The system was certainly imperfect, and the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people
were devastating. But when the United States arrived, all semblance of international oversight
vanished.
Under enormous pressure from Washington, in May 2003 the Security Council formally
recognized the occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Resolution
1483. Among other things, this resolution gave the CPA complete control over all of Iraq's
assets.
At the same time, the Council removed all the forms of monitoring and accountability that
had been in place: there would be no reports on the humanitarian situation by UN agencies, and
there would be no committee of the Security Council charged with monitoring the occupation.
There would be a limited audit of funds, after they were spent, but no one from the UN would
directly oversee oil sales. And no humanitarian agencies would ensure that Iraqi funds were
being spent in ways that benefitted the country.
Humanitarian concerns
In January 2003, the UN prepared a working plan anticipating the impact of
a possible war. Even with only "medium impact" from the invasion, the UN expected that
humanitarian conditions would be severely compromised.
Because the Iraqi population was so heavily reliant on the government's food distribution
system (a consequence of international sanctions), the UN anticipated that overthrowing the
Iraqi regime would also undermine food security. And because the population already suffered
from extensive malnutrition, this disruption would be quite lethal, putting 30 percent of Iraqi
children under five at risk of death. The UN noted that if water and sewage treatment plants
were damaged in the war, or if the electrical system could not operate, Iraqis would lose
access to potable water, which would likely precipitate epidemics of water-borne diseases. And
if electricity, transportation, and medical equipment were compromised, then the medical system
would be unable to respond effectively to these epidemics.
During the occupation, much of this came to pass. A
June 2003 UN report noted that the postwar water and sewage systems for Baghdad and other
central and southern governorates were "in crisis." In Baghdad alone, the report estimated that
40 percent of the city's water distribution network was damaged, leading to a loss of up to
half of the city's potable water through leaks and breaks in the system. And direr still, the
UN reported that neither of Baghdad's two sewage treatment plants was functional, leading to a
massive discharge of raw sewage into the Tigris River.
The food situation was similar. The UN found that farming had collapsed due to "widespread
insecurity and looting, the complete collapse of ministries and state agencies -- the sole
providers of essential farming inputs and services -- together with significant damages to
power supplies."
Likewise, the health system deteriorated dramatically. Less than 50 percent of the Iraqi
population had access to medical care, due in part to the dangers associated with travel.
Additionally, the report estimated that 75 percent of all health-care institutions were
affected by the looting and chaos that occurred in the aftermath of the war. As of June 2003,
the health system as a whole was functioning at 30-50 percent of its pre-war capacity. The
impact was immediate. By early summer, acute malnutrition rates had doubled, dysentery was
widespread, and little medical care was available. In August, when a power outage blacked out
New York, the joke going around Baghdad was "I hope they're not waiting for the Americans to
fix it."
The CPA gave responsibility for humanitarian relief to the U.S. military -- not to agencies
with experience in humanitarian crises -- and marginalized the UN's humanitarian relief
agencies. Over the 14-month course of the CPA's administration, the humanitarian crisis
worsened. Preventable diseases like dysentery and typhoid ran rampant. Malnutrition worsened,
claiming the lives of ever more infants, mothers, and young children. All told, there was an
estimated 100,000
"excess deaths" during the invasion and occupation -- well above and beyond the mortality rate
under Saddam Hussein, even under international sanctions.
The CPA's priorities were clear. After the invasion, during the widespread looting and
robbery, occupation authorities did little to protect water and sewage treatment plants, or
even pediatric hospitals. By contrast, they provided immediate protection for the oil ministry
offices, hired a U.S. company to put out oil field fires, and immediately provided protection
for the oil fields as well.
Corruption
In addition, the U.S.-led CPA was deeply corrupt. Much of Iraq's revenues, from oil sales or
other sources, went to contracts with U.S. companies. Of contracts for more than $5 million, 74
percent went to U.S. companies, with most of the remainder going to U.S. allies. Only 2 percent
went to Iraqi companies.
Over the course of the occupation, huge amounts of money simply disappeared. Kellogg, Brown,
and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, received over 60 percent of all contracts paid for
with Iraqi funds, although it was repeatedly criticized by auditors for issues of honesty and
competence. In the last six weeks of the occupation, the United States shipped $5 billion of
Iraqi funds, in cash, into the country, to be spent before the Iraqi-led government took over.
Auditor reports indicated that Iraqi funds were systematically looted by the CPA officials:
"One contractor received a $2 million payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped
bundles of currency," read one
report . "One official was given $6.75 million in cash, and was ordered to spend it one
week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."
U.S. officials were apparently unconcerned about the gross abuses of the funds with which
they were entrusted. In one instance, the CPA transferred some $8.8 billion of Iraqi money
without any documentation as to how the funds were spent. When questioned about how the money
was spent, Admiral David Oliver, the principal deputy for financial matters in the CPA,
replied
that he had "no idea" and didn't think it was particularly important. "Billions of dollars of
their money?" he asked his interlocutor. "What difference does it make?"
In the end, none of this should be terribly surprising -- the corruption, the indifference
to human needs, the singular concern with controlling Iraq's oil wealth. It was obvious from
the moment that the Security Council, under enormous pressure from the United State, passed
Resolution 1483.
By systematically removing nearly every form of oversight from their self-imposed
administration of Iraq, the United States and its allies laid the foundation for the looting of
an entire nation's wealth, abetted by their own wanton indifference to the needs and rights of
Iraqis. Ten years after the start of the war, the CPA's disastrous governance of Iraq stands
alongside the country's horrifying descent into violence as a dark legacy in its own right.
Looks like Iran is Catch22 for the USA: it can destroy it, but only at the cost of losing empire and dollar hegemony...
Notable quotes:
"... The United States is now turning on the screws demanding that other countries sacrifice their growth in order to finance the U.S. unipolar empire. In effect, foreign countries are beginning to respond to the United States what the ten tribes of Israel said when they withdrew from the southern kingdom of Judah, whose king Rehoboam refused to lighten his demands (1 Kings 12). They echoed the cry of Sheba son of Bikri a generation earlier: "Look after your own house, O David!" The message is: What do other countries have to gain by remaining in the US unipolar neoliberalized world, as compared to using their own wealth to build up their own economies? It's an age-old problem. ..."
"... The dollar will still play a role in US trade and investment, but it will be as just another currency, held at arms length until it finally gives up its domineering attempt to strip other countries' wealth for itself. However, its demise may not be a pretty sight. ..."
"... Conflict in the ME has traditionally almost always been about oil [and of course Israel]. This situation is different. It is only partially about oil and Israel, but OVERWHHEMINGLY it is about the BRI. ..."
"... The salient factor as I see it is the Oil for Technology initiative that Iraq signed with China shortly before it slid into this current mess. ..."
"... This was a mechanism whereby China would buy Iraq oil and these funds would be used directly to fund infrastructure and self-sufficiency initiatives and technologies that would help to drag Iraq out of the complete disaster that the US war had created in this country. A key part of this would be that China would also make extra loans available at the same time to speed up this development. ..."
"... "Iraq's Finance Ministry that the country had started exporting 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to China in October as part of the 20-year oil-for-infrastructure deal agreed between the two countries." ..."
"... "For Iraq and Iran, China's plans are particularly far-reaching, OilPrice.com has been told by a senior oil industry figure who works closely with Iran's Petroleum Ministry and Iraq's Oil Ministry. China will begin with the oil and gas sector and work outwards from that central point. In addition to being granted huge reductions on buying Iranian oil and gas, China is to be given the opportunity to build factories in both Iran and Iraq – and build-out infrastructure, such as railways – overseen by its own management staff from Chinese companies. These are to have the same operational structure and assembly lines as those in China, so that they fit seamlessly into various Chinese companies' assembly lines' process for whatever product a particular company is manufacturing, whilst also being able to use the still-cheap labour available in both Iraq and Iraq." ..."
"... Hudson is so good. He's massively superior to most so called military analysts and alternative bloggers on the net. He can clearly see the over arching picture and how the military is used to protect and project it. The idea that the US is going to leave the middle east until they are forced to is so blind as to be ridiculous. ..."
"... I'd never thought of that "stationary aircraft carrier" comparison between Israel and the British, very apt. ..."
"... Trump et al assassinated someone who was on a diplomatic mission. This action was so far removed from acceptable behavior that it must have been considered to be "by any means and at all costs". ..."
"... This article, published by Strategic Culture, features a translation of Mahdi's speech to the Iraqi parliament in which he states that Trump threatened him with assassination and the US admitted to killing hundreds of demonstrators using Navy SEAL snipers. ..."
"... This description provided by Mr Hudson is no Moore than the financial basis behind the Cebrowski doctrine instituted on 9/11. https://www.voltairenet.org/article ..."
"... "The leading country breaking up US hegemony obviously is the United States itself. That is Trump's major contribution The United States is now turning on the screws demanding that other countries sacrifice their growth in order to finance the U.S. unipolar empire." ..."
"... The US govt. have long since paid off most every European politician. Thusly, Europe, as separate nations that should be remain still under the yolk of the US Financial/Political/Military power. ..."
"... In any event, it is the same today. Energy underlies, not only the military but, all of world civilization. Oil and gas are overwhelmingly the source of energy for the modern world. Without it, civilization collapses. Thus, he who controls oil (and gas) controls the world. ..."
"... the link between the US $$$ and Saudi Oil, is the absolute means of the American Dollar to reign complete. This payment system FEEDS both the US Military, but WALL STREET, hedge funds, the US/EU oligarchs – to name just a few entities. ..."
Introduction: After posting Michael Hudson's article "America
Escalates its "Democratic" Oil War in the Near East" on the blog, I decided to ask
Michael to reply to a few follow-up questions. Michael very kindly agreed. Please see our
exchange below.
The Saker
-- -- -
The Saker: Trump has been accused of not thinking forward, of not having a long-term
strategy regarding the consequences of assassinating General Suleimani. Does the United States
in fact have a strategy in the Near East, or is it only ad hoc?
Michael Hudson: Of course American strategists will deny that the recent actions do not
reflect a deliberate strategy, because their long-term strategy is so aggressive and
exploitative that it would even strike the American public as being immoral and offensive if
they came right out and said it.
President Trump is just the taxicab driver, taking the passengers he has accepted –
Pompeo, Bolton and the Iran-derangement syndrome neocons – wherever they tell him they
want to be driven. They want to pull a heist, and he's being used as the getaway driver (fully
accepting his role). Their plan is to hold onto the main source of their international revenue:
Saudi Arabia and the surrounding Near Eastern oil-export surpluses and money. They see the US
losing its ability to exploit Russia and China, and look to keep Europe under its control by
monopolizing key sectors so that it has the power to use sanctions to squeeze countries that
resist turning over control of their economies and natural rentier monopolies to US buyers. In
short, US strategists would like to do to Europe and the Near East just what they did to Russia
under Yeltsin: turn over public infrastructure, natural resources and the banking system to
U.S. owners, relying on US dollar credit to fund their domestic government spending and private
investment.
This is basically a resource grab. Suleimani was in the same position as Chile's Allende,
Libya's Qaddafi, Iraq's Saddam. The motto is that of Stalin: "No person, no problem."
The Saker: Your answer raises a question about Israel: In your recent article you only
mention Israel twice, and these are only passing comments. Furthermore, you also clearly say
the US Oil lobby as much more crucial than the Israel Lobby, so here is my follow-up question
to you: On what basis have you come to this conclusion and how powerful do you believe the
Israel Lobby to be compared to, say, the Oil lobby or the US Military-Industrial Complex? To
what degree do their interests coincide and to what degree to they differ?
Michael Hudson: I wrote my article to explain the most basic concerns of U.S. international
diplomacy: the balance of payments (dollarizing the global economy, basing foreign central bank
savings on loans to the U.S. Treasury to finance the military spending mainly responsible for
the international and domestic budget deficit), oil (and the enormous revenue produced by the
international oil trade), and recruitment of foreign fighters (given the impossibility of
drafting domestic U.S. soldiers in sufficient numbers). From the time these concerns became
critical to today, Israel was viewed as a U.S. military base and supporter, but the U.S. policy
was formulated independently of Israel.
I remember one day in 1973 or '74 I was traveling with my Hudson Institute colleague Uzi
Arad (later a head of Mossad and advisor to Netanyahu) to Asia, stopping off in San Francisco.
At a quasi-party, a U.S. general came up to Uzi and clapped him on the shoulder and said,
"You're our landed aircraft carrier in the Near East," and expressed his friendship.
Uzi was rather embarrassed. But that's how the U.S. military thought of Israel back then. By
that time the three planks of U.S. foreign policy strategy that I outlined were already firmly
in place.
Of course Netanyahu has applauded U.S. moves to break up Syria, and Trump's assassination
choice. But the move is a U.S. move, and it's the U.S. that is acting on behalf of the dollar
standard, oil power and mobilizing Saudi Arabia's Wahabi army.
Israel fits into the U.S.-structured global diplomacy much like Turkey does. They and other
countries act opportunistically within the context set by U.S. diplomacy to pursue their own
policies. Obviously Israel wants to secure the Golan Heights; hence its opposition to Syria,
and also its fight with Lebanon; hence, its opposition to Iran as the backer of Assad and
Hezbollah. This dovetails with US policy.
But when it comes to the global and U.S. domestic response, it's the United States that is
the determining active force. And its concern rests above all with protecting its cash cow of
Saudi Arabia, as well as working with the Saudi jihadis to destabilize governments whose
foreign policy is independent of U.S. direction – from Syria to Russia (Wahabis in
Chechnya) to China (Wahabis in the western Uighur region). The Saudis provide the underpinning
for U.S. dollarization (by recycling their oil revenues into U.S. financial investments and
arms purchases), and also by providing and organizing the ISIS terrorists and coordinating
their destruction with U.S. objectives. Both the Oil lobby and the Military-Industrial Complex
obtain huge economic benefits from the Saudis.
Therefore, to focus one-sidedly on Israel is a distraction away from what the US-centered
international order really is all about.
The Saker: In your recent article you wrote: " The assassination was intended to escalate
America's presence in Iraq to keep control the region's oil reserves ." Others believe that
the goal was precisely the opposite, to get a pretext to remove the US forces from both Iraq
and Syria. What are your grounds to believe that your hypothesis is the most likely one?
Michael Hudson: Why would killing Suleimani help remove the U.S. presence? He was the
leader of the fight against ISIS, especially in Syria. US policy was to continue using ISIS to
permanently destabilize Syria and Iraq so as to prevent a Shi'ite crescent reaching from Iran
to Lebanon – which incidentally would serve as part of China's Belt and Road initiative.
So it killed Suleimani to prevent the peace negotiation. He was killed because he had been
invited by Iraq's government to help mediate a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
That was what the United States feared most of all, because it effectively would prevent its
control of the region and Trump's drive to seize Iraqi and Syrian oil.
So using the usual Orwellian doublethink, Suleimani was accused of being a terrorist, and
assassinated under the U.S. 2002 military Authorization Bill giving the President to move
without Congressional approval against Al Qaeda. Trump used it to protect Al Qaeda's
terrorist ISIS offshoots.
Given my three planks of U.S. diplomacy described above, the United States must remain in
the Near East to hold onto Saudi Arabia and try to make Iraq and Syria client states equally
subservient to U.S. balance-of-payments and oil policy.
Certainly the Saudis must realize that as the buttress of U.S. aggression and terrorism in
the Near East, their country (and oil reserves) are the most obvious target to speed the
parting guest. I suspect that this is why they are seeking a rapprochement with Iran. And I
think it is destined to come about, at least to provide breathing room and remove the threat.
The Iranian missiles to Iraq were a demonstration of how easy it would be to aim them at Saudi
oil fields. What then would be Aramco's stock market valuation?
The Saker: In your article you wrote: " The major deficit in the U.S. balance of payments
has long been military spending abroad. The entire payments deficit, beginning with the Korean
War in 1950-51 and extending through the Vietnam War of the 1960s, was responsible for forcing
the dollar off gold in 1971. The problem facing America's military strategists was how to
continue supporting the 800 U.S. military bases around the world and allied troop support
without losing America's financial leverage. " I want to ask a basic, really primitive
question in this regard: how cares about the balance of payments as long as 1) the US continues
to print money 2) most of the world will still want dollars. Does that not give the US an
essentially "infinite" budget? What is the flaw in this logic?
Michael Hudson: The U.S. Treasury can create dollars to spend at home, and the Fed can
increase the banking system's ability to create dollar credit and pay debts denominated in US
dollars. But they cannot create foreign currency to pay other countries, unless they willingly
accept dollars ad infinitum – and that entails bearing the costs of financing the U.S.
balance-of-payments deficit, getting only IOUs in exchange for real resources that they sell to
U.S. buyers.
This is the situation that arose half a century ago. The United States could print dollars
in 1971, but it could not print gold.
In the 1920s, Germany's Reichsbank could print deutsche marks – trillions of them.
When it came to pay Germany's foreign reparations debt, all it could do was to throw these
D-marks onto the foreign exchange market. That crashed the currency's exchange rate, forcing up
the price of imports proportionally and causing the German hyperinflation.
The question is, how many surplus dollars do foreign governments want to hold. Supporting
the dollar standard ends up supporting U.S. foreign diplomacy and military policy. For the
first time since World War II, the most rapidly growing parts of the world are seeking to
de-dollarize their economies by reducing reliance on U.S. exports, U.S. investment, and U.S.
bank loans. This move is creating an alternative to the dollar, likely to replace it with
groups of other currencies and assets in national financial reserves.
The Saker: In the same article you also write: " So maintaining the dollar as the world's
reserve currency became a mainstay of U.S. military spending. " We often hear people say
that the dollar is about to tank and that as soon as that happens, then the US economy (and,
according to some, the EU economy too) will collapse. In the intelligence community there is
something called tracking the "indicators and warnings". My question to you is: what are the
economic "indicators and warnings" of a possible (probable?) collapse of the US dollar followed
by a collapse of the financial markets most tied to the Dollar? What shall people like myself
(I am an economic ignoramus) keep an eye on and look for?
Michael Hudson: What is most likely is a slow decline, largely from debt deflation
and cutbacks in social spending, in the Eurozone and US economies. Of course, the decline will
force the more highly debt-leveraged companies to miss their bond payments and drive them into
insolvency. That is the fate of Thatcherized economies. But it will be long and painfully drawn
out, largely because there is little left-wing socialist alternative to neoliberalism at
present.
Trump's protectionist policies and sanctions are forcing other countries to become
self-reliant and independent of US suppliers, from farm crops to airplanes and military arms,
against the US threat of a cutoff or sanctions against repairs, spare parts and servicing.
Sanctioning Russian agriculture has helped it become a major crop exporter, and to become much
more independent in vegetables, dairy and cheese products. The US has little to offer
industrially, especially given the fact that its IT communications are stuffed with US
spyware.
Europe therefore is facing increasing pressure from its business sector to choose the non-US
economic alliance that is growing more rapidly and offers a more profitable investment market
and more secure trade supplier. Countries will turn as much as possible (diplomatically as well
as financially and economically) to non-US suppliers because the United States is not reliable,
and because it is being shrunk by the neoliberal policies supported by Trump and the Democrats
alike. A byproduct probably will be a continued move toward gold as an alternative do the
dollar in settling balance-of-payments deficits.
The Saker: Finally, my last question: which country out there do you see as the most capable
foe of the current US-imposed international political and economic world order? whom do you
believe that US Deep State and the Neocons fear most? China? Russia? Iran? some other country?
How would you compare them and on the basis of what criteria?
Michael Hudson: The leading country breaking up US hegemony obviously is the United States
itself. That is Trump's major contribution. He is uniting the world in a move toward
multi-centrism much more than any ostensibly anti-American could have done. And he is doing it
all in the name of American patriotism and nationalism – the ultimate Orwellian
rhetorical wrapping!
Trump has driven Russia and China together with the other members of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), including Iran as observer. His demand that NATO join in US oil
grabs and its supportive terrorism in the Near East and military confrontation with Russia in
Ukraine and elsewhere probably will lead to European "Ami go home" demonstrations against NATO
and America's threat of World War III.
No single country can counter the U.S. unipolar world order. It takes a critical mass of
countries. This already is taking place among the countries that you list above. They are
simply acting in their own common interest, using their own mutual currencies for trade and
investment. The effect is an alternative multilateral currency and trading area.
The United States is now turning on the screws demanding that other countries sacrifice
their growth in order to finance the U.S. unipolar empire. In effect, foreign countries are
beginning to respond to the United States what the ten tribes of Israel said when they withdrew
from the southern kingdom of Judah, whose king Rehoboam refused to lighten his demands (1 Kings
12). They echoed the cry of Sheba son of Bikri a generation earlier: "Look after your own
house, O David!" The message is: What do other countries have to gain by remaining in the US
unipolar neoliberalized world, as compared to using their own wealth to build up their own
economies? It's an age-old problem.
The dollar will still play a role in US trade and investment, but it will be as just another
currency, held at arms length until it finally gives up its domineering attempt to strip other
countries' wealth for itself. However, its demise may not be a pretty sight.
The Saker: I thank you very much for your time and answers!
Another one that absolutely stands for me out is the below link to a recent interview of
Hussein Askary.
As I wrote a few days ago IMO this too is a wonderful insight into the utterly complicated
dynamics of the tinderbox that the situation in Iran and Iraq has become.
Conflict in the ME has traditionally almost always been about oil [and of course Israel].
This situation is different. It is only partially about oil and Israel, but OVERWHHEMINGLY it
is about the BRI.
The salient factor as I see it is the Oil for Technology initiative that Iraq signed with
China shortly before it slid into this current mess.
This was a mechanism whereby China would buy Iraq oil and these funds would be used
directly to fund infrastructure and self-sufficiency initiatives and technologies that would
help to drag Iraq out of the complete disaster that the US war had created in this country. A
key part of this would be that China would also make extra loans available at the same time
to speed up this development.
In essence, this would enable the direct and efficient linking of Iraq into the BRI
project. Going forward the economic gains and the political stability that could come out of
this would be a completely new paradigm in the recovery of Iraq both economically and
politically. Iraq is essential for a major part of the dynamics of the BRI because of its
strategic location and the fact that it could form a major hub in the overall network.
It absolutely goes without saying that the AAA would do everything the could to wreck this
plan. This is their playbook and is exactly what they have done. The moronic and
extraordinarily impulsive Trump subsequently was easily duped into being a willing and
idiotic accomplice in this plan.
The positive in all of this is that this whole scheme will backfire spectacularly for the
perpetrators and will more than likely now speed up the whole process in getting Iraq back on
track and working towards stability and prosperity.
Please don't anyone try to claim that Trump is part of any grand plan nothing could be
further from the truth he is nothing more than a bludgeoning imbecile foundering around,
lashing out impulsively indiscriminately. He is completely oblivious and ignorant as to the
real picture.
I urge everyone involved in this Saker site to put aside an hour and to listen very
carefully to Askary's insights. This is extremely important and could bring more clarity to
understanding the situation than just about everything else you have read put together. There
is hope, and Askary highlights the huge stakes that both Russia and China have in the
region.
This is a no brainer. This is the time for both Russia and China to act and to decisively.
They must cooperate in assisting both Iraq and Iran to extract themselves from the current
quagmire the one that the vicious Hegemon so cruelly and thoughtlessly tossed them into.
Also interesting is what Simon Watkins reports in his recent article entitled "Is Iraq About
To Become A Chinese Client State?"
To quote from the article:
"Iraq's Finance Ministry that the country had started exporting 100,000 barrels per day
(bpd) of crude oil to China in October as part of the 20-year oil-for-infrastructure deal
agreed between the two countries."
and
"For Iraq and Iran, China's plans are particularly far-reaching, OilPrice.com has been
told by a senior oil industry figure who works closely with Iran's Petroleum Ministry and
Iraq's Oil Ministry. China will begin with the oil and gas sector and work outwards from that
central point. In addition to being granted huge reductions on buying Iranian oil and gas,
China is to be given the opportunity to build factories in both Iran and Iraq – and
build-out infrastructure, such as railways – overseen by its own management staff from
Chinese companies. These are to have the same operational structure and assembly lines as
those in China, so that they fit seamlessly into various Chinese companies' assembly lines'
process for whatever product a particular company is manufacturing, whilst also being able to
use the still-cheap labour available in both Iraq and Iraq."
and
"The second key announcement in this vein made last week from Iraq was that the Oil
Ministry has completed the pre-qualifying process for companies interested in participating
in the Iraqi-Jordanian oil pipeline project. The U$5 billion pipeline is aimed at carrying
oil produced from the Rumaila oilfield in Iraq's Basra Governorate to the Jordanian port of
Aqaba, with the first phase of the project comprising the installation of a
700-kilometre-long pipeline with a capacity of 2.25 million bpd within the Iraqi territories
(Rumaila-Haditha). The second phase includes installing a 900-kilometre pipeline in Jordan
between Haditha and Aqaba with a capacity of 1 million bpd. Iraq's Oil Minister – for
the time being, at least – Thamir Ghadhban added that the Ministry has formed a team to
prepare legal contracts, address financial issues and oversee technical standards for
implementing the project, and that May will be the final month in which offers for the
project from the qualified companies will be accepted and that the winners will be announced
before the end of this year. Around 150,000 barrels of the oil from Iraq would be used for
Jordan's domestic needs, whilst the remainder would be exported through Aqaba to various
destinations, generating about US$3 billion a year in revenues to Jordan, with the rest going
to Iraq. Given that the contractors will be expected to front-load all of the financing for
the projects associated with this pipeline, Baghdad expects that such tender offers will be
dominated by Chinese and Russian companies, according to the Iran and Iraq source."
Hudson is so good. He's massively superior to most so called military analysts and
alternative bloggers on the net. He can clearly see the over arching picture and how the
military is used to protect and project it. The idea that the US is going to leave the middle
east until they are forced to is so blind as to be ridiculous.
They will not sacrifice the
(free) oil until booted out by a coalition of Arab countries threatening to over run them and
that is why the dollar hegemonys death will be slow, long and drawn out and they will do
anything, any dirty trick in the book, to prevent Arab/Persian unity. Unlike many peoples
obsession with Israel and how important they feel themselves to be I think Hudson is correct
again. They are the middle eastern version of the British – a stationary aircraft
carrier who will allow themselves to be used and abused whilst living under the illusion they
are major players. They aren't. They're bit part players in decline, subservient to the great
dollar and oil pyramid scheme that keeps America afloat. If you want to beat America you have
to understand the big scheme, that and the utter insanity that backs it up. It is that
insanity of the leites, the inability to allow themselves to be 'beaten' that will keep
nuclear exchange as a real possibility over the next 10 to 15 years. Unification is the only
thing that can stop it and trying to unite so many disparate countries (as the Russians are
trying to do despite multiple provocations) is where the future lies and why it will take so
long. It is truly breath taking in such a horrific way, as Hudson mentions, that to allow the
world to see its 'masters of the universe' pogram to be revealed:
"Of course American strategists will deny that the recent actions do not reflect a
deliberate strategy, because their long-term strategy is so aggressive and exploitative that
it would even strike the American public as being immoral and offensive if they came right
out and said it."
Would be to allow it to be undermined at home and abroad. God help us all.
Clever would be a better word. Looking at my world globe, I see Italy, Greece, and Turkey on
that end of the Mediterranean. Turkey has been in NATO since 1952. Crete and Cyprus are also
right there. Doesn't Hudson own a globe or regional map?
That a US Admiral would be gushing about the Apartheid state 7 years after the attempted
destruction of the USS Liberty is painful to consider. I'd like to disbelieve the story, but
it's quite likely there were a number of high-ranking ***holes in a Naval Uniform.
The world situation reminds us of the timeless fable by Aesop of The North Wind and the Sun.
Trump et al assassinated someone who was on a diplomatic mission. This action was so far
removed from acceptable behavior that it must have been considered to be "by any means and at
all costs".
Perhaps the most potent weapon Iran or anyone else has at this critical juncture, is not
missiles, but diplomacy.
"Therefore, to focus one-sidedly on Israel is a distraction away from what the US-centered
international order really is all about."
Thank you for saying this sir. In the US and around the world many people become
obsessively fixated in seeing a "jew" or zionist behind every bush. Now the Zionists are
certinly an evil, blood thirsty bunch, and certainly deserve the scorn of the world, but i
feel its a cop out sometimes. A person from the US has a hard time stomaching the actions of
their country, so they just hoist all the unpleasentries on to the zionists. They put it all
on zionisim, and completly fail to mention imperialism. I always switced back and forth on
the topic my self. But i cant see how a beachead like the zionist state, a stationary
carrier, can be bigger than the empire itself. Just look at the major leaders in the
resistance groups, the US was always seen as the ultimate obstruction, while israel was seen
as a regional obstruction. Like sayyed hassan nasrallah said in his recent speech about the
martyrs, that if the US is kicked out, the Israelis might just run away with out even
fighting. I hate it when people say "we are in the middle east for israel" when it can easily
be said that "israel is still in the mid east because of the US." If the US seized to exist
today, israel would fall rather quickly. If israel fell today the US would still continue
being an imperalist, bloodthirsty entity.
The Deeper Story behind the Assassination of Soleimani
This article, published by Strategic Culture, features a translation of Mahdi's speech to
the Iraqi
parliament in which he states that Trump threatened him with assassination and the US
admitted
to killing hundreds of demonstrators using Navy SEAL snipers.
This description provided by Mr Hudson is no Moore than the financial basis behind the
Cebrowski doctrine instituted on 9/11.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article
I wish the Saker had asked Mr Hudson about some crucial recent events to get his opinion
with regards to US foreign policy. Specifically, how does the emergence of cryptocurrency
relate to dollar finance and the US grand strategy? A helpful tool for the hegemon or the
emergence of a new currency that prevents unlimited currency printing? Finally, what is
global warming and the associated carbon credit system? The next planned model of continuing
global domination and balance of payments? Or true organic attempt at fair energy production
and management?
With all due respect, these are huge questions in themselves and perhaps could to be
addressed in separate interviews.
IMO it doesn't always work that well to try to cover too much ground in just one giant
leap.
I have never understood the Cebrowski doctrine. How does the destruction of Middle Eastern state structures allow the US to control Middle
East Oil? The level of chaos generated by such an act would seem to prevent anyone from controlled
the oil.
Dr. Hudson often appears on RT's "Keiser Report" where he covers many contemporary topics
with its host Max Keiser. Many of the shows transcripts are available at Hudson's website . Indeed, after the two Saker items,
you'll find three programs on the first page. Using the search function at his site, you'll
find the two articles he's written that deal with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, although I
think he's been more specific in the TV interviews.
As for this Q&A, its an A+. Hudson's 100% correct to playdown the Zionist influence
given the longstanding nature of the Outlaw US Empire's methods that began well before the
rise of the Zionist Lobby, which in reality is a recycling of aid dollars back to Congress in
the form of bribes.
Nils: Good Article. The spirit of Nihilism.
Quote from Neocon Michael Ladeen.
"Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear
down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and
cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and
creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their
inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do
not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very
existence -- our existence, not our politics -- threatens their legitimacy. They must attack
us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission."
@NILS As far as crypto currency goes it is a brilliant idea in concept. But since during the
Bush years we have been shown multiple times, who actually owns [and therefore controls] the
internet. Many times now we have also been informed that through the monitoring capability's
of our defense agency's, they are recording every key stroke. IMO, with the flip of a switch,
we can shut down the internet. At the very least, that would stop us from being able to trade
in crypto, but they have e-files on each of us. They know our passwords, or can easily access
them. That does not give me confidence in e=currency during a teotwawki situation.
One thing that troubles me about the petrodollar thesis is that ANNUAL trade in oil is about
2 trillion DAILY trade in $US is 4 trillion. I can well believe the US thinks oil is the
bedrock if dollar hegemony but is it? I see no alternative to US dollar hegemony.
The lines that really got my attention were these:
"The leading country breaking up US hegemony obviously is the United States itself. That
is Trump's major contribution The United States is now turning on the screws demanding that
other countries sacrifice their growth in order to finance the U.S. unipolar empire."
That is so completely true. I have wondered why – to date – there had not been
more movement by Europe away from the United States. But while reading the article the
following occurred to me. Maybe Europe is awaiting the next U.S. election. Maybe they hope
that a new president (someone like Biden) might allow Europe to keep more of the
"spoils."
If that is true, then a re-election of Trump will probably send Europe fleeing for the
exits. The Europeans will be cutting deals with Russia and China like the store is on
fire.
The critical player in forming the EU WAS/IS the US financial Elites. Yes, they had many
ultra powerful Europeans, especially Germany, but it was the US who initiated the EU.
Purpose? For the US Financial Powerhouses & US politicians to "take Europe captive."
Notice the similarities: the EU has its Central Bank who communicates with the private
Banksters of the FED. Much austerity has ensued, especially in Southern nations: Greece,
Italy, etc. Purpose: to smash unions, worker's pay, eliminate unions, and basically allowing
US/EU Financial capital to buy out Italy, most of Greece, and a goodly section of Spain and
Portugal.
The US govt. have long since paid off most every European politician. Thusly, Europe, as
separate nations that should be remain still under the yolk of the US
Financial/Political/Military power.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this but it sounds like he is saying that the U.S.
has a payment deficit problem which is solved by stealing the world's oil supplies. To do
this they must have a powerful, expensive military. But it is primarily this military which
is the main cause of the balance deficit. So it is an eternally fuelled problem and solution.
If I understand this, what it actually means is that we all live on a plantation as slaves
and everything that is happening is for the benefit of the few wealthy billionaires. And they
intend to turn the entire world into their plantation of slaves. They may even let you live
for a while longer.
I didn't know this until I read a history of World War I.
As you know, World War One was irresolvable, murderous, bloody trench warfare. People
would charge out of the trenches trying to overrun enemy positions only to be cutdown by the
super weapon of the day – the machine gun. It was an unending bloody stalemate until
the development of the tank. Tanks were immune to machine gun fire coming from the trenches
and could overrun enemy positions. In the aftermath of that war, it became apparently that
mechanization had become crucial to military supremacy. In turn, fuel was crucial to
mechanization. Accordingly, in the Sykes Picot agreement France and Britain divided a large
amount of Middle Eastern oil between themselves in order to assure military dominance. (The
United States had plenty of their own oil at that time.)
In any event, it is the same today. Energy underlies, not only the military but, all of
world civilization. Oil and gas are overwhelmingly the source of energy for the modern world.
Without it, civilization collapses. Thus, he who controls oil (and gas) controls the
world.
That is one third of the story. The second third is this.
Up till 1971, the United States dollar was the most trusted currency in the world. The
dollar was backed by gold and lots and lots of it. Dollars were in fact redeemable in gold.
However, due to Vietnam War, the United States started running huge balance of payments
deficits. Other countries – most notably France under De Gaulle – started cashing
in dollars in exchange for that gold. Gold started flooding out of the United States. At that
point Nixon took the United States off of the gold standard. Basically stating that the
dollar was no longer backed by gold and dollars could not be redeemed for gold. That caused
an international payments problem. People would no longer accept dollars as payment since the
dollar was not backed up by anything. The American economy was in big trouble since they were
running deficits and people would no longer take dollars on faith.
To fix the problem, Henry Kissinger convinced the Saudis to agree to only accept dollars
in payment for oil – no matter who was the buyer. That meant that nations throughout
the world now needed dollars in order to pay for their energy needs. Due to this, the dollars
was once again the most important currency in the world since – as noted above –
energy underlies everything in modern industrial cultures. Additionally, since dollars were
now needed throughout the world, it became common to make all trades for any product in
highly valued dollars. Everyone needed dollars for every thing, oil or not.
At that point, the United States could go on printing dollars and spending them since a
growing world economy needed more and more dollars to buy oil as well as to trade everything
else.
That leads to the third part of the story. In order to convince the Saudis to accept only
dollars in payments for oil (and to have the Saudis strong arm other oil producers to do the
same) Kissinger promised to protect the brutal Saudi regime's hold on power against a restive
citizenry and also to protect the Saudi's against other nations. Additionally, Kissinger made
an implicit threat that if the Saudi's did not agree, the US would come in and just take
their oil. The Saudis agreed.
Thus, the three keys to dominance in the modern world are thus: oil, dollars and the
military.
Thus, Hudson ties in the three threads in his interview above. Oil, Dollars, Military.
That is what holds the empire together.
Thank you for thinking through this. Yes, the link between the US $$$ and Saudi Oil, is the
absolute means of the American Dollar to reign complete. This payment system FEEDS both the
US Military, but WALL STREET, hedge funds, the US/EU oligarchs – to name just a few
entities.
I should make one note only to this. That "no man, no problem" was Stalin's motto is a myth.
He never said that. It was invented by a writer Alexei Rybnikov and inserted in his book "The
Children of Arbat".
Wow! Absolutely beautiful summation of the ultimate causes that got us where we are and, if
left intact, will get us to where we're going!
So, the dreamer says: If only we could throw-off our us-vs-them BS political-economic
ideology & religious doctrine-faith issues, put them into live-and-let-live mode, and see
that we are all just humans fighting over this oil resource to which our modern economy (way
of life) is addicted, then we might be able to hammer out some new rules for interacting, for
running an earth-resource sustainable and fair global economy We do at least have the
technology to leave behind our oil addiction, but the political-economic will still is
lacking. How much more of the current insanity must we have before we get that will? Will we
get it before it's too late?
Only if we, a sufficient majority from the lowest economic classes to the top elites and
throughout all nations, are able to psychologically-spiritually internalize the two
principles of Common Humanity and Spaceship Earth soon enough, will we stop our current slide
off the cliff into modern economic collapse and avert all the pain and suffering that's
already now with us and that will intensify.
The realist says we're not going to stop that slide and it's the only way we're going to
learn, if we are indeed ever going to learn.
Thank you for this excellent interview. You ask the kind of questions that we would all like
to ask. It's regrettable that Chalmers Johnson isn't still alive. I believe that you and he
would have a lot in common.
Naxos has produced an incredible, unabridged cd audiobook of
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. One of Gibbon's observations really resonates
today: "Assassination is the last resource of cowards". Thanks again.
"... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration. ..."
"... The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role of CIA director and then his current one. ..."
"... Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS, Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied. ..."
"... "He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the Cabinet". ..."
"... While bragging about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc reacting favorably to the suggestion. ..."
Mike Pompeo has reportedly long cherished plans to take the Iranian general off the Middle
East battlefield, as he is said to have for quite a while seen late Commander Soleimani as the
one behind the spiralling tensions with Tehran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been
revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian
commander, CNN
reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating
Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration.
According to several sources, taking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani – the leader of
the elite Quds Force, a powerful military group with vast leverage in the region - "off the
battlefield" has been Pompeo's goal for a decade.
Pompeo "was the one who made the case to take out Soleimani, it was him absolutely", a source
said, adding he apparently floated the idea when debating the US Embassy raid over New Year
with Trump.
According to a number of sources close to Pompeo, the secretary of state has at all times
believed that Iran is the root cause of the woes in the Middle East, and Soleimani in
particular - the mastermind of terrorism raging across the region. This point of view is
notably in tune with how Pompeo commented on the commander's assassination:
"We took a bad guy off the battlefield", Pompeo told CNN on 5 January. "We made the right
decision". The same day, Pompeo told ABC that killing Soleimani was important "because this
was a fella who was the glue, who was conducting active plotting against the United States of
America, putting American lives at risk".
The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought
to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role
of CIA director and then his current one.
Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS,
Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any
military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied.
"He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing
the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in
helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the
Cabinet".
Regardless of who inspired the drone attack that killed Soleimani, the two countries are
indeed going through a stint of severe tensions, but no direct military confrontation. After
Tehran's retaliatory attack, Trump announced a slew of more stringent economic limitations to
be slapped on Iran.
While bragging
about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his
tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising
that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get
more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc
reacting favorably to the suggestion.
"... Shorter Pompeo: "Our troops will stay and you better do what we say." A foreign force that is asked to leave a country and does not do so is an occupation force. It must and will be opposed. ..."
"... The murder of the 31 security forces and the assassination of al-Mahandes have still not been avenged. The PMU will do their moral duty and fight the foreign occupation forces until they leave. ..."
"... After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I still refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed, the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event I did not cooperate and do as he asked ..."
"... Iraq is again negotiating with Russia to acquire S-300 air defense systems. It will need them as the U.S. will have to leave and leave it will. The only choice for its soldiers is between leaving horizontally or vertically, dead or alive. ..."
"... In 2006 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously celebrated Israel's assault on Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." The child she dreamed of was never born. Israel lost that war against Hizbullah and the Resistance Axis has been winning ever since while the U.S. has lost again and again. It is time for the U.S. to end that useless engagement and to withdraw from the Middle East. ..."
Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi is following
Iraq's Parliament decision to remove all foreign forces from Iraq. But his request for
talks with the U.S. about the U.S. withdrawal process was answered with a big "F*** You":
Iraq's caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an
American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the
request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to "recommit" to their
partnership.
Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered in the capital and southern Iraq, many
calling on both Iran and America to leave Iraq, reflecting anger and frustration over the two
rivals -- both Baghdad's allies -- trading blows on Iraqi soil.
The request from Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi pointed to his determination to push
ahead with demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, stoked by the American drone strike on Jan.
3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. In a phone call Thursday night, he told U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that recent U.S. strikes in Iraq were an unacceptable breach
of Iraqi sovereignty and a violation of their security agreements, his office said.
He asked Pompeo to "send delegates to Iraq to prepare a mechanism" to carry out the Iraqi
Parliament's resolution on withdrawing foreign troops, according to the statement.
"The prime minister said American forces had entered Iraq and drones are flying in its
airspace without permission from Iraqi authorities, and this was a violation of the bilateral
agreements," the statement added.
The Associated Press errs when it says that the move was "stoked by the American
drone strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani". The move was stoked five
days earlier when the U.S.
killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi
prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S.
assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes , the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and
a national hero in Iraq.
The State Department issued a rather aggressive response to
Abdul-Mahdi's request:
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue
the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting
Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial
our D-ISIS mission is in Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated
to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop
withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East. Today, a NATO
delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's role in Iraq, in line with
the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts. There
does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just
regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to
be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.
Shorter Pompeo: "Our troops will stay and you better do what we say." A foreign force that is asked to leave a country and does not do so is an occupation force.
It must and will be opposed.
The murder of the 31 security forces and the assassination of al-Mahandes have still not
been avenged. The PMU will do their moral duty and fight the foreign occupation forces until
they leave.
The demonstrators in Baghdad will not be able to prevent that from happening. It is
interesting, by the way, that the Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad thought she
knew what they would demand even before they came together:
Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck - 9:48 UTC · Jan 10,
2020
Activists have called for fresh rallies in Baghdad's Tahrir Square today, and crowds expected
to build after midday prayers. The demonstrators are rejecting parliament's decision to
oppose a US troop presence, fearing repercussions that might follow.
A few hours later Loveluck had to admit that she was, as usual, wrong:
Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck - 11:13 UTC · Jan 10,
2020
"No to Iran, no to America" say signs and chants in Baghdad's Tahrir Square as crowds start
to swell. Protesters say they are fed up of their country being someone else's battlefield.
"We deserve to live in peace," says 21 year old Zahraa.
... Rejecting a narrow
parliamentary vote backed by Shiite political elites is not the same as openly supporting the
US. Chants in Tahrir today reject both the US and Iran.
The U.S. will need to pay better Iraqi 'activists' if it wants them to demand what Donald
Trump wishes.
After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I still
refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed, the
demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event I did not
cooperate and do as he asked
Iraq is again negotiating with
Russia to acquire S-300 air defense systems. It will need them as the U.S. will have to leave
and leave it will. The only choice for its soldiers is between leaving horizontally or
vertically, dead or alive.
The US President – who promised to end the "
endless wars " – killed the Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and the Iranian
Major General Qassem Soleimani believing he could win control of Iraq and achieve regime
change in Iran. On the brink of triggering a major war, Trump has spectacularly lost Iran and
is about to lose Iraq.
"
Beautiful military equipment doesn't rule the world, people rule the world, and the
people want the US out of the region",
said Iran Foreign Minister Jawad Zarif. President Trump doesn't have many people in the
Middle East on his side, not even among his allies, whose leaders have been repeatedly
insulted . Iran
could not have dreamt of a better President to rejuvenate its position domestically and
regionally. All Iran's allies are jubilant, standing behind the "Islamic Republic" that
fulfilled its promise to bomb the US. A "New Middle East" is about to be born; it will not be
"Made in the USA" but "Made in Iran". Let us hope warmongers' era is over. The time has come
to recognise and rely on intelligent diplomacy in world affairs.
In 2006 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously celebrated Israel's assault on
Lebanon as "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." The child she dreamed of was never born.
Israel lost that war against Hizbullah and the Resistance Axis has been winning ever since
while the U.S. has lost again and again. It is time for the U.S. to end that useless engagement
and to withdraw from the Middle East.
Posted by b on January 10, 2020 at 19:09 UTC |
Permalink
The sheer arrogance and wilful blindness expressed in the US State
Department press statement and WaPo staffer Louisa Loveluck's tweets are astounding beyond
belief. It's as if the entire capital city of the US has become a mental asylum / Hotel
California, where one can enter but never leave spiritually and morally, though one can take
many physical trips in and out of the madhouse.
Iraq definitely does need the S-300 missile defence systems. The most pressing issue
though is whether the Iraqis will suffer the delays Syria suffered in acquiring those systems
even after paying for them. Time now is of the essence. Iraqi operators need to be trained in
those systems. Syria may be able to supply some training but at the risk of letting down its
guard in sending some of its operators to Baghdad and exposing them to US drone attacks.
Thanks b, for your continuing coverage and insights.
the u.s'. leadership believes it can do the same thing over, and over, and over with
different results. They will need a very long ladder with the upcoming repeat of Saigon
1975.
They have always underestimated the will and cultures of people they would make
subservient.
How is this working for the Iran Puppet Master:
Pompous one?
Here is the big mighty with world's powerful military; on their bended knees -
[.]The press release further noted that Washington seeks to be "a friend and partner to a
sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq", while stating that the US military presence in the
country will persist in order to fight Daesh* and protect Americans, Iraqis, and US-led
coalition partners.[.]
Yes, some friend and partner eh? Insults and thuggery. Exiting will be horizontal.
Go pound sand.
From the US State Dept's 'aggressive response' link,
"not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle
East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO's role
in Iraq, in line with the President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective
defense efforts. "
"BUT OUR RIGHT" ??
...
"President's desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts."
And with such liars who needs a stick. Narrative changes depending the hour.
Last night: Pompeo told Foxnews-
Pompeo Says US Had No Information on Date, Place of Possible Attack Allegedly Planned
by Soleimani
LINK
US President Donald Trump earlier claimed that Washington had eliminated the top Iranian
military commander to halt Tehran's plans to blow up the US Embassy in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on a national broadcast that the United States
possessed no information about the date and place of an alleged attack planned by
assassinated General Qasem Soleimani.[.]
"We don't know precisely when - and we don't know precisely where. But it was real
...
US President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News said that top Iranian commander
Qasem Soleimani was plotting attacks on four American embassies in the Middle East region
before being assassinated by US forces.
"I can reveal that I believe it probably would've been four embassies," Trump said when
asked whether large-scale attacks were planned against other embassies.
The House of Fools. Something is out of focus if they have to keep making justifications
for the killing.
Thanks for focus on the Iran front of the civilization war humanity is in. I find the Ukraine
plane crash to be distracting from the bigger picture.
The piece from the US State Department is quite the lie. Bottom line is that Iran is
currently sovereign but would cease to be so is they became the "normal" country that private
finance empire wants. Iran would then live under the dictatorship of global private finance
like the rest of us that mythically believe we are sovereign nations and individuals.
I am pleased to see that humanity is at this juncture in spite of the threat of
extinction. Our species is crippled by the cult that owns global private finance in the West
and even if this process seems quite indirect to me, at least the socialism/barbarism war is
being fought.
Good. Iran will star escalating (via proxy force, or maybe even directly if they are feeling
bold and determined) and US will start to have casualties. Being nice to bully never works.
Iraq, every parliament party, could start themselves showing they want the americans to
leave. They have not done this,
and this is the reason US give not to leave:
US is not willing to withdraw troops from Iraq, says Pompeo
The US argues that the Iraqi parliamentary vote was non-binding, and that its legitimacy
was undermined by neither Iraqi Kurds or Sunnis participating.
New Rome suffers the same maladies as the first. Uprisings in the Provinces.
Lest we forget, Rome's demands;
" "First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of
its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity."
"Second, Iran must stop uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This
includes closing its heavy water reactor."
"Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout
the entire country."
"Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or
development of nuclear-capable missile systems."
"Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each
of them detained on spurious charges."
"Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah
[Hezbollah], Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
"Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming,
demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias."
"Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a
peaceful political settlement in Yemen."
"Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of
Syria."
"Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the
region, and cease harboring senior Al Qaida leaders."
"Iran, too, must end the IRG [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Qods Force's [Quds
Force's] support for terrorists and militant partners around the world."
"And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of
whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing
of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to
international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks."
thanks b... i share jens view on how outrageous usa official words on this are...
"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best
recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right,
appropriate force posture in the Middle East." they just don't give a fuck... everyone here
knew that already... as a few of us have been saying - there is no way the usa is going to
leave.. they are intent up the same agenda they have been intent on for what seems like
forever...
@ 4 Likklemore quote - "Something is out of focus if they have to keep making
justifications for the killing." the liar in command saying he was going to cause trouble at
4 embassies.. jesus what a liar and retard trump is if he thinks anyone who has a brain would
believe that b.s.
@ 10 sammy... the sooner washington d.c. is glass the sooner americans can wake the fuck
up..
Who dares to stop them?
Surely no sane country wants to stand against JUSA.
Israel is shaking in its boots so its American poodle must stay to protect them. The
sooner the world gets rid of the Jewish infestation from their governments the safer the
world will be.
We will likely see a rebranding of USA troops to NATO
Some of their NATO vassals still care about the rule of law and international law. Mikey
and Donny might discover that these backward states are "not very helpful" to their cause of
rules based order.
USA runs a serious risk of overplaying its hand and alienating some of their european
allies. Likely not all, but almost certainly some. That would create a rift in NATO and
possibly the EU and compromise USA control over these organizations and their members.
Fernando Martinez@16 - You're misunderstanding the situation. The Iraqi parliament did get
the majority they needed to pass the resolution as specified in their constitution. They will
turn it over to the existing or new PM for implementation. Nothing wishy-washy about it. It's
a done deal despite the terrified Kurds and Sunnis not voting to save their own butts from
reprisal - either by Iraqi Shia or by the US. I would have done the same thing.
It is the US that is claiming the resolution is nonbinding (in their 'legal' opinion)
because the vote wasn't sufficiently representative (in the mind of the US dual-citizen
chickenhawk neocons) - despite the fact that two-thirds of Iraqis are Shia and there was more
than enough votes to pass the resolution despite the Sunni and Kurd representatives' absence.
The US is pouting and will hold its breath until the Iraqis defy their constitution and obey
the will of their American masters. In the meantime, the US has refused to recognize the vote
and will oppose any efforts for implementation by the Iraqi PM. Trump or Pompeo or one of
those idiots stated that clearly and unambiguously - the US has no plans to leave no matter
what.
I guess we'll see. Plan B for the US is probably to agitate for the original plan of
uprisings to partition Iraq into Kurd, Sunni and Shia statelets. The obedient Kurd and Shia
leaders will allow eternal US presence and as many bases as the US wants. It will be enough
territory to block the feared 'Shia Crescent' - the US will insist the Kurd and Sunni
statelets extend from Turkey down the Syrian border to Jordan, blocking any attempts to
connect the Shia statelet to Syria. That's the US plan B for this problem if they can't use
'other means' to stay in present-day Iraq for 'anti-ISIS' operations.
US was hitting Iraqi militias even back when ISIS still held territory and the militias where
driving ISIS back.
Then the recent strike on the militia's formally incorporated into Iraqi military and the
strike that killed the Iraqi and Iranian.... but then the Iraqi's declare Iran's strike on
the US base a breach of sovereignty. Iraqi's that should be allied with Iran for the purpose
of driving the US out. US will be in Iraq and the Syrian oilfields for quite some time.
There was the same talk about militia's and whatever hitting US in Syria but that hasn't
eventuated and I doubt any thing serious against US will happen in Iraq either. US will have
proxies out and about - using its bases as fire support bases with air and artillery to back
up its proxies.
The vote count I saw was unanimous. Clearly, the Evil Outlaw US Empire is throwing as much
bullshit at everything in the hopes that some sticks and clogs peoples's minds. The 737 crash
is similar in pointing over there instead of looking at what's just occurred at your feet.
Now Trump says four embassies were going to be attacked as he further demonstrates he's
losing his mind. Lies and Bluster are the hallmarks of a Paper Tiger.
Meanwhile, what stands for genuine Progressives and the Left are clearly gaining ground as
numerous Anti-war rallies took place yesterday and an article appeared in my local rag saying
the D-Party Establishment is afraid of a Sanders nomination--2016 in play all over again
except no HRC and we know more about the DNC's evilness in not at all being responsive to the
public or voting results. IMO, the Political Fight required for genuine change has finally
begun and will escalate.
Globally, the current battles are a new phase of a 3 millennial-long war between the
Current Oligarchy and the 99% as to who will be the Sovereign--the people collectively or
those who've stolen their wealth. Class War--You Bet! We now have definitive proof of how it
works and how long it's been ongoing. What we've yet to see is if the 99% have enough brains
and solidarity to undo 3,000+ years of Tyranny.
Within
this article is a photo of Iranian general Ali Amir Hajizadeh standing at a podium in
front of a phalanx of 9 flags belonging to the Axis of Resistance. We need to add our own
flags to that Alliance for the enemies of Iran are the enemies of all Earth's people and
employ the likes of sammy and other Terrorists to do their bidding.
The Iranians attacked by the US in this episode was always about Iraq being seen as moving
out of the American-Euro orbit and into the China-Iran-Russia orbit. So of course they will
not voluntarily leave, instead they will either be forced out by attacks or more likely they
will force either a change in leadership of Iraq or threaten the leadership or bribe the
leadership into accepting permanent occupation for "their safety" ala a Mob Protection
Racket. This is exposed here Pax
Americana: Between Iraq and A Hard Place
Couple of small points;
1) 32-35 soldiers (4-5 commanders and their command posts - US dixit) were killed in the
earlier US attacks, which were heavier in Syria and against the Herzbollah, than those
against Iraqian forces on the Syria-Iraqi border. The command posts were eliminated
very accurately. This is possibly because they had previously collectively stated that they
wanted to eliminate the terrorists in the Anbar desert. (Thought; those "terrorists" may have
included embedded "special forces" or mercenaries which the US wanted to protect.)
2) I believe that Iraq was trying to get the S400, (The one that can "see" F35's) rather than
the S300.
3) OT? Just who gets the profits from the Oil stolen from Syria, and would have a kickback
from the oil that was demanded from Iraq (Al-Mahdi statement)? Conventionally we attribute
the money going to the "Pentagon" or "CIA". But I seem to remember that the complete Erdogan
family was benefitting before they were kicked out. Is it possible that the Syrian oil is now
going straight into a slush fund for some Generals or members of the administration? Is that
really why the US doesn't want leave? Profits not geo-politics?
Well, we shall soon see what the Iraqis are made of and where their will lies. I expect
we'll begin getting that answer this weekend. It does appear Iraqi Patriots will need to drag
their fellows along with them, but IMO none will get a better future unless the Outlaw US
Empire is driven from Southwest Asia.
I expect some spineless eastern European countries (Romania, Poland, etc.) will lend
themselves for this. The other members will tacitly accept the NATO branding ...
the sooner Israhell, stripped to its 1948 boundaries, is glass we will have peace on
planet earth. Fighting Israhell's wars have daily cost in blood and treasure. In $ 7
trillions and counting.
Hmm. Why? running scared.
Reuters: but Russia denies. Russian navy ship 'aggressively approached' U.S. destroyer in Arabian Sea: U.S.
Navy
"DUBAI (Reuters) - A Russian navy ship "aggressively approached" a U.S. Navy destroyer in the
North Arabian Sea on Thursday, the U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet said in a statement
on Friday.
[.]
"The Russian ship initially refused but ultimately altered course and the two ships opened
distance from one another," the statement said."
No one should cheer this. The people of the Middle East have been bleeding way too
long.
The million dollar question is: how tostop a serial killer on the loose, operating in plain
sight, when everyone else is either afraid, in a deal or trying to avoid blowing up the whole
place (world).
It's tough because the serial killer, (together with his partners in crime EU/NATO), have
dismantled the existing world order, however fragile it was. The law is no more.
You would expect that in a situation like this the nations of the world, through the UN,
would say - now you must leave Iraq because the Iraqi parliament has spoken. That's the only
way the weaker can enforce their decisions agains the stronger peacefully, with the support
of the global community. But that doesn't happen because the worst offenders, the serial
killers, are members of the UN Security Council. And, the UN General Assembly almost never
meets to discuss events crucial for world peace, justice, fairness and equality, such as
these.
When all hinges on force, chaos and blood are in store. It is absolutely immoral, unjust
and heinous that the people of Iraq, Iran Syria, Lebanon and others should again fight to
their death to set themselves free from the deadly claws of parasitic states that are
veto-holding members of the UN body entrusted with maintaining world peace, law and order!!!
This entire theatre of the absurd is unbearable and should be a call to action for every
single decent human being on this beautiful planet.
Magnier has a few comments on the Iraqi divides at his twitter thread and is exactly what
I have thought for the last month or so. Those Iraqi groups that are solidly allied with Iran
in the fight against ISIS and US are a small minority and US and Israel have been hitting
them with impunity for several years now. Most Iraqi's including Shia seem tied up in small
time domestic disputes. No Nasrallah's or Kharmenei's in Iraq. Only Muqtada al-Sadr types.
Perhaps Sistani may do something but he also seems very much small time domestic - not
interested or not capable in the big picture.
Yes, you're quite correct, there will be blood, just as there's been blood flowing for the
last 3,000 years. That's why I wrote our flags must join those of the Axis of
Resistance--this War isn't theirs alone; it's every Earthling's War whether they realize it
or not.
What if the government of Iraq asks Russia to assist it in safeguarding its airspace from
unauthorized entry? The Russians will bring the equipment and the operators & they are
already just across in Syria.
Thanks for your reply! The rhetorical counter to the non-Patriot Iraqis will be that the
Evil Outlaw US Empire intends to treat them just like the Zionists treat their Palestinian
slaves and have demonstrated so already. There are essentially three choices: Fight, help
others to fight, pack up and move to another nation as you're no longer an Iraqi.
"Just who gets the profits from the Oil stolen from Syria, "
Best estimates I've seen say the oil fields trump is so bent on denying the Assad
government from accessing are so damaged they produce 31,000 bpd at best. Whatever discount
price comes from that after it's trucked to some market in Turkey or maybe Iraq, it would be
less profitable than trump's Taj mahal casino venture.
But hey, he's the greatest business man ever. Just ask him?
It's not about profit, it's about making a dollar here and there to give to the Kurds and
keep their America is our friend dreams alive and denying Assad that oil.
It would cost a great deal of money to return the fields east of the Euphrates to their
previous production levels.
The Netanyahu plan is to deny the Syrian gov't and it's people the revenue from those
wells they used to access to pay for their needs. Only the needs of trump and his people
matter.
The current regime in the United States seems to believe that people are only able to believe
what the regime tells them to believe. This is not the case. Even the American people want
the US military to withdraw from Iraq, from Syria, from the Middle East.
This has been illustrated repeatedly. But, after every 'election', and after every 'poll',
the regime chews on the results and rolls it over until they come up with a 'storyline' that
says they can do whatever the hell they feel like anyway. More and more people are catching
on to this.
Elijah Magnier in a Tweet today seemed to imply that Al Mahdi didn't stand up to the US
forcefully enough and that there is a split between shia and Sunni as to US presence. Some
want the US to stay. He also said Iraq needs a stronger PM that will implement US kicking out
of Iraq. He also mentioned that Al Mahdi did not give the ok for PMU forces to go up against
US in Iraq.
We will have to see. But if the Iraqi people are demanding US is kicked out then Al Mahdi may
be forced to act.
As in virtual every representative democracy, the Iraqi government carries out the will of
the people as expressed through their representatives. So the vote by the Iraqi Parliament is
binding on the Iraqi government, not a foreign government .. duh!
AFAIK USA is in Iraq at invitation of the Iraqi government but there's no formal agreement
(aka SOFA). So the Iraqi government can ask USA to leave at any time.
Iraq was being nice and diplomatic to invite USA to provide input that helps the Iraqi
government determine the timetable for USA to leave. Since USA has refused, we should expect
the Iraqi government to demand that USA leave immediately.
Of course, USA has already stated their reasons for remaining despite any lawful demand
that they do so.
Thanks james. Give the u.s. uniformed boys and girls some slack. They are running scared,
having to look over their shoulders knowing they are targets and that now things have changed
- U.S. stands alone without friends. It's vassal states waiver. after Soleimani
killing suddenly, except for IL, the U.S. is alone . article from earlier comment posting
is a good read.
"'Power-driven vessel A approaches the port side of power-driven vessel B. Vessel A is
considered the give-way vessel. As the give-way vessel, A must take EARLY and SUBSTANTIAL
action to keep clear and avoid crossing the stand-on vessel B.'
Farragut (A) should have passed behind B."
As b notes, this is almost an exact repeat of what happened last year. The idiots
commenting on the USN's twitter thread are pathetic and clearly don't know squat.
And speaking of the Russian Navy, Putin's business today began with "a
meeting with the Defence Ministry leadership and the Russian Navy commanders to discuss the
key areas of short- and long-term development of the Navy. The meeting was held while the
Supreme Commander-in-Chief was visiting the Nakhimov Black Sea Naval Academy" after
observing/participating in the previous day's naval exercises on the Black Sea. Currently,
the USN is
rated as "weak and marginal" by the Heritage Institute, a patriotic think tank, which is
outwardly displayed by the lack of navigation skills.
And another thing...
Did anybody notice how the 'goodguy badguy show' (impeachment dog & pony show) got shoved
to the back burner all of a sudden? Now I guess they are going to wait and see how this
'breakout' aggression move is going to pan out for them.
ISIS was the means - the Trojan horse - to justify the permanent garrisoning of NATO in Iraq
and Syria. Before Russia's intervention, NATO and politicians from NATO countries were
uniform in proclaiming the "fight" against ISIS would be a "generational struggle" which
would take at least 20-30 years to achieve victory. Even after major fighting has reduced the
organization to almost nothing, this rationale lives on in the guise of a "continuing threat"
represented by ISIS' ideology or aspirations. Permanent NATO garrisons in Iraq and Syria
remains the extant policy (ISIS always just the pretext). If the European NATO members balk
at the Iraq civil war which the US will quietly propose in the interest of supporting this
policy, then it is likely the Kurd regions will suffice as a breakaway NATO protectorate.
January 8, 2020 at 1:37 pm GMT •
Iris responded to:
Now Trump will be able to deescalate and Iran will save its face by claiming 80 or so
American soldiers dead
with:
"It is good to gather facts, information and try to cross-check it before making educated
assumptions on subjects ordinary citizens are not privy to.
Countless insightful American commenters propose very well-supported cases, but come to
opposite conclusions with regard to President Trump's real intentions. How could we then
know Iran's strategic roadmap?
The Iranian reaction was long coming. The writing was on the wall when Hassan Nasrallah,
following one too many Israeli strike on Syria, detailed in his Sept 2019 address that the
"Resistance Axis" had the capability to hit strategic Israeli targets that he
named.
It is not normal that US sources have not communicated any detail of the consequences of
the strikes, so many hours after they took place. The Danes have stated there were "no
casualties amongst them", which hints there were casualties amongst other Western
nationalities.
Your cynicism is justified by how real-politik is actually conducted. However, it is also
very possible that we are living a cornerstone moment in ME's History, a reverse moment of
the 2003 invasion of Iraq."
• Replies: @Erebus
Erebus says:
January 9, 2020 at 10:20 am GMT •
@Iris
"Some of what's come out suggests the US has gone full Mafia in response to the last few
years' developments in the M.E. There's no geo-political strategy. There's only (bad)
gangsterism.
Countless insightful American commenters propose very well-supported cases, but come to
opposite conclusions with regard to President Trump's real intentions.
Russia's textbook demonstration of how to combine diplomatic acumen and military
efficiency in sorting problems has given impetus to a Russian authored, Chinese backed
regional security and development proposal that's been making the rounds through the
region's capitals since late summer (at least). Promoted by Iran (mostly via Oman) as a new
paradigm in M.E. affairs, it's been well received everywhere except Saudi Arabia who've
apparently cited their inability to throw off the American yoke as the primary impediment
to their overt support. Notwithstanding, the Saudis have been talking quietly with all
parties and have reportedly even sent emissaries to Tehran for "informal" talks on the
hush-hush. Soleimani was a significant player in these talks, which were being mediated by
Iraq.
In his speech to the Iraqi parliament subsequent to Soleimani's murder, Iraqi Prime
Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi revealed an astonishing tale of the sort of strongarming tactics
America has employed in response. His speech was to be carried live on Iraqi TV, but the
feed was cut immediately after he started by the Speaker.
Nevertheless, his words have leaked to the public. In it he told that Trump had demanded
50% of Iraq's oil revenues, or the US wouldn't go ahead with promised infrastructure
rebuilding of the country they destroyed. Mahdi refused that proposal and headed to China
where he promptly made a deal to rebuild the country. When the US learned of it, Trump
called him to demand that the deal be rescinded and when Mahdi refused Trump threatened to
unleash violent protests against Mahdi's rule.
Sure enough, violent protests began shortly thereafter. Again Trump called and when
Mahdi again refused to rescind the China deal, Trump threatened him with Maidan-style
snipers. Again Mahdi refused, and Iraq's Minister of Defence spoke publicly of "third
party" provocateurs killing both protestors and police, threatening to drive the country
back into civil war.
Again Trump called, and Mahdi reports that this time he threatened Mahdi and the Defence
Minister with assassination if they didn't shut up about "third party" provocateurs.
Meanwhile, Mahdi continued to mediate Iranian-Saudi talks and Soleimani was carrying Iran's
response to the latest Saudi message. He was to meet Mahdi later the morning of his
assassination.
The upshot of all that is that the intent behind Soleimani's gangland slaying was to
send the US' message to Mahdi specifically, but also to Iran, the Saudis, and anyone else
contemplating M.E. rapprochement that murder awaited them if they continued to work towards
peace in the region.
It is not normal that US sources have not communicated any detail of the consequences of
the strikes, so many hours after they took place.
Details are emerging re the Al Assad Air Base attack, and if you're an American
strategist they ain't pretty. The lack of casualties notwithstanding, satellite photos show
that the Iranian salvo hit targets with a very high level of combat efficiency. Any damage
assessment will reveal that technically, Iran can hit whatever it wants to hit.
Qiam missiles were used. They're a cheap 'n cheerful derivative of the Soviet SCUD, and
Iran has 1,000s of them. Hezbollah likely has 1,000s as well, so the picture is even less
pretty if you're an Israeli strategist. Furthermore
Iran informed the Swiss Embassy in Tehran (who represent American interests in Iran) an
hour or more before the attack. More than enough time to get personnel out of harm's way.
FARS' reports of 80 killed and ~200 injured, frankly look to be a narrative for domestic
consumption. It's hard to believe that with the hour+ warning that that many people were
hanging around in the line of fire.
My guess about the delay is that the US is simply stunned.
However, it is also very possible that we are living a cornerstone moment in ME's
History, a reverse moment of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
I believe that's true regardless of what got hit and the number of casualties. This was
a message sending exercise. As unimaginative as it may appear, the salvo sent an
unmistakeable signal that went through the region's capitals and beyond. Here's why they're
all paying attention
1. Iran struck American assets directly, in a brazenly overt manner. No plausible
deniability, proxies or non-state actors involved. It was a State attack on another State's
assets. If there is any doubt that the hit on Suleimani was an act of war, there can be no
doubt about Iran's response. The bully got punched in the nose in front of his entourage
and they're now waiting to see what he'll do. However
2. The IRGC's very high level of confidence in its missiles & missile corps is
obviously warranted. If the US and its satraps expected amateur hour, they got the
diametric opposite – the equivalent of getting your knife shot out of your hand
– and that puts the US in a bad spot.
3. The Qiam salvo was no Kalibrs-from-the-Caspian demonstration of technical prowess,
but so far as I can currently tell, more than half of the missiles targetting Al Assad hit
bull's eyes and American AD failed to intercept any of them. This stands in stark contrast
to Syria's success at knocking down Tomahawks. The Americans claim that the Al Assad
airbase had no missile defence systems installed, which seems incredible, but with the
silence of the Patriot batteries of Abqaiq looming in the background, all of the USM's
regional assets have been exposed as ducks in a barrel. The US simply can't defend
them.
It is clear that with its S300 systems and indigenous air defence in place, Iran can
destroy American assets while minimizing its own losses. What's more, Iran's S300s have
reportedly been networked into Russia's regional air defence systems, and that installing
S400s is being actively considered. With either development, Iran's air space is
effectively closed. Iran's status as the pre-eminent regional power has been cemented into
place, and with the Kremlin's backing there is no way to dislodge it. Every capital must
now run its calculus and begin re-thinking its role in the region, or its relationship with
it.
Without high efficiency air defence, CENTCOM can't defend even itself, never mind the
region's oil infrastructure and perverse allied monarchies. That is now plain as day.
Remaining perceptions of its ability to provide security guarantees to its satraps are now
gone, and so the US' options have been reduced to a choice between escalation, or going
home. There's no there there, and everybody now knows it. The message couldn't be
clearer.
Iran has opened the exit door and we're all waiting to see what heads prevail in
Washington as the facts settle into them. To keep the Americans focussed, one can expect to
see the Iraqi militias begin ratcheting up attacks on American assets in Iraq, and in
collaboration with domestic militia's in Syria as well.
The question now revolves around whether the US needs a thousand cuts to absorb the
message that its dominance of the M.E. is over.
If the US withdraws from the Middle East the Petrodollar will come to an end and the whole US
and the Western financial system collapses. The US and West are trapped by their stupidity in
abusing the financial system to fund their wars and build up a level of debt that can never
and will never be paid. How can the US leave even if they wanted to?
Well, the sun rose in the East again today, so why would anyone be surprised the US wont
leave Iraq and all that black gold. Heck, we never left Germany, Japan and South Korea and
they got nothing but location going for them (as does Iraq)
As for losing. Wars are not fought with an ending as the principle goal, at least not
since WWII. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. Welcome to Orwells 1984, sans the boot in
Oceania (thus far). Cold War followed by GWOT. When the GWOT began to fizzle a mini Cold War
with Russia was started by Obama and AQ was replaced with ISIS. Those are fizzling so Trumps
pulled Iran from Obamas dust bin.
Empires need enemies to hold them together so they can keep feed the MIC beast and keep it
from devouring the hand that feeds them. If an enemy does not exist one is created.
It helps that the majority can be made to believe anything. Ignorance and effective
propaganda, the elimination of a free press, and control of education and entertainment make
that possible. Nothing can reverse this. Sure, a few might break out of the matrix but they
are of no consequence unless they become too visible.
27
The S300 can see F35s just fine.Its not at a fixed model,the appellation is a generic, and
denotes a class of missile with a range of 300km.Radars and c&c systems are updated
constantly.
They are not your daddys S300s that Greece never updated, you're in for a rude surprise if
you think so.
Jen @ 1
"The sheer arrogance and wilful blindness expressed in the US State Department press
statement and WaPo staffer Louisa Loveluck's tweets are astounding beyond belief. "
+++++++
One is left gobsmacked and speechless.
An interloper is told to get the hell out of your house and he retorts: "No, we are here to
stay and renew our marriage vows with you!"
This is insane.
Surely the world can see that Pompeo and others at State are deranged, out of touch with
reality.
Honestly, one is at a loss for words.
As ever, more thanks to b for keeping up with all of this.
Referring your observations here concerning DNC may be problematic, instead it might have
better standing to fact if DLC (Democratic Leadership Committee) is used as it is a construct
of the Clintons in their takeover of the D-party for the 1992 election. It is highly unlikely
Hillary replaced that organisation for her attempts at high office. It is also highly
unlikely Obama had the interest or motive to replace the Clinton organisation in his
Presidency, he hardly replaced Bush 43's administration at the end of eight years. All too
much of this information has gone down memory holes and no longer carries sufficient
significance to matter for the public but should definitely matter to those interested in
modern historical developments. Verification may likely be found by analysing the membership
of the D-party's financial committee (membership should be matter of public record) and
determine their political allegiances
YMMV
On completely unrelated note, b, you are aware that your website, as set as it is, gives us
government technical ability to identify each and every one of posters here? Regardless where
you host your website.
You website imports contents from ajax.googleapis.com. It is spyware used for tracking
users across whole internet, every site that uses google api is voluntarily enabling google
to track people so they can build surfing history/profile for everyone.
google shares that info with us government.
government compares timestamps of posts here, and can identify people.
HTTPS website doesn't protects anyone here in this regard.
Just for posters to know there is technical possibility.
Iraq has Trump by the short hairs.
In a few months the election circus will really get underway. If they're smart and
patriottic, the PMF will slowly start hitting US targets, forcing Trump's hand. An increased
campaign of pressure.
Like Tet '68. The Bagdad Olympics.
karlof1 @50
""'Power-driven vessel A approaches the port side of power-driven vessel B. Vessel A is
considered the give-way vessel. As the give-way vessel, A must take EARLY and SUBSTANTIAL
action to keep clear and avoid crossing the stand-on vessel B.'
Farragut (A) should have passed behind B."
Video was taken on the US ship, right (voice? Looks to me like the Russian ship (top left)
was crossing the US ship's bow from port to starboard of US (closer) ship. I.e., from the
port side. Not "approaching the port side." So, as far as I can see, the US vessel had the
right of way; the Russian ship should have given way/changed course.
Cf. "1. If another vessel is approaching you from the port -- or left -- side of your
boat, you have the right of way and should maintain your speed and direction."
I am going to go out on a limb and say the reason for all the western obfuscation is that
Boeing is already in trouble due to the 737MAX issues. Boeing being a major component in USA
economy needs to be protected from the fact they just lost another plane to mechanical/design
error.
There's lots of info to verify in those comments. For the most part, they're all correct.
The exception comes to Iranian air defences, their indigenous designed S-400 equivalent,
overall radar net, EW capabilities, and independent internet communications. The overall
conclusion is Iran is far better prepared and equipped than Outlaw US Empire/NATO knew. It
should also be reiterated that Iran's under Russia's nuclear aegis, which was publicly stated
by Putin and an adjutant and clearly repeated to Pompeo and Trump by both Lavrov and Putin.
Furthermore as publicly stated, China has Iran's back fiscally. In other words, Iran and its
allies have more oomph collectively than the Outlaw US Empire and its vassals, many of the
latter actually desire better relations with the CRI troika.
Perhaps the key point made is the supposed inability of Saudi to free itself from the
Empire's shackles, which actually does make sense when one thinks long term. The logic of
Iran's HOPE Proposal is impeccable and is the only genuine route out of the current dilemma.
Clearly, it's been determined the Outlaw US Empire is the sole impediment to implementing
HOPE and thus must be ousted from its ability to impede. I wrote back in September when HOPE
was introduced at the UNGA that Trump would be a fool not to embrace it instead of oppose it
as he could then call the Empire a partner in the project. Clearly, he was advised not to do
so.
@ likklemore and karlof1.. i liked the comment on moa twitter feed - "This was an american
driving school marked with a very big "L" means "learner". Please drive carefully with max.
consideration."
@ 66 really? the other video is better then the one shown in b's twitter feed clip.. check
it out in the first video of
2 shown on the rt link.. cheers..
That's the impression you'd get when the USN is crossing the oncoming RuN path. I run into
those sorts of helmsmen all the time on the ocean outside of Newport, Oregon. Additionally,
with all the incidents of terrible navigation abilities seen over the past 3+ years and the
lies made to cover them, the USN has zero credibility just like its parent organization the
Outlaw US Empire.
It occurs to me that a host country that is no in conflict with an over-staying force can
make their life very challenging without having to actually fight them.
Outlaw any commerce between occupying forces and local businesses. Cut the roads to and
from the bases. Fly unarmed drones in the path of their aircraft. Delay, deny, defy any
requests for cooperation. Divert streams to flood their bases. Get really creative and make
their life hell.
Thanks for your reply! From what I observe, there's a lot of political angst within the
Empire that Trump's actions and subsequent BigLies have enhanced and brought to the surface.
The Act of War was the biggest domestic political error he could have committed, which shows
he has zero sense. Sanders is now the #1 D-Party candidate, and he and Gabbard with a
genuinely Progressive & Anti-war platform ought to win handily if allowed to.
You may have seen these one two links I've previously
posted dealing with the beginnings of the 2020 election season. The first is the initial
episode of a series in which I've seen the second, which is here .
The second of the three is very entertaining, and all are just shy of 30 min.
Sadly and unfortunately, the US will only withdrawal after it has suffered another
catastrophic loss, similar to what befell the soldiers in Lebanon. This is a criminal
enterprise sitting atop the US Military. You would figure people putting their ass on the
line would try and understand what they're really fighting for, but alas, most do not find
out until after they come home.
The US has started the chess game in a very poor position, with the pawns and horses deployed
too forward in the chessboard (only 5.200 soldiers in Iraq and 10.000 in Kuwait), and the USA
military leadership are in a very bad situation, if they try to send massive troops and
equipment reinforcement Iran will not be iddle waiting how US is preparing to destroy them as
the stupid Saddam did in 1991 and again in 2003, no, Iran will start the war with any pretext
before new troops & equipment is deployed in significant amounts.
On the other hand, if Iran escalate, the CENTCOM cannot support the "lost" garrison in
Iraq and Kuwait, they do not have enough forces deployed in the theater, and an airlift
operation of this magnitude under fire is very dangerous and a ride through hundreds of miles
through hostile terrain under harassment from Iranians and PMU troops "Hezbollah style" (as
IDF suffer in 2006), and without heavy armor scort and close air support will be almost
suicidal.
Iranian have been preparing for a war with USA from 1979, but now the situation is better
than ever, I do not give a cent on USA now if they do not retreat quickly from Syria and Iraq
(if Trump is enough intelligent it will order soon, but I am afraid he wants to play poker
once more), and stop to make threats and provocations.
But they "cannot" retreat, you know, is an electoral year and Trump want to be re-elected
above all.
Checkmate!
div> Those oil deals Iraq made with China in exchange for Iraqi electrical
infrastructure projects are something Trump will not allow and has threatened Iraq with the
terrors of the earth. As Karloff1 suggests the Iraqis have few choices, Trumps State department
have been blunt... you are vassals and you will do as you are told or you will be punished.
That's plain and we can all be thankful for Trumps honesty. The ball is now in the Iraqi court,
either refuse to be vassals and fight for your sovereignty or bow your heads and vacate the
field.
Those oil deals Iraq made with China in exchange for Iraqi electrical infrastructure projects
are something Trump will not allow and has threatened Iraq with the terrors of the earth. As
Karloff1 suggests the Iraqis have few choices, Trumps State department have been blunt... you
are vassals and you will do as you are told or you will be punished. That's plain and we can
all be thankful for Trumps honesty. The ball is now in the Iraqi court, either refuse to be
vassals and fight for your sovereignty or bow your heads and vacate the field.
I am seeing the position of Iraq against Iran as being very similar to the position of
Ukraine vis a vis Russia -- as 'younger' to 'elder brother'. Not as lesser to greater, but as
family, the ones nearby. Crimea grabbed onto that lifeline - as well they might!
Now a new element of the multipolar world is at early stages of being born. And this was
put in effect, if we go back and look, immediately up the invasion of Iraq by Bush Jr. But,
clearly, Iraq went through more horror, more destabilization than did Ukraine. The latter had
a governmental coup resulting in internal strife; Iraq had a military invasion. So, hopefully
the Resistance will be patient with it - like Syria, it is in great need of aid, comfort, and
reassurance that no further hegemony will be visited upon it. Sovereignty is the issue and
rightfully so.
There are lessons to be learned, after we finish mourning the murders of men who were
apparently engaged in the diplomatic efforts to establish this new multipolarity, or at least
lay some groundwork for future talks along that line. You don't murder diplomats. Case
closed; invaders out! And that is more difficult, more delicate, if up till now you have only
yourself survived as a nation by clinging to the skirts of the American empire. Difficult but
inevitable.
Iraq now can look toward Ukraine. Has that country done well taking the unipolar path?
Hardly. Did South Vietnam? Hardly. But as spring approaches, how are each changing course?
The dust is settling; you can see better. Travel with Pepe over the great mountains following
real trading routes, of the centuries past. Bring your own unique assets to the fore and let
friends visit and see what it is that makes you you. Another name for the Axis of Resistance
is Peace and Prosperity. Mutual benefit. It's coming.
In this country, the US, long ago there was a mighty empire, the empire of the Anasazis,
in the center of the Southwest. They caused to be built mighty edifices and they suborned the
surrounding farming peoples because they had power to predict the seasonal changes and
supposedly command rain to fall. Everyone believed it and everyone obeyed. For a time. There
was no alternative. Until it didn't rain, and it didn't rain. So, the people left, they went
where there were rivers, they abandoned the great Anasazi centre. It is in ruins today. But
the people have survived.
We are suddenly in another pivotal moment. And it will be difficult for those of us who
willingly or not have benefited from empire. But many of us say with you - invaders out!
Peace and blessings to all!
US destroyer blatantly violated international rules for preventing collisions at sea by
making a manoeuvre to cross the Russian ship's course in the North Arabian Sea -
@MoD_Russia🇷🇺
Bearing in mind that Pravda ain't what it used to be this policy, described bluntly in
article title : "If NATO strikes Kaliningrad, Russia will seize Baltic in 48 hours" if real,
would probably extend to the prevention of similar build-up in the matter of the Iraqi and
Iranian "MAGA" programs now developing.
Quote from Pravda> "As soon as we can see the concentration of American aircraft on
airfields in Europe - they cannot reach us in any other way - we will simply destroy those
airfields by launching our medium-range ballistic missiles at those targets. Afterwards, our
troops will go on offensive in the Baltic direction and take control of the entire Baltic
territory within 48 hours. NATO won't even have time to come to its senses - they will see a
very powerful military buildup on the borders with Poland. Then they will have to think
whether they should continue the war. As a result, all this will end with NATO losing the
Baltic States," Mikhail Alexandrov told Pravda.Ru describing one of the scenarios for a
possible development of events in case of Russia's response to NATO aggression.
Another variant for the breakthrough of the missile defense system in Kaliningrad provides
for a massive cruise missile attack on the Russian territory. According to the expert, Russia
has cruise and ballistic missiles that it can launch on the territory of the United
States.
"If the Americans launch a missile attack on Kaliningrad, then we will strike, say, Seattle,
where largest US aircraft factories are located. Having destroyed those factories we will
deprive the Americans of the possibility to build their aircraft. They will no longer be able
to build up their fleet of military aircraft," said Mikhail Alexandrov.
Russia has efficient air defense systems to intercept cruise missiles. If it goes about a
ballistic missile strike, the expert reminded that Russia has a missile defense area in
Moscow that can intercept at least 100 missiles and maybe even more, since there are no
restrictions associated with the ABM Treaty.
One might assume the same policy would apply for all Ru, and Iran too, as Iran is critical to
the survival of Ru.
On the topic of Iran not waiting for a military build up as a precursor to a US assault on
Iran...
I wonder if an intermediate step for Iran might be, in cooperation with the PMU, to
threaten to attack any new forces coming into Iraq, taking this to be escalation prior to an
invasion, and therefore a threat that must countered before it worsens.
but there is this query: what are the consequences of taunting? A review of the past year
saw the u.s. losing stature and, since 2014, its dollar as world reserve currency being
shunned.
FF
2019: Abqaig - After the Houthis take down of KSA oil facilities, and failure of US defenses
does KSA still feel secure?
Working closely with Russia, Soleimani was instrumental in the battles for Syria, Lebanon
and Yemen.
Trump, the braggart, stunned the world. Even their special relationship Brits!
It is reported when Boris was told of Soleimani's murder he said, O, F**K.
January 3, 2020 everything changed and they know not what they have done on behalf of
Israel.
An exit from Iraq would make the occupation and theft of oil from Syria untenable,and the
land route from Iran to Syria and Lebanon less hazardous. This would be fatal for Israel and
will insist the US stay in Iraq. Unfortunately for the US 5,000 will not cut the mustard, how
many US troops could Trump put into Iraq to quell an uprising in election year? US bases in
the Gulf are extremely vulnerable especially the largest base Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar who
many regard as being located in enemy territory. Trump is gambling and many shrinks think
he's nuts, I agree..... Psychiatrists: Urgent action must be taken against Trump for creating
Iran crisis
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/01/10/615852/Trump-is-%E2%80%98dangerous-and-incapacitated%E2%80%99-Psychiatrists
The two videos don't look like the same situation.
The first appears to have been shot from the Farragut's port side; the second, from her
starboard side.
And in the first the Russian ship appears to be bearing down on the Farragut off the
Farragut's port bow. In the second the Russian ship appears to be overtaking the Farragut,
coming up from the starboard side. I don't see how the videos can have been taken at the same
time. The rule that seems to apply to the situ in video 1 is:
"Crossing Situation.
When two power-driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel
which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way and shall, if the
circumstances of the case admit, avoid crossing ahead of the other vessel."
Since the Russian vessel appears to have the Farragut on her starboard side, the Russian
vessel should change course and presumably deflect to starboard. (Once the two vessels were
as close as they were, both should have deflected to starboard.) But instead it looks as
though the Russian vessel at the last minute deflected to port.
However, video 2 looks like a totally different situ. So to me it remains unclear what the
actual disposition of the vessels was. The videos must have been taken at two different
points in the encounter.
Thank you b for these great articles and allowing comments.
I want to nod out to ChasMark | Jan 10 2020 22:21 utc | 55 for a great comment.
For decades the US has controlled the world through petro dollars and counterinsurgency
warfare. They lost every time at this but its more about the money spent and keeping fluidity
within economic circles.
With Iran's missile attack being an eye opener I hope the US is smart enough to know they
have lost. MIC spokes person when asked why the base did not protect itself. He said they did
not have the hardware to do it. No Patriots because they owned the sky up to that point. What
is a Patriot to counterinsurgency. They had a M-901 (TEL) which they got rid of years ago
supposedly. It is loaded with six TOW missiles and would generally be used to disable bomb
laden vehicles approaching the gate. Counterinsurgency again.
Those days are over. It is the day of the missile and belt and road economic plans. No
longer can air craft carriers hang off the coast to control the skies. How will the stunned
US MIC bring in additional troops and equipment. Planes or ships are small targets but highly
valuable ones. It is not always easy to know how things happen. Like the ships struck this
past year in the gulf or KSA oil infrastructure hit, who did it and how is hard to
determine.
I imagine the MIC is burning the mid-night oil with the realization that they are now in a
war they are totally unprepared to fight. They have 15,000 soldiers strung out in Iraq
unprotected from missile attack and no way to protect them. They will talk all BS but it is
empty and they know it. They do have two things. One is fear and the other nukes.
There is much talk of weak knees among the Iraqi people and government. That is with good
reason. The destruction of city after city. Some they find through the birth of deformed
children that some of their cities are radioactive. Of course they are afraid the USA killed
a million of them and turned 24 million into refugees. As time goes on they will realize that
the bully is not what it was and every new strike by Iran will build the confidence to push
the Americans out.
I wonder if the day of the nuke is coming to an end as well. Temper tantrum Trump decides
to nuke either Iran or Iraq the world will speak up. Perhaps strike back as the Russians have
said. If the point is the oil and gas in the area and the control of it then nukes will
destroy that value.
If there was a time that America wet itself it is now. If the 9 flags stand together then
move as one their cries will drive the heathen from their home. I also believe that if it
happens then the USA is done. Played out.
"Iran could not have dreamt of a better President to rejuvenate its position domestically and
regionally."
The problem is that Israel could not have dreamt of a better President to get a war with
Launched. In fact, Ayelet Shaked, the Israeli Minister of Justice (some irony there), once
said as much explicitly, albeit over the issue of the West Bank, not Iran.
In a tweet following a Jerusalem Post conference in New York on Sunday, Ayelet Shaked said
it was time for Israel to "establish facts on the ground".
"There is no better time than now," Shaked, who earlier this month was sacked by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as justice minister, wrote on Twitter.
"Do not miss Trump's reign - that's what I just said at the Jerusalem Post in New York."
End Wuote
This is because Trump is devoted to Israel and devoted to an antipathy to Iran. The more
Iran gains ground in the Middle East, the more Israel will push Trump (and any successor to
Trump) to attack Iran. And he will do it - either deliberately or out of incompetence - and
the difference doesn't matter.
It occurs to me that a host country that is no in conflict with an over-staying force can
make their life very challenging without having to actually fight them.
. . .
Posted by: Figleaf23 | Jan 10 2020 23:53 utc | 72
++++++++++++++
Change all the road and street signs! OK, there are fewer signs in Iraq than there were in
Czechoslovakia, but it would still be worth a shot.
That's the impression you'd get when the USN is crossing the oncoming RuN path. . . .
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 10 2020 23:48 utc | 71
++++++++++
Well, when two ships are approaching each other at an angle, they are both crossing each
other's path. What counts is, who is going faster and thus will cross the other's bow sooner.
It sure looks to me like when they got close the Ru vessel had the Farragut on her (Ru's)
starboard side. If the two vessels were going opposite directions but on parallel tracks,
they would pass same side to same side (i.e., port to port; starboard to starboard). If they
are approaching at an angle, the relative relationship of the two sides will change with the
speed of the vessels. You must visualize the situ from each vessel, not one, and gauge speed
and relationship when the two courses cross. However, both vessels in proximity have the
obligation to take action to avoid a collision. In that situ I believe the default is for
both to deflect to starboard.
Wait to see who says uncle first at sea is a stupid game of chicken. Basically IMO both
captains broke the rule of avoiding collisions and endangered their crews and their
vessels.
In the video where the Russian ship is in the top left-hand corner, the USS Farragut is
moving away from the Russian ship. In that video, the Russian ship is travelling behind the
US ship and crosses from the
Here is a wonderful and witty must read article by Gary Brecher [the War Nerd] which puts the
US predicament in the Gulf into perspective
"Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack."
That's right: no defense at all. The truth is that they have very feeble defenses against any
attack with anything more modern than cannon. I've argued before no carrier group would
survive a saturation attack by huge numbers of low-value attackers, whether they're Persians
in Cessnas and cigar boats or mass-produced Chinese cruise missiles. But at least you could
look at the missile tubes and Phalanx gatlings and pretend that you were safe. But there is
no defense, none at all, against something as obvious as a ballistic missile. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carriers-will-die/all/1/
Sorry, accidentally posted too early @ 94 after being interrupted. I meant to say that the
Russian ship, travelling behind the Farragut, crossed from that ship's starboard side to its
portside. This suggests that the Farragut did not give way in the first video when the
Russian ship first approached but steamed on ahead and went in front of the Russian ship.
Medusa-Perseus @ 83: Thanks for the link. Despite the authors speaking, in the first
paragraph, about Iran's "provocations", it's an informative and well written piece.
An excerpt;
"Again, it is high time that Washington get off its high horse and begin to negotiate a
new world order with globe's major powers. The prospects for this, however, appear less
likely than ever. Unfortunately, when there was still an opportunity to use American power to
reshape rather than destabilize the world, the Obama administration chose the latter. With
the opportunity to shift course in a mode more imposed by, rather than imposed on the U.S.
virtually dissipated, the Trump administration is continuing in the Obama mode of
destabilization while falling back on the one-sidedness of the military option–with all
the predictable consequences."
An American (a professor at that, but not of culture) once asked back around 2011 the
following: "Why do people in the Middle East talk so frequently about humiliation and
dignity? Other countries were colonized or lost wars, yet they do not speak about humiliation
and dignity. I assume that an answer to this question will help me understand Middle Eastern
culture."
The differences between shame and guilt based cultures are interesting.
The terminology was popularized by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword ,
who described American culture as a "guilt culture" and Japanese culture as a "shame
culture." The Islamic Middle East is generally a shame based culture.
In east-west interactions these two distinct worldviews and values systems operate -- i.e.
guilt vs shame. For example:
"Loyalty: All Arabs belong to a group or tribe. Loyalty to the family tribe is considered
paramount to maintaining honor. One does not question the correctness of the elders or tribes
in front of outsiders. It is paramount that the tribe sticks together in order to survive.
Once again, Arab history and folklore are full of stories of heroes who were loyal to the
end."
In the Eastern view (well Islamic anyway), there is a stronger sense that one has 'it'
(honor) by birth and then risks losing it through various shameful actions etc. As distinct
from a work ethic stance where working towards something is the goal.
The main issue at play in the recent Iran-US-Iraqi dynamic from this point of view is not
the surface level simpleton MSM narrative of who was the good & bad guys etc. Leave that
for the childish unsophisticated 'super hero' mentalities raised on comics.
Rather, in this case, it is the fact/perception that the Arab Iraqi 'host' failed to
uphold the accepted ancient honor codes of protecting an invited guest (well at least for
three days). Only barbarians do not understand and play by this value system.
So, the USA, as the said culturally ignorant actors, is actually not really the core issue
in this case. That is just an inconvenient fact of history.
What is more real and politically charged is the fact that the Iraqi Arab nation
(leadership) invited an Iranian (Persian) guest -- allegedly to talk peace deals with the
Wahhabi gang -- and failed to uphold/honor the ancient host-guest codes. Even if there was no
duplicity involved, the fact remains scratched into the historical record that they failed --
ergo, shame must now be dealt with.
Therefore, the future events will more than likely unfold one way or another according to
the honor-shame etiquette process.
Now, of course some in the US hierarchy may well know and understand this dynamic and
apply it -- and Gregory Bateson used the term "Schismogenesis" in the 1930s and played his
part in WW2 within the (then) Office of Strategic Services (OSS), an institutional precursor
to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), against Japanese held territories in the Pacific. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schismogenesis
)
AP reports: US tried to take out another Iranian leader, but failed
LINK
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military tried, but failed, to take out another senior
Iranian commander on the same day that an American airstrike killed the Revolutionary
Guard's top general, U.S. officials said Friday.
The officials said a military airstrike by special operations forces targeted Abdul Reza
Shahlai, a high-ranking commander in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but the
mission was not successful. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to
discuss a classified mission.[.]
Officials said both Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Shahlai were on approved military
targeting lists, which indicates a deliberate effort by the U.S. to cripple the leadership
of Iran's Quds force, which has been designated a terror organization by the U.S. Officials
would not say how the mission failed.[.]
There has been a similar incident between US and Russian navies a few months ago.
Same claims from the USN against the Russians.
Guess what? The video clearly showed the Russians on the starboard side of the USN ship.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>Text</BLOCKQUOTE>
< A HREF="http://www.aclu.org/">Headline (not the URL)</A> → Headline (not the URL)
Thank you for this excellent interview. You ask the kind of questions that we would all like
to ask. It's regrettable that Chalmers Johnson isn't still alive. I believe that you and he
would have a lot in common.
Naxos has produced an incredible, unabridged cd audiobook of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire. One of Gibbon's observations really resonates today: "Assassination is the
last resource of cowards". Thanks again.
"... This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless policy. ..."
This crisis was sparked by Donald Trump. Trump withdrew from the
deal that had stopped Iran's nuclear weapons program, leading Iran to restart its nuclear
program. Trump ramped up economic pressure and sent more US troops to the region, and tensions
grew. Then the US killed
Gen Qassem Suleimani , signaling a significant escalation, to which Iran responded with an
attack on Iraqi bases where US and Iraqi troops are stationed.
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was when Trump
took office
It is up to Congress and the American people to force Trump to adopt a more pragmatic path.
For too long Congress has ceded to the executive branch its authority to determine when America
goes to war, and the current crisis with Iran is exactly the kind of moment that requires
intense coordination between the legislative and executive branches. The president cannot start
a war without congressional authorization, and with the erratic Trump in office, Congress must
make that clear by cutting off the use of funds for war with Iran.
This is not just about how to de-escalate – it's about recognizing that America
fundamentally needs to change its disastrous course. Even if de-escalation of the acute
tensions is possible, the risks will remain as long as the United States pursues a reckless
policy. America is far worse off today towards Iran and in the Middle East than it was
when Trump took office – even worse off than we were on 1 January 2020. Today, Iran is
advancing its nuclear program, America has suspended its anti-Isis campaign, Iraq's parliament
has voted to evict US troops from the country, and we are in a dangerous military standoff with
Iran.
Digging out of this hole will be difficult and this administration is not capable of it.
Over the long run, future administrations will need to reorient America's goals and policies.
America needs to re-enter the nuclear deal and begin negotiations to strengthen it; work with
partners like Iraq – without a large US troop presence – in countering potential
threats like a resurgence of Isis; and adopt a broader regional policy that focuses on
protecting US interests and standing up for human rights and democracy rather than picking
sides in a regional civil war between dictatorships like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Achieving US goals in the region will not be possible with a mere de-escalation of tensions
– we need to find a new path towards Iran and the Middle East.
"... War will allow Trump to claim the mantle of "national" wartime leader, while diverting attention away from his impeachment trial. And in light of the intensification of belligerent rhetoric from this administration, war appears to be increasingly likely. ..."
"... The American people have a moral responsibility to question not only Trump's motives, but to consider the humanitarian disaster that inevitably accompanies war. ..."
"... is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. He holds a PhD in political communication, and is the author of the newly released: The Politics of Persuasion: Economic Policy and Media Bias in the Modern Era (Paperback, 2018), and Selling War, Selling Hope: Presidential Rhetoric, the News Media , and U.S. Foreign Policy After 9/11 (Paperback: 2016). He can be reached at: [email protected] ..."
The U.S. stands at the precipice of war. President Trump's rhetorical efforts to
sell himself as the "anti-war" president have been exposed as a fraud via his assault on Iran.
Most Orwellian of all is Trump's claim that the assassination of Iranian General Qassam
Soleimani was necessary to avert war, following the New Year's Eve attack on the U.S. embassy
in Baghdad. In reality the U.S. hit on Soleimani represents a criminal escalation of the
conflict between these two countries. The general's assassination was rightly seen as an
act of war , so the claim that the strike is a step toward peace is absurd on its face. We
should be perfectly clear about the fundamental threat to peace posed by the Trump
administration. Iran has already
promised "harsh retaliation" following the assassination, and
announced it is pulling out of the 2015 multi-national agreement prohibiting the nation
from developing nuclear weapons. Trump's escalation has dramatically increased the threat of
all-out war. Recognizing this threat, I sketch out an argument here based on my initial
thoughts of this conflict, providing three reasons for why Americans need to oppose war.
#1: No Agreement about an Iranian Threat
Soleimani was the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – the Quds Force
– a clandestine military intelligence organization that specializes in paramilitary-style
operations throughout the Middle East, and which is
described as seeking to further Iranian political influence throughout the region. Trump
celebrated the assassination as necessary to bringing Soleimani's "reign of terror" to an
end. The strike, he claimed, was vital after the U.S. caught Iran "in the act" of planning
"imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel."
But Trump's justification for war comes from a country with a long history of distorting and
fabricating evidence of an Iranian threat. American leaders have disingenuously and
propagandistically portrayed Iran as on the brink of developing nuclear weapons for decades.
Presidents Bush and Obama were both rebuked, however, by domestic intelligence
and
international weapons inspectors , which failed to uncover evidence that Iran was
developing these weapons, or that it was a threat to the U.S.
Outside of previous exaggerations, evidence is emerging that the Trump administration and
the intelligence community are not of one mind regarding Iran's alleged threat. Shortly after
Soleimani's assassination, the Department of Homeland Security declared
there was "no specific, credible threat" from Iran within U.S. borders. And U.S. military
officials disagree regarding Trump's military escalation. As the New York Times
reports :
"In the chaotic days leading to the death of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's most
powerful commander, top American military officials put the option of killing him -- which they
viewed as the most extreme response to recent Iranian-led violence in Iraq -- on the menu they
presented to President Trump. They didn't think he would take it. In the wars waged since the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pentagon officials have often offered improbable options to presidents
to make other possibilities appear more palatable."
"Top pentagon officials," the Times
reports , "were stunned" by the President's order. Furthermore, the paper reported that
"the intelligence" supposedly confirming Iranian plans to attack U.S. diplomats was "thin," in
the words of at least one U.S. military official who was privy to the administration's
deliberations. According to that
source , there is no evidence of an "imminent" attack in the foreseeable future against
American targets outside U.S. borders.
U.S. leaders have always obscured facts, distorted intelligence, and fabricated information
to stoke public fears and build support for war. So it should come as no surprise that this
president is politicizing intelligence. He certainly has reason to – in order to draw
attention away from his Senate impeachment trial, and considering Trump's increasingly
desperate efforts to demonstrate that he is a serious President, not a tin-pot authoritarian
who ignores the rule of law, while shamelessly coercing and extorting foreign leaders in
pursuit of domestic electoral advantage.
Independent of the corruption charges against Trump, it is unwise for Americans to take the
President at his word, considering the blatant lies employed in the post-9/11 era to justify
war in the Middle East. Not so long ago the American public was sold a bill of goods regarding
Iraq's alleged WMDs and ties to terrorism. Neither of those claims was remotely true, and
Americans were left footing the bill for a war that cost trillions ,
based on the lies of an opportunistic president who was dead-set on exploiting public fears of
terrorism in a time of crisis. The Bush administration sold war based on intelligence they
knew was fraudulent, manipulating the nation into on a decade-long war that led to the
murder of more than
1 million Iraqis and more than 5,000 American servicemen, resulting in a failed Iraqi
state, and paving the way for the rise of ISIS. All of this is to say that the risks of
beginning another war in the Middle East are incredibly high, and Americans would do well to
seriously consider the consequences of entering a war based (yet again) on questionable
intelligence.
#2: The "War on Terrorism" as a Red Herring
U.S. leaders have long used the rhetoric of terrorism to justify war. But this strategy
represents a serious distortion of reality, via the conflation of terrorism – understood
as premeditated acts of violence to intimidate civilians – with acts of war. Trump fed
into this misrepresentation when he
described Soleimani's "reign of terror" as encompassing not only the alleged targeting of
U.S. diplomats, but attacks on "U.S. military personnel." The effort to link the deaths of U.S.
soldiers in wartime to terrorism echoes the State Department's 2019
statement , which designated Iran's Quds Force a "terrorist" organization, citing its
responsibility "for the deaths of at least 603 American service members in Iraq" from "2003 to
2011" via its support for Iraqi militias that were engaging in attacks on U.S. forces.
As propaganda goes, the attempt to link these acts of war to "terrorism" is quite perverse.
U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq were participating in a criminal, illegal occupation,
which was widely condemned by the international community. The U.S. war in Iraq was a crime of
aggression under the Nuremberg Charter, and it violated the United Nations Charter's
prohibition on the use of force, which is only allowed via Security Council authorization
(which the U.S. did not have), or in the case of military acts undertaken in self-defense
against an ongoing attack (Iraq was not at war with the U.S. prior to the 2003 invasion).
Contrary to Trump's and the State Department's propaganda, there are no grounds to classify the
deaths of military personnel in an illegal war as terrorism. Instead, one could argue that
domestic Iraqi political actors (of which Iraqi militias are included, regardless of their ties
to Iran) were within their legal rights under international law to engage in acts of
self-defense against American troops acting on behalf of a belligerent foreign power, which was
conducting an illegal occupation.
#3: More War = Further Destabilization of the Middle East
The largest takeaway from recent events should be to recognize the tremendous danger that
escalation of war poses to the U.S. and the region. The legacy of U.S. militarism in the Middle
East, North Africa, and Central Asia, is one of death, destruction, and instability. Every
major war involving the U.S. has produced humanitarian devastation and mass destruction, while
fueling instability and terrorism. With the 1979 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. support
for Mujahedeen radicals led to the breakdown of social order, and the rise of the radical
Taliban regime, which housed al Qaeda fundamentalists in the years prior to the September 11,
2001 terror attacks. The 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan contributed to the further
deterioration of Afghan society, and was accompanied by the return of the Taliban, ensuing in a
civil war that has persisted over the last two decades.
With Iraq, the U.S. invasion produced a massive security vacuum following the collapse of
the Iraqi government, which made possible the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. fueled
numerous civil wars, in Iraq during the 2000s and Syria in the 2010s, creating mass
instability, and giving rise to ISIS, which became a mini-state of its own operating across
both countries. And then there was the 2011 U.S.-NATO supported rebellion against Muammar
Gaddafi, which not only resulted in the dictator's overthrow, but in the rise of another ISIS
affiliate within Libya's border. Even Obama, the biggest cheerleader for the war, subsequently
admitted
the intervention was his "worst mistake," due to the civil war that emerged after Gaddafi's
overthrow, which opened the door for the rise of ISIS.
All of these conflicts have one thing in common. They brought tremendous devastation to the
countries under assault, via scorched-earth military campaigns, which left death, misery, and
destruction in their wake. The U.S. is adept at destroying countries, but shows little interest
in, or ability to reconstruct them. These wars provided fertile ground for Islamist radicals,
who took advantage of the resulting chaos and instability.
The primary lesson of the "War on Terror" should be clear to rationally minded observers:
U.S. wars breed not only instability, but desperation, as the people victimized by war become
increasingly tolerant of domestic extremist movements. Repressive states are widely reviled by
the people they subjugate. But the only thing worse than a dictatorship is no order at all,
when societies collapse into civil war, anarchy, and genocide. The story of ISIS's rise is one
of citizens suffering under war and instability, and becoming increasingly tolerant of
extremist political actors, so long as they are able to provide order in times of crisis. This
point is consistently neglected in U.S. political and media discourse – a sign of how
propagandistic "debates" over war have become, nearly 20 years into the U.S. "War on
Terrorism."
Where Do We Go From Here?
Trump followed up the Soleimani assassination with a Twitter announcement
that the U.S. has "targeted" 52 additional "Iranian sites," which will be attacked "if Iran
strikes any Americans or American assets." There's no reason in light of recent events to chalk
this announcement up to typical Trump-Twitter bluster. This President is desperate to begin a
war with Iran, as Trump has courted confrontation with the Islamic republic since the early
days of his presidency.
War will allow Trump to claim the mantle of "national" wartime leader,
while diverting attention away from his impeachment trial. And in light of the intensification
of belligerent rhetoric from this administration, war appears to be increasingly likely.
The American people have a moral responsibility to question not only Trump's motives, but to
consider the humanitarian disaster that inevitably accompanies war. War with Iran will only
make the Middle East more unstable, further fueling anti-American radicalism, and increasing
the terror threat to the U.S. This conclusion isn't based on speculation, but on two decades of
experience with a "War on Terror" that's done little but destroy nations and increase terror
threats. The American people can reduce the dangers of war by protesting Trump's latest
provocation, and by pressuring Congress to pass legislation condemning any future attack on
Iran as a violation of national and international law.
To contact your Representative or Senator, use the following links:
I can anticipate no problems arising whatsoever from having an Executive Branch staffed
entirely by people who tell a half-crazy guy what he wants to hear. Unfortunately, back in
1726, the good Dean Swift saw some.
I said, 'there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving,
by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as
they are paid.
This was about lawyers but the description has broadened somewhat in recent days.
The Russian General Staff has reinforced the air defences for Russians at the Iranian
nuclear reactor complex at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf, according to sources in Moscow. At the
same time, Iran has allowed filming of the movement of several of its mobile S-300 air-defence
missile batteries to the south, covering the Iranian coastline of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf
of Oman. More secretly, elements of Russian military intelligence, electronic warfare, and
command and control advisers for Iran's air defence systems have been mobilized to support Iran
against US and allied attacks.
The range of the new surveillance extends well beyond the S-300 strike distance of 200
kilometres, and covers US drone and aircraft bases on the Arabian peninsula, as well as US
warships in (and under) the Persian Gulf and off the Gulf of Oman. Early warning of US air and
naval-launched attacks has now been cut below the old 4 to 6-minute Iranian threshold.
Counter-firing by the Iranian armed forces has been automated from attack warning and target
location.
This means that if the US is detected launching a swarm of missiles aimed at Iran's
air-defence sites, uranium mines, reactors, and military operations bunkers, Iran will launch
its own swarm of missiles at the US firing platforms, as well as at Saudi and other oil
production sites, refineries, and pipelines, as well tankers in ports and under way in the
Gulf.
"The armed forces of Iran," said a Russian military source requesting anonymity, "have air
defence systems capable of hitting air targets at those heights at which drones of the
Global Hawk series can
fly; this is about 19,000 to 20,000 metres. Iran's means of air defence are both
foreign-purchased systems and systems of Iran's own design; among them, in particular, the old
Soviet system S-75 and the new Russian S-300. Recently, Iran transported some S-300's to the
south, but that happened after the drone was shot down [June 20]. Russian specialists are
working at Bushehr now and this means that the S-300's are also for protection of Bushehr."
Flight distance between Bushehr and Bandar Abbas is about 570 kms. From Bandar Abbas
southeast to Kuhmobarak, the site of the Iranian missile firing against the US drone, is
another 200 kms.
Last Thursday, June 20, just after midnight, a US Global Hawk drone was tracked by Iran from
its launch at an airbase in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), south of Dubai. The take-off and
initial flight route appear to have been more than 300 kms from Iranian tracking radars. Four
hours later, the aircraft was destroyed by an Iranian missile at a point at sea off Kuhmobarak.
Follow the route tracking data published by the Iranian Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif
here .
KEY: blue line=drone flight path; yellow line=Iranian Flight Information Region (FIR);
red line=Iranian territorial waters; green line=Iranian internal waters; yellow dots=Iran radio
warnings sent; red square=point of impact. Source: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:
https://twitter.com/ The US claims
the point of impact was outside the red line.
Additional tracking data on the US drone operation have been published in a simulation by
the Iranian state news agency, Fars. The news agency claims the successful strike was by the
Iran-made Khordad missile, an S-300 copy; the altitude has not been reported
(design ceiling for the aircraft is 18,000 metres). The Russian military source says there is
now active coordination between Russian and Iranian military staffs. "About coordination, of
course there is participation of Russia in intelligence-sharing because of Bushehr and ISIS. We
have a long and successful partnership with Iran, especially in terms of fighting against
international terrorism." Two days after the drone incident, Russian specialist media
published Iranian video footage of the movement of S-300's on trailer trucks. This report
claims that although the S-300's are wheeled and motorized for rapid position changes, the use
of highway transporters was intended to minimize road fatigue on the weapons.
Iranian military sources have told western
reporters they have established "a joint operations room to inform all its allies in Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan of every step it is adopting in confronting the US in case
of all-out war in the Middle East."
Maps published to date in open Russian military sources show the four main anti-air missile
defence groups (PVO) on Iranian territory, and the strike range of their missiles. The 3
rd and 4 th PVOs are now being reinforced to oppose US reinforcements at
sea and on Saudi and Emirati territory.
Key: yellow=units of the main air-defence (PVO) groups; split blue circles=military
bases; blue diamond=nuclear industry sites; red rings=kill range for missiles; solid
red=command-and-control operations centres. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, "Before the storm",
National
Defence, April 2019
The weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Iranian defences against US air attack are, naturally,
state secrets. The open-source discussion by Russian air-defence expert Anatoly Gavrilov can be
followed here
. According to Gavrilov writing in March, the expected plan of US attack will be the use of
precision missiles and bombs at "primary targets plants for the production and processing of
nuclear fuel, uranium mines, production for its enrichment, refineries, other industrial
centers. But initially [the objective] will be to suppress (completely destroy) the air defense
system. The mass use of cruise missiles for various purposes and guided aircraft bombs will
disable the control system of Iran's troops and suppress the system of reconnaissance and
anti-aircraft missile fire. In this case, the task of the attacking side will be the
destruction in the first two or three days of 70% to 80% of the radar, and after that, up to
90% manned aircraft will begin to bomb only after the complete suppression of the air defense
system. The West protects its professional pilots, and it does not matter that the civilian
population of Iran will also suffer."
The main Iranian vulnerability facing American attack, reports Gavrilov, is less the range,
volume and density of firepower with which the Iranians can respond than the relatively slow
time they have shown to date for processing incoming attack data, fixing targets, and directing
counter-fire. "In today's conditions of organization and conduct of rapid air combat, a high
degree of automation of the processes of collection, processing, transmission and exchange of
radar information, development of solutions for repelling strikes, and conducting anti-aircraft
missile fire is extremely necessary."
RANGE AND ALTITUDE OF MAIN IRANIAN AIR DEFENCE WEAPONS
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Horizontal axis, range in kilometres for each identified weapon; vertical axis, altitude of
interception. Source: Anatoly Gavrilov, National
Defence , April 2019
Gavrilov does not estimate how far the Iranians have been able to solve by themselves, and
with Russian help, the problems of automation and coordination of fire. To offset whatever
weakness may remain, he recommends specific technical contributions the Russians can make.
These include the technology of electronic countermeasures (ECM) to jam or deflect US targeting
signals and ordnance guidance systems.
While Gavrilov believes the Iranian military have already achieved high enough density of
fire against incoming weapons, he isn't sure the range and altitude of Iranian radars will be
good enough to match the attack risks. To neutralize those, he recommends "Russian-made
electronic warfare systems. The complex of EW systems is able to significantly reduce the
ability of attack aircraft to search for, detect and defeat ground targets; disrupt the onboard
equipment of cruise missiles in the GPS satellite navigation system; distort the readings of
radio altimeters of attack aircraft, cruise missiles and UAV's [unmanned aerial vehicle, drone]
"
In briefings for sympathetic western reporters, Iranian commanders are emphasizing the
Armageddon option; that is, however weak or strong their defences may prove to be under
prolonged US attack, the Iranian strategy is not to wait. Their plan, they say, is to
counter-attack against Arab as well as American targets as soon as a US missile attack
commences; that's to say, at launch, not inflight nor at impact.
Left: Kremlin photograph of the Security Council meeting at the Kremlin on the afternoon
of June 21. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/ Right: Major
General Mohammad Baqeri, Iran's armed forces chief of staff.
The day following the US attack and Iranian success, President Vladimir Putin chaired a
meeting of his regular Security Council members in Moscow. The military were represented by the
Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu. The US attack on Iran was the main issue on the table. "The
participants," reported the Kremlin communiqué, "discussed, in particular, the
developments in the Persian Gulf. They expressed serious concern over the rising tension and
urged the countries involved to show restraint, because unwise actions could have unpredictable
consequences in terms of regional and global stability."
Unpredictable consequences in Russian is being translated in Farsi to mean the cessation of
the oil trade in the Persian Gulf. "As oil and commodities of other countries are passing
through the Strait of Hormuz, ours are also moving through it," Major General Mohammad Baqeri,
the Iranian chief of staff,
said on April 28. "If our crude is not to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, others'
[crude] will not pass either."
With Iraq's airspace being frequently violated by American and even Israeli bombing raids
against the country's paramilitary units backed by Iran of late, Iraq has for the last several
months considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile systems, including both the S-300
and more advanced S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.
And now Russian media is reporting authorities in Baghdad have formally resumed talks to
possibly acquire the S-300 systems. Head of the Iraqi Parliament's Security and Defense
Committee, Mohammad Reza, has indicated negotiations were renewed following the latest attacks
initiated nearly two weeks ago on Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces .
"The issue was supposed to be solved several months ago after attacks on Shiite militia
al-Ḥashd ash-Sha'bi [Popular Mobilization Forces, PMF] bases in Baghdad and other
provinces created the need for such air defenses", the lawmaker was
quoted in Russia's Sputnik as saying.
It was first revealed in September that Baghdad was mulling the purchase of the S-300. This
after a summer in which Israel brazenly launched multiple drone and aerial attacks on PMF bases
which at first had 'mysterious' origins , but
was later confirmed to have the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) behind them.
According to Iraqi official sources, those initial purchase talks were quashed when
Washington vehemently objected , also at a moment parliament officials and the public were
increasingly angered over unilateral US bombing raids against PMF sites conducted without the
knowledge or approval of Iraq's government and military.
At the point when talks were initiated with Russia in September, international reports
counted nine strikes in total on Iraq's paramilitary forces -- in some cases while they were
allegedly operating just across the country's western border with Syria.
This had also fueled speculation that the Trump administration had greenlighted stepped up
Israeli attacks on Iranian proxies in the region as an alternative to direct war with Iran.
However, this simultaneously bolstered the ongoing political movement in Iraqi parliament to
have US troops expelled once in for all, especially over charges they had invited in and
cooperated with a foreign power to attack sovereign Iraqi soil.
I agree that, today, protecting the Dollar Standard is the main national security
objective of the USA. That is so because issuing the universal fiat currency is a
conditio sine qua non of keeping the financial superpower status.
I also agree that the Petrodollar is the base that sustains the Dollar Standard.
But I disagree with the rest:
1) the Cold War didn't begin in 1945, but in 1917 - right after the October Revolution.
There's overwhelming documental evidence of that and, in fact, the years of 1943-1945 was the
only break it had. Until Stalingrad, the Western allies were still waiting to see if the USSR
and the Third Reich could still mutually anihilate themselves (yes, it is a myth the Allies
were really allies from 1939, but that's not a very simple demonstration);
2) in the aftermath of WWII, the USA emerged as both the industrial and financial
superpower in the capitalist world (i.e. the West). But this was an accidental - and very
unlikely - alignment of events. The USA always had imperial ambitions from its foundation
(the Manifest Destiny), but there's no evidence it was scheming to dominate the world before
1945. The American ascension was more a fruit of the European imperial superpowers destroying
themselves than by any American (or Jewish, as the far-right likes to speculate) design;
3) the USSR had nothing to do with Bretton Woods. BW was a strictly capitalist affair. And
it could not be any difference: the USSR was a socialist country, therefore, it didn't have
money-capital (money in the capitalist system has three functions: reserve of value, means of
exchange and means of payment). The only way it had to trade with the capitalist half of the
world was to exchange essential commodities (oil) for hard currency, with which it bought
what it needed for its own development (mainly, high technological machines which it could
copy and later develop on). So, the USSR didn't "balk" at BW - it was literally impossible
for it to pertain to the agreement.
Michael Hudson is not the only one who's come to understand that maintaining the
reserve-currency status of the US dollar (the "dollar hegemony") is the primary goal of US
foreign policy. Indeed, it's been the primary goal of US foreign policy since the end of
World War II, when the Bretton Woods agreement was put into effect. Notably, the Soviets
ended up balking at that agreement, and the Cold War did not start until afterwards. This
means that even the Cold War was not really about ideology - it was about money.
It's also important to note that the point of the "petrodollar" is to ensure that
petroleum - one of the most globally traded commodities and a commodity that's fundamental to
the global economy - is traded primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of the US dollar.
Ensuring that as much global/international trade happens in US dollars helps ensure that the
US dollar keeps its reserve-currency status, because it raises the foreign demand for US
dollars.
I agree that, today, protecting the Dollar Standard is the main national security
objective of the USA. That is so because issuing the universal fiat currency is a
conditio sine qua non of keeping the financial superpower status.
I also agree that the Petrodollar is the base that sustains the Dollar Standard.
But I disagree with the rest:
1) the Cold War didn't begin in 1945, but in 1917 - right after the October Revolution.
There's overwhelming documental evidence of that and, in fact, the years of 1943-1945 was the
only break it had. Until Stalingrad, the Western allies were still waiting to see if the USSR
and the Third Reich could still mutually anihilate themselves (yes, it is a myth the Allies
were really allies from 1939, but that's not a very simple demonstration);
2) in the aftermath of WWII, the USA emerged as both the industrial and financial
superpower in the capitalist world (i.e. the West). But this was an accidental - and very
unlikely - alignment of events. The USA always had imperial ambitions from its foundation
(the Manifest Destiny), but there's no evidence it was scheming to dominate the world before
1945. The American ascension was more a fruit of the European imperial superpowers destroying
themselves than by any American (or Jewish, as the far-right likes to speculate) design;
3) the USSR had nothing to do with Bretton Woods. BW was a strictly capitalist affair. And
it could not be any difference: the USSR was a socialist country, therefore, it didn't have
money-capital (money in the capitalist system has three functions: reserve of value, means of
exchange and means of payment). The only way it had to trade with the capitalist half of the
world was to exchange essential commodities (oil) for hard currency, with which it bought
what it needed for its own development (mainly, high technological machines which it could
copy and later develop on). So, the USSR didn't "balk" at BW - it was literally impossible
for it to pertain to the agreement.
Correction: the three functions of money in capitalism are reserve/store of value, means
of exchange and unit of account . I basically wrote "means of exchange" twice in the
original comment.
Hello! Michael Hudson first set forth the methodology of the Outlaw US Empire's financial
control of the world via his book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American
Empire in 1972. In 2003, he issued an updated edition which you can download for free
here .
If you're interested, here's an interview he gave while in China that's autobiographical
. And here's his most recent Resume/CV/Bibliography , although it doesn't
go into as much detail about his recent work as he does in and forgive them their debts:
Lending, Foreclosure, and Redemption From Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year , which
for me is fascinating.
His most recent TV appearances are here and here .
Bingo! You're the first person here to make that connection aside from myself. You'll note
from Hudson's
assessment of Soleimani's killing he sees the Outlaw US Empire as using the Climate
Crisis as a weapon:
"America's attempt to maintain this buttress explains U.S. opposition to any foreign
government steps to reverse global warming and the extreme weather caused by the world's
U.S.-sponsored dependence on oil. Any such moves by Europe and other countries would reduce
dependence on U.S. oil sales, and hence on the U.S's ability to control the global oil spigot
as a means of control and coercion. These are viewed as hostile acts.
"Oil also explains U.S. opposition to Russian oil exports via Nordstream. U.S. strategists
want to treat energy as a U.S. national monopoly. Other countries can benefit in the way that
Saudi Arabia has done – by sending their surpluses to the U.S. economy – but not
to support their own economic growth and diplomacy. Control of oil thus implies support for
continued global warming as an inherent part of U.S. strategy....
"This strategy will continue, until foreign countries reject it. If Europe and other
regions fail to do so, they will suffer the consequences of this U.S. strategy in the form of
a rising U.S.-sponsored war via terrorism, the flow of refugees, and accelerated global
warming (and extreme weather)."
@Cynica #38
Financially, the US dollar as reserve currency is enormously beneficial to the US
government's ability to spend.
And oil has historically been both a tactical and a strategic necessity; when the US was
importing half its oil, this is a lot of money. 8 million bpd @ $50/barrel = $146B. Add in
secondary value add like transport, refining, downstream industries, etc and it likely
triples the impact or more - but this is only tactical.
Worldwide, the impact is 10X = $1.5 trillion annually. Sure, this is a bit under 10% of the
$17.7T in world trade in 2017, but it serves as an "anchor tenant" to the idea of world
reserve currency. A second anchor is the overall role of US trade, which was $3.6T in 2016
(imports only).
If we treat central bank reserves as a proxy for currency used in trade, this means 60%+ of
the $17.7T in trade is USD. $3.6T is direct, but the $7 trillion in trade that doesn't impact
the US is the freebie. To put this in perspective, the entire monetary float of the USD
domestically is about $3.6T.
USD as world reserve currency literally doubles (at least) the float - from which the US
government can issue debt (money) to fund its activities. In reality, it is likely a lot more
since foreigners using USD to fund trade means at least some USD in Central Banks, plus the
actual USD in the transaction, plus corporate/individual USD reserves/float.
Again, nothing above is formally linked - I just wanted to convey an idea of just how
advantageous the petrodollar/USD as world trade reserve currency really is.
"... The 1933 Marx brothers film Duck Soup was meant to be a satirical look at Benito Mussolini, ruler of Italy. In the film the mythical country of Freedonia , ruled by the effervescent Rufus T. Firefly ( played by Groucho), due to an insult by the ambassador of rival nation Sylvania, declares war. Laughs abound. Well, in our own nation of ' Free markets', ' Free enterprise' and ' Free use of war' whenever it pleases us, we are led by another Firefly, who is as comedic as he is dangerous to peace. ..."
"... Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ' It's the Empire Stupid ' radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected] ..."
The 1933 Marx brothers film Duck Soup was meant to be a satirical look at Benito
Mussolini, ruler of Italy. In the film the mythical country of Freedonia , ruled by the
effervescent Rufus T. Firefly ( played by Groucho), due to an insult by the ambassador of rival
nation Sylvania, declares war. Laughs abound. Well, in our own nation of ' Free markets', '
Free enterprise' and ' Free use of war' whenever it pleases us, we are led by another Firefly,
who is as comedic as he is dangerous to peace.
Of course, the major difference with movie's Freedonia and our own is like night and day. In
the film the leader, Firefly, had full control of every decision needed to be made. In our
Freemerika , Mr. Trump, regardless of the image he portrays as an absolute ruler, has to
dance to the tune of the Military Industrial Empire, just like ALL our previous
presidents. Folks, sorry to say, but presidents are not so much harnessed by our Constitution
or Congress ( or even the Supreme Court) but by the wizards who the empire picks to
advise him. They decide the ' when and if' of such dramatic actions like the other day's
drone missile murder in Iraq of the Iranian general. Unlike when Groucho decides he was
insulted by Trentino, the Sylvanian ambassador, and declares ' This means war!', Mr. Trump gave
the order for the assassination but ONLY after those behind the curtain advised
him.
To believe that our presidents have carte blanche to do the heinous deeds is foolish at best
. LBJ's use of the Gulf of Tonkin phony incident to gung ho in Vietnam was not just one man
making that call.
Or Nixon's Christmas carpet bombing of Hanoi, Bush Sr.'s attack on Iraq in 1991 , his son's
ditto against Iraq in 2003, Obama's use of NATO to destroy Libya in 2011, or this latest
arrogance by Trump, were all machinations by this empire's wizards who advised them.
When the late Senator Robert Byrd stood before a near empty Senate chamber in 2003 to warn of
this craziness, that told it all! We are not led by Rufus T. Firefly, rather a
Cabal that most in this government do not even realize who in the hell these people
are!
Of course, the embedded mainstream media does the usual job of demonizing who the
empire chooses to be our enemies. As with this recent illegal act by our government of
crossing into another nation's sovereignty to do the deed, now they all tell us how deadly this
Iranian general was. Yet, how many of the news outlets ever mentioned this guy for what they
now tell us he was, for all these years? Well, here is the kicker. I do not know what this man
was responsible for , regarding acts of insurgency against US forces in Iraq. Maybe he did aid
in the attacks on US personnel. Maybe he also was there to neutralize the fanatical ISIS
terrorists who were killing US and Iraqi personnel in Iraq and Syria. What I do know is that,
in the first place, we had no business ever invading and occupying Iraq period! Thus,
the rest of this Duck Soup becomes postscript.
Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also
frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian
sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn
College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on
the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also
host of the ' It's the Empire Stupid ' radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be
reached at [email protected]
The USA Has Been Bombing Iraq For 29 Years by Tyler Durden Wed, 01/08/2020 - 21:05 0
SHARES
Over the past days while little real debate over the Iran crisis has happened in Washington
or Congress (instead it's merely the default drones and "bombs away" as usual), the American
public has been busy online and in living rooms debating the merits or lack thereof of
escalation and potential war with Iran.
However, like with many other instances of US foreign policy adventurism, this is typically
a "debate" lacking in necessary recent historical context or appreciation for how the domino
effect of disasters now facing American security were often brought on by prior US action in
the first place. As a case in point, it's not recognized often enough in public discourse that
it was the United States under the neocon Bush administration which handed Iraq over to
"Iranian influence" and the Shia clerics in the first place .
It must be remembered that Saddam Hussein was a secular Sunni dictator presiding over a Shia
majority population, and he was enemy #1 of Iran. Team USA's short-sighted and criminal 2003
invasion and overthrow of Saddam based on WMD lies had the immediate benefit to Tehran of
handing the Ayatollah the greatest gift that Iran waged a nearly decade-long war to accomplish,
but couldn't (the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War).
And the neocons within the bowels of the national security state have ever since been
attempting to salvage their failed legacy in Iraq by the futile effort of trying to contain
Iran and roll back Shia dominance in Baghdad, as Seymour Hersh detailed in his famous 2006 New
Yorker piece The Redirection , which
accurately predicted the 'long war' against the Hezbollah-Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran axis which
would unfold, and did indeed unfold, especially in Syria of the past eight years.
To "situate" the past week's dramatic events, it's also crucial to understand, as The
Libertarian Institute's Scott Horton has pointed out , that "The U.S.A.
has been bombing Iraq for 29 years. And it looks like it's not over yet."
Below is an essential timeline compiled by Horton of that nearly three decade long history
where Iraq has been consistently subject to American bombs and intervention -- yet ironically
(and some might say predictably) the situation is still getting worse, more unstable, and more
dangerous.
Iraq War I : January -- February 1991 (aka The Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, liberation
of Kuwait)
Iraq War I 1/2 : February 1991 -- March 2003 (The rest of Bush I, Bill Clinton years,
economic blockade and no-fly zone bombings)
Iraq War II : March 2003 -- December 2011 (aka Operation Iraqi Freedom, W. Bush's invasion
and war for the Shi'ite side)
Iraq War III : August 2014 -- December 2017 (aka Operation Inherent Resolve, the war against
the Islamic State, which America had helped to build up in Syria but then launched this war to
destroy, on behalf of the Shi'ite government in Baghdad, after ISIS had seized the
predominately Sunni west of the country in the early summer of 2014 and declared the Islamic
State "Caliphate")
Iraq War III 1/2 : December 2017 -- January 2020 (The "mopping-up" war against the remnants
of ISIS which has had the U.S. still allied with the very same Shi'ite militias they fought
Iraq War II and III for, but are now attacking)
Iraq War IV : Now -- ?
NEW from me: We asked folks to identify Iran on an unlabeled map.
As Scott Horton suggests, the roots of the current crisis lie all the way back in the mid-20th century
:
In 1953, the American CIA overthrew the elected prime minister of Iran in favor of the
Shah Reza Pahlavi who ruled a dictatorship there for 26 years until in 1979 a popular
revolution overthrew his government and installed the Shi'ite Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
in power.
So in 1980, President Jimmy Carter's government gave Iraq's Saddam Hussein the green light to
invade Iran, a war which the U.S. continued to support throughout
the Ronald Reagan years, though they also sold weapons
to the Iranian side at times.
But then in 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait in a dispute over debts from the recent war with
Iran, with some
encouragement by the U.S. government, leading to America's Iraq War I, aka the first Gulf
War or Operation
Desert Storm at the beginning of 1991.
And that was merely the very beginning.
Read the rest of the story and the excellent brief history of how we got here over at
The
Libertarian Institute .
Yep. And the initial excuse (WMDs) was proven absolutely to have been a contrived hoax.
Yet, all of the people of that decimated country and surrounding nations who have a vendetta
against us are labeled "terrorists". I guess the English language has evolved beyond my
comprehension since the usurpation by the tribe of our media and government.
By the definition of "terrorist" - terrorist | ˈterərəst | noun a person
who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of
political aims: - I see only the United States of Israel as befitting this word.
I can't quite understand how gratuitous US piracy and adventurism in places on the globe
beyond the knowledge and reach of most Americans could possibly be compared to Iranian
actions securing their immediate regional borders and interests. You can at least understand
(even if you critique) a US preoccupation with Cuba over the years, or drug cartels in
central America, or economic refugees in Mexico because they are close by and have a more
less direct effect on the stability of the US. But they have no authority beyond that other
than the ability to project violence and force. That's just simple imperialism. But now the
US have whacked a made guy without any real reason (i.e. looking at you the wrong way is not
a reason). Any mafia hood knows that, especially a New Yorker like Trump. So the climax of
The Godfather comes to mind. It is staggeringly naive and frankly moronic to think
that this is about good and evil. I bet Soleimani was no angel, but he wasn't whacked because
he was a bad guy, but because he was extraordinarily effective military organizer. Star Wars
has a lot to answer for in stunting the historical sensibilities of entire generations, but
its underlying narrative is the only MSM playbook now. Even more staggering is the stupendous
arrogance of the US belief in its 'rights' (based on thuggery and avarice), as though it were
the only power in the world capable of establishing a moral order. The lesson in humility to
come will be both long-awaited and go unheeded. Even the mob understand there has to be
rules.
After reading Crooke and Federicci's articles, there is only one way to stop this madness
blowing into a global conflict. Russia and China need to get involved whether they like it or
not. Diplomacy and sideline analysis has run its course. This is their time to stamp their
influence in the region and finish off the empire once and for all. Maybe that way, The
Europeans will grow some minerals and become sovereign again.
Otherwise, China can kiss its Belt and Road goodbye and go into a recession with the loss
of their investments up to this point and become slaves to the Americans again.
And Russia, the enemy du jour of Europe and US will be next and be crushed under economic
sanctions and isolation.
This is the moment that stars are aligned . Russia and China should park their battle
carriers off the Gulf and gives direct warning to Israel and US that any nuclear threat ,
tactical or otherwise, against anyone in the region is a non-starter.
I read so much about these two countries and that they will get involved. I have recited
those lines myself. But after these events and how things are escalating, I cannot see how
they cannot be involved. US is its most vulnerable and weakest with respect to economic,
diplomatic and military conditions.
The time of condemnations, letters of objection to the UN and veto votes in UNSC is over.
There is only one way to deal with a rogue nation and that is by force.
"... Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States." ..."
"... "Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the game have totally changed," he said. ..."
"The Guardian" journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad says that before the attack on Qassem
Soleimani in Baghdad last week "there was an understanding between the Americans and the
Iranians" that allowed officials from Iran and the U.S. to move freely within Iraq and
maintained relative goodwill toward American bases.
"The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in which both Iran and the United States
coexisted in Iraq," he said.
Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as
anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States."
"Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in
Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in
Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani
was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He
stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the
Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the
Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the
game have totally changed," he said.
AMY GOODMAN: Ghaith, can you comment on this new information that's come to light about the
timing of Soleimani's assassination Friday morning? Iraq's caretaker Prime Minister Adel
Abdul-Mahdi has revealed he had plans to meet with Soleimani on the day he was killed to
discuss a Saudi proposal to defuse tension in the region. Mahdi said, quote, "He came to
deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi Arabia to
Iran" -- Saudi Arabia, obviously, a well-known enemy of Iran. Was he set up? Talk about the
significance of this.
GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD: Well, it is very significant if it's actually General Qassem Soleimani
came to Iraq to deliver this message, if it was actually there was a process of negotiations in
the region. We know that Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government, in general, over the last year
had been trying to position Iraq as this middle power, as this power where both -- you know, as
a country that has a relationship with both Iran and the United States. In that awkward place
Iraq found itself in, Iraq has tried to maximize on this. So they started back in summer and
fall, when there was an escalation between Iran and the United States, when Iran shot down an
American drone. We've seen Adel Abdul-Mahdi fly to Iran, try to mediate. We've seen Adel
Abdul-Mahdi open channels of communications with the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia.
So, if it actually, the killing of General Soleimani, ended that peace initiative, it will
be kind of disastrous in the region, because, as Narges was saying earlier, it is -- you know,
Pompeo is speaking about Iran being this ultimate evil in the region, as this crescent of
Shias, as if they just arrived in the past 10 years in the region. The fact if we see Iran's
reactions, it's always a reaction to an American provocation. You've seen the occupation of
Iraq in 2003. You've seen Iran declared as an "axis of evil." So, if you see it from an Iranian
perspective, it's always this existential threat coming from the United States. And I don't
think there is a more existential threat than in past year. So, yes, I know -- I mean, I think
Adel Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government were trying to find this middle ground, which I think
is totally lost, because even Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the person who was trying to find this middle
ground, was the person who proposed this law yesterday in the Parliament to expel all American
troops from the country.
And I would like to add like another thing. The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in
which both Iran and the United States coexisted in Iraq. So, from 2013, '14, we, as
journalists, we've seen on the frontlines how the proxies of each power have been helping each
other. So we've seen Iranian advisers helping the American-trained Iraqi Army unit or
counterterrorism unit in the fight against ISIS. In the same sense, we've seen American
airstrikes on threats to these -- kind of to ISIS when it was threatening these militias. That
coexistence, it didn't only come from both having a -- sharing an enemy, which is ISIS, or
Daesh, but also these were the rules of the game. These were the rules in which Qassem
Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad
airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He
took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in
the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans
and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would
have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, I think the rules of the game have
totally changed.
So now I think the first victim of the assassination will be the American bases in Iraq. I
don't see any way where the Americans can keep their presence as they did before the
assassination of Soleimani. And even the people in the streets, even the people who opposes
Iran, who opposes the presence of Iranian militias in power and politics, the corruption of
these pro-Iranian parties, even those people would look at these American bases now as not as a
force that came to help them in the fight against ISIS, but a force that's dragging them into a
war between Iran and the United States.
Iran has incentives to increase the chance of a Democrat administration, bearing in mind the
great deal they got from the last one and the lack of anything they can expect from Trump Term
Two.
Notable quotes:
"... Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump. He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4 pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in your face in an hour, Sir ". ..."
"... Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on the military (which likely will obey). ..."
"... These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper. ..."
"... As a thank you to Trump calling the Israel occupied Golan a part of Israel Netanyahu called an (iirc also illegal) new Golan settlement "Ramat Trump" ..."
"... I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have? ..."
"... The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking. ..."
"... Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ..."
"... Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. ..."
"... We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies. If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL ..."
You have just several thousand soldiers in Iraq and Syria. These countries have large proxy
forces of Iran's allies in the form of Shia militias in Iraq and actual Iranian Quds Force
troops in Syria. These forces will be used to attack and kill our soldiers.
The Iranians have significant numbers of ballistic missiles which they have already said
will be used against our forces
The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the IRGC
Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed. In that
process the US Navy will loose men and ships.
In direct air attacks on Iran we are bound to lose aircraft and air crew.
The IRGC and its Quds Force will carry out terrorist attacks across the world.
Do you really want to be a one term president? Pompeo can talk big now and then go back to Kansas to run for senator. Where will you be able to take refuge? Don't let the neocons like Pompeo sell you on war.
Make the intelligence people show you the evidence in detail. Make your own judgments.
pl
re " Trump knows that he can't sell a war to the American people "
Are you sure? I am not.
Reflection, self criticism or self restraint are not exactly the big strengths of Trump.
He prefers solo acts (Emergency! Emergency!) and dislikes advice (especially if longer than 4
pages) and the advice of the sort " You're sure? If you do that the the shit will fly in
your face in an hour, Sir ".
A good number of the so called grownups who gave such advice were (gameshow style) fired,
sometimes by twitter.
Trump can order attacks and I don't expect much protest from Mark Esper and it depends on
the military (which likely will obey).
These so called grownups have been replaced by (then still) happy Bolton (likely, even
after being fired, still war happy) and applauders like Pompeo and his buddy Esper.
Israel could, if politically just a tad more insane, bomb Iran and thus invite the
inevitable retaliation. When that happens they'll cry for US aid, weapons and money because
they alone ~~~
(a) cannot defeat Iran (short of going nuclear) and ...
(b) Holocaust! We want weapons and money from Germany, too! ...
(c) they know that ...
(d) which does not lead in any way to Netanyahu showing signgs of self restraint or
reason.
Netanyahu just - it is (tight) election time - announced, in his sldedge hammer style
subtlety, that (he) Israel will annect the palestinian west jordan territory, making the
Plaestines an object in his election campaign.
IMO that idea is simply insane and invites more "troubles". But then, I didn't hear
anything like, say, Trump gvt protests against that (and why expect that from the dudes who
moved the US embassy to Jerusalem).
as for Trump and Netanyahu ... policy debate ... I had that here in mind, which pretty speaks
for itself. And I thought Trumo is just running for office in the US. Alas, it is a Netanyaho
campaign poster from the current election:
I generously assume that things like that only happen because of the hard and hard
ly work of Kushner on his somewhat elusive but of course GIGANTIC and
INCREDIBLE Middle East peace plan.
Kushner is probably getting hard and hard ly supported by Ivanka who just said that
she inherited her moral compass from her father. Well ... congatulations ... I assume.
I disagree. Trump maybe the only person who could sell a war with Iran. What he has
cultivated is a rabid base that consists of sycophants on one extreme end and desperate
nationalists on the other. His base must stick with him...who else do they have?
The Left is indifferent to another war. Further depleting the quality stock of our
military will aid there agenda of international integration. A weaker US military will force
us to collaborate with the world community and not lead it is their thinking.
Need I trot out Goering's statement regarding selling a war once more?
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a
farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back
to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor
in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple
matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a
Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the
matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can
declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that Iran and Russia are
intrinsically and immutable evil and hostile that the thought of actual two sided diplomacy
does not occur. IMO neither of these countries are what we collectively think them. So, we
could actually give it a try rather than trying to beggar them and destroy their economies.
If all fails than we have to be prepared to defend our forces. DOL
The 'ivestigations are a formality. The Saudis (with U.S. backing) are already saying that
the missiles were Iranian made and according to them, this proves that Iran fired them. The
Saudis are using the more judicious phrase 'behind the attack' but Pompeo is running with the
fired from Iran narrative.
How can we tell the difference between an actual Iranian manufactured missile vs one that
was manufactured in Yemen based on Iranian designs? We only have a few pictures Iranian
missiles unlike us, the Iranians don't toss them all over the place so we don't have any
physical pieces to compare them to.
Perhaps honest investigators could make a determination but even if they do exist they
will keep quiet while the bible thumping Pompeo brays and shamelessly lies as he is prone to
do.
These kinds of munition will leave hundreds of bits scattered all over their targets. I'm
waiting for the press conference with the best bits laid out on the tables.
I doubt that there will be any stencils saying 'Product of Iran', unless the paint smells
fresh.
1. I am still waiting to read some informed discussion concerning the *accuracy* of the
projectiles hitting their targets with uncanny precision from hundreds of miles away. What
does this say about the achievement of those pesky Eye-rainians? https://www.moonofalabama.org/images9/saudihit2.jpg
2. "The US Navy has many ships in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Iranian Navy and the
IRGC Navy will attack our naval vessels until the Iranian forces are utterly destroyed.:
Ahem, Which forces are utterly destroyed? With respect colonel, you are not thinking
straight. An army with supersonic land to sea missiles that are highly accurate will make
minced meat of any fool's ship that dare attack it. The lesson of the last few months is that
Iran is deadly serious about its position that if they cannot sell their oil, no one else
will be able to either. And if the likes of the relatively broadminded colonel have not yet
learned that lesson, then this can only mean that the escalation ladder will continue to be
climbed, rung by rung. Next rung: deep sea port of Yanbu, or, less likely, Ra's Tanura.
That's when the price of oil will really go through the roof and the Chinese (and possibly
one or two of the Europoodles) will start crying Uncle Scam. Nuff Sed.
It sounds like you are getting a little "help" with this. You statement about the result
of a naval confrontation in the Gulf reflects the 19th Century conception that "ships can't
fight forts." that has been many times exploded. You have never seen the amount of firepower
that would be unleashed on Iran from the air and sea. Would the US take casualties? Yes, but
you will be destroyed.
We will have to agree to disagree. But unless I am quite mistaken, the majority view if not
the consensus of informed up to date opinion holds that the surest sign that the US is
getting ready to attack Iran is that it is withdrawing all of its naval power out of the
Persian Gulf, where they would be sitting ducks.
Besides, I don't think it will ever come to that. Not to repeat myself, but taking out
either deep sea ports of Ra's Tanura and/ or Yanbu (on the Red Sea side) will render Saudi
oil exports null and void for the next six months. The havoc that will play with the price of
oil and consequently on oil futures and derivatives will be enough for any president and army
to have to worry about. But if the US would still be foolhardy enough to continue to want to
wage war (i.e. continue its strangulation of Iran, which it has been doing more or less for
the past 40 years), then the Yemeni siege would be broken and there would be a two-pronged
attack from the south and the north, whereby al-Qatif, the Shi'a region of Saudi Arabia where
all the oil and gas is located, will be liberated from their barbaric treatment at the hands
of the takfiri Saudi scum, which of course is completely enabled and only made possible by
the War Criminal Uncle Sam.
AFAIK the only "US naval power" currently is the Abraham Lincoln CSG and I haven't seen any
public info that it was in the Persian Gulf. Aside from the actual straits, I'm not sure of
your "sitting ducks" assertion. First they wouldn't be sitting, and second you have the
problem of a large volume of grey shipping that would complicate the targeting problem. Of
course with a reduced time-of-flight, that also reduces target position uncertainty.
Forts are stationary.
Nothing I have read implies that Iran has a lot of investment in stationary forts.
Millennium Challenge 2002, only the game cannot be restarted once the enemy does not behave
as one hopes. Unlike in scripted war simulations, Opfor can win.
I remember the amount of devastation that was unleashed on another "backwards nation"
Linebackers 1 - 20, battleship salvos chemical defoliants, the Phoenix program, napalm for
dessert.
And not to put to fine a point on it, but that benighted nation was oriental; Iran is a
Caucasian nation full of Caucasian type peoples.
Nothing about this situation is of any benefit to the USA.
We do not need Saudi oil, we do not need Israel to come to the defense of the USA here in
North America, we do not need to stick our dick into the hornet's nest and then wonder why
they sting and it hurts. How many times does Dumb have to win?
3. Also, I can't imagine this event as being a very welcome one for Israeli military
observers, the significance of which is not lost on them, unlike their US counterparts. If
Yemen/ Iran can put the Abqaiq processing plant out of commission for a few weeks, then
obviusly Hezbollah can do the same for the giant petrochemical complex at Haifa, as well as
Dimona, and the control tower at Ben Gurion Airport. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/239251
It was late at night when I wrote this. Yeah, Right. the Iranians could send their massive
ground force into Syria where it would be chewed up by US and Israeli air. Alternatively they
could invade Saudi arabia.
Thank you for the reply but actually I was thinking that an invasion of Afghanistan would be
the more sensible ploy.
To my mind if the Iranian Army sits on its backside then the USAF and IAF will ignore it
to roam the length and breadth of Iran destroying whatever ground targets are on their
long-planned target-list.
Or that Iranian Army can launch itself into Afghanistan, at which point all of the USA
plans for a methodical aerial pummelling of Iran's infrastructure goes out the window as the
USAF scrambles to save the American forces in Afghanistan from being overrun.
Isn't that correct?
So what incentive is there for that Iranian Army to sit around doing nothing?
Iran will do what the USAF isn't expecting it to do, if for no other reason that it upsets
the USA's own game-plan.
There seems to be a bit of a hiatus in proceedings - not in these columns but on the ground
in the ME.
Everyone seems to be waiting for something.
Could this "something" be the decisive word fron our commander in chief Binyamin
Netanyahu?
The thing is he has just pretty much lost an election. Likud might form part of the next
government of Israel but most likely not with him at its head.
Does anyone have any ideas on what the future policy of Israel is likely to be under Gantz
or whoever? Will it be the same, worse or better?
The correct US move would be to ignore an Iranian invasion of Afghanistan and continue
leaving the place. The Iranian Shia can then fight the Sunni jihadi tribesmen.
Oh, I completely agree that if the Iranians launch an invasion of Afghanistan then the only
sensible strategy would be for the US troops to pack up and get out as fast as possible.
But that is "cut and run", which many in Washington would view as a humiliation.
Do you really see the beltway warriors agreeing to that?
A flaw in your otherwise sound argument is that the US military has not been seriously
engaged for several years and has been reconstituting itself with the money Trump has given
them.
Re-positioning of forces does not indicate that a presidential decision for war has been
made. The navy will not want to fight you in the narrow, shallow waters of the Gulf.
I would think that Mr. Trump would have a hard time sell a war with Iran over an attack on
Saudi Arabia. The good question about how would that war end will soon be raised and I doubt
there are many good answers.
The US should have gotten out of that part of the world a long time ago, just as they
should have paid more attention to the warnings in President Eisenhower's farewell
address.
The Perfumed Fops in the DOD restarted Millennium Challenge 2002,because Gen Van Riper had
used 19th and early 20th century tactics and shore based firepower to sink the Blue Teams
carrier forces. There was a script, Van Riper did some adlibbing. Does the US DOD think that
Iran will follow the US script? In a unipolar world maybe the USA could enforce a script,
that world was severely wounded in 1975, took a sucking chest wound during operation Cakewalk
in 2003 and died in Syria in 2015. Too many poles too many powers not enough diplomacy. It
will not end well.
We would crush Iran at some cost to ourselves but the political cost to the anti-globalist
coalition would catastrophic. BTW Trump's "base" isn't big enough to elect him so he cannot
afford to alienate independents.
Even if Rouhani and the Iranian Parliament personally designed, assembled, targeted and
launched the missiles (scarier sounding version of "drones"), then they should be
congratulated, for the Saudi tyrant deserves every bad thing that he gets.
prawnik (Sid) in this particular situation goering's glittering generalization does not
apply. Trump needs a lot of doubting suburbanites to win and a war will not incline them to
vote for him.
Looks like President Trump is walking it back, tweet: I have just instructed the Secretary of
the Treasury to substantially increase Sanctions on the country of Iran!
I doubt there will be armed conflict of any kind.
Everything Trump does from now (including sacking the Bolton millstone) will be directed at
winning 2020, and that will not be aided by entering into some inconclusive low intensity
attrition war.
Iran, on the other hand, will be doing everything it can to increase the chance of a Democrat
administration, bearing in mind the great deal they got from the last one and the lack of
anything they can expect from Trump Term Two.
This may be a useful tool for determining their next move, but the limit of their actions
would be when some Democrats begin making the electorally damaging mistake of critising Trump
for not retaliating against Iranian provocations.
This is truly shocking: Trump assassinates diplomatic envoy he
himself arranged for. . If the U.S. lured Soleimani to Iraq with a promise of negotiations
with the Iraqis as mediators and then proceeded to kill him, surely that would be an impeachable
offense. Particularly in view of the failure to brief Congress. If it was Saudi tricked Soleimani
by getting Iraq to "mediate" (Iraq's prime minister was expecting a message by him on the
mediation when he was assassinated), Saudi will get targeted.
The US changed the rules of engagement. They had decided to assassinate Soleimani when he was
in Syria, having just returned from a short journey to Lebanon, before boarding a commercial
flight from Damascus airport to Baghdad. The US killing machine was waiting for him to land in
Baghdad and monitored his movements when he was picked up at the foot of the plane. The US hit
the two cars, carrying Soleimani and the al-Muhandes protection team, when they were still inside
the airport perimeter and were slowing down at the first check-point.
US forces will no longer be safe in Iraq outside protected areas inside the military bases
where they are deployed. A potential danger or hit-man could be lurking at every corner; this
will limit the free movement of US soldiers. Iran would be delighted were the Iraqi groups to
decide to hit the American forces and hunt them wherever they are. This would rekindle memories
of the first clashes between Jaish al-Mahdi and US forces in Najaf in 2004-2005.
Impeachment with GOP support could be just around the corner. And who lost Iraq??? He would
be a dead man walking in that case. I can't see the evangelical crowd saving him. President
Pence. Might have to get use to that.
Here is a link to a twitter account with a good video of massive crowds on the streets of
Mashhad awaiting the arrival of Qassem Suleimani. Very powerful.
There will be no draining of any swamps. Trump-Kushner just another Bibi lackey.
Posted by: Jerry | Jan 5 2020 15:48 utc | 13
1. Draining swamps was a marker of progress in the past. >>Wiki:But in the late
1960s and early 1970s, researchers found that marshes and swamps "were worth billions
annually in wildlife production, groundwater recharge, and for flood, pollution, and erosion
control." This motivated the passage of the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control
Act.<<
2. To recognize this vital role, parties should adopt more acquatic symbols. Caymans are a
bit too similar to alligators, but, say, Alligators vs Snapping Turtles?
Yes, it might just be that this debacle provides the extra impulse to get him removed.
Can't say I can even imagine what that would look like, but there would seem to be a good
argument now that he must be restrained somehow. Somebody needs to tell Pompeous to stop
digging the hole deeper (shutup) too.
Yes, as long as Neoco hens and Christian Zionists run our foreign policy we're
screwed.
BTW, Mike Pompeo or as I affectionately call him; Lard face, Plump'eo, crazed CZ-zealot fat
boy, etc., is now a legitimate target of the Iranians. May Allah provide justice to the
family of Soleimani. (Grin) And look, I'm wishing 'ill will' on a zealot 'goy' (gentile)
instead of a typical Neo-cohen snake, how ironic. (Another grin) A positve spin:
With the 'incorrect' memo leaked by the Pentagon about an orderly exit from Iraq this can be
the silver lining in all this mess. This assassination might actually accelerate the exiting
of US forces from Iraq and the surrounding quagmires. Who knows, Trump might be a genius.
Again, NO MORE WARS FOR ZION, BDS NOW, ONE STATE SOLUTION-PALESTINE.
And to really stick it to Neo cohens (My apologies to Prof. Steven Cohen ),
Trump-Putin Axis Da!! Destroy the Deep State and the CABAL .
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, instead of using the opportunity to widen the circle
of U.S. allies or at least non-enemies in the Middle East, the Bush administration declared war
on "all terrorism of global reach," not just on the Sunni terrorists responsible. That meant
not seeking some sort of détente with Shiite Iran -- despite its assistance in
overturning the Taliban in Afghanistan and forming a replacement government -- but putting
Tehran in an "Axis of Evil" with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
Some members of the Bush administration went further. John Bolton, then an undersecretary of
state nominally tasked with arms control (he mostly did the reverse), said that Iran should
"take a number," implying it would be the next to experience regime change after Iraq.
Neoconservatives worried about Iran and its expanding stockpile of low-enriched uranium, as
well as its long opposition to Israel, said that "real men go
to Tehran," not Baghdad.
The Bush administration also went back on a promise to trade leaders of the Mujaheddin-e
Khalq -- a militant Iranian group nurtured by Saddam that fought on Iraq's side during the
Iran-Iraq war -- for members of al-Qaeda detained in Iran. Instead the U.S. gave the group
protection and Bolton among others argued that the MEK could be deployed against Iran.
As a result, the U.S. helped turn the Quds Force -- the elite overseas branch of Iran's
Revolutionary Guards -- into a full-fledged enemy even as its removal of Saddam's Baathist
regime opened Iraq fully to Iran-backed militants, many of whom were trained in Iran during the
Iran-Iraq war. Starting with the Badr Brigade, Iran has since helped shape other Iraqi
militias, among them Kataib Hezbollah, whose targeting of Americans in Iraq touched off the
latest escalatory spiral.
Of course, the Trump administration's decision in 2018 to quit the Iran nuclear deal and a
year later to impose an oil embargo on Iran has been the major cause of the mayhem in the
region over the past nine months.
Now, by assassinating Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration has
likely foreclosed any possibility of U.S.-Iran diplomacy and sharply increased the likelihood
of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Iran announced on Sunday that it would no longer
observe the limits set in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and would resume its
nuclear program. That will incentivize Saudi Arabia to get nukes of its own.
It is said that George W. Bush, when he decided to invade Iraq, did not understand the
difference between Sunnis and Shias. Donald Trump seems to dislike all Muslims, except those
who buy American arms or host Trump properties.
In killing Soleimani, Trump has shown his ignorance of the power of martyrdom in Shia
theology. To Iranians and many Arab Shia -- including those who would like to get Iran out of
their countries' affairs -- Soleimani was a bulwark against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State,
defending the interests of a religious minority in the Middle East. Pictures of Soleimani being
embraced by the Imam Hussein -- the revered Shia figure martyred in the year 680 in Karbala,
Iraq, by the forces of the Sunni tyrant Yazid -- are circulating widely on social media. The
U.S., by implication, has become Yazid.
It is not 'Shia' vs. 'Sunni' when referencing the perspective of the U.S. : Middle East
relationship. It is the petro dollar. And every so often we have someone writing from a
'thinktank', i.e., The Atlantic Council, that never touches upon the scenario of the 'petro'
dollar and how it governs U.S. foreign policy in that region. Instead they frame their gripes
with partisan politics. Bush, Obama, and Trump have to kiss the Saudi ass in order to pay for
the enormous 'warfare' and 'welfare' state of Washington D.C. The Petro Dollar ensures that
the printing presses in Washington continue to print those dollars that will support a larger
budget for the Pentagon, and Medicare, and in the very near future if Trump loses the White
House: Medicare for All {including undocumented immigrants}, Reparations, free college for
all, etc. You can add the United State's incredible generosity with tax payer money that
pretty much pays for an 'ungrateful' Western Europe security.
And Trump did not do this to America. But he has to continue it in order to keep those
printing presses rolling at the Treasury: in other words keep the American Dollar the 'top
dog' currency of the world which allows for this $20 trillion + deficit and at the same time
'fantasy island' welfare state promises from the politicians. And politicians have no problem
with this policy - they can just exploit it for partisan politics and at the same time
promise an pseudo 'sustainable' increase in the welfare state to win elections.
That said, the Saudis are Sunnis. They want to increase their power. And in order to keep
them happy {so they will not change currency exchanges for their oil to the 'gold-backed'
yuan}, then the United States must fight messy and horrible wars in Yemen; start wars in
Syria [General Mattis was and is a big time supporter of this] - supporting terrorist groups
who love killing Christians with U.S. weapons, and ultimately regime change in Iran. Why do
you think George W. Bush, etal have to look the other way on 9/11 - shield the Saudis {oh,
and Obama is included on this list also}. All U.S. presidents face this problem. But
especially the Democrats since their big welfare state costs way more to sustain than the
Pentagon.
In conclusion - Obama, a Democrat, oversaw the CIA that supported and aided MBS onto the
throne in Saudi Arabia because, unlike his myriad of family members, he will continue to
exchange oil {along with the Gulf 'Sunni' dominated states' using the Dollar. It is all the
presidents of all political parties beginning with the Nixon administration.
Russia and China are ALREADY seen as more sane and rational powers than USA. That's why we
couldn't let Soleimani negotiate peace between Persia and Saudi. Killing him won't stop the
negotiations; more likely it will speed up Saudi's divorce from US/Israel craziness.
Putin and Xi are more honest and useful brokers than the United States.
That is not a major accomplishment. The United States has demonstrated time and again that
it acts not even in its own interests, but in the interests of its Saudi owners and Israeli
masters.
In theory, the US could be a powerful stabilizing force in the Middle East. We have the
resources and the military might to provide very effective carrots and sticks.
However, over the past decades we have proven that we are so ignorant of the local
cultures and politics, so blinded by our own preconceptions and ideologies, and so unwilling
to learn, that we keep punishing people with carrots and rewarding them with sticks. Time to
admit we can't get it right and go home.
Even worse, we have chosen two particular countries in the region, the Israelis and the
Saudis, as Our Special Friends and we use the carrots and sticks almost entirely in their
interests.
The biggest impediment to that is the frequent change of administrations and their policies.
But since we weren't designed to be doing that sort of thing in the first place it's only
natural that we aren't very good at it. We should get out of foreign entanglements but
Congress (and its lobbyists) fights it tooth and nail, across administrations. They've even
developed a nasty word for it... isolationism .
gjohnsit on Mon,
01/06/2020 - 6:14pm Just a few days ago SoS Mike Pompeo said that we assassinated General Soleimani
to stop an 'imminent attack' on Americans.
No evidence was presented to back up this claim. We are just supposed to believe it.
It turns out that
Pompeo and VP Pence had pushed Trump hard to do this assassination.
"Seven aircraft and three military vehicles were destroyed in the attack," said the
statement, which included photos of aircraft ablaze and an al Shabaab militant standing
nearby. In a tweet, the US Africa Command confirmed an attack on the Manda Bay Airfield had
occurred.
One US military service member and two contractors were killed in an Islamist attack on a
military base in Kenya.
Islamist militant group al-Shabab attacked the base, used by Kenyan and US forces, in the
popular coastal region of Lamu on Sunday.
The US military said in a statement that two others from the Department of Defense were
wounded.
"The wounded Americans are currently in stable condition and being evacuated," the US
military's Africa Command said.
But the response of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu , was particularly striking, as he has been one of Trump's staunchest
supporters on the world stage.
He told a meeting of his security cabinet on Monday: "The assassination of Suleimani
isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were not involved and should not be
dragged into it."
It was not the US decision to fire missiles against the IRGC commander Brigadier General
Qassem Soleimani that killed the Iranian officer and his companions in Baghdad. Yes, of course,
the order that was given to launch missiles from the two drones (which destroyed the two cars
carrying Sardar Soleimani and his companion the Iraqi commander in al-Hashd al-Shaabi Jamal
Jaafar Al-Tamimi aka Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and burned their bodies in the vehicle) came from US
command and control.
However, the reason President Donald Trump made this decision derives from the weakness of
the "axis of resistance", which has completely retreated from the level of performance that
Iran believed it was capable of after decades of work to strengthen this "axis".
A close companion of Major General Qassim Soleimani, to whom he spoke hours before boarding
the plane that took him from Damascus to Baghdad, told me:
"The nobleman died. Palestine above all has lost Hajj Qassem (Soleimani). He was the
"King" of the Axis of the Resistance and its leader. He was assassinated and this is exactly
what he was hoping to reach in this life (Martyrdom). However, this axis will live and will
not die. No doubt, the Axis of the Resistance needs to review its policy and regenerate
itself to correct its path. This was what Hajj Qassim was complaining about and planning to
work on and strategizing about in his last hours."
The US struck Iran at the heart of its pride by killing Major General Soleimani. But the
"axis of the Resistance" killed him before that. This is how:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinated the deputy head of the Military
Council (the highest authority in the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is headed by its
Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah), Hajj Imad Mughniyah in Damascus, Syria, Hezbollah could
not avenge him until today.
When Trump gave Netanyahu Jerusalem as the "capital of Israel", the "Axis of the Resistance"
did not move except by holding television symposia and conferences verbally rejecting the
decision.
When President Trump offered the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel and the "Axis of
Resistance" did not react, the US President Donald Trump and his team understood that they were
opposed by no effective deterrent. The inaction of the Resistance axis emboldened Trump to do
what he wants.
And when Israel bombed hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria , the "Axis of the
Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want to be
dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior official in
this axis told me.
In Iraq shortly before his death, Major General Soleimani was complaining about the
weakening of the Iraqi ranks within this "Axis of the Resistance", represented by the Al-Bina'
(Construction) Alliance and other groups close to this alliance like Al-Hikma of Ammar al-Hakim
and Haidar al-Abadi, formerly close to Iran, that have gone over to the US side.
In Iraq, Major General Soleimani was very patient and never lost his temper. He was trying
to reconcile the Iraqis, both his allies and those who had chosen the US camp and disagreed
with him. He used to hug those who shouted at him to lower tensions and continue dialogue to
avoid spoiling the meeting. Anyone who raised his voice during discussions soon found that it
was Soleimani who calmed everyone down.
Hajj Qassem Soleimani was unable to reach a consensus on the new Prime Minister's name among
those he deemed to be allies in the same coalition. He asked Iraqi leaders to select the names
and went through all of these asking questions about the acceptability of these names to the
political groups, to the Marjaiya, to protestors in the street and whether the suggested names
were not provocative or challenging to the US. Notwithstanding the animosity between Iran and
the US, Soleimani encouraged the selection of a personality that would not be boycotted by the
US. Soleimani believed the US capable of damaging Iraq and understood the importance of
maintaining a good relationship with the US for the stability of the country.
Soleimani was shocked by the dissension among Iraqi Shia and believed that the "axis of
resistance" needed a new vision as it was faltering. In the final hours before his death, Major
General Soleimani was ruminating on the profound antagonisms between Iraqis of the same
camp.
When the Iraqi street began to move against the government, the line rejecting American
hegemony was fragmented because it was part of the authority that ruled and governed Iraq. To
make matters worse, Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr directed his arrows against his partners in
government, as though the street demonstrations did not target him, the politician controlling
the largest number of Iraqi deputies, ministers and state officials, who had participated in
the government for more than ten years.
Major General Soleimani admonished Moqtada Al-Sadr for his stances, which contributed to
undermining the Iraqi ranks because the Sadrist leader did not offer an alternative solution or
practical project other than the chaos. Moqtada has his own men, the feared Saraya al-Salam,
present in the street.
When US Defense Secretary Mark Esper called Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi on
December 28 and informed him of America's intentions of hitting Iraqi security targets inside
Iraq, including the PMU, Soleimani was very disappointed by Abdul-Mahdi's failure to
effectively oppose Esper. Abdul-Mahdi merely told Esper that the proposed US action was
dangerous. Soleimani knew that the US would not have hit Iraqi targets had Abdul-Mahdi dared to
oppose the US decision. The targeted areas were a common Iranian-Iraqi operational stage to
monitor and control ISIS movements on the borders with Syria and Iraq. The US would have
reversed its decision had the Iraqi Prime Minister threatened the US with retaliation in the
event that Iraqi forces were bombed and killed. After all, the US had no legal right to attack
any objective in Iraq without the agreement of the Iraqi government. This decision was the
moment when Iraq has lost its sovereignty and the US took control of the country.
This effective US control is another reason why President Trump gave the green light to kill
Major General Soleimani. The Iraqi front had demonstrated its weakness and also, it was
necessary to select a strong Iraqi leader with the guts to stand to the US arrogance and
unlawful actions.
Iran has never controlled Iraq, as most analysts mistakenly believe and speculate. For
years, the US has worked hard in the corridors of the Iraqi political leadership lobby for its
own interests. The most energetic of its agents was US Presidential envoy Brett McGurk, who
clearly realised the difficulties of navigating inside Iraqi leaders' corridors during the
search for a prime minister of Iraq before the appointment of Adel Abdel Mahdi, the selection
of President Barham Saleh and other governments in the past. Major General Soleimani and McGurk
shared an understanding of these difficulties. Both understood the nature of the Iraqi
political quagmire.
Soleimani did not give orders to fire missiles at US bases or attack the US Embassy. If it
was in his hands to destroy them with accurate missiles and to remove the entire embassy from
its place without repercussions, he would not have hesitated. But the Iraqis have their own
opinions, methods, modus operandi and selection of targets and missile calibres; they never
relied on Soleimani for such decisions.
Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs was never welcomed by the Marjaiya in Najaf, even if it
agreed to receive Soleimani on a few occasions. They clashed over the reelection of Nuri
al-Maliki, Soleimani's preferred candidate, to the point that the Marjaiya wrote a letter
making its refusal of al-Maliki explicit. This led to the selection of Abadi as prime
minister.
Soleimani's views contradicted the perception of the Marjaiya, that had to write a clear
message, firstly, to reject the re-election of Nori al-Maliki to a third session, despite
Soleimani's insistence.
All of the above is related to the stage that followed the 2011 departure of US forces from
Iraq under President Obama. Prior to that, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis was the link between the
Iraqis and Iran: he had the decision-making power, the vision, the support of various groups,
and effectively served as the representative of Soleimani, who did not interfere in the
details. These Iraqi groups met with Soleimani often in Iran; Soleimani rarely travelled to
Iraq during the period of heavy US military presence.
Soleimani, although he was the leader of the "Axis of the Resistance", was sometimes called
"the king" in some circles because his name evokes Solomon. According to sources within the
"Axis of the Resistance", he "never dictated his own policy but left a margin of movement and
decision to all leaders of the axis without exception. Therefore, he was considered the link
between this axis and the supreme leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei. Soleimani was able to contact
Sayyed Khamenei at any time and directly without mediation. The Leader of the revolution
considered Soleimani as his son.
According to sources, in Syria, Soleimani "never hesitated to jump inside a truck, ride an
ordinary car, take the first helicopter, or travel on a transport or cargo plane as needed. He
did not take any security precautions but used his phone (which he called a companion spy)
freely because he believed that when the decision came to assassinate him, he would follow his
destiny. He looked forward to becoming a martyr because he had already lived long."
Was the leader of the "resistance axis" managing and running it?
Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: "You are an Arab and the Arabs accept you
more than they accept Iran". Sayyed Nasrallah directed and managed the axis of Lebanon, Syria
and Yemen and had an important role in Iraq. Hajj Soleimani was the liaison between the axis of
the resistance and Iran and he was the financial and logistical officer. According to my
source, "He was a friend of all leaders and officials of all ranks. He was humble and looked
after everyone he had to deal with".
The "Axis of Resistance" indirectly allowed the killing of Qassem Soleimani. If Israel and
the US could know Sayyed Nasrallah's whereabouts, they would not hesitate a moment to
assassinate him. They may be aware: the reaction may be limited to burning flags and holding
conferences and manifesting in front of an embassy. Of course, this kind of reaction does not
deter President Trump who wants to be re-elected with the support of Israel and US public
opinion. He wants to present himself as a warrior and determined leader who loves battle and
killing.
Iran invested 40 years building the "Axis of the Resistance". It cannot remain idle, faced
with the assassination of the Leader of this axis. Would a suitable price be the US exit from
Iraq and condemnation in the Security Council? Would that, together with withdrawal from the
nuclear deal, be enough for Iran to avenge its General? Will the ensuing battle be confined to
the Iraqi stage? Will it be used for the victory of certain Iraqi political players?
The assassination of its leader represents the supreme test for the Axis of Resistance. All
sides, friend and foe, are awaiting its response.
And when Israel bombed hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria , the "Axis of
the Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want
to be dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior
official in this axis told me.
If the 'source' in this article was so close to Soleimani, then he would also have
mentioned that Russia was dictating terms in Syria.
Soleimani knew this and could not afford to lose Russia as an ally, this would definitely
have happened if another 'player' was brought into the war just because Soleimani decided to
retaliate to Zionist bombing.
Putin, Assad and Soleimani had a long term view of winning in Syria, not making things
worse because of a quick retaliatory strike.
Non-binding resolution asking the prime minister to rescind Iraq's invitation...
The current government is unlikely to push this through. After a new PM is chosen, it
would still take a year or more to move the US troops out by the agreements under which they
set up their base. All of this has to be viewed under the context that the US was
asked to send troops by the Iraqi president.
Yesterday,
Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency
parliamentary session. Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the
session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on
Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
In a meeting Monday, Mahdi, a caretaker prime minister who said in November he would resign,
told US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller that the US and Iraq needed to cooperate "to implement
the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi parliament,"
according to a statement from the PM's office that was cited by
the Washington Post .
Though the Iraq war 'officially' ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around.
Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.
Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like
Ron Paul and his son, Rand.
That said, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of capacity to bully
Iran, and other other regional powers.
AP WASHINGTON (AP) -- Having the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force direct Iraqi forces
battling the Islamic State group is complicating the U.S. mission against terrorism and
contributing to destabilization in Iraq, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
said Sunday.
During more than a half-century of Washington watching we have seen stupidity rise from one
height to yet another. But nothing -- just plain nothing -- compares to the the blithering
stupidity of the Donald's Iran "policy", culminating in the mindless assassination of its top
military leader and hero of the so-called Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem
Soleimani.
To be sure, we don't give a flying f*ck about the dead man himself. Like most generals of
whatever army (including the US army), he was a cold-blooded, professional killer.
And in this day and age of urban and irregular warfare and drone-based annihilation
delivered by remote joy-stick, generals tend to kill more civilians than combatants. The dead
civilian victims in their millions of U.S. generals reaching back to the 1960s surely attest to
that.
Then again, even the outright belligerents Soleimani did battle with over the decades were
not exactly alms-bearing devotees of Mother Theresa, either. In sequential order, they were the
lethally armed combatants mustered by Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, the Sunni jihadists of
ISIS and the Israeli and Saudi air forces, which at this very moment are raining high tech
bombs and missiles on Iranian allies and proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The only reason these years of combat are described in the mainstream media as evidence of
Iranian terrorism propagated by its Quds forces is that the neocons have declared it so.
That is, by Washington's lights Iran is not allowed to have a foreign policy and its alliances
with mainly Shiite co-religionists in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are alleged per se to be
schemes of aggression and terror, warranting any and all retaliations including assassination
of its highest officials.
But that's just colossal nonsense and imperialistic arrogance. The Assad government in
Syria, the largest political party in Lebanon (Hezbollah), the dominant population of northern
Yemen (Houthis) and a significant portion of the Iraqi armed forces represented by the Shiite
militias (the PMF or Popular Mobilization Forces) are no less civilized and no more prone to
sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone region. And the real head-choppers of
ISIS and its imitators and rivals have all been Sunni jihadist insurrectionists, not
Shiite-based governments and political parties.
The truth is, America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt, which has been going on
for 1300 years in the region. And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into
Europe or America, recent history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents
in the US since they began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not
Iran or its Shiite allies and proxies in the region.
So we needs be direct. The aggression in the Persian Gulf region during the last three
decades has originated in the Washington DC nest of neocon vipers and among Bibi Netanyahu's
proxies, collaborators and assigns who rule the roost in the Imperial City and among both
political parties. And the motivating force has all along been the malicious quest for regime
change -- first in Iraq and then in Syria and Iran.
Needless to say, Washington instigated "regime change" tends to provoke a determined
self-defense and a usually violent counter-reaction among the changees. So the truth is, the
so-called Shiite crescent is not an alliance of terrorists inflicting wanton violence on the
region; it's a league of regime-change resisters and armed combatants who have elected to say
"no" to Washington's imperial schemes for remaking the middle eastern maps.
So in taking out Soleimani, the usually befuddled and increasingly belligerent occupant of
the Oval Office was not striking a blow against "terrorism". He was just dramatically
escalating Washington's long-standing regime-change aggression in the region, thereby risking
an outbreak of even greater violence and possibly a catastrophic conflagration in the Persian
Gulf where one-fifth of the world's oil traverses daily.
And most certainly, the Donald has now crushed his own oft-repeated intent to withdraw
American forces from the middle east and get out of the regime change business -- the very
platform upon which he campaigned in 2016. There are now upwards of 50,000 US military
personnel in the immediate Persian Gulf region and tens of thousands of more contractors,
proxies and mercenaries. After Friday's reckless maneuver, that number can now only go up --
and possibly dramatically.
In joy-sticking Soleimani while lounging in his plush digs at Mar-a-Lago, the Donald was
also not avenging the innocent casualties of Iranian aggression -- Americans or otherwise. He
was just jamming another regime-change stick in the hornets nest of anti-Americanism in the
region that Washington's bloody interventions have spawned over the decades, and which will now
intensify by orders of magnitude.
Sometimes a picture does tell a thousand words, and this one from the funeral procession in
Tehran yesterday surely makes a mockery of Secretary Pompeo's idiotic claim that the middle
east is now safer than before. If there was ever a case that this neocon knucklehead should be
immediately dispatched to his hog and corn farm back in Kansas, this is surely it.
Iranians
carried the coffins of top general Qassem Soleimani and his allies in Kerman, Iran
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones have
so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative that the
Iranian side of the story has been completely lost -- literally airbrushed right off the pages
of contemporary history in Stalineseque fashion.
Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and incompetence
of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics.
But that's exactly the crime of Washington's neocon-inspired hostility and threats to the
Iranian regime. It merely rekindles Iranian nationalism and causes the public to rally to the
support of the regime, as is so evident at the current moment.
Worse still, the underlying patriotic foundation of this pro-regime sentiment is completely
lost on Imperial Washington owing to its false narrative about post-1979 history. Yet the fact
is, in the eyes of the Iranian people the Quds forces and Soleimani have plausible claims to
having been valiant defenders of the nation.
In the original instance, of course, Soleimani earned his chops on the battlefield
contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. And
Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against often
barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance rendered by
the U.S. air force -- a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation of Iranians
know all about, even if present day Washington feints ignorance.
Then after Bush the Younger visited uninvited and unrequested Shock & Awe upon Baghdad
and much of the Iraqi countryside, it transpired that the nation's majority Shiite population
didn't cotton much to being "liberated" by Washington. Indeed, the more radical elements of the
Iraqi Shiite community in Sadr City and other towns of central and south Iraq took up arms
during 2003-2011 against what they perceived to be the American "occupiers" because, well, it
was their country.
Needless to say, their Shiite kinsman in Iran were more than ready to give aid and comfort
to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what by then was perceived as Iran's own mortal
enemy. After all, a full year before Bush the Younger launched the utterly folly of the second
gulf war in March 2003, his demented neocon advisors and speechwriters, led by the insufferable
David Frum, had concocted a bogeyman called the Axis of Evil, which included Iran and marked it
as next in line for Shock & Awe.
But the idea that the Iraqi people and especially its majority Shiite population would have
been dancing in the streets to welcome the US military save for the insidious interference of
Iran is just baseless War Party propaganda.
Stated differently, Washington sent 158,000 lethally armed fighters into a country that had
never threatened America's homeland security or harbored its enemies, and had no capacity to do
so in any event. But contrary to the glib assurances of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest of the
neocon jackals around Bush, these U.S. fighters soon came to be widely viewed as "invaders",
not liberators, and met resistance from a wide variety of Iraqi elements including remnants of
Saddam's government and military, radicalized Sunni jihadists and a motley array of Shiite
politicians, clerics and militias.
Foremost among these was the Sadr clan which emerged as the tribune of the the dispossessed
Shiite communities in the south and Baghdad. They rose to prominence after Bush the Elder urged
the Shiite to rise up against Saddam after the 1991 Gulf War, and then left them dangling in
the wind.
No U.S. support materialized as the regime's indiscriminate crackdown on the population
systematically arrested and killed tens of thousands of Shiites and destroyed Shiite shrines,
centers of learning, towns and villages. According to eyewitness accounts, Baathist tanks
were painted with messages like "No Shiites after today," people were hanged from electric
poles, and tanks ran over women and children and towed bodies through the streets.
From this horror and brutality emerged Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr, the founder of
the Sadrist movement that today, under the leadership of his son Muqtada, constitutes Iraq's
most powerful political movement. After the collapse of the Baathist regime in 2003, the
Sadrist movement formally established its own militia, known as the Jaysh al-Mahdi, or the
Mahdi Army .
The vast Shiite underclass needed protection, social services and leadership, and the
Sadrist movement stepped into these gaps by reactivating Sadeq al-Sadr's network. In the
course of U.S. occupation, the Mahdi Army's ranks of supporters, members and fighters
swelled, particularly as sectarian conflict intensified and discontent towards the occupation
grew out of frustration with the lack of security and basis services.At one point the Mahdi
Army numbered more than 60,000 fighters, and especially as Iraq degenerated into total
sectarian chaos after 2005, it became a deadly thorn in the side of U.S. forces occupying a
country where they were distinctly unwelcome.
But the Mahdi Army was homegrown; it was Arab, not Persian, and it was fighting for its own
homes and communities, not the Iranians, the Quds or Soleimani. In fact, the Sadrists strongly
opposed the Iranian influence among other Shiite dissident groups including the brutal Badr
Brigade and the Iran-aligned Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI). As the above
study further noted,
I raqis today refer to the Sadrist Movement's Peace Brigades as the "rebellious"
militias, because of their refusal to submit not only to Iran , but also to the federal
government and religious establishment. Muqtada al-Sadr has oriented his organization around
Iraqi nationalistic sentiments and derided the Iran-aligned militias . In line with the true
political outlook of his father and his followers, Muqtada's supporters chanted anti-Iranian
slogans and stormed the offices of the Dawa Party, ISCI and the Badr Brigade when they
protested against the government in May 2016.
As it happened, the overwhelming share of the 603 US servicemen the Pentagon claims to have
been killed by Iranian proxies were actually victims of the Mahdi Army uprisings during
2003-2007. These attacks were led by the above mentioned Iraqi nationalist firebrand and son of
the movements founder, Muqtada al-Sadr.
In fact, however, the surge in U.S. deaths at that time was the direct result of
subsequently disgraced General David Petraeus' infamous "surge" campaign. Among others, it
targeted al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in the hope of weakening it. Beginning in late April 2007, the
U.S. launched dozens of military operations aimed solely at capturing or killing Mahdi Army
officers, causing the Mahdi Army to strongly resist those raids and impose mounting casualties
on U.S. troops.
So amidst the fog of two decades of DOD and neocon propaganda, how did Iran and Soleimani
get tagged over and over with the "killing Americans" charge, as if they were attacking
innocent bystanders in lower Manhattan on 9/11?
It's just the hoary old canard that Iran was the source of the powerful roadside bombs
called Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) that were being used by many of the Shiite
militias, as well as the Sunni jihadists in Anbar province and the west. Yet that claim was
debunked more than a decade ago by evidence that the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias were
getting their weapons not just from the Iranians but from wherever they could, as well as
manufacturing their own.
As the estimable Iran export, Gareth Porter, recently noted:
The command's effort to push its line about Iran and EFPs encountered one embarrassing
revelation after another. In February 2007 a US command briefing
asserted that the EFPs had "characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran."
However, after NBC correspondent Jane Arraf confronted the deputy commander of coalition
troops, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, with the fact that a senior military official had acknowledged
to her that US troops had been discovering many sites manufacturing EFPs in Iraq, Odierno was
forced to admit that it was true.
Then in late February 2007, US troops found another cache of parts and explosives for
EFPs near Baghdad, which included shipments of PVC tubes for the canisters that contradicted its
claims . They had come not from factories in Iran, but from factories in the UAE and
other Arab countries, including Iraq itself. That evidence clearly suggested that the Shiites
were procuring EFP parts on the commercial market rather than getting them from Iran.
Although the military briefing by the command in February 2007 pointed to cross-border
weapons smuggling, it actually confirmed
in one of its slides that it was being handled by "Iraqi extremist group members" rather
than by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). And as Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the US
commander for southern Iraq, admitted in a July 6
press briefing , his troops had not "captured anybody that we can directly tie back to
Iran."
On the other hand, what the Iranian Quds forces have actually accomplished in Iraq and Syria
has been virtually expunged from the mainstream narrative. To wit, they have been the veritable
tip of the spear in the eradication of the Islamic State.
Indeed, in Iraq it was the wobbly Iraqi national army that Washington stood up at a cost of
billions, which turned tail and ran when ISIS emerged in Anbar province in 2014. So doing, they
left behind thousands of US armored vehicles, mobile artillery and even tanks, as well as
massive troves of guns and ammo, which enabled the Islamic State to briefly thrive and
subjugate several million people across the Euphrates Valley.
It was also Washington that trained, equipped, armed and funded the so-called anti-Assad
rebels in Syria, which so weakened and distracted Damascus that that the Islamic State was
briefly able to fill the power vacuum and impose its barbaric rule on the citizens of Raqqa and
its environs. And again, it did so in large part with weaponry captured from or sold to ISIS by
the so-called moderate rebels.
To the contrary, the panic and unraveling in Iraq during 2014-2015 was stopped and reversed
when the Iranians at the invitation of Baghdad's Shiite government helped organize and mobilize
the Iraqi Shiite militias, which eventually chased ISIS out of Mosul and Anbar.
Likewise, outside of the northern border areas liberated by the Syrian Kurds, it was the
Shiite alliance of Assad, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces that rid Syria of the ISIS
plague.
Yes, the U.S. air force literally incinerated two great cities temporarily occupied by the
Islamic State -- Mosul and Raqqa. But it was the Shiite fighters who were literally fighting
for their lives, homes and hearth who cleared that land of a barbaric infestation that had been
spawned and enabled by the very Washington neocons who are now dripping red in tooth and
claw.
So we revert to the Donald's act of utter stupidity. On the one hand, it is now evident that
the reason Soleimani was in Baghdad was to deliver an official response from Tehran to a recent
Saudi de-escalation offer. And that's by the word of the very prime minister that Washington
has stood up in the rump state of Iraq and who has now joined a majority of the Iraqi
parliament in demanding that Iraq's putative liberators -- after expending trillions in
treasure and blood -- leave the country forthwith:
Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he
was scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him. Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had
asked him to mediate between the U.S. and Iran. Did he do that to trap Soleimani? It is no
wonder then that Abdul-Mahdi is fuming.
At the same time, the positive trends that were in motion in the region just days ago --
-ISIS gone, Syria closing in on the remaining jihadists, Saudi Arabia and Iran tentatively
exploring a more peaceful modus vivendi, the Yemen genocide winding to a close -- may now
literally go up in smoke. As the always sagacious Pat Buchanan observed today,
What a difference a presidential decision can make.
Two months ago, crowds were in the streets of Iraq protesting Iran's dominance of their
politics. Crowds were in the streets of Iran cursing that regime for squandering the nation's
resources on imperial adventures in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen. Things were going America's
way.
Now it is the Americans who are the targets of protests.
Over three days, crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands and even millions have
packed Iraqi and Iranian streets and squares to pay tribute to Soleimani and to curse the
Americans who killed him.
We have long believed that there is nothing stupider in Washington than the neocon policy
mafia that has wrecked such unspeakable havoc on the middle east as well as upon American
"Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and
incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics."
I get it that maybe Iranians don't have a Walmart in every town, and may not have the
privilege of mortgaging their lives on a Visa or MC – but that's not what I call
backwardness, rather progress. If times are tough, is it the backwardness of their system, or
might crippling sanctions play a small role in that? What "cultural and religious shackles"
might these be? Please be more specific, or I might think you mean that they don't have
instant access to Hollywood blockbusters or something. The horror! Finally – if you
want to use the term "regime", please apply it with a broad brush, maybe even broad enough to
touch on the oh-so-democratic West. Let's just call them "governments", OK?
Nice to see the great David Stockman appear at Unz. Watch him teach Fox Business News
blabbers economics and political realities. Then he stuns them by saying the Pentagon's
budget must be cut:
@Sasha Well and truly spoken. American pop and consumerist culture along with pop drinks
and endless fads, crude music and fast foods are being peddled as markers of serious culture.
They are shoved down the throats of unsuspecting minds in asymmetric commerce as part of an
aggressive campaign to turn the planet into a consumerist backyard for American junk and to
consolidate American hegemony.
The larger point here is that Imperial Washington and its mainstream media megaphones
have so egregiously and relentlessly vilified Iran and falsified the middle east narrative
that the Iranian side of the story has been completely lost --
Iran's foreign minister Zarif has been denied entry into the United States to attend a UN
meeting. Speaking of idiocy in denying Iranians their side of the story. That has been the
imperial modus operandi in appropriating narratives with the complicity of our poor excuse
for journalism, the servile MSM.
@Sasha I agree. If Iranians are really that disgusted by the "cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or the economic backwardness and incompetence of
what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics", those clerics wouldn't still be in power.
All they have to do is look at the degeneration of the West from drugs, alcohol, money,
power, coarsening pop culture, pornography, all manners of sexual perversion and they know
they are wise to take a different path.
Culturally, economically, politically, even technologically, the US is on a downward
spiral, courtesy of the Jews. This warmongering perpetuated by the same tribe will eventually
finish us off. China, Russia and Iran have existed for thousands of years. They will have the
last laugh.
Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was
scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him.
So, Iranian de-escalation was based on a sneak attack against the U.S. Embassy? No. Simple
logic shows that Mahdi is lying. Iran *escalated* by attacking the embassy.
-- What does Stockman suggest as a response to the Iranian sneak attack on the U.S.
Embassy?
-- Why are the voices that are always screaming about 'International Law' not outraged by
Iran's violations?
Given the history of such actions from the Carter era, a strong response was necessary and
inevitable. Iran offered war. And, Trump responded prudently and proportionally.
________
Based on tonight's news, Khameni made a 'show' reprisal that had little impact on U.S.
Forces. (1)
Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops,
but preliminary reports suggest there are no U.S. casualties yet, two sources with
direct knowledge of actions on the ground told Military Times Tuesday night.
Khameni's attack on the embassy was a failure that backfired badly. He is now desperately
trying to back down, because he knows that Iran has no effective defense against U.S.
Military options.
Stockman knew Reagan's first budget was a joke. He wrote it: telling the late Bill Greider
–in real time– that it was a 'Trojan Horse.'
Now he's telling Pompeo to go back to the pig farm but word is the Sec.State is now not
running for a Senate seat. But I tend to believe Pompeo is not directing things
it's coming from Trump's inner circle. Kushner strikes me as more of a neocon and he's
obviously down with what they want in Tel Aviv. Which I think is an attack on Iran Nuclear
capabilities before the end of the summer.
I heard Andrea Mitchell praising Stephen Hadley (Bush Neocon) as a "wise man" who called
this an opportunity for negotiation. That's g one Andrea: it went out when Trump got
rid of the deal Iran was adhering to, which the neocons and Israel didn't want.
I was reading earlier today that American Military Contractor company's stock began soaring
right after the assassination; Ratheon, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, etc etc
Now Asian market defense contracting company stocks are soaring because Iran has fired
missiles at a couple US bases in Iraq.
Insanity. Hitting your head over and over on a brick wall, while thinking you'll start
feeling better.
I'm sorry to say I voted for this moron; and all because I hated the alternative and he
was flapping his jaws about ending the warring in M.E. I had my doubts from the beginning but
I was willing to give him a chance. Won't be voting in this fall's election. There is not one
candidate worth voting for; none.
Geez, by November we might be in full blown WW3 & elections suspended. who the hell
knows at this point.
As stupid as it gets
-- -- -- -- -- -- –
Well, the Iranians really loused up now. Now Trump and his Israeli loving friends can finally
kick their butts really good. Very bad idea attacking us.
After the latest round of shit-slinging, Washington stinks, Tehran stinks, but Israel is
still smelling like a rose even though they are the instigator of the whole affair.
How do they keep getting away with it each and every time?
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say Nazi
generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
Unless you truly believe there is no good and bad sides in all these Middle Eastern wars
this can't be true.
The Americans are aggressors and invaders in the Middle East. For the Iraqis to turn on
the Americans it must mean something.
We get closer to the truth when we see Soleimani as a freedom fighter and Americans as
terrorists.
To lump Soleimani with the American lot is devoid of morals and common sense
All they have to do is look at the degeneration of the West from drugs, alcohol, money,
power, coarsening pop culture, pornography, all manners of sexual perversion and they know
they are wise to take a different path.
Yes, although it is interesting to note that the Iran has been one of the top nations for
sex-change surgeries because the regime would rather change tomboys and sissies into "boys"
and "girls" rather than allow homosexuality or even atypical gender affect. They do avoid
having a pernicious and culturally radicalizing gay lobby though.
Anyway, it's none of our business and if we really had to choose sides in the Saudi vs
Iran conflict then Iran would be the rational choice. Maybe neocon stupidity will help bring
that conflict to a truce as they unite against the USA.
Moqtada al-Sadr, the most influential person in Iraq, is now calling the US an enemy and
threatening Trump personally. If Mahdi Army joins the other Shia groups around the world, big
damage will be done to the US via many means and no american will be able to stay in Iraq.
Embassy could be gone too. US companies working on oil and gas will be kicked out. The
country will move strongly towards Russia and China. All US investment in the Iraq adventure
will be totally lost.
Angering iraqi shia is very stupid US move. They are an ascending force, with young combat
ready population and young and expanding demographics. Last time the US angered the iraqi
shia (2004), it lost the war in Iraq even before it knew it.
This is the result of a declining power not recognizing its decline and making enemies
everywhere.
The 2020s will be a turbulent period of power transition where the US and Europe decline
and the rest of the world rises, the end of the superpower moment and the beginning of a
multipolar world.
Excellent article by a man so principled that as a representative from Michigan he voted
against the Chrysler bail-out.
So please forgive me for pointing out this error:
From the interweb:
A feint (noun) is primarily a deceptive move, such as in fencing or military maneuvering.
It can also mean presenting a feigned appearance. Feint can also be a verb, but in that case
it simply means to execute a feint.
To feign (verb) is to deceive; either by acting as if you're something or someone you're not,
or lying.
There is some overlap between particular meanings of the two words (For example, his
ignorance was a feint, he was feigning ignorance), but mostly they are separate.
Both words come from the French feindre, which means to "pretend, represent, imitate,
shirk".
Thanks for this well-written, passionate but nevertheless lucid analysis.
Yet I feel mention should always be made of US corporate and imperial greed as a main
motive for intervention anywhere in the world. It is about the oil and the profits and it is
highly illuminating to turn to works by non-US authors. A good starting point would be Pino
Solanas classic masterpiece La hora de los hornos (The Hour of the Furnaces) from
1968.
Also read Alfons Goldschmidt's eloquent and committed Die dritte Eroberung Amerikas
(1929). And the recent magnificent overview by Matthieu Auzanneau, Or noir. La grande
histoire du pétrole (2015).
Here is the best short analysis of the crime that was the invasion and conquest of
Iraq:
The Trump presidency has been nothing but neoliberalism and Zionism on steroids and
shouldn't be renewed for a second season. Feel free to convince me otherwise
"In the original instance, of course, Soleimani earned his chops on the battlefield
contending with the chemical weapons-dropping air force of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.
And Saddam was the invader whose chemical bombs achieved especially deadly accuracy against
often barely armed teenage Iranian soldiers owing to spotting and targeting assistance
rendered by the U.S. air force -- a Washington assisted depredation that a whole generation
of Iranians know all about, even if present day Washington feints (sic) ignorance" and a
whole generation (and more) know that this Washington-assisted depredation was carried out by
the U.S. Administration in which Mr.Stockman served, whether or not he prefers now to "feint"
ignorance of that, too. An Administration which also gave us the Nicaraguan Contra
terrorists, the infamous Iran-Contra deal, Central American death squads, Israel's invasion
of Lebanon & much more. Funny how Mr. Stockman was mum on such matters at the time.
Maybe, like Jimmy Carter, he's found his moral compass since leaving government but wish he
had found it a whole lot sooner. Hate to see a good Harvard Divinity School education go to
waste. No matter, the article makes perfect sense even if it comes a little late.
Whenever I see the kind of absurd foul language employed here by Stockman, I simply stop
reading. What on earth is a "flying f ** ck' anyway, other than a supposed macho signal of
just how big and angry a 'BSD' (to use another swaggering obscenity prevalent on his home
turf) he thinks he is. Perhaps he'd care to explain.
The recent and nearly simultaneous crash of the newish Ukranian 737 in Tehran (with the 15
missiles launched from Iran) may be quite significant – indirect way to hurt the US
(Boeing) again and Israel too – owned by Ukraine's most notorious billionaire
Kolomoisky – and the guy who selected the new comedian President – and amazingly
no US or Israeli passengers on board. Was it an accident or an exquisite punishment?
And when it comes to spillover of those benighted forces into Europe or America, recent
history is absolutely clear: 100% of all Islamic terrorist incidents in the US since they
began in the 1990s were perpetrated or inspired by Sunni jihadists, not Iran or its Shiite
allies and proxies in the region.
It is especially hard to overlook that the terrorists and self-radicalized (mass-)murders
who killed hundreds of Europeans, including my own countrymen, were adherents to the
wahhabist ideology, created, funded and often staffed by the very countries which are the
closest allies of the USA and Israel. And whom they sell hundreds of billions of weapons to
as they wage their so called "war on terror" which is mostly the war to take out Israel's and
Saudi-Arabias enemies.
David Stockman may be at the center of the intelligentsia which built the empire that many
in the world looked up to and admired, and which crude figures like Pompeo, Bolton, Shapiro,
Perle and Nuland are tearing down. But the problems and outright evilness of the empire now
are inherent to its system and not merely a question of sophistication versus
brutishness.
@Sabretache Stockman is just guilty and fake thats all..why he uses such language.
there is not a sincere word in all that he wrote above there, save that there is somethng
important in there that Stockman is losing or wants..and is trying to set up to get
Mass murderer and Assassin in Chief is SIMPLY continuing to execute blood lusty and genocidal
policies established by alliance of TERROR which calls itself 5 eyes but Sovereign, FREEDOM
loving people call 5 headed BEAST.
God Bless Axis of Resistance!
Resist Slavery, TERROR and neoNazis!
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say
Nazi generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
Yes indeed, all generals are fundamentally the same. War crimes are not the exclusive
realm of any one nationality or political or religious category.
Hollywood says otherwise, but what Hollywood says is little to do with historical fact and
accuracy.
David Stockman blames "neocon stupidity", but Trump's foreign policy has nothing to do with
stupidity it's planned and it's all about Israel ,"endless wars" , arms manufacturing and
sales , and ensuring that the "war on terror" continues . We live in a Pathocracy and are
governed by psychopaths and narcissists who have no compunction about the killing of
civilians (collateral damage ) ,murder by drone , the destruction of cultural sites, the
killing of 500,000 Iraqui children by sanctions (it was worth it – Madeleine Albright)
and the murder of populist leaders such as Allende .
@Sasha How does the mind develop? A boy grows up loving baseball ,because he grew up
watching it since age 3 or 10 . If he watched soccer or Tennis, that would have been his
favorite game . A blank page is ready for description of murder or love in English or Iranian
language .
It is same about religion ,participation in civic rituals ,enjoying certain shows or music or
theaters, food,consumption,and giving into outside demands rather than to self restraint self
reflection and self observation and self evaluation of the imposed needs .
Mind learns to praise hollow words and illegal amoral immoral activities . Because we don't
appreciate the converse and don't reward the opposite. Gradually society eliminates those
thinkers Very soon we have one sort of thinking everywhere . Very soon adult bullying is
copied by kids from TV and from watching the praise heaped on psychopaths.
This also means IQ gets distorted . Capacity to analyze gets impaired .
,American mind is manufactured mind by outside . BUt the process never stops. It doesn't get
that chance to take internal control at any stage . In childhood and adolescence, when the
time is right to inculcate this habit and enforce this angle or build this trait ,it is not
done at all. Other nations try and other cultures do. Here is the difference between self
assured content mind and nervous expectant mind always on a shopping outing . Most of our
problems in society come from this situation,
I enjoyed reading someone with a Washington resume' tearing into the current crew, too.
And it was a relief to see addressed the accusation about the Iranian official being not only
killed for, but set up by feigned US interest in, peace. Those with a public voice --
especially "journalists" -- who won't even mention this are either inept or corrupt.
But note the condescension towards the people of the Middle East and their "regimes" noted
above, starting with comment #1. Read the column carefully, and you'll see that the criticism
from Mr. Stockman is tactical, not principled. That's because he puts himself above all of
those people over there, including the group shown relative sympathy, who "are no less
civilized and no more prone to sectarian violence than anybody else in this woebegone
region." Ask yourself the writer's purpose of those last four words, and in his use of
"sectarian." Would a more concise "are no less civilized and no more prone to violence than
anybody else" be a little too truthful?
I wonder whether this columnist is being brought in to buttress and/or replace the
discredited one who he describes as "the always sagacious Pat Buchanan." (Those who haven't
should read Mr. Paleoconservative's latest "If Baghdad Wants Us Out, Let's Go!" and the
overwhelmingly negative comments it has drawn.) Heretical to their extents, but both remain
devout Exceptionalians.
After more than a decades worth of failed economic prognostications ( that cost anyone who
listened to him dearly) Stockman is now going to give us foreign policy advice? Remember this
guys only official role was as an OMB appointee in the first term of Ronald Reagan.
@Ronnie Interestingly the plane just happened to be Ukrainian. Could this be the casus
belli the West needs to go ham on Iran? More strikes on Iran justified by this plane
crash and perhaps even sanctions on Russa as no doubt they will try an pin it on them as
well?
@Sasha Stockman is notorious for defending cultures and countries (Russia, China,
Iran, Islam) by belittling them. Paraphrasing: It is wrong for the US to confront Russia,
because they have a third rate economy. or it is wrong for the US to confront China
because China can't project power across the world. . He always takes the elitist
position the US should not attack lessers like Russia, China, etc'. It seems he is
trying to cover his ass against the dreaded charge that he is taking 'the enemy's side'.
"What you want to do is just beam in Melrose Place and 90250 into Tehran because that
is subversive stuff. The young kids watch this, they want to have nice clothes, nice
things . . and these internal forces of dissension beamed into Iran which is,
paradoxically, the most open society, a lot more open than Iraq . . . therefore you have
more ability to foment this dynamic against Iran. The question now is, Choose: beam Melrose
Place -- it will take a long time (ha ha).
On the other hand if you take out Saddam I guarantee you it will have ENORMOUS positive
reverberations that people sitting right next door, young people, in Iran, and many others
will say, The time of such despots is gone, it's a new age."
@Haxo Angmark What a trap DJT fell into! The president has proved himself more of a
neocon patsy, as he was as much set up as the Iranian general, whose name will be forgotten
by week's end in America. The neocons feeding the President a straight diet of cooked intel
and their "never Trump" flunkies in the Senate have killed two birds with one stone inasmuch
as the President's boasting he'd take out Iran's main cultural landmarks will be cast as a
threat of genocide, which the Dems will now use to tar DJT as an intemperate megalomaniac in
the minds of independents, probably ending his chances of winning reelection later this year.
The truth is, America has no dog in the Shiite versus Sunni hunt, which has been going
on for 1300 years in the region. [ ] Needless to say, their Shiite kinsman in Iran were
more than ready to give aid and comfort to the Iraqi Shiite in their struggle against what
by then was perceived as Iran's own mortal enemy
The Sunni regime in Riyadh ceaselessly complain about the treatment of the Arab minority
in Iran even though these are Shia Arabs, The Shia in Iraq are likewise Arabs. Iran is
almost as big as Egypt or Turkey. Being a country of 80 million Shia Persians Iran
could not possibly be conquered by the US without a massive effort, even if the deep state
and joint chiefs wanted to, which they do not. The only time Iran runs into trouble is when
it tries to act abroad as a power independent of both the US and Russia.
After the Iranian revolution the US was regarded as an all powerful enemy that would stage
a coup, and so the Embassy staff, thought to be spies, were taken hostage. America was
totally paralyzed and humiliated. Its raid to rescue the hostages was pathetic and exposed a
total lack of special forces capability. the Islamic republic repudiated the Shah's role as
America's cop on the beat, but it wanted to remain the most dominant power in the region
nonetheless. Already worried by the arms given to Iran under the Shah who also supplied the
Kurds fighting in Iraq, the 1974-75 Shatt al-Arab clashes between the Shah and Saddam's
forces that led to led to 1000 KIAs, Saddam was faced with a radical Shia Iran appealing to
his own oppressed Shia majority. After a series of border clashes with the aggressive
Revolutionary Guards, Saddam predictably decided on an all out attack on Iran. The US backed
Saddam and there was massive support for Iraq from the Soviet Union in the final phase of the
war.
The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran made use of suicide squads of schoolboys
to clear minefields and in human wave attacks and by the end the front lines were well within
Iraqi territory and Saddam had to settle for merely surviving. Iran had linked up with
Assad's minority Alawite regime ruling a Sunni majority, and his Shia allies in Lebanon.
Israeli defence minister and former general Ariel Sharon moved Israeli forces into West
beirut then allowed Phalange gunmen let into palestinian refugee camps (PLO fighters had
already left the city) where they slaughtered thousands of non combatants.
Under the influence of Iranian clerics' interpretations from the war with Saddam
justifying suicide if the enemy was killed in the act, Assad's cat's paw Lebanese Shia
suicide bombed the US marines out of Beirut. Then Palestinians learnt how suicide bombing was
a powerful weapon and in the aftermath of the failure of Camp David 2000 embarked a vicious
series of suicide massacres that destroyed Ehud barak and brought Sharon to power. Iran has
gained influence in the region but ti is difficult to see what the Palestinians have got ot
out of the patronage of Iran, which is first and mainly concerned with itself.
Due entirely to side effects of actions the US took against Saddam's Iraq taken to protect
the current regime in Saudi Arabia Iran has went from strength to strength and they seem to
think that run of luck will continue. Unfortunately for Iran, they are now a very real threat
to Saudi Arabia, and the US knows it cannot put an army in Saudi Arabia to guard it with
outraging Islamic nationalist opinion in that country
Instead of poking its nose into Arab affairs why does Iran, which managed to impoverish
its own middle class in the last three decades and recently had to cut fuel subsidies, not
concentrate on its own business? It seems to be calculating that Trump cannot afford to the
bad publicity of starting a war too close to an election, and so they can make hay while the
sun shines. Or perhaps they are pressing their luck like any good gambler on a roll. The
assassination of Soleimani was intended to be taken a sign that Dame Fortune in the shape of
America has grown tired of their insouciance. I think Iran should cut their losses although
such is not human nature. The dictates of realism according to Mearsheimer mandate endless
offence to gain even the slightest advantage, but he also says a good state must know its
limitations.
@Justsaying America's problems don't have anything to do with soda pop or fast food. Nor
is "consumerism" a serious problem that the world needs to worry about. I like having new
smartphones, fast internet, and the convenience of getting things quickly.
Trump is insane as is the ZUS government and its dual citizens who are calling the shots.
Trump is the reincarnation of the Roman emperor Caligula.
All of this was brought on by the joint attack by Israel and traitors in the ZUS
government on the WTC on 911, blamed on the muslims to give the ZUS the excuse to destroy the
middle east for zionist Israel and their greater Israel agenda.
Isn't Stockman the guy pumping a large investment newsletter scam? Is Unz getting a % of the
scam to promote him? And how about these dumbo boomers who support him. Lmao
Nice to see the great David Stockman appear at Unz. Watch him teach Fox Business News
blabbers economics and political realities. Then he stuns them by saying the Pentagon's
budget must be cut:
Yes, I was slightly surprised and gratified by his views.
'Maria' Bartiromo is/was married to a Joo . 'Nuff said.
That other one, the shrill Daegen McDowell, is also married to a Jew but is even more Zionist
than your average 'Likudnik'. She was a regular on 'Imus in the Morning' but then had a
falling out with Imus and was never back. I hope he haunts her until her demise.
(Purple grinning Satan here)
This is absurd. Don't lump all generals in together as the same. You might as well say
Nazi generals and Russian generals and British generals and American generals and Japanese
generals are all the same – all equally culpable of equal war crimes in WWII.
American censorship ensures that Americans only hear of the greatness of American
Generals. American Generals killed far more civilians with weaponry than opposing Generals in
World War II, in Korea, and in Vietnam. Few know about mass slaughters they were responsible
for, like:
@Z-man Taking him out would be boring, if we are talking about hypotheticals, then better
to start isolating Israel and sanctioning them. It will be funny watching them kvetch
I remember 2016. I remember many saying they were voting (or had voted) for Trump to get
out of the endless/pointless Forever Wars, and as often as not they would mention Iran (the
need to not go to war with).
Steve Sailer's six-word summary of US guiding policy from ca. the 1990s to 2010s (and
2020s, so far), " Invade the World, Invite the World (to resettle in the US)," was the
core of DJT's campaign (opposition to them, of course); his core supporter base was motivated
by both, some more one than the other, others strongly by both together.
I'd propose the core Trump base in 2016 was:
– 20%: primarily against "Invade the World" (soft, or neutral, or otherwise on
"Invite")
– 40%: primary against "Invite the World" (soft, neutral, or even supportive of
"Invade")
– 40%: against both Invade and Invite, seeing them as a package deal
I count myself in the third category.
(The proprietor of the Unz Review himself has written that he was for Trump primarily
because of foreign policy, putting him in the first category.)
@freedom-cat "he was flapping his jaws about ending the warring in M.E. I had my doubts
from the beginning but I was willing to give him a chance."
To be fair, he was explicit about getting tough with Iran. That's basically the only
foreign pledge he has kept. All the dialing down of hostilities was a lie.
He has at least killed fewer people in drone strikes than Obama and Bush.
@Sean Sean, your propaganda is old and tired and boring.
You're still shopping at F W Woolworth.
After the Iranian revolution the US was regarded as an all powerful enemy that would
stage a coup, and so the Embassy staff, thought to be spies, were taken hostage.
One major precipitant was the information revealed about how US embassy had been spying on
Iran, when Iranian weavers re-assembled massed of documents that embassy staff had
shredded.
the rest of your screed = hasbara boilerplate. skewing information
Larry Johnson posted this more balanced overview of The Whole Offense:
Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the United States has done a lot of killing of
terrorists, real and imagined. Yet, the threat of terrorism has not been erased.
I submit that " the threat of terrorism has not been erased " because the wrong
terrorists were being killed.
The real terrorists hive in TelAviv and Washington, DC.
@Mr. Allen BS. The Nazi generals were trying to save the western world and civilization
from the jews; the other generals, whether they knew it or not, were working for the jews to
destroy both. The jews won and have largely obtained their desired end. Just look at Europe
today
@Vaterland Do it. Complete Nordstream2. Withdraw from NATO. It was 1907 that Britain
turned Russia from focusing on Asia to Europe and kicked off the new 30-years war. German
organization and Russian spirit and resources would be a fearsome combination.
If you live in a GOLDen cage, eventually you may develop Stockman syndrome.
This Trump Iran policy seems like pure genius to me. He may be able to obliterate Israel,
Hezbollah and Iran, by goading them with one check-mark on the Obama er um Trump Disposition
Matrix.
When I was a young teen I used to like that song, "Storm the Embassy", by the Stray Cats,
before they had any fame in the states. Decades later the Offspring scored a hit called "The
Kid's Aren't Alright", written in a similar key and chord progression. Groovy
This is the all-encompassing delusion, the stickiest residual brainwashing of old big shots.
The Biggest Big Lie. And you old timers play along with it. Every time.
Stupidity. Stupid my ass.
Wartorn countries are ideal arms-trade entrepots. All the unauditable trillions of stuff
that falls off DoD trucks, it's flooding into Syria and Iraq. CIA sells it. And most of it
sits in safe caches until the next war. Then CIA sells it again. This is CIA's second biggest
profit center, after drugs. And you know this is CIA's war, Right? Right? This is dumb
jarheads dumped in there to hold the bag for TIMBER SYCAMORE. Trump has less workplace
discretion than a McDonald's fry cook. He's CIA's puppet ruler. Puppets are not stupid,
they're inert.
If you're CIA and you've got impunity in municipal law, this is not stupid, this is smart.
This is brilliant. Steal arms from the troops, start a war, sell em to wogs, steal em from
the wogs, sell to other wogs. Repeat. This is the policy and vital interest of the CIA
criminal enterprise that runs your country.
You know it. Say what you actually think ffs. What are they gonna do, send you to
Vietnam?
@Anon If I'm not mistaken, Stockman has been forecasting a market collapse since 2010 or
so. I just checked and in 2013 he recommended selling stocks with end-of-the-world fear
mongering. At some point he and the libertarians' advice will coincide with a major
adjustment or collapse and the scam perpetuates itself. I'm no expert in market timing
myself, but my conclusion is that these guys are basically shills for gold and silver trading
interests, using political scare tactics to drive sales, and in the process shamelessly
costing naive investors to miss the market time and again since it's low in late 2008.
@Carlton Meyer God, if there is one, please save us from such shrill, hysterical female
defenders of the military-industrial-complex as Maria Bartiromo and Degan McDowell. I wonder
how screechy-voiced Maria could say with a straight face that we were, prior to Trump,
"starving the military." Such women, and let's include the women of The View, make good
advertisements for why the 19th Amendment should never have been passed.
David Stockman, though I oppose his libertarianism, is worthy of much credit for going
into the den with such venomous vipers.
Yes indeed, all generals are fundamentally the same. War crimes are not the exclusive
realm of any one nationality or political or religious category.
Still, America leads the world when it comes to killing civilians, POWs, and other war
crimes.
I am with Mr. Allen – we shouldn't lump them all together. American generals, and
the prostitute "statesmen" that give their orders, deserve a special place in hell –
with a guest room, of course, for the likes of Winston Churchill and Bomber Harris.
@Hail The earliest sign we were betrayed was when post-election, pre-Inauguration Trump
said he wouldn't go after Cankles. Most people didn't even notice, or still believed he was
playing 32-dimensional underwater quantum chess.
@Vaterland Germany still under American (see Jewish) occupation huh? I still here
Americans tell me that those European countries are begging for American defence. This is an
American trait of arrogance, they think Europeans actually want Americans occupying us and
that they are doing us a favour.
I bet they would hit our countries with sanctions and other punishment if we threatened to
kick them out just like is the case with Trump demanding billions from Iraq to pay for an air
force base that Yankeed built to launch terror raids against Iraqis.
I bet most Germans do not even know about the terrorist occupation of Deutschland by
America where they staved and raped with impunity. Americans are truly sickening and nobody
would care if they got nuked save for a few Anglos
Regardless of our opinion about General Qassem Soleimani, Trump targeted killing him was for
his own personal grudge against Soleimani -- that was independent of the official US policy
toward Iran.
Over the last couple of years, in the heat of twitter exchanges between Trump and
President Rouhani, Trump was using his usual colorful language – street mob style
– he was insulting Rouhani on twitter while president Rouhani kept his cool –
restraining himself to engage at the street level exchange with Trump -- meanwhile, Gen.
Soleimani seized on the occasion and replied to Trump's insults; he taunted Trump, called him
"Bartender, Casino manager, Mobster" etc. and threatened to go after his properties worldwide
-- you can check Online history of Soleimani's tweets about Donald Trump. Here is a sample
that New York Post had published;
As we all know Donald Trump does not appreciate threats, and if he gets the chance he
punch back harder, and that's what has really happened; Donald Trump's personal grudge
against Soleimani had led to his assassination; just the way Street Mobs eliminate their
opponents; surely, that seems trivial, but these days, the world is governed by fake leaders
who won't hesitate to use the power of their office to boost their own ego -- even at their
own nation's expense.
Regardless of our opinion; General Soleimani was a brave soldier, a principled man who has
dedicated his life to his nation, and that deserves respect -- just as Ernesto "Che" Guevara
and Neilson Manddala did.
@Miro23 To perhaps soon be replaced by an even older, and definitely more confused
successor come next January. The only saving grace would be if Biden doesn't know how to
tweet. But he's every much the Zionist as is Trump, and has said so in the past. With a
non-working brain, which is where Trump's lost brain is heading, Biden will believe whatever
bullshit his neoliberal advisors feed him. Who is there to save us?
You bet, I'm happy to see a Washington name on these pages, because I've been convinced
for years a lot of the stuff we talk about here is pretty much mainstream or mainstreamable
thought that's been shoved aside by high-motivation rent-seekers of all sorts.
" . . . [N]ote the condescension towards the people of the Middle East . . .". Yes, I did.
I don't know squat about foreign policy, but people who sense they're being looked down on or
feel they're being used will sometimes want to get back at those who've patronized them when
the opportunity arises. I wish our leaders would take that platitude to heart.
Foolish elitists like Stockman advocate for the failed policies of the past.
From 1979 to 2020, 41 years most of our politically astute appeased Iran. In the early
80's Reagan sunk half of Iran's navy and they quieted down fora few years.
Since 1988 foolish political elites who thought they new better began appeasing again.
Seems only Reagan learned from History how appeasement helped Hitler.
Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 and Obama all used appeasement. Iran grew stronger and more
influential.
Obama foolishly tried to buy peace by releasing $150 billion of frozen Iranian assets,
Iran spent it on Missle, Nuclear technologies and funded terrorism.
President Trump is reverting back to the lessons of Historyand trying to clean up Obama's
mess.
I pray we reelect him in 2020 and give him 4 more years to save America from the deluded
academics.
From 1979 to 2020, 41 years most of our politically astute appeased Iran. In the early
80's Reagan sunk half of Iran's navy and they quieted down fora few years.
Since 1988 foolish political elites who thought they new better began appeasing
again.
Why not just save time and write Iran Delenda Est , maybe in all-caps, a few
times?
@TomSchmidt Yes he does. He was married to a German teacher and was stationed in Dresden.
He touched on many of the issues of trust and fear in this speech to the Bundestag. Years
before Merkel took office. Different times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZQZQLV7tE
The other mandatory ritual incantation of US public Juche is to vilify the official enemy.
Even pseudo-gonzo mavericks like Taibbi find they must do this. Stockman's new tweak of the
government-issue boilerplate is admirable for its subtlety, by comparison with Taibbi's
abject obeisance to the war line.
"Not that the benighted, mullah-controlled Iranian regime is comprised of anything which
resembles white hats. One of the great misfortunes of the last four decades is that the
long-suffering people of Iran have not been able to throw-off the cultural and religious
shackles imposed by this theocratic regime or escape the economic backwardness and
incompetence of what is essentially rule by authoritarian clerics."
As a founding member of the G-77 Iran brought together 80 per cent of the world's
population. When the US took to manifest aggression after the WTC fell down, who did the G-77
choose to lead it? Iran. Iran brokered the Tehran Consensus, which unites more countries and
people than NATO and doesn't blow shit up. The Non-Aligned Movement made Iran their
nuclear/chemical disarmament envoy for peaceful coexistence. Half the world's people and
two-thirds of its countries have made Iran a leader of the world. Why? Because they defend
the UN Charter. They actually know what's in Article 2(4) and Article 39 and Article 41. Do
you?
In objective human rights terms, Iran sucks about as much as the US in terms of three of
the highest-level human rights indicators, outperforms the US in terms of openness to
external human rights scrutiny, and falls short of US in terms of reporting compliance
(although the US got graded very leniently on its delinquent CAT reporting while it ran its
worldwide torture gulag.) So you don't have to do new vocal stylings on BAD BAD DOUBLEPLUSBAD
ENEMY BAD. You can actually consult the facts. Imagine that.
@Just passing through I have very ambivalent feelings towards the USA, in the past and
present. Complex topic. Simple analogy: George C. Marshall looks like the twin-brother of my
grandfather who served in the Wehrmacht. Sons of Europe, at war with Europe; now increasingly
no longer European and a threat to Europe as their empire degrades. I see no reason to hate
the American people as a whole, there's millions of good hearted, compassionate and
reasonable people living in America today. Just look at Tulsi Gabbard's events. But they,
too, are held hostage of this evil Empire. Separate peoples and governments; Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn too lived under the Soviet regime.
I do hate Mike Pompeo though. And I'm not ashamed of it.
President Trump is reverting back to the lessons of Historyand trying to clean up
Obama's mess.
You are correct. Trump inherited problems from the prior Obama and Bush administrations.
Fortunately, Trump is winning.
Khameni's "retaliation" caused no damage. The high visibility launch covered live by FARS
was a PR stunt to placate his domestic audience. (1)
"Optically Quite Dramatic" But Officials Confirm No US Casualties From Iranian
Missile Strike
[Iran launched] missiles and purposely miss their intended targets.
Iran has superior missile technology that can hit whatever they want – this could
be in an attempt to save face as a public relations event for its citizens while attempting
to de-escalate the situation and avoid war.
At time of writing, it is unclear if we're headed to open war with Iran, though it is seeming
more and more likely by the hour.
So, I feel the need to remind everyone that they need to be careful not to commit
sedition.
In wartime, sedition can be a very serious crime.
Largely, we have not had people in the United States going to jail for anti-war protests
since the World Wars, but a war with Iran will be the biggest war the US has been involved in
since World War Two, and there is going to be a lot of opposition to it, so it is probable
that there will be actions done to chill speech by making examples of people who protest the
war too hard.
Stockman is a curious gloom and doomer. He reliably rants about the permanent war economy and
the biggest defense budget in the world but that's as far as he goes. Like Paul Craig
Roberts, his propaganda delivering contemporary, he offers a childish oversimplification of
how things work.
When things fall apart the cops and the troops will shoot the citizens and protect the
rich. Meanwhile, before things fall completely apart, propaganda specialists like Stockman
shoot the unsuspecting citizens with propaganda to protect the rich.
The rich learned long ago to divide the lower classes into the obedient subservient voters
who love them and the rest of the poor who don't matter because their brothers and sisters
protect the rich. What better time to divide, conquer and stage more international tensions
than right now?
@A123 Another fine example of American exceptionalism.
There is zero evidence that the American contractor killed, was killed by Kata'ib Hezbollah.
It fits the classic Israeli false flag.
The US "retaliates" by killing Iraqis who are the Kata'ib Hezbollah.
It is inconceivable to you that Iraqis may be upset that the country who invaded Iraq in
2003, completely destroyed the infrastructure, built a massive fortified Embassy, and sold
off its assets to Jewish interests, primarily, just might be upset that that same country has
just massacred the Iraqis who saved the country from ISIS. It had to be Iran behind it,
because all Iraqis are grateful for the 2003 US invasion and all of the benefits of
occupation that flowed from that. The million Iraqis that died are irrelevant.
Even Stockman doesn't get the Baathists. They don't care about your religious beliefs.
They care that your religious beliefs become politicized. Sure Saddam and Assad were
minorities, but one was a Sunni, the other a Shi'ite, but both Ba'athists. Both kept the lid
on extremists irrespective of religious beliefs. Stockman's reference to Bush 41 incitement
and the subsequent backlash is held up as some sort of proof of bad Sunnis. If the Pope
successfully goaded German Roman Catholics to take up arms against Protestants, do you think
that it just may be, that a Protestant backlash might be severe in places where Protestants
were the majority? Nope, it's got to be Hitler's fault, or maybe even Iran's.
@SolontoCroesus The assassination of was Soleimani was a deliberately stupid and
counterproductive act by America because that is the way to send a message that you are a
force to be reckoned with and mean what you say. Costly signalling is honest signalling. In
this case the US is signalling they are beyond the rhetoric of the last thirty years and
willing to get kinetic .
Iran and their theology of suicide martyrs is the greatest thing that ever happened to the
Israeli right, influenced by Shia suicide bombing driving the US marines out of Lebanon the
Palestinian massacres of Israeli civilians non combatants got a wall built pening them up,
took Sharon to the premiership, and made Israelis turn their back on Ehud Barak. No Israeli
leader would now dream of offering what Barak did while he was PM.
Iran is to big to be occupied and that is a fact. What can they be so worried about except
ceasing to play independent great power in the Arab mainly Sunni Middle East. Well they are
not that powerful. I think the leadership of Iran is taking the free ride they have been
getting getting for granted. They did not overthrow Saddam, America did and Iran gained got a
windfall.
Saddam was overthrown because the threat he represented to Saudi Arabia had to be
neutralised so the US army could be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, where its infidel presence
was causing outrage and resentment. John Bolton got sacked, and a few days later, Iran gets
the bright idea to not just threaten Saudi Arabia, but launch–or at least not forbid
their Houthie protégés to launch–blatant drone attacks on vital Saudi oil
facilities (Sept 2019) thus forcing Trump to send more and more troops there. Iran was
sending a message: we can and we will.
My reading of the American government is that their killing of Soleimani was a sign that
for them Iran has entered the danger zone where something more that rhetoric and sanctions
will be used. Iran can still turn back and be forgiven, but if they choose to go on and take
the consequences of ignoring the costly (and therefore sincere) signal that the US has sent,
so be it.
This was as stupid as it gets so far. Confidently expect even stupider actions of the Empire
in its impotent rage, now that it is losing its grip. Ever since Iraq invasion, the Empire
was undermining itself more efficiently than its worst enemies could have hoped for.
Since it's apparent that Israel is making our MENA foreign policy and that the foaming at the
mouth Zionists want to start a hot shooting war with Iran, using their American mercs, which
US city should be sacrificed to Moloch, the G-d of Israel, to start this war?
New York is the safest bet, since there are tens of thousands loyal Jew sayanim living
there who would gladly give all to start a war against Iran. Using the time-tested technique
of staging a false flag.
Hamid was only recently (2017) handed a (cheap) US-citizenship for services rendered to
the empire, along with a free pass to settle his family in the US (Sacramento).
War-nut, dump-refugees-on-Middle-America-advocate, and empire-pusher John McCain is, I am
sure, saluting the flag of Empire in his grave, a tear in his eye at the perfect alignment of
every aspect of this saga of Nawres Hamid.
@Mr. Allen What about the RAF generals and 8th airforce generals who killed millions of
German women and children in WW2? Were they more civilized than Soleimani?
@Alistair One thing you got right is that the dead Iranian general belongs with murderers
and terrorists like Mandela and Che. He was as much a piece of garbage as them.
Jun 18, 2019 4 Times the US Threatened to Stage an Attack and Blame it on Iran
The US has threatened to stage an attack and blame it on Iran over and over in the last
few years. Don't let a war based on false pretenses happen again.
Mar 27, 2019 The MIC and Wall Street Rule The World: Period!
To dismiss Suleimani as yet another thug, then praise the Shiite militia for driving ISIS
from Iraq without acknowledging that it was Soleimani that organized and led that battle
(from the front) is a little unfair.
@A123 Says the warmonger. The US needs to get the hell out of the Mideast, period. We are
fighting (((someone else's))) war.
@Mark James
Kushner strikes me as more of a neocon and he's obviously down with what they want in
Tel Aviv. Which I think is an attack on Iran Nuclear capabilities before the end of the
summer.
Ya think? The Kushner family from father to son have publicly declared themselves Israel's
most loyal sons. They couldn't have found a better man to be president, a stupid puppet goy
as part of the family so they can continue to pull the puppet strings in the background. It's
the way (((these people))) operate, for thousands of years. Never the front man, always
directing things from the shadow.
@Mike P This stance is very understandable but I believe common sense should tell us
otherwise. There can be little doubt that since its colonial war in the Philippines, the US
has led the pack in terms of numbers of people killed in what used to be called the Third
World.
However, I am quite certain the way many people look at the US today (based on all those
millions of poor devils killed in the colonies), wishing their leaders a special place in
hell, is no different from how one could look at the English a little over a century ago
(Sepoy Mutiny, Sudan, Opium War, etc.). Or, for that matter, how the inhabitants of the
Italian states might look at the French during the late 1400s and early 1500s. And what about
the German Order in the Baltic, the Byzantines, the Romans etc. etc.?
In other words the US can point to a venerable but sad number of precedents to their own
criminal operations abroad. It is impossible to define the worst offender among all those
included in the long list of evildoers.
Anyone who enters another country, carrying arms and without the permission of the local
inhabitants, deserves to be killed. It is that simple. Unfortunately, because since times
immemorial most who do that somehow escape their just fate, one sees the same thing happening
again and again.
As usual, this has been turned into an Israel and Jew demonizing circle jerk, save a few sane
commenters.
Let's examine the imbecility of this site:
A Jewish, gay, open borders advocate multimillionaire selects "chosen ones", the gold star
commenters who are posting wily nilly to dominate the discourse –
who all happen to be Muslim, Latino, foreign born or rabidly Anti- American?
As commenters rage about the take over of the world by Jews, who flood America with --
–
Muslims, Latinos, and foreign borns, and shove the Alphabet Mafia down our throats.
You couldn't sell this as a straight to DVD screenplay. It's that absurd.
Instead of poking its nose into Arab affairs why does Iran, which managed to impoverish
its own middle class in the last three decades and recently had to cut fuel subsidies, not
concentrate on its own business?
Have you been living under a rock?
The US froze (stole) billions in Iranian assets post revolution. The complaints about Obama
"paying" Iran for the JCPOA, were nothing but a partial return of Iranian assets. So, the
Iranians were short billions for 30 years, which could have been used to rebuild. It's kind
of like building a house and finding out a big chunk of the cash in your bank account has
been frozen, illegally, by the bank. It's there, but you have no access to, or benefit of,
it.
Of course all of the sanctions have nothing to do with Iran's problems. In particular, any
country that bought oil from Iran would also be sanctioned, causing a massive drop in
revenue, plays no part in the economic difficulties. Additionally, Iran exercising its rights
under an international treaty – the NPT, which the US repudiates in Iran's case,
thereby removing another large source of revenue, is not a factor either. At least, not to
you.
The best way to prevent more American soldiers being killed is to keep alive the man who
has been killing so many of them for 20 years? [irony]
That's exactly what is being done -- men most responsible for American soldiers being
killed are being kept alive:
David Petraeus -- still alive
Robert Kagan -- -still alive
Benjamin Netanyahu -- still alive
George Bush -- – still alive
A year or so ago Mike Morrell commented that "US needs to send maps and crayons to Iran,
to demonstrate to them where their borders are: 'Iran HERE, Iran, NOT there.' "
I couldn't get over the irony: USA circles Iran, 7000 miles from continental USA, and
somehow Iran is trespassing outside its borders?
Morrell:
"Have the Iranians and the Russians pay a little price. . . . They were supplying
weapons that killed Americans . . . kill them covertly . . . I want to scare Assad . . . I
want to bomb his offices in the middle of the night, I want to destroy his presidential
aircraft . . . I want to destroy his helicopter. . . . I am not advocating assassinating
him – I'm not advocating that: I'm advocating going after what he thinks is his power
base . . ."
@SteveK9 AL CIADA aka ISIS is a creation of the CIA and the Mossad and MI6 and NATO aka
the ZUS and Israel and Britain.
This war in the mideast was brought on by the JOINT Israeli and ZUS attack on the WTC on
911, which was blamed on the muslims to give the ZUS the excuse to destroy the mideast for
Israel.
just as Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Neilson Manddala did.
Would that be the same "Che" Guevara that thought Negroes were inferior, and Nelson
Mandela who was convicted of attempting to blow up a power station that would have killed
dozens of innocent people?
Soleimani rarely targeted civilians. For those who would point to the suicide bombings in
Israel, I would remind you that all Israelis over the age of 18 will be, or have been, in the
armed forces, and are subject to call up even after discharge.
It's all about Israel. Netanyahu has been plotting scheming and demanding that we, that the
U.S. bomb Iran back to the stone ages for nigh onto twenty years. He has even issued coded
and veiled threats to nuke Iran himself.
Trump is a Zionist collaborator and he is Netanyahu's shabbos goy. He has willingly
co-operated in turning over the U.S. military to be Israel's running dog.
America is a Christian majority country, and Bret Stephens is absolutely correct. The Jews
are an intellectually superior people. Us mere Goyim, are by comparison, utterly stupid.
America does not genuinely and honestly support Israel. America has been hornswoggled by
the superior intelligence and guile of the Jewish people to support the Jew state.
When the Jews decided to set up their own country at the turn of the twentieth century,
they knew that they would need the support of Christendom. To that end they initiated a
psy-op, a psychological operation tasked with rewriting Christian theology.
Up until the turn of the twentieth century Christian theology had held that the coming of
Jesus Christ had negated all of God's covenants with the Jews. This was known as, replacement
theology. That, in essence, Christians had become God's chosen people.
As a consequence, down through the ages, Christians and Jews had been at odds. Christ
killer was a common epithet and there were many pogroms.
Jews would have been aware that there was an obscure Christian theology that held, that
God had not revoked his covenants with the Jews. That God's covenants with the Jews remained
intact and were still in force.
This obscure theology was being preached by a ne'er do well preacher named Cyrus Scofield.
What the Jews did, and surely this was, what is known as, "Jew genius", they financed Cyrus
on two trips to Europe.
What the Jews did, was to take this obscure dispensationalist christian theology and write
it into the King James version of the bible as study notes. When Scofield returned from
Europe, he had the manuscript of the Scofield study bible. It is presumed that Rabbi's and
yeshiva students produced it.
It was published, produced and distributed by the very Jewish Oxford University Press,
which still holds the patent on it, and periodically updates it to keep up with changing
times in the Middle East.
There is an ample historical trail that validates this thesis.
There is also an historical trail that reveals that today's Jews, Ashkenazim Jews, are not
descendants of the biblical era Jews, that they are Jewish converts from the land of
Khazar.
More, that the circumstances of their conversion to Judaism was a process that selected
for intelligence and drive and that is why today's Jews are an intellectually superior,
driven and successful, albeit, artificial people.
Artificial, as they are not a people that occurred naturally, over time and in a land of
their own.
" . . . [N]ote the condescension towards the people of the Middle East . . .". Yes, I
did. I don't know squat about foreign policy, but people who sense they're being looked
down on or feel they're being used will sometimes want to get back at those who've
patronized them when the opportunity arises. I wish our leaders would take that platitude
to heart.
This is a product of American exceptionalism, and it is not confined to the Middle East.
The overwhelming majority of Americans refuse to accept that others may be just fine with
their own form of government, economic system, and culture.
@SolontoCroesus Note that it has been the white man, not the jew, not the nigger, and not
the tranny, who has been the principle architect of such death and destruction.
Aug 8, 2016 "I want to scare Assad" Mike Morell on Charlie Rose
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, discusses the need to put pressure on
Syria and Russia. The full conversation airs on PBS on August 8th, 2016.
@Rich In the super-liberal town where I live, garbage gets separated: plastics here,
paper there, banana peels there.
If Solemeini is "as much a piece of garbage as Mandela, Che," then what category of
garbage were Churchill and Stallin?
FDR -- same piece of garbage as Churchill – Stalin, or more like Solemeini?
How about Arthur "Bomber" Harris -- same garbage, or different?
When Solemeini is coordinating military engagements with US military leaders, is he "as
much a piece of garbage as Mandela, Che" or is he more like Kagan and Lady Lindsey?
@9/11 Inside job You are right, stupidity has nothing to do with it, its well thought out
and dictated by Israel. The 'tail actually wags the dog.' Americans (most) will never get it
as they are trapped in a bubble while the rest of the world has realized it. In Europe the
common folks have while the politicians still have to pretend.
When the hour of awakening arrives, I will have no sympathy for the common Jews as they
remain silent today. And Jeffery Epstein didn't kill himself.
What "cultural and religious shackles" might these be? Please be more specific, or I
might think you mean that they don't have instant access to Hollywood blockbusters or
something. The horror!
The Shah was notorious for encouraging young women to emulate the West and wear miniskirts
and such.
At first glance, it seemed like a positive change for the better. (who approves of burkas,
for instance). But as we all know by now, the ((cultural elites)) of the West, are feverishly
using liberalism to transform the societies they dominate into moral and spiritual
sewers.
[insert here photo of Madonna or Miley or some other gutter skank as role model for little
girls)
In a well-known case, the 'brutal' rapist of a ten year old Austrian boy, at a public
swimming pool, had his conviction set aside by the high court, because not enough sympathy
was shown to the rapist's cultural proclivities. This is a society that is spiritually dead.
Contrast that with Iran's equally well-known treatment of men who rape boys, by hanging them
by their necks from cranes, for all to witness.
Iran, clearly has a lot to teach the dying ((murdered)) West.
If headscarves are the price of female dignity and honor, then I suppose it really isn't
all that big of a deal, especially when you consider the alternative in the West.
[I'm not posting a photo of Kardashian or some other skank, because you all know what I
mean]
@Sean bbs.chinadaily.com .cn :"Beirut marine [barracks]bombing was Mossad false flag
operation "
'I reported that Marines had been sent there to become the focus of a major incident . The
Mossad is to arrange for a number of our Marines to be killed in an accident to be blamed on
the Arabs! This will be used to inflame American public opinion to help lead us into war '
Dr. Beter, a Pentagon analyst .
Not possibly as stupid as declaring openly that you want to deliberately commit war crimes on
public record.
Of course, when you have guys cheer leading you that couldn't find Iran on a map if their
life depended on it, you might not notice:
Fox host defends America committing war crimes: "I don't care about Iranian cultural
sites and I'll tell you why. If they could they would destroy every single one of our
cultural sites and build a mosque on top of it" pic.twitter.com/AJolDVtzJR
For everyone who wants a refresher on how this is defined as a war crime, the Red Cross
has a great section on the evolution of these particular protocols in history. I would highly
recommend the section titled:
"Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property"
Which starts:
"Article 1 of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property defines
cultural property, for the purposes of the Convention, irrespective of origin or ownership,
as:
(a) movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every
people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular;
archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic
interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or
archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books
or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above " https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule38
Note also that the US did not sign until 2009. The reasons given are outlined here –
main one being*:
"The objections raised by DoD at the time were based on the perceived inability to meet the
Convention's obligations in the event of nuclear warfare. With the collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War, DoD removed its objection to ratification." http://usicomos.org/hague-convention-and-usicomos/
Peace.
*Note: This is actually a great starting point for those of us who want to prevent
preemptive use of nuclear weapons by our government. The DoD is fully aware that nuclear
strikes against population centers will be in violation of the very treaties that they have
signed onto in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
What about the RAF generals and 8th airforce generals who killed millions of German
women and children in WW2? Were they more civilized than Soleimani?
I guess I opened a can of worms I didn't mean to I am an American and understand that
Americans are not as innocent or as magnanimous as our history books may make it.
But I had also assumed most people would agree that in general, American generals (and
Russian generals) would be seen as on the "right side of history" and hence morally
infinitely better as compared to Japanese or Nazi generals.
To the extent that is true, we shouldn't be lumping them morally together as the author
here is trying to lump American and Iranian generals together.
In my world view, Americans are aggressors in the Middle East today, Iranians are not. So
lumping them together is to refuse to see right and wrong .
Back to WWII: most people in the world today are probably happy they are not under
Japanese or German rule. So I assume my statements about Nazis and ally generals were
correct.
As for whether most people in the world today would be happy from American / Western
imperial rule, I would say yes to that. BUT does that REALLY make WWII just another evil war
where evil won and where Nazi generals and American and RAF and Russian generals are the same
as Japanese and Nazi generals???
@Sean bbs.chinadaily.com .cn:" Beirut Marine[barracks]bombing was a Mossad false flag
operation"
" I reported that Marines had been sent there to become the focus of a major incident . The
Mossad is to arrange for a number of our Marines to be killed in an incident to be blamed on
Arabs! This will be used to inflame American public opinion to help us lead into war " Dr.
Beter , a Pentagon analyst
Looks like the Empire decided not to escalate further the war it started with Iran. Optimists
would say that Trump at least shows some wisdom after utter stupidity of engaging in
terrorism. Pessimists would say that the Empire is simply afraid. I am on the fence.
@A123 Thanks for doing your part to introduce some sanity here.
Rather obviously, Iran needs to get it together. I get that it's unhappy that Trump was
elected, and wasn't removed from office as the Democrats promised them, so they could get
back to the Obama giveaway.
But, hands down, Iran wins the competition for the worst handling of relations with the
United States since Trump took the oath.
Now, the ayatollah's train wreck has resulted in the death of his beloved Soleimani.
It's very interesting to learn that Soleimani worked alongside US generals. So far none of
them have resigned their commissions; that tells me they have no balls and are fine with
following orders to go over the cliff with Trump, Pompous, and the rest of the DC Dunces.
The Axis of Resistance will be shouting "MAGA!" as they drive out US killers:
Make
America
Go
Away
I think Trump read the first few chapters of "Dune" and decided he wanted to play Emperor.
Too bad he didn't read to the end where the Emperor's landing party is captured and the
Empire gets kicked hard.
A military delegation from a group of Russian troops in Syria visited the Iranian embassy to
pay tribute and express condolences to the Iranians in connection with the death of General
Suleymani, commander of the Kods IRGC Iran, as a result of the American strike. Wreaths were
laid from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and directly from our group of
forces in Syria.
In the photo from the Iranian embassy as part of the delegation, the commander of the group
of forces (forces) of the Armed forces of the Russian Federation in the Syrian Arab Republic,
General Alexander Chayko.
Foreign Policy (FP): What will Iran do to retaliate?
DP: Right now they are probably doing what anyone does in this situation: considering
the menu of options. There could be actions in the gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz by proxies
in the regional countries, and in other continents where the Quds Force have activities.
There's a very considerable number of potential responses by Iran, and then there's any
number of potential U.S. responses to those actions
Given the state of their economy, I think they have to be very leery, very concerned
that that could actually result in the first real challenge to the regime certainly since the
Iran-Iraq War.
FP: Will the Iraqi government kick the U.S. military out of Iraq?
DP: The prime minister has said that he would put forward legislation to do that,
although I don't think that the majority of Iraqi leaders want to see that given that ISIS is
still a significant threat. They are keenly aware that it was not the Iranian supported
militias that defeated the Islamic State, it was U.S.-enabled Iraqi armed forces and special
forces that really fought the decisive battles.
How credible is this line that Iran has a tottering economy and that the 'regime' is
clinging to power by a thread and so therefore cannot risk the further instability of a
war?
Well, David Petraeus does not seem the most reliable person in this world.
If you take into account that he supported all the lies of his admnistration to unlseashed
Iraqi invasion and alleged WOT when what it was the remodelation of rge ME and looting of its
resources. And I fear he made his fortune vand caree in Iraq...by looting and lying...
Twitter vid of Orthodox
service for Soleimani correlates his Mission with that Of Jesus's Mission. An amazing and
truthful one minute thank you from the Christians of Syria for his efforts:
"'All what Qassem Soleimani did was stand up for Christians against ISIS and Al Qaeda'
"A mass was held in the evangelical church of Aleppo, Syria to honor the martyrdom of
General Soleimani who had an essential role in the liberation battle of Aleppo against
US-backed Jihadists."
Compared to Soleimani, Trump is the town drunk lying in the gutter awaiting the police van
to take him to the drunk tank.
Several barflies have said it's beyond time for China and Russia to arise and collectively
put a stop to this madness. As reported today, China will likely delay the implementation of
the first phase of the Trade Deal and a high level delegation met with Iraq's president and
council today to discuss arms and economic assistance. Russia's already involved with Iraq
through the regional anti-terrorist command post in Baghdad. Putin's been very quiet; not
even the usual notice of condolences sent to Iran was noted or published by the Kremlin.
Tomorrow's Orthodox Christmas, so perhaps in Putin's message to Russia he'll say something
further. But you can be sure that behind the scenes much is happening.
...no coherent plan was behind the Trump administration's cold-blooded murder of Qassem
Soleimani.
It was an act of pure stupid. A dumb 'miscalculation'. Another example of the ignorant
hubris in the US State Department that almost brought them into direct conflict with Russia in
February 2014, when they failed to comprehend the strategic and cultural significance of Crimea
and tried to migrate the Kiev 'Maidan' coup to Sevastopol.
I can pretty much guarantee none of those who advised Trump to assassinate Qassem
Suleimani saw this coming. Suleimani has been elevated in status to a martyr on the level of
Hussein. https://t.co/xUl7Q5x4BG
-- Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) January 4, 2020
This one, while posing a less imminent risk of superpower confrontation, is potentially
disastrous for US interests in the region, and risks monumental loss of life in any resultant
conflict between Iranian and US military forces.
It seems many people are not yet grasping the seismic shifts going on, and are still
thinking in terms of this being the prelude to another imperial regime-change operation like
those in Iraq, Libya and the failed attempt in Syria.
It isn't. Not even slightly. It is a whole new and unknown situation, and where it ends is
currently anyone's guess.
Threats from the ever bombastic fool Trump, like these towards Iran's culture
.targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years
ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those
targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more
threats!
and towards Iraq , might
bolster the impression that the empire has the initiative and many cards to play, but does
it?
What actually can it do against a military far more well-funded and well-supported than
anything it has confronted in recent years? Especially now in a situation where almost the
entire Shia Middle East has become united in wanting US forces out of the region.
Folks, this is the beginning of the end for the Empire. Yes, I know, this sounds
incredible, yet this is exactly what we are seeing happening before our eyes. The very best
which the US can hope for now is a quick and complete withdrawal from the Middle-East.
This is pretty extreme, and I'm not entirely convinced he's correct here, but he shows his
reasoning, and it's fairly compelling, and I urge you to read this linked article and others in
his recent output for a point of view that goes beyond the less than adequate "bloody Americans
doing it again" narrative we are getting from some sources.
Iran must retaliate for this outrage perpetrated against them. The US is compelled by its
own rhetoric and self-perception as invincible to respond to this retaliation with
disproportionate force.
Conflict of some kind seems inevitable, and, as the Saker sees it, this will be a conflict
the US can't ultimately win:
So what next? A major war against Iran and against the entire "Shia crescent"? Not a good
option either. Not only will the US lose, but it would lose both politically and militarily.
Limited strikes? Not good either, since we know that Iran will retaliate massively. A
behind-the-scenes major concession to appease Iran? Nope, ain't gonna happen either since if
the Iranians let the murder of Soleimani go unpunished, then Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar
al-Assad and even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be the next ones to be murdered. A massive air
campaign? Most likely, and initially this will feel good (lots of flagwaving in the USA), but
soon this will turn into a massive disaster.
Trump's threat, however, rings hollow. First, his tweet constitutes de facto evidence of a
war crime (Section 5.16.2 of the US Department of Defense Law of War Manual prohibits threats
to destroy cultural objects for the express purpose of deterring enemy operations), and as
such would likely not be implemented by US military commanders for whom niceties such as the
law of war, which forbids the execution of an unlawful order, are serious business.
Of more relevance, however, is the fact that Trump has been down this road before, when he
threatened massive military retaliation against Iran for shooting down an unarmed drone over
the Strait of Hormuz last May. At that time, he was informed by his military commanders that
the US lacked the military wherewithal to counter what was expected to be a full-spectrum
response by Iran if the US were to attack targets inside Iran.
In short, Iran was able to inflict massive harm on US and allied targets in the Middle
East region, and there was nothing the US could do to prevent this outcome.
Ritter thinks the recent announcement by Iran that it is committed to ending all
restrictions on uranium enrichment might give the US a pretext to attack using the one clear
advantage it has – nuclear weapons.
Trump has hinted that any future war with Iran would not be a drawn-out affair. And while
the law of war might curtail his commanders from executing any retaliation that includes
cultural sites, it does not prohibit the US from using a nuclear weapon against a known
nuclear facility deemed to pose a threat to national security.
This is the worst-case scenario of any tit-for-tat retaliation between Iran and the US, and
it is not as far-fetched as one might believe.
The Saker also considers it quite possible the US or Israel would resort to nuclear weapons,
but thinks this also would be ultimately self-defeating:
US/Israeli nukes: yes, unlike Iran, they have nukes. But what they lack are good targets.
Oh sure, then can (and will) strike at some symbolic, high-visibility, targets and they can
nuke cities. But "can" does not mean that this is a smart thing to do. The truth is that Iran
does not offer any good targets to hit with nukes so using nukes against Iran will only make
the determination of Iranians (and they allies) go from "formidable" to "infinite". Not
smart.
Whether or not we agree this is the beginning of the end of empire, a messy open-ended
conflict seems highly probable as things currently stand. Corporate war profiteers might rub
their hands at this, but if the chaos spreads will even they be able to reap real benefits?
Will this be the cue for them to up sticks from the foundering Exceptional Nation and re-locate
elsewhere in the unending quest for exploitation?
After all it can be argued the British Empire, like the Nazis, didn't die, but just had to
move – somewhere a little further west. Maybe, if we're cynical, the same thing is about
to happen again. Maybe China is about to inherit the earth with the help of some ex-pat
neocons.
But that's speculation for another day.
Another perspective worth reading is that of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity, whose open
'Memorandum for the President' is published over at Consortium News.
Signed by numerous distinguished intelligence professionals, including Philip Giraldi and
Daniel Ellsberg, it urges the Trump admin to "avoid doubling down on catastrophe".
The drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani
evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to
World War I. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of "severe
revenge." That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty.
And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given
the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and
in nearby waters.
What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated. Quite
the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval exercises
with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the
region.
Interestingly the corporate media seem currently far from united, or even coherent, in their
response to this latest crisis. Threaded through the usual knee jerk demonising of the monster
du jour , are unusual elements of skepticism toward the pro-war narrative.
With its drone missile assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani and seven others at
Baghdad's international airport in the early morning hours of Friday, the Trump administration
has carried out a criminal act of state terrorism that has stunned the world.
Washington's cold-blooded murder of a general in the Iranian army and a man widely described
as the second most powerful figure in Tehran is unquestionably both a war crime and a direct
act of war against Iran.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks on Iran, at his Mar-a-Lago
property, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
It may take some time before Iran responds to the killing. There is no question that Tehran
will, in fact, react, especially in the face of public outrage over the murder of a figure who
had a mass following.
But Iran will no doubt devote far more consideration to its response than Washington gave to
its criminal action. The country's National Security Council met on Friday, and in all
probability Iranian officials will discuss the murder of Suleimani with Moscow, Beijing and,
more likely than not, Europe. US officials and the corporate media seem almost to desire
immediate retaliation for their own purposes, but the Iranians have many options.
It is a political fact that the killing of Soleimani has effectively initiated a war by the
US against Iran, a country four times the size and with more than double the population of
Iraq. Such a war would threaten to spread armed conflict across the region and, indeed, the
entire world, with incalculable consequences.
This crime, driven by increasing US desperation over its position in the Middle East and the
mounting internal crisis within the Trump administration, is staggering in its degree of
recklessness and lawlessness. The resort by the United States to such a heinous act testifies
to the fact that it has failed to achieve any of the strategic objectives that led to the
invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003.
The murder of Soleimani is the culmination of a protracted process of the criminalization of
American foreign policy. "Targeted killings," a term introduced into the lexicon of world
imperialist politics by Israel, have been employed by US imperialism against alleged terrorists
in countries stretching from South Asia to the Middle East and Africa over the course of nearly
two decades. It is unprecedented, however, for the president of the United States to order and
then publicly claim responsibility for the killing of a senior government official who was
legally and openly visiting a third country.
Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Quds Force, was not an
Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On the contrary, he played a pivotal role in defeating
the forces of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which those two figures,
both assassinated by US special operations death squads, had led.
Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Tehran and cities across Iran on
Friday in mourning and protest over the slaying of Soleimani, who was seen as an icon of
Iranian nationalism and resistance to US imperialism's decades-long attacks on the country.
In Iraq, the US drone strike has been roundly condemned as a violation of the country's
sovereignty and international law. Its victims included not only Soleimani, but also Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the
100,000-strong coalition of Shia militias that is considered part of the country's armed
forces.
This response makes a mockery of the ignorant and thuggish statements of Trump and his
advisors. The US president, speaking from his vacation resort of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, boasted
of having "killed the number one terrorist anywhere in the world." He went on to claim that
"Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military
personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him."
Trump charged that the Iranian general "has been perpetrating acts of terror to destabilize
the Middle East for the last 20 years." He declared, "What the United States did yesterday
should have been done long ago. A lot of lives would have been saved."
Who does the US president think he is fooling with his Mafia rhetoric? The last 20 years
have seen the Middle East devastated by a series of US imperialist interventions. The illegal
2003 US invasion of Iraq, based on lies about "weapons of mass destruction," claimed the lives
of over a million people, while decimating what had been among the most advanced societies in
the Arab world. Together with Washington's eighteen-year-long war in Afghanistan and the
regime-change wars launched in Libya and Syria, US imperialism has unleashed a regionwide
crisis that has killed millions and forced tens of millions to flee their homes.
Soleimani, whom Trump accused of having "made the death of innocent people his sick passion"
-- an apt self-description -- rose to the leadership of the Iranian military during the
eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war, which claimed the lives of some one million Iranians.
He became known to the US military, intelligence and diplomatic apparatus in 2001, when
Tehran provided intelligence to Washington to assist its invasion of Afghanistan. Over the
course of the US war in Iraq, American officials conducted back-channel negotiations with
Soleimani even as his Quds Force was providing aid to Shia militias resisting the American
occupation. He played a central role in picking the Iraqi Shia politicians who led the regimes
installed under the US occupation.
Soleimani went on to play a leading role in organizing the defeat of the Al Qaeda-linked
militias that were unleashed against the government of Bashar al-Assad in the CIA-orchestrated
war for regime change in Syria, and subsequently in rallying Shia militias to defeat Al Qaeda's
offspring, ISIS, after it had overrun roughly one-third of Iraq, routing US-trained security
forces.
To describe such a figure as a "terrorist" only means that any state official or military
commander anywhere in the world who cuts across the interests of Washington and US banks and
corporations can be labeled as such and targeted for murder. The attack at the Baghdad airport
signals that the rules of engagement have changed. All "red lines" have been crossed. In the
future, the target could be a general or even president in Russia, China or, indeed, any of the
capitals of Washington's erstwhile allies.
After this publicly celebrated assassination -- openly claimed by a US president without
even a pretense of deniability -- is there any head of state or prominent military figure in
the world who can meet with US officials without having in the back of his mind that if things
do not go well, he too might be murdered?
The killing of General Soleimani in Baghdad was compared by Die Zeit , one of
Germany's newspapers of record, to the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of
Austria. As in the prior case, it stated, "the whole world is holding its breath and anxiously
waiting for what may come."
This criminal act carries with it the threat of both world war and dictatorial repression
within the borders of the United States. There is no reason to believe that a government that
has adopted murder as an instrument of foreign policy will refrain from using the same methods
against its domestic enemies.
The assassination of Soleimani is an expression of the extreme crisis and desperation of a
capitalist system that threatens to hurl humanity into the abyss.
The answer to this danger lies in the international growth of the class struggle. The
beginning of the third decade of the 21st century is witnessing not only the drive to war, but
also the upsurge of millions of workers across the Middle East, Europe, the United States,
Latin America, Asia and every corner of the globe in struggle against social inequality and the
attacks on basic social and democratic rights.
This is the only social force upon which a genuine opposition to the war drive of the
capitalist ruling elites can be based. The necessary response to the imperialist war danger is
to unify these growing struggles of the working class through the construction of a united,
international and socialist antiwar movement.
To the silly trolls on this thread, no Iran is not the number one terrorist supporter in the
world. That would be Saudi Arabia, closely followed by Qatar. You know them don't you?
Murica's main regional allies. The same countries that have armed and funded terrorists to
over throw the Syrian state. The same terrorist groups given support by the murican
intelligence community and propaganda outlets like the White helmets. The US is not a knight
in shining armor. It is a vulgar, grasping, dying empire that will use any means at it's
disposal to harm perceived rivals. The US establishment has a long history of using
terrorists to further its goals, like in Afghanistan during the 80's, or in Chechnya...and of
course in Syria. The list is not exhaustive... You know, in fact, Iran should look to execute
the cult leader of the Mek. There is another bizzaro terrorist outfit beloved by fat ass
Pompeo. That would be an outstanding shatter point that the US couldn't even respond to. Let
him "suicide" himself like Le Mesurier...lol!
On the surface, it made not one iota of sense. The murder of a foreign military leader on his way
from Baghdad airport, his diplomatic status assured by the local authorities, evidently deemed a target of
irresistible richness.
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and
throughout the region."
The
words from the Pentagon
seemed to resemble the resentment shown by the Romans to barbarian chiefs who dared
resist them.
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all
necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world."
The killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force in a drone
strike on January 3, along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, or
Hash a-Shaabi
and PMF Kata'ib Hezbollah, was packaged and ribboned as a matter of military necessity.
Soleimani had been, according to the Pentagon,
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and
coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more."
He was behind a series of attacks on coalition
forces in Iraq over the last several months including attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad on December 31, 2019.
US President Donald J. Trump had thrown caution to the wind,
suggesting in a briefing
at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that an option on the table would be the killing of
Soleimani. The Iran hawks seemed to have his ear; others were caught off guard, preferring to keep matters more
general.
A common thread running through the narrative was the certainty – unshakable, it would seem – that Soleimani was
on the warpath against US interests.
The increased danger posed by the Quds Force commander were merely presumed, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
was happy to do so
despite not
being able
to
"talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should know that the
President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives."
(Pompeo goes on to insist that there was "active plotting" to "take big action" that would have endangered
"hundreds of lives".) How broadly one defines the battlefield becomes relevant; the US imperium has decided that
diplomatic niceties and sovereign protections for officials do not count. The battlefield is everywhere.
Trump was far from convincing in
reiterating the arguments
, insisting that the general had been responsible for killing or badly wounding
"thousands of Americans over an extended period of time, and was plotting to kill may more but got caught!"
From
his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, he claimed that the attack was executed
"to stop a war. We did not take action
to start a war."
Whatever the views of US officialdom, seismic shifts in the Middle East were being promised.
Iraq's prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi
demanded
an emergency parliamentary session with the aim of taking
"legislative steps and necessary
provisions to safeguard Iraq's dignity, security and sovereignty."
On Sunday, the parliament did something which, ironically enough, has been a cornerstone of Iran's policy in Iraq:
the removal of US troops from Iraq. While being a non-binding resolution, the parliament
urged
the prime minister to rescind the invitation extended to US forces when it was attacked by Islamic State forces in
2014.
Iranian Armed Forces' spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi
promised
setting
"up a plan, patiently, to respond to this terrorist act in a crushing and powerful manner"
.
He also reiterated that it was the US, not Iran, who had "occupied Iraq in violation of all international rules
and regulations without any coordination with the Iraqi government and without the Iraqi people's demands."
While the appeals to international law can seem feeble,
the observation
from the UN Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnčs Callamard was hard to impeach.
"The targeted killings of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Humandis are most [likely] unlawful and violate
international human rights law: Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for
targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal."
To
be deemed lawful
, such targeting
with lethal effect
"can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life."
The balance sheet for this action, then, is not a good one.
As US presidential candidate Marianne Williamson
observed
with crisp accuracy, the attack
on Soleimani and his companions had little to do with
"whether [he] was a 'good man' any more than it was about
whether Saddam was a good man. It's about smart versus stupid use of military power."
An intelligent use of military power is not in the offing, with Trump
promising
the targeting of 52 Iranian
sites, each one representing an American hostage held in Iran at the US embassy in Tehran during November 1979.
But Twitter sprays and promises of this sort tend to lack substance and Trump is again proving to be the master of
disruptive distraction rather than tangible action.
Even Israeli outlets such as
Haaretz
, while doffing the cap off to the idea of Soleimani as a shadowy, dangerous figure behind the
slayings of Israelis
"in terrorist attacks, and untold thousands of Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese and others
dispatched by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Quds Force,"
showed concern.
Daniel B. Shapiro even went so far as to express admiration for the operation, an "impressive" feat of logistics
but found nothing of an evident strategy. Trump's own security advisers were caught off guard. A certain bloodlust
had taken hold.
Within Congress, the scent of a strategy did not seem to come through, despite some ghoulish cheers from the GOP.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and chairman of the House Intelligence panel,
failed to
notice
"some broad strategy at work".
Michigan Democrat Rep. Elissa Slotkin, previously acting assistant secretary of defence and CIA analyst,
explained
why neither Democratic or Republic
presidents had ventured onto the treacherous terrain of targeting Soleimani.
"Was the strike worth the likely
retaliation, and the potential to pull us into protracted conflict?"
The answer was always a resounding no.
By killing such a high ranking official of a sovereign power, the US has signalled a redrawing of accepted, and
acceptable lines of engagement.
The justification was spurious, suggesting that assassination and killing in combat are not distinctions with any
difference. But perhaps most significantly of all, the killing of Soleimani will usher in the very same attacks that
this decision was meant to avert even as it assists Iranian policy in expelling any vestige of US influence in Iraq
and the broader Middle East.
It also signalled to Iran that abiding by agreements of any sort, including the international nuclear deal of 2015
which the US has repudiated, will be paper tigers worth shredding without sorrow.
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wardropper
,
Today's Washington doesn't even have a grasp of common English usage:
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans"
You don't deter plans. You deter
people from
making plans.
A deterrent is something which persuades
people
not to do something.
I know that "corporations are people today", but only in the sense that they are run by a bunch of
people, so you can't deter a corporation either, although you can deter its CEO from doing something.
It's always a question of
deterring people from
, and not deterring
things.
Washington should know better, but I don't know why I'm even addressing this issue concerning a rabid
US government of ignorant basket cases. It must be because I'm a teacher, and some sort of alternative
to chaos seems necessary
"General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service
members in Iraq and throughout the region."
Allegedly. But with no substance provided. Less than with Iraqi WMDs.
But this article takes Pompeo's bait and runs with it.
I have read that Soleimani was invited to a meeting seeking resolution of hostilities in Yemen –
and perhaps other things. If that is true it could be that the war is being protected under cover
story of averting war. That would make sense in the backwards mind of today's narrative identity.
(Doublethink).
If that invitation was set up with the Trump administration – then that casts a darker light on the
USa's willingness to openly deceive and openly assassinate – with apparent impunity. But there are
always consequences.
However, Once such an act is executed, it would be very rare to not receive open support from the
US establishment – whatever any private misgivings. And so it leaves me wondering what and who is
involved in oversight and accountability. I don't have a sense of a real government – so much as a
captured and corrupted or neutered shell of a government. Perhaps the act was a fait accompli by a
coterie who wanted to provoke open war – and are willing to risk everything on getting one.
The 'globalist' idea uses the US as it uses everything. Does it 'use' Israel – and the
International Jewish lobby? Or vice verse? Israeli policy is typical in pre-emptive de-personing and
execution – and this pattern is spreading through the body politic
I don't know – but a lot of apparently 'national' interest is anything but – excepting for
corporate cartels of mutual interest that effectively call the shots in a progressive (sic)
deconstruction of the World order to an idea of global possession and control.
Insider dealing applies also to politics. We are not privy to decisions made that are then
'delivered' by all kinds of manipulative appearance.
When Trump threatened disproportionate retaliation – linking to the Iran hostage situation – the
Iranians could counter with disclosure as the the weapons deal struck by Reagan camp to delay release
until after Carter left office – and lost it in no small part to the failure to get the hostages home.
But it just isn't done. Governing politicians as a rule do not bring out such dirty washing.
People might lose faith in them
Charlotte Russe
,
Washington denied Zarif a visa to attend a scheduled meeting of the United Nations Security
Council and Mike Pompeo mocked Zarif's statement that Suleimani had gone to Baghdad on a diplomatic
mission: "Is there any history that would indicate it was remotely possible that this kind gentleman,
this diplomat of great order, Qassem Suleimani, traveled to Baghdad for the idea of conducting a peace
mission?" he said."
Pompeo, the United States Secretary of State, conducts foreign policy by
humiliating, censoring, and promoting lies about sovereign leaders. What's the purpose of the United
Nations if leaders of nation-states are prohibited from speaking and stating their case. If the public
is only permitted to hear "one" side of an issue, isn't that the definition of propaganda. Of course,
Pompeo would deny that Suleimani was on a diplomatic mission, inasmuch, to admit otherwise would
reveal the assassination of Suleimani as an especially despicable war crime.
It's unfortunate, that if a nation-state challenges US imperialism they're characterized as not a
sovereign state but as a terrorist regime. And if military leaders from these nation-states ensure the
stability of their country by destroying ISIS and Al-Qaeda these generals are deemed terrorists. We
live in a world where reality has been turned on its end, and is upside down.
So far, the US is extremely lucky that Iran's retaliation for the murder of Sulaimani has been
limited. Javad Zarif, Iran's Foreign Minister stated:
"Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter
targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched
Tuesday. We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression."
Now the ball is the Buffoon's court of neoconservative screwballs–let's see if these warmongers can
refrain from escalating this crisis, or will they continue to lead the US down the road to another
military debacle. One that makes the Iraq War look like child's play.
Below is a link citing the anti-war demonstrations organized and held by Codepink On Thursday,
January 9, at 5 p.m.
https://www.codepink.org/01
Tallis Marsh
,
Some people have touched on this subject in other articles/website forums, but can I ask a
'controversial' question? How many dual-passport military bigwigs occupy
intelligence/foreign-policy/military positions in the USA/UK/France etc as well as Iran, Iraq etc? Is
it anti-semitic now to ask these questions? It is okay to ask about 'Russians' so-called infiltration
and subversion but not Israelis?
People here may have heard of Victor Ostrovsky and his books, By Way of Deception and The Other
side of Deception – where he details on many aspects of subversion, co-option etc e.g.how the sayanim
network that aids mossad infiltrates top powerful positions in Embassies, intelligence agencies,
military policy-maker dept and even medicine/charity orgs etc?
David Macilwain
,
I think we may just be playing the Americans' game by discussing the legality of the assassination of
the hero of the Resistance; it's like discussing whether water-boarding is a legitimate interrogation
technique on a six-year old girl.
The point of the killing was nothing to do with what Soleimani had done or was about to do, but
evidently the one thing that Israel and the US knew Iran must respond to, so as to provide a pretext
for an attack on Iranian territory – and of course it now has launched such an attack, before another
state does it for them.
We might imagine that the US and other forces illegally occupying bases in Iraq, and everywhere else
in the region, will now feel unable to operate without threat of attack from multiple unidentified
sources. The mere fact that the missiles actually hit the Ain al Asaad base could be a wake-up call,
particularly if there is evidence US forces were hit.
But of course the killing of Soleimani was
neither justifiable nor legitimate, so Iran's designation of the US army as a terrorist organisation
is, and it is now open season.
Leaving religious, organized delusions aside – to which I count all major religions, especially
Hypochristianity – Iran has excelled in reason and resolve.
Do not fuck around with Iran any longer.
Donald Trump and his sub-cogniscent advisers on the other hand need to go and fuck themselves.
Using the same methods on each other they have used to destroy a free and independent Iran since the
great People of Iran kicked the fascist western regimes out of Iran.
Like Lybia, Syria, Bolivia and Venezuela, the government is FOR the People, not against them.
Anybody, or anyone with better ideas than those Iran has utilized since 1979? Anybody? I thought so.
Because there are assholes – among them corrupt, rich Iranian maggots that prefer the Trump model –
who complain about how the revolution took away the freedom to exploit and to corrupt, while it is
them that have Julain Assange locked away like a Chimpanzee in a Nazi laboratory.
No, what happened – oddly though in conjunction with a prophecy by Edgar Casey – is, that the whole
sane world can see that America has become a drug addicted cheap whore who will do anything to get her
fix.
America needs mandatory psychoanalysis and not the reciting of the pledge of allegiance. In
Teheran, millions – not one, or two, like in a 'Love Parade' – no, five million real Iranian People
filling the streets. What a shame in the face of the fucking Trump regime assholes. Fuck them all.
Impeach the entire heap of shit and bring them before a court of justice. In Teheran.
Iran – as the descendant of one of the greatest Empires ever to rule the region – proved itself
worthy of its great history. It shlashed the Gordian knot today. The terroristic murder of Lt. General
Soleimani has indeed changed everything. Everything. It is now out in the open that ISIS/Daesh was
created and funded by wetsern fascist regimes under the lead of the U.S., Israel, SA et al. The people
that killed innocent civilians, cut heads off before cameras, putting women and children in cages,
destroying important cultural sites in the region were and still are paid for by the U.S. tax payer
and that makes every U.S. et al citizen an accomplice in the 'WAR OF TERROR'. You paid for the murder
of the one person that defeated the US TERROR GROUPS. He helped Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to fend
off the terroristic assault of the fascist western regimes.
ISIS'R'US.
So, leaving the general religious thing aside, Iran has torn down the wall of hypocrisy the west is
surrounding itself with. Alliances will now be made and others will crumble and vanish. Saudi Arabia
is looking at its last days. The Palestiniancaust and genocide in Yemen will not continue.
Iran has shown that it is capable of defending the truth against the fascist western regimes.
To those who do not want to stop killing innocent women, mothers and children, the elderly and
defenseless:
Cease and desist your murderous activities in order not to get killed.
Long live Iran.
Bless its People who have shown the pathetic public in the west what UNITY really means. (Not to
discredit the work of countless groups to change things to the better.) But the equivalent would be
300 million Americans weeping in the streets over the loss of their most beloved General.
Go Humanity! Now or never!
Frank Speaker
,
You touch on some valid points, but you ignore there's a huge difference between most Iranians and
the fundamentalist nutjobs who rule over them. Similar to the USA in many respects.
andyoldlabour
,
The thing is Frank, I know only too well (from my relatives in Iran) how a lot of ordinary
Iranians still feel about the Shah, about UK/US/French imperialism. They and Iraq have been
attacked quite a few times over the past hundred years by US/UK (along with Russia). There is
still raw evixdence of chemical weapons victims from the Iran Iraq war.
They area very proud people, 98% Shia, and will come together as one if attacked, just as they
did back in 1980, when Saddam Hussein backed by the USA attacked them.
nottheonly1
,
While I am certainly not a friend of any organized religion, to call them 'fundamental nutjobs'
gives away the brainwashing program that has achieved this result.
Pence, Pompeo et
evangelical al are the real 'fundamental nutjobs'. They kill Muslims by the thousands. And have
no regard at all for anybody that does not match their christojudeo-fascist world view.
TFS
,
SpartUSA and its friends in low places, Saudi Arabia, Israel and its Western Allies love giving names
to things when they 'Export Democracy ' around the World, like Operation Enduring Freedom.
Cannot
the alternative Blogosphere come up with a similar banner as a push back to the Rogue State of
SpartUSA?
How About:
1. Operation Jog On!
Harry Stotle
,
One of the avenues Iran could pursue is the legality of the assassination.
It is high time the question of whether or not the US is above international law was finally
confronted.
The extra-judicial murder of General Soleimani brings this issue to the heart of international
affairs: if there is no legal redress for Iran then it more or less makes a mockery of the idea that
justice is possible in a world dominated by terror states.
andyoldlabour
,
Whilst I agree with the core message of your post Harry, I would have to draw the conclusion that
the US has put themselves above and out of the reach of international law.
Drone attacks and civilian deaths all over the World, 80 years of coups, assassinations and wars,
shooting down civilian airliners (USS Vincennes and IranAir flight 655), torture.
Then you only have to Google "Hague Invasion Act"
Andy you're right, but it now needs to be legally formally addressed at the UN and other courts
every time the US violates international law. Time and again. Over years it might make an
impact, at least to isolate the them.
andyoldlabour
,
Frank, unfortunately I believe that the UN is merely a New York based vassal of the US. How
many sanctions have ever been placed on the US or it's little friend Israel for their obvious
war crimes?
I have been saying for many years that the HQ of the UN should not be in the US.
BigB
,
It's a war crime, Harry! I notice Binoy, the UN Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, and you refrain from
calling it out. Pre-crime violates every judicial principle known. There has to be a crime for a
verdict – let alone an execution. This is the enactment of "Minority Report" Phildickian criminal
injustice thinking.
Pre-emptive Justice has been American foreign policy since at least Bush the Lesser Evil. Along
with R2P – which defecated on Westphalia Peace Treaty principles – this violated the London
Agreement (Nuremberg Principles) which are supposedly the foundation of modern IHL.
So, let's take our pick for pre-emptive murder war crime, crime against the peace, or crime
against humanity?
So Trump gets a rap from the Rapporteur: where do we try this most obvious of crimes? The ICC,
ICJ, or a kangaroo UN Tribunal where precisely no American will ever show up because they are
legally exempt and immune. Agnes' rap is not worth waiting for, I'm sorry to say. The UN is
complicit and as toothless as the old imperialist League of Nations that carved up the Middle East
to cause these problems.
On the rare occasion the UN has produced a truthful report – ie calling Israel an apartheid
state – that report has been recalled and shredded before you can say "Try Netanyahu!". You know
the score.
Iran has exacted the only Justice it can in this lawless Wild West Justice of the Gun
international anti-diplomacy "free"market-power world. I'd love to share your sentiment, but that
world was eclipsed when America turned its back on the ICC circa Nicaragua. If Agnes can pull it
back, I'm with her all the way. Also, I'm not holding my breath!
Everything the Nazis did is now neoliberal foreign policy.
Guy
,
I hear you and I agree with the gist of what you are saying but let me suggest that even though
the UN is toothless and the rogue US establishment continue with their cowboy rampage over any
nation that does not kneel to it's demands ,it is especially important that the criminal actions
of this out of control regime be documented for historical purposes . Lets face it it ,right now
the United Nations is the best and only body of an international politic that we have to do so.
This is what they are so scared about .The truth .
TFS
,
I see two options:
1. Make the relevant International Organisations do their job, although the
UN, OPCW, ICC and the like are soemwhat neutered. And if not, stop paying for them, they are a PR
exercise.
2. Act like a Democracy, where the people hold those in account to power. Boycott SpartUSA would
be my choice.
As a Brexiteer, I partially understand why people jumped ship from Jeremy Corbyn, but Brexit was
never about Brexit, it was about killing Jeremy. The EU feared Jeremy more than anything, and when
we lost him, the country lost a counter to the Imperial machinations of SpartUSA, the EU and NATO
and their friends in low places in the MiddleEast.
I would suggest a third option, Operation Patriot Resolve.
In it, the alternative blogosphere works with ex members of the UK Armed Forces, and forces the
UK government to release all the supporting evidence of Article V (I think), which supported the
invasion of Afghanistan. We can ask Lord Robertson for his substantial input into the evidence he
held. It must be voluminous, given the Offical Report into 9/11; Offical Conspiracy Theory is so
highly regarded.
TFS
,
There is a term for different legal treatment based on status, called Affluenza.
Maybe a new term
needs to be used for the West selective interpreations of various laws. Maybe Rogue State/Regime
will suffice.
noseBag
,
Harry, whilst wholeheartedly agreeing with your sentiment, I fear the definition of being under
threat of 'imminent' attack is so broad and vague that the Yanks will be able to claim legality.
However, The Saker makes for some very interesting reading regarding likely/possible fallout from
this action, none of which looks good for the Yanks, or for that matter, anyone allied to them.
Harry Stotle
,
In answer to my own question, I think Iran has about as much chance of receiving justice for the
murder of Qasem Soleimani as Julian Assange does for revealing war crimes.
In answer to BB –
apologies for not being clear – yes, I think this is a war crime.
I was just alluding to the fact terror inflicted by Britain and the USA is never defined as such
(in a court of law) – quite the opposite, many of the architects, such as Tony Blair grew rich on
the back of the misery they authored.
This profound legal failing is one of the reasons the neocons keep getting away with it.
In theory Iran has a strong case, one that has been already backed up by the UN rapporteur on
extra-judicial killings, but it will be hard for them to escape a sense of futility that pervades
any attempt to investigate the machinations of the US deep state.
For example, and as most of us on Off-G already know, the American authorities have steadfastly
refused to properly investigate what happened on 9/11, presumably because a meaningful
investigation would reveal a long list of uncomfortable truths?
While in Britain we had the long-winded and expensive charade of Chilcot – many knew from the
outset that it was a waste of time and money, and that no actor would have be held to account for
the bloodbath that ensued in Iraq, even though the whole thing was built on a pack of lies and led
to the mysterious death of Britains foremost weapons inspector.
GEOFF
,
And these dumbfucks in this country can't wait to be part of the evil empire, I would never knowingly
buy anything from warmongering evil America, or Israel, I see hairy arse Johnson is making it illegal
for councils to boycott the other evil country, Israel , I only wish I was younger , I would get out
of this shithole tomorrow.
Francis Lee
,
The real dumbfucks are the Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Romanians, Estonians who are pro-US and EU
fanatics. Oh and I forgot about another neoliberal EU basket case, Sweden. The US calls the shots
in the EU, primarily through corralling in the Petainist riff-raff into NATO.
Dungroanin
,
And by the way ss we move into a hot war where exactly is our LauraKoftheCIA?
Not a peep since her splurge on 19th December topped of with:
'Right then twitter, that's it from me
til next year – Happy Christmas one and all see you on the other side (follow
@BBCPolitics
and
@BBCNews
if you want to keep up, or sit on your sofa and eat Quality Street and come back in 2020)
Laura Kuenssberg
·
19 Dec 2019
Hard time of year for a lot of folks. Suicide Hotline 116 123 (Samaritans) A simple copy and paste
might save someone's life.
Would 3 Twitter friends please copy this text and post under their own name? Pass it on
Laura Kuenssberg
·19 Dec 2019
-- -- -- -
My guess is at the same site as bozo as they were briefed on the next phase.
Their role for the Pathocracy and getting their stories rehearsed – I expect her to move into Downing
Street as the official press officer!
Presumably they will have been getting their inoculation flu jab which has just been unleashed as
zillions of chinese take to the air for their new year intermingling with the zillions of westerners
sun seeking crisscrossing the planet.
This world war will not be fought with the outdated nuclear weapons – they have better plans to get
rid of us pesky revolters, and shiny multicoloured tellytubby suits as demo'd in Salisbury to clear
away the dead and take all our possessions.
How long before the internet shutdown?
Dungroanin
,
For these dumb yankee doodle yahoos and Brit donkeys who still don't understand the significance –
imagine if General Washington had been assassinated by King George for having won in the revolution,
how would the proto yanks have taken that then and still now 200 years later.
US can't claim they couldn't have got to him without using drones.
.
A Ukrainian Boeing Jet appears to have dropped out of the sky on fire after leaving Tehran
.
A new flu type seems to have kicked off in China just as zillions are traveling for newyear.
-- --
As a large percentage of middleclass westerners travel to sunny paradises of SE Asia and Caribbean
at this time of year they may not be traveling back!
TFS
,
People need to be hit the general public with the OPCW chemical evidence whilst this is playing out as
another example of the West lying to bomb another soveriegn country, and make sure people know that
the impartiality of the OPCW and the UN has been neutered.
Of course, the next stage, a step on from
awareness is to hit SpartUSA where it hurts them the most. They are kinda of attached to The
Benjamins, and are fond of Sanctions, ask Madeliene Albright.
The people of Amerika need to remember that when they vote in the up-and-coming Presidential election
they are voting for democracy! Not the kind of democracy that other countries have, such as Iraq who
just voted for Amerika to leave their country. But the kind of democracy that has to be created by
force. The type of none representative democracy which furthers economic exploitation. It comes as no
surprise that Amerika has allies in waiting otherwise known as vassals. Just ask the Eaton Mess and
his Galfriend – as Old Blighty soon to be renamed Cor-Blimey is about to be forced to nationalise the
railways (shurely a socialist concept ed?). Also ask Macron as a national strike grips France. "No",
you will hear the media shills shrill, "It's the international rules based democratic order".
MichaelK
,
I heard a journalist stating with some 'authority' that the US attack couldn't be defined as
'terrorism', because it was carried out by a democratic state. Apparently, the actions and leaders of
'democratic states' cannot be guilty of carrying out 'terrorism.'
Normally, after 'real terrorist'
attacks occur, that is, violence directed against us and our interests and allies, if members of the
public raise their fists and express joy and enthusiastic support for the 'evil terrorists', such
feelings and utterances land them in extremly hot water with the authorities as vocal support for
terrorist outrages is illegal and can easily lead to them being prosecuted under anti-terrorism
legislation.
But things are different when 'we' are the ones using 'terrorism' against our enemies, then,
suddenly, the laws are applied, or not applied, in a radicaly different way.
Dungroanin
,
Iran is a democratic state as much as any.
We have seen how our democracy is a sham with the postal vote rigging of the election and the
referendum.
It stopped Corbyn by direct self admitted foreign government gauntlet and is delivering the hard
brexit that ONLY benefits the ancient City and it's masters.
They are on the retreat and like the confederacy they are burning Atlanta
David Macilwain
,
While this is certainly true, it's difficult to think of a case where forces allied to the
Resistance have actually been responsible for a terrorist attack. One might need to return to the
time of the Palestinian Intifada, where suicide bombers certainly terrorised Israelis – even for a
just cause. Any suggestions? Not only does the "war on terror" appear to be contrived and
concocted, but its evident acts seem always to be false flags, and always serving the interests of
those that the attacks are supposed to be against.
Guy
,
War on terror is an oxymoron. War is terror David as I am sure you already know . Leave it to
the CIA and or neocons to come up with such a stupid slogan .
Cheers.
Guy
,
The Western media pundits are using mental contortions to rationalize the impossible and looking
extremely foolish for doing so.It's kind of like digging your own grave .
richard le sarc
,
An awful lot of Judeofascists and other Zionist and Talmudic psychopaths seem very happy about this
cowardly murder. But they are, after all, the world champions of cowardly murders of any who dare 'get
in our way'. It is a religious observance, a mitzvah, after all.
George Mc
,
"Judeofascists"? Surely "Zionazis" is more appropriate?
MASTER OF UNIVE
,
Macroeconomic decoupling is occurring and Trump's gambit for irrational war management via threats &
intimidation on an international/geopolitical level is not only an outright act of war but it is
testament to the desperation that Trump finds himself in pre-election. Trump has already indicated
that he will do anything to keep the DOW inflated irrationally at ever increasing nosebleed levels he
can push it to even if it means meddling in Federal Reserve independence and undermining confidence in
the central bank authority.
Trump is a one man central banking Military Industrial Complex war
machine set on autopilot without vision outside of controlling everything from the interest rate
benchmark set by central banks to the G7 trade deals and Russian Federation gas deals, and everything
in between.
Trump has to be the center of attention every single day of the week & twice on Sundays. He
twitterbombed Greta the climate teen to appropriate her limelight as the Davos elite rolled her out
onstage.
Trump bombed strategically for the presidential plaudits that never materialized because he leapt
to an erroneous conclusion & misperceived that everyone else in the world is not viewing it from an
oval office desk like he is. Immediately following the outrage the rationalizations came forth from
the White House that their target was for the good of the nation when in fact everyone knows it was
for Trump's impression management.
Trump likely made the decision unilaterally and the world is just not being made aware of that.
Fortunately, the Democrats see his departure from protocol as a war crime also. Trump is not
experienced enough to stay the course any longer given that he must have acted unilaterally to cause
the bombing assassination without due diligence from his advisers taking place. When the Democrats
press the issue with Congress it will become an issue that Trump used the state to murder for purposes
of leveraged deal making.
MOU
Francis Lee
,
"Trump is a one man central banking Military Industrial Complex war machine set on autopilot."
Pretty good! I like it.
Martin Usher
,
Its interesting to speculate about why these people were murdered. Pompero's explanations have a
distinct yellowcake feel to them -- "We know what we're doing, trust us" sort of thing. The
Administration has zero credibility except among the faithful here in the US. I suspect the real
reason could be a combination of two factors. One is that whenever there's any danger of peace
breaking out in the Middle East it gets spoiled and invariably there something or someone Israeli at
the bottom of it. The leaders killed were particularly dangerous precisely because they're not hot
heads, they develop policies in a rational manner and are instrumental in keeping wayward elements
under control. This is the kind of ME leader that is feared by Israel -- they need a disorganized
rabble without the gates (one that's preferably fighting among itself) so that they can keep their
internal politics under control. The other factor is Trump is susceptible to anything that appeals to
his vanity, especially if its one-up against Obama. There's already been the claim that this was a
proper response, unlike Benghazi. (..and apparently ISIS is an Obama creation .) So I could see a
situation where a back channel suggestion is whispered into an ear, orders are given, people are
killed and we have to deal with the consequences.
I just hope that the Isranians and Iraqis are
sophisticated enough to provide a measured response. I thought the Iraqi lawmakers' response was
perfect -- the US has breached the terms of the agreement by which its supposed to be in that country
so it should leave. (Trump's response is more typical of his responses -- bluster about sanctions and
threaten the Iraqis with a bill for an airbase.)
lundiel
,
Strictly speaking, ISIS is a CIA creation under the Obama administration. I draw your attention to
the shiploads of Libyan weapons delivered to international jihadists in Syria by way of Turkey.
Along with John McCain's close association with Prince Bandar of KSA (Before he was chopped-up
because Saudi finance became common knowledge and the beast got out of control). It's interesting
to note that Obama, a democrat, used McCain, a neocon hawk as his middle east special envoy. Not
that Trump has changed much, he can't, he's not in control.
Antonym
,
Correction:
Strictly speaking, ISIS was a CIA creation under their
Obama fig leaf
Guy
,
You gotta hand it to Trump for coming up with such stupid shit as ,we will not leave until you pay
us for the costs of building a base in your country. LOL I almost busted a gut laughing at the
stupidity of the guy saying this .
Consider that I break into your house and make a mess of things , help myself to the food in the
fridge , not to mention your wife and daughters if I took a liking to them , leave all the dirty
laundry lying around after a week or so and will not leave .In order to accept leaving the premises
, you must pay me .Pay me whatever I ask .
This is how stupid and absurd this charade no minds is descending into .
Somebody stop the world ,I want to get off.
Antonym
,
Even JFK's assassination didn't upset the Anglo military – industrial complex's apple cart, and he was
a good guy. QS wasn't and his death won't change much. Donald Trump's might turn out to be more
disrupting
Perp all the same: T-Rex CIA, NOT the mossad mosquito however much Zionphobes wish it
to.
richard le sarc
,
'QS' was a saint compared to the psychopathic butchers who run Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Israeli
colony known as the USA.
andyoldlabour
,
How many deaths were Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Bush x 2, Clinton, Obama and Trump responsible for
compared to QS?
Multiple United States targets hit by missiles in Iraq, including Ayn Asad Airbase and Al Taji
coalition base north of Baghdad.
No news on casualties yet. This response was expected, but the $64 million dollar question is how hard
will the nutters in Washington respond? And what of the 6 B-52 bombers that have just been sent to
Diego Garcia?
And news just in of a second wave of missiles directed at US targets.
Trump, Pompeo, Esper . You are reaping what You sowed. Total wackjobs.
This is deeply disturbing .
richard le sarc
,
Nothing would work better than closing Hormuz, and destroying Saudi oil installations. That would
be a seismic shock to US economic hegemony.
Very unconfirmed reports there may have been up to 80 United States personnel killed in the
missile attacks on Ayn Assad Airbase today.
This could be fake news tho?
That's appeared on Vanessa Beeley's Facebook page as well as a guy called Laith Marouf, and
Press TV has just been reported as 'breaking news' that "there were casualties".
Tellingly, no other independent sites have been reporting this (so far)
And Trumpf is tweeting 'all is well'.
Don't expect the truth from Team USA, or the retarded presstitutes.
Duh What a dumb thing to say. Of course not.
I still believe United States will respond to the Iranian missile strikes. Can you imagine
Pompeo or Esper going 'okay, all good, we're all even now' after today.
I can't.
If things do take off, closing the Straits Of Hormuz would be one of the very first options for
Iran. And then watch the panic in the 'civilised, democratic, freedom loving' West when the
economy starts imploding.
This was the first question of the day, mind you. When asked about specific threats,
they won't say, other to claim the threats were against "American diplomats, American military
personnel, and American – facilities that house Americans" in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria. When
asked if allies had been notified of these attacks, or what is meant by "imminent threats,"
officials said they couldn't elaborate because that would be revealing "sources and methods."
When asked why there had been no information about the dead American contractor in the Dec.27
militia strike on the Iraqi base
that touched this all off, one of the three state department officials said, "I haven't
asked, and I don't know."
Their real imperiousness comes when a reporter presses officials to explain their repeated
suggestions that the Jan. 3 strike against Soleimani was at once well-deserved after Iran's
"violent and expansionist foreign policy," a response to the breach of the U.S. embassy last
week, and a preemptive action to stop Soleimani's planned attacks, for which we still
have no detailed information.
QUESTION: The decision to take him out wasn't necessarily a way of removing this
– [Senior State Department Official One], the threat that you were talking about in
these different countries and these different facilities – but it's a way to mitigate
it in the future? I'm just --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: It slows it down. It makes it less --
QUESTION: Since we don't know what the threat is – okay, that's what I was
--
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: It slows it down. It makes it less likely.
It's shooting down Yamamoto in 1942. Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Ouch.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Go look that up.
QUESTION: Yes, you do.
Most tellingly, the officials pushed back hard not only against the suggestion that this was
an "assassination" of a government official, but that Iran is a legitimate country at all,
protected by any international norms or laws:
We are, again, denying them the fiction that this is some Westphalian country that has,
like, a conventional defense ministry and a standard president and a foreign minister. It's a
regime with clerical and revolutionary oversight that seeks to dominate the Middle East and
beyond. You've heard me say this is a kleptocratic theocracy. And you look at the people of
Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, are all rejecting the Iranian model at the same time.
So if the U.S. does not recognize your form of government -- does this include the Communist
Party of China? -- you are fair game?
In its reporting this weekend, The Daily Beast found that the President was talking about a
"big" response to events on the ground in Iraq with his inner circle at Mar-a-Lago five days
before Soleimani's killing.
Those Mar-a-Lago guests received more warning about Thursday's attack than Senate staff
did, and about as much clarity. A classified briefing on Friday, the first the administration
gave to the Hill, featured broad claims about what the Iranians were planning and little
evidence of planning to bring about the "de-escalation" the administration says it wants.
According to three sources either in the room or told about the discussion, briefers from
the State Department, Pentagon, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
claimed that killing Soleimani was designed to block Iranian plans to kill "hundreds" or even
thousands of Americans in the Mideast. That would be a massive escalation from the recent
attack patterns of Iran and its regional proxies, who tend to kill Americans in small numbers
at a time.
After this display, it is clear that the "trust us" argument is going to prevail until
lawmakers start demanding more, including legal justification for the strikes. There was no
hint of an answer, of course, in the state department briefing:
QUESTION: The Secretary talked about this as being wholly legal. I wonder if you
can just explain the legal justification of the killing.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: You're going to have to talk to the
lawyers.
No one expects satisfaction from these briefings but getting slapped around as the rest
of the country is wondering if we are on the brink of war is the height of audacity, even for a
government that has proven over the last 18 years that it cares nothing about whether the
American people believe them or not.
So, Iran government is illegitimate, same as the Chinese government which is ruled by CCP.
They would all be legitimate targets. Russian government is rather just nationalist and
probably that is bad too.
It is likely that no direct attacks are carried against Chinese or Russian leaders
because of retaliation. It is good that the new hyper-sonic Russian missiles can strike US
in less than 30 minutes with great accuracy, being able to hit particular individuals. Let
us hope that those missiles and Russian defense systems will start flooding the market...
Will then US start using nukes?
Maybe as soon as deployed in Ukraine where they can strike Moscow with only six minutes'
warning, leaving no alternative but a retaliating revenge strike of "launch on warning."
That's the only reason the North Korean government is still in place, because they can
punch back. The Kim family learned that lesson from Iraq and Libya, and Syria has just
reinforced it.
I wonder how many Europeans now realize the folly, the sheer stupidity, of supporting or
just passively accepting US and NATO military intervention in the Middle East and North
Africa, and that whatever refugee crisis has hit Europe originates from those wars of
aggression? Probably the same proportion of Americans who realize that American policies in
Latin America help "push" millions of Latin Americans to migrate to the U.S. illegally: too
damn few.
Brad DeLong had the greatest and shortest comment about the Catholic scandals (and the same
for all other churches): "Don't these people believe in God?".
If the media wish to question the transparency and accountability of government, then they
need to be consistent in their efforts regardless of which party is in power. While
certainly, media political bias has always underlain its motivations and guided its
efforts, never has it so openly dominated their entire focus in the relentless pursuit of
one overarching objective. This, in turn, has led it to be viewed as simply an organ of
political propaganda for one particular political party and it is thereby no longer able to
muster the public support required to demand that government, particularly the federal
bureaucracy, be responsive to inquiries into policy development and implementation. It
should then come as no surprise that the mainstream media has become a tool of manipulation
and obfuscation for the government's continued campaign to dominate and figuratively
disenfranchise the will of the People. The only outlier here is the Trump Administration
and its failure to play the game. Once we have gotten past that, one way or another, it
will be back to business as usual.
I strongly suspect that you need to diversify your assortment of media sources.
If you don't recognize that If Trump had his way, all media everywhere would kiss his butt
and lie for him and sing his praises. That is what he demands of his associates and the
GOP, and they do. Just look objectively at Lindsay Graham's conduct in the perspective of
the past 20 years.
As a commenter on National Review posted yesterday. Be good to Trump, and he will be good
too you. Please remind Michael Cohen, Manafort and the other convects who were good to
Trump, and Trump was not so good to them in return.
The mainstream media has been pro-intervention under Democratic and Republican presidents,
and parrots the lies of the State Departments, no matter the party in the White House (see
Venezuela under Bush, Obama and Trump, Honduras under Obama, and Bolivia under Trump).
In economic policy, the mainstream media is relentlessly pro-establishment, liberal
pundits often as much or more so than conservative ones, from teachers unions (until
rank-and-file teachers fought back, and forced a change in the narrative) to privatization
and deregulation.
Social policy is the only area where the mainstream media is truly liberal, because that
hits many journalists where they live, so to speak. And even there, at least until
recently, they usually preach moderation and going slow, as veterans of the civil rights,
feminist and LGBT movements could recount from the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's (and probably
later, too, but I am less in tune with the modern movements).
The Trump ADMINISTRATION plays the game. The fact that its leader is so...Trumpian is
the only reason his administration is an outlier.
The Yamamoto thing is funny, since he was actually against war with the US (he thought,
correctly, that they couldn't win) and only plotted the Pearl Harbor attack when forced to
by his superiors.
The Yamamoto thing is funny, since the US was actually in a declared state of war at the
time of his "targeted killing". What is not funny is a US "press corpse" constitutionally -
sic - unable to ask that simple question right away:
QUESTION: Are you saying the US is officially at war with Iran at this time?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: No.
QUESTION: You said: 'It's shooting down Yamamoto in 1942'. Is that just bullshit?
What's overriding is the huge profits to be made through expanding wars, along with the
policies being crafted for the United States in a highly influential Mideast country with
collusion by Americans whose loyalties are not primarily American.
What rubbish. It wasn't "our leaders" who launched this assassination -- it was *your* hero
in the endless War Against The Deep State. Before that he trashed the JCPOA, which very
much *was* the creation of some of "our leaders", and was a serious, adult attempt to steer
away from the disaster that we're looking at now.
But it's no fun to look at actual history, actual events. It's much more satisfying to
dabble in sweeping, vacuous claims, eh?
The reality, outside your TDS bubble, is that war with Iran is very much a bipartisan
project. You have to realize that the Deep State's neocons largely defected to the
Democrats last election when Trump was the only one who dared criticize the endless
unwinnable wars. There isn't a President since 1988 who didn't start or expand never ending
wars and who didn't lie knowingly about it. There is a small Mideast nation with outsized
influence over policy in this country, with political leaders here who have dual loyalties
or even primary loyalties to it, along with major billionaire donors to both parties. Both
parties removed any restraint on action against Iran in the recent monster military bill
they passed. All are beholden to the war industries which make unimaginable enormous
profits from never ending warfare. So it appears that whatever war is chosen this year to
be the "good war," as with Obama and Hillary about Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, and which
the "bad", that the trajectory of war profits must increase. It was our leader Obama who
extended the use of drones to execution from afar, "extrajudicial killing," creating the
assassination by drone policy no longer considered controversial or immoral, with his "Kill
Tuesday" sessions. Nor did he actually end torture or close Guantanamo.
Nothing conservative about war. Conservatives have lost every war. Big time. Not just
politically but culturally. There were all sorts of stories about women becoming tramps
during WWII. And look how it was used to advance feminism. We would not be in this
degenerate state if not for US involvement in WWII.
War mongers seem to universally believe that they know how the war that they instigate will
unfold. They are in fact delusional. Starting a war is rolling the dice in profoundly
dangerous and wicked ways. The Iraq invasion and occupation is a great example.
George Bush made the 1st roll of the dice at the neo-cons instigation (Only Buchanan
demurred) and then Barack Obama took his turn at the Middle East table. Now President Trump
has the dice.
The legitimate government argument is one that the Trump administration should maybe not
make. After all, it could be argued that he has not been elected in a democratic way, that
he, his family and associates as well as parts of his cabinet have financially profited
from being in power. Moreover, one could very well claim that the US are seeking to
dominate the Middle East.
"The legitimate government argument is one that the Trump administration should maybe not
make. After all, it could be argued that he has not been elected in a democratic way..."
Is the line of argumentation here to be that the election of a president into office by
the electoral college, without having won the popular vote, should be deemed "not
democratic?" Or, is it to be some allegation that the electoral college itself is "not
democratic," and that only direct consultation of the electorate can be considered "truly"
democratic?
The poor vulnerable US forces are not in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya or anywhere else to
help the populations, and are now targets for any Iranian or Iraqi retaliation.
Seventeen intelligence agencies and these guys can't come up with even one shred of
credible evidence in support of these "threats." Gawd help America.
We are, again, denying them the fiction that this is some Westphalian country that has,
like, a conventional defense ministry and a standard president and a foreign minister. It's
a regime with clerical and revolutionary oversight that seeks to dominate the Middle East
and beyond. You've heard me say this is a kleptocratic theocracy.
Ah, of course, you mean like Saudis and Israel, right?
Re PCR's latest linked article (post 133.
What PCR is insisting Putin do ("The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to
announce that Iran is under Russia's protection.")Putin has already done so in a landmark
speech last year when he unveiled five or six game-changing weapons, or was it 2018.
He declared back then to the evil empire that a nuclear attack on an ally would be considered
an attack upon Russia. He made this crystal clear. Of course it wouldn't hurt for him to
'gently' remind them of this.
I do have to say, the silence from the Russians is odd. Even when you read the Russian
Foreign Ministry's news releases.
For instance, there's this on January 4th:
" On January 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Foreign
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the latter's
initiative. " (italics mine).
So Lavrov talked to an Iranian official only on January 4th, and the call came from Iran
(Zarif), not the other way around. This is odd, and even the explicit
mentioning of Zarif initiating the call --to me-- seems odd.
Hmm...
On Monday, as the meeting ended, several ministers transmitted Netanyahu's declaration
distancing Israel from the Soleimani hit.
"The assassination of Soleimani isn't an Israeli event but an American event. We were
not involved and should not be dragged into it," he said, according to Israeli news
outlets.
Netanyahu backs away from Soleimani assassination, warns ministers to ' stay out' of
purely 'American event
.'
Does the word 'backpedaling' ring a bell, Bibi?
You'll reap what you sow, oh grand Master of Conception. I sincerely hope it'll be an
abundant and infinite harvest. And, of course, mazel tov, ol' boy. You're gonna need it by
the bushel
On the previous thread, jared | Jan 6 2020 12:32 utc | 230, posted:
"Iran is already proclaiming it will proceed with unconstrained uranium enrichment - a act
which is both pointless and counter productive."
A huge amount of Iran's nuclear waste from the years of enriching uranium has been used to
create depleted uranium warheads such as the U.S. uses on its Hellfire and other missiles.
These are typically one-ton warheads, about 99% uranium, and ignite on contact (uranium is
pyrophoric -- it burns) and burn at up to 6,000°C. They can penetrate a good thirty
meters of prestressed concrete in less than a second and incinerate everything in the
vicinity.
The (depleted) uranium anti-tank rounds used in the 1991 war against Iraq were five
kilograms (11 pounds) and could zip through two or three tanks. When the Americans went
inside the tanks later on, they found the Iraqis' bodies turned to black dust. Occasionally,
the bodies were intact, in position, but they crumbled to dust when touched. The American
troops called them "crispy critters".
ALL the American military who entered those tanks or worked on them afterward became sick
with all sorts of horrible illnesses triggered by radiation poisoning.
The one ton of uranium in a bunker buster results in one ton of powder, much of it
microscopic. Inhaled, a single microscopic particle of 2.5 microns deposited in an alveol
cavity of the lung contains come 210 billion uranium atoms. Uranium spits out alpha
particles, which don't travel far (an inch at most, usually), but they are the most powerful
force in our universe. That single particle irradiates, permanently, a sphere of up to 350
lung cells.
The military in Iraq were inhaling millions (billions!) of those particles. Those who
haven't died yet are deathly ill.
Israel's anti-missile defenses are not what they are claimed to be. Just a few of those
bunker busters delivered into Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem would contaminate it
permanently.
Israel cannot afford the loss of such territory. (In the United States, the Jefferson
Proving Ground where most of the testing was done, was offered to the National Park Service
as a wild-life refuge to be off limits in order to protect its biodiversity. The offer was
turned down. The site is now off limits, designated a national sacrifice zone...) And Iran
has the missiles with the accuracy necessary to make such hits.
Thus, every suspected Iranian missile storage location must be hit simultaneously. Israel
does not have the means to do that, hence the need to involve in United States in an all-out
colossal attack. This was openly discussed under the George Walker Bush administration until
the National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 pulled the rung out from under the
warmongers by openly declaring that Iran had no nuclear program.
Israel used such missiles on south Lebanon in August 2006, so, they know all about this.
The bombing of south Lebanon stopped the day that the south-north wind reversed direction.
The United Nations Environment Program that investigated the missile craters in south Lebanon
found low enriched uranium, the result of mixing the depleted uranium with the enriched
uranium from decommissioned Soviet missiles removed from Ukraine, in a failed attempt to
restore the original isotopic ratio and make it pass for "natural" uranium that, if
discovered, could then be claimed to have been in the ground and turned up by the
bombing.
The entire assault on mountains and caves of Tora Bora in southeast Afghanistan in
2001-2002 was a bunker buster testing program. Canadian researchers found uranium-induced
radioactivity all over, but they were silenced by death threats and some roughing up.
So, Iran does not need a nuclear arsenal, for it has developed an equally good deterrent
on the cheap. Israel knows this, the various intelligence services know this, some people in
the corporate media know this, but if one mentions it, one is immediately told that there is
"no proof".
"Iran is warning that if there is retaliation for the two waves of attacks they launched
their 3rd wave will destroy Dubai and Haifa," tweeted NBC News Tehran Bureau chief.
https://t.co/ydzIAfEpzk
thanks b.. it is really unfortunate about the loss of those on the plane.. it is a strange
coincidence of timing and a tie in with ukraine is also rather odd...
here is how i look at this.. usa-israel hasn't faked its squeeze on iran which has been
going on for what feels like forever.. usa-israel didn't fake taking out qassem s... the
sanctions on iran continue.. this war on iran will continue.. how could it stop after all
this time? what has changed? nothing has changed in the minds of these sick neo cons..
i share @ James j's comment which i quote here - "The missiles last night is not the
promised retribution ...rather, Iran is keeping focused on the primary goal ...to get the usa
out..." i don't see that it is going to work though...
It seems to me Iran works quite differently then US-Israel... they have provided a warning
so that action last night looked fake and trumps response 'all is well' was fake as he knew
they had been issued an advance warming... but the message is clear.. 'get the fuck
out'..
i also share @ cynica's position in her earlier posts.. the shit here is real.. the world
needs to find a way out of this mess and it won't come from western countries cowtowing to
usa-israels warmonger agenda either...
i don't know what the doofus in command has said today.. it doesn't matter what he says...
usa-israel will not back down.. they want war.. iran responded very diplomatically... i just
don't believe usa-israel are interested in diplomacy, as opposed to war and prep for war.. as
someone said last night - all that money to be made off prep for war, the MIC and etc. etc..
i wish this would end, but i can't see it..
The blowback from Trump's assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani and PMU leader
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis is increasing. A scandal is developing as one consequence of Trump's
evil deed after Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi revealed the gangster methods U.S.
President Trump used in his attempts to steal Iraq's oil. ...and a very good essay by Michael
Hudson as appeared on the Saker blog, a fine compliment to this work being done here by
B.
"The initial Iranian response to the assassination of the martyred commander Soleimani has
happened. Now it is time for the initial response to the assassination of the martyred
commander Muhandis. And because Iraqis are brave and zealous, their response will not be
any less than that of Iran's. That is a promise", al-Khazali was quoted as saying.
I endorse this view from Shedlock: Trump is caught bluffing again-Fortunately. Iran's measured response puts Trump in a no
win Scenario
It is difficult to do perception management in a globalized world. Neither the US nor Iran
want full out war, but politically they have to convince their people that they "win", to
justify the cost (and unite, though Trump seems to be incapable of this). Actually, Iran has
an advantage here, because martyrdom or victory, psychologically they can win either way.
They have demonstrated this by the huge - unifying - funerals. They also don't have this
stupid Hollywood good guy bad guy thing or if you want to go into protestant religious
psychology that god will make the good guys win in this world. It is a huge problem as the
reverse perception is that if someone is successful he must be good.
Fact is that Iran has been the first country since WWII to challenge the US directly and not
via proxy. They were rational to do it in a way that leaves the US an off ramp. By warning
beforehand and not killing anybody (officially, I have my doubts about this Ukrainian plane),
they also have the moral high ground.
They managed to make the US stop the escalation. It is quite impressive.
La base de los Estados Unidos en Ayn al-Assad en Irak, bombardeada anoche por Irán,
es la base donde despegaron los drones que asesinaron a Qassem Soleimani y Abu Mahdi al
Muhandis. Así lo informó el corresponsal de guerra
MT> The US base at Ayn al-Assad in Iraq, bombed last night by Iran, is the base where
the drones that killed Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al Muhandis took off. This was reported
by the war correspondent
I caution Netiyahoo not to crow. His prison time is on the horizon.
China's Global Times has a piece noting Israel gave assistance.
And this editorial: Has the US lost direction in Middle East?
"US national power is on the wane [;/]now considers China as its primary rival and wants
to use its resources from Europe and the Middle East to contain China. If it is so, its
presence in the Middle East will be surely diminished."[./]
After a US drone strike killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, it
was expected that Iran would retaliate. But the way it fought back - launching missiles
against US bases in Iraq - was unexpected. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps carried
out the mission.
Since Iran did not target US soil, the move cannot be viewed as a declaration of war.
Iran did aim at US troops, but the troops are stationed in Iraq. This showed Tehran is well
aware how far it should go and has left some ground. Iran doesn't want a fierce clash or a
war with the US. As Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed on Wednesday morning after
the attack, the country was taking measures in self-defense. "We do not seek escalation or
war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression," he said. [.]
How should the US react, the White House must be deliberating, because what it does next
may directly determine whether Washington and Tehran would reduce tensions or storm into a
war. Currently, it is the lull before the storm.
US military killed Iran's most powerful military commander on Iraq's soil, which is an act
of state terrorism although the US itself does not think so. [.] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1176167.shtml
The U.S. collapse is not one event. It is a slow, slow process and then the $250 trillion
debt pile goes out with a bang.
/div> The reason the Qiam rocket, a derivation of the nazi A4, is built is
that it is cheap and has the capability to be modified such that the "pay-load" comes in very
fast and within 10 meters of zero-zero-zero. It's not an old rocket. But I assume the Persians
used the oldest first. Inventory managements is vital to logistics and ammunition reliability.
The cheap version is 500 meter accurate at range, but the range was not exteem, so probably
< 500
The reason the Qiam rocket, a derivation of the nazi A4, is built is that it is cheap and has
the capability to be modified such that the "pay-load" comes in very fast and within 10
meters of zero-zero-zero. It's not an old rocket. But I assume the Persians used the oldest
first. Inventory managements is vital to logistics and ammunition reliability. The cheap
version is 500 meter accurate at range, but the range was not exteem, so probably < 500
B, great article. You and Elijah Marnier and a few others are my first go to's for
information as to what is going on on the middle east.
One of my favorite reporters out of Syria said the US abandoned Deir Ezzor oil fields
yesterday leaving the SDF there alone and totally open for Russian and Syrian forces to go in
and to secure. If so this attack would have been well worth it. Obviously, I can't verify it
but do trust the source.
Hezbollah is also well within reach of Israhell and can launch ballistic missiles upon it
should the US attack Iran. People tend to forget that this was not just about Soleimani, but
an entire resistance. His death has just made that resistance much stronger and unified.
The US will have to leave. And soon.
walter@45,ghost_ship@47 believe Iran is using "old stocks".
I respectfully disagree. This is Iran's debut in showing off their technical prowess -
they are trying to scare off the US from escalating the conflict.
IMHO they would make sure the US got the message that they pulled their punches and could
have caused *much* more damage if they wanted to. Using older stock would make sense, but
only after you establish your cred - otherwise, you are sending exactly the wrong message,
the US could read the hit as "gosh, 500m is the best you can do?"
Following up on the end of #78, the point is that it seems very unlikely that the air
defenses would be shut down even if the bases were evacuated. In that case, the success of
the attack (however limited its objectives) shows Iran's ability to penetrate US air defenses
and disable or destroy US air-supremacy infrastructure.
@PavewayIV #75
The US will ALWAYS try to spin this against Iran no matter what. Even if we hear the
captain screaming that he can see the engine is tearing itself apart.
Indeed! If there's one thing the US does all the time, it's spin. But especially with last
night's attack, they're starting to resemble the Talosians of Star Trek, whose seemingly
incredible powers were all, well, illusory.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran's early Wednesday
missile attack on US bases in Iraq following the American assassination of a top general
was just "a slap".
"The talk of revenge and such debates are a different issue. For now, a slap was
delivered on their face last night," Ayatollah Khamenei said in remarks broadcast live on
national television Wednesday.
"What is important about confrontation is that the military action as such is not
sufficient. What is important is that the seditious American presence in the region must
end," he said to chants of "Death to America" by an audience in Tehran.
The threats on how to answer on new US attacks have been issued without a date of
expiry.
It all depends now on Trump's reelection strategy: Will he run on bringing the troups home
or will he run on another Middle East war.
„The Qiam missiles Iran launched are a derivative of the Soviet Scud type. They are
liquid fueled with a warhead of about 700 kilogram. They have a range of some 800 kilometer.
Iran has more capable and precise solid fueled missiles it could have used."
According to Fars news agency 2 of the missiles were of type Fateh313 (solid fueled
– 500km range) the rest were a modified version of Ghiyam (multiple warheads - 800km
range).
„No U.S. air or missile defense against the incoming projectiles was observed."
In spite of public and unofficial announcement by Iran about the attack even short time
ahead, Yankee was not able to repel and defend their modern and costy military base.
According to Fars news agency radar jamming technology were used in this attack.
The attack is over, Trump's reaction is published, but still no one is allowed to enter the
military base.
You are missing the point. An airbase is a huge target with mostly empty space. The fact
that the Iranians were able to target and hit specific buildings in it, is a truly
nightmarish scenario. They actually told US that they have the capability to hit whatever
they want. USA can send a drone and kill a general but US has generals too. It is easy to
find where a general's house in Qatar base is for example and hit it with the same accuracy.
How does that general sleeps at night from now on? How can you plan the typical US bombing
campaign, when your enemy has the ability to strike back at you where it hurts?
Magnier..
"#Iran informed #Iraq Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi of its intention to bomb #US military
bases in #Anbar and #Kurdistan before the attack.
Abdel Mahdi warned the Americans who took their precautions before the attack."
If this is true then there really is no hope for the Iraqi's. This is the clown that
writes letters to the US saying US has been naughty and resigned when Trump puts some
pressure on him, leaving Iraq gov parylized..
Iran was proving the reach and accuracy of their armaments, and the inadequacy of the US
Patriot etc. anti-air-attack systems. Trumps Tomahawks fired at Syria either went wrong
guidance-wise, were hacked or were shot down by Russian-made defenses. No comparison, Iran
wins the "rockets that don't kill anyone" competition. Iran also has Russian-made air defense
systems. Cheaper too... LOL!
I expect that the Iraqi gov't administration will quietly try to back-pedal from the
Parliamentary vote to evict the US. Then the various militias will band together (maybe even
Shia/Sunni alliances, the enemy of my enemy style) and keep US/ZATO troops mostly bottled up
in their bases until the US actually withdraws. The Iraq administration will be forced to
bend to the Parliament's and Iraqi peoples' will that the US/ZATO leaves. Pompeo and Trumpty
Dumbdy won't be able to tap dance around this scenario, even in front of the US/ZATO public.
Iran may not have to lift a finger in Iraq, but will find other ways to hurt the US AND ZATO
that don't meet the threshold for US military retaliation.
The US/ZATO deserves to suffer millions of cuts, hopefully one cut for each person
murdered by the US since 9/11.
MAGA Make America Go Away
omid , Jan 8 2020 18:01 utc |
154Piotr Berman , Jan 8 2020 18:01 utc |
155
"Iran misjudged Trump's response/speech, Trump talked about peace and not escalation (he is
lying of course), if Iran keep attacking US from now on, Iran will be framed as the threat
and that Trump have the right to retaliate.
Aslong as no one was killed on the american side apparently Trump see no reason to use
military means, meanwhile Iran is left with no kills which could make them more
desperate."
Posted by: Zanon | Jan 8 2020 17:12 utc | 125
I typical post that misses the point. The goal is to remove all the NATO trash from Syria
and Iraq. That has to be done by Iraqis, of which the bold ones are clobbered with air
strikes and the timid are intimidated. It is utterly pointless how Americans perceive the
situation, and even less germane what is the opinion of the vassals. The audience that
matters is in Iraq.
So what USA did? Dissed Iraqis quite serially, including the murder at the main airport
with no warning to the legal authorities of the place. Iran tries to be as un-American as
possible, so duly notifies Iraqi PM about the strike, an hour in advance, and perhaps follows
the suggestion to warn Americans directly. Giving the proper recognition of the rights of the
allies takes precedence over expedience, even in the moment of extreme pain and grief. Mind
you that Saudi, American or whoever has stooges in Iraq that villify it as a dominator taking
advantage etc., and that was a major theme in recent riots. It seems that one block of
rouble-risers is reconverted to anti-American solidarity, but those people have to be
humored, not taken for granted.
Taking opinions of others seriously even if there is no perfect agreement, especially if
the other party is not Israel, is the profound lack of Americans, and the rest of the West to
to a lesser degree.
The other aspect is how Shia view religious leaders and how those leaders view themselves.
There are rather high standards. This is not an operation under a local commander. Supreme
Leader is personally engaged. Taking proper account of host country prerogatives is also good
regard for Grand Ayatollah Sistani and other Iraqi marjah etc. Contrast with untrustworthy,
arrogant and cowardly infidels has to be maintained.
US have not been asked to leave by the iraqis so how are they supposed to leave?
Especially since they are not going to leave by themselves?
Esper: Iraqi government has not asked US troops to leave
Iraq's government has made no formal request that American forces leave its country,
despite a nonbinding vote Sunday to expel U.S. and other troops after the Pentagon killed a
top Iranian commander in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Tuesday.
Regarding warning the Swiss embassy of the attack. Also very strategic move. If there were
loss of American life due to no warning, it would have been near impossible for Trump to not
counter attack.
Furthermore, the US now thinks their enemy is weak or afraid. I feel kind of disappointed
by you guys who also think that, honestly? Did you see the reaction of the millions who came
to honor Souleimani? Do you really think the Iranian/Iraqi military and population are
wimps?
c'mon! take heart guys!
Iran was definitely involved in organizing, supplying, and even to some extent arming(with
small arms) various Iraqi militias. But the best way we know that it wasn't directly involved
in attacking US patrols, was that so few soldiers died. Iran has no need to improvise
explosive devices, it manufactures landmines on a mass scale which are much more reliable and
orders of magnitude more deadly, and operationally easier to use.
Most of the resistance to the US occupation in the Shia regions of Iraq were in the form
of non violent demonstrations spearheaded by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani(who btw is also
Iranian).
The nonviolent demonstrators were routinely massacred for their trouble, by both the
takfiri resistance and the occupation troops, but eventually succeeded in their demands for a
democratic vote wherein they elected a government that demanded the US leave.
And as Michael Flynn relates in his interview with Mehdi Hassan, once kicked out, the
Obama Administration took steps that they knew would lead to the creation of ISIS in the
region, and fired him as the head of the DIA after he had written them a memo warning them
about this.
Michael Flynn, who btw is rabidly anti Iranian, then became the first victim of the
Russiagaters when Trump was elected into office.
A war with Iran would see it use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, mines and coastal artillery to
shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20% of the world's oil supply. Oil prices would
double, perhaps triple, devastating the global economy. The retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well
as on American military installations in Iraq, would leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead. The Shiites
in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, would see an attack on Iran as a religious war against Shiism.
The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province, the Shiite majority
in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey would turn in fury on us and our
dwindling allies.
There would be an increase in terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of
oil production in the Persian Gulf. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would renew attacks on northern Israel.
War with Iran would trigger a long and widening regional conflict that, by the time it was done, would
terminate the American Empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins. Let us hope for
a miracle to pull us back from this Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
Iran, which has vowed "harsh retaliation," is already reeling under the crippling economic sanctions
imposed by the Trump administration when it unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear arms
deal. Tensions in Iraq between the U.S. and the Shiite majority, at the same time, have been escalating. On
Dec. 27 Katyusha rockets were fired at a military base in Kirkuk where U.S. forces are stationed. An
American civilian contractor was killed and several U.S. military personnel were wounded.
The U.S. responded on Dec. 29 by bombing sites belonging to the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia.
Two days later Iranian-backed militias attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, vandalizing and destroying
parts of the building and causing its closure. But this attack will soon look like child's play.
Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation has been destroyed as a unified country. Its once-modern
infrastructure is in ruins. Electrical and water services are, at best, erratic. There is high unemployment
and discontent over widespread government corruption that has led to bloody street protests. Warring
militias and ethnic factions have carved out competing and antagonistic enclaves. At the same time, the war
in Afghanistan is lost, as the Afghanistan Papers published by The Washington Post detail. Libya is a failed
state. Yemen after five years of unrelenting Saudi airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world's
worst humanitarian disasters. The "moderate" rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million,
after instigating a lawless reign of terror, have been beaten and driven out of the country. The monetary
cost for this military folly, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, is between $5 trillion and
$7 trillion.
So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why
demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other jihadist groups, including
al-Qaida and Islamic State? Why shatter the de facto alliance we have with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why
further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals and politicians who launched and prosecuted these wars are not about to take the blame for
the quagmires they created. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran. The hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed,
including at least 200,000 civilians, and the millions driven from their homes into displacement and refugee
camps cannot, they insist, be the result of our failed and misguided policies. The proliferation of radical
jihadist groups and militias, many of which we initially trained and armed, along with the continued
worldwide terrorist attacks, have to be someone else's fault. The generals, the CIA, the private contractors
and weapons manufacturers who have grown rich off these conflicts, the politicians such as George W. Bush,
Barack Obama and Donald Trump, along with all the "experts" and celebrity pundits who serve as cheerleaders
for endless war, have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that Iran is responsible for our
catastrophe.
The chaos and instability we unleashed in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, left Iran
as the dominant country in the region. Washington empowered its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse its
mistake other than to attack Iran.
A total of 22
missiles have hit two bases housing US
troops in
Iraq
but there were no Iraqi
casualties, according to Iraq's
military.
The online
statement came hours after Iranian
state television said
Iran
had launched missiles at US
targets in the early hours of Wednesday
in retaliation for the
United States
's killing last week
of top military commander
Qassem Soleimani
.
"Between 1:45am
and 2:15am [22:45 GMT and 23:15 GM]
Iraq was hit by 22 missiles, 17 on the
Ain al-Asad airbase and ... five on the
city of Erbil," the Iraqi military
said.
"There were no victims among the
Iraqi forces," it added, without
mentioning whether or not there were
casualties among foreign troops.
Following the strikes, US President
Donald Trump
said on Twitter that
an "assessment of casualties & damages
taking place now".
More than 5,000 US troops remain in
Iraq along with other foreign forces as
part of a coalition that has trained
and backed up Iraqi security forces in
the fight against the Islamic State of
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS)
armed group.
Some 115 German soldiers are
stationed in Erbil and all were fine, a
spokesman for Bundeswehr operations
said.
Denmark, which has about 130
soldiers in Iraq, said no Danish
soldiers were wounded or killed in the
attack on Ain al-Asad, the largest
airbase where US-led coalition troops
are based.
It was the first time Iran directly
hit a US installation with ballistic
missiles.
Soleimani, who headed Iran's Quds
Force, the overseas arm of the elite
Revolutionary Guards Corps, was buried
after the missile attacks, Iranian
state television said.
"His revenge was taken and now he
can rest in peace," it said.
The missiles were launched at the
same time of the day that Soleimani was
killed on Friday near the international
airport in Iraq's capital, Baghdad. He
was buried in the "martyrs section" of
a cemetery in his hometown of Kerman.
Brave but useless, and probably damaging action from Iran. Mullahs became way too exited about this insident.
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi labeled the missile strike that killed Soleimani as a "brazen violation of Iraq's sovereignty
and a blatant attack on the nation's dignity".
At least two airbases housing US troops in Iraq have been hit
by more than a dozen ballistic missiles, according to the US Department of Defence.
Iranian state TV says the attack is a retaliation after the country's top commander Qasem
Soleimani was killed in a drone strike in Baghdad, on the orders of US President Donald Trump.
The Pentagon says at least two sites were attacked, in Irbil and Al Asad.
It is unclear if there have been any casualties.
"We are aware of the reports of attacks on US facilities in Iraq. The president has been briefed
and is monitoring the situation closely and consulting with his national security team," White
House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the attack was in retaliation for the death of Soleimani on
Friday.
"We are warning all American allies, who gave their bases to its terrorist army, that any
territory that is the starting point of aggressive acts against Iran will be targeted," it said via
a statement carried by Iran's state-run IRNA news agency.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif later issued a statement on Twitter, claiming the attack
was self-defence and denied seeking to escalate the situation into war.
Image
Copyright @JZarif
@JZarif
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @JZarif: Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens & senior officials were launched.We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression." src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/JZarif/status/1214736614217469953~/news/world-middle-east-51028954" width="465" height="323"> <span>Image Copyright @JZarif</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@JZarif</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @JZarif">Report</a></div> </figure>
President Trump tweeted shortly afterwards, insisting "all is well", while adding that they had
not yet assessed possible casualties.
Image
Copyright @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump: All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow morning." src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1214739853025394693~/news/world-middle-east-51028954" width="465" height="279"> <span>Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@realDonaldTrump</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump">Report</a></div> </figure>
The attacks took place hours after the burial of Soleimani. The second attack occurred in Irbil
shortly after the first rockets hit Al Asad, Al Mayadeen TV said.
Earlier in the day, President Trump said a US withdrawal of troops from Iraq would be the worst
thing for the country.
The UK foreign office told the BBC: "We are urgently working to establish the facts on the
ground. Our first priority is the security of British personnel."
The assassination of Soleimani on January 3 was a major escalation in already deteriorating
relations between Iran and the US.
The general - who controlled Iran's proxy forces across the Middle East - was regarded as a
terrorist by the US government, which says he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of
American troops and was plotting "imminent" attacks.
The "severe revenge" Iran promised for the death of Qassem Suleimani was heralded on
Wednesday morning by at least two waves of
short-range missile attacks on bases in Iraq hosting US and coalition personnel.
The attacks will provide an opportunity for hawks inside the Donald Trump administration to
ratchet up the conflict with Iran – but also potentially a pathway out of
the crisis.
The Iranian strikes were heavy on symbolism. The missiles were launched around 1.30am in
Iraq , roughly the same
time as the drone strike that killed Suleimani on Friday morning. Top Iranian advisers and
semi-official media outlets tweeted pictures of the country's flag during the attack, mirroring
Donald Trump's tweet as the first reports of Suleimani's death were emerging. The Revolutionary
Guards dubbed the operation "Martyr Suleimani". Videos of the missiles being launched were
released to Iranian media outlets.
ss="rich-link"> Iran attacks two US airbases in Iraq in wake of Suleimani killing
Read more
But in their immediate aftermath, the attacks appear to have been carefully calibrated to
avoid US casualties – fired at bases that were already on high alert.
Iran's foreign minister has said the strikes have concluded and characterised them as
self-defence within the boundaries of international law – not the first shots in a
war.
Trump, in his first comments after the strikes, also sought to play them down.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
All is well! Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq. Assessment
of casualties & damages taking place now. So far, so good! We have the most powerful and
well equipped military anywhere in the world, by far! I will be making a statement tomorrow
morning.
If Trump's assessment of the damage holds, Wednesday's strikes might be an opportunity for
both sides to de-escalate without losing face. Iran will be able to say it took violent revenge
for Suleimani's death and pivot to a campaign of proxy warfare – with which it feels more
comfortable, against a vastly more powerful adversary – and diplomatic pressure to eject
American forces from Iraq.
The US can also step back, shrugging off the retaliation as being of no significant
consequence. That is the best-case scenario, but it rests on two risky premises: that more than
a dozen missiles struck bases hosting US military personnel without substantial
damage or casualties; and that the White House will resist any urge to respond.
Not sure whats true at this point. If Iran is indeed behind the missile attacks they will pay
the price. Hoped they could restrain themselves and make it harder on the US to escalate. But
then again, maybe they felt it was inevitable or militant factions from within demanded a
response. Anyways, lesson being if you commit an act of war don't be surprised there is
retaliation. Pretty sure Trump and Bibi are not unhappy about this since that's probably what
they hoped for.
They're Persians. They are the people that invented war. But you're right, the suits are
delusional. Reality can be a real bitxh when one awakens from a delusion. That's a dangerous
moment, when the suspension of disbelief goes "poof!"
Arab armies aren't very good at conducting warfare.
Iranians aren't Arabs, they are a branch of Indo-European/Aryan, who historically have
been very good at conducting warfare.
----------
This ignores history. For example, in recent decades Italians were much less militarily
minded than their Roman ancestors. Similarly, Danes today are not similar to folks who
conquered half of England 1100 years ago and the whole of England decades later, only to
loose it to Frenchified Danes afterwards.
To provide examples from the Syrian war, 100% Arab Lebanese Hezbollah were reputed to be
most effective, and getting less casualties that other units. By the way of contrast, units
of Afghan volunteers assembled by Iran were so-so. And ISIS was most effective if you count
their numbers, although with a lot of casualties. Syrian themselves had good elite units and
many more mediocre units.
a tweet (so not reliable)
#BREAKING: First video showing a Fateh-110 precision guided ballistic missile of #IRGC
hitting the Ain al-Asad Air Base in #Iraq during Operation #Soleimani of #IRGCASF.#IRGC
sources claim they have destroyed several #USArmy helicopters & drones & have killed
80 #US troops there!
Is expecting Iran to de-escalate realistic?
Iran has a number of possible retaliation options following the US killing of an Iranian
commander.
1h ago
Oh, well, whad'ya think.... In just an hour after this BBC masterpiece shit hit the fan.
--------------
NBC Ali Arouzi claims Iran demands USA not to retaliate, quoting Haifa and Dubai for "3rd
wave".
Delicious if true. "Sand niggas" returning the "sole hyperpower" the favour. Didn't Pompeo or
someone demanded "not to retaliate" just a day or two ago.
But i am not sure we can trust NBC or any other western propaganda office about what Iran did
and dis not say.
Intel would not like loosing Haifa, they already loosing market to AMD last year....
---------
Trump got himself his Pearl Harbor 2.0 and "wartime president" status. Maybe will make him
re-elected.
But also IRGC "pulled the hook". Due to American hubris they now just can not evacuate
USArmy Iraqi garrisons to, say, Kuwait. And would have to infringe upon Iraq sovereignty and
to be sitting ducks there. Wagging the dog.
--------
I still wonder about nukes.
I hope Russia and China would prohibit long-range and medium-range vehicles, citing M.A.D.
concerns and protocols, so USA would be limited to short-range nuclear-wielding weapons.
Which they shouls have much less.
I also hope Trump would get his re-election and stop short of using tactical nukes, but
see no rational reasons for such a restrain for today USA.
--------
There was no news yet, however, about US Navy fleeing away from Iran ASMs range. So
hopefully Pentagon does not see real threat of real war, not yet. And maybe it will still be
contained as one more run of the mill American warlette. Hopefully...
Launching a ballistic missile attack against a US base in al-Anbar is smart from a 'limited
escalation' perspective. It prevents the fight from expanding across the region unless
the United States loses its mind completely and unleashes a full out attack on Iran.
Additionally, targeting American occupation troops in Iraq plays well with ordinary Iraqis
sick of American aggression on their soil and such a strike, as opposed to a targeted
assassination or an attack outside of Iraq, gives Iran's enemies very little propaganda
material to work with. It serves the ball back into the US court and makes Washington 100%
responsible if it escalates this conflict into a regional war. Also, not waiting for weeks or
months before retaliating makes it much more difficult for Israel or a US proxy to launch a
false flag and try to blame it on Iran. Well played.
Well, if it was a limited strike that was designed to look big and make some serious material
damage, and not to kill a lot of US troops, then it's quite possible that Trump - assuming he
doesn't go the heavy retaliation way - can soon, and definitely before elections, be able to
order US to leave Iraq not because they don't want the US there but actually in a magnanimous
act, "to make sure that poor country won't be bombed again by evil Iranians" - arguably with
a mutual understanding with Iran that both will stick to a limited direct influence over
Iraq. But that would be the best-case scenario, where Iran boots the US, the US still got
hit, but no more deaths, cycle of reprisals ends, and Iraq is basically free at last.
I'll see how bad it actually is when I wake up...
I am sure the morning awaits us and our chants and meditations. But the morning also
brings a new sun upon the Saudis and if this process is planned as an extensive revenge (and
I believe it is) then the Saudis can awake expecting it to rain stones for some time.
If this struggle to evict the USA is serious then Iran and its Persian army will
emasculate the key arab pawn over the coming weeks and the Houthis will be given reprieve to
bring them to victory in Yemen. My guess is that this way will give stability and a framework
for peace in the region sufficient to counter the belligerence of the occupier of Palestine
lands.
The region is subject to endless provocations and the 'gift of Golan' to Israel is just
one the more recent grievous affronts that are unlikely to end unless there is a profound
military rebuff to the lunacy of western private finance capital scheming.
The illegal occupation of Syrian oilfields could collapse immediately as well if it has
not already commenced.
Each new day will tell but I will always wish for peace. Thank you your insights and may
you and your wife greet the sun in peace each day.
Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of
UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens &
senior officials were launched.
And so, karlof1 , we shall if the red flag comes down. Perhaps this was enough of a
slap? But they must leave, that remains as an imperative that will smolder unceasingly
now.
If Russia has disallowed the use of nukes, then there's not much the US military can do,
no matter how bloodthirsty the Zionists are. As soon as the US hits Iran, Tel Aviv goes up in
smoke. That's all there is to it. It's been this way for months and months now. The Israeli
and US casualties required for a direct attack on Iran are just too high for Zionists to
stomach. The use of nukes was the only viable play from the beginning (and I realize this is
not really "viable" to any sane person, but Pompeo and Netanyahu are not sane.) If nukes are
out, then the US cannot establish dominance over the skies quickly enough to prevent
thousands upon thousands of Israeli and US casualties. It seems to me that everybody must
know this is true, deep down.
Washington (CNN) The increasingly chaotic
aftermath of the US strike against Iran has left President Donald Trump's team scrambling
to keep up with his unpredictable decisions and inflammatory pronouncements, and suggests
dysfunction at the heart of the nation's critical national security process.
"... It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss. There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western bus. ..."
"... As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to bear the full responsibility. ..."
The New York Times reported yesterday that Trump picked the 'wrong' item from a list of
possible courses of action that the military had presented him. That sounded like bullshit
invented to take blame away from Trump and to put it onto the military.
To me it looks more like the opposite: the Times's Pentagon sources pinning it
on loose cannon Trump's going with the extreme option that the military hadn't intended him
to. But whatever. The U.S. is facing the same harsh new reality regardless.
The Times in London ran with a front page "We Will Kill UK Troops, warns Iran" (
here's the Guardian summary ). Despite initial reports that the UK and EU were distancing
themselves from the assassination, the MSM have clearly been given their orders to begin
banging the drum for war. The scramble for a casus belli reminds me of WMD, so I think a war
of some scope is strongly desired and Boris Johnson has been brought on board. France will
stay out and Germany will look first at Russia's position.
It is clear to me after watching that extraordinary video of
Trump's ignorance and stupidity that he is the idiot piper leading the West into the abyss.
There could be no better epitome of the neoliberal sociopathy that drives our collapsing
phase of late-capitalism. Putin's wet dream: a narcissist half-wit driving the western
bus.
Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an
election year.
During his campaign Trump said he wanted the U.S. military out of the Middle East. Iran
and its allies will help him to keep that promise.
Hasnt Trump proved he is stupid enough by now? How much more evidence is needed to drop
him? Trump start wars to get another election win, I think that is obvious? And allies
keeping him back? Which allieshave even remotely criticized his threats and murder? People
need to realize that there is nothing stopping Trump, he and Israel will keep bombing and
unfortunately its not much Iran could do.
Dan: The guy fought the Talibans and ISIS, and has always been opposed to them; that's good
enough for me, and that's definitely more than any of the coward and treacherous Western
leaders that pussy-foot instead of calling out the US for what tantamounts to a declaration
of war on both Iraq and Iran.
As for trying to put the blame on Pentagon staffers, even if they chose such weird
options for Trump to choose, at the end of the day, it's the President himself who chose - as
another one said decades ago, "the buck stops here" and the guy in the Oval Office has to
bear the full responsibility.
Col. Lang is once again warning that Trump trying to keep the troops in Iraq would be a
terrible mistake with bad consequences, and that it's just not realistic. He probably prefers
not to say it that way when stating it's a long road from Kuwait to Baghdad, but if shit hits
the fan and Iraqis decide to go after the US troops, then those who can't evacuate fast
enough will end up in a position similar to that of the British in Kabul, in the very first
days of 1842.
Aghast at your words, dan. I am an aging homemaker from usa midwest and I have yet to stop
weeping for Qassem Soleimani, his poor widow, and the rest of his family. I feel I owe him a
personal debt for fighting zionists/terrorists/imperialists, for if they are not defeated
once and for all, my captive government will continue in perpetuity to serve their
horridmurderousthieving agenda, enslaving my every descendent and robbing humanity of any
chance for peace on this pretty garden harbor planet. May justice be done to give peace a
chance.
What I wonder is who is the genius in the chain of command who brought this "opportunity" to
Trump's attention and who vetted the decision? Trump made a large error when he surrounded
himself with neocons (Abrahams, Bolton, Pompeo, Haspel, Esper). Anyway it's a tangle and it's
pretty clear he (Trump) is in over his head. When he paniks he talks tough and he's making
threats. It's also no wonder he has not received any support on his decision to murder
Soleimani. From anywhere. Not even Israel is publicly supporting the decision. I think that
surprised him. For 350 years there has been an unwritten rule that you don't go after
generals or ambassadors or visiting politicians unless they are actively engaged in a combat
zone. Remember the outrage when the barbarian Libyans killed a mere station chief? How
outraged we were? Well, Trump overtly and with malice of forethought broke the rule. If I
were the Iranian's and I could get to any U.S. generals or high ranking officials (working or
visiting overseas) that's what I would do. Create animus within his own military and cabinet
departments. Get them at the supermarket, speaking engagements, on vacation, at home,
wherever. Doesn't matter. Wherever you can get them. Shitty thing to do no doubt but he
started it and something the American and other populations would instinctively understand.
Blood for blood retribution. No need to explain it to people.
......." Trump is probably not stupid enough to launch such a war and certainly not during an
election year."
b,
you are assuming that you are dealing with someone with a full deck of cards. If He was
stupid enough to kill a sovereign nation's top general, he will be stupid enough to start a
war. In fact that is his biggest wish. Elections be damned. Maybe the military would put on
the breaks but not this stupid sick man.
Few points: (1) Thanks to Trump, Pompeo and Esper every American soldier everywhere now wears
a bulls eye;
(2) Any soldier -including Americans - might find a great deal to admire in Soliemani, a guy
with a humble background who accomplished an extraordinary track record, a legendary
strategist';
(3) Has the US military's 'faith' in the sanity and competence of the civilian authority
been stretched near to some breaking point?
Pence claimed on twitter that Suleimani assisted the 12 9/11 hijackers, for which
he was instantly ridiculed.
Trump wants billions payback for airbases in Iraq that were already fully transferred upon
American withdrawal in december 2011.
BTW, the trolls are obvious trolls. Could be from Tel Aviv, but perhaps from London, too
(Integrity Initiative) Brits must be banging their heads against the wall over orange utan
dropping a monkey wrench into the gears of the imperial machine that they too depend on. You
bet that they need to spin this hard.
"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of
dollars to build. Long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it,"
Trump said
Paying us back?
Just ask the Iraqis - here is a reminder of what the bitter reality of economic violence
looks like:
The Crimes of Neoliberal Rule in Occupied Iraq
The clearest statement of intent for the future of the Iraqi economy is contained in Order
39, which permitted full foreign ownership of Iraqi state-owned assets and decreed that
over 200 state-owned enterprises, including electricity, telecommunications and the
pharmaceuticals industry, could be dismantled. Order 39 also permitted 100 per cent foreign
ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move their
profits out of Iraq. It has been argued already in the British courts that Order 39
constitutes an act of ILLEGAL OCCUPATION under the terms of the Hague and Geneva treaties :
The effect of Article 55 is to outlaw privatization of a country's assets whilst it is
under occupation by a hostile military power."
The mandate of the CPA was clear: to meet the 'humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people', to
meet the costs of 'reconstruction and repair of Iraq's infrastructure', to meet the costs
of disarmament and the civil administration of the country and other purposes 'benefiting
the people of Iraq'. The terms of UNSCR 1483 are unequivocal in this regard. It was this
resolution that established the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI)
• DFI revenue, was available to the CPA immediately, in the form of $100,000 bundles
of $100 bills, shrink-wrapped in $1.6 million 'cashpaks'. Pallets of cashpaks were flown
into Baghdad direct from the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Some of this cash was
held by the CPA in the basement of its premises in Baghdad Republican Palace. It has been
reported that Paul Bremer controlled a personal slush fund of $600 million (Harriman 2005).
One advantage of the use of cash payments and transfers was that the CPA transactions left
no paper trail and therefore they remained relatively invisible
• The disbursal of Iraqi oil revenue by the CPA also has had profound implications for
the future structure of the Iraqi economy. ..Spending (in excess of $20 billion, partly
based upon projected income) had to be underwritten by US government loans .. (which) has
effectively deepened the debt that was originally accumulated during the period of
UN-enforced sanctions following the 1991 Gulf War (Alexander 2005).
• The right to self-determination and sovereign decision making over economic, social
and cultural development is in international law a principle of jus cogens In this regard,
the CPA clearly acted beyond its remit in terms of both the spirit and the letter of the
international laws of conflict. It is the anti-democratic and pre-emptive nature of
Anglo-American economic restructuring that most clearly demonstrates that the CPA regime
was in violation of international law.
• Similar violations arise from the CPA's governance of Iraqi oil wealth. Article 49
of the Hague rules notes that 'money contributions' levied in the occupied territory 'shall
only be for the needs of the army or of the administration of the territory in question'.
The political strategy was characteristically neo-liberal (evasion of 'red tape' and any
obstacles that might hinder or limit the reallocation of wealth to the growing armies of
private enterprises). This strategy was given momentum by the granting of formal LEGAL
IMMUNITY to US personnel for activities related to the reconstruction economy. On the same
day that the CPA was created by UNSCR 1483, George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13303, 2
The terms of the exemption provide immunity from prosecution for the theft or embezzlement
of oil revenue, or incidentally, from any safety or environmental violations that might be
committed in the course of producing Iraqi oil. Executive Order 13303 is therefore a
guarantee of IMMUNITY from PROSECUTION for white-collar and corporate crimes that involve
Iraqi oil. Two months later, in June 2003, Paul Bremer issued CPA Order 17. Bremer's decree
guaranteed that members of the coalition military forces, the CPA, foreign missions and
contractors -- and their personnel -- would remain immune from the Iraqi legal process.
This carte blanche provision of immunity was extended again in June 2004.
What we are beginning to trace out here is a US government policy of suspending the
normal rule of law in the US and Iraq (so much for respecting Iraqi sovereigntx...)
The three most important things for doing battle are logistics, logistics and logistics, and
as Pat lang explains, the US forces in Syria are essentially fucked:
We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged in
logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are
something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat
forces in Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army
National Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever
devilment the Iranians might be able to arrange.
4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major
airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from
there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country.
It is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through
there. The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.
Unless it reinvades and reoccupies, the United States will be gone from Syria,
probably just after the election in November so Trump can say he stood up to the Iraqis.
"Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters
defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis
would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if
the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act
of war without Congressional authorization.
Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't
believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles
America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the
threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a
Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right
thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture
sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining
light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been
in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will
happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill
and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to
a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us
all.
You've sure got it right with "rapture-mad", and the most frightening thing is that the
religious zealotry of Pompeo, Pence, Mulvaney and Barr, inoculates them against any
criticism, because they believe they are serving a "higher"power and any criticism is a
testimony to their faith. In fact, by turning themselves into martyrs, they get to advance in
line for the Rapture. It seems particularly ironic that Evangelicals who support Israel do so
because they see God's plan unfolding there. The Jews, just happen to be sacrificial lambs in
the grand scheme. so they must must be preserved until the time is ripe for their rightful
annihilation, heralding the Second Coming. So, the problem of Pompeo, et al, is not Iran
destroying Israel, it's just that they've determined the timing is off.
As for the "wag the dog" theory, sure, Trump sees no difference between his personal fortunes
and national interests. But worse, the impeachment rests upon evidence that points to a
personal criminality on an international scale, which is the landscape where we find
ourselves. The president pardons convicts like Gallagher and Arpaio because they are cruel or
bloodthirsty. He admires dictators and ignores the law whenever he can, both as a private
individual and a president, and has obstructed a legal investigation into his corruption.
Now, on the international stage, by bypassing Congress, he is ignoring the sovereignty of the
American people, while incoherently threatening war crimes. Trump is fully blossoming into a
man like those he admires, an unrestrained, unprincipled, heavy hitting international tyrant.
I'm so disgusted with those whose job it is to check this man, and have abdicated their
responsibility, because they want to be like him. Reply 230 Recommend Share
I was at a friend's house on election night ready to celebrate Clinton's victory. When the
networks suddenly announced that Trump had won Florida, a professor of international
relations who was with us ominously predicted, "we are going to war with Iran." And here we
are.
America has become a living nightmare. A global power perceived mostly as benevolent by the
world is now a danger to all, including itself. Already having killed the Paris Agreement,
and Iran Nuclear Treaty, not to mention walking away from a nuclear arms treaty with the
Russians, Trump is now ready to wreak real havoc on the world - start a war. Boy will they
forget about impeachment now!
We haven't authorized the assassination of a military leader since the daring mission to kill
Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in 1943. Although he'd been the architect of the Pearl Harbor
attack, and we were at war with Japan, this was a departure so significant that it only
proceeded after lengthy deliberation. And now, this. Your article fills in precisely how this
was so very much not that. But one party is in so cult-deep into this president now that the
lies won't stop. Thousands of Iranian have lost their lives in the past month trying to rid
themselves of this regime. Not only were those deaths rendered in vain by the assassination
of Suleimani, but the Iranian people are also even more yoked to a government they hate. And
wasn't the idea of grassroots-driven change in regime a core strategy behind pulling out of
the nuclear deal? And it's not okay because Suleimani is "evil." That's both subjective and
never a justification for an assassination of a foreign military leader of a nation we're not
at war with. As I noted, it was questionable when it was a military leader of nation we were
at war with. But, most important, what did we gain from this? Following yet another
disasterous military and foreign policy snap decision it only makes the importance of
removing Trump from office more urgent. Come for the Constitutional crime but convict because
the defendant is also manifestly unfit for the office. People are dying because of it and
more will die if he stays. Reply 186 Recommend Share
What, then, for an effective response? Outrage is mere fuel: what is the engine? A full year
seems too long. The Senate seems hopeless. What does that leave? Must we take to the streets
to stop this disaster of a president? All this time spent wondering how this will end makes
me feel like a victim of domestic abuse. What a waste. 1 Reply 180 Recommend Share
After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment
Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most
important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible
deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in
the Middle East.
We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But
already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to
fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian
objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in
response, only to then claim that it was a
draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining
restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that
Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's
cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify
Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.
The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent
threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American
official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but
"a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were
unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting
Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace"
-- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.
Rather than self-defense, the Suleimani killing seems like the dreadful result of several
intersecting dynamics. There's the influence of rapture-mad Iran hawks like Pompeo and Vice
President Mike Pence. Defense officials who might have stood up to Trump have all left the
administration. According to Peter Bergen's book "Trump and His Generals," James Mattis,
Trump's former secretary of defense, instructed his subordinates not to provide the president
with options for a military showdown with Iran. But with Mattis gone, military officials, The
Times reported, presented Trump with the possibility of killing Suleimani as the "most extreme"
option on a menu of choices, and were "flabbergasted" when he picked it.
Trump likely had mixed motives. He was reportedly upset over TV images of militia supporters
storming the American Embassy in Iraq. According to The Post, he also was frustrated by
"negative coverage" of his decision last year to order and then call off strikes on Iran.
Beyond that, Trump, now impeached and facing trial in the Senate, has laid out his rationale
over years of tweets. The president is a master of projection, and his accusations against
others are a decent guide to howhe
himself will behave . He told us,
over and over again , that he believed Barack Obama would start a war with Iran to "save
face" and because his "poll numbers are in a tailspin" and he needed to "get re-elected." To
Trump, a wag-the-dog war with Iran evidently seemed like a natural move for a president in
trouble.
... ... ...
Even if Iran were to somehow decide not to strike back at the United States, it's still
ramping up its nuclear program, and Trump has obliterated the possibility of a return to
negotiations. "His maximum pressure policy has failed," Nasr said of Trump. "He has only
produced a more dangerous Iran."
... ... ... Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the
author of several books about politics, religion and women's rights, and was part of a team
that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual
harassment issues. @michelleinbklyn
Yes, as long as Neoco hens and Christian Zionists run our foreign policy we're
screwed.
BTW, Mike Pompeo or as I affectionately call him; Lard face, Plump'eo, crazed CZ-zealot fat
boy, etc., is now a legitimate target of the Iranians. May Allah provide justice to the
family of Soleimani. (Grin) And look, I'm wishing 'ill will' on a zealot 'goy' (gentile)
instead of a typical Neo-cohen snake, how ironic. (Another grin) A positve spin:
With the 'incorrect' memo leaked by the Pentagon about an orderly exit from Iraq this can be
the silver lining in all this mess. This assassination might actually accelerate the exiting
of US forces from Iraq and the surrounding quagmires. Who knows, Trump might be a genius.
Again, NO MORE WARS FOR ZION, BDS NOW, ONE STATE SOLUTION-PALESTINE.
And to really stick it to Neo cohens (My apologies to Prof. Steven Cohen ),
Trump-Putin Axis Da!! Destroy the Deep State and the CABAL .
Netanyahu: The killing of Soleimani is a U.S. event, not an Israeli event, and we
should stay out of it.
-- -- -- --
If Netanyahu got cold feet, that would be very naive of him, completely out of character.
No.
My pov re. Israel is that the US-uk and Isr. are in a symbiotic dependency relationship,
with the US as the controlling party.
Pov. bashed by USA stalwarts who love to blame Israel, Zionazis, Jews, the Mossad, etc..
for "bad stuff" that the US does.
The most powerful country in the world is controlled by some evil hateful figures in a
minuscule, depressing postage-stamp outpost (not..) plus and/or by infiltrating US Gvmt./
Media (more realistic..but was allowed, etc.)
Isr. only exists because of the support, international protection, huge stipends, offered
by the Hegemon.
-- -- -- --
No war with Iran. I have said this for years (and hope I continue to be right) see also
Petri at 21, others.
For the USDoS minion who has asked if the world would be a more secure place were Iran to
have nuclear weapons...
Absolutely yes, if Iran would have nuclear weapons right now, all this mamoneo would
end asap. Definitely it will act as the best deterrent, but that will not happen because that
is anti-Islamic and is forbidden by Ayatollah Khamenei.
I for one do not feel safe at all with the US and Israel having nuclear weapons, all
the more when both countries have currently at the helms both mafia bosses of the caliber of
Trump and Netanyahu.
On the contrary, that DPRK have nuclear weapons, as soon as I know very well that is for
deterrence against US bullying, allows me to sleep a pierna suelta...the same for Russia and
China..
"U.S.
Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses" provides numerous methods besides simply
the cessation of dollar use for international commercial transactions. Along with watching
the "Debt Wish 2020" vid linked above, I also suggest reading/watching this program . And lastly, I
suggest reading this analysis
here , although it only tangentially deals with your question.
Trump has from the beginning of his presidential campaign appealed to the worst and most
fascistic elements in American political life. At a time when the US has no credible peer
military rival, he added hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon budget, and the pudgy
old chicken hawk lionized war criminals. Up until now, however, Trump shrewdly calculated that
his base was tired of wasting blood and treasure on fruitless Middle Eastern wars, and he
avoided taking more than symbolic steps. He dropped a big missile on Afghanistan once, and
fired some Tomahawk Cruise missiles at Syria. But he drew back from the brink of more extensive
military engagements.
Now, by murdering Qasem Soleimani , the
head of the Jerusalem (Qods) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Trump has
brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. Mind you, Iran's leadership is too
shrewd to rush to the battlements at this moment, and will be prepared to play the long game.
My guess is that they will encourage their allies among Iraqi Shiites to get up a massive
protest at the US embassy and at bases housing US troops.
They will be aided in this task of mobilizing Iraqis by the simultaneous US assassination of
Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis , the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. Al-Muhandis is a senior
military figure in the Iraqi armed forces, not just a civilian militia figure. Moreover, the
Kata'ib Hizbullah that he headed is part of a strong political bloc, al-Fath, which has
48 members in parliament and forms a key coalition partner for the current, caretaker prime
minister, Adil Abdulmahdi. Parliament won't easily be able to let this outrage pass.
The US officer corps is confident that the American troops at the embassy and elsewhere in
Baghdad are sufficient to fight off any militia invasion. I'm not sure they have taken into
account the possibility of tens of thousands of civilian protesters invading the
embassy, who can't simply be taken out and shot.
Trump may be counting on the unpopularity among the youth protesters in downtown Baghdad,
Basra, Nasiriya and other cities of Soleimani and of al-Muhandis to blunt the Iraqi reaction to
the murders. The thousands of youth protesters cheered on hearing the news of their deaths,
since they were accused of plotting a violent repression of the rallies demanding an end to
corruption.
Iraq, however, is a big, complex society, and there are enormous numbers of Iraqi Shiites
who support the Popular Mobilization Forces and who view them as the forces that saved Iraq
from the peril of the ISIL (ISIS) terrorist organization. The Shiite hard liners would not need
all Iraqis to back them in confronting the American presence, only a few hundred thousand for
direct crowd action.
You also have to wonder whether Trump and his coterie aren't planning a coup in Iraq. In the
absence of a coup, the Iraqi parliament will almost certainly be forced, after this violation
of Iraqi national sovereignty, to vote to expel American troops. This is foreseeable. So either
the assassination was a drive-by on the way out, or Trump's war cabinet doesn't plan on having
to leave Iraq.
Although Trump justified the murder of Soleimani by calling him a terrorist, that is
nonsense in the terms of international law. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is the
equivalent of the US National Guard. What Trump did is the equivalent of some foreign country
declaring the US military a terrorist organization (some have) and then assassinating General
Joseph L. Lengyel, the 28th Chief of the National Guard Bureau (God forbid and may he have a
long healthy life).
Just a few years ago, CNN was praising Qassem #Soleimani for being
the driving force behind the defeat of ISIS. Today they call him a "terrorist" and expect
you to believe them.
Yesterday,
Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel foreign troops from the country during an emergency
parliamentary session. Interim Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul Mahdi, stressed during the
session, that while the US government notified the Iraqi military of the planned strike on
Soleimani, his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
In a meeting Monday, Mahdi, a caretaker prime minister who said in November he would resign,
told US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller that the US and Iraq needed to cooperate "to implement
the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi parliament,"
according to a statement from the PM's office that was cited by
the Washington Post .
Though the Iraq war 'officially' ended in 2011, thousands of coalition troops stuck around.
Their numbers increased following the rise of ISIS in the region.
Ending the US troop presence in Iraq has been a longtime goal of non-interventionists like
Ron Paul and his son, Rand.
That said, even without troops in Iraq, the US will still have plenty of capacity to bully
Iran, and other other regional powers.
Finally, in a scenario such as this, chaos is the starring player across the entire region.
The strike on Soleimani makes even more fraught the position of U.S. troops in Iraq, where the
parliament has now voted in favor of a non-binding resolution for the eviction of U.S. forces.
The loss of U.S. presence in Iraq would strengthen Iran's hand there and compound the damage to
our fight against the Islamic State from our abandonment of Kurdish partners last fall. While
the Islamic State has been pushed out of much of the territory it once held, it has melted back
into the population and seeks to capitalize on ungoverned space with insurgent attacks.
Ungoverned space was oxygen for the Islamic State's rise in 2014. Whatever else Soleimani's
death means, it is sure to add to chaos within Iraq and Syria, and that benefits the Islamic
State.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4777
Fragmentation In 'The Axis Of Resistance' Led To Soleimani's Death
by
Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/06/2020 - 20:45
0
SHARES
It was not the US decision to fire missiles against the IRGC commander Brigadier General
Qassem Soleimani that killed the Iranian officer and his companions in Baghdad.
Yes, of
course, the order that was given to launch missiles from the two drones (which destroyed the two cars
carrying Sardar Soleimani and his companion the Iraqi commander in al-Hashd al-Shaabi Jamal Jaafar
Al-Tamimi aka Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes and burned their bodies in the vehicle) came from US command and
control.
However, the reason President Donald Trump made this decision derives from the weakness of
the "axis of resistance", which has completely retreated from the level of performance that Iran
believed it was capable of
after decades of work to strengthen this "axis".
A close companion of Major General Qassim Soleimani, to whom he spoke hours before boarding the
plane that took him from Damascus to Baghdad, told me:
"The nobleman died. Palestine above all has lost Hajj Qassem (Soleimani).
He was the
"King" of the Axis of the Resistance and its leader.
He was assassinated and this is
exactly what he was hoping to reach in this life (Martyrdom). However, this axis will live and will
not die.
No doubt, the Axis of the Resistance needs to review its policy and regenerate
itself to correct its path.
This was what Hajj Qassim was complaining about and planning
to work on and strategizing about in his last hours."
The US struck Iran at the heart of its pride by killing Major General Soleimani. But
the
"axis of the Resistance" killed him before that. This is how:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assassinated the deputy head of the Military Council
(the highest authority in the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is headed by its Secretary-General, Hassan
Nasrallah), Hajj
Imad Mughniyah
in Damascus, Syria, Hezbollah could not avenge him
until today.
When Trump gave Netanyahu
Jerusalem
as the "capital of Israel", the "Axis of the
Resistance" did not move except by holding television symposia and conferences verbally rejecting the
decision.
When President Trump offered the occupied Syrian
Golan Heights
to Israel and the
"Axis of Resistance" did not react, the US President Donald Trump and his team understood that they
were opposed by no effective deterrent. The inaction of the Resistance axis emboldened Trump to do
what he wants.
And when Israel bombed
hundreds of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria
, the "Axis
of the Resistance" justified its lack of retaliation by the typical sentence: "We do not want to be
dragged along by the timing of the engagement imposed by the enemy," as a senior official in this axis
told me.
In Iraq shortly before his death, Major General Soleimani was complaining about
the
weakening of the Iraqi ranks
within this "Axis of the Resistance", represented by the
Al-Bina' (Construction) Alliance and other groups close to this alliance like Al-Hikma of Ammar
al-Hakim and Haidar al-Abadi, formerly close to Iran, that have gone over to the US side.
In Iraq, Major General Soleimani was very patient and never lost his temper. He was trying to
reconcile the Iraqis, both his allies and those who had chosen the US camp and disagreed with him. He
used to hug those who shouted at him to lower tensions and continue dialogue to avoid spoiling the
meeting. Anyone who raised his voice during discussions soon found that it was Soleimani who calmed
everyone down.
Hajj Qassem Soleimani was unable to reach a consensus on the new Prime Minister's name among those
he deemed to be allies in the same coalition. He asked Iraqi leaders to select the names and went
through all of these asking questions about the acceptability of these names to the political groups,
to the Marjaiya, to protestors in the street and whether the suggested names were not provocative or
challenging to the US.
Notwithstanding the animosity between Iran and the US, Soleimani
encouraged the selection of a personality that would not be boycotted by the US. Soleimani believed
the US capable of damaging Iraq and understood the importance of maintaining a good relationship with
the US for the stability of the country.
Soleimani was shocked by the dissension among Iraqi Shia and believed that the "axis of resistance"
needed a new vision as it was faltering. In the final hours before his death, Major General Soleimani
was ruminating on the profound antagonisms between Iraqis of the same camp.
When the Iraqi street began to move against the government, the line rejecting American hegemony
was fragmented because it was part of the authority that ruled and governed Iraq. To make matters
worse, Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr directed his arrows against his partners in government, as though the
street demonstrations did not target him, the politician controlling the largest number of Iraqi
deputies, ministers and state officials, who had participated in the government for more than ten
years.
Major General Soleimani admonished Moqtada Al-Sadr for his stances, which contributed to
undermining the Iraqi ranks because the Sadrist leader did not offer an alternative solution or
practical project other than the chaos. Moqtada has his own men, the feared Saraya al-Salam, present
in the street.
When US Defense Secretary Mark Esper called Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi on December 28
and informed him of America's intentions of hitting Iraqi security targets inside Iraq, including the
PMU, Soleimani was very disappointed by Abdul-Mahdi's failure to effectively oppose Esper. Abdul-Mahdi
merely told Esper that the proposed US action was dangerous. Soleimani knew that the US would not have
hit Iraqi targets had Abdul-Mahdi dared to oppose the US decision.
The targeted areas were a
common Iranian-Iraqi operational stage to monitor and control ISIS movements on the borders with Syria
and Iraq.
The US would have reversed its decision had the Iraqi Prime Minister threatened the
US with retaliation in the event that Iraqi forces were bombed and killed. After all, the US had no
legal right to attack any objective in Iraq without the agreement of the Iraqi government.
This
decision was the moment when Iraq has lost its sovereignty and the US took control of the country.
This effective US control is another reason why President Trump gave the green light to kill Major
General Soleimani. The Iraqi front had demonstrated its weakness and also, it was necessary to select
a strong Iraqi leader with the guts to stand to the US arrogance and unlawful actions.
Iran has never controlled Iraq, as most analysts mistakenly believe and speculate. For years, the
US has worked hard in the corridors of the Iraqi political leadership lobby for its own interests. The
most energetic of its agents was US Presidential envoy Brett McGurk, who clearly realised the
difficulties of navigating inside Iraqi leaders' corridors during the search for a prime minister of
Iraq before the appointment of Adel Abdel Mahdi, the selection of President Barham Saleh and other
governments in the past. Major General Soleimani and McGurk shared an understanding of these
difficulties. Both understood the nature of the Iraqi political quagmire.
Soleimani did not give orders to fire missiles at US bases or attack the US Embassy. If it was in
his hands to destroy them with accurate missiles and to remove the entire embassy from its place
without repercussions, he would not have hesitated. But the Iraqis have their own opinions, methods,
modus operandi and selection of targets and missile calibres; they never relied on Soleimani for such
decisions.
Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs was never welcomed by the Marjaiya in Najaf, even if it agreed
to receive Soleimani on a few occasions. They clashed over the reelection of Nuri al-Maliki,
Soleimani's preferred candidate, to the point that the Marjaiya wrote a letter making its refusal of
al-Maliki explicit. This led to the selection of Abadi as prime minister.
Soleimani's views contradicted the perception of the Marjaiya, that had to write a clear message,
firstly, to reject the re-election of Nori al-Maliki to a third session, despite Soleimani's
insistence.
All of the above is related to the stage that followed the 2011 departure of US forces from Iraq
under President Obama. Prior to that, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis was the link between the Iraqis and Iran:
he had the decision-making power, the vision, the support of various groups, and effectively served as
the representative of Soleimani, who did not interfere in the details. These Iraqi groups met with
Soleimani often in Iran; Soleimani rarely travelled to Iraq during the period of heavy US military
presence.
Soleimani, although he was the leader of the "Axis of the Resistance", was sometimes called "the
king" in some circles because his name evokes Solomon. According to sources within the "Axis of the
Resistance", he "never dictated his own policy but left a margin of movement and decision to all
leaders of the axis without exception. Therefore, he was considered the link between this axis and the
supreme leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei. Soleimani was able to contact Sayyed Khamenei at any time and
directly without mediation. The Leader of the revolution considered Soleimani as his son.
According to sources, in Syria, Soleimani "never hesitated to jump inside a truck, ride an ordinary
car, take the first helicopter, or travel on a transport or cargo plane as needed. He did not take any
security precautions but used his phone (which he called a companion spy) freely because he believed
that when the decision came to assassinate him, he would follow his destiny. He looked forward to
becoming a martyr because he had already lived long."
Was the leader of the "resistance axis" managing and running it?
Sayyed Ali Khamenei told Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: "You are an Arab and the Arabs accept you more
than they accept Iran". Sayyed Nasrallah directed and managed the axis of Lebanon, Syria and Yemen and
had an important role in Iraq. Hajj Soleimani was the liaison between the axis of the resistance and
Iran and he was the financial and logistical officer. According to my source, "He was a friend of all
leaders and officials of all ranks. He was humble and looked after everyone he had to deal with".
The "Axis of Resistance" indirectly allowed the killing of Qassem Soleimani. If Israel and the US
could know Sayyed Nasrallah's whereabouts, they would not hesitate a moment to assassinate him. They
may be aware: the reaction may be limited to burning flags and holding conferences and manifesting in
front of an embassy. Of course, this kind of reaction does not deter President Trump who wants to be
re-elected with the support of Israel and US public opinion. He wants to present himself as a warrior
and determined leader who loves battle and killing.
Iran invested 40 years building the "Axis of the Resistance". It cannot remain idle, faced
with the assassination of the Leader of this axis.
Would a suitable price be the US exit from
Iraq and condemnation in the Security Council? Would that, together with withdrawal from the nuclear
deal, be enough for Iran to avenge its General? Will the ensuing battle be confined to the Iraqi
stage? Will it be used for the victory of certain Iraqi political players?
The assassination of its leader represents the supreme test for the Axis of Resistance. All
sides, friend and foe, are awaiting its response.
Tags
Politics
gjohnsit on Mon,
01/06/2020 - 6:14pm Just a few days ago SoS Mike Pompeo said that we assassinated General Soleimani
to stop an 'imminent attack' on Americans.
No evidence was presented to back up this claim. We are just supposed to believe it.
It turns out that
Pompeo and VP Pence had pushed Trump hard to do this assassination.
Is Trump yet ruing the day he lent his ear to the siren songs of the Iran-obsessed neocons?
One can almost imagine the president, sitting in the makeshift situation room at Mar-a-Lago
just a few days ago surrounded with the likes of Sen. Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence,
Defense Secretary Esper, and his Pentagon advisors who breathlessly present him an
"opportunity" to kick the Iranian leadership in the face and also dismantle an operation in the
works to attack US military and civilian personnel in the region.
All he had to do was sign off on the assassination of Gen. Qassim Soleimani, a man he likely
had never heard of a couple of years ago but who, he was told, was "responsible for killing
hundreds of Americans" in Iraq.
"Soleimani did 9/11!" - Pence helpfully yet insanely chimed in.
"You're not a wimp like Obama, who refused to assassinate this terrorist," he was probably
told. "You're decisive, a real leader. This one blow will change the entire calculus of the
Middle East," they likely told him. "If you take out Soleimani, I guarantee you that it will
have enormous positive reverberations on the region."
(Actually, that last one was from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to
Congress in 2002 where he promised the US that "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I
guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region." Brilliant
forecasting, Bibi.)
As could be expected, the cover story cooked up by the neocons and signed off on by Trump
started taking water the moment it was put to sea.
Soleimani was not traveling like a man plotting a complicated, multi-country assault on US
troops in the region. No false mustaches or James Bond maneuvers - he was flying commercial and
openly disembarked at the terminal of Baghdad International Airport. He was publicly met and
greeted by an Iraqi delegation and traveled relatively unguarded from the airport.
Until a US drone vaporized him and his entire entourage - which included a senior Iraqi
military officer.
The furious Iraqi acting-Prime Minister Mahdi immediately condemned the attack in the
strongest terms, openly calling for the expulsion of the US forces - who remain in Iraq
ostensibly to fight an ISIS that has long been defeated but, de facto , to keep the
beachhead clear for a US attack on Iran.
Arguing for the expulsion of the US in a special parliamentary session held on January 5th,
Mahdi spilled the truth about Soleimani's mission in Iraq: It was not to plot the killing of US
troops: it was to deliver a response from Iran to a peace overture from the Saudis, the result
of talks that were being facilitated by Iraq.
And the US side knew about the mission and had, according to press reports, encouraged Iraq
to facilitate the Iran/Saudi talks.
Did the US neocons and Pentagon warhawks like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen.
Mike Milley knowingly exploit what they anticipated would be relatively lax security for a
peace mission between Iran and Saudi Arabia to assassinate Gen. Soleimani (with collateral
damage being Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq's Popular Mobilization
Units)?
And, to drill a little deeper, which US "allies" would want to blow up any chance of peace
between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Factions within Saudi Arabia, where a fierce power struggle
rages below the surface? No doubt. In Israel, where Netanyahu continues fighting for his
political life (and freedom) with his entire political career built around mayhem and
destruction? Sure. It's not like Trump has ever been able to say "no" to the endless demands of
either Bibi or his Saudi counterpart in crime MBS.
Who knows, maybe Trump knew all along and was in on it. Make war on a peace mission.
Whatever the case, as always happens the neocons have steered things completely off the
rails. The cover story is in tatters, and the Iraqi democracy - for which we've been ostensibly
fighting for 16 years with a loss of US life in the thousands and of Iraqi life in the millions
- voted on Sunday that US forces must leave Iraq.
We destroyed Iraq to "give them democracy," but they had the nerve to exercise that
democracy to ask us to leave!
Iran could not believe its luck in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when it
soon became clear that Iraq would fall into their hands. Likewise, it appears that the
longstanding fervent wish of the Iranian leadership - the end of the US occupation of Iraq (and
Syria) - will soon be fulfilled thanks to Trump's listening to the always toxic advice of the
neocon warmongers.
Can Trump recover from this near-fatal mistake? It is possible. But with Trump's Twitter
finger threatening Iraq with "big big" sanctions and an even bigger bill to cover the cost of
our invasion and destruction of their country, it appears that his ability to learn from his
mistakes is limited. A bit less time on Twitter and a lot less time with the people who hate
his guts - Pompeo, Pence, Graham, etc. - might help.
Meanwhile...will Iran avenge Soleimani's murder directly, or using asymmetrical means?
Trump said of his decision to assassinate a top official from a country with which we are
not technically at war, "We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to
start a war." But it doesn't work that way. When you kill another country's top military
leadership you have definitely started a war.
What remains to be seen is how it will play out.
Sincerely yours,
Daniel McAdams
Executive Director
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
I agree with the first part. Disproportionate and barbarous threat of instant retaliation is
prt of terrorising and unsettling and even freezing the capacity to 'think'.
All thinking proceeds from presumptions, and one of the ways 'power' works deceit is in the
ability to set it up so that the 'controlled' or 'leveraged' believe that their thinking is
free while setting the fame of their perceived self-interest.
I just watched Corbett and Ryan Cristián of The Last American Vagabond on this issue,
that touches on a little of the military political context – a key part of which is the
'Israeli' agenda – and its style of 'politics' by pre-emptive strike under aggressively
defended narrative assertion.
As for what the US(a) CAN execute as all-out war is linked to the will to do so –
along with the costs or consequences of doing so. Meanwhile broad spectrum dominance operates
transnationally by stealth and deceit. The US(a) is wagged by its Corporate tails.
A significant part of masking tyranny under terror is the aggressively defended protection
racket. For some this means believing the narrative they are given and for others it means they
have to be seen to comply and conform to signal 'virtue' of allegiance under an enforced
narrative dictate or lose their jobs, and reputation and incur penalties of social exclusion
for the rest of their lives.
The act of state-endorsed murder without trial or evidences – that also kills others
in the vicinity – aimed anywhere in the world – based in classified 'intelligence'
that is without any oversight, accountability or challenge – is seeking to be as 'gods
over men' – indeed a 'god' jealous of any and all rival as monopoly over life on earth
– such as will survive under such a parasitic and destructive deceit. 7 0 Reply
Soleimani was not feared by U.S. (and Israeli and Saudi) policymakers because primarily he
was a terrorist (though he sometimes used terror tactics) but mostly because he successful.
According to journalist Yossi Mellman, Israeli intelligence assessed him as "a
daring and talented commander , despite the considerable number of mistakes in his
assessments and failed operations in the course of his career."
First, Soleimani played a key role in driving U.S. occupation forces out of Iraq. As Al-Quds
commander he presided over the creation of anti-American militias in 2003 that mounted deadly
attacks on the U.S. forces seeking to establish a pro-American government. One Iraqi militia
leader, Qais
al-Khazali , who debriefed U.S. intelligence officers in 2008, said he had "a few meetings"
with Soleimani and other Iranian officials of similar rank.
According to Khazali, Soleimani did not take part in the operational
activities–providing weapons, training or cash. He left those tasks to deputies or
intermediaries. Under Iranian tutelage, these militias specialized in using improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) to kill upwards of
600 soldiers in the U.S. occupation forces, according to general David Petraeus.
Soleimani's attacks–along with the manifest failure of U.S. goals to reduce terrorism
and spread democracy–contributed to President Obama's politically popular decision to
withdraw of most U.S. troops in 2011. Forcing the U.S. out of Iraq was a priority for the
government in Tehran, and Soleimani helped achieve it.
Nemesis of ISIS
Second, Soleimani played a key role in driving ISIS out of Iraq–a victory in which the
United States ironically helped boost his reputation.
In this battle, Soleimani took advantage of U.S. vulnerability, not hubris. When ISIS leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed an Islamic State in western Iraq six years ago, Tehran was just
as alarmed as Washington. The Sunni fundamentalists of ISIS regard the Shia Muslims of Iran and
Iraq as infidels, almost as contemptible as Americans and Israelis.
After the regular Iraqi armed forces collapsed, Iraqi Ayotollah Ali Sistani blessed the
creation of Shia militias to save the country.
Sistani's fatwa empowered Iran to mobilize and expanded Soleimani's militia network. The
Iranian-sponsored fighters, along with the Kurdish pesh merga, proceeded to do most of the
bloody street fighting that drove ISIS out of Mosul, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities.
As Soleimani moved about openly in Iraq, U.S. commanders did not attack him because he did
not attack them. Sometimes, pro-American and pro-Iranian soldiers even fought side by
side. Thanks to this tacit U.S.-Iranian cooperation that neither country cared to publicly
acknowledge, ISIS was expelled from Iraq into Syria by 2017.
In Iran, Soleimani emerged as a hero in the fight against the deadliest religious fanatics
on the planet, especially after ISIS had carried out a terror attack in Tehran on June 2017
that killed
12 people.
In Iraq, the rout of ISIS enhanced the prestige of Soleimani and the Iranian-backed
militias. Some of their leaders entered politics and business, drawing complaints
about–and
demonstrations against -- heavy-handed Iranian influence. Many Iraqis grew unhappy about
Iran's new influence, but success made Soleimani an indispensable security partner for the
embattled government in Baghdad. That's why he visited Iraq last week.
Besting the CIA
Third, Soleimani helped defeat ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Syria's civil war. In 2015, President
Bashar al-Assad's armed forces were losing ground to Sunni fundamentalist forces funded by the
CIA and the Persian Gulf oil monarchies. The CIA wanted to overthrow Assad. Iran feared losing
its ally in Damascus to a hostile anti-Shia regime controlled by al-Qaeda. Obama feared another
Iraq and refused to commit U.S. forces.
Soleimani brought in Iranian advisers and fighters from Hezbollah, the Shia militia of
Lebanon which Iran has supported since the 1980s. With help from merciless Russian bombing and
Syrian chemical attacks , the Iranian-trained ground forces helped Syria turn the tide on
the jihadists. The CIA, under directors Leon Panetta, John Brennan and Mike Pompeo, spent
$1
billion dollars to overthrow Assad. They had less influence on the outcome than
Soleimani.
The net effect of Soleimani's three victories -- abetted by U.S. crimes and blunders -- was,
for better or worse, to bolster Iranian influence across the region. From Afghanistan in the
east to the Mediterranean in the West, Iran gained political ground, thanks to Soleimani. He
perfected the art of asymmetric warfare, using local proxies, political alliances, deniable
attacks, and selective terrorism to achieve the government's political goals.
(Soleimani, it is worth noting, had no record of attacking non-uniformed Americans. While
Pompeo said that Soleimani "had inflicted so much suffering on Americans," it is a fact that
not a single
American civilian was killed in an Iranian-backed terror attack between 2001 to 2019.)
Iran's cumulative successes provoked dismay Washington (and Tel Aviv and Riyadh). In the
course of the 21st century, Iran overcome international isolation and to actually gain, not
lose, advantage to its regional rivals. He also became a media personality in the regime using
selfies from the battlefield to promote an image of an accessible general who liked to rub
shoulders with his men.
Along the way, Iran maintained a terrible record on human rights at home, persecuting
journalists, bloggers, and women who spurn the hijab. Iran's
Ministry of Intelligence and Security didn't kill Americans but it did take a number of
hostages, including
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian . Across the region, Iran's ambitions stirred up
widespread opposition from secular, feminist, and nationalist movements that reject the theory
and practice of Iranian theocracy.
These non-violent movements, however, never advocated that the United States attack their
country. They are not welcoming Soleimani's death, and they are unlikely to support the U.S.
(or Israeli) attacks in the coming conflict. Quite the contrary. The anti-Iranian
demonstrations in Iran and Iraq are over for the foreseeable future. Iranians and Iraqis who
publicly supported the United States and opposed the mullahs, have been silenced. In death as
in life, Soleimani had diminished the U.S. influence in the Middle East.
This article first appeared on Jefferson Morley's TheDeepStateBlog .
"... Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. ..."
"... As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example: ..."
"... Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr. ..."
"... Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was. ..."
Before discussing what happens next and the big picture implications, it's worth pointing
out the incredible number of blatant lies and overall clownishness that emerged from U.S.
officials in the assassination's aftermath. It started with
claims from Trump that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans and was caught
in the act. Mass media did its job and uncritically parroted this line, which was quickly
exposed as a complete falsehood.
CNN anchor uncritically repeating government lies.
This is what mass media does to get wars going. https://t.co/QK1JET7TIj
It's incredibly telling that CNN would swallow this fact-free claim with total credulity
within weeks of discovering the extent of the lies told about
Syrian chemical attacks and
the Afghanistan war . Meanwhile, when a reporter asked a state department official for some
clarification on what sorts of attacks were imminent, this is what transpired.
When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was
planning, the State Dept. responds with:
"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"
Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as
part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to
Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth
get in the way of a good story.
Iraqi Prime Minister AbdulMahdi accuses Trump of deceiving him in order to assassinate
Suleimani. Trump, according to P.M. lied about wanting a diplomatic solution in order to get
Suleimani on a plane to Baghdad in the open, where he was summarily executed. https://t.co/HKjyQqXNqP
As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who
genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example:
Pompeo on CNN says US has "every expectation" that people "in Iran will view the American
action last night as giving them freedom."
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani's daughter Zeinab were
among the hundreds of thousands mourning Soleimani in Tehran today. Iranian state TV put the
crowd size at 'millions,' though that number could not be verified. https://t.co/R6EbKh6Gow
Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future
role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important
things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a
resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and
actions of Muqtada al-Sadr.
WOW,
Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr orders the return of "Mahdi Army" in response the
American strike that killed Suleimani.
Mahdi Army fought against the US troops during the invasion in 2003. Sadr disbanded the
group in 2008.
Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been
a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either
country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him
to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more
dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was.
Going forward, Iran's response will be influenced to a great degree by what's already
transpired. There are three things worth noting. First, although many Trump supporters are
cheering the assassination, Americans are certainly
nowhere near united on this , with many including myself viewing it as a gigantic strategic
blunder. Second, it ratcheted up anti-American sentiment in Iraq to a huge degree without Iran
having to do anything, as highlighted above. Third, hardliners within Iran have been given an
enormous gift. With one drone strike, the situation went from grumblings and protests on the
ground to a scene where any sort of dissent in the air has been extinguished for the time
being.
Exactly right, which is why Iran will go more hardline if anything and more united.
If China admitted to taking out Trump even Maddow wouldn't cheer. https://t.co/zqaEDIoWH1
Iranian leadership will see these developments as important victories in their own right and
will likely craft a response taking stock of this much improved position. This means a total
focus on making the experience of American troops in the region untenable, which will be far
easier to achieve now.
If that's right, you can expect less shock and awe in the near-term, and more consolidation
of the various parties that were on the fence but have since shifted to a more anti-American
stance following Soleimani's death. Iran will start with the easy pickings, which consists of
consolidating its stronger position in Iraq and making dissidents feel shameful at home. That
said, Iran will have to publicly respond with some sort of a counterattack, but that event will
be carefully considered with Iran's primary objective in mind -- getting U.S. troops out of the
region.
This means no attacks on U.S. or European soil, and no attacks targeting civilians either.
Such a move would be as strategically counterproductive as Assad gassing Syrian cities after he
was winning the war (which is why many of us doubted the narrative) since it would merely
inflame American public opinion and give an excuse to attack Iran in Iran. There is no way
Iranian leadership is that stupid, so any such attack must be treated with the utmost
skepticism.
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has offered Iraq Tuesday the option to
purchase the world's most advanced missile defense system to protect its airspace, reported
RIA Novosti .
According to the report, the Iraqi Armed Forces could purchase the Russian S-400 Triumf air
defense system, which RIA points out, can "ensure the country's sovereignty and reliable
airspace protection."
"Iraq is a partner of Russia in the field of military-technical cooperation, and the Russian
Federation can supply the necessary funds to ensure the sovereignty of the country and reliable
protection of airspace, including the supply of S-400 missiles and other components of the air
defense system, such as Buk-M3, Tor -M2 "and so on," said Igor Korotchenko, Russian Defense
Ministry's Public Council member.
For the last several months, Iraq has considered purchasing Russian air defense and missile
systems, including the S-400, however, it has been met with fierce pressure from the US.
But with a political crisis between the US and Iraq underway, thanks partly to the US
assassination of Iran's Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Russia could profit as Iraq attempts to
decouple from the US.
Wow! I just suggested it yesterday! 😀 After Iraq kicks the US out, it would need
protection from American/Israeli warplanes. And Russian S-400 can do the job https://t.co/KCz3v705l1
Russia signaling Iraq to continue pushing out foreign troops from their territory with
less fear they gonna be targeted just like exemplified Sulemani when they took out like that
since Iraq can have S-400 and Russian protection if they wanted etc
well well this pesky Russian understands protections will boast their push of the great
satan?
First things first. There are NO legal/formal obligations between
Russia and Iran and last time I checked, no Iranians have volunteered to die for Russia. Next, yes, Iran is an
important ally for Russia. But what most folks are missing is that Iran does not need (or want) a direct Russian
intervention. There are lots of reasons (including historical ones) to this. But what most folks are completely
misunderstanding is that
the Iranians are confident that they can win without any Russian (or other) help
.
I am in touch with a lot of folks from the Middle-East (including Iran) and I can tell you that their mood is one
of not only total determination, but one of quiet confidence. Nobody in the region doubts that it's now over for
Uncle Shmuel. I know, this sounds incredible for folks living in the West, but that is the reality in the
Middle-East.
From 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'
Besides, you can be sure that Russia will help Iran, but behind the scenes. First and foremost with
intelligence: while the Iranian have an extremely sophisticated intelligence community, it is dwarfed by the much
larger Russian one which, on top of being much bigger, also has technical means which Iran can only dream about.
Russia can also help with early warning and targeting. We can't know what is really going behind the scenes, but I
am getting reports that the Russians are on full alert (as they were during the first Gulf war, alas – Saddam
Hussein did not listen to the Russian warnings).
6)
Should Russia declare that Iran is now under Russian protection
? Absolutely not! Why? Think
of what is taking place as if you were sitting in the Kremlin: the Empire is about to embark on its last war (yes,
I mean that, see further below) and the Russian specialists all KNOW that the US will lose, and badly. Why in the
world would you intervene when your "main foe" (KGB/SVR/FSB expression for "USA") is about to do something
terminally stupid?
Besides, this is a cultural issue too. In the West, threats are constantly used. Not only to scare the enemy,
but also to feel less terrified yourself. In Asia (and Russia is far more culturally Asian than European) threats
are seen as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve. In this entire career, Putin used a threat only ONCE: to
convince the Urkonazis that attacking during the World Cup would have "severe consequences for the Ukrainian
statehood".
But you have to understand that from a Russian point of view, the Ukraine is militarily so weak as to be
laughable as an enemy and nobody in his right mind will ever doubt the outcome of a Ukie war with Russia. This is
an extreme and exceptional case. But look at the case of the Russian intervention in Syria: unlike their western
counterparts, the Russians did not first spend weeks threatening ISIS or anybody else in Syria. When Putin took
the decision, they simply moved in, so quietly that THE BEST military in the galaxy never detected the Russian
move.
So, IF, and I don't think that this will happen, Russia ever decided to move in to protect Iran, the US will
find out about it when US servicemen will die in large numbers. Until then, Russia will not be issuing threats.
Again, in the West threats are a daily occurrence. In the East, they are a sign of weakness.
Now you know why US threats are totally ineffective.
7)
US force levels in the Middle-East.
The US maintains a large network of bases all around
Iran and throughout the entire planet, really. The real numbers are secret, of course, but let us assume, for
argument sake, that the US has about 100'000 soldiers more or less near Iran. The actual figure does not matter
(and the Iranians know it anyway). What is crucial is this: this does NOT mean that the US has 100'000 soldiers
ready to attack Iran. A lot of that personnel is not really combat capable (the ratio of combat ready vs support
ranges from country to country and from war to war, but let's just say that most of these 100'000 are NOT combat
soldiers). Not only that, but there is a big difference between, say, many companies and battalions in a region
and a real armored division. For example, the 82nd AB is an INFANTRY force, not really mechanized, not capable of
engaging say, an armored brigade.
Here is a historical sidebar: during the first Gulf war, the US also sent in the 82nd AB as the central force
of the operation "Desert Shield". And here is where Saddam Hussein committed his WORST blunder of all. If he had
sent in his armored divisions across the Saudi border he would have made minced meat of the 82nd. The US knew
that. In fact, Cheney was once asked what the US would have done if the Iraqis has destroyed the 82nd. He replied
that the first line of defense was airpower on USN aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. And if that failed, the
US would have had to use tactical nukes to stop the Iraqi divisions. That would be one of those instances were
using nukes WOULD make sense from a purely military point of view (nukes are great to deal with armor!), but from
a political point of view it would have been a PR disaster (
vide supra
). The same is true today.
For the US to engage in any serious ground operation it would need many months to get the force levels high
enough and you can be darn sure that Iran would NEVER allow that. Should Uncle Shmuel try to send in a real, big,
force into the KSA you can be sure that the Iranians will strike with everything they have!
The bottom line is this:
the US has more than enough assets in the region to strike/bomb Iran. The US
has nowhere near the kind of force levels to envision a major ground operation even in Iraq, nevermind Iran!
8)
What about the Strait of Hormuz?
There is no doubt in my mind that Iran can close the
Strait of Hormuz. In fact, all the Iranians need to do to close it is say that they reserve the right to destroy
(by whatever means) any ship attempting passage. That will be enough to stop all traffic. Of course, if that
happens the US will have no other option than to attack the southern cost of Iran and try to deal with that
threat. And yes, I am sorry of I disappoint my Iranian friends, I do believe that the US could probably re-open
the Strait of Hormuz, but that will require "boots on the ground" in southern Iran and that is something which
might yield an initial success, but that will turn into a massive military disaster in the medium to long run
because the Iranians will have not only have time on their side, but they will have a dream come true: finally the
US GIs will be within reach, literally. So, typically, the US will prevail coming in, only to find itself in a
trap.
9)
Do the Iranians seek death?
This is an important one (thanks to Larchmonter 445 for
suggesting this!). The short answer is no. Not at all. Iranians want to live and they do not seek death. HOWEVER,
they also know that death in defense of Islam or in defense of the oppressed is an act of "witness to God", which
is what the Arabic word "
shahid
" is (and why the Greek work μάρτυς "martis" means). What does that mean?
That means that while Muslim soldiers should not seek their death, and while they ought to do everything in their
power to remain alive, they are NOT afraid of death in the least. To fully understand this mindset, you need only
become aware of the most famous and crucial Shia slogan "
Every Day Is Ashura and Every Land Is Karbala
"
(see explanation
here
).
If I had to translate this into a Christian frame of reference I would suggest this "every day is Good/Passion
Friday and every land is the Golgotha". That is to say, "
no matter were you are and no matter what time it is,
you have to be willing to sacrifice your life for God and for the defense of the oppressed
". So no, Iranians
are a joyful people (as are Arabs), and they don't seek death. But neither do they fear it and they accept, with
gratitude, the possibility of having to sacrifice their lives in defense of justice and truth. This is one more
reason why threats by terminal imbeciles like Pompeo or Trump have no effect whatsoever on Muslims.
10)
So what is really happening now?
Folks,
this is the beginning of the end for the
Empire
. Yes, I know, this sounds incredible, yet this is exactly what we are seeing happening before our
eyes. The very best which the US can hope for now is a quick and complete withdrawal from the Middle-East. For a
long list of political reason, that does not seem a realistic scenario right now. So what next? A major war
against Iran and against the entire "Shia crescent" ? Not a good option either. Not only will the US lose, but it
would lose both politically and militarily. Limited strikes? Not good either, since we know that Iran will
retaliate massively. A behind the scenes major concession to appease Iran? Nope, ain't gonna happen either since
if the Iranians let the murder of Soleimani go unpunished, then Hassan Nasrallah, Bashar al-Assad and even
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be the next ones to be murdered. A massive air campaign? Most likely, and initially
this will feel good (lots of flagwaving in the USA), but soon this will turn into a massive disaster. Use nukes?
Sure, and destroy your political image forever and not only in the Middle-East but worldwide.
As a perfect illustration, just check
the
latest stupid threat made by Trump
: "
If they do ask us to leave, if we don't do it in a very friendly
basis, we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look
somewhat tame"
. Folk, this is exactly the kind of stupid language which will deeply offend any Iraqi patriot.
This is the kind of language which comes out of an empire in the late stages of agony.
Trump will go down in history as the man who thought he could scare the Iranian and Iraqi people with "tweets".
Pathetic indeed.
CONCLUSION
I hope that these pointers will be useful, especially when you are going to be hit with a massive Tsunami of US
flagwaving propaganda (Trump "we are THE BEST"). Simply put: this is bullshit. Modern wars are first and foremost
propaganda wars, and what you see as the output of US ruling elites are just that – "information operations". Let
them wave their (Chinese made) flags, let them declare "United we stand" (for what exactly they stand is never
specified) and let them repeat that the US military is the MOST FORMIDABLE FORCE IN THE GALAXY. These are nothing
but desperate attempts to control the narrative, nothing else.
Oh, and one more irony: while the GOP controlled Senate is most unlikely to ever impeach Trump, is it not
pathetically hilarious that Trump has now, indeed, committed acts ought to have him removed from office? Of
course, in the real world, the US Neocon deep-state controls BOTH parties and BOTH parties fully support a war
against Iran. Still, this is one of those ironies of history which should be mentioned.
I will resume my work tomorrow morning.
Until then, I wish you call a good nite/morning/day.
President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate
Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning "Imminent attacks" on US citizens.
I don't believe them.
Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about
Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the
phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming
Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of
lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.
And before Trump's obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied
ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the
list goes on.
At some point, when we've been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a
"threat" that we must "take out" with a military attack, there comes a time where we must
assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have
provided nothing. So I don't believe them.
President Trump has warned that his administration has already targeted 52 sites important
to Iran and Iranian culture and the US will attack them if Iran retaliates for the
assassination of Gen. Soleimani. Because Iran has no capacity to attack the United States,
Iran's retaliation if it comes will likely come against US troops or US government officials
stationed or visiting the Middle East. I have a very easy solution for President Trump that
will save the lives of American servicemembers and other US officials: just come home. There is
absolutely no reason for US troops to be stationed throughout the Middle East to face increased
risk of death for nothing.
In our Ron Paul Liberty Report program last week we observed that the US attack on a senior
Iranian military officer on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraq government
– would serve to finally unite the Iraqi factions against the United States. And so it
has: on Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from Iraqi soil. It may have been
a non-binding resolution, but there is no mistaking the sentiment. US troops are not wanted and
they are increasingly in danger. So why not listen to the Iraqi parliament?
Bring our troops home, close the US Embassy in Baghdad – a symbol of our aggression
– and let the people of the Middle East solve their own problems. Maintain a strong
defense to protect the United States, but end this neocon pipe-dream of ruling the world from
the barrel of a gun. It does not work. It makes us poorer and more vulnerable to attack. It
makes the elites of Washington rich while leaving working and middle class America with the
bill. It engenders hatred and a desire for revenge among those who have fallen victim to US
interventionist foreign policy. And it results in millions of innocents being killed
overseas.
There is no benefit to the United States to trying to run the world. Such a foreign policy
brings only bankruptcy – moral and financial. Tell Congress and the Administration that
for America's sake we demand the return of US troops from the Middle East! (Republished from
The Ron Paul Institute by permission of author or representative)
"Unlike with North Korea, it's difficult to imagine any photo op or exchange of love letters
defusing the crisis the president has created. " The only thing that might defuse this crisis
would be the Senate convicting Trump and removing him from office. It would be a good idea if
the House passes another article of impeachment accusing the president of committing an act
of war without Congressional authorization.
Threatening to destroy cultural sites of a country is the sign of a deranged madman. I can't
believe a US president would dare say something like that. It goes against all the principles
America stands for. Nothing will motivate the people of Iran to fight the US more than the
threat of destruction to their cultural sites. If we go to war with Iran, this is a
Republican war. They own it. When are decent Republicans going to stand up and do the right
thing? If they don't, this could be very, very, bad.
The Defense department is already walking back Trump's tweet about bombing Iran culture
sites. Unfortunately, it's too late because the damage to our reputation as the "shining
light on the hill" has already been destroyed. I'm afraid more than now than I have ever been
in my life. Who knows when or where the revenge will occur but I'm fairly certain it will
happen and we'll be more isolated than ever before. It's taken centuries to build goodwill
and our reputation as a beacon of democracy for the world. We gave the keys to the kingdom to
a false prophet and we'll pay for his indiscretions for the rest of my lifetime. God help us
all.
After three harrowing years, we've reached the point many of us feared from the moment
Donald Trump was elected. His decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran's second most
important official, made at Mar-a-Lago with little discernible
deliberation , has brought the United States to the brink of a devastating new conflict in
the Middle East.
We don't yet know how Iran will retaliate, or whether all-out war will be averted. But
already, NATO has suspended its mission training Iraqi forces to
fight ISIS . Iraq's Parliament has voted to expel American troops -- a longtime Iranian
objective. (On Monday, U.S. forces sent a letter saying they were withdrawing from Iraq in
response, only to then claim that it was a
draft released in error .) On Sunday, Iran said it will no longer be bound by the remaining
restrictions on its nuclear program in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal that
Trump abandoned in 2018. Trump has been threatening to commit war crimes by destroying Iran's
cultural sites and tried to use Twitter to notify
Congress of his intention to respond to any Iranian reprisals with military escalation.
The administration has said that the killing of Suleimani was justified by an imminent
threat to American lives, but there is no reason to believe this. One skeptical American
official told The New York Times that the new intelligence indicated nothing but
"a normal Monday in the Middle East," and Democrats briefed on it were
unconvinced by the administration's case. The Washington Post reported that Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo -- who last year agreed with a Christian Broadcasting
Network interviewer that God might have sent Trump to save Israel from the "Iranian menace"
-- has been pushing for a hit on Suleimani for months.
MASTER OF UNIVE American corporations will start falling into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Q1 if
the USA MIC cannot find new contracts to profit from via kinetic war. The USA's last war was
Iraq post-911 and the USA MIC made good money & profit from that war. Without forever wars
the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy will deflate. If the USA Ponzi Corporatocracy deflates due to
recession it means the end of USA Imperialism.
If the hawks can generate forever wars the MIC suppliers may have a chance to stay in business,
but if they don't get new contracts for new forever wars they all know implicitly that that is
a Zero Sum game for the entire USA population.
BIG Chief Trump little penis has only one chance to stay in power at this juncture. He has
ordered troupes to Iraq and approximately 2000 marines are on the way right now. In brief, 2000
marines were not ordered to Iraq to escort the base troupes out of Iraq safely. They were sent
on a mission.
Impeachment, DOW Share Price, and no Trade Deal with China will put Trump on the defensive
and he will start threatening everyone in the world if he does not get his way.
Trump is the kind of child leader that will throw temper tantrums in front of the world.
Temper tantrums worked with his parents, and the Real Estate community in New York shitty.
Trump is a child of roughly 6 or 7 mentally & socially. Id impulses are running the
world here and when id impulses run the world from the White House we are certain that whatever
manifests will be destructive beyond imagination for most adults in the world.
Children with anger management issues & rage issues will understand Trump best.
It's all about the level of geopolitical control of oil-rich regions. In other words Carter
doctrine.
Notable quotes:
"... Don't expect any American journalists to remind viewers that one of Soleimani's achievements was not only to command the entire Iraqi army's campaign against ISIS, but also to do that in cooperation with U.S. forces. ..."
"... Trump doesn't really read. Or even take solace from history. If he did, he would know that many U.S. presidents actually lost the vote at the crucial moment, because of their bungling in the Middle East and, in particular, in Iran. President Reagan for example won the White House in November 1980 after the failed rescue mission of U.S. hostages in April of that year in Iran went spectacularly wrong which gave a "landslide" victory to the former B-movie actor from Hollywood ..."
"... Trump's strike does ring of a president, struggling with an impeachment campaign gaining momentum, who may feel has nothing to lose other than to repeat history, which has doomed him, like Carter or Reagan (who never survived Iran-Contra). ..."
"... But his reckless folly in the Middle East is also a test of how far relations with the U.S. and the rest of the world can go, before something breaks. The assassination of the Iranian general could drive a huge divide between the U.S. and the EU in the next term, if Trump can secure re-election as it will be Europe which pays the real price when the region boils over. ..."
I personally do not think that the strike was a typically
capricious move by Trump. I am more inclined to believe that it has been in the works for a
long time and his advisers might well have offered it to him as a preferable retaliation option
against the Iranian downing of a U.S. drone in June of last year – where Trump floundered
and finally held back from launching a conventional military attack on Iranian forces, through
fear of civilians being killed, or so he claims.
What we are witnessing is unprecedented in the region. It has caught everyone off guard,
even the democrats in the U.S., who can barely believe the stupidity of the move, which
arguably, is a measured one. Trump believes that he can come out the winner of a pseudo war
– or a proxy one – in the region, even though the Iranians have demonstrated that
they easily have the capability of shutting down Saudi Arabia's oil exports with a relatively
minor salvo of ordinance.
In fact, Saudi Arabia might well, in my view, be part of this latest move. Much has been
made of the petulant twitter goading of Tehran's Supreme leader to Trump directly, which may
well have pushed him over a line. But in reality, there is something much deeper and nefarious
at play which may well be the true basis of why the decision was taken for the assassination:
to destroy any possibilities of Iran and Saudi Arabia patching up their differences and
continuing in dialogue, to avoid further tensions.
There is ample evidence to show that since the oilfield attacks carried out by Iran, Saudi
crown prince Mohamed bin Salman has softened his stance on Iran and was looking at ways,
through intermediaries, to build a working relation. It was early days and progress was
slow.
But the Soleimani hit will blow that idea right out of the water. In one fell swoop, the
strike galvanises and polarises an anti-Iran front from Saudi Arabia and Israel, which, whilst
doing wonders for U.S. arms procurement will cause more tension in the region as it places
countries like Qatar, UAE, Turkey and Oman in a really awkward spot with regards to how it
should continue to work with Tehran. It may well put back the Qatar blockade to its earlier
position as 'rogue state' in the region, prompting it to possibly even go rogue and get more
involved in the battle to take Tripoli (supporting Turkish forces, obviously, who are with the
UN-recognised government).
In fact, there is an entire gamut of consequences to the move, beyond merely Iran seeking to
take revenge against America's allies in the region. It is less about a declaration of war
against Iran but more a declaration of anti-peace towards the entire Arab world, which was
starting to unfold in the last six months since Trump stepped back from the region and stood
down from a retaliation strike against Iran in the Straits of Hormuz. Trump is gambling that he
can sustain Saudi Arabia's oil being disrupted and even body bags of U.S. soldiers in Syria and
Iraq in return for a fresh wave of popularity from people too ignorant to understand or wish to
comprehend the nuances of the Middle East and how so many U.S. presidents use the pretext of a
war, or heightened tensions, as part of their chest-beating, shallow popularity campaign.
Don't expect any American journalists to remind viewers that one of Soleimani's
achievements was not only to command the entire Iraqi army's campaign against ISIS, but also to
do that in cooperation with U.S. forces.
Trump doesn't really read. Or even take solace from history. If he did, he would know
that many U.S. presidents actually lost the vote at the crucial moment, because of their
bungling in the Middle East and, in particular, in Iran. President Reagan for example won the
White House in November 1980 after the failed rescue mission of U.S. hostages in April of that
year in Iran went spectacularly wrong which gave a "landslide" victory to the former B-movie
actor from Hollywood .
Reagan, in turn, carried on the great tradition of Middle East histrionics by his notably
'mad dog' Libya campaign, which ran concurrent to two devastating attacks on U.S. soldiers and
embassy staff in Lebanon, while two different CIA teams worked against each other in trying to
secure the release of U.S. hostages in Beirut – while all along he was selling illegal
arms to the Iranians and using the cash to fund Contras in Nicaragua.
Trump's strike does ring of a president, struggling with an impeachment campaign gaining
momentum, who may feel has nothing to lose other than to repeat history, which has doomed him,
like Carter or Reagan (who never survived Iran-Contra).
But his reckless folly in the Middle East is also a test of how far relations with the
U.S. and the rest of the world can go, before something breaks. The assassination of the
Iranian general could drive a huge divide between the U.S. and the EU in the next term, if
Trump can secure re-election as it will be Europe which pays the real price when the region
boils over.
Martin Jay is an award -winning freelance journalist and political
commentator
Trump has from the beginning of his presidential campaign appealed to the worst and most
fascistic elements in American political life. At a time when the US has no credible peer
military rival, he added hundreds of billions of dollars to the Pentagon budget, and the pudgy
old chicken hawk lionized war criminals. Up until now, however, Trump shrewdly calculated that
his base was tired of wasting blood and treasure on fruitless Middle Eastern wars, and he
avoided taking more than symbolic steps. He dropped a big missile on Afghanistan once, and
fired some Tomahawk Cruise missiles at Syria. But he drew back from the brink of more extensive
military engagements.
Now, by murdering Qasem Soleimani , the
head of the Jerusalem (Qods) Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Trump has
brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran. Mind you, Iran's leadership is too
shrewd to rush to the battlements at this moment, and will be prepared to play the long game.
My guess is that they will encourage their allies among Iraqi Shiites to get up a massive
protest at the US embassy and at bases housing US troops.
They will be aided in this task of mobilizing Iraqis by the simultaneous US assassination of
Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis , the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces. Al-Muhandis is a senior
military figure in the Iraqi armed forces, not just a civilian militia figure. Moreover, the
Kata'ib Hizbullah that he headed is part of a strong political bloc, al-Fath, which has
48 members in parliament and forms a key coalition partner for the current, caretaker prime
minister, Adil Abdulmahdi. Parliament won't easily be able to let this outrage pass.
The US officer corps is confident that the American troops at the embassy and elsewhere in
Baghdad are sufficient to fight off any militia invasion. I'm not sure they have taken into
account the possibility of tens of thousands of civilian protesters invading the
embassy, who can't simply be taken out and shot.
Trump may be counting on the unpopularity among the youth protesters in downtown Baghdad,
Basra, Nasiriya and other cities of Soleimani and of al-Muhandis to blunt the Iraqi reaction to
the murders. The thousands of youth protesters cheered on hearing the news of their deaths,
since they were accused of plotting a violent repression of the rallies demanding an end to
corruption.
Iraq, however, is a big, complex society, and there are enormous numbers of Iraqi Shiites
who support the Popular Mobilization Forces and who view them as the forces that saved Iraq
from the peril of the ISIL (ISIS) terrorist organization. The Shiite hard liners would not need
all Iraqis to back them in confronting the American presence, only a few hundred thousand for
direct crowd action.
You also have to wonder whether Trump and his coterie aren't planning a coup in Iraq. In the
absence of a coup, the Iraqi parliament will almost certainly be forced, after this violation
of Iraqi national sovereignty, to vote to expel American troops. This is foreseeable. So either
the assassination was a drive-by on the way out, or Trump's war cabinet doesn't plan on having
to leave Iraq.
"We have learned today from #Iraq Prime Minister AdilAbdl Mahdi how @realDonaldTrump uses
diplomacy:
#US asked #Iraq to mediate with #Iran. Iraq PM asks #QassemSoleimani to come and talk to him
and give him the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport."
To some extent it is not relevant if Trump was lying during his campaign, or has been
corrupted/coopted/fooled/pressured/played for a chump by the establishment. He said one thing
and is doing another: that's the bottom line.
However: I note that after Barack Obama got elected, he immediately fired all of his
populist advisors and hired Wall Streeters even before being sworn in. Obama was clearly
lying up front.
Trump, however, initially did start moving in the direction he said he would, he kept his
populist/nationalist advisors, and really did make actual moves to carry out his campaign
promises. And the establishment went total nut job, he was a Russian agent, his populist
advisers were targeted for legal actions, they were replaced with establishment advisors who
hate him Trump was strong on stage berating a political opponent, but against establishment
pressure he has turned out to be weak, caving in to "the Blob" at every turn.
Had she been elected, Hillary would already have started the neocon wet dream of a war
with Iran.
While that may be true, I am tired of giving Trump a free pass, just because Hillary would
have been worse. Being relatively less evil, or a different incarnation of evil, is still
evil.
Frankly, impeachment was just a distraction to divert attention from the real play. The
dagger at his throat is from far more malevolent foes who can wield both blackmail or death
as the circumstances demand to get their way. The jewish mafia is far more dangerous than the
Sicilian boys could ever hope to be. The latter learned from the former.
The Trump administration has assassinated Iran's top military leader, Qassim Suleimani, and with the possibility of a serious escalation
in violent conflict, it's a good time to think about how propaganda works and train ourselves to avoid accidentally swallowing it.
The Iraq War, the bloodiest and costliest U.S. foreign policy calamity of the 21 st century, happened in part because
the population of the United States was insufficiently cynical about its government and got caught up in a wave of nationalistic
fervor. The same thing happened with World War I and the Vietnam War. Since a U.S./Iran war would be a disaster, it is vital that
everyone make sure they do not accidentally end up repeating the kinds of talking points that make war more likely.
Let us bear in mind, then, some of the basic lessons about war propaganda.
Things are not true because a government official says them.
I do not mean to treat you as stupid by making such a basic point, but plenty of journalists and opposition party politicians
do not understand this point's implications, so it needs to be said over and over. What happens in the leadup to war is that government
officials make claims about the enemy, and then those claims appear in newspapers ("U.S. officials say Saddam poses an imminent threat")
and then in the public consciousness, the "U.S. officials say" part disappears, so that the claim is taken for reality without ever
really being scrutinized. This happens because newspapers are incredibly irresponsible and believe that so long as you attach "Experts
say" or "President says" to a claim, you are off the hook when people end up believing it, because all you did was relay the fact
that a person said a thing, you didn't say it was true. This is the approach the New York Times took to Bush administration allegations
in the leadup to the Iraq War, and it meant that false claims could become headline news just because a high-ranking U.S. official
said them. [UPDATE: here's an example
from Vox, today, of a questionable government claim being magically transformed into a certain fact.]
In the context of Iran, let us consider some things Mike Pence tweeted about Qassim Suleimani:
"[Suleimani] assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September
11 terrorist attacks in the United States Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.
The world is a safer place today because Soleimani is gone."
It is possible, given these tweets, to publish the headline: "Suleimani plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats, says
Pence." That headline is technically true. But you should not publish that headline unless Pence provides some supporting evidence,
because what will happen in the discourse is that people will link to your news story to prove that Suleimani was plotting imminent
attacks.
To see how unsubstantiated claims get spread, let's think about the Afghanistan hijackers bit. David Harsanyi of the National
Review defends
Pence's claim about Suleimani helping the hijackers. Harsanyi cites the 9/11 Commission report, saying that the 9/11 commission
report concluded Iran aided the hijackers. The report
does indeed say that Iran allowed free
travel to some of the men who went on to carry out the 9/11 attacks. (The sentence cut off at the bottom of Harsanyi's screenshot,
however, rather crucially
says : "We have no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.") Harsanyi
admits that the report says absolutely nothing about Suleimani. But he argues that Pence was "mostly right," pointing out that Pence
did not say Iran knew these men would be the hijackers, merely that it allowed them passage.
Let's think about what is going on here. Pence is trying to convince us that Suleimani deserved to die, that it was necessary
for the U.S. to kill him, which will also mean that if Iran retaliates violently, that violence will be because Iran is an aggressive
power rather than because the U.S. just committed an unprovoked atrocity against one of its leaders, dropping a bomb on a popular
Iranian leader. So Pence wants to link Suleimani in your mind with 9/11, in order to get you blood boiling the same way you might
have felt in 2001 as you watched the Twin Towers fall.
There is no evidence that either Iran or Suleimani tried to help these men do 9/11. Harsanyi says that Pence does not technically
allege this. But he doesn't have to! What impression are people going to get from helped the hijackers? Pence hopes you'll
conflate Suleimani and Iran as one entity, then assume that if Iran ever aided these men in any way, it basically did 9/11 even if
it didn't have any clue that was what they were going to do.
This brings us to #2:
Do not be bullied into accepting simple-minded sloganeering
Let's say that, long before Ted Kaczynski began sending bombs through the mail, you once rented him an apartment. This was pure
coincidence. Back then he was just a Berkeley professor, you did not know he would turn out to be the Unabomber. It is, however,
possible, for me to say, and claim I am not technically lying, that you "housed and materially aided the Unabomber." (A friend of
mine once sold his house to the guy who turned out to be the Green River Killer, so this kind of situation does happen.)
Of course, it is incredibly dishonest of me to characterize what you did that way. You rented an apartment to a stranger, yet
I'm implying that you intentionally helped the Unabomber knowing he was the Unabomber. In sane times, people would see me as the
duplicitous one. But the leadup to war is often not a sane time, and these distinctions can get lost. In the Pence claim about Afghanistan,
for it to have any relevance to Suleimani, it would be critical to know (assuming the 9/11 commission report is accurate) whether
Iran actually could have known what the men it allowed to pass would ultimately do, and whether Suleimani was involved. But that
would involve thinking, and War Fever thrives on emotion rather than thought.
There are all kinds of ways in which you can bully people into accepting idiocy. Consider, for example, the statement "Nathan
Robinson thinks it's good to help terrorists who murder civilians." There is a way in which this is actually sort of true: I think
lawyers who aid those accused of terrible crimes do important work. If we are simple-minded and manipulative, we can call that "thinking
it's good to help terrorists," and during periods of War Fever, that's exactly what it will be called. There is a kind of cheap sophistry
that becomes ubiquitous:
I don't think Osama bin Laden should have been killed without an attempt to apprehend him. -- > So you think it's good
that Osama bin Laden was alive?
I think Iraqis were justified in resisting the U.S. invasion with force. -- > So you're saying it's good when U.S. soldiers
die?
I do not believe killing other countries' generals during peacetime is acceptable. -- > So you believe terrorists should
be allowed to operate with impunity.
I remember all this bullshit from my high school years. Opposing the invasion of Iraq meant loving Saddam Hussein and hating America.
Thinking 9/11 was the predictable consequence of U.S. actions meant believing 9/11 was justified. Of course, rational discussion
can expose these as completely unfair mischaracterizations, but every time war fever whips up, rational discussion becomes almost
impossible. In World War I, if you opposed the draft you were undermining your country in a time of war. During Vietnam, if you believed
the North Vietnamese had the more just case, you were a Communist traitor who endorsed every atrocity committed in the name of Ho
Chi Minh, and if you thought John McCain shouldn't have been bombing civilians in the first place then clearly you believed he should
have been tortured and you hated America.
"If you oppose assassinating Suleimani you must love terrorists" will be repeated on Fox News (and probably even on MSNBC).
Nationalism advocate Yoram Hazony
says there is something wrong with those who
do not "feel shame when our country is shamed" -- presumably those who do not feel wounded pride when America is emasculated by our
enemies are weak and pitiful. We should refuse to put up with these kind of cheap slurs, or even to let those who deploy them place
the burden of proof on us to refute them. (In 2004, Democrats worried that they did appear unpatriotic, and so they ran a
decorated war veteran, John Kerry, for president. That didn't work.)
Scrutinize the arguments
Here's Mike Pence again:
"[Suleimani] provided advanced deadly explosively formed projectiles, advanced weaponry, training, and guidance to Iraqi
insurgents used to conduct attacks on U.S. and coalition forces; directly responsible for the death of 603 U.S. service members,
along with thousands of wounded."
I am going to say something that is going to sound controversial if you buy into the kind of simple-minded logic we just
discussed: Saying that someone was "responsible for the deaths of U.S. service members" does not, in and of itself, tell us anything
about whether what they did was right or wrong. In order to believe it did, we would have to believe that the United States is
automatically right, and that countries opposing the United States are automatically wrong. That is indeed the logic that many
nationalists in this country follow; remember that when the U.S. shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, causing hundreds of deaths,
George H.W. Bush said
that he would never apologize for America, no matter what the facts were. What if America did something wrong? That was
irrelevant, or rather impossible, because to Bush, a thing was right because America did it, even if that thing was the mass murder
of Iranian civilians.
One of the major justifications for murdering Suleimani is that he "caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers." He was thus an aggressor,
and could/should have been killed. That is where people like Pence want you to end your inquiry. But let us remember where those
soldiers were. Were they in Miami? No. They were in Iraq. Why were they in Iraq? Because we illegally invaded and seized a country.
Now, we can debate whether (1) there is actually sufficient evidence of Suleimani's direct involvement and (2) whether these
acts of violence can be justified, but to say that Suleimani has "American blood on his hands" is to say nothing at all without
an examination of whether the United States was in the right.
We have to think clearly in examining the arguments that are being made.
Here 's the Atlantic 's
George Packer on the execution:
"There was a case for killing Major General Qassem Soleimani. For two decades, as the commander of the Revolutionary Guards'
Quds Force, he executed Iran's long game of strategic depth in the Middle East -- arming and guiding proxy militias in Lebanon
and Iraq that became stronger than either state, giving Bashar al-Assad essential support to win the Syrian civil war at the cost
of half a million lives, waging a proxy war in Yemen against the hated Saudis, and repeatedly testing America and its allies with
military actions around the region for which Iran never seemed to pay a military price."
The article goes on to discuss whether this case is outweighed by the pragmatic case against killing him. But wait. Let's dwell
on this. Does this constitute a case for killing him? He assisted Bashar al-Assad. Okay, but presumably then killing Assad
would have been justified too? Is the rule here that our government is allowed unilaterally to execute the officials of other governments
who are responsible for many deaths? Are we the only ones who can do this? Can any government claim the right?
He assisted Yemen in its fight against "the hated Saudis." But is Saudi Arabia being hated for good reason? It is not enough to
say that someone committed violence without analyzing the underlying justice of the parties' relative claims.
Moreover, assumptions are made that if you can prove somebody committed a heinous act, what Trump did is justified. But that doesn't
follow: Unless we throw all law out the window, and extrajudicial punishment is suddenly acceptable, showing that Suleimani was a
war criminal doesn't prove that you can unilaterally kill him with a drone. Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. So is George W. Bush.
But they should be captured and tried in a court, not bombed from the sky. The argument that Suleimani was planning imminent
attacks is relevant to whether you can stop him with violence (and requires persuasive proof), but mere allegations of murderous
past acts do not show that extrajudicial killings are legitimate.
It's very easy to come up with superficially persuasive arguments that can justify just about anything. The job of an intelligent
populace is to see whether those arguments can actually withstand scrutiny.
Keep the focus on what matters
"The main question about the strike isn't moral or even legal -- it's strategic." --
The Atlantic
"The real question to ask about the American drone attack that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was not whether it was justified,
but whether it was wise" -- The New York Times
"I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago and why not a month from now?" --
Elizabeth Warren
They're going to try to define the debate for you. Leaving aside the moral questions, is this good strategy? And then you
find yourself arguing on those terms: No, it was bad strategy, it will put "our personnel" in harms way, without noticing that you
are implicitly accepting the sociopathic logic that says "America's interests" are the only ones in the world that matters. This
is how debates about Vietnam went: They were rarely about whether our actions were good for Vietnamese people, but about whether
they were good or bad for us , whether we were squandering U.S. resources and troops in a "fruitless" "mistake." The people
of this country still do not understand the kind of carnage we inflicted on Vietnam because our debates tend to be about whether
things we do are "strategically prudent" rather than whether they are just. The Atlantic calls the strike a "blunder," shifting
the discussion to be about the wisdom of the killing rather than whether it is a choice our country is even permitted to make. "Blunder"
essentially assumes that we are allowed to do these things and the only question is whether it's good for us.
There will be plenty of attempts to distract you with irrelevant issues. We will spent more time talking about whether Trump followed
the right process for war, whether he handled the rollout correctly, and less about whether the underlying action itself is
correct. People like Ben Shapiro will say things
like :
"Barack Obama routinely droned terrorists abroad -- including American citizens -- who presented far less of a threat to
Americans and American interests than Soleimani. So spare me the hysterics about 'assassination."
In order for this to have any bearing on anything, you have to be someone who defends what Obama did. If you are, on the other
hand, someone who belives that Obama, too, assassinated people without due process (which he did), then Shapiro has proved exactly
nothing about whether Trump's actions were legitimate. (Note, too, the presumption that threatening "America's interests" can get
you killed, a standard we would not want any other country using but are happy to use ourselves.)
Emphasis matters
Consider three statements:
"The top priority of a Commander-in-Chief must be to protect Americans and our national security interests. There is no
question that Qassim Suleimani was a threat to that safety and security, and that he masterminded threats and attacks on Americans
and our allies, leading to hundreds of deaths. But there are serious questions about how this decision was made and whether we
are prepared for the consequences."
"Suleimani was a murderer, responsible for the deaths of thousands, including hundreds of Americans. But this reckless
move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict. Our priority
must be to avoid another costly war."
"When I voted against the war in Iraq in 2002, I feared it would lead to greater destabilization of the country and the
region. Today, 17 years later, that fear has unfortunately turned out to be true. The United States has lost approximately 4,500
brave troops, tens of thousands have been wounded, and we've spent trillions on this war. Trump's dangerous escalation brings
us closer to another disastrous war in the Middle East that could cost countless lives and trillions more dollars. Trump promised
to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one."
These are statements made by Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, respectively. Note that each of them is
consistent with believing Trump's decision was the wrong one, but their emphasis is different. Buttigieg says Suleimani was a
"threat" but that there are "questions," Warren says Suleimani was a "murderer" but that this was "reckless," and Sanders says this
was a "dangerous escalation." It could be that none of these three would have done the same thing themselves, but the emphasis is
vastly different. Buttigieg and Warren lead with condemnation of the dead man, in ways that imply that there was nothing that
unjust about what happened. Sanders does not dwell on Suleimani but instead talks about the dangers of new wars.
We have to be clear and emphatic in our messaging, because so much effort is made to make what should be clear issues appear murky.
If, for example, you gave a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq War, but the first half was simply a discussion of what a bad and threatening
person Saddam Hussein was, people might actually get the opposite of the impression you want them to get. Buttigieg and Warren,
while they appear to question the president, have the effect of making his action seem reasonable. After all, they admit that he
got rid of a threatening murderer! Sanders admits nothing of the kind: The only thing he says is that Trump has made the world worse.
He puts the emphasis where it matters.
I do not fully like Sanders' statement, because it still talks a bit more about what war means for our people ,
but it does mention destabilization and the total number of lives that can be lost. It is a far more morally clear and powerful antiwar
statement. Buttigieg's is exactly what you'd expect of a Consultant President and it should give us absolutely no confidence that
he would be a powerful voice against a war, should one happen. Warren confirms that she is not an effective advocate for peace. In
a time when there will be pressure for a violent conflict, we need to make sure that our statements are not watery and do not make
needless concessions to the hawks' propaganda.
Imagine how everything would sound if the other side said it.
If you're going to understand the world clearly, you have to kill your nationalistic emotions. An excellent way to do this is
to try to imagine if all the facts were reversed. If Iraq had invaded the United States, and U.S. militias violently resisted, would
it constitute "aggression" for those militias to kill Iraqi soldiers? If Britain funded those U.S. militias, and Iraq killed the
head of the British military with a drone strike, would this constitute "stopping a terrorist"? Of course, in that situation, the
Iraqi government would certainly spin it that way, because governments call everyone who opposes them terrorists. But rationality
requires us not just to examine whether violence has been committed (e.g., whether Suleimani ordered attacks) but what the
full historical context of that violence is, and who truly deserves the "terrorist" label.
Is there anything Suleimani did that hasn't also been done by the CIA? Remember that we actually engineered the overthrow of the
Iranian government, within living people's lifetimes . Would an Iranian have been justified in assassinating the head of the
CIA? I doubt there are many Americans who think they would. I think most Americans would consider this terrorism. But this is because
terrorism is a word that, by definition, cannot apply to things we do, and only applies to the things others do. When you start to
actually reverse the situations in your mind, and see how things look from the other side, you start to fully grasp just how crude
and irrational so much propaganda is.
"It was not an assassination." -- Noah Rothman, conservative commentator
"That's an outrageous thing to say. Nobody that I know of would think that we did something wrong in getting the general."
-- Michael Bloomberg, on Bernie Sanders' claim that this was an "assassination"
Our access to much of the world is through language alone. We only see our tiny sliver of the world with our own eyes, much of
the rest of it has to be described in words or shown to us through images. That means it's very easy to manipulate our perceptions.
If you control the flow of information, you can completely alter someone's understanding of the things that they can't see firsthand.
Euphemistic language is always used to cover atrocities. Even the Nazis did not say they were "mass murdering innocent civilians."
They said they were defending themselves from subversive elements, guaranteeing sufficient living space for their people, purifying
their culture, etc. When the United States commits murder, it does not say it is committing murder. It says it is engaging in a stabilization
program and restoring democratic rule. We saw during the recent
Bolivian coup how easy it is
to portray the seizure of power as "democracy" and democracy as tyranny. Euphemistic language has been one of the key tools of murderous
regimes. In fact, many of them probably believe their own language; their specialized vocabulary allows them to inhabit a world of
their own invention where they are good people punishing evil.
Assassination sounds bad. It sounds like something illegitimate, something that would call into question the goodness of the United
States, even if the person being assassinated can be argued to have "deserved it." Thus Rothman and Bloomberg will not even admit
that what the U.S. did here was an assassination, even though we literally targeted a high official from a sovereign country and
dropped a bomb on him. Instead, this is " neutralization
." (Read this fascinatingly feeble attempt
by the Associated Press to explain why it isn't calling an obvious assassination an assassination, just as the media declined to
call torture torture when Bush did it.)
Those of us who want to resist marches to war need to insist on calling things exactly what they are and refuse to allow the country
to slide into the use of language that conceals the reality of our actions.
Remember what people were saying five minutes ago
Five minutes ago, hardly anybody was talking about Suleimani. Now they all speak as if he was Public Enemy #1. Remember how much
you hated that guy? Remember how much damage he did? No, I do not remember, because people like Ben Shapiro only just discovered
their hatred for Suleimani once they had to justify his murder.
During the buildup to a war there is a constant effort to make you forget what things were like a few minutes ago. Before World
War I, Americans lived relatively harmoniously with Germans in their midst. The same thing with Japanese people before World War
II. Then, immediately, they began to hate and fear people who had recently been their neighbors.
Let us say Iran responds to this extrajudicial murder with a colossal act of violent reprisal, after the killing
unifies the country around a demand for vengeance. They kill a high-ranking American official, or wage an attack that kills our
civilians. Perhaps it will attack some of the soldiers that are now being moved into the Middle East. The Trump administration will
then want you to forget that it promised this assassination was to "
stop a war ." It will then
want you to focus solely on Iran's most recent act, to see that as the initial aggression. If the attack is particularly bad,
with family members of victims crying on TV and begging for vengeance, you will be told to look into the face of Iranian evil, and
those of us who are anti-war will be branded as not caring about the victims. Nobody wants you to remember the history of U.S./Iran
relations, the civilians we killed of theirs or the time we destabilized their whole country and got rid of its democracy. They want
you to have a two-second memory, to become a blind and unthinking patriot whose sole thought is the avenging of American blood. Resisting
propaganda requires having a memory, looking back on how things were before and not accepting war as the "new normal."
Listen to the Chomsky on your shoulder.
"It is perfectly insane to suggest the U.S. was the aggressor here." -- Ben Shapiro
They are going to try to convince you that you are insane for asking questions, or for not accepting what the government tells
you. They will put you in topsy-turvy land, where thinking that assassinating foreign officials is "aggression" is not just wrong,
but sheer madness. You will have to try your best to remember what things are, because it is not easy, when everyone says
the emperor has clothes, or that Line A is longer than Line B, or that shocking people to death is fine, to have confidence in your
independent judgment.
This is why I keep a little imaginary Noam
Chomsky sitting on my shoulder at all times. Chomsky helps keep me sane, by cutting through lies and euphemisms and showing things
as they really are. I recommend reading his books, especially during times of war. He never swallowed Johnson's nonsense about Vietnam
or Bush's nonsense about Iraq. And of course they called him insane, anti-American, terrorist-loving, anti-Semitic, blah blah blah.
What I really mean here though is: Listen to the dissidents. They will not appear on television. They will be smeared and treated
as lunatics. But you need them if you are going to be able to resist the absolute barrage of misinformation, or to hear yourself
think over the pounding war drums. Times of War Fever can be wearying, because there is just so much aggression against dissent that
your resistance wears down. This is why a community is so necessary. You may watch people who previously seemed reasonable develop
a pathological bloodlust (mild-mannered moderate types like Thomas Friedman and Brian Williams going suck on our missiles
). Find the people who see clearly and stick close to them.
So Trump instead of draining the swamp brought swamp creatures like Pompeo into his Administration; now he can pay the price.
Notable quotes:
"... The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo ..."
"... "We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President Trump undertook." ..."
"... On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said. ..."
"... One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida. ..."
"... Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations. ..."
"... On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact. ..."
"... "No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat. ..."
"... Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible." ..."
"... At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals. ..."
"... After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target. ..."
The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump's decision to approve the
killing of Iran's top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials
said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after
it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo "morose," according to one U.S. official. But recent changes to
Trump's national security team and the whims of a president anxious about being viewed as hesitant in the face of Iranian aggression
created an opening for Pompeo to press for the kind of action he had been advocating.
The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo, but it also carries
multiple serious risks: another protracted regional war in the Middle East; retaliatory assassinations of U.S. personnel stationed
around the world; an
interruption in the battle against the Islamic State; the
closure of diplomatic pathways to containing
Iran's nuclear program; and a major backlash in Iraq, whose parliament
voted on Sunday to expel all U.S. troops from the country.
For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of
constant speculation , the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary
of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.
But none of those considerations stopped Pompeo from pushing for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation
on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.
"We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President
Trump undertook."
Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Soleimani months ago, said a senior U.S. official, but neither the president nor Pentagon
officials were willing to countenance such an operation.
For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration's campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased
tensions with Tehran, requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted
to redeploy their firepower to East Asia.
How the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad unfolded On
Jan. 1, the siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad appeared to come to an end after supporters of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah
militia retreated. (Liz Sly, Joyce Lee, Mustafa Salim/The Washington Post)
Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that
mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and
injuring service members.
On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials
presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.
Trump's decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon's
long-standing concerns about escalation and the president's aversion to using military force against Iran.
One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same
class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed
the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.
"Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis," said a senior administration official
who argued that the Mattis Pentagon was risk-averse. "Mattis was opposed to all of this. It's not a hit on Mattis, it's just his
predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you've got a cohesive national security team and you've got a secretary of state
and defense secretary who've known each other their whole adult lives."
Mattis declined to comment.
In the days since the strike, Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the matter, speaking to allies and making the
public case for the operation. Trump chose Pompeo to appear on all of the Sunday news shows because he "sticks to the line" and "never
gives an inch," an administration official said.
But critics inside and outside the administration have questioned Pompeo's justification for the strike based on his claims that
"dozens if not hundreds" of American lives were at risk.
Lawmakers left classified briefings with U.S. intelligence officials on Friday saying they heard nothing to suggest that the threat
posed by the proxy forces guided by Soleimani had changed substantially in recent months.
When repeatedly pressed on Sunday about the imminent nature of the threats, whether it was days or weeks away, or whether they
had been foiled by the U.S. airstrike, Pompeo dismissed the questions.
"If you're an American in the region, days and weeks -- this is not something that's relevant," Pompeo told CNN.
Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he
make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations.
Critics have also questioned how an imminent attack would be foiled by killing Soleimani, who would not have carried out the strike
himself.
"If the attack was going to take place when Soleimani was alive, it is difficult to comprehend why it wouldn't take place now
that he is dead," said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official.
Following the strike, Pompeo has held back-to-back phone calls with his counterparts around the globe but has received a chilly
reception from European allies, many of whom fear that the attack puts their embassies in Iran and Iraq in jeopardy and has now eliminated
the chance to keep a lid on Iran's nuclear program.
"We have woken up to a more dangerous world," said France's Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin.
Two European diplomats familiar with the calls said Pompeo expected European leaders to champion the U.S. strike publicly even
though they were never consulted on the decision.
"The U.S. has not helped the Iran situation, and now they want everyone to cheerlead this," one diplomat said.
"Our position over the past few years has been about defending the JCPOA," said the diplomat, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear
deal.
On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research
and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original
signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact.
"No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat.
Pompeo has slapped back at U.S. allies, saying "the Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did --
what the Americans did -- saved lives in Europe as well," he told Fox News.
Israel has stood out in emphatically cheering the Soleimani operation, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising
Trump for "acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively."
"Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defense," he said.
Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence
service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and
the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible."
Though Democrats have greeted the strike with skepticism, Republican leaders, who have long viewed Pompeo as a reassuring voice
in the administration, uniformly praised the decision as the eradication of a terrorist who directed the killing of U.S. soldiers
in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
"Soleimani made it his life's work to take the Iranian revolutionary call for death to America and death to Israel and turn them
into action," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.
A critical moment for Pompeo is nearing as he faces growing questions about a potential Senate run, though some GOP insiders say
that decision seems to have stalled. Pompeo has kept in touch with Ward Baker, a political consultant who would probably lead the
operation, and others in McConnell's orbit, about a bid. But Pompeo hasn't committed one way or the other, people familiar with the
conversations said.
Some people close to the secretary say he has mixed feelings about becoming a relatively junior senator from Kansas after leading
the State Department and CIA, but there is little doubt in Pompeo's home state that he could win.
At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular
among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals.
After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering
efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target.
At the State Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places the country far above
other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world. "If it's about Iran, he will read it," said one diplomat, referring to the massive flow of paper that crosses Pompeo's desk. "If
it's not, good luck."
Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle
East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar. Instead of seeking detente,
one of his first actions was to end the JCPOA nuclear agreement and re-introduce sanctions
against Iran. In a sense, Iran has from the beginning been the exception to Trump's no-new-war
pledge, a position that might reasonably be directly attributed to his incestuous relationship
with the American Jewish community and in particular derived from his pandering to the
expressed needs of Israel's belligerent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump bears full responsibility for what comes next. The neoconservatives and Israelis are
predictably cheering the result, with Mark Dubowitz of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
enthusing that it is "bigger than bin Laden a massive blow to the [Iranian] regime."
Dubowitz, whose credentials as an "Iran expert" are dubious at best, is at least somewhat right
in this case. Qassem Suleimani is, to be sure, charismatic and also very popular in Iran. He is
Iran's most powerful military figure in the entire region, being the principal contact for
proxies and allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. But what Dubowitz does not understand is that no
one in a military hierarchy is irreplaceable. Suleimani's aides and high officials in the
intelligence ministry are certainly more than capable of picking up his mantle and continuing
his policies.
In reality, the series of foolish attacks initiated by the United States over the past week
will only hasten the departure of much of the U.S. military from the region. The Pentagon and
White House have been insisting that Iran was behind an alleged Kata'ib Hezbollah attack on a
U.S. installation that then triggered a strike by Washington on claimed militia targets in
Syria and also inside Iraq. Even though the U.S. military presence is as a guest of the Iraqi
government, Washington went ahead with its attack even after the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil
Abdul-Mahdi said "no."
To justify its actions, Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, went so far as to insist that
"Iran is at war with the whole world," a clear demonstration of just how ignorant the White
House team actually is. The U.S. government characteristically has not provided any evidence
demonstrating either Iranian or Kata'ib involvement in recent developments, but after the
counter-strike killed 26 Iraqi soldiers, the mass demonstrations against the Embassy in Baghdad
became inevitable. The demonstrations were also attributed to Iran by Washington even though
the people in the street were undoubtedly Iraqis.
Now that the U.S. has also killed Suleimani and Muhandis in a drone strike at Baghdad
Airport, clearly accomplished without the approval of the Iraqi government, it is inevitable
that the prime minister will ask American forces to leave. That will in turn make the situation
for the remaining U.S. troops in neighboring Syria untenable. And it will also force other Arab
states in the region to rethink their hosting of U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen due
to the law of unanticipated consequences as it is now clear that Washington has foolishly begun
a war that serves no one's interests.
The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next few weeks is
clearly on Donald Trump's hands as this war was never inevitable and served no U.S. national
interest. It will surely turn out to be a debacle, as well as devastating for all parties
involved. And it might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be the long-awaited
beginning of the end of America's imperial ambitions. Let us hope so!
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence
officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA
Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter
Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests
The question – who benefits? – has not been raised.
There was no benefit to Kata'ib Hezbollah or the Iranians to attack an American
installation.
There was no benefit to the Iranians to attack the US Embassy in Iraq.
There was no benefit to anyone in Iraq or Iran in the shooting of "peaceful demonstrators" in
Iraq.
There is only one beneficiary to all of the above – Israel.
Mr. Giraldi is quite correct in laying this at Trump's feet and referring to his
incestuous relationship regarding Israel. After all, it it Trump that pulled out of the
JCPOA, and ultimately gave the order to strike. A previous strike was called off, what has
changed? I understand Mr. Giraldi is a never Trumper, and that is his right. Often it is not
what he says, but what he doesn't say, that is problematic. In this article, two things not
expanded stand out to me. The author proclaims his support for the JCPOA.
What is never explained is that the JCPOA was a voluntary restriction, by Iran, on its rights
as a signatory under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Former Reagan nuclear advisor Dr.
Gordon Prather was writing about the illegality of forcing restrictions on Iran back in the
days when "Bonkers" Bolton was foaming at the mouth for Bush 43 at the UN. Trump cancelling
the deal was not the problem. The problem was maintaining the US's illegal position on Iran's
rights under the NPT. Mr. Giraldi's opposition to the cancelling, without context, means he
finds the US's illegal position on Iran's rights under an international treaty as
acceptable.
The second issue is the intelligence surrounding the "alleged Kata'ib Hezbollah attack on a
U.S. installation". This is an operation straight out of the I sraeli S ecret
I ntelligence S ervice manual. It was acknowledged, by the military, 20 years
ago Israel had the capability to stage an attack and blame it on "Arabs". Who were those
involved in providing the "intelligence to Trump? How many of those people know/knew the
intelligence to be questionable or outright false, but allowed it to pass on anyway without
caveat? It is unknown whether Trump "asked the right questions" about the intelligence, and
if it came from military sources, I suspect none at all, of substance, were asked. Again, yes
Trump will, and should, be blamed, but how much of it involves the traitors within who will
continue with the internal rot?
@Bragadocious
You are one of the supreme a-holes on this site and I wish you would go somewhere else to
spread your pollution. But I will answer your question: Soleimani was not near the embassy.
He had flown into to town to attend the funerals of the 26 Iraqi militiamen that we Americans
had killed earlier in the week!
This is a watershed moment in our enslaved country, and the net is rife with speculations as
to where this will lead to.
Personally, I don't believe that this will erupt in WW3, but the days of casual travel by
high-ranking US officials is probably over in the near term. What follows will be millions of
paper cuts and constant stress for our sons and daughters relegated to foreign lands in the
war for Israel. Did you sign up your children to die for Israel? I didn't.
So what can we expect? A lot of our children are going to come back in body bags in the
weeks ahead. The murder of the Iranian general with no proof of his hand in the recent death
of an American mercenary in Iraq, is a war crime – but who's looking? We have become
imitators of our BFF, Israel. Not only have we militarized our police force under their
auspices, we flout International law and civil rights without even blinking once. Sure, many
Iranians (and Iraqi) innocents will die in the process, but the silver lining is that this
will start the dominoes falling and lead to our Vietnam-like exit from the ME with our tail
between our legs, as we repeat the helicopter exits from the roofs of our embassies.
From all indications, the Iranian general was a revered man inside and outside Iran. He
appears to have arrived in Baghdad to attend the funeral of the people killed in the
airstrike by US/Israel. Killing people headed to funerals and weddings seems to have become
our MO in recent years. No US president in the last few decades has had his hands clean. Out
damned spot!
Meanwhile, who was that "killed" contractor? Is there a name attached to that
speculatively fictitious soul whose alleged death was the rationale for the murder? It is a
sign of the times that our first reaction to anything we hear from the PTB is one of
skepticism and disbelief. This does not bode well for our rulers when the slaves reject
whatever claims they make.
Sadly, the revolution will not begin in Pretoria, but in distant lands, far from the
prying eyes of the sleeping citizenry of this land. As Allison Weir would say, if Americans
knew what is being perpetrated in our name, they would realize that we are all
Palestinians.
Trump has been compromised. Whether you believe that he is or isn't behind this, is
irrelevant. Frankly, it doesn't really matter who the president is – he is a powerless
puppet. I suspect that the deep state initiated this and then informed Trump post-facto. The
absence of an immediate tweets (tweet with a US flag suggests speechlessness), followed by an
announcement from the Pentagon that Trump had personally ordered the attack, instead of Trump
boasting about it, does not fit his usual pattern. My guess is that he knows that going
against the will of the deep state would result in his being JFK'ed.
I expect the following in the days ahead:
– There will be outrage in Iraq and demands for us to go home – which we
won't
– Our children/cannon fodder will be targeted across the ME
– One or more US high officials or Military leaders will be assassinated, perhaps
Graham or Pompeo or Adelson
– Israel will use the distraction to annex more Palestinian territory.
– Every US politician will blame the victims
– Israel and KSA will be walking around in adult diapers for the next shoe to drop
Take heart, the end is nigh. It is the witching hour. It is a replay of history as the
empire shoots itself in the foot. Remember which country invented the game of Chess –
it wasn't us or our European cousins.
I read somewhere that the order for this assassination came from Trump himself. I read this
as meaning that the order came from Israel and Trump's staff advised against it. I hope Iran
takes this into account as they plan their retaliation.
The other interesting dynamic is that common folk are waking up to the ZOG on the one hand,
and the government/media is doing their level best to slow this awakening. I wonder how this
assassination and its aftermath fit into all of it.
The one big fear I have in the near-term is that, with the expected retaliation from Iran, it
is the perfect opportunity for Israel to launch a false flag somewhere and blame it on Iran,
further turning up the heat.
Below are some idea from Below are some idea from
OffGuardian that
clrify TT post...
The Saker took a look yesterday at The Soleimani murder – what
could happen next . He thinks, as he has said before, that Trump is regarded as a disposable
asset by his Deep State handlers and is being used as a front man for risky policy actions that
he can be scapegoated for if/when they go wrong.
war with Iran has been the auto-erotic fixation for the hardcore war nuts in Washington for
years, and imminent confrontation has been predicted regularly since at least 2005
Trump administration from the very beginning has been ramping up the tensions (Adelson money
at work): Trump teared up the nuclear deal, re-imposed sanctions, making provocations, making
threats. But this has all been within the familiar framework that always just stops short of
actual conflict. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they have ever
risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag 'terrorism'
as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can almost certainly
look forward to some of that. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they
have ever risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag
'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can almost
certainly look forward to some of that. The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond
anything they have ever risked before. the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much
false flag 'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we
can almost certainly look forward to some of that.
The major question really though is – will this backtracking and odd claims of wanting
de-escalation actually do anything to de-escalate? Will it persuade Iran not to seek retaliation,
supposing this is now what Pompeo et al want?
It's become a commonplace to describe Trump foreign policy as 'insane', and it's an apposite
description. But the murder of Soleimani takes the evident insanity to new and self-defeating
levels.
Notable quotes:
"... Eric, the embassy attack hurt little more than our pride. Yes, an entrance lobby and it's contents were burned and destroyed but no American was injured or even roughed up. It was the Iraqi government that let the demonstrators approach the embassy walls, not Soleimani. The unarmed PMU soldiers dispersed as soon as the Iraqi government said their point was made. If we are so thin skinned that rude graffiti and gestures induce us to committing assassinations, we deserve to be labeled as international pariahs. ..."
"... Yes, I see Soleimani as a threat, but he was a threat to the jihadis and the continued US dreams of regional hegemony. ..."
"... According to published pictures of the rockets recovered after the K-1 attack, they were the same powerful new weapons that Turkish troops recovered from a YPG ammo depot in Afrin last year: 'Iranian' 107mm rockets Manufactured 2016 Lot 570. I know matching lots isn't proof of anything, but what are the chances? ..."
"... This "imminent" threat of Gen. Soleimani attacking US forces seems eerily reminiscent of the "mushroom cloud" imminent threat that Bush, Cheney and Blair peddled. Now we even have Pence claiming that Soleimani provided support to the Saudi 9/11 terrorists. Laughable if it wasn't so tragic. But of course at one time the talking point was Saddam orchestrated 9/11 and was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. ..."
"... After the Iraq WMD, Gadhaffi threat and Assad the butcher and the incorrigible terrorist loving Taliban posing such imminent threats that we must use our awesome military to bomb, invade, occupy, while spending trillions of dollars borrowed from future generations, and our soldiers on the ground serving multiple tours, and our fellow citizens buy into the latest rationale for killing an Iranian & Iraqi general, without an ounce of skepticism, says a lot! ..."
"... IMO, Craig Murray is pointing in the right direction around the word 'immanent,' by pointing out that it is referring to the legally dubious Bethlehem Doctrine of Self Defense, the Israeli, UK and US standard for assassination, in which immanent is defined as widely as, 'we think they were thinking about it.' The USG managed to run afoul of even these overly permissive guidelines, which are meant only against non-state actors. ..."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States had "clear, unambiguous" intelligence that a top
Iranian general was planning a significant campaign of violence against the United States when
it decided to strike him, the top U.S. general said on Friday, warning Soleimani's plots "might
still happen."
Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group
of reporters "we fully comprehend the strategic consequences" associated with the strike
against Qassem Soleimani, Tehran's most prominent military commander.
But he said the risk of inaction exceeded the risk that killing him might dramatically
escalate tensions with Tehran. "Is there risk? Damn right, there's risk. But we're working to
mitigate it," Milley said from his Pentagon office. (Reuters)
-- -- -- -- --
This is pretty much in line with Trump's pronouncement that our assassination of Soleimani
along with Iraqi General Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was carried out to prevent a war not start one.
Whatever information was presented to Trump painted a picture of imminent danger in his mind.
What did the Pentagon see that was so imminent?
Well first let's look at the mindset of the Pentagon concerning our presence in Iraq and
Syria. These two recent quotes from Brett McGurk sums up that mindset.
"If we leave Iraq, that will just increase further the running room for Iran and Shia
militia groups and also the vacuum that will see groups like ISIS fill and we'll be right
back to where we were. So that would be a disaster."
"It's always been Soleimani's strategic game... to get us out of the Middle East. He wants
to see us leave Syria, he wants to see us leave Iraq... I think if we leave Iraq after this,
that would just be a real disastrous outcome..."
McGurk played a visible role in US policy in Iraq and Syria under Bush, Obama and Trump. Now
he's an NBC talking head and a lecturer at Stanford. He could be the poster boy for what many
see as a neocon deep state. He's definitely not alone in thinking this way.
So back to the question of what was the imminent threat. Reuters offers an elaborate story
of a secret meeting of PMU commanders with Soleimani on a rooftop terrace on the Tigris with a
grand view of the US Embassy on the far side of the river.
-- -- -- -- --
"In mid-October, Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani met with his Iraqi Shi'ite
militia allies at a villa on the banks of the Tigris River, looking across at the U.S. embassy
complex in Baghdad, and instructed them to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the
country"
"Two militia commanders and two security sources briefed on the gathering told Reuters
that Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful
militia leaders to step up attacks on US targets using sophisticated new weapons provided by
Iran."
"Soleimani's plans to attack US forces aimed to provoke a military response that would
redirect Iraqis' anger towards Iran to the US, according to the sources briefed on the
gathering, Iraqi Shi'ite politicians and government officials close to Iraq PM Adel Abdul
Mahdi."
"At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia
group of low-profile paramilitaries - unknown to the United States - who could carry out rocket
attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases." (Reuters)
-- -- -- -- --
And what were those sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran? They were 1960s Chinese
designed 107mm multiple rocket launcher technology. These simple but effective rocket launchers
were mass produced by the Soviet Union, Iran, Turkey and Sudan in addition to China. They've
been used in every conflict since then. The one captured outside of the K1 military base seems
to be locally fabricated, but used Iranian manufactured rockets.
Since when does the PMU have to form another low profile militia unit? The PMU is already
composed of so many militia units it's difficult to keep track of them. There's also nothing
low profile about the Kata'ib Hizbollah, the rumored perpetrators of the K1 rocket attack.
They're as high profile as they come.
Perhaps there's something to this Reuters story, but to me it sounds like another shithouse
rumor. It would make a great scene in a James Bond movie, but it still sounds like a rumor.
There's another story put out by The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Although it also
sounds like a scene form a James Bond movie, I think it sounds more convincing than the Reuters
story.
-- -- -- -- --
Delegation of Arab tribes met with "Soleimani" at the invitation of "Tehran" to carry out
attacks against U.S. Forces east Euphrates
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights learned that a delegation of the Arab tribes met
on the 26th of December 2019, with the goal of directing and uniting forces against U.S.
Forces, and according to the Syrian Observatory's sources, that meeting took place with the
commander of the al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassim Soleimani, who was
assassinated this morning in a U.S. raid on his convoy in Iraq. the sources reported that: "the
invitation came at the official invitation of Tehran, where Iran invited Faisal al-al-Aazil,
one of the elders of al-Ma'amra clan, in addition to the representative of al-Bo Asi clan the
commander of NDF headquarters in Qamishli Khatib al-Tieb, and the Sheikh of al-Sharayin, Nawaf
al-Bashar, the Sheikh of Harb clan, Mahmoud Mansour al-Akoub, " adding that: "the meeting
discussed carrying out attacks against the American forces and the Syria Democratic
Forces."
Earlier, the head of the Syrian National Security Bureau, Ali Mamlouk, met with the
security committee and about 20 Arab tribal elders and Sheikhs in al-Hasakah, at Qamishli
Airport Hall on the 5th of December 2019, where he demanded the Arab tribes to withdraw their
sons from the ranks of the Syria Democratic Forces. (SOHR)
-- -- -- -- --
I certainly don't automatically give credence to anything Rami sends out of his house in
Coventry. I give this story more credibility only because that is exactly what I would do if
Syria east of the the Euphrates was my UWOA (unconventional warfare operational area). This is
exactly how I would go about ridding the area of the "Great Satan" invaders and making Syria
whole again. The story also includes a lot of named individuals. This can be checked. This
morning Colonel Lang told me some tribes in that region have a Shia history. Perhaps he can
elaborate on that. I've read in several places that Qassim Soleimani knew the tribes in Syria
and Iraq like the back of his hand. This SOHR story makes sense. If Soleimani was working with
the tribes of eastern Syria like he worked with the tribes and militias of Iraq to create the
al-Ḥashd ash-Shaʿbi, it no doubt scared the bejeezus out of the Pentagon and
endangered their designs for Iraq and Syria.
So, Qassim Soleimani, the Iranian soldier, the competent and patient Iranian soldier, was a
threat to the Pentagon's designs a serious threat. But he was a long term threat, not an
imminent threat. And he was just one soldier.The threat is systemic and remains. The question
of why, in the minds of Trump and his generals, Soleimani had to die this week is something I
will leave for my next post.
A side note on Milley: Whenever I see a photo of him, I am reminded of my old Brigade
Commander in the 25th Infantry Division, Colonel Nathan Vail. They both have the countenance of
a snapping turtle. One of the rehab transfers in my rifle platoon once referred to him as "that
J. Edgar Hoover looking mutha fuka." I had to bite my tongue to keep from breaking out in
laughter. It would have been unseemly for a second lieutenant to openly enjoy such disrespect
by a PV2 and a troublemaking PV2 at that. God bless PV2 Webster, where ever you are.
Eric, the embassy attack hurt little more than our pride. Yes, an entrance lobby and it's
contents were burned and destroyed but no American was injured or even roughed up. It was the
Iraqi government that let the demonstrators approach the embassy walls, not Soleimani. The
unarmed PMU soldiers dispersed as soon as the Iraqi government said their point was made. If we
are so thin skinned that rude graffiti and gestures induce us to committing assassinations, we
deserve to be labeled as international pariahs.
Yes, I see Soleimani as a threat, but he was a threat to the jihadis and the continued US
dreams of regional hegemony. I was glad we went back into Iraq to take on the threat of IS and
cheered our initial move into Syria to do the same. That was the Sunni-Shia war you worry
about. More accurately, it was a Salafist jihadist-all others war. Unfortunately, we overstayed
the need and our welcome. It's a character flaw that we cannot loosen our grasp on empire no
matter how much it costs us.
Thanks for your post. What it says I buy. We are in the Middle East and have been for a
while to impose regional hegemony. What that has bought us is nebulous at best. Clearly we have
spent trillions and destabilized the region. Millions have been displaced and hundreds of
thousands have been killed and maimed, including thousands of our soldiers. Are we better off
from our invasion of Iraq, toppling Ghaddafi, and attempting to topple Assad using jihadists?
Guys like McGurk, Bolton, Pompeo will say yes. Others like me will say no.
The oil is a canard. We produce more oil than we ever have and it is a fungible commodity.
Will it impact Israel if we pull out our forces? Sure. But it may have a salutary effect that
it may force them to sue for peace. Will the Al Sauds continue to fund jihadi mayhem? Likely
yes, but they'll have to come to some accommodation with the Iranian Shia and recognize their
regional strength.
Our choice is straightforward. Continue down the path of more conflict sinking ever more
trillions that we don't have expecting a different outcome or cut our losses and get out and
let the natural forces of the region assert themselves. I know which path I'll take.
With all due respect, I think you are wrong. I think the protesters swarming the embassy was
exactly the same kind of tactic that US backed protesters used in Ukraine (and are currently
using in Hong Kong) to great effect. The Persians are unique in that they are capable of
studying our methodologies and tactics and appropriating them.
When the US backed protesters took over Maidan square and started taking over various
government building in Kiev, Viktor Yanukovych had two choices - either start shooting
protesters or watch while his authority collapsed. It was and is a difficult choice.
In my
humble opinion, there are few things the stewards of US hegemony fear more than the IRGC
becoming the worlds number one disciple of Gene Sharp.
TTG - "And what were those sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran?"
According to published pictures of the rockets recovered after the K-1 attack, they were the
same powerful new weapons that Turkish troops recovered from a YPG ammo depot in Afrin last
year: 'Iranian' 107mm rockets Manufactured 2016 Lot 570. I know matching lots isn't proof of
anything, but what are the chances?
If the U.S. only had a Dilyana Gaytandzhieva to bird-dog out the rat line. Wait... the MSM
would have fired her by now for weaponizing journalism against the neocons [sigh].
If a goal is to get the heck out of the Middle East since it is an intractable cess pit and
stat protecting our own borders and internal security, will we be better off with Soleimani out
of the picture or left in place.
Knowing of course, more just like him will sprout quickly, like dragon's teeth, in the sands
of the desert.ME is a tar baby. Fracking our own tar sands is the preferable alternative.
Real war war would be a direct attack on Israel. Then they get our full frontal assault. But
this pissy stuff around the edges is an exercise in futility. 2020 was Trump's to
lose.Incapacity to handle asymmetirc warfare is ours to lose.
There is no necessary link between the Iranian support for the Assad regime, to include its
operations in tribal areas of Syria. The Iranian-backed militias and Iranian government
officials have been operating in that area for a long time, supporting the efforts of
Security/Intel Ali Mamlouk. That Suleimani knew the tribes so well is a mark of his
professional competence. Everyone is courting the Syrian tribes, some sides more adeptly than
others. It is also worth noting that in putting together manpower for their various locally
formed Syrian militias, the Iranians took on unemployed Sunnis.
That said, there are small Ismaili communities in Syria and there are apparently a couple of
villages in Deir ez Zor that did convert to Shiism, but no mass religious change. The Iranians
are sensitive to the fact that they could cause a backlash if they tried hard to promote "an
alien culture."
Well, The Donald has turned to Twitter menacing iran with wiping out all of its World Heritage
Sites....which is declared intention to commit a war crime...
For what it seems Iran must sawllow the assasination of its beloved and highjly regarded
general...or else...
Do you really think there is any explanation for this, whatever Soleimani´s history (
he was doing his duty in his country and neighboring zone...you are...well...everywhere...) or
that we can follow this way with you escalating your threats and crimes ever and that everybody
must leave it at that without response or you menace coming with more ?
That somebody or some news agency has any explanation for this is precisely the sign of our
times and our disgrace. That there is a bunch of greedy people who is willing to do whatever is
needed to prevail and keep being obscenely rich...
BTW, would be interesting to know who are the main holders of shares at Reuters...
The same monopolizing almost each and every MSM and news agency at every palce in the world,
big bank, big pharma, big business, big capital ( insurances companies nad hedge funds ) big
real state, and US think tanks...
In Elora´s opinion, Bret MacGurk is making revanche from Soleimani for the predictable
fact that a humble and pious man bred in the region, who worked as bricklayer to help pay his
father´s debt during his youth, and moreover has an innate irresistible charisma, managed
to connect better with the savage tribes of the ME than such exceptionalist posh theoric bred
at such an exceptionalist as well as far away country like the US.
But...what did you expect, that MacGurk would become Lawrence of Arabia versus Soleimani in
his simpleness?
May be because of that that he deserved being dismembered by a misile...
As Pence blamed shamefully and stonefacelly Soleimani for 9/11, MacGurk blames him too for
having fallen from the heights he was...
It seems that Pence was in the team of four who assesed Trump on this hit...along with
Pompeo...
A good response would be that someone would leak the real truth on 9/11 so as to debunk
Pence´s mega-lie...
Two years ago, the public protest theme for Basel's winter carnival Fashnach was the imminent
threat nuclear war as NK and US were sabre rattling, and NK was lobbing missles across Japan
with sights on West Coast US cities.
Then almost the following week, NK and US planned to meet F2F in Singapore. And we could all
breathe again. In the very early spring of 2018.
This "imminent" threat of Gen. Soleimani attacking US forces seems eerily reminiscent of the
"mushroom cloud" imminent threat that Bush, Cheney and Blair peddled. Now we even have Pence
claiming that Soleimani provided support to the Saudi 9/11 terrorists. Laughable if it wasn't
so tragic. But of course at one time the talking point was Saddam orchestrated 9/11 and was in
cahoots with Osama bin Laden.
I find it fascinating watching the media spin and how easily so many Americans buy into the
spin du jour.
After the Iraq WMD, Gadhaffi threat and Assad the butcher and the incorrigible terrorist
loving Taliban posing such imminent threats that we must use our awesome military to bomb,
invade, occupy, while spending trillions of dollars borrowed from future generations, and our
soldiers on the ground serving multiple tours, and our fellow citizens buy into the latest
rationale for killing an Iranian & Iraqi general, without an ounce of skepticism, says a
lot!
Yeah, it will be interesting to see how Trump's re-election will go when we are engaged in a
full scale military conflagration in the Middle East? It sure will give Tulsi & Bernie an
excellent environment to promote their anti-neocon message. You can see it in Trump's
ambivalent tweets. On the one hand, I ordered the assassination of Soleimani to prevent a war
(like we needed to burn the village to save it), while on the other hand, we have 52 sites
locked & loaded if you retaliate. Hmmm!! IMO, he has seriously jeapordized his re-election
by falling into the neocon Deep State trap. They never liked him. The coup by law enforcement
& CIA & DNI failed. The impeachment is on its last legs. Voila! Incite him into another
Middle Eastern quagmire against what he campaigned on and won an election.
I would think that Khamanei has no choice but to retaliate. How is anyone's guess? I doubt
he'll order the sinking of a naval vessel patrolling the Gulf or fire missiles into the US base
in Qatar. But assassination....especially in some far off location in Europe or South America?
A targeted bombing here or there? A cyber attack at a critical point. I mean not indiscriminate
acts like the jihadists but highly calculated targets. All seem extremely feasible in our
highly vulnerable and relatively open societies. And they have both the experience and skills
to accomplish them.
If ever you have the inclination, a speculative post on how the escalation ladder could
potentially be climbed would be a fascinating read.
"I find it fascinating watching the media spin and how easily so many Americans buy into the
spin du jour."
BP,
Yes, indeed. It is a testament to our susceptibility that there is such limited scepticism
by so many people on the pronouncements of our government. Especially considering the decades
long continuous streams of lies and propaganda. The extent and brazenness of the lies have just
gotten worse through my lifetime.
I feel for my grand-children and great-grand children as they now live in society that has
no value for honor. It's all expedience in the search for immediate personal gain.
I am and have been in the minority for decades now. I've always opposed our military
adventurism overseas from Korea to today. I never bought into the domino theory even at the
heights of the Cold War. And I don't buy into the current global hegemony destiny to bring
light to the savages. I've also opposed the build up of the national security surveillance
state as the antithesis of our founding. I am also opposed to the increasing concentration of
market power across every major market segment. It will be the destruction of our
entrepreneurial economy. The partisan duopoly is well past it's sell date. But right now the
majority are still caught up in rancorous battles on the side of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle
Dum.
A question to the committee: what is the source for the claim that Soleimani bears direct
responsibility for the death of over 600 US military personnel?
If that is the case (and it appears to be) then the US govt's claim is nonsense, as it
clearly says " 'During Operation Iraqi Freedom, DoD assessed that at least 603 U.S. personnel
deaths in Iraq were the result of Iran-backed militants,' Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson, a Pentagon
spokesman, said in an email."
So those figures represent casualties suffered during the US-led military invasion of Iraq
i.e. casualties suffered during a shooting-war.
If Soleimani is a legitimate target for assassination because of the success of his forces
on the battlefield then wouldn't that make Tommy Franks an equally-legitimate target?
Pulitzer Prize winning author of Caliphate, Romanian-American, Rukmini Callimachi, on the
intelligence on Soleimani "imminent threat" being razor-thin.
You just beat me to her thread, Jack. For the Twitter shy, this is the first of a series of 17
tweets as a teaser:
1. I've had a chance to check in with sources, including two US officials who had
intelligence briefings after the strike on Suleimani. Here is what I've learned. According to
them, the evidence suggesting there was to be an imminent attack on American targets is
"razor thin".
IMO, Craig Murray is pointing in the right direction around the word 'immanent,' by pointing
out that it is referring to the legally dubious Bethlehem Doctrine of Self Defense, the
Israeli, UK and US standard for assassination, in which immanent is defined as widely as, 'we
think they were thinking about it.' The USG managed to run afoul of even these overly
permissive guidelines, which are meant only against non-state actors.
Not only Mossad but probably many others would like to see a suicide bomber blow himself
up somewhere in the US killing alot of people. That makes it difficult to figure out who
did it and maybe impossible to figure it out. It would be a mess.
But they could always find an un-scorched Iranian passport in mint condition among the
debris of the explosion.
Whether he is eating ice cream or not, Trump appears to be on a rampage to recreate the
end of The Godfather.
Less than 24 hours after a US drone shockingly killed the top Iranian military leader,
Qasem Soleimani, resulting in equity markets groaning around the globe in fear over Iranian
reprisals (and potentially, World War III), the US has gone for round two with Reuters and
various other social media sources reporting that US air strikes targeting Iraq's Popular
Mobilization Units umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias near camp Taji north
of Baghdad, have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said
late on Friday.
Now would be the perfect time for the Mossad to do its false flag shtick. They wouldn't even
have to try very hard to pin it on Iran. I'll bet that when the news came out that the
Iranian guy had been killed, every neocon on the planet popped a boner that will last for
days. Michael Ledeen is probably mazel tov-ing his ass off.
I don't care about the dead Muslim who got killed, since that's the only kind of "good
Muslim" you're ever going to find, but I would still prefer for the U.S. to get out of the
Middle East altogether. Let those two warring anti-Christ peoples kill each other to their
hearts' content.
"I think there should be open hearings on this subject," Schiff told the
Washington Post in an interview published Monday. "The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That
requires the Congress to fully engage."
Asked for his thoughts on President Trump warning Iran that the U.S. will hit 52 sites, including cultural sites, if Tehran retaliates
the California Democrat said: "None of that could come out of the Pentagon. Absolutely no way."
... ... ...
Schiff 's comments to the Post come after he suggested Secretary of State Mike Pompeo misrepresented intelligence indicating
that killing Soleimani saved American lives.
"It was a reckless decision that increased the risk to America all around the world, not decreased it. When Secretary Pompeo says
that this decision to take out Qasem Soleimani saved American lives, saved European lives, he is expressing a personal opinion, not
an intelligence conclusion," he
told CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper. "I think it will increase the risk to Americans around the world. I have
not seen the intelligence that taking out Soleimani was going to either stop the plotting that is going on or decrease other risks
to the United States."
Now we know the composition of the neocon gang that fooled malleable, jingoistic and incompetent Trump: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Pompeo, National Security
Adviser Robert O'Brien and Milley".
Notable quotes:
"... The administration has failed to connect the dots in a way that provides a clear picture of an imminent threat and that argument has been obscured by inconsistent messaging from US officials. ..."
"... Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland also told CNN that one of his representatives was at the Friday briefing and said "nothing that came out of the briefing changed my view that this was an unnecessary escalation of the situation in Iraq and Iran." ..."
"... Van Hollen went on to say: "While I can't tell you what was said, I can tell you, I have no additional information to support the administration's claim that this was an imminent attack on Americans." ..."
Washington (CNN) Top US national security officials continue to defend the Trump administration's claim that it
killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in response to an impending threat to American lives, but the lack of evidence
provided to lawmakers and the public has fueled lingering skepticism about whether the strike was justified.
President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and top military officials have offered similar explanations for targeting
Soleimani, citing an "imminent" threat from his plans to carry out what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley called a "significant
campaign of violence" against the US in the coming days, weeks or months.
"If you're an American in the region, days and weeks, this is not something that's relevant," Pompeo told CNN's Jake Tapper on
"State of the Union" Sunday, dodging a question on the imminence of such Iranian attacks. "We have to prepare, we have to be ready,
and we took a bad guy off the battlefield."
But questions have continued to swirl in recent days over the timing, whether the administration fully considered the fallout from
such a strike against Soleimani, and if an
appropriate
legal basis was established for the presidential authorization of lethal force.
... ... ...
When Trump finally gets ready to act, they added, "you can't out escalate him." CNN has previously reported that there was
internal
debate over the decision and work behind the scenes to develop a legal argument before the operation was carried out.
After a meeting Sunday in Mar-a-Lago where President Donald Trump was briefed by senior members of his national security team
on options regarding Iran, some officials emerged surprised the President chose to target Soleimani, according to a source familiar
with the briefing.
The officials who briefed Trump included Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Pompeo, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien and Milley.
The source said that some aides expected Trump to pick a less risky option, but once presented with the choice of targeting Soleimani
he remained intent on going forward.
...The administration has failed to connect the dots in a way that provides a clear picture of an imminent threat and that
argument has been obscured by inconsistent messaging from US officials.
Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland also told CNN that one of his representatives was at the Friday briefing and
said "nothing that came out of the briefing changed my view that this was an unnecessary escalation of the situation in Iraq and
Iran."
Van Hollen went on to say: "While I can't tell you what was said, I can tell you, I have no additional information to
support the administration's claim that this was an imminent attack on Americans."
Re PCR's latest linked article (post 133.
What PCR is insisting Putin do ("The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to
announce that Iran is under Russia's protection.")Putin has already done so in a landmark
speech last year when he unveiled five or six game-changing weapons, or was it 2018.
He declared back then to the evil empire that a nuclear attack on an ally would be considered
an attack upon Russia. He made this crystal clear. Of course it wouldn't hurt for him to
'gently' remind them of this.
I do have to say, the silence from the Russians is odd. Even when you read the Russian
Foreign Ministry's news releases.
For instance, there's this on January 4th:
" On January 4, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Foreign
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the latter's
initiative. " (italics mine).
So Lavrov talked to an Iranian official only on January 4th, and the call came from Iran
(Zarif), not the other way around. This is odd, and even the explicit
mentioning of Zarif initiating the call --to me-- seems odd.
Hmm...
On Sunday's broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned
if President Donald Trump's reasons for the Qasem Soleimani assassination was to distract from impeachment.
Warren said, "I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago, and why not a month from now?
And the answer from the administration seems to be that they can't keep their story straight on this. They pointed in all different
directions. And you know, the last time that we watched them do this was the summer over Ukraine. As soon as people started asking
about the conversations between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine and why aid had been held up to Ukraine, the administration
did the same thing. They pointed in all directions of what was going on. And of course, what emerged then is that this is Donald
Trump just trying to advance Donald Trump's own political agenda. Not the agenda of the United States of America. So what happens
right now? Next week, the president of the United States could be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. We know that he is deeply
upset about that. I think that people are reasonably asking why this moment? Why does he pick now to take this highly inflammatory,
highly dangerous action that moves us closer to war? We have been at war for 20 years in the Middle East, and we need to stop the
war this the Middle East and not expand it."
Tapper asked, "Are you suggesting that President Trump pulled the trigger and had Qasem Soleimani killed as a distraction from
impeachment?"
Warren said, "Look, I think that people are reasonably asking about the timing and why it is that the administration seems to
have all kinds of different answers. In the first 48 hours after this attack, what did we hear? Well, we heard it was for an imminent
attack, and then we heard, no, no, it is to prevent any future attack, and then we heard that it is from the vice president himself
and no, it is related to 9/11, and then we heard from president reports of people in the intelligence community saying that the whole,
that the threat was overblown. You know, when the administration doesn't seem to have a coherent answer for taking a step like this.
They have taken a step that moves us closer to war, a step that puts everyone at risk, and step that puts the military at risk and
puts the diplomats in the region at risk. And we have already paid a huge price for this war. Thousands of American lives lost, and
a cost that we have paid domestically and around the world. At the same time, look at what it has done in the Middle East, millions
of people who have been killed, who have been injured, who have been displaced. So this is not a moment when the president should
be escalating tensions and moving us to war. The job of the president is to keep us safe, and that means move back from the edge."
Tapper pressed, "Do you believe that President Trump pulled the trigger on this operation as a way to distract from impeachment?
Is that what you think?"
Warren said, "I think it is a reasonable question to ask, particularly when the administration immediately after having taken
this decision offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what is going on."
She continued, "I think it is the right question to ask. We will get more information as we go forward but look at the timing
on this. Look at what Donald Trump has said afterward and his administration. They have pointed in multiple directions. There is
a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago and not a month from now, not a less aggressive and less dangerous response.
He had a whole range of responses that were presented to him. He didn't pick one of the other ones. He picked the most aggressive
and the one that moves us closer to war. So what does everybody talk about today? Are we going to war? Are we going to have another
five years, tens, ten years of war in the Middle East, and dragged in once again. Are we bringing another generation of young people
into war? That is every bit of the conversation right now. Donald Trump has taken an extraordinarily reckless step, and we have seen
it before, he is using foreign policy and uses whatever he can to advance the interests of Donald Trump."
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First, a quick recap of the
situation
We need to begin by quickly summarizing
what just happened:
General Soleimani was in Baghdad on an official visit to attend the funeral of the Iraqis murdered by
the US on the 29th
The US has now officially claimed responsibility for this murder
The Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has officially declared
that "
However, a severe retaliation awaits the criminals who painted
their corrupt hands with his and his martyred companions' blood last night
"
The US paints itself – and Iran –
into a corner
The Iranians simply had no other choice
than to declare that there will be a retaliation. There are a few core problems with what happens next.
Let's look at them one by one:
First, it is quite obvious from the flagwaving claptrap in the US that Uncle Shmuel is "locked and
loaded" for even more macho actions and reaction. In fact,
Secretary Esper has basically painted
the US into what I would call an "over-reaction corner" by
declaring that
"
the game has changed
" and that the US will take "
preemptive action
"
whenever it feels threatened
. Thus, the Iranians have to assume that the US will over-react to
anything even remotely looking like an Iranian retaliation.
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely
perfect conditions for a false flag ŕ la
"
USS
Liberty
"
. Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and
facilities in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a
missile/torpedo/mine at any USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political
elites will do what they did the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs
(read up on the USS Liberty if you don't know about it)
There is also a very real risk of "spontaneous retaliations" by
other
parties (not
Iran or Iranian allies)
. In fact, in his message, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has specifically
declared that "
Martyr Suleimani is an international face to the Resistance and all lovers of the
Resistance share a demand in retaliation for his blood. All friends – as well as all enemies – must know
the path of Fighting and Resistance will continue with double the will and the final victory is decidedly
waiting for those who fight in this path.
" He is right, Soleimani was loved and revered by many
people all over the globe, some of whom might decided to avenge his death. This means that we might well
see some kind of retaliation which, of course, will be blamed on Iran but which might not be the result
of any Iranian actions at all.
Finally,
should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that
Uncle Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to
engage in even more provocative actions.
A spiritual father kisses his beloved son
If we look at these four factors together
we would have to come to the conclusion that
Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly
.
Why?
Because whether the Iranian do
retaliate or not, they are almost guaranteed another US attack in retaliation for anything looking like a
retaliation, whether Iran is involved or not
.
The dynamics of internal US
politics
Next, let's look at the internal
political dynamics in the US:
I have always claimed that
Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons
. What do I mean by that? I mean that the
Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy
decisions towards Israel and/or Syria) for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and
dangerous, he will either get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail
or the consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will jettison him and
replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In other words,
for the
Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and fantastically stupid is a win-win
situation
!
Right now, the Dems (still the party
favored by the Neocons) seem to be dead-set into committing political suicide with that ridiculous (and
treacherous!) impeachment nonsense. Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able
to get the US goyim to strike Iran AND get rid of Trump. I suppose that their thinking will go something
like this:
Trump looks set to win 2020. We
don't want that. However, we have been doing everything in our power to trigger a US attack on Iran since
pretty much 1979. Let's have Trump do that. If he "wins" (by whatever definition – more about that
further below), we win. If he loses, the Iranians will still be in a world of pain and we can always
jettison him like a used condom (used to supposedly safely screw somebody with no risks to yourself).
Furthermore, if the region explodes, this will help our beloved Bibi and unite US Jewry behind Israel.
Finally, if Israel gets attacked, we will immediately demand (and, of course, obtain) a massive US attack
on Iran, supported by the entire US political establishment and media. And, lastly, should Israel be hit
hard, then we can always use our nukes and tell the
goyim
that "Iran wants to gas 6 million Jews
and wipe the only democracy in the Middle-East off the face of the earth" or something equally insipid.
Ever since Trump made it into the White
House, we saw him brown-nose the Israel Lobby with a delectation which is extreme even by US standards. I
suppose that this calculation goes something along the lines of "with the Israel Lobby behind me, I am safe
in the White House". He is obviously too stupidly narcissistic to realize that he has been used all along.
To his (or one of his key advisor's) credit, he did NOT allow the Neocons to start a major war against
Russia, China, the DPRK, Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, etc. However, Iran is a totally different case as it is
the "number one" target the Neocons and Israel wanted strike and destroy. The Neocons even had
this motto
"
boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran
". Now that Uncle Shmuel has lost all this
wars of choice, now that the US armed forces have no credibility left, now is the time to restore the
"macho" self-image of Uncle Shmuel and, indeed, "go to Tehran" so to speak.
The
Dems (Biden) are already saying
that Trump just "
tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox
",
as if they cared about anything except their own, petty, political goals and power. Still, I have to admit
that Biden's metaphor is correct – that is exactly what Trump (and his real bosses) have done.
If we assume that I am correct in my
evaluation that Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", then we also have to accept the fact
that the US armed forces the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable armed forces" and that the US as a nation is
also the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable nation". This is very bad news indeed, as this means that
from the Neocon/Israeli point of view, there are no real risks into throwing the US into a war with Iran
.
In truth, the position of the Dems is a
masterpiece of hypocrisy which can be summed up as follows:
the assassination of Soleimani is a
wonderful event, but Trump is a monster for making it happen
.
A winner, no?
What would the likely outcome of
a US war on Iran be?
I have written so often about this topic
that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I will say is the following:
For the US, "winning" means achieving regime change or, failing that, destroying the Iranian economy.
For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive the US onslaught.
This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically
means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.
And, not, the Iranians don't have to
defeat CENTCOM/NATO! They don't need to engage in large scale military operations. All they need to do is:
remain "standing" once the dust settles down.
ORDER IT NOW
Ho Chi Minh once told the French "
You
can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win
".
This is exactly why Iran will eventually prevail, maybe at a huge cost (Amalek must be destroyed, right?),
but that will still be a victory.
Now let's look at the two most
basic types of war scenarios: outside Iran and inside Iran.
The Iranians, including General
Soleimani himself, have publicly declared many times that by trying to surround Iran and the Middle-East
with numerous forces and facilities the US have given Iran a long list of lucrative targets. The most
obvious battlefield for a proxy war is clearly Iraq where there are plenty of pro and anti Iranian forces to
provide the conditions for a long, bloody and protracted conflict (Moqtada al-Sadr has just declared that
the Mahdi Army will be remobilized). But Iraq is far from being the only place where an explosion of
violence can take place: the ENTIRE MIDDLE-EAST is well within Iranian "reach", be it by direct attack or by
attack by sympathetic/allied forces. Next to Iraq, there is also Afghanistan and, potentially, Pakistan. In
terms of a choice of instruments, the Iranian options range from missile attacks, to special forces direct
action strikes, to sabotage and many, many more options. The only limitation here is the imagination of the
Iranians and, believe me, they have plenty of that!
If such a retaliation happens, the US
will have two basic options: strike at Iranian friends and allies outside Iran or, as Esper has now
suggested, strike inside Iran. In the latter case, we can safely assume that any such attack will result in
a massive Iranian retaliation on US forces and facilities all over the region and a closure of the Strait of
Hormuz.
Keep in mind that the Neocon motto "
boys
go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran
" implicitly recognizes the fact that a war against Iran would be
qualitatively (and even quantitatively) different war than a war against Iraq. And, this is true, if the US
seriously plans to strike inside Iran they would be faced with an explosion which would make all the wars
since WWII look minor in comparison. But the temptation to prove to the world that Trump and his minions are
"real men" as opposed to "boys" might be too strong, especially for a president who does not understand that
he is a disposable tool in the hands of the Neocons.
Now, let's quickly look at what
will NOT happen
Russia and/or China will not get
militarily involved in this one. Neither will the US use this crisis as a pretext to attack Russia and/or
China. The Pentagon clearly has no stomach for a war (conventional or nuclear) against Russia and neither
does Russia have any desire for a war against the US. The same goes for China. However, it is important to
remember that Russia and China have other options, political and covert ones, to really hurt the US and help
Iran. There is the UNSC where Russia and China will block any US resolution condemning Iran. Yes, I know,
Uncle Shmuel does not give a damn about the UN or international law, but most of the rest of the world very
much does. This asymmetry is further exacerbated by Uncle Shmuel's attention span (weeks at most) with the
one of Russia and China (decades). Does that matter?
Absolutely!
If the Iraqis officially declare that
the US is an occupation force (which it is), an occupation force which engages in acts of war against Iraq
(which it does) and that the Iraqi people want Uncle Shmuel and his hypocritical talking points about
"democracy" to pack and leave, what can our Uncle Shmuel do? He will try to resist it, of course, but once
the tiny figleaf of "nation building" is gone, replaced by yet another ugly and brutal US occupation, the
political pressure on the US to get the hell out will become extremely hard to manage, both outside and even
inside the US.
In fact,
Iranian state television
called Trump's order to kill Soleimani "
the biggest miscalculation by the
U.S." since World War II. "The people of the region will no longer allow Americans to stay,"
it said.
Next, both Russia and China can help
Iran militarily with intelligence, weapons systems, advisors and economically, in overt and covert ways.
Finally, both Russia and China have the
means to, shall we say, "strongly suggest" to other targets on the US "country hit list" that now is the
perfect time to strike at US interests (say, in Far East Asia).
So Russia and China can and will help,
but they will do so with what the CIA likes to call "plausible deniability".
Back The Big Question: what
can/will Iran do next?
The Iranians are far most sophisticated
players than the mostly clueless Americans. So the first thing I would suggest is that the Iranians are
unlikely to do something the US is expecting them to do. Either they will do something totally different, or
they will act much later, once the US lowers its guard (as it always does after declaring "victory").
I asked a well-informed Iranian friend
whether it was still possible to avoid war. Here is what he replied:
Yes I do believe fullscale war can be
avoided. I believe that Iran can try to use its political influence to unite Iraqi political forces to
officially ask for the removal of US troops in Iraq. Kicking the US out of Iraq will mean that they can
no longer occupy eastern Syria either as their troops will be in danger between two hostile states. If
the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a
single shot.
I have to say that I concur with this
idea: one of the most painful things Iran could do next would be to use this truly fantastically reckless
event to kick the US out of Iraq first, and Syria next. That option, if it can be exercised, might also
protect Iranian lives and the Iranian society from a direct US attack. Finally, such an outcome would give
the murder of General Soleimani a very different and beautiful meaning: this martyr's blood liberated the
Middle-East!
Finally, if that is indeed the strategy
chosen by Iran, this does not at all mean that on a tactical level the Iranians will not extract a price
from US forces in the region or even elsewhere on the planet. For example, there are some rather credible
rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct
retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am
not
saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only that
Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East.
Conclusion: we wait for Iran's
next move
The Iraqi Parliament is scheduled to
debate a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. I will just say that while I do not
believe that the US will gentlemanly agree to any such demands, it will place the conflict in the political
realm. That is – by definition – much more desirable than any form of violence, however justified it might
seem. So I strongly suggest to those who want peace that they pray that the Iraqi MPs show some honor and
spine and tell Uncle Shmuel what every country out there always wanted from the US: Yankees, go home!
If that happens this will be a total
victory for Iran and yet another abject defeat (self-defeat, really) by Uncle Shmuel. This is the best of
all possible scenarios.
But if that does not happen, then all
bets are off and the momentum triggered by this latest act of US terrorism will result in many more deaths.
As of right now (19:24 UTC) I still
think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave 20% of
"unexpected events" (hopefully good ones).
PS: this is a text I wrote under great
time pressure and it has not be edited for typos or other mistakes. I ask the self-appointed Grammar Gestapo
to take a break and not protest again. Thank you
Scenarios 3 and 4 look the most likely in this no-win scenario for Iran at the moment. It would probably be
advantageous to Iran to let proxies retaliate, although that would further provoke the blatant US aggression
of scenario 4.
The best we can hope for, aside from Russia and China covertly assisting Iran with intelligence and
materiel, is for the latter to possibly trigger a Suez Crisis-style scenario by threatening to dump its
holdings of US sovereign debt. (The former country used to hold something like $160 billion in US bonds, but
has since 2013 sold off all but approximately $15 billion.) However, I doubt the Chinese have the appetite
for that -- they still depend vitally on the US market for their goods. And Japan, which holds about as much of
that debt as China, will never follow suit. They willingly tanked their own economy to prop up the US with
the Plaza Accord; and will likely continue to be a bootlick to American power to the bitter end.
The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States?
Preposterous. The Iranians will do nothing. Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate
target. If they are foolish enough to attack the US, or its interests, they will suffer enormous losses. I
understand that reality can sometimes conflict with a person's wishes, but the reality here is that as long
as the US doesn't try to occupy Iran, they can cripple their military and destroy their infrastructure. Iran
will do nothing,.
I have written so often about this topic that I won't go into all the possible scenarios here. All I
will say is the following:
-- For the US, "winning" means achieving regime change or, failing that, destroying the Iranian
economy.
-- For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive the US onslaught.
This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically means that the US cannot win and Iran can only win.
Apparently the author has forgotten what happened a couple months ago. The economic situation is so bad
in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah. (1). Thousands arrested and over a hundred dead.
All the U.S. has to do to win is hold the line. The situation is indeed assymetrical:
-- By refusing to put boots on the ground in Iran, there are few options open to Iran that will hurt the
U.S.
-- The U.S. can freely strike against government elites like Soleimani if the Ayatollah tries to escalate.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home. Not
only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much weaker.
How long will the IRGC remain willing to die for a sociopathic Ayatollah?
One has to believe at some point, elements of the IRGC will dispatch Khameni to save their own lives.
Iran under military rule is unlikely to become friendly with the U.S. However, for their own personal goals
they will bring troops home and suspend funding to groups like al'Hezbollah and al'Hamas. These steps would
do much to improve regional stability.
@Rich
The Iranians were not trying to
defeat
the Iraqis, nor will they the US. They aim to survive the
violent onslaught of aggressors, and damage them enough so they won't think to try again.
Soleimani was a
legitimate target if Iran and the US were in a state of declared war. They are not.
Here, I know this is UK law, but it strikes the right tone: this action was pure terrorism.
@Rich
ragtag forces in Afghanistan ( even more rag tag than Iraq) have defeated the US.
The US must bomb and
kill – apart from actually encountering another irregular war that they keep losing.
I can think of some Iranian responses. Hostage taking by allied but deniable groups of US personnel.
Build out intercontinental missiles in quantity and shield them. Buy Russian weapons like S-400 in a few
months.
There's a lot of meaningful content in this article. The only problem is that it is one-sided with more of a
dislike of Israel and USA individually than Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen, UAE, Qatar combined.
Where
Saker would lead us is to the same inaction of Ben Rhodes.
The problem is that Ben Rhodes would want to collaborate with Suleimani more than Republicans and
conservatives or allies such as Israel, UK, Poland.
This leaves the Obama galaxy of superstar stateswomen and statesmen with an unrealistic vision of the
world.
This turns into Gaddafi being killed because he is easy to kill, triggering a vacuum and pulling in ISIS
and Iran, as well as turning loose 1M people to run try to sneak into Europe.
This same myopic worldview leads to pushing Russia to the breaking point by working with similar minded
EU leaders to "flip" Ukraine. That turned out badly and now Obama's statesmen want to hide it.
Don't forget that Kerry is married into Iranian diplomats at the top level.
@Rich
Wishful thinking
Thre are many other scenarios and players to consider. America will not be allowed to arbitrarily mass
forces and engage their enemy at free will.
My take is that the timing of death of General Soleimani and the fact that President Trump is pending
impeachment in the US Senate is not a mere coincidence. Part of me thinks that TPTB set Trump up to be
impeached and gave him an ultimatum to facilitate a military conflict with Iran or lose his presidency by
way of impeachment.
What seems more bogus, the pretense for impeachment or the pretense for war with Iran?
There will be a war with Iran if Trump wants a war with Iran.
But its not clear that Trump wants a full-on
war. He could have had one by now if he wanted it. He is more of a business man than a warlord at heart, and
lacks the insecurity of a W. He doesn't need to pose in uniform on an aircraft carrier to feel virile, he
can just bang Melania.
On the other hand, he won't allow himself to look weak, and he will retaliate. In addition, there is lots
of evidence in the public record that Trump has a long-standing antipathy to Iran and its government. And
Trump has many "friends" that would be thrilled by an Iran expedition.
Iran would be crazy to provoke Trump in a way that would likely lead to war. Iraq showed the U.S. can
take down a government and leave the country wrecked. Sure, the U.S. won't "win" in Iraq, but that doesn't
mean Saddam won or the Iraqi people. Iran would be messier, but I lack the Saker's "optimism". The Iranian
government will want to survive, not gamble. [Ho Chi Mihn didn't actively seek an American invasion.] The
question is whether Iran can de-escalate while saving face (and while other forces, who would love to see
the U.S. invade Iran, do everything to escalate affairs).
Leaving aside "winning the war", it would look great on T.V. heading into the 2020 election even if it
ends in disaster, and permit cheap attacks on the Democrats in the climate of jingoism sure to follow the
first bombs. If Trump is any politician worth his salt, he is more interested in winning the next election
than in America winning some long-term ME war.
Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11, Iran gets blamed (of course), and Trump
responds by nuking Iran, killing half of the population within a few hours, and 95% within a year.
@Harbinger
Zionism, not Judaism. Two entirely separate things. Compare Romans 2:28-29 versus Revelation 2:9 and 3:9.
Research the reader survey "Defense of True Israel" to identify today's true Israel.
It doesn't matter whether Iran decides to retaliate – Israel will retaliate for them. Netanyahu will have
his president-for-life, get-out-of-jail war. This could have been an Israeli strike that Trump was forced,
or manipulated, into taking credit for. Nothing would be surprising, so long as that shabby little grifter
controls U.S. foreign policy.
If Russia and China had any itch to go in, they would have done so in Afghanistan at next to no cost to
themselves (of course this only emboldened the Empire of Evil).
And with the exception of Mohammed Reza Shah (installed by coup in 1941 because his daddy, an old-school
Kurdish brigand, was way too reasonable – something that is conveniently forgotten) Iran has always taken
pains to hold both the Anglos and the Russians at arm´s length.
Not only was the joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the USS Liberty a false flag, but even worse than that was
the false flag joint Israeli and ZUS attack on the WTC on 911 , and since they have gotten away with these
false flags, no doubt, they will do another to get the excuse to finish off Iran.
The only nation standing
in the way of the attack on Iran is Russia, and Russia is not going to let Iran be destroyed as Russia threw
down the gauntlet in Syria and Russia's top generals ie Gerasimov and Shoygu know that Russia is next and
will not stand by and let Iran go down, even if Putin is reluctant to save Iran, which I believe Putin will
also know Russia is next on the list.
Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia and I believe they will cause a false flag to have it
and they believe they can ride out a nuclear exchange in their DUMBS ie deep underground military bases
which they have throughout the ZUS and ZEurope and Israel.
Israel and the ZUS are not content with destroying the middle east, they now want to destroy the world.
@Rich
"Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target."
-- Let's name all Israeli
generals, one by one, and call them legitimate targets.
Your puny theocratic state of Israel has been the cause of the ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East.
Each of Israeli citizens took a bath full of blood of innocent civilians of all ages, figuratively speaking.
Iran has not attacked any country. Israel has. It was the perfidious AIPAC of Israel-firsters that has
been working non-stop on promoting the wars of aggression in the name of Eretz Israel. Iraq, Syria, Libya
have been destroyed in accordance with Oded Yinon subhuman plan. Iran is the next.
The hapless Europeans and Americans are finally learning about the viciousness of Jewish sadists. Instead
of "almost truthful" holobiz stories forged by Eli Wiesel and Anne Frank' dad, the schools should have been
teaching the biographies of Jewish mega-criminals such as Lazar Kaganovich (Stalin's right hand and
organizer of Holodomor in Ukraine), Naftali Frenkel (an inventor of "industrialized" death in the GULAG),
and the despicable mass-murderess Rozalia Zalkind.
The economic situation is so bad in Iran, people are rioting against the corrupt Ayatollah.
The rapists strangle their victim and blame them for their lack of oxygen.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home.
Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much
weaker.
Judaism is a cult, not a religion. It's the self worship of Jews, hatred of non Jews (racism) and
supremacist beliefs over all other peoples on this earth. In effect, Judaism is the Jewish KKK/Black
Panthers. It's perfectly ok to go around saying
"we're god's chosen"
(blatant supremacism and racism)
and yet they go crazy when some white person puts up a poster saying
"it's ok to be white"
? The
former is ignored and worse, accepted by many idiots while the latter is vehemently attacked. Think about
that for a moment?
Don't let the red herrings of "It's not Judaism, it's Zionism" or "it's not the real Jews, but the fake
Ashkenazis" crap lead you astray from the situation. The problem IS what it always has been and always will
be until people wake up and do something about it. That problem is Judaism. It's never changed.
If the Americans leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a
single shot
Correct.
And that is precisely the real objective of Trump. Trump is greatly underestimated. He gives the Zionists
everything they want – which results in outcomes that are very much against their interests.
As imperial forces are defeated in the region but economic war continues, economic integration between
Iran, Iraq and Syria becomes even more necessary, for a decent future.
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
"This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with
Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?"
He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You
remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro
You missed the boat .! This is about Israel and its control of Trump. Israel wants eternal war..they care
not how many are killed because it will be Americans not Jews. The scenarios presented here are limited and
simplistic. The real scenarios present much greater challenges for the US Intelligence Agencies. These
include false flags by Israel and the Jewish controlled Congress for excuses to bomb Iran. But even a
greater risk would be splinter Muslim groups around the world and especially in the US that will retaliate
against Americans. The estimate of at least 20% of Muslims in the US are terrorists waiting to happen may
come to fruition. Trump the idiot has just thrown a cigar into the punch bowl. Michael Scheuer former CIA
put it this way:
"The crux of my argument is simply that America is in a war with militant Islamists that
it cannot avoid; one that it cannot talk or appease its way out of; one in which our irreconcilable Islamist
foes will have to be killed, an act which unavoidably will lead to innocent deaths; and one that is
motivated in large measure by the impact of U.S. foreign policies in the Islamic world, one of which is
unqualified U.S. support for Israel."
In his second book, Imperial Hubris, a New York Times bestseller, Scheuer writes that the Islamist threat
to the United States is rooted in "how easy it is for Muslims to see, hear, experience, and hate the six
U.S. policies bin Laden repeatedly refers to as anti-Muslim:
U.S. support for apostate, corrupt, and tyrannical Muslim governments.
U.S. and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S. support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall.
U.S. pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low.
U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants
The US will experience the wrath of these people over and over again because we keep doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting a different result.
Trump is nothing more than figure head president under complete control of Israel. Civilization is doomed
if Israel continues complete control of most the US government and most of the world. The American citizenry
are nothing more than blind little animals waiting to be slaughter by Israel.
The gerbils of feeble minds are out in force to show their arrogance and illiteracy t seems. Throughout
time, Iran has emboldened the oppressed to fight the imperialists. Just like the support they show the
people of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and to an extent Yemen.. They wont destroy all that they have built unless
the US uses some excuse to attack inside iran at which point all bets are off and so are all places in the
ME with US military.. This blatant act of terrorism is the worst a civilised nation can do and the ultimate
hypocrisy of calling itself run by the rule of law.. Almost all rules and laws were violated and so is the
rules of war itself which is mostly non existent but even in war there are some things you do not do like
taking out the leadership because the men will then have no choice but to keep fighting without anyone to
order them to stand down.. Only imbeciles will do unthinkable things like this and such blatant violations
of international laws in front of the entire world and then take credit for it..
Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump into
having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals.
A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?
It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the senate
slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with him in
prison or worse.
Can't have that. Donny boy serves only Donny boy, and the country's arse isn't worth choosing over his own.
@Harbinger
NPR now : Israel has been pushing America to confront Iran . But Israel doesn't want to be seen as the power
behind the American aggression against Iran .
there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan
action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655
Airbus over the Persian Gulf
This was obviously the case. All the accusations against Libya were
patently false. The Scottish court case was a scam from A to Z. All the "evidence" against Libya could have
been concocted by a 12 year old. "Finding" a bit of clockwork in a field and claiming that someone bought a
certain "suitcase" in Malta is a piece of cake.
Despite the destruction of Libya and access to all their files and bureaucrats, no effort was ever made
to search their records and to substantiate the accusations against Libya. Lockerbie and Pan Am 103 simply
disappeared from the media.
If Libya had been behind the explosion of Pan Am 103, they would have relished producing the evidence and
a lot of Libyans would have been accused and put on trial. It would have helped their accusations that
"Libya was a rogue state"
The only facts that everyone agrees on is that the Americans shot down an Iranian airliner on 3 July 1988
with 290 people on board. And that a US airliner with 259 people was blown up on 21 December 1988. Some
coincidence!
Since PA103, no Iranian civilian aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any
other country. I guess that is a strong hint as to what intelligence services believe the true story to be.
Sounds like one of the Christ-killer handles you see over at Hasbara Central (aka,
Free Republic).
FReepers with handles like "ProudMarineMomEagleUSALibertyLoverArmyVetMAGAGalAirborneTexasFreedom" posting
articles on inside baseball of Knesset politics.
It's time for Iran to get insurance in the form of multiple nuclear warheads. I doubt Russia or China will
sell them but Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might. All they need is a few nukes that would
be include in a barrage of hundreds of missiles aimed at Tel Aviv. No Iron Dome (which is useless anyway)
would stop the attack. Israel would never allow (since we know they control Congress and the President) an
attack on Iran if there was even the slightest possibility of a nuke on Israel. Let's face it, the Israelis
are only "brave" when they slaughter defenseless Palestinian women and children. They were driven out of
Lebanon by a rag tag civilian militia.
You are naive and poorly educated murican from declining Amerikanistan who lives in the past. The Unipolar
era is over. The Iranians have the capacity to destroy all US bases in 2000km radius (in the Middle East)
with ballistic missile salvos, it and its shia allied groups in the region have plenty of attack drones and
long range cruise missiles too (and US land anti-air capability is poor), all US soldiers in Iraq will be
killed by shia millitias, drones and long range missiles (unless the US would try to invade Iraq again and
restart the occupation with 300 000 soldiers in Iraq, for which it no longer has the money, too much debt
and shaky economy), Russia can supply the country with high tech anti-air systems, Iran can supply manpads
and long range missiles to the Taliban which will lead to siege of US bases in Afghanistan and
bombardment/capture of americans there, (taliban are already winning there without any help). Iran can also
destroy most oil and gas infrastructure in the Middle East.
Estimation:
all US bases in the Middle East will be leveled.
US bases will be besieged in Afghanistan and Taliban will fully take over that country.
The biggest US embassy in the world – in Iraq, will be captured, together with the US diplomats in it.
Shia Millitia Proxies will attack and capture/destroy many US embassies in the region.
Oil price will reach 150 – 200 $ leading to global economic crisis.
Israel will be attacked by Hizbulla and many israeli cities will be damaged, keeping it busy.
No european country will support such attack and this will lead to the EU marginalising NATO and replacing
it with its own independent european military pact, moving away from the US.
Whole world will condemn the US and will start moving away from dependency on that country, as no one wants
such a war in the Gulf.
30 000 americans (almost all in the middle east) killed and all of their objects in the Middle East
destroyed.
US companies infrastructure in the Middle East and in Iraq destroyed.
Big uprising against the US in Iraq.
US economy enters recession.
US is crippled by war debt.
For that large price to pay, the only US option will be US long range attacks via bombers, carriers and
subs, who will not be very effective vs russian anti-air systems. It will take a long time for Iran to be
destroyed if they have modern russian anti-air. Meanwhile the global economy will enter recession until the
war is over. There will be massive anti-US protests all over the world blaming it for the resulting global
economic crisis and recession.
In the long run, the US will be able to destroy most of Iran by conventional means, but the US itself
will be crippled by debt and will lose its superpower status. In other words, it will be the Suez Moment for
the US.
Ultimately though, there will be no large scale war because the US does not have the money for it. It is
crippled by debt. Picture underestimates US debt by 10 % and already estimates hyperinflation by 2050 (10 %
and growing annual budget deficits, which is a disaster).
Then there is the possibility for the US to use nuclear weapons to destroy Iran but then the US will be
declared a rogue state by the world and every other state will get nukes too and NPT regime will be dead,
leading to the end of US influence and capacity to wage war in the world.
@Paul holland
That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it 'tit
for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)
@bruce county
Will not be allowed? then look what they did in this very moment. They already mass their forces in iraq and
surounding bases. Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as
far as you can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.
I have one wish for 2020, and it is this: That everyone stop referring to this group of bastards claiming to
great American patriots and thinkers (both a flagrant lie) as 'neocons', and call them what they are; 99%
are dual citizen Israeli firsters. Fostering the acronym neocon allows them to remain hidden behind a mask
of their own design, and is a great disservice and a threat to every American. These traitors with their
Israel first attitude, have but one job, and it is to dream up fake threats to America's security, (i.e.
Iraq's WMD's), in order to insure America's defense budget remains huge, and US soldiers all over the ME
making Israel feel safe and secure; not so much America. truth is they care nothing of America and have
perfected the art of subterfuge, as evidenced by this quote by self described paleo-neoconservative Norman
Podhertz in his work Breaking Ranks:
"An Israeli within the Jewish community, and an American on the public goy stage".
Netanyahu, aka Benzion Mileikowsky is holed up in that land of his idle, "Hitler's Argentinian Patagonia"?
or,
Brave Sir Robin ran away.
("No!")
Bravely ran away away.
("I didn't!")
When danger reared it's ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
("I never!")
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
("You're lying!")
Swiftly taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!
@Rich
I think the Iranians have already won on this round ..Iran stepped back and gave notice that when you are up
against a guy bigger than you are, you wait until something happens to even the odds.
The domestic deplorable don't understand bullet in the brain diplomacy.. What is in Iraq or Iran that
Americans want <=nothing. absolutely nothing that I can tell. so for whom is all of this?
Hard to know what Trump's thinking here is. War before an election does not seem a good idea, especially if
you are a candidate who has failed so far to achieve anything of substance around past promises to reduce
America's involvement in Mideast wars.
Remember that a crucial slice of the votes that put the man into office were not from his prime political
base, the "pick-up truck and Jesus" set, but from those concerned with peace and better relations with
Russia.
But prodding Iran to attack could allow Trump to play commander-in-chief defending the country. And
Americans just instinctively support even the worst possible presidents at war. You might call it the George
Bush Effect. The frightened puppy grabbing the nearest pantleg after a loud noise.
Of course, now when it comes to campaign contributions from American Oligarchs whose chief political
concern is what Israel wants, Trump's coffers will be overflowing.
I suspect Iran will take its time and carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and
unambiguous, and it might be multi-faceted and done over time.
The men running Iran are careful men, none of them impetuous. Chess players. The United States has more
than forty years of bellowing, open hostility towards the country, and we have not seen Iran's leaders act
foolishly in all that time despite many provocations.
I do not believe Iran will be driven to war – that would be playing the Israeli-American game with
Israeli-American rules.
Clandestine and hybrid efforts, that is what Iran is best at. They have serious capabilities these days,
and the United States, with all its bases abroad, has great vulnerabilities.
Of course, there's also the option of Iran's just leaving the nuclear agreement (the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action, or JCPOA) that Trump idiotically tore-up and proceeding quietly with weapons development.
Iran, despite Israel's dishonest claims, never has pursued weapons development, only efficient use of
nuclear power and legitimate scientific research. Perhaps it is time to reconsider that policy
Iran has substantial deposits of uranium, and the enriched-uranium bomb is simpler to build than the
plutonium bomb. Maybe there is some possibility for covert assistance from North Korea, another country
treated like crap by Trump's Washington Braintrust?
4.Finally, should the Iranians decide not to retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that Uncle
Shmuel will see that as a proof of his putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to engage in
even more provocative actions.
For what it's worth, I vote for 4.
Gandhi and MLK are household names because they used non-violent protest to bring attention to widespread
injustice.
As long as Iran responds in a non-violent way, they retain the moral high ground. The world is watching,
if Iran puts out a statement to the fact that the US is using assassinations to provoke Iran into an open
(obviously one-sided) war, who on the planet won't sympathize with Iran?
We all know the ZUS is a murderous, war criminal rogue regime under occupation by Zionists. Duh.
We all know the ((neocons)) and Zionists have demanded the destruction of Iran for what, decades now. We
all know of Bibi's unhinged frothing. It's more than obvious to the entire world.
What we don't need is bravado or chest thumping on the part of Iran. That is exactly what the fiend is
hoping for. Praying for. It's hands rubbing together and hissing 'they can't ignore this one, we slaughtered
their beloved general'.
If this were all being contained by the world's media and diplomatic channels, then it might be
different.
But EVERYBODY knows the score. Everybody knows who is the aggressor and who is the victim.
Iran should assume the posture of a victim, and allow all the world's people to watch in disgust as it's
menaced by the world's super-power coward, who NEVER picks on anyone it's own size, but always attacks
nations far weaker than it is.
What an embarrassment to be an American today, in slavish obeisance to the world's most revolting den of
snakes.
God bless and save the people of Iran.
It is with profound shame that I lament my nations depraved servility to a criminal regime.
Please, don't escalate the conflict. That is EXACTLY what ((they)) want you to do.
Funny how even you seems to forget that Trump KNOWN that he is a "tool" and that he have to play like one.
But every play he did on behalf of the Neocons did he in such a worst way that he everytime reaches the
excat opposite of what the neocons wanted to reach. North Stream 2 anyone? It's done, up runnig by now.
2% spending? how have done this yet?
buy exclusiv or also by US MIC company's? Hmm the turks buy now Russian AA.
India is also in shambles about the militray topic.
NOTHING, what the neocons want from him and he allegedly did seems to work really and not because he is a
moron this is ON PURPOSE.
I strongly believe that he known what he does and that he does this exactly like he or the ones behind him
wanted. Trmup isn't a neocon. He is a nationalist and plays a very dangerous doubbleplay with the Deep State
and their neocons/Zionists.
I still think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave
20% of "unexpected events"
I believe this estimate is rather correct. Personally, I believe the odds are
100% in favor of WAR. It has taken the Israelis 35 years, since the Iraq Iran war, to get America this
close. They will not allow something as trivial as peace to interfer.
Donald Trump is hardly a "disposable President" for Israel. The sky's the limit for Israel while Trump is in
power and they will never get anyone quite like him again. The Neocons won't go against Israel.
The death
of Soleimani was not long in coming after his masterminding of the successful attack on Saudi Arabian oil
facilities, and him making the fatal error of ordering demonstrators in Baghdad to be shot. I think the
combination of threatening Saudi Arabia at its weakest point and alienating the Shiite community in Iraq is
why the US decided now was the perfect time to target Soleimani.
@Not Raul
Hmmm, nuke Iran . I wonder how US would feel if Russia justifiably nuked the Mexican drug cartels in
Tijuana. Probably take it just as a friendly and helpful gesture in the war on drugs, right? Or Russia nukes
those pesky Quebec secessionists not far from DC?
Obviously, there is no place on the planet with more
cretins per head of population than US, lead by the Cretin in Chief. All itching to use those nukes just
sitting there, collecting dust since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why did cretins spend all that money on them
when they cannot use them?
One totally unrelated question. ISIS has chopped off a large number of non-Sunni Muslim heads and a few
heads of Westerners. Does anyone know even one example where an Israeli's head or head of a Western Jew has
been chopped off?
USrael is like a tradesman who declares war on a screwdriver or hammer in his toolbox.
The purpose of the drone strike false flag was to coronate a new, massive trauma based mind control effort
by the US Government aimed at her own domestic slaves. The CIA opinion makers are out in full force:
Sjursen, Engelhardt, Bacevich, Hedges, Cole, NYT, WaPo, AI – you name it, all delivering the message of
peace because they were trained for war. Quickly form all the public opinions to make sure the people are
divided.
The voting class has given us 100% of the war, 100% of the inequality, 100% of the misery that the poor
suffer daily. Accordingly, the CIA has to assassinate wrong thinking in the voting class before it threatens
the status quo of war, inequality and suffering.
The only thing missing is a Pat Tillman character – a patriotic zombie athlete, tatted and geared up to
kick ass for the right reasons as a hero until the sham that everyone knew all along – except for poor Pat –
reveals itself.
@Ignatius
I read this same theme at the VT site. Either Robert David Steel's piece or in a comment. Rather far fetched
idea, but not so far out that the dual citizen cretins in DC wouldn't use.
Thanks Saker!
The officials in Tehran have been and will continue to be calm, calculating, rational and making decisions
collectively! The Two Fat Guys and skinny dip" have been defeated by Iran in their Cold War with Iran for 4
decades! Iranians' mail goal is to force the US to run away from the ME region w/o confronting it! They
would like to achieve their goal as the Vietnamese did in 1973 if anyone remembers that! So far they have
been successful and their actions in the future will show their intentions more clearly!
With all due respect the Chinese and Russians would love to see the US humiliated so she's forced to leave
and they don't mind using Iran as a front to achieve their goal without confronting the US!
I'm just waiting for the usual suspects to come on here denying it had anything to do with Israel and
Judaism.
It's hard to make that claim when every chosenite from Benjamin Shapiro to Israeli citizen and fake
"national conservative" Yoram Hazony is celebrating on Twitter.
Example:
To all the jerks saying Trump did this "for Israel":
1. No American should die for Israel.
2. If you can't feel shame when your country is shamed and want to act when your own people are
killed, your problem isn't Israel. Your problem is you.
-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020
Do these scum ever not lie? No American was killed by Iranians or Iranian-backed proxies before this
incident, not for at least a decade. And Trump totally did this for Israel. His biggest donors have been
demanding he do this for years and suddenly he does it. It's not hard to see the connection, especially amid
all the Jews celebrating on Twitter today.
Further, he goes on to beat his chest as a fake patriotic American (while being an Israeli citizen); it's
clear he's just celebrating an attack on his country's enemy, but wants you to think it has something to do
with America.
You can be darned sure no in the world thinks seizing an American embassy is a genius tactical move
right now. Not in Iran -- and not anywhere else.
-- Yoram Hazony (@yhazony) January 3, 2020
You can be damned sure no on in the world thinks this empire is anything but lawless and dangerous right
now -- headed by an irrational imbecile beholden to the interests of a racist apartheid state. Not in Europe
-- and not anywhere else.
At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect
U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds
Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in
Iraq and throughout the region. General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had
orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months – including the attack on
December 27th – culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General
Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.
This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to
take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.
@Rurik
Gandhi drank his own urine and slept with prepubescent girls, MLK was a whoremonger and sodomite, you can
have them both. Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else,
they'll pay too steep a price.
"Its pretty clear that the dem's impeachment scam was a collaboration with the neocons to corner Trump
into having to obey McConnell, Graham and the rest of the criminals."
No it's not. It's pretty clear that orange clown is enthusiastic about mass-murdering people and trying
to start wars for his jewish-supremacist handlers.
"A few months back the great Orange King was going to pull out of Syria, right?"
No he wasn't; he was just posturing, as usual.
"It is almost patently obvious Trump was handed the option of starting war with Iran or having the
senate slowly turn against him (through a well orchestrated media campaign, of course), ending up with
him in prison or worse."
Or so you barely assert. But if that's the case why didn't "they" force Obama to start a war with Iran?
For that matter why did "they" allow Obama to enter into the JCPOA agreement with Iran in the first place?
The more likely explanation is that the impeachment scam was an effort to determine whether or not orange
clown had enough support to be re-elected. Perhaps our rulers wanted to see if the peasants would rally
around their embattled MAGA "hero" if they could present him as the hapless victim of the even-more-evil
"democrats." (And if so, his re-election "campaign strategy" could then be crafted around his apparent
"victimhood" – since he has nothing else to campaign on).
If this is the case, then the experiment may now have come to an end, with the result that the favorite
son-of-perdition would likely not be re-elected; thus he has one year to start the war on Iran, and he is
wasting no time getting on with it.
Pakistan, a fellow Muslim country, or N. Korea might
Very unlikely that this could occur. Pakistan itself is wary of incurring further unwanted attention from
the US, which regularly violates its sovereignty anyway. If they indeed decided to pursue this route, the
Ziofascists in Washington would simply and very happily open up a new front against Islamabad. (Although
doing so would stand a better -- worse? -- chance of provoking some kind of Chinese reaction than the current US
antagonizing of Tehran.)
The DPRK's stance against Washington is purely defensive and they clearly have no wish to engage in any
action that could trigger the end of the Kim regime. China would also likely not back it up in such a
scenario.
Iran is clearly the victim here, but has been cornered into an unenviable position from which it has no
favorable options. Those hoping that Russia and China will somehow step in to prevent war will find
themselves disappointed. The most likely best scenario is that this new war will seal the eventual financial
bankruptcy of the US. However, the results of that would take years to unfold. But this new war will
undoubtedly be a costly one and, in the not so long run, fiscally untenable.
The Iranians won't do jack. If they try anything, Trump will exterminate the Iranians.
Lol. "Valley Forge Warrior". What an obvious Hasbara troll. He probably has only a vague knowledge of
American history, so he picked something he stereotypically thinks an American patriot would call himself.
Along with A123, these hacks have been clogging up the comments of every article on the subject trying to
gin up the goyim for war on Iran. What "ally" does that kind of thing?
@NTG
When? When the rest of the world was destroyed and US was the only one standing, representing half the
world's economy and industrial capacity? In current conditions this leads to hyperinflation and the rest of
the world, which is growing faster than the US (now down to 15 % of the world economy in PPP) and is already
quite self-sufficient from US industry abandoning the dollar. No one would take something that is printed in
heavy amounts to liquidate 30 + trillions in debt. The end of dollar main reserve currency status, which
leads to feedback loop and even greater hyperinflation in the US.
Forcing the US out of the area seems to be a likely response. Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular
riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Undermining the Saudi regime might be a real blow to
the US; who really knows how stable it actually is? As opportunities present themselves the Iranians will
avail themselves of them, avoiding direct confrontations and clashes. Remember, they live there so can drag
this out over time.
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag ŕ la "USS
Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities
in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves.
@Harbinger
The wankers Trump and Netanyahu have been planning this invasion for some time. Actually, given the level
and history of U.S. hubris, the Neocons have not quite gotten over the fact that 50 years ago, the Iranian
people kicked the murderous Shah (U.S. puppet) out of the country. The U.S. will continue to invade and wage
wars against sovereigns who refuse to tow the U.S. line. Please dump Trump in 2020!
The US constantly threatens to overthrow Iran's government, invades and occupies
its neighboring countries, decimates it with sanctions, launches cyber-attacks on its infrastructure, and
now assassinates its national leaders. But the propagandists tell you Iran is the "aggressor"
How can the government on a moment's notice locate and drop a bomb on the head of a veteran military
officer and yet not be able to find a measly whore (jizzlane) hiding out in Israel.
Are you familiar with the name of a Mossad agent "Madam" Ghislaine Maxwell? What about her father R.
Maxwell, a mega-embezzler, thief and Mossad agent?
The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for
wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.
While Mirror Group shareholders were wiped out, arguably the biggest losers were the pensioners most
pensioners had to accept a 50% cut in the value of their pensions.
No wonder Maxwell (known as "a great fraud") was feted by other prominent Jewish frauds.
It is very doubtful that Iran retaliates in any way that might lead to all out war with the U.S. unless they
have assurances of total backing from either Russia or China, which I don't see happening at this time.
Neither one of those countries is ready for WW III against the U.S. at the present.
If I were Iran, though, I would use the fact that they sit on some of the largest energy reserves in the
world to help me acquire as many nukes as possible. That might truly be the only deterrent to their
destruction, as Israel and her surrogate the U.S. are never going to give up in there intention of
destroying that country.
@lysias
Yes, but it would piss off the sheople, and Iran doesn't need anymore of the American Bovinus demanding more
belligerence. (for which they personally won't risk a fingernail).
Since then their consolidation over the media and federal government has been consummate. The only cracks
in the iron bubble being the formerly free Internet, and they're very fast sealing off those few remaining
cracks.
Now you'd have to be near brain-dead not to know that they control our foreign policy in absolute terms,
and that Americans have been dying for the greater glory of their enemies in Israel for generations now.
What we need to do is allow the American people to decide if they want to send more of their children to
kill and die for their enemies in Israel.
We all know Iran is nothing more than one more country Israel demands we destroy.
Iran simply needs to allow the rest of the world, to rise up in condemnation with all the nations of the
planet, including the millions of patriotic Americans that are sick to death of our federal government's
slavish fealty to Jewish supremacist shekels.
Don't react to the provocation. Allow all the nations and people of the world to become sympathetic to
your cause. Perhaps, though some miracle even the Sunni nations of the world will side with Iran on this
one.
We all know who the bully is, and who the victim is. Just look at what the ZUS did to Iraq and Libya and
Syria and so many others
It's a global problem for so many, that we can't even count the victims of zio-criminality, from Donbas
to Caracas, to Bolivia..
We need a global outrage, and a global demand to reign in the Zionist fiend.
By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral weapon.
Israel Assassinations from 1950's to 2018
[MORE]
1950s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 13, 1956 Gaza Strip Egypt Mustafa Hafez Egyptian Army Lieutenant-Colonel, responsible for
recruiting refugees to carry out attacks in Israel. Parcel bomb[12] Israel Defense Forces operation
directed by Yehoshafat Harkabi.
July 14, 1956 Amman Jordan Salah Mustafa Egyptian Military attache
1960s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
September 11, 1962 Munich Germany Heinz Krug West German rocket scientist working for Egypt's missile
program Abducted from his company offices on Munich's Schillerstrasse, his body was never found. Swiss
police later arrested two Mossad agents for threatening the daughter of another scientist and found
that they were responsible for the killing. Part of Operation Damocles. Mossad
November 28, 1962 Heluan Egypt 5 Egyptian factory workers Workers employed at Factory 333, an Egyptian
rocket factory. Letter bomb sent bearing Hamburg post mark. Another such bomb disfigured and blinded a
secretary. Part of Operation Damocles.
February 23, 1965 Montevideo Uruguay Herberts Cukurs Aviator who had been involved in the murders of
Latvian Jews during the Holocaust[18] Lured to and killed in Montevideo by agents under the false
pretense of starting an aviation business.
1970s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Killer
July 8, 1972 Beirut Lebanon Ghassan Kanafani Palestinian writer and a leading member of the PFLP, who
had claimed responsibility for the Lod Airport massacre on behalf of the PFLP.[19] Killed by car bomb.
Mossad[20][21][22][19][23][24][25]
July 25, 1972 Attempted killing of Bassam Abu Sharif Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Information Office. He held a press conference with Ghassan Kanafani during the Dawson's Field
hijackings justifying the PFLP's actions. He lost four fingers, and was left deaf in one ear and blind
in one eye, after a book sent to him that was implanted with a bomb exploded in his hands.
October 16, 1972 Rome Italy Abdel Wael Zwaiter Libyan embassy employee, cousin of Yassir Arafat,[21]
PLO representative, poet and multilingual translator, considered by Israel to be a terrorist for his
alleged role in the Black September group and the Munich massacre,[27] though Aaron Klein states that
'uncorroborated and improperly cross-referenced intelligence information tied him to a support group'
for Black September.[24] Shot 12 times by two Mossad gunmen as he waited for an elevator to his
apartment near Piazza Avellino.[19][21]
December 8, 1972 Paris France Mahmoud Hamshari PLO representative in France and coordinator of the
Munich Olympic Games massacre.[28] Killed by bomb concealed in his telephone.
January 24, 1973 Nicosia Cyprus Hussein Al Bashir a.k.a. Hussein Abu-Khair/Hussein Abad. Fatah
representative in Nicosia, Cyprus and PLO liaison officer with the KGB.[24] Killed by bomb in his
hotel room bed.
April 6, 1973 Paris France Basil Al-Kubaissi PFLP member and American University of Beirut Professor
of International Law Killed on a street in Paris by two Mossad agents.[21]
April 9, 1973 Beirut Lebanon Kamal Adwan Black September commander and member of the Fatah central
committee[29] Killed in his apartment in front of his children during Operation Spring of Youth,
either shot 55 times or killed with a grenadeSayeret Matk al led by Ehud Barak
Muhammad Youssef Al-Najjar Black September Operations officer and PLO official Shot dead in his
apartment together with his wife during Operation Spring of Youth.[31] Sayeret Matkal together with
Mossad
Kamal Nasser Palestinian Christian poet, advocate of non-violence and PLO spokesman Shot dead in his
apartment during Operation Spring of Youth. According to Palestinian sources his body was left as if
hanging from a cross. A woman neighbour was shot dead when she opened her door during the operation.
Sayeret Matkal
April 11, 1973 Athens Greece Zaiad Muchasi Fatah representative to Cyprus Killed in hotel room.[21]
Mossad[32][33][34]
June 28, 1973 Paris France Mohammad Boudia Black September operations officer Killed by
pressure-activated mine under his car seat.[21]
July 21, 1973 Lillehammer Norway Attempted killing of Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO
and Black September who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre Shmed Bouchiki, an innocent
waiter believed to be Ali Hassan Salameh, killed by gunmen. Known as the Lillehammer affair.
March 27, 1978 East Berlin East Germany Wadie Haddad PFLP commander, who masterminded several plane
hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s.[36] He apparently died of cancer in an East Berlin hospital,
reportedly untraced by Mossad.[37] Mossad never claimed responsibility. Aaron Klein states that Mossad
passed on through a Palestinian contact a gift of chocolates laced with a slow poison, which
effectively caused his death several months later.[36]
January 22, 1979 Beirut Lebanon Ali Hassan Salameh High-ranked leader in the PLO and Black September
who was behind the 1972 Munich Olympic Games massacre[35] Killed by remote-controlled car bomb,[21]
along with four bodyguards and four innocent bystanders.
1980s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
June 13, 1980 Paris France Yehia El-Mashad Egyptian nuclear scientist, lecturer at Alexandria
University Killed in his room at the Méridien Hotel in Operation Sphinx.[38][39]:23 Marie-Claude
Magal, prostitute, client of El-Meshad, pushed under a car and killed in the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Mossad
September 1981 Săo Paulo Brazil José Alberto Albano do Amarante An Air Force lieutenant colonel,
assassinated by the Israeli intelligence service to prevent Brazil from becoming a nuclear nation.He
was contaminated by radioactive material. Samuel Giliad or Guesten Zang, a Mossad agent, an Israeli
born in Poland.
August 21, 1983 Athens Greece Mamoun Meraish Senior PLO official Shot in his car from motorcycle.
Mossad
June 9, 1986 Khalid Nazzal Secretary of the DFLP (Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine) Killed
in Athens by Mossad agents who entered Greece with fake passports, shot Nazzal while leaving his
hotel, and fled the country. Mossad
October 21, 1986 Munther Abu Ghazaleh High-ranked leader in the PLO. Senior member of the National
Palestinian Council, the Revolutionary Council of Al Fatah and the Supreme Military Council of the
Revolutionary Palestinian Forces. Killed by car bomb Mossad
April 16, 1988 Tunis Tunisia Abu Jihad Second-in-command to Yassir Arafat Shot dead in front of his
family in the Tunis Raid by Israeli commandos under the direction of Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya'alon, and
condemned as a political assassination by the United States State Department.[9][44] Israel Defense
Forces
July 14, 1989 Alexandria Egypt Said S. Bedair Egyptian scientist in electrical, electronic and
microwave engineering and a colonel in the Egyptian army Fell to his death from the balcony of his
brother's apartment in Camp Chezar, Alexandria, Egypt. His veins were found cut and a gas leak was
detected in the apartment. Arabic and Egyptian sources claim that the Mossad assassinated him in a way
that appears as a suicide.
1990s
Date Place Country Target Description Action Executor
March 20, 1990
Brussels Belgium Gerald Bull Canadian engineer and designer of the Project
Babylon "supergun" for Saddam Husseins government Shot at door to his apartment Attributed to Mossad
by several sources,[45] and widely believed to be a Mossad operation by intelligence experts,[46]
Gordon Thomas states it was the work of Mossad's director Nahum Admoni.[47] Israel denied involvement
at the time.[46] and several other countries had interests in seeing him dead.
February 16, 1992
Nabatieh Governorate Lebanon Abbas al-Musawi Secretary-General of Hezbollah
After 3 IDF soldiers were killed by Palestinian militants of the PIJ during a training exercise at
Gal'ed in Israel, Israel retaliated by killing Musawi in his car, together with his wife Sihan and
5-year-old child Hussein, with seven missiles launched from two Apache Israeli helicopters.[21]
Hezbollah retaliated by the attacking Israel's embassy in Argentina.[48] Israel Defense Forces[49]
June 8, 1992 Paris
France Atef Bseiso Palestinian official involved in Munich Massacre Shot
several times in the head at point-blank range by 2 gunmen, in his hotel (Aaron Klein's "Striking
Back") Mossad, with French complicity, according to the PLO, but French security sources suggested the
hand of Abu Nidal.[50][51]
October 26, 1995
Sliema Malta Fathi Shaqaqi Head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad Shot and killed
in front of Diplomat Hotel.[21] Mossad.[47]
January 6, 1996
Beit Lahia Gaza Strip Yahya Ayyash "The Engineer", Hamas bomb maker Head blown
off by cell phone bomb in Osama Hamad's apartment, responding to a call from his father. Osama's
father, Kamal Hamad, was a known collaborator with Israel, and it was bruited in Israel that he had
betrayed his son's friend for $1 million, a fake passport and a U.S. visa. Covert Israeli
operation[53]
September 25, 1997
Amman Jordan Khaled Mashaal (failed attempt) Hamas political leader
Attempted poisoning. Israel provided antidote, after pressure by Clinton. Canada withdrew Ambassador.
Two Mossad agents with Canadian passports arrested
2000s
2000, September 29-2001,
April 25. According to Palestinian sources, the IDF assassinated 13
political activists in Area A under full Palestinian Authority, with 9 civilian casualties.[54]
2003 (August)
The Israeli government authorized the killing of Hamas's entire political
leadership in Gaza, 'without further notice,' in a method called 'the hunting season' in order to
strengthen the position of moderates and Mahmoud Abbas.
2005 In February Israel announced a suspension of targeted killings, while reserving the right to kill
allegedly 'ticking bombs'.[55]
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
November 9, 2000
Beit Sahur West Bank Hussein Mohammed Abayat (37); Abayat was a senior
official of the Fatah faction Tanzim. Killed while driving his Mitsubishi by a Hellfire anti-tank
missile fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter. Rahma She'ibat, (50); 'Aziza Dannoun Jobran (52), two
local women, were killed by a second missile, and Nazhmi She'ibat and his wife were also injured.
Accused of shooting at the Gilo settlement.[5][54][56] Israel Defense Forces[57]
November 22, 2000
Morag Gaza Strip Jamal Abdel Raziq (39), and Awni Dhuheir (38).[58] Senior
official of the Fatah faction Tanzim Killed on the Rafah-Khan Yunis western road near the junction
leading to Morag settlement while in a Honda Civic with the driver, Awni Dhuheir when their car was
machine-gunned from two tanks at close range. The first version, they were about to attack Morag; the
second version, Raziq was targeted after firing at IDF soldiers. His uncle was later sentenced to
death for collaborating in his nephew's death by furnishing Israel with details.[54] Two bystanders in
a taxi behind them also killed (Sami Abu Laban, 29, baker, and Na'el Shehdeh El-Leddawi, 25,
student).[58][59]
November 23, 2000
Nablus West Bank Ibrahim 'Abd al-Karim Bani 'Odeh (34) Unknown. Had been
jailed for 3 years by the PNA until two weeks before his death. Killed while driving a Subaru near
Al-Salam mosque. Israeli version, he died from his own rudimentary bomb. Palestinian version: his
cousin 'Allan Bani 'Oudeh confessed to collaborating with Israel in an assassination, and was
convicted and shot in Jan 2001.[54] ?[57]
December 11, 2000
Nablus West Bank Anwar Mahmoud Hamran (28) A PIJ bombing suspect. Jailed for
2 years by PNA and released 6 weeks before his death. Targeted on a campus of Al-Quds Open University
while waiting for a taxi-cab. Shot 19 times by a sniper at 500 yards. IDF version shot by soldiers in
self-defence. Palestinian version, he died with books in his hand.Israel Defense Forces
December 12, 2000
al-Khader West Bank Yusef Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Sawi (28) Unknown Targeted and
shot by a sniper at 200 metres, 17 bullets.[57]
December 13, 2000
Hebron West Bank 'Abbas 'Othman El-'Oweiwi(25) Hamas activist Targeted and
shot 3 times in head and chest by a sniper while standing in front of his store in Wadi Al-Tuffah
Street.[54][57]
December 14, 2000
Burin West Bank Saed Ibrahim Taha al-Kharuf (35) Targeted and shot dead.
rowspan=2|Israel Defense Forces.[57]
December 14, 2000
Junction of Salah el-Din near Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Hani Hussein Abu Bakra
Israeli version. Hamas activist shot as he tried to fire from a pistol. Driver of a Hyundai taxi van.
Palestinian version: shot while reaching for his identity card which he was asked to produce when
stopped. 4 of seven passengers wounded, one of whom, 'Abdullah 'Eissa Gannan, 40, died 10 days
later.[54]
December 17, 2000
Qalandiyya West Bank Samih Malabi Tanzim officer.[60] Mobile phone bomb.
December 31, 2000
Tulkarem West Bank Thabat Ahmad Thabat Classed by Israel as head of Tanzim
cell.[54] Dentist, lecturer on public health at Al Quds University, and Fatah Secretary-General on the
West Bank.[60] Israeli Special Forces sniper shot him as he drove his car from his home in Ramin,
classified as an apparent political assassination.[56] Israel Defense Forces
February 13, 2001
Gaza City[54] Gaza Strip Mas'oud Hussein 'Ayyad (50) Lieutenant-colonel in
Force 17, an aide of Yasser Arafat held responsible for a failed mortar attack on a Jewish settlement
in Gaza. The IDF also alleged, without providing evidence, that he intended to form a Hezbollah cell
in the Gaza Strip.[5][56][61] Killed while driving a Hyundai in Jabalia Camp by a Cobra gunship
launching 3rockets.[62] Israeli Air Force
February 19, 2001
Nablus West Bank Mahmoud Suleiman El-Madani (25) Hamas activist Shot by two
men in plainclothes as he left a mosque. As they fled, according to the Palestinian version, covering
fire was provided by an Israeli unit on Mount Gerizim.[54]
April 2, 2001
Al-Barazil neighborhood of Rafah Gaza Strip Mohammed 'Attwa 'Abdel-'Aal (26) PIJ
Combat helicopters fired three rockets at his Peugeot Thunder, also hitting the taxi behind, whose
occupants survived. Israeli Air Force[54]
April 5, 2001
Jenin West Bank Iyad Mohammed Hardan (26) Head of the PIJ in Jenin. IDF version.
He was involved in the 1997 Mahane Yehuda Market Bombings Blown up in a public phone booth, when,
reportedly, an Israeli helicopter was flying overhead.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent
political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60]
April 25, 2001 Rafah West Bank Ramadan Ismail 'Azzam (33); Samir Sabri Zo'rob (34); Sa'di Mohammed
El-Dabbas (32); Yasser Hamdan El-Dabbas (18) Popular Resistance Committees members Blown up while
examining a triangular object with flashing lights that had been reported as lying near the border
earlier that day. Palestinians say the object exploded as an Israeli helicopter passed overhead.[54]
May 5, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Ahmad Khalil 'Eissa Assad (38) PIJ activist Hit while leaving his
house for work, reportedly from shots (15) fired from the Israeli military outpost at Tel Abu Zaid,
250 metres away. His niece, Ala, was also injured. Israel said the victim intended carrying out armed
operations in the future inside Israel. Israel Defense Forces[63]
May 12, 2001 Jenin West Bank Mutassam Mohammed al-Sabagh (28) Fatah activist In a car with two
Palestinian intelligence officers, who managed to escape on sighting an Apache helicopter, which
struck it with three missiles. The two officers were also wounded. A fourth missile struck a
Palestinian police car killing Sergeant Aalam al-Raziq al-Jaloudi and injuring Lieutenant Tariq
Mohammed Amin al-Haj. Two bystanders also wounded. Israeli Army accused the three of plotting attacks
on nearby settlers.[63] Israeli Air Force[63]
June 24, 2001 Nablus West Bank Osama Fatih al-Jawabra (Jawabiri) (29) al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
militant. His name was on an Israeli wanted list submitted to PNA. Bomb exploded as he picked up a
phone in a public telephone booth. Two brothers, Malik Shabaro (2), and Amar Shabaro (4) injured.
Alleged by PNA to be IDF,.[64] but denied by the Israeli government.[63]
July 17, 2001 Bethlehem West Bank Omar Ahmed Sa'adeh (45) Hamas leader Killed by two wire-guided
missiles fired by two Israeli helicopter gunships at his garden hut, also killing Taha Aal-Arrouj
(37). His brother Izhaq Ahmed Sa'adeh (51), a peace activist, and his cousin Hamad Saleh Sa'adeh (29),
were killed by a further missile as they rushed towards the rubble. A dozen people nearby were
wounded. Israel maintained that it was a preventive attack on a planner of a terrorist attack at the
Maccabiah Games.[63][65] Israeli Air Force
July 23, 2001 'Anin, west of Jenin West Bank Mustafa Yusuf Hussein Yassin (26) ? Released from an
Israeli prison earlier that day. According to his wife, he opened the door on hearing noises outside
their home and was shot at point-blank range in front of his family. Israeli sources say he was
planning to bomb Israeli targets. Israel Defense Forces[63]
July 25, 2001 Nablus West Bank Salah Nour al-Din Khalil Darwouza (38) Hamas Car hit while driving in
Nablus. He evaded two missiles from an Apache helicopter, but the car was hit by a further 4. Israel
claimed he planned bombing attacks on French Hill, and Netanya. Israeli Air Force[63]
July 31, 2001 Nablus West Bank Jamal Mansour (41); Jamal Salim Damouni (42) High-ranking official of
Hamas' West Bank political wing Killed when office struck by helicopter-launched missiles[66] as
Mansour was giving an interview to journalists in the Palestinian Centre for Studies and Media. 4
others killed in the room: Mohammed al-Bishawi (28); Othman Qathnani (25); Omar Mansour (28); Fahim
Dawabsha, (32). Two children, aged 5 and 8, outside were also killed, and three more adults injured by
shrapnel.[63] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israel Defense Forces[5]
August 5, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Amer Mansour Habiri/Aamer Mansour al-Hudairy (22) Hamas Missiles
fired at the car.
August 20, 2001 Hebron West Bank Imad Abu Sneneh Leader of Tanzim Shot and killed.[67] Israeli
undercover team
August 27, 2001 Ramallah West Bank Abu Ali Mustafa (63) Head of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine and senior executive leader of the PLO. Killed by laser-guided missiles fired from Apache
helicopters while talking on the phone in his office.Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent
political execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Other sources say Shin Bet convinced the Israeli
Cabinet he was connected to terrorism.[68] Israeli Air Force
September 6, 2001 Tulkarm West Bank 'Omar Mahmoud Dib Subuh (22); Mustafa 'Ahed Hassan 'Anbas (19).
Unknown Targeted and killed by a helicopter missile in an attempt to assassinate 4 Palestinians, of
whom 2 died. Israel Defense Forces[57]
October 14, 2001 Qalqiliya West Bank 'Abd a-Rahman Sa'id Hamed (33) Unknown Targeted by a sniper and
shot at the entrance to his house.
October 15, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ahmad Hassan Marshud (29) Unknown Targeted killing by explosion.
?[57]
October 18, 2001 Beit Sahur West Bank Jamal 'Abdallah 'Abayiat (35); 'Issa 'Atef Khatib 'Abayiat (28);
'Atef Ahmad 'Abayiat (25). Unknown The three, all relatives were killed while driving a Jeep. Israel
Defense Forces[57]
October 22, 2001 Nablus West Bank Ayman Halawah (26). Unknown Killed while riding in a car. ?[57]
31 October 2001 Hebron West Bank Jamil Jadallah al-Qawasmeh (25). Unknown Killed by a helicopter
missile which struck his house. Israeli Air Force[57]
2 November 2001 Tulkarm West Bank Fahmi Abu 'Easheh (28); Yasser 'Asira (25) Unknown Killed by gunfire
whole driving in a car. Israel Defense Forces[57]
23 November 2001 Far'a West Bank Mahmoud a-Shuli (Abu Hanud) (33); Maamun 'Awaisa (22); Ayman 'Awaisa
(33). Unknown all three killed while riding in a taxi by a helicopter missile.
December 10, 2001 Hebron West Bank Burhan al-Haymuni (3); Shadi Ahmad 'Arfah (13) None Two brothers
killed in a vehicle hit by a helicopter missile during a targeted killing of a person in a nearby car.
January 14, 2002 Tulkarem West Bank Raed (Muhammad Ra'if ) Karmi (28) Head of the Tanzim in Tulkarem
He had planned the murders of two Israelis in Tulkarem and was behind a failed assassination attempt
on the life of an Israeli Air Force colonel. After surviving an attempt to kill him by helicopter on
September 6, 2001, he was persuaded by Arafat to desist from violence but killed twenty three days
after a ceasefire[69] was in place because the Shin Bet was convinced they would never have the same
operational opportunity to take him out. Killed from a bomb planted in a cemetery wall, set off by a
UAV circling above when he passed by it on a visit to his mistress, to create the impression he had
blown himself up accidentally.[70][71] Baruch Kimmerling classifies it as an apparent political
execution to provoke Palestinians.[60] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks.
January 22, 2002 Nablus West Bank Yusif Suragji West Bank head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Three
other Hamas members also killed. Palestinian Authority claims it was an assassination.[72] Killed in a
raid on an alleged explosives factory.[72] Israeli Defence Forces
January 24, 2002 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Adli Hamadan (Bakr Hamdan) Senior Hamas member missile attack
on car.[72] Israeli Air Force
February 4, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Ayman Bihdari DFLP member wanted for 25 August 2001 raid in which
three Israeli soldiers were killed. missile attack on car. Four other DFLP members killed.[72]
February 16, 2002 Jenin West Bank Nazih Mahmoud Abu a-Saba' Second ranking Hamas officer in Jenin.[73]
Killed by a bomb planted in his car, in a targeted killing.[74] Israel Defense Forces
March 5, 2002 al-Birah West Bank Mohammad(Diriyah Munir) Abu Halawa (23); Fawzi Murar (32); 'Omar
Hussein Nimer Qadan (27). Wanted AMB member. Missile fired at car from helicopter, Murar and Qadan
according to B'tselem were not combatants at the time.[57][75] Israeli Air Force
March 6, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Rahman Ghadal Hamas member Missile attack on his home.[21]
March 9, 2002 Ramallah West Bank Samer Wajih Yunes 'Awis (29) Not a participant in hostilities at the
time, according to B'tselem.[57] Killed by missile fired from a helicopter, which struck a car he was
travelling in. Israel Defense Forces
March 14, 2002 Anabta West Bank Mutasen Hamad (Mu'atasem Mahmoud 'Abdallah Hammad) (28); 'Atef Subhi
Balbisi (Balbiti) (25). Hamad was an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member and bomb maker. 3 missiles fired
from an Israeli attack helicopter at Hamad's car, near a chicken farm. A Palestinian source say a
bystander, a chicken farmer (Maher Balbiti) was also killed. An Israeli sources identify him as a
terrorist.[21][76][77] Israeli Air Force
April 5, 2002 Tubas West Bank Qeis 'Adwan (25); Saed 'Awwad (25); Majdi Balasmeh (26); Ashraf
Daraghmeh (29); Muhammad Kmeil (28); Munqez Sawafta (29) Qeis 'adwan was a Hamas activist and bomb
maker to whom several suicide bomb attacks were attributed. Targeted in a combined drone, tank and
special forces siege during Operation Defensive Shield. Given hospitality in his house by Munqez
Sawafta. After hours of gunfire, and a refusal to surrender, a D-9 armored bulldozer crushed part of
the house and the remaining 3 were shot.[57][78] Israel Defense Forces
April 22, 2002 Hebron West Bank Marwan Zaloum (59) and Samir Abu Rajoub. Tanzim Hebron leader and
Force 17 member Killed by a helicopter missile while driving a car. Zaloum was on an Israeli wanted
list, and thought responsible for shootings, including that Shalhevet Pass. Israeli helicopter
strike.[21][57][79] Israeli Air Force
May 22, 2002 Balata refugee camp, Nablus West Bank Iyad Hamdan (22); 'Imad Khatib (25); Mahmoud
'Abdallah Sa'id Titi (30); Bashir Yaish (30) Unknown, the first three were targeted. All four killed
by a shell shot from an Israeli tank. Yaish was not involved in hostilities at the time. Israel
Defense Forces[57]
June 24, 2002 Rafah Gaza Strip Yasir Raziq, 'Amr Kufa. Izzeddln al-Qassam Brigades leaders. Missiles
fired at two taxis, killing two other passengers (reportedly also Hamas activists),[80] the two
drivers and injuring 13 bystanders.[21][81] Israeli Air Force
June 30, 2002 Nablus West Bank Muhaned Taher, Imad Draoza. Muhaned Taher, nom de guerre "Engineer 4",
was a master Hamas bomber claimed by Israel to be responsible for both the Patt Junction Bus Bombing
and the Dolphinarium discotheque suicide bombing. Died with a deputy in a shoot-out with Israeli
raiding commandos.[21][80] Israel Defense Forces
June 17, 2002 al-Khader West Bank Walid Sbieh| ? Shot by an Israeli sniper in a targeted killing while
in his car.[57]
July 4, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Amerin/(Aqid) Jihad Amrain Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Colonel.
Killed in a car bomb.[21][82] Israel Security Forces.[83]
July 23, 2002 Gaza City Gaza Strip Salah Shahade (Shehadeh) Leader of Hamas Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed by 2,205-pound explosive dropped by an F-16. The attack also killed fourteen other
Palestinians including his wife and nine children. Yesh Gvul and Gush Shalom tried to have Dan Halutz
indicted, but the case was dropped.[21][84][85][86] Killed on the eve of an announced unilateral
cease-fire by Tanzim and Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail peace talks. Israeli Air Force.
27 reserve pilots undersigned a pilots' letter refusing to serve in IAF sorties over the West Bank and
Gaza in protest.
August 6, 2002 Jaba, Jenin West Bank Ali Ajuri, Murad Marshud Classified as people not known to be
involved in the fighting (B'tselem). Ajuri (21) was killed by an air-to-surface missile, during an
attempt to arrest him. Murad Marshud (19) killed as bystander.[74]
August 14, 2002 Tubas West Bank Nassa Jarrar Senior member of Hamas's militant wing. Died crushed by
rubble when an IDF bulldozer demolished his house. The IDF admitted it compelled at gunpoint Nidal Abu
M'khisan (19) to act as a human shield and get the victim out of his house. Jarrar shot the youth,
believing he was an IDF soldier. The victim was wheelchair bound. Israel suspected him of preparing a
bomb an Israeli high-rise building.[87][88] Israel Defense Forces
August 31 Tubas West Bank Bahira Daraghmeh (6); Ousamah Daraghmeh (12); Raafat Daraghmeh (29); Yazid
'Abd al-Razaq Daraghmeh (17); Sari Mahmoud Subuh (17). Five victims who did not participate in
hostilities when killed during a targeted killing, from a helicopter fired missile.[57] An eyewitness
account was later provided by 'Aref Daraghmeh. "The helicopter fired a third missile towards a
silver Mitsubishi, which had four people in it. The missile hit the trunk, and the car spun around its
axle. I saw a man escaping the car and running away. He ran about 25 meters and then fell to the
ground and died. The three other passengers remained inside. I saw an arm and an upper part of a skull
flying out of the car. The car went up in flames, and I could see three bodies burning inside it.
Three minutes later, after the Israeli helicopters left, I went out to the street and began to shout.
I saw people lying on the ground. Among them was six-year-old Bahira . . She was dead . . I also saw
Bahira's cousin, Osama . . I saw Osama's mother running towards Bahira, picking her up and heading
towards the a-Shifa clinic, which is about 500 meters away."
October 13, 2002 Beit Jala West Bank Muhammad Ishteiwi 'Abayat (28) ? Killed in an explosion in a
telephone booth, in a targeted killing.[57]
October 29, 2002 Tubas West Bank Assim Sawafta Age 19 Hamas Izzedine al Qassam military leader. Killed
by an undercover army unit, after failing to surrender.[21][89] Israel Defense Forces
November 4, 2002 Nablus West Bank Hamed 'Omar a-Sader (36); Firas Abu Ghazala (27). Unknown Killed by
a car-bomb. According to B'tselem, Firas Abu Ghazala was not engaged in hostilities at the time.[57]
November 26, 2002 Jenin West Bank Alah Sabbagh (26); Imad Nasrti/'Imad Nasharteh (22); Sabbagh
reportedly an Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member, Nasrti Hamas local leader. Killed in an Israeli
airstrike on a house in the Jenin refugee camp by two missiles fired into a room.[21][90] Israeli Air
Force
December 23, 2002 wadi Burqin near Jenin West Bank Shumann Hassan Subuh (29) and Mustafa Kash (26/30)
Subah was a Hamas commander and bomb maker. Ambushed by IDF unit as Kash drove a tractor between
Burqin and Al-Yamun.[21][57][91] Israel Defense Forces
January 30, 2003 Burqin West Bank Faiz al-Jabber (32) ? Targeted when Israeli forces opened fire at a
Fatah group. He fled, was wounded, then shot dead at close range.[57] Israeli Border Police
March 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ibrahim al-Makadmeh Gaza Dentist. Second-in-Command of Hamas's
Military Wing.[21] Hamas political leader. He and three of his aides killed by helicopter-fired
missiles.[92] Israeli Air Force
March 18, 2003 Baqat al-Hatab West Bank Nasser Asida Hamas commander Shot while hiding in a cave, On
Israel's most wanted list as alleged mastermind of attacks on Israeli settlements in the West
Bank.[93] Israel Defense Forces's Kfir Brigade[94]
March 25, 2003 Bethlehem West Bank Mwafaq 'Abd a-Razaq Shhadeh Badawneh (40); 'Alaa Iyad (24); Nader
Salameh Jawarish (25); Christine George S'adeh (11) ? Israeli Defence Forces version, agents were
ambushed and shot dead 2 Palestinian gunmen, and a girl in a car that blundered into the battle, and
was believed to be part of the ambush. The girl's parents and sister were wounded.[95] B'tselem
reports that three of the 4 did not participate in hostilities at the time, but were killed during the
targeted assassination by an undercover team of Nader Gawarish and Nader Salameh Jawarish[57]
April 8, 2003 Zeitoun, Gaza City Gaza Strip Said al-Arabid Hamas Israeli Air Force strike on his car
followed by helicopter missiles. Seven Palestinians, ranging from 6 to 75, were killed, 47 wounded, 8
critically.[21] Israeli Air Force[96]
April 9, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mahmoud Zatma Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine Senior Commander,
Bomb Maker[21] Apache helicopter hit the car he was driving in Gaza City, 10 bystanders injured.[97]
April 12, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Jasser Hussein Ahmad 'Alumi (23) ? Killed by gunfire. Object of a
targeted killing.[57] Israel Defense Forces
April 10, 2003 Tulkarm West Bank Yasser Alemi Fatah, Tanzim Shot and killed as a fugitive in Tulkarm.
Israel Border Police[21]
April 29, 2003 Gaza Strip Nidal Salameh PFLP Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck his car[21]
Israeli Air Force
May 8, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Iyad el-Bek (30) Aide of Salah Shehade, Hamas activist.[21][98]
Killed by three helicopter missiles fired at a car.
June 11, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tito Massoud (35) and Soffil Abu Nahez (29) Massoud was a senior
member of Hamas's military wing.[21] Retaliatory strike one hour after the Davidka Square bus bombing.
4 bystanders also killed[99]
June 12, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Jihad Srour and Yasser Taha Hamas members[21] Killed by between 4
and 6 helicopter missiles while their car was caught in a traffic jam, near a cemetery where victims
of the June 11 strike the day before were being buried. Collateral damage consisted of 6 other victims
including Taha's wife and child. 25 others were injured by the blasts.[100]
June 12, 2003 Jenin West Bank Fadi Taisir Jaradat (21); Saleh Suliman Jaradat (31) Saleh Suliman
Jaradat was an Islamic Jihad activist Both killed at the entrance of their home, the latter being the
target. Fadi Jaradat did not participate in hostilities at the time, according to B'tselem.[57] Israel
Defense Forces[57]
June 21, 2003 Hebron West Bank 'Abdallah 'Abd al-Qader Husseini al-Qawasmeh (41) Wanted by IDF Shot
dead after getting out of a taxi before a mosque. Three vans approached, with a dozen Israelis
disguised as Palestinian labourers, and he was shot in the leg, perhaps while fleeing to a nearby
field, and then finished off.[101][102]
August 21, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ismail Abu Shanab (48) Engineer and high-ranking Hamas military
commander.[103] High-ranking Hamas official[104] Missile strike, ending a cease-fire.[105][106]
Israeli Air Force[21]
August 24, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Walid el Hams, Ahmed Rashdi Eshtwi (24), Ahmed Abu Halala,
Muhammad Abu Lubda Hamas members. Eshtwi was said by the IDF to be a Hamas liaison officer with West
Bank cells.[107] Twin helicopter missile strike as the five were sitting in a vacant lot near a Force
17 base. Several bystanders were injured, and a further Hamas member critically wounded.[108]
August 26, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Massoud brother of Tito Massoud, killed 3 months earlier.
Hamas Qassam rocket designer, alleged to be involved in mortar strikes. Attempted assassination of
Massoud, who was with two other Hamas activists, Wa'al Akilan and Massoud Abu Sahila, in a car.
Alerted to the threat, the three men managed to escape from their car as 3 missiles struck it and
killed a passing 65-year-old Jabaliya donkey driver Hassan Hemlawi, who was driving his cart. Two
bystanders were also wounded, including four children.[107][109]
August 28, 2003 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hamdi Khalaq Izzedine al Qassam 3 missiles struck hit a donkey
cart Khalaq was driving. Three Gazans nearby were wounded. The IDF said he was on his way to a mortar
attack on an Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip.[110] Israel Defense Forces[21]
August 30, 2003 On a road linking the Nusseirat and Bureij refugee camps Gaza Strip Abdullah Akel (37)
and Farid Mayet (40) Hamas senior operatives, said to have fired mortar shells and Qassam rocks.
Killed when 4 helicopter missiles struck their pickup truck. Seven others Palestinians were wounded by
the fire.. IDF soldiers machine-gunned an 8-year-old girl Aya Fayad the same day in the Khan Yunis
refugee camp, while, according to IDF reports, shooting at road-bomb militants detonating bombs on a
patrol route.[111] 'Israeli strike kills two militants,'[112] Israeli Air Force[21]
September 1, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khader Houssre (36) Hamas member Killed when 4 helicopter
missiles struck a car with 3 Hamas members, in a crowded side street. The second was critically
wounded, while the other managed to flee. 25 bystanders were injured in the strike.[113]
October 28, 2003 Tulharm Refugee Camp West Bank Ibrahim 'Aref Ibrahim a-N'anish Wanted by IDF Shot
dead, unarmed, as he drove his car to the entrance of the refugee camp.[57] Israel Defense Forces
December 25, 2003 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mustafa Sabah Senior Hamas bomb maker, thought behind
explosions that blew up 3 Merkava tanks inside the Gaza Strip.[114] Killed when 3 helicopter missiles
destroyed a Palestinian Authority compound where Sabah worked as a part-time guard.[114] Israeli Air
Force[21]
December 25, 2003 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Mekled Hameid PIJ military commander. Helicopter gunship
attack on car, killing its occupants, including two PIJ members. Two bystanders were also reported
killed and some 25 bystanders injured.[115]
February 2, 2004 Nablus West Bank Hashem Da'ud Ishteiwi Abu Hamdan (2); Muhammad Hasanein Mustafa Abu
Hamdan (24); Nader Mahmoud 'Abd al-Hafiz Abu Leil (24); Na'el Ziad Husseini Hasanein (22). All four
wanted by the IDF Killed in a car struck by a missile fired from a helicopter. Israel Defense
Forces[57]
February 7, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Aziz Mahmoud Shami Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine local
field commander, claimed to be behind a 1995 double suicide bombing in Netanya. Missile strike
incinerated his car while he drove down a crowded street, and a passing 12-year-old boy was killed,
and 10 others wounded.[116] [21]
February 28, 2004 Jabaliya refugee camp Gaza Strip Amin Dahduh, Mahmoud Juda, Aiyman Dahduh. PIJ
military commander Missiles hit his car as it travelled from Gaza city to the refugee camp. Two
passengers are also killed and eleven bystanders wounded.[117][118] Israeli helicopters.
March 3, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Tarad Jamal, Ibrahim Dayri and Ammar Hassan.[5] Senior Hamas
members Missiles from helicopter fired at their car as it drove down a coastal road.[119] Helicopter
strike.[21]
March 16, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nidal Salfiti and Shadi Muhana Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
Israeli missile strike.[21]
March 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Yassin Co-founder and leader of Hamas The purpose of the
operation was to strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. As Yassin left a mosque at dawn, he, 2
bodyguards, and 7 bystanders killed by Israeli Air Force AH-64 Apache-fired Hellfire missiles. 17
bystanders were wounded.[120][121] Israeli Air Force[21]
April 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi Co-founder and leader of Hamas, and
successor of Ahmed Yassin as leader of Hamas after his death The purpose of the operation was to
strengthen the position of Mahmoud Abbas. al-Rantissi was killed by helicopter-fired missiles, along
with his son and bodyguard. Several bystanders were injured.[122]
April 22, 2004 Talluza West Bank Yasser Ahmed Abu Laimun (32) Lecturer in hospital management at the
Arab-American University in Jenin, mistaken for Imad Mohammed Janajra. IDF initially reported he was a
Hamas member.[123] Initially reported shot after shooting, and then running away from an Israeli
attack dog, trained to seize wanted individuals. His widow testified that he was shot, while in his
garden, from a distance of 200 yards by gunfire from Israeli soldiers behind an oak tree. The IDF
apologized.[124][125][126] Israel Defense Forces
May 5, 2004 Talluza West Bank Imad Mohammed Janajra (31)[21] Hamas leader Ambushed in an olive grove,
after an earlier attempt, mistaking Abu Laimun for him. Said by IDF to be armed and approaching
them.[126] Golani Brigade's elite Egoz unit.
May 30, 2004 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Wael Nassar[21] Hamas mastermind behind the mine that blew up an
Israeli troop carrier raiding Gaza City, on May 11, killing 6 soldier. He was killed on his
motorcycle, together with his aide, by a missile strike which also wounded 7 civilians, including a
woman and two children. A second following missile killed another Hamas member nearby.[127] Helicopter
strike
June 14, 2004 Nablus West Bank Khalil Mahmoud Zuhdi Marshud (24)[21][128]'Awad Hassan Ahmad Abu Zeid
(24). Head of Al-Aqsa Brigades in Nablus Earlier targeted in a Nablus missile attack on a car on May
3, killing 3 Al Aqsa Brigade members. He was in a different vehicle. Killed when a missile hit a car
outside the Balata refugee camp, also killing PIJ members Awad Abu Zeid e Mohammed Al Assi (Israeli
version). Abu Zeid did not engage in hostilities when killed (B'tselem report).[57] Israeli Army radio
said the decision to kill him followed on several failures to arrest him. The same day, an attempt to
kill Zakaria Zubeidi, head of the Jenin al Aqsa Brigades, failed.[128][129] Israel Defense Forces
June 26, 2004 Nablus West Bank Nayef Abu Sharkh (40) Jafer el-Massari Fadi Bagit Sheikh Ibrahim and
the others. Respectively Tanzim Hamas Nablus officer; Islamic Jihad officer.[21] Killed by IDF
paratroopers together with six other men found huddled in a secret tunnel beneath a house in the old
city of Nablus, after trailing a fugitive into the house.[130] Israeli paratroopers.
July 22, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hazem Rahim[21] Islamic Jihad in Palestine member Helicopter
gunship missile strike on a car, killing Rahim and his deputy, Rauf Abu Asi. According to Israeli
sources, Rahim had been seen on video two months earlier brandishing body parts of ambushed Israeli
soldiers.[131][132] Israel Defense Forces
July 29, 2004 Near Rafah refugee camp Gaza Strip Amr Abu Suta, Zaki Abu Rakha[21] Abu al-Rish Brigades
leader. In a car, together with bodyguard, incinerated by Israeli helicopter fire. Accused of
involvement in the shooting of an IDF officer, and a 1992 killing in a Jewish settlement in the Gaza
Strip.[133]
August 17, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Five dead. Four Unidentified?[21] The target was a Hamas Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades leader, Ahmed al-Jabari. The five, included al-Jabari's 14-year-old son, his
brother, his nephew and son-in-law, were killed in a drone missile strike on al-Jabari's home. About a
dozen other Palestinians wounded. al-Jabari survived the attempt.[134][135] Israeli Air Force
September 13, 2004 Jenin West Bank Mahmoud Ass'ad Rajab Abu Khalifah (25),[21] Amjad Husseini 'Aref
Abu Hassan, Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub Al-Aqsa Brigades leader, deputy to Zakariya Zubeidi.
Killed together with two aides (Israeli version) when a helicopter missile struck his car in the city
centre.[136] Amjad Hassan and Yamen Feisal 'Abd al-Wahab Ayub were not, according to B'tselem,
involved in the fighting.[57]
September 20, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Khaled Abu Shamiyeh (30) Hamas rocketry mechanic.[21][137] Car
hit by missile Israel Defense Forces
September 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Nabil al-Saedi (34), Rabah Zaqout[21] Hamas mid-ranking
operatives. Killed when their Jeep was struck by a missile. 8 bystanders including 2 children were
wounded.[138]
September 27, 2004 Damascus Syria Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil (42)[21] Hamas senior official. A
Gazan deported by Israel in 1992. Blown up by a bomb hidden in his SUV when he answered a call on his
mobile phone, triggering the explosion. Israel did not claim responsibility but Ariel Sharon's
spokesman Raanin Gissin said:'Our longstanding policy has been that no terrorist will have any
sanctuary and any immunity,' and Moshe Ya'alon commented that action should be adopted against "terror
headquarters in Damascus" in the wake of the recent Beersheba bus bombings.[139]
September 27, 2004 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Ali al-Shaeir (26)[21] Popular Resistance Committee member
Killed while an Israeli helicopter gunship fired several missiles at a car in Abbassam, believed to
hold their target, Muhammad Abu Nasira. The latter, with two others of the group sustained injuries,
and al-Shair died.[140] Israeli helicopter strike
October 6, 2004 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Bashir Khalil al-Dabash, (38/42) and Zarif Yousef
al-'Are'ir (30)[21] Head of Islamic Jihad's military wing, al-Quds Brigades. Both killed by helicopter
missile fired at their Subaru in 'Izziddin al-Qassam Street in downtown Gaza. Three passers-by were
wounded. One of three operations in Operation Days of Penitence that killed 5 other Palestinian
militants.[141][142] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 21, 2004 Gaza City Gaza Strip Adnan al-Ghoul Imad al-Baas 2nd in command of Hamas, and Qassem
rocket expert. Killed together with his aide Imad Abbas when their car was destroyed by a missile from
an Apache helicopter. Four bystanders were wounded. .[5]
July 15, 2005 East of Salfit West Bank Samer Abdulhadi Dawhqa, Mohammad Ahmed Salameh Mar'i (20),
Mohammad Yusef 'Abd al-Fatah A'yash (22) Alleged to be 'ticking bombs'.[55] Killed in an olive grove,
or, according to B'tselem, in a cave where two were hiding. The first two died immediately in a
missile and gunfire strike by Apache helicopters. The third was taken to Ramallah in critical
condition, but then seized by Israeli forces and taken off in a military ambulance. He died later, and
neither he nor Mar'i, according to B'tselem, were involved in the fighting.[57][143] Israel Defense
Forces
July 16, 2005 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Saeed Seam (Sayid Isa Jabar Tziam) (31). Hamas commander of
Izzedine al Qassam. Allegedly involved in killing two settlers in 2002 and shooting at an Israeli army
outpost in 2004.[21] Shot dead by Israeli sniper in a targeted killing as he stood outside his Gaza
home, as he was going to water his garden, in Khan Yunis.[144][145]
July 16, 2005 Gaza City .[146] Gaza Strip 'Four Unidentified' (JVL)=Adel Mohammad Haniyya (29); A'asem
Marwan Abu Ras (23); Saber Abu Aasi ( 24); Amjad Anwar Arafat,[147] one reportedly a nephew of Ismail
Haniya.[21][148] Hamas operatives. Apache helicopter struck a van carrying the men and numerous Qassam
rockets in Gaza city. Five civilians, including a child, were wounded in the attack.[144][149][150]
Israeli Air Force[21][21][151][21][152][21][153][154][21][155][156][21][157]
September 25, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Sheikh Mohammed Khalil (32) PIJ Alleged to have been involved
in Hatuel family's murder near the Gush Qatif settlement bloc. Killed when his Mercedes was struck by
5 missiles launched from an Israeli aircraft.[158]
October 27, 2005 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Shadi Mehana/Shadi Muhana (25) PIJ Airstrike hitting car with
four Palestinian militants north of Gaza City. Three civilians were also killed, including a
15-year-old boy (Rami Asef) and a 60-year-old man. One source stated 14 other Palestinians were
wounded.[159][160]
November 1, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hassan Madhoun (33); Fawzi Abu Kara[161] Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Brigades Allegedly planning an operation to strike the Eretz Crossing. Killed when his car was hit by
an Israeli Apache helicopter missile. According to documents in the Palestine Papers Israel's Shaul
Mofaz had proposed to the PA that Fatah execute him.[162]
December 7, 2005 Rafah Gaza Strip Mahmoud Arkan (29). Popular Resistance Committees field operative
Airborne missile strike on a moving car in a residential area. 10 bystanders, including three
children, were injured.[163][164]
December 8, 2005 Gaza Strip Iyad Nagar Ziyad Qaddas Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Missile striking a house.
A third militant, and several Palestinians nearby, including a young girl, suffered injuries.[165]
December 14, 2005 Gaza City Gaza Strip Four Unidentified Popular Resistance Committees Missile strike
on a white sedan near the Karni crossing. Israeli sources say the car was packed with explosives.
Three PRC members killed, a fourth is thought to have been an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member. One
occupant survived, and two bystanders were injured.[166][167]
January 2, 2006 East of Jabaliya Gaza Strip Sayid Abu-Gadian (45); Akram Gadasas (43), third unknown.
PIJ All three hit by IAF rocket while in a car close to a no-go zone declared by Israel in the
northern Gaza Strip. Collateral damage, two bystanders were wounded.
February 5, 2006 Zeitoun Gaza Strip Adnan Bustan; Jihad al-Sawafiri Islamic Jihad in Palestine.
Believed to have director of their engineering and manufacturing unit. Killed when 2 cars fired on by
an IAF missile, the second en route to a retaliatory attack for an earlier Israeli helicopter strike
that killed three people.
February 6, 2006 North of Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[168] Hassan 'Asfour (25); Rami Hanouna (27)[169]
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade| Hit and killed when their car was struck by three missiles from an Israeli
drone. Three bystanders also wounded.[168]
February 7, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Abu Shariya; Suheil Al Baqir Al Aqsa Brigades Their car
was demolished by a missile.
March 6, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Munir Mahmed Sukhar (30); Iyad Abu Shalouf Islamic Jihad field
operative. Collateral damage, 3-8 passers-by wounded, including 17-year-old Ahmed Sousi, and an
8-year-old boy (Ra'ed al-Batch), both of whom later died.[170]
May 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Dahdoh PIJ Killed in car, held responsible for firing crude
rockets into southern Israel. Palestinian version stated Muhanned Annen, 5; his mother, Amnah, 25; and
Hannan Annen, 45, Muhanned's aunt, were collateral victims. Dahdoh was alone in the car (IDF version).
May 25, 2006 Sidon Lebanon Mahmoud al-Majzoub (Abu Hamze), Nidal al-Majzoub Commander of the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad; the brother was a member also. Critically wounded in car bombing, when he
turned on the ignition of his car, parked near the Abu Bakr mosque in Sidon,. He died the next day.
Islamic Jihad blamed Israel, though Israel denied it.[171] An Israeli government spokesman denied
knowledge of any Israeli involvement. (alleged)
June 5, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip[172] Majdi Hamad (25); Imad Assaliya (27) Popular Resistance
Committees Missile struck their car, targeting Hamad. Three bystanders were injured. Israeli Air
Force[21][173][21][21][174][175]
June 8, 2006 Rafah Gaza Strip Jamal Abu Samhadana and three others Founder of the Popular Resistance
Committees militant group, a former Fatah and Tanzim member, and number two on Israel's list of wanted
terrorists. Had survived 4 assassination attempts.[176] Eyal Weizman states its purpose was to derail
peace talks, as it coincided with a referendum vote on a political initiative by Mahmoud Abbas. Killed
by Israeli airstrike on a training camp, along with at least three other PRC members.[177]
June 13, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hamoud Wadiya; Shawki Sayklia Wadiya was a PIJ rocket expert. Three
militants in a van with a Grad rocket were driving down a main street when a missile struck nearby.
They fled but were killed by a second missile, as people gathered. The second blast killed 11
Palestinian bystanders, including Ashraf Mughrabi (25) his son, Maher (8), and a relative Hisham (14),
4 ambulance drivers and hospital staff rushing to the incident, and three boys. Thirty-nine people
were wounded.[178]
July 4, 2006 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Isamail Rateb Al-Masri (30)[179][180] Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed by an IAF rocket.[181]
August 9, 2006 Jenin Gaza Strip Osama Attili (24); Mohammed Atik (26) Described by Israel as leaders
of PIJ Killed when (2) helicopter(s) fired missiles into their house. PIJ leader Hussam Jaradat,
another target escaped the strike, while his deputy Walid Ubeidi abu al-Kassam, was lightly
wounded.[182]
October 12, 2006 'Abasan al-Kabirah neighbourhood Gaza Strip Three unidentified='Abd a-Rahman
'Abdallah Muhammad Qdeih (19); Na'el Fawzi Suliman Qdeih (22); Salah Rashad Shehdeh Qdeih (22); Hamas
All three, armed, killed by a helicopter missile after one of the three fired at an IDF tank
October 12, 2006 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Three militants of Kadiah family. Hamas Five members of Kadiah
family killed, two, Adel Kadiah, 40, and his son, Sohaib, 13, being civilians
October 12, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ashraf Ferwana Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Ashraf targeted in
his home but he survived the drone missile strike which demolished his house. His brother Ayman
Ferwana and a girl died, and 10 others injured.[174][183][184]
October 14, 2006 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad Hassan 'Abd al-Fatah Abu al-'Anin (19); Sakher Faiz
Muhammad Abu Jabal (19); Rami 'Odeh Salem Abu Rashed (22); Faiz 'Ali Fadel al-'Ur (33); Suliman Hassan
Fadel al-'Ur (30); Muhammad Faiz Mustafa Shaqurah (30); Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Five killed
while walking armed in the refugee camp, by a helicopter-launched missile.Awad Attatwa (18), not
associated with group, also died.[175][185]
October 14, 2006 One Unidentified Al Aqsa Brigades Died when the car he was in was hit by a missile
fired in an airstrike. A local commander also critically injured, and two bystanders wounded.[185]
November 7, 2006 Al-Yamun West Bank Salim Yousef Mahmoud Abu Al-Haija (24); Ala'a Jamil Khamaisa (24);
Taher Abed Abahra (25); Mahmoud Rajah Abu Hassan (25). Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades The four militants
were shot while sitting near the Al-Yamun bakery (Palestinian version), fled wounded and were killed
in a local house. Aiman Suleiman Mahmoud Mustafa (31), a bakery worker came out to see what was
happening and was shot dead. Salim Ahmed Awad (27), Ibrahim Mahmoud Nawahda (30), Salim Ahmed Awad
(27) and Mohammed Yousef Abu Al-Haija (27) were also shot and taken prisoner.[186] Israel Defense
Forces undercover squad.
November 20, 2006 Gaza City Gaza Strip Bassel Sha'aban Ubeid (22); Abdel Qader Habib (26) Izz ad-Din
al-Qassam Brigades Missile fired at a Mercedes containing both, parked outside the Ubeid family home.
Collateral damage, 5 civilians, members of the Amen family, including Hanan Mohammed Amen, aged 3
months and Mo'men Hamdi Amen (2), injured by shrapnel.[186] Israeli Air Force[21]
May 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Imad Muhammad Ahmad Shabaneh (33) Hamas Killed while travelling in a
car hit by an Israeli helicopter missile. Israeli helicopters[21][175]
June 1, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Fawzi (Fadi) Abu Mustafa PIJ/Al Quds Brigades senior member Killed
by an IAF airforce missile while riding a motor bike. Israeli Air
Force[21][187][21][187][188][188][21][189][21][190][21][191][21][192][21][193][194][21][195][188][21][187][188][21][187][196]
June 24, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hussein Khalil al-Hur=Hossam Khaled Harb (32) Hussein Harb Peugeot
al-Quds Brigades local leader. Struck by a missile while driving a Peugeot through Gaza City
October 23, 2007 Gaza City (near) Gaza Strip Mubarak al-Hassanat (35) Popular Resistance Committees
head and Director of military affairs in the Hamas Interior Ministry. Israeli airstrike (IAF) on his
car.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Majed Harazin (Abu Muamen) PIJ. Senior Commander, West Bank,
overseer of rocket operations. Killed together with two others in his car, reportedly packed with
explosives.
December 17, 2007 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abdelkarim Dahdouh; Iman Al-Illa; Ahmad Dahdooh, Ammar al-Said;
Jihad Zahar; Mohamman Karamsi PIJ. Missile strike from an aircraft on a car, combined with IDF
undercover unit, on a PIJ cell preparing to launch rockets.
December 18, 2007 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Hani Barhoum; Mohammed A-Sharif Hamas Strike on a Hamas
security position.
January 13, 2008 Al-Shati Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Nidal Amudi; Mahir Mabhuh; third man unidentified
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Senior operative The three were killed in a car driving through the refugee
camp, struck by an IAF missile.
January 17, 2008 Beit Lahiya Gaza Strip One unidentified[21] =Raad Abu al-Ful (43) and his wife. PIJ
rocket manufacturer They were killed by an IAF airstrike which fired missiles at their car.
January 20, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmad Abu Sharia Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Commander Hit by an
IAF missile as he walked in the streets. Two other Palestinians wounded.
February 4, 2008 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Said Qarmout Popular Resistance Committees member Killed by
an IAF missile that struck his car. Three others were wounded, two seriously.
April 14, 2008 Gaza Strip Ibrahim Abu Olba DFLP Israeli Air Force.[21]
April 30, 2008 Near Shabura refugee camp, Rafah Gaza Strip Nafez Mansour (40) Hamas Killed in an IAF
missile strike. Reportedly involved in Gilad Shalit abduction. Collateral damage. Three bystanders,
one dying of his wounds. A further bystander and young girl also hurt.[21] Israeli Air Force/Shin Bet
joint operation.[197]
June 17, 2008 al-Qararah, Rafah district Gaza Strip Mu'taz Muhammad Jum'ah Dughmosh (27); Musa Fawzi
Salman al-'Adini (35); Mahmoud Muhammad Hassan a-Shanadi (25); Nidal Khaled Sa'id a-Sadudi
(21)Muhammad 'Amer Muhammad 'Asaliyah (20).[175] Army of Islam Killed when their car was struck by an
IAf missile. A further two people were wounded.[198] Israeli Air Force.[21]
August 1, 2008 Tartus Syria Muhammad Suleiman Syrian General. National Security Advisor. Presidential
Advisor for Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons. Killed by sniper fire to the head and neck. Israel
denied responsibility for the killing, but was widely suspected of involvement. According to an NSA
intercept published by wikileaks, the NSA defined it as the 'first known instance of Israel targeting
a legitimate government official." [199][200][201] The U.S. Embassy in Damascus reported that Israelis
were the 'most obvious suspect (alleged).'[202]
January 1, 2009 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Nizar Rayan (49) Top level Senior Hamas leader. Professor of
Sharia law, Islamic University of Gaza. Among first 5 top Hamas decision makers, and field operative.
Advocated suicide bombings inside Israel.[203][204] His house destroyed by an IAF bomb. along with his
4 wives and 6 of his 14 children. 30 others in the vicinity were wounded. According to Israel,
secondary explosions from weapons in the building caused collateral damage. Rayan was not the target,
rather, the strike aimed to destroy Hamas' central compound which included several buildings that
served as storage sites for weapons. Israel further stated that phone warnings were delivered to the
residents.[204][205] Israeli Air Force
January 3, 2009 Gaza City Gaza Strip Abu Zakaria al-Jamal Senior Hamas military wing commander of Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and leader of Gaza City's rocket-launching squads[206] Killed in Israeli
airstrike.[207]
January 15, 2009 Jabalia Gaza Strip Said Seyam Hamas Interior Minister Killed in Israeli airstrike
with his brother, his son, and Hamas general security services officer. Salah Abu Shrakh.[208] Israeli
Air Force
January 26, 2009 Bureij Refugee Camp Gaza Strip Issa Batran (failed. See 30 July 2010) Senior military
commander of the Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades Targeted at his home. The attempt
to assassinate him failed, but the shell hit the balcony of their home and killed his wife Manal
Sha'rawi, and five of their children: Bilal, Izz Ad-Din, Ihsan, Islam and Eyman. Batran and his child
Abdul-Hadi survived.[209][210] Israel Defense Forces
March 4, 2009 Gaza Strip Khaled Shalan Senior Operative PIJ Killed in Israeli airstrike, together with
2/3 other militants, targeted after alleged involvement in rocket attacks on the Israeli city of
Ashkelon. They jumped from their car but were critically wounded. 5 bystanders were also
wounded.[211][212][213] Israeli Air Force
2010s
Date Place Location Target Description Action Executor
January 11, 2010 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Awad Abu Nasir Islamic Jihad Senior Field Commander Had
escaped several assassination attempts. Reportedly involved in attempts to harm Israeli soldiers.
Killed by a missile.[214][215] Israeli Air Force[21]
January 12, 2010 Tehran Iran Masoud Alimohammadi Iranian Physicist Killed in a car bomb. Majid Jamali
Fashi reportedly confessed to an Iranian court he had been recruited by Mossad to carry out the
execution, while the US State Department called the allegation "absurd". Mossad (alleged)[216]
January 19, 2010 Dubai United Arab Emirates Mahmoud al-Mabhouh Hamas senior military commander of Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, believed to have been involved in smuggling weapons and explosives into
Gaza.[217] Widely reported to have been killed by Israeli intelligence members. Israel stated that
there is no proof of its involvement, and neither confirmed nor denied the allegations of a Mossad
role.[218][219] Dubai police report that Israeli agents used Australian, French, British, Irish, and
Dutch passports.
July 30, 2010 Deserted area in the Nuseirat refugee camp Gaza Strip Issa Abdul-Hadi al-Batran (40)
Hamas Senior military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in central Gaza, who had survived 4
previous attempts on his life (26 Jan.2009). Thought to have been involved in manufacturing rockets.
Killed by a missile in retaliation for earlier rocket attack on city of Ashkelon. A further 13
Palestinians were injured in the strike.[209][210] Israeli Air Force
November 3, 2010 Gaza Strip Mohammed Nimnim Allegedly al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam
commander[220] Car explosion, due to either a bomb planted by Israel or an Israeli airstrike.[221]
Israeli Air Force, with Egyptian intelligence.
November 17, 2010 Gaza Strip Islam Yassin al-Qaeda affiliated, Army of Islam commander[222] Israeli
airstrike on his car, killing him, his brother, and injuring four others.[223] Israeli Air Force
January 11, 2011 Gaza Strip Mohammed A-Najar Islamic Jihad operative. Suspected of planning attacks
against civilians and launching rockets at Israel[224]
Attacked by the Israel Airforce while driving his motorcycle in the Gaza Strip.[224]
Israeli Air Force
April 2, 2011 Ismail Lubbad, Abdullah Lubbad, Muhammad al Dayah Hamas Allegedly aiming to kidnap
Israeli tourists in Sinai over Passover. .[21]
April 9, 2011 Gaza Strip Tayseer Abu Snima Senior Hamas military commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades Killed along with 2 of his bodyguards by the Israeli air force during a period of escalated
rocket fire from Gaza. He was the most senior Hamas commander killed since 2009.[225] Israeli Air
Force
July 23, 2011 Tehran Iran Darioush Rezaeinejad Iranian electrical engineer Killed by unknown gunmen on
motorcycle. Rezaeinejad was involved in development of high-voltage switches, which are used in a key
component of nuclear warheads. Such switches may also have civilian scientific applications.[226] The
German Newspaper Der Spiegel claimed Mossad was behind the operation. He is the third Iranian nuclear
scientist killed since 2010.[227] Mossad (alleged)
August 18, 2011 Gaza Strip Abu Oud al-Nirab; Khaled Shaath; Imad Hamed Popular Resistance Committees
Commanders Killed hours after a terrorist attack killed 6 civilians and one soldier in southern
Israel. 4 additional members of the group were killed in the strike.[228] Israeli Air Force, Shin Bet
August 24, 2011 Ismael al-Asmar PIJ Allegedly weapons smuggler and militant in Egypt's Sinai, killed
just before shooting a Qassam rocket. [21]
September 6, 2011 Khaled Sahmoud Popular Resistance Committees Killed after allegedly firing 5 Qassam
into Southern Israel [21]
October 29, 2011 Ahmed al-Sheikh Khalil PIJ Munitions expert Killed in retaliation for allegedly
launching rockets into Israel earlier that day. [21]
November 12, 2011 Tehran Iran General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam The main architect of the Iranian
missile system and the founder/father of Iran's deterrent power ballistic missile forces.
He was also the chief of the "self-sufficiency" unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Killed
along with 17 other members of the Revolutionary Guards known as Bid Kaneh explosion.
Those who died are known as the "Shahidan Ghadir".
Iranian officials said that the blast at the missile base was an accident, and ruled out any sabotage
organized by Israel.
AGIR said that the explosion "had taken place in an arms depot when a new kind of munitions was being
tested and moved".
However, TIME magazine cited a "unnamed western intelligence source" as saying that Mossad was behind
the blast.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
[229] [230] [231]
Mossad (alleged)
December 9, 2011 Isam Subahi Isamil Batash Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades [21]
January 11, 2012 Tehran Iran Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan Iranian nuclear scientist The bomb that killed
Ahmadi-Roshan at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, and another unidentified person was a
magnetic one and the same as the ones previously used for the assassination of the scientists, and the
" work of the Zionists [Israelis]," deputy Tehran governor Safarali Baratloo said.[232]
[233][234]
Mossad (alleged)
March 9, 2012 Tel al-Hawa Gaza Strip Zuhir al-Qaisi; Mahmud Ahmed Hananni Qaisi was Secretary-General
of the Popular Resistance Committees According to Israeli intelligence, he was planning an imminent
attack in the Sinai.[235] Israeli Air Force
August 5, 2012 Tel al-Sultan Refugee Camp.[236] Gaza Strip Nadi Okhal (19); Ahmad Said Ismail (22)
Popular Resistance Committee, Two senior operatives. IDF sources say they were associated with global
jihadist movement. Killed while riding a motor bike. The other passenger was badly wounded. [21]
September 20, 2012 Gaza Strip Gaza Strip Anis Abu Mahmoud el-Anin (22); Ashraf Mahmoud Salah (38).
Hamas security officers. Salah belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees Their car was shelled by
aircraft overhead.[237] Israeli Air Force[21]
October 13, 2012 Jabaliya Gaza Strip Hisham Al-Saidni (Abu al-Walid al- Maqdisi) (43/47/53);[238]
Ashraf al-Sabah.[239][240] Respectively Salafi-jihadist militant leader of al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad and
the Mujahedeen Shura Council, and head of Ansar Al-Sunna. Israeli and one Salafi source say they had
links with Al-Qaeda.[241][242] Killed by a drone-launched rocket while riding a motor bike in company
with Jazar. Several civilians, including a 12-year-old boy, were wounded.[243]
October 13, 2012 Khan Yunis Gaza Strip Yasser Mohammad al-Atal (23) Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine Rocket strike while he was riding his motor bike. A second man was critically
injured.[240][244]
October 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ezzedine Abu Nasira (23); Ahmad Fatayer (22)[240] Popular
Resistance Committees Struck by a missile while riding in a tuk-tuk after firing rockets into Israel
to avenge deaths resulting from two airstrikes the day before. Two others seriously wounded.[245]
Israeli Air Force[21]
November 14, 2012 Gaza City Gaza Strip Ahmed Jaabari Top level Commander of Hamas' military wing Izz
ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Number 2 to Mohammed Deif. Killed in an airstrike at the start of Operation
Pillar of Cloud. Led Hamas' 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip and, according to Israel, was responsible
for most attacks on Israel originating in Gaza from about 2006 to 2012, including the capture of Gilad
Shalit.[246]
November 15–19, 2012 Gaza Strip Hab's Hassan Us Msamch
Ahmed Abu Jalal
Khaled Shaer
Osama Kadi
Muhammad Kalb
Ramz Harb
Yahiyah Abbayah Hab's Hassan Us Msamch, was a senior operative and Hamas Bombmaker.
Ahmed Abu Jalal, was a Senior Hamas commander of the Hamas central military wing in Al-Muazi.
Khaled Shaer, was a senior operative in the anti-tank operations.
Osama Kadi, was a senior operative in anti-tank operations.
Muhammad Kalb, was a senior operative in the aerial defense operations.
Ramz Harb, was an Islamic Jihad senior operative in propaganda in Gaza city.
Yahiyah Abbayah was a senior Hamas expert bomb maker and a military commander in central Gaza. All of
them were killed by IAF airstrike inside their command bunker and weapon storage during Operation
Pillar of Defense.
February 12, 2013 Damascus Syria Hassan Shateri Top IRGC General. Under the pseudonym Hussam
Khoshnevis, He was a Head of Iranian IRGC special reconstruction project for Hezbollah infrastructure
in southern Lebanon.
Israel air strike killed him during his traveling from Damascus to Beirut.
[247]
April 30, 2013 Gaza City Gaza Strip Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal (24/25) and three others, one on
the bike. Al Quds Brigades (Israel). Hamas security guard at Al-Shifa Hospital (Hamas version).[248]
Defined by Israel as a Freelance Terror Consultant" and active in different Jihad Salafi terror
organisations responsible for two rockets fired towards Eilat on 17 April, he was killed when a rocket
hit him on his motorbike. The strike broke a fragile cease-fire agreement.[249]
December 4, 2013 Beirut Lebanon Hassan al-Laqqis Senior Hezbollah Military Commander. Chief of
technology officer and in charge of the Arms Procurement and Strategic Weapons for the group. Shot and
Killed by gunmen in the head with a silenced gun outside his home and car.
Israel never took responsibility, but it is widely suspected Mossad committed it.
[231]
Mossad
January 22, 2014 Beit Hanoun Gaza Strip Ahmad Zaanin; Mahmoud Yousef Zaanin PFLP;PIJ The relatives
were held responsible for rocket attacks into southern Israel. Only Ahmed was admitted by PIJ to be a
member. His cousin and he were killed sitting in a pickup truck parked outside their home.[250]
Israeli Air Force[21]
February 9, 2014 Deir al-Balah Gaza Strip Abdullah Kharti Popular Resistance Committees member.
Regarded by IDF as involved with rocket fire episodes. Hit and critically wounded, with a friend,
while riding on a motorcycle.[251]
March 3, 2014 farmland near Beit Hanoun[252] Gaza Strip Mus'ab Musa Za'aneen (21); Sharif Nasser (31)
PIJ (Israeli version):Had just fired homemade rocket landing in a field south of Ashkelon (Palestinian
version): It was not known if either were militants. A child and a fourth person were wounded.[253]
June 11, 2014 Gaza Strip Mohammed Ahmed Alarur/Awar (30/33) of Beit Lahiya; Hamada Hassan, a Beit
Lahia resident (25) was critically wounded.[254] Hamas policeman. Salafist cell leader (Israeli
description) Described by IDF sources as a global jihad-affiliated terrorist planning attacks against
Israel responsible for a rocket salvo on Sderot that interrupted the silence of a Passover holiday.
Alarur was hit by a missile while riding a motorbike. A car nearby was also struck.[255] One report
identifies a further victim, his 7 year old nephew, who was riding in the family care and who died of
wounds on June 14, ascribing to the latter a role of 'human shield.'[256] Israel Air Force, Shin Bet.
June 27, 2014 al-Shati refugee camp Gaza Strip Muhammad al-Fasih and; Usama al-Hassumi Two Senior
operatives. Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades Struck by two helicopter-launched missiles while driving a
black Kia vehicle. Two other people were wounded.[257] Israeli Air Force
July 5, 2014 Damascus Syria Mwafaq Badiyeh Samir Kuntar's right-hand man and the personal liaison
officer between Samir Kuntar and Hezbollah. He was killed by an explosive device planted on his car by
"Mossad agents." While driving on the main road between Quneitra and Damascus. The security source
claim the assassination was a response to rockets fired from Syria to Israel in March, that the Syrian
army and Hezbollah were responsible for. Mossad (alleged)
July 8, 2014 Gaza Strip Muhammad Shaaban Muhammad Shaaban is a head of Hamas Special Forces Naval
Commando Unit in Gaza He was killed along with 2 passengers when his car was hit by IAF air strike
followed by attempted infiltration by 5 Hamas Naval Frogmen inside Israel Beach in Gaza border.
[258]
Israeli Air Force
July 27, 2014 Gaza Strip Salah Abu Hassanein
Hafez Mohammad Hamad
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin
Akram Sha'ar
Mahmoud Ziada
Osama al-Haya
Ahmad Sahmoud
Abdallah Allah'ras
Shaaban Dakhdoukh
Mahmoud Sinwar Salah Abu Hassanein leader and spokesperson of Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Hafez Mohammad Hamad was Top level Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in the Beit Hanoun (northern
Gaza) area who is directly responsible for the rocket fire on Sderot during escalation leading up to
Operation Protective Edge.
Hussein Abd al-Qader Muheisin was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Sheijaya.
Akram Sha'ar is a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Khan Younis, who is directly responsible for
both rocket fire and terror attacks in Israel.
Mahmoud Ziada was a Hamas commander for Islamic Jihad in Jabaliya, responsible for upgrading Hamas
rocket arsenal and directing fighting against Israel during Operation Protective Edge.
Osama al-Hayya A Senior Hamas leader in Sheijaya, whose son is in Hamas's 'political wing' Khalil
al-Hayya.
Ahmad Sahmoud was a Top level Hamas commander in Khan Younis.
Abdallah Allah'ras is a Senior commander in the Hamas's "military wing,""the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Shaaban Dakhdoukh was a commander of the forces in Zeitoun, who worked on burying long-range rockets
and helped to smuggle weapons for his forces.
Mahmoud Sinwar a Hamas Military commander, who was involved in the creation of attack tunnels and the
launching of rocket fire into Israeli territory and the raid in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was
captured. All of them were killed by IAF airstrike inside of their house along with their comrades and
entire family and also inside their buried Gaza tunnels.
[258][259]
August 3, 2014 Jabalia Camp Gaza Strip Ahmad al-Mabhouh Nephew of slain Hamas commander Mahmoud
al-Mabhouh in charge of engineering and destruction officer in Hamas.
Among other things, he was responsible for hiding rockets before they were launched at Israel,
preparing complex explosive devices and planning armed attacks against Israeli targets. The IDF and
Shin Bet attacked a building in Jabaliya on Saturday night, killing Hamas operative Ahmad al-Mabhouh,
the nephew of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was inside.
[260]
Israeli Armed Forces, Shin Bet
August 19, 2014 Gaza City Gaza Strip Mohammed Deif (failed attempt) Chief of staff and Supreme
Military Commander of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The main architect of Hamas's tunnel system.
Several IAF missiles struck Deif's 6 storey home. His wife Widad (27), 7 month old son Ali and
daughter Sarah (3) were killed in the strike. Three other residents in the building were also killed.
According to Fox News, anonymous Israeli intelligence sources claimed that Deif had been killed in the
strike. Hamas denied the reports that Deif, who has survived five previous Israeli attempts to
assassinate him, had died in the F-16 bombing of his home. In April 2015, Israel confirmed that Deif
survived the assassination attempt.[261][262][263][264][265] Israeli Air Force
August 21, 2014 Rafah Gaza Strip Raed al Atar Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Abu Shmallah Rafah Division Senior commander.
Mohammed Barhoum Rafah Division Senior commander. 3 Hamas Senior Military commanders Struck by a pair
of F-16 one-ton bombs guided through a window of the building where they had been located.[266][267]
January 18, 2015 al-Amal Farms, Quneitra District Syria Jihad Mughniyah
Mohammed Ahmed Issa
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi
Ismail Al Ashhab
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan
Ghazi Ali Dhawi
Ali Hussein Ibrahim
Along with 6 other Iranian and Hezbollah high-ranking officers Jihad Mughniyah was a son of a slain
Hezbollah supreme military commander Imad Mughniyah.
Mohammed Ahmed Issa was Head of Security and Operations. He was also a Senior Hezbollah Military
Commander in Syria.
Ismail Al Ashhab was a Senior Hezbollah military commander and a top liaison officer with Iran in
charge of training Hezbollah forces along the Golan heights frontier.
Abu Ali Reza Al Tabatabai was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Mohammed Ali Allah Dadi was a Top Iranian IRGC General.
Abu Abbas Al Hijazi was a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Mohammed Ali Hassan Abu Al Hassan was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ghazi Ali Dhawi was also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria.
Ali Hussein Ibrahim also a field commander and officer of Hezbollah in Syria. Struck and hit by Israel
Air Force Nimrod/Hellfire missile Apache Helicopter during their reconnaissance and inspection mission
along with Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line at the Golan Heights.
According to Israel Intelligence Security, they were planning for massive mega attack, including
infiltration, shooting, assassinations, suicide bombing, anti-tank attack, and missile attack with the
intention of kill and kidnap Israel soldiers and civilians community along with Quneitra and Galilee
border.
And also help to establish the missile base inside Quneitra region.
Israel neither confirmed nor denied an air strike.
December 21, 2015 Damascus Syria Samir Kuntar
Farhan Issam Shaalan
Mohammed Riza Fahemi
Mir Ahmad Ahmadi
along with several high ranking IRGC commanders and Hezbollah members Samir Kuntar was a senior
Hezbollah commander and also a convicted murderer of an Israeli family in 1979, held in Israeli prison
for the next 30 years before released in a prisoner swap in 2008.
Mohammed Riza Fahemi and Mir Ahmad Ahmadi were two Iranian senior military officers of the IRGC
Intelligence division. According to the Israeli defence establishment, they were meeting in order to
plan the next round of Iran-sponsored terrorist operation against Israel from the Golan Heights areas
recently secured by the Syrian military. Two Israeli planes allegedly destroyed a six-story
residential building in Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus. Kuntar's death was confirmed by his
brother and Hezbollah. The explosion also killed eight Syrian nationals, among them Hezbollah
commanders, and injured a number of other people.[268][269]
December 17, 2016 Sfax Tunisia Mohammed Al Zawari Mohammed Al Zawari was a Chief of Hamas drone
program and an Aviation Engineer expert. He also worked on the development and production of Hezbollah
drones. He was shot dead in the head 6 times by using guns equipped with silencer just in front of his
house, who located in Sfax 270 km Southeast of Tunis. Hamas accused Mossad[270]
March 24, 2017 Gaza Strip Palestine Mazen Fuqaha Mazen Fuqaha was a Senior Hamas Operative. He was
also a Senior commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas Military wing. According to Hamas, he
was shot dead 4 times in the head and chest by Israeli Special Forces by using silenced weapons guided
by Shin Bet Agents and Gaza operatives. Israeli Special Forces/ Shin Bet[citation needed]
April 21, 2018 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Fadi al-Batsh Batash was a Hamas-affiliated Palestinian engineer
from the Gaza Strip. Shot dead by two people on a motorcycle when he was leaving a mosque after his
morning prayers. Mossad is suspected.[271]
@Rich
Your "most moral" nation of Epstein cannot survive without blackmailing and deceiving, and yet you are
coming on the UNZ forum to lecture the readers about morals? This is ridiculous.
Time to realize that holobiz is over.
@Rich
Spoken like a true Hasbera Clown. The Iranians actually defeated the "ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein" that
were supplied with US biological and Chemical weapons since their objective was purely defensive. Just as
those "ragtag forces" in Vietnam defeated the US by continuing to exist despite the genocidal bombing
campaigns.
You should really improve your literacy level by actually reading a book instead of some
Zionist Agitprop.
@RowBuddy
Are you so naive as to think that dumping Trump in 2020 will change anything? Israel owns both parties
equally, and it is a fact that up to this point in his administration Donald Trump has the least amount of
blood on his hands when compared to each of the last three Presidents.
If you think differently, then ask yourself how the Nobel Peace Prize winning Messiah and the Hilldebeast
destroyed the #1 economic country in Africa and turned it into a total shit hole nightmare. That would be
the country of Libya for those not paying attention or who worship at the feet of the equally corrupt
Democrat party.
@Not Raul
Well lets take this to its conclusion,Trump nukes Iran it drifts over into Russia killing a few hundred or
thousands,now just what do you think Russia would do,do you think that Russia would take that as an act of
war against them, and let those missile's programed to impact the White House and pentagon be on there
way;!!!
Iraqi security official tells @nbcnews there has been anther US airstrike, this one north of Baghdad
targeting Shiite militia leaders. Reports of 6 killed.
This right BEFORE a big Shiite protest tomorrow in Baghdad. It seems certain to provoke an escalation.
The attack has been confirmed by other sources.
It looks like the provocations will continue until Iran responds creating the pretext for a broader war.
@Alfred
US is unique to indict people from opposite spectrums of the same crimes usually after one of the criminals
are dealt with . 911 has been blamed on Iran. It has been approved by American court . Settlements have been
reached without any participation of Iran . After Bin Laden was dealt with for crimes of 911, Saddam was
pointed fi anger at with similar success story . Pakistan has been also accused directly and indirectly of
the same crimes .
Pan Am had checkered history The intercepts of messages that seemingly originated from Libya was
manufactured and relayed by Israeli agents of worst filthy zionist mindset to draw visceral wrath of America
on Libya .
Now then Zio will be the first to blame it on Iran and who knows after that Pakistan.
The fallen Iranian was an honest and honorable man, unlike the Jewish procuress of underage girls for
wealthy pedophiles and the Jewish plunderer of pensions.
I'd like to send this to every US military barracks in the world.
I'd like to see it on every soldier's locker and pasted on every Army recruitment center in America.
Young Americans have been slaughtering honorable Muslim men, women and children, thousands of miles away,
so that repulsive pigs like Epstein or Weinstein
can rape their daughters while they're off fighting and dying.
It's an untenable situation, and one we should all try to stop.
Let's say the Saudis attack the USA again like they did on 9-11
The Unz Review already has some good comedy writers. I would suggest that you start with open mic nights
in bars and coffee shops until you develop some basic skills.
@Rurik
Not to worry the maneuver is too transparent.
1. Strategically, they accomplished zilch.
2. They made a first-rate martyr.
That they had no better idea can only mean:
1. They are losing.
2. They did it in hopes of provoking an overreaction (much like Heydrich had to die because he did more for
the Czech worker than anyone before or after him).
And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation
By doing nothing, but speaking out, Iran's message of victimization is it's more powerful, moral
weapon.
A noble sentiment, Rurik. Sadly, in the last few decades, morality has taken a back seat, and evil seems
to consistently triumph. Consider the plight of the unarmed Palestinians protesting near the Israeli wall on
their land. They have held the moral upper ground, while the Israelis have consistently mowed them down,
women and children alike, with nary a protest from the rest of the world, least of all from their
bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan (don't get me started on the KSA). Meanwhile,
countries that have protested, like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, are considered terrorists.
I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a
bully is punch him in the nose.
@annamaria
In my world Epstein and his friends get the death penalty. My people have no semitic or Ashkenazi blood at
all. But just because some deranged general dislikes Israel, doesn't make him a good guy. He was a leader of
an army that engages in terrorism, as well as pursuing an agenda that is antithetical to freedom and basic
human rights. I'm not here lecturing anyone, but if you consider the millionaire mullahs and their lackeys
"heroes", I'd say you're confused, at the least.
@Rurik
I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be true:
That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't care or
are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted
hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average American.
@JamesinNM
I fully expect Israel to set off a nuke in the US and destroy some Southern or Midwestern city where the
"deplorables" live. Then indisputable evidence will be found pinning it on Iran. Kills two birds with one
stone.
They get the war they want, kill a bunch of those they hate in America. And those they hate in America
clamor for the destruction of others they hate in Iran. The mother of all false flags. The one on 9/11
didn't completely get the 7 nations job done.
@Rich
Soleimani was fighting AL CIADA aka ISIS a creation of the ZUS and Israel and ZBritain and NATO, and so they
killed him as they could not let him continue to kill the terrorists created by the CIA and MOSSAD and MI6.
@Passer by
i said a "Profitable", not a good one. And i didn't mean the US economy as a nation economy.
The whole "western" system right now is driven by some very few (an NO they are NOT Jews, they are only
rich, very rich). And only those will profit from it. Until someone stop them directly.
Those people don't care about live or nation. They only care about money, their own money.
And over the last four decades the Iranians have grown calloused to provocation
I hope so. It's so bloody obvious by now.
Like the way they've been trying to 'rope a dope' Putin into a wider war with Ukraine, but Putin's far
too savvy to take the bait.
Just let the ZUS keep frothing like a rabid dog, (h/t Ron Unz) and the world will eventually tire of its
antics, and put it down, by repudiating the dollar.
If Iran is threatened with an all out war they could easily close the Straight of Homes and destroy the
Saudi oil fields with Chemical weapons that'll render extracting Saudi oil mute. Result would be loss of
Western World economy crashing big time and the USA falling into civil war cause they cannot maintain their
freebies to the population. Not to mention attacking every US base in the ME. After all if Iran was facing
annihilation they would have nothing to lose but to bring everyone down with them.
Iran won't escalate because they tried, and lost a general. If they try anything else, they'll pay too
steep a price.
They might have just killed a foremost general, but the ones who have just proved to the world that they
are losing are the US/Israeli Zionists.
When engaged in a strategic survival fight against a historic, cohesive nation of 80 millions people,
killing one of their generals won't make any difference. It just reveals that you have run out of more
effective, long-term means and have reached a strategic dead-end.
It is like losing a dispute over land with a powerful neighbour, and throwing a stone at one of his
windows to satisfy a tantrum. It won't change anything significant.
This is the end of the road for Zionist long-term strategy in the ME.
Iran will not retaliate militarily, but you will soon understand the law of unintended consequences:
– Soleimani was so popular in Iran that Iranians will rally around their government; so much for the social
and economic undermining of the Islamic Republic that was Israel's best card.
– Iraqis will also rally around their institutions; the end of the US occupation has now been put on top of
their priorities.
– Israel will have to face an even stronger and more cohesive Shia Crescent, as Iraq will join in.
I'm not necessarily a cheerleader for Iran but, were I a leader in Iran, every time the US attacked one of
mine, some Israeli bigshot would bite the dust. Every time. Dual citizens would be my preferred target. It
would be a favor to the world.
@Johnny Walker Read
The murdered peacemaker John Lennon famously asked, "What if there was a war and nobody showed up?" Since
Vietnam, any American who has joined the military is a fool. These fools have not only aided in the
destruction of many non-threatening nations and the deaths of millions of innocents but they have also aided
in the destruction of the USA itself, for the working American people that is.
the Israelis have consistently mowed them down, women and children alike, with nary a protest from the
rest of the world, least of all from their bought-and-paid-for Arab neighbors, like Egypt and Jordan
(don't get me started on the KSA).
yea, or the SJW in the US House or NYT. Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for
that matter?
Counting shekels, that's where.
I think that "turning the other cheek" was a shrewd jewish trick on christians. The only way to stop a
bully is punch him in the nose.
I wholeheartedly agree, in a fair contest.
But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be just
as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.
One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced these
days. Like the KSA, as you mention.
So, yea, it's an awful situation, but I'd still counsel a non-violent protest posture, even as the fiend
menaces and slaughters them. But if an Iranian or Iraqi, or God knows how many other people who've been so
terribly wronged, were to strike out, and kill one or two goons in the service of zion, I know I couldn't
begrudge them. Like the Afghans who occasionally kill their ZUS trainers/occupiers. It's perfectly
understandable.
@Rich
I challenge you to show just a single act of terrorism committed by General Soleimani and Iran, and I mean
an act of terror not a retaliation. Iran has done nothing to the West to warrant the aggression against it.
Her only problem is the vast resources it has that the West so desperately wants to control.
@plantman
BAGHDAD --
A United States air strike targeted an Iraqi militia late on Friday on Taji road north of
Baghdad,
state TV said. It did not name the militia or provide further details.
Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate
international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
Question #2: Thirty -- fifty -- seventy years from now, will an Iraqi court charge with war crimes and
crimes against humanity the 82nd Airborne soldiers pictured above?
@Passer by
All correct in the medium term just a bit wishful in the here and now
All excellent points why the US MUST hold onto the Gulf, Persian or not, with teeth and fingernails;
losing control over oil the US don´t need means they can force no one to trade actual value for green paper,
which not only means cold turkey from all those dandy little wars but also groid uprising back home.
Sure, folding up and going home would be the best for all concerned –
but it will never happen :/
@Gizmo880
This is what the Clinton apologist with his head up his Duff "editor" over at Veterans Today thinks as well.
As if O-bomb-em wasn't as bad or even worse than Cheney er I mean Bushwhacker Bush. I mean get real! These
people are so deluded. If we just all close our eyes and vote Democrat and sing kumbaya we'll enter a world
of hope and change.
Never underestimate the persistent and deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the
utter foolishness of your average American.
I'm somewhat more charitable of the Americanus Bovinus.
I suspect that he either knows of the 'special relationship, in which case he'd be reluctant to kill and
die for his enemies in Israel, or he's just another duped fool.
Pat Tillman started off being a duped fool, but then he figured it out. They solved that 'problem' with
three 5.56mm holes in a 'tight pattern' to Pat's forehead.
@Agent76
Were the neocons also inspired by Deuteronomy 7 which talks about the necessary destruction of 7 (seven!)
nations?
Deuteronomy 7 New International Version (NIV)
Driving Out the Nations
7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before
you many nations -- the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites,
seven nations larger and stronger than you -- 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you
and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.[a] Make no treaty with them, and show
them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their
daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods,
and the Lord's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to
them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles[b] and burn their
idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out
of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
Trump is acting out the American Paradox. Jews have such total power that the only way to ease the Jewish
attack on you is to serve them even harder. Jews have done everything to disparage and defame Trump, and
what does the 'tough guy' do? To ease the agony, he sucks up to Zion even more so that 'my Jews' will push
back against the 'Jews who hate me'.
Jews are the gods of America. In the Bible, if the God clobbers you, your only hope of salvation is to
serve Him with greater servitude. In America, if Jews kick your butt, your only option is to hope that they
will kick you less hard by kissing their ass.
@Rurik
Dear Rurik, the tribe is in a self-destruction mode -- they cannot help it. Zionists are consumed by ethnic
hatred and the hatred is blinding and destroying them.
It is tragic that the psychopaths have murdered the great numbers of decent and innocent human beings.
What is truly appalling is the cowardice of American brass. While politicians are the natural persons of
easy morals, the dishonorable and pussy-catting American commanders are a stunning phenomenon. From Rumsfeld
to Brennan to the current "boss" (what's his name which he is busy dishonoring?), the US brass has learned
how to stay comfortable (and profitably) on their knees serving the zionist masters.
@Ilya G Poimandres
Absolutely, couldn't have said it better myself. None of this is legal or acceptable and for a country
that's so obsessed with giving foreigners "constitutional rights", it makes us look like a bunch of
hypocrites. But of course we are. And they don't do it in my name and I want no part of any of it.
@Poco
This is a very real worry of mine. Very plausible and actually, probable. I worry that it will be a
biological weapon. That scares the crap out of me! And I wouldn't put it past them one bit. They love it
when we suffer and die. The Bible was right about them.
Actions like this make us question past US military actions. US paints itself as the good guy fighting the
bad guys, but US has provoked so many nations and forced them to react, whereupon US employed its superior
firepower to kill countless people.
Maybe the US was always evil.
Will the progs and Democrats hit Trump hard on this? Or will their response be muted because their Jewish
masters actually like this side of treacherous Trump doing the bidding of Israel and Zion?
Jewish Power is utterly vile. Sacrifice any number of people for Zion. It's really a new form of human
sacrifice. Jews make a big deal of how their religion forbade human sacrifice, but they sacrifice human
lives by way of US foreign policy.
@TaintedCanker
The reason decent people dislike America and Israel more than Iran et al. is because America and Israel are
the aggressors here. Why is that so hard to understand?
But Iran is in no position to fight a war with the ZUS. It would be crushed, and the zios would be
just as giddy over dead American goyim as they would dead Iranians, if not more so.
Yes, Iran would be crushed in a direct military confrontation, however, an asymmetric war is a different
beast altogether. I referred in an earlier post to "death by a thousand cuts", and that is what Iran should
do – directed assassinations by their allies, who are everywhere. What is good for the goose
Start by taking down a few zios like Pompeo, Bolton, Adelson, etc., and suddenly bullying isn't so cheap.
One thing I just can't understand, is how fellow Muslims can accommodate Zionism, as it's practiced
these days. Like the KSA, as you mention.
I don't know that they do tolerate zionists – but they have been effectively muzzled by the tyrants we
prop up to control them (e.g. MBS, Sisi, et al.). Look at our cousins in Europe, who are just as muzzled and
jailed for raising a single dissenting voice against jews or Israel. Forget Europe, we, ourselves are on the
threshold of something similar here. Unconstitutional laws go unchallenged. Note the recent laws forbidding
protests against Israel on campus. A flood is imminent.
Where are 'the squad' when it comes to Palestine, or Iran, for that matter?
Like damning with faint praise, the fact that the Palestinian/Iranian cause is represented by the 'squad'
does more damage to their plight than if they had kept their moths shut. The squad is easy to take down and
their position on this issue is easily dismissed, and they fail to gain the support of people like me
because their other issues are so ludicrous. Their flawed character (e.g incest, lies, etc.) hardly makes
them good lawyers for anyone, leave alone Palestinians and Iranians.
@A123
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You take tidbits from the MSM and what the
establishment says and regurgitate. You are a stooge of Natenyahu, the real sociapath. Trump is becoming one
very fast as well.
The regional stability only requires that uncle Sam come home and stop shedding
American blood as well as Middle Eastern blood.
Attacking the embassy was clearly Khameni's desperate effort to shore up personal weakness at home.
Not only did he fail to keep the embassy, he also lost a key terrorist. The weak leader just became much
weaker.
Here is a very good example of your ignorance. You have typical American problem. They think they know
how the Iranian mind works. They don't know a thing about how Iranians think. Iran has ten more Sulemanis
waiting in line to take his place and there are ten more Al-Mohandus in Iraq.
Does anyone remember what an American General said about ISIS? He said it will take 30 to 40 years to
defeat of ISIS in Iraq. It took less three years for the Iraq militias, all volunteer group mobilzed as a
result of a fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, to defeat ISIS and ISIS was being supplied arms by the
US. Al-Mohandus was one of that group.
@renfro
Thank you for posting that list. Any just soul in this world should keep a copy of that list as a permanent
reminder of the nature of the Jewish state and its sponsor/protector – insane criminals deserving the
harshest of their own gods' revenge: total obliteration from the face of the earth for ever. They are the
scourge of humanity; is anyone with a conscience safe in thie world?
Question #1: Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate
international rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
These guys just follow orders. They are not taught to think about the morality of their actions, but to
trust the wisdom of their leaders and the justice of the cause.
No thinking person could honestly serve in the American Military today. Their cause is not defense of any
ideals or their own homeland, but to serve an unjust and evil government in thrall to Jewish supremacists.
The only hope for us sane people is to hunker down and crack open another delightful $1.39 plus tax 8.1%
Hurricane 25 ouncer. Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, when in reality they
are pathetically superstitious and naturally subservient. Half the country every Sunday actually worships a
mythical jew zombie and even routinely mutilates the genitals of their male offspring to demonstrate total
fealty to their cock cutter cult overlords. The other half every Sunday worships giant muscular Africans in
plastic hats and tight spandex groping each other in a simulated homoerotic orgy on their flat screen living
room joo boxes. Oh, and it has been proven that guzzling fully synth swill like Ice House, Steel Reserve,
and Hurricane is actually healthier than counter and designers beers as brews made from actual fermented
real grains all contain the magic ingredient, RoundUp ..providing your liver and brain can withstand a
steady diet of 8%to 10% high octane fuel.
@Harbinger
I keep saying it.
Bomb to dust these maaaa-humpers in that shithole south of Lebanon.
The World major problems will go away with the next 10 years
@Adrian
I am a born again Christian and reader of the Bible but I cannot qoute chapter and versues like yourself and
many more who are able. Thanks for your reply and be blessed!
@Haxo Angmark
I don't think all, or even most, of them are hasbarists. They are mostly brain-addled American boomer
"conservatives" who blindly believe everything the Jews spoon-feed them. And really, 80% of (((ZeroHedge)))
is also Jewish propaganda these days, so why shouldn't their commenters reflect that?
It's not so
different from the moronic commentary found in the Steve Sailer section here at Unz, which seems to
increasingly bleed out to the rest of the site.
January 03, 2020 There can be no justification for this act of murder
"America's lawless arrogance has
gone too far with the assassination of Iran's top military commander. The deadly airstrike against General
Qasem Soleimani was carried out on the order of President Donald Trump.
@Rich
He was a leader of an army that engages in terrorism"
Israel is nation that survives on terrorism It was birthed by terrorism . It gets money everytime some guy
makes threats to a desolate synagogue or storms on the headstones of some graveyard . The money helps the
nation to survive get food water electricity and it uses the change for making bullets to hit at the eyes of
the Palestinian boys.
@Rich
I don't see where anyone is putting forth the idea that Iran can defeat the United States -- and they don't
have to to, essentially, 'win'.
After all, look at the end results for We The People Of The United States
as a result of the (false flag known as) 9/11 -- let's see, we've got the Patriot Act to destroy our
individual rights; we've got the TSA folks to do likewise; we've got the NSA to spy on anyone and everyone;
we've spent Trillion$ chasing phony WMDs (thanks to the 'intelligence' shoved at US by the israelis); we've
spent heaven-only-knows how much modifying the cabins of our commercial aircraft to prevent 'terrorist'
attacks; we've allowed folks to capitalize on the whole Twin Towers insurance scam.
All in all, we've been under the gun since 9/11 -- afraid of our own shadows -- bowing to the israeli
bastards who know no limits to their evil -- and, thanks to President Trump, American blood will be spilled
for them once again – and American freedoms will be lost for the once again.
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro
America needs interfaith dialogue with Islam but without including the Jewish faith . It is for the
forgiveness that we hope will be showed to and bestowed on our future generations . We need to include
Buddhist as well.
@Alfred
A good summation. However, it gets even darker than this.
Journalist working at the outer limits of the
mainstream (e.g. Robert Fisk) had long suspected an Iranian hand in Pan Am 103. And lawyers for the two
Libyans prosecuted for the bombing identified 11 alleged members of the rather obscure Palestinian Popular
Struggle Front (PPSF) as the men responsible. The Iranians did back this group, BUT numerous sources claim
that the operation took place with the consent of US authorities.
Why would the US allow such an attack upon its citizens? According to former Congressional staffer and
(former) CIA asset Susan Lindauer, the attack was directed at shutting down an investigation into a CIA-run
drug-trafficking ring (codenamed "Operation Khourah") operating from Beirut. In her words:
"The Defence Intelligence Agency had gone into Lebanon and were gathering forensic evidence to prove the
CIA's role in heroin trafficking.
"They boarded Pan Am flight 103 that morning and they were flying back to Washington to deliver their
report, with heroin, cash and banking records."
The UK Guardian summarised the scenario thusly:
//Among the Lockerbie victims was a party of US intelligence specialists, led by Major Charles McKee of
the DIA, returning from an aborted hostage-rescue mission in Lebanon. A variety of sources have claimed that
McKee, who was fiercely anti-drugs, got wind of the CIA's deals and was returning to Washington to blow the
whistle. A few months after Lockerbie, reports emerged from Lebanon that McKee's travel plans had been
leaked to the bombers. The implication was that Flight 103 was targeted, in part, because he was on board.
//
So extensive is the evidence of all this murk that even CNN has acknowledged it:
Do members of US military have right -- or obligation -- to refuse orders that violate international
rules and conventions on military engagement, US Constitution, or basic morality?
Yes, it's not only a right, it's an obligation. Following orders is not a defence for anyone knowingly
involved in crimes of war and against humanity.
However, the plea of obedience to superior orders can be a mitigating circumstance and reduce the
severity of punishment. A private soldier responsibility for a war crime would be the same as that of the
general or commander-in-chief who made the order, but his punishment would be reduced or symbolic.
In this case, a properly constituted court would convict Trump and all others in the chain of command,
down to the operators of the drone, for the assassination of Suleimani.
@JamesinNM
Tell that to Perle,Kristol,Kagan Kaplan Lutti Abrams Feith Wolfowitz and Haim Saban , Sheldon Adeslhon ,
Singer and Marcus . Use loudspeaker to make it reach the settlers occupiers and Likudniks .
Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from
2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?
@anon
Okay, I get it, you don't like Israel, but does your dislike of Israel mean the Iranians are hale and hearty
fellows? Most of their leadership are corrupt millionaires who use a medieval religion to justify torturing
and enslaving their populace. The Iranian leadership is full of evil people who are openly hostile to the
United States and its interests. Sorry.
The fact that you, and many others on this site, are strongly hostile to Israel and feel affection for
the defeated Palestinians, doesn't change the fact that Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings
with various enemies. The argument over how much, if any, foreign aid should be given to foreign nations has
nothing to do with the fact that Iran has chosen to be an enemy of the US. Had they not killed an American
contractor and coordinated the attack on the US embassy in Iraq (as well as other terrorist attacks),
General Soleimani, might still be alive to torture his enemies and plan terrorist attacks.
'U.S. Airstrike Targets Iraqi Militia North of Baghdad, State TV Reports
Iraqi army sources say at least five killed in attack on Iran-backed militia convoy, which group says was
carrying medical teams '
-- Haaretz
Obviously, we want to make certain Iran feels it necessary to respond.
@Rich
Then I guess he would fit right into Washington with their deranged people that kill wedding parties and
children,would put on illegal no fly zones killing 500,000 children,now just where do you think their
freedoms were .Its people like you that are sick in the head all puffed up with the empire bullshit that
everything on the planet belongs to us and was just put there for our taking,your a perfect example of a
neocon hiding behind patriotism.the sick kind that will destroy the world if we let it.!!
Their perspective on the assassination took several different angles than were presented even here on
Unz. I disagree with their conclusion that Iran has only two options: all out war NOW -- Iran will be
destroyed but so will Israel, and US bases will be eradicated; or sit on their hands and take the repeated
hits that USPisrael intends to send. (the latter seems to be the case: another attack has already taken
place).
But Rick Wiles and Doc Burkhart reported two more bits of information:
1. US press spokesman hinted that the PMU that was attacked by USA & lost 32 men, helped plan the attack on
Suleimani; claim was Suleimani was 'going rogue' -- US is offering an "out" to Iran in that Iran Central was
not directing the anti-American operation that Suleimani was planning.
The briefer said: "Iran has only two options: Come to the table and negotiate, or endure more attacks."
Because IRGC – Quds force had been declared a terrorist organization, killing Suleimani was hunkey-dorie.
Realize, tho, that Adam Schiff has proposed legislation that hate crimes be prosecuted as domestic
terrorism, and the Monsey incident upped the ante on that, so that domestic terrorism would be prosecuted
the same way as international terrorism. Knocking over a grave marker in a Jewish cemetery could possibly be
turned into an act of international terrorism. Rick Wiles or any of us anonymous keyboard warriors that Fran
Taubman is so eager to doxx could be named as Terrorist, and, presumably, be droned by our own government,
in our own American home, at the behest of Israeli partisans.
2. Israeli newspapers quoted Netanyahu that he knew in advance about the assassination, likely was in on
the planning (with Pompeo).
Also, a New York Times article wrote on Jan. 2 -- before the attack:
"What if the
former commander
of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Suleimani, visits Baghdad
for a meeting and you know the address? The temptations to
use hypersonic missiles
will be many."
What's a hypersonic missile? Who has them? How did NYTimes know this stuff?
Did US use hypersonic missiles? Was the NYTimes article, and the assassination of the Quds general, warnings
to other world leaders?
Every time you speak out against western imperialism in a given nation or question western propaganda
narratives about that nation's government, you will inevitably be accused of loving that nation's
government by anyone who argues with you.
When I say "inevitably", I am not exaggerating.
If you speak in any public forum for any length
of time expressing skepticism of what we're told to believe about a nation whose government has been
targeted by the US-centralized empire, you will with absolute certainty eventually run into someone who
accuses you of thinking that that government is awesome and pure and good.
@Rich
"Israel acts as an ally to the US in its dealings with various enemies."
-- This is a really poor joke.
Israel is the worst enemy of the US. Israel is guilty of killing and maiming the servicemen on the USS
Liberty.
Your filthy Pollard has created the worst spying episode in the history of the US (the goodies were sold by
Israel to China).
Mossad and Mossad's deputies Epstein et al have contributed a huge amount of evilness to the US and beyond.
The ongoing mass slaughter for Eretz Israel on the US dime & limb has been the greatest achievement of
sadistic Israel-firsters.
And only God knows the details of the zonists' involvement in 9/11.
If you want to talk about "corrupt millionaires and evil people" who "torture and enslave" and who are
"openly hostile" to the United States -- and all other countries that are not totally zionized (like Russia
and Iran) -- then your talk should be about zionists and the Jewish State.
By the way, were not you among the dancing Israelis celebrating the miraculous (controlled) demolition of
the towers?
"NATO got it right," he said. "In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn't lose a single life. This
is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward "
@Maiasta
Victor Ostrovsky, a Canadian former intelligence colonel with Israel's Mossad secret service and author of
the bestseller By Way Of Deception (the title comes from the Mossad motto), will testify that it was Mossad
commandos who set up the transmitter in Tripoli that generated a false signal about the "success" of the
Berlin bomb – he has already given a detailed description of this daring operation in his second book, The
Other Side Of Deception. Ostrovsky, who will testify by closed-circuit television from somewhere in North
America – he fears that, if he comes to Holland, he may be "Vanunu-ed" (ie kidnapped and smuggled back to
Israel) for breaking his secrets oath – will state that the Lockerbie intercept so resembles the La Belle
intercept as to have probably the same provenance. This is what US lawyers call the "duck" argument: "If it
looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles, the preponderance of evidence is that it is a duck."
Ostrovsky's evidence would then put the onus on the Lord Advocate to prove that the Lockerbie intercept is
genuine, not disinformation. Ostrovsky believes that, in both bombings, Israel implicated Libya to shield
Iran, thereby encouraging Iran not to persecute its small Jewish community.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/17/lockerbie
I wouldn't be surprised if the idiots "in charge" of this country decide to do a false flag "terrorist"
attack here in America, killing civilians, if this goes further. They're already putting out articles
indicating this. I don't believe the Iranians would target civilians here, but we all know who would.
Operation Gladio
The best thing that the Iranians could do is blurt out the truth for all the world to hear. Especially if
your side is militarily weaker, truth must be the main weapon. The Iranian leader should mock and shame
Donald Trump as a cuck-stooge of not only Zionism but Jewish Supremacism that rules the US. He should point
out how Jewish Zionist Power has been out to destroy Trump from day one, but the orange-man coward remains
most servile to the very group that has done most to undermine his presidency.
[MORE]
The current state of the world is so embarrassing. It's like goyim of all stripes are stuck in some
gladiatorial ring under Jewish orchestration. Jews hate whites and Trump. Jews hate Iranians. Given
that both groups have in common the rabid & virulent hostility of Jewish supremacists, the most
natural thing would be for both sides to unite against the Jews. Whites and Iranians are natural
allies. But what do they do? Trump the so-called 'white nationalist' sucks up to Jews and attacks
Iran. And Iran feels compelled to denounce all of America when the real culprits are the freaking
Jews. Goyim are the gladiators in SPARTACUS -- though slaves of Rome, they slaughter each other for the
amusement of Roman elites. Though Jews are hostile to whites and Iranians, whites are willing to kill
Iranians to win approval from their Jewish masters, and Iranians waste so much time denouncing all of
the US. What the world needs is a Spartacus-like figure. Spartacus united the slaves and made them
fight Rome than each other. Goyim need to unite to fight Jewish Supremacist Power. This is where
China, Russia, and Iran are doing the right thing, but they are still loathe to Name the Jew. Current
US belligerence is the direct outcome of Jewish domination.
Iranians should throw Trump's words right back in his face. In 2016, Trump said the Iraq War was a
total disaster, and that the US should get out of the Middle East. He also said the US should work for
world peace by working with Russia. But since then, Jewish supremacists and its cuck-minions in the
Deep State have done everything to undermine Trump, and the weary beast has succumbed to Jewish
machinations. Trump is more Sparky the running dog than Spartacus. But then, much of the blame must go
to white American Conservatives. Their brand of idiotic Christianity, atomizing libertarianism, and
anti-intellectualism led to all the elite institutions being taken over by Jews, progs, and
cucky-wucks. It could be Putin is mute about Jewish power because the Russian economy is still
substantially in Jewish hands. One might hope China will be bold in stating the truth, but the Chinese
way is strategic than principled. Also, China has been pulled into US market imperialism. It's the US
gambit as the sole superpower with a vast market. If old European Empires suppressed economic growth
in their colonies, US encourages economic growth as dependence on US markets. Thus, all the economies
that grew by selling to the US are deathly afraid of losing market access. As the religion of the US
is now globo-homo-shlomo-afro, they dare not speak the truth that Jewish Power is behind the current
rot of globalist cultural imperialism.
It is about time for Russia, Iran, and all nations to mock the US as a Jewish Supremacist empire,
one where craven white cowards do little but crawl on their knees and pledge undying support for
Jewish supremacists and Zion. Why? Because soulless US is only about one thing: Money and Idolatry.
Jews got the money and idolized themselves as the supreme identity group that ALL other groups must
serve. While Jewish elites rub their hands at the prospect of another Middle East War, it will be
goyim , white American soldiers and countless Persians/Arabs/Muslims, who will do all the killing and
dying. Jewish globalists went from Semites to Supremites, and now, so-called Anti-Semitism is
Anti-Supremitism, which is more necessary than ever. And it's about time Russia addressed the
J-Question. Vladimir Putin has been silent on this for too long, but it is time for truth. It is time
to put down the gauntlet. No, no one one should make crazy neo-nazi talking points. They just need to
speak the truth that Jews control the US, the lone superpower, and that the Jewish modus operandi is
Jewish hegemony at any cost. Also, Zionism has turned into Yinon-ism based on the Yinon Plan.
We've all been duped by Jewish Power. There was a time when Jews assured goyim, "Stick with us, and
you shall have true free speech", "Struggle with us against unfettered capitalist greed", and "Support
our cause to expose the Deep State and to create a more open and transparent society." But Jews
weren't really against Excessive Power & Privilege. They just wanted to bring down the old Wasp elites
so that they, as the new elites, would have the power to curtail free speech, rake in all the profits,
and use deep state apparatus to destroy rivals and critics. Jewish Power is the main source of many
woes around the world, but because of the stigma of 'antisemitism', so many people will blame anyone
but the Jews. When Alex Jones got deplatformed, whom did he blame? The Chinese. Trump is pushed
against the rope, so whom does he shake his fist at? Iranians. John McCain and Mitt Romney were
smeared and slimed by the Jew-run mass media(despite their total cuckery to Zion) in 2008 and 2012,
but whom did they rag on? Trump and his supporters. What a sorry bunch. (Granted, morons like Richard
Spencer and Neo-Nazi crew deserve their share of blame by sinking the promising dissident Alt Right
label with what truly amounts to white supremacism and even neo-Nazism, thereby making it more
difficult for Trump to address legitimate white interests.)
Anyway, imagine a scenario where Nazi Germany attacks Poland, France, Russia, and Great Britain but
all those nations praise Hitler & Nazi Germany while taking their rage and frustration on each other.
Such is the state of the world today. Jews torment and destroy so many nations and peoples, but entire
nations are willing to war with one other while speaking and doing nothing about the Jewish Glob.
Unless people understand the urgency of Naming the Jew, nothing will change. It's like a doctor won't
cure cancer if he does EVERYTHING but name the cancer. If there's a dead rat decaying and stinking up
the apartment, no amount of 'solutions' will fix the problem unless someone names the dead rat and
remove it from the premises. After WWII, Jews got a grace period, well-deserved due to Shoah. But it's
time to face facts about Jews of the Now. Pretending Jews are still Shoah victims is like pretending
current China is still the 'Sick Man of Asia' of the 19th century. Times change, and Jews are the
supreme rulers of the world, and this must be called out. But that worthless pile of shi* Trump only
sucks up to Jews more even as they bugger his ass. And white Americans are truly retarded. Jewish
Power is carrying out White Nakba in US, EU, Canada, and Australia -- as cuck-white elites in media,
academia, and institutions are nothing but mental minions of Jewish Power, as in Jews lead, goyim
follow -- , and whites are being turned into New Palestinians, but all these worthless white
'conservatives' are cheering Trump's anti-BDS law that violates the US constitution. How utterly
pathetic.
@Anonymous
"White American Christians are generally afraid of the Jewish lobby."
-- Agree. The US brass are cowards.
The US government of cowards is for sale. The US media is owned by Israel-firsters who have been propagating
lies upon lies. "Is this good for Jews?" has become the zionists' battle cry that scares Americans into
submission.
The scared Americans need to process the fact of holobiz being over. The Jews are not victims -- the Jews
are shameless aggressors and traitors busy with frightening and corrupting the western governments to the
bones because allegedly "this is good for Jews:"
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/
Let's be clear about what we just did–we assassinated two key military and political leaders on the
sovereign territory of Iraq without the permission of the Iraqi Government. There is no evidence or
valid intelligence that shows Soleimani directing Iraqi Shia militias to attack and kill US troops. None.
But those facts do not matter.
Judging from the media reaction on cable news, there is a lot of whooping and celebrating the death of
Soleimani as a decisive blow against terrorism. Boy we showed those Iranians who is boss. But that is not
how the Iranians see it and that is not how a significant portion of the Iraqi Shia population see it.
From their perspective this is the equivalent of the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor.
The zionized cowards in the US government made American servicemen into targets for retaliation in
response to American crimes in Iraq -- crimes that were committed because "this is good for Jews" who want
their Eretz Israel by any means, including a mass slaughter of the innocent in the Middle East.
Boy Jewish intelligence is terribly overrated. The zionists do believe that selecting and promoting cowards
and profiteers on the positions of power in the US is "good for Jews." Idiots.
Iran will explain to Iraq that the US will fight to every last drop of Iraqi blood while Iran will do its
best to support their fellow Shia. The Iraqi parliament, not wanting another war inside Iraq and hating the
US for starting it, will vote to expel the US or maybe to simply refuse the US any air rights.
The US then either retreats out of Iraq or it become an occupying force. If the US retreats, it'll go
down in history as a strategic defeat. If the US decides to occupy, it'll need to disband the Iraqi
parliament (ie a democracy) and replace it with the inevitable transitional government who'll be fed with a
steady stream of suitcases full of $100 bills. At the same time, the US will need to fight a bloody guerilla
war which will ultimately end in a strategic defeat when the US population gets bored by the smart-bomb
video footage.
Their are considerable more Galaxy C17 traffic in Ramstein/Germany and the whole C17 (as far as you
can identify them)look like a swarm of bees on the way to the middle east.
Galaxy was the C-5; C-17 is the Globemaster. In addition to its role in Tactical and Strategic airlift,
it also serves as MedEvac, often to Ramstein/Landstuhl.
That's a good suggestion but I still think they should go after Pompeo. If you really want to keep it
'tit for tat' with even less retaliation then poor Gen. Milley should be splashed. (Evil grin)
Milley's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs: his 'same-store sales' equivalent would have been Hossein Salami.
Soleimani wasn't even head of the IRGC – that's also Hossein Salami.
If the US had "red-carded" Salami, today they would be cleaning up missile debris and human remains at US
bases all over the Middle East, and "Iron Dome" would get definitive evidence that it's a joke.
Although Soleimani had genuine clout and a high profile, he was only the head of Quds Force, which is
kinda MI (plus a bit of special operations/coordination of irregulars).
So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).
Everyone's heard of that guy, right?
Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre
fire. Nobody wants that.
@Passer by
During the lead-up to the Gulf War, I recall "experts" like you talking about how Hussein's
"battle-hardened" "elite" Republican Guard was going to send those wet-behind-the-ears American soldiers
running home with their tails tucked between their legs. They were all then as prescient as you are now.
Spare me these countless internet military "experts" who always seem to know who can do what, and yet end up
being wrong in every instance.
@Colin Wright
The Quran promotes a supremacist ideology for world domination. It is the Muslim equivalent of the Talmud.
Neither the Muslims nor the zionists will get a moment's restful sleep until they know their place, but
psychopathic anti-Christ peoples are full of the devil, making them a curse on humanity.
Unfortunately it is partial, as it doesn't include Iraqis individually targeted and assassinated from
2003 on. Do you have access to that list as well?
@Colin Wright
I admit I stopped paying attention to beheadings after the first few.
It seemed pretty obvious that it was the worst possible advertisement for a cause. The only people who
would think "
Kewl
!" were people already on their side. Plus it was guaranteed to horrify moderates.
It also guaranteed a full-court hostile press in Western media (SWIDT? two uses of 'press' in the same word
– genius!).
It struck me as the sort of thing that (ahem) plays into the hands of those who wanted to give pan-Arab
nationalism a bad name. Almost as if that was the intention.
They should have hired
Hill and Knowlton
and done their PR properly.
.
Also, the aesthetics were
awful
.
The guys doing the beheadings had
very
white forearms – whiter than most Anglo military guys.
I'm sensitive like that: I found the beheaders' pasty skin off-putting.
The lack of struggle from the victims was also weird – evidence perhaps that they were sedated, which is
good for them I guess.
For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was
not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN
of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf.
– The crash of the Pan Am 103 was, according to Ari Ben-Menashe, related to a fabricated claim on 5 CIA
agents running drugs via their contacts in Frankfurt under CIA's Bill Casey.
– One less known point on the Pan Am 103 is the probable assassination by South Africa's apartheid
government of United Nations Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson (according to Patrick Hasseldine).
– "Pik Botha and a South African delegation from Johannesburg, who was initially booked to travel to the
Namibian independence ratification ceremony in New York on Pan Am Flight 103 from London. Instead, the
booking was cancelled as he and six delegates took an earlier flight, thereby avoiding the fatal PAN AM 103
bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland" (wiki, Pik Botha).
Robert Mueller's 30-year search for justice on Pan AM 103 led to nothing except the USual platitudes
(unfounded accusations) on Iran and the PLO.
@The Alarmist
Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds logical
to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense. As far as who drew first blood, that's a
little more complicated. Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of
radical medievalists overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other
attacks by Iranians and their proxies. I really don't understand the outpouring of sympathy for a general in
a foreign nation that is an outspoken enemy of the US. I get it, you guys hate Israel, but that doesn't
absolve the Iranian mullahs or their henchmen. They are not your friends, they don't like you and their end
game is the same end game they've had since the founding of their "religion", the violent spread of Islam
throughout the world. Read the Koran first, before you throw your support behind these jihadists. If their
own holy book doesn't open your eyes and you still believe the West is the "imperialist", find me
Constantinople on the map.
@barr
Thanks for the reminder. I'm familiar with Ostrovsky, of course, and i found the book you mentioned to be
quite an eye-opener, albeit still written from a basically pro-Israel point-of-view.
re: "Israel
implicated Libya to shield Iran." Yes, this is more than plausible, especially when we consider that Israel
was largely responsible for arming Iran during the long war with Iraq in the 1980s. The latter may seem
counter-intuitive to many, but it actually fell perfectly in line with the Oded Yinon plan for regional
balkanisation. I think that as soon as the Iraqi Resistance movement was crushed back in 2008, Iran was
considered no longer so useful to the Zionists, and they began the next phase of destabilisation. Obviously,
all regional powers are to be taken out one-by-one, and that presents a problem when it comes to a regional
alliance such as the so-called "Shia Crescent" of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon (or Hezbollah).
I think it likely that the Qassem assassination though, is a significant miscalculation that will cost
Trump and the US dearly.
@Rich
I agree with the notion that Persian capabilities are consistently overstated on
unz.com
They look more capable than Arabs. That's not much. They haven't shown the ability to develop
their own weapons. The rest of their industry sucks (e.g. cars).
Rolling out of Kuwait across a plain is way easier than
rolling up the Zagroz – especially when the other guy knows you're coming and has had 50 years to prepare,
and the natives at your back want the other guy to win.
The Zagroz aren't as daunting as trying to go up the sides on AH76 in Parwan, which is some of the most
inhospitable terrain on Earth. Invading Iran via Iraq (which is the US' only option) isn't even as hard
(topographially) as trying to take Zürich by invading Switzerland starting from Milan.
Topography matters.
Safwan to Baghdad is flat freeway (and was, even in 1991); Baghdad to Hamedan, not so much. (Hamedan's
the town on the other side of the Zagroz, on the only non-impossible route to Teheran).
For the average grunt, it would be like "
Restrepo
" from day 1, constantly, for the entire trip –
but with no HESCO.
It would guarantee tens of thousands of cases of PTSD.
Armour and artillery really really
really
needs roads (or rail), and aerial reconnaissance is way
easier on a sandy table top, than in mountains.
@renfro
1
The killing of Iraqi Academics: A War to Erase the Future and Culture of Iraqis
List of Iraqi academics assassinated in Iraq during the US-led occupation
Academics assassinated: 324
Updated: November 7, 2013
(Last case registered: No. 125)
Spanish Campaign against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq
IraqSolidaridad 2005-2013
[MORE]
The following list of University academics assassinated in Iraq is updated with the information
delivered by the Iraqi CEOSI sources inside Iraq. It presents all the data compiled in the previous
IraqSolidaridad editions. This relation has been collated and completed with that elaborate by the
Belgian organization 'BRussells Tribunal' [1]. This list only refers to the academic, institutional
and research fields from Iraqi Universities, so that it does not include the staff that belongs to
other fields and institutions, who has been targeting since the beginning of the occupation, such as
directors of primary and secondary schools, high schools or health workers [2].
BAGHDAD
Baghdad University
1. Abbas al-Attar: PhD in humanities, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date
unknown.
2. Abdel Hussein Jabuk: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
3. Abdel Salam Saba: PhD in sociology, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
4. Abdel Razak al-Naas: Lecturer in information and international mass media at Baghdad University's
College of Information Sciences. He was a regular analyst for Arabic satellite TV channels. He was
killed in his car at Baghdad University 28 January 2005. His assassination led to confrontations
between students and police, and journalists went on strike.
5. Ahmed Nassir al-Nassiri: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University, assassinated in February
2005.
6. Ali Abdul-Hussein Kamil: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer in the Department of Physics, Baghdad
University. Date unknown.
7. Amir al-Jazragi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine, and
consultant at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, assassinated on November 17, 2005.
2
8. Basil al-Karji: PhD in chemistry, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
9. Essam Sharif Mohammed: PhD in history, professor in Department of History and head of the College
of Humanities, Baghdad University. Dead October 25, 2003.
10. Faidhi al-Faidhi: PhD in education sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University and al- Munstansiriya
University. He was also member of the Muslim Scientists Committee. Assassinated in 2005.
11. Fouad Abrahim Mohammed al-Bayaty: PhD in German philology, professor and head of College of
Philology, Baghdad University. Killed Abril 19, 2005.
12. Haifa Alwan al-Hil: PhD in physics, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Science for Women.
Assassinated September 7, 2003.
13. Heikel Mohammed al-Musawi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at al-Kindi College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Assassinated November 17, 2005.
14. Hassan Abd Ali Dawood al-Rubai: PhD in stomatology, dean of the College of Stomatology, Baghdad
University. Assassinated December 20, 2005.
15. Hazim Abdul Hadi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
16. Husain Ali al-Jumaily: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was
assassinated in Bagdad on 16 July. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17,
2009].
17. Khalid Hassan Mahdi Nasrullah: Lecturer and Secretary of the Faculty of Political Sciences,
Baghdad University. After four days of been kidnapped in Baghdad, his body was found with signs of
torture on Mars 27, 2007. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi sources, January 17, 2009].
18. Khalel Ismail Abd al-Dahri: PhD in physical education, lecturer at the College of Physical
Education, Baghdad University. Date unknown.
19. Khalil Ismail al-Hadithi: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Political Sciences. He was
assassinated in Amman [Jordan] on April 23, 2006. [Source: BRussells Tribunal's university Iraqi
sources, January 17, 2009].
20. Kilan Mahmoud Ramez: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
21. Maha Abdel Kadira: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
22. Majed Nasser Hussein al-Maamoori: Professor of veterinary medicine at Baghdad University's College
of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated February 17, 2007.
23. Marwan al-Raawi: PhD in engineering and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
24. Marwan Galeb Mudhir al-Hetti: PhD in chemical engineering and lecturer at the School of
Engineering, Baghdad University. Killed March 16, 2004.
25. Majeed Hussein Ali: PhD in physical sciences and lecturer at the College of Sciences, Baghdad
University. Date unknown.
3
26. Mehned al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
27. Mohammed Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
28. Mohammed Tuki Hussein al-Talakani: PhD in physical sciences, nuclear scientist since 1984, and
lecturer at Baghdad University. Assassinated September 4, 2004.
29. Mohammed al-Kissi: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
30. Mohammed Abdallah al-Rawi: PhD in surgery, former president of Baghdad University, member of the
Arab Council of Medicine and of the Iraqi Council of Medicine, president of the Iraqi Union of
Doctors. Killed July 27, 2003.
31. Mohammed al-Jazairi: PhD in medicine and plastic surgeon, College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
Assassinated 15 November 2005.
32. Mustafa al-Hity: PhD in medicine, pediatrician, College of Medicine, Baghdad University.
Assassinated 14 November 2005.
33. Mustafa al-Mashadani: PhD in religious studies, lecturer in Baghdad University's College of
Humanities. Date unknown.
34. Nafea Mahmmoud Jalaf: PhD in Arabic language, professor in Baghdad University's College of
Humanities. Killed December 13, 2003.
35. Nawfal Ahmad: PhD, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts. She was assassinated at
the front door of her house on 25 December 2005.
36. Nazar Abdul Amir al-Ubaidy: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. Date unknown.
37. Raad Shlash: PhD in biological sciences, head of Department of Biology at Baghdad University's
College of Sciences. He was killed at the front door of his house on November 17, 2005.
38. Rafi Sarcisan Vancan: Bachelor of English language, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of
Women's Studies. Assassinated June 9, 2003.
39. Saadi Dagher Morab: PhD in fine arts, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Fine Arts.
Killed July 23, 2004.
40. Sabri Mustafa al-Bayaty: PhD in geography, lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Humanities.
Killed June 13, 2004.
41. Saad Yassin al-Ansari: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. He was killed in al-Saydiya
neighborhood, Baghdad, 17 November 2005.
42. Wannas Abdulah al-Naddawi: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University. Assassinated 18 February
2005.
43. Yassim al-Isawi: PhD in religious studies, Baghdad University's College of Arts. Assassinated 21
June 2005.
44. Zaki Jabar Laftah al-Saedi: Bachelor of veterinary medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University's
College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated October 16, 2004.
45. Basem al-Modarres: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Philosophy. [Source:
al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
46. Jasim Mohamed Achamri: Dean of College of Philosophy, Baghdad University. [Source: al-Hayat, 28
February 2006].
47. Hisham Charif: Head of Department of History and lecturer at Baghdad University. [Source:
al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
4
48. Qais Hussam al-Den Jumaa: Professor and Dean of College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed
27 March 2006 by US soldiers in downtown Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
49. Mohammed Yaakoub al-Abidi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
50. Abdelatif Attai: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
51. Ali al-Maliki: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
52. Nafia Aboud: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi. Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
53. Abbas Kadem Alhachimi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
54. Mouloud Hasan Albardar Aturki: Lecturer in Hanafi Teology at al-Imam al-Aadam College of Theology,
Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
55. Riadh Abbas Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University's Centre for International Studies. Killed 11
May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006].
56. Abbas al-Amery: Professor and head of Department of Administration and Business, College of
Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed together with his son and one of his relatives
at the main entrance to the College 16 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, May 17, 2006].
57. Muthana Harith Jasim: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Engineering. Killed near his
home in al-Mansur, 13 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 13 June 2006].
58. Hani Aref al-Dulaimy: Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Baghdad University's
College of Engineering. He was killed, together with three of his students, 13 June 2006 on campus.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 13 June 2006].
59. Hussain al-Sharifi: Professor of urinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Medicine.
Killed in May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 June 2006].
60. Hadi Muhammad Abub al-Obaidi: Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Baghdad University's College
of Medicine. Killed 19 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 20 June 2006].
61. Hamza Shenian: Professor of veterinary surgery at Baghdad University's College of Veterinary
Medicine. Killed by armed men in his garden in a Baghdad neighborhood 21 June 2006. This was the first
known case of a professor executed in the victim's home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 21
June 2006].
62. Jassim Mohama al-Eesaui: Professor at College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University, and
editor of al-Syada newspaper. He was 61 years old when killed in al-Shuala, 22 June 2006. [Source:
UNAMI report, 1 May-30 June 2006].
5
63. Shukir Mahmoud As-Salam: dental surgeon at al-Yamuk Hospital, Baghdad. Killed near his home by
armed men 6 September 2006. [Source: TV news, As-Sharquia channel, 7 September 2006, and CEOSI Iraqi
sources].
64. Mahdi Nuseif Jasim: Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Baghdad University.
Killed 13 September 2006 near the university. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source].
65. Adil al-Mansuri: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Kidnapped by uniformed men near Iban al-Nafis Hospital in Baghdad. He was found dead with
torture signs and mutilation in Sadr City. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which
seven medical specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006 [Source: Iraqi health
service sources, 24 September 2006].
66. Shukur Arsalan: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad
University. Killed by armed men when leaving his clinic in Harziya neighborhood during a wave of
assassinations in which seven specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006.
[Source: Iraqi Health System sources, 24 September 2006].
67. Issam al-Rawi: Professor of geology at Baghdad University, president of the Association of
University Professors of Iraq. Killed 30 October 2006 during an attack carried out by a group of armed
men in which two more professors were seriously injured. [Sources: CEOSI sources, and Associated
Press].
68. Yaqdan Sadun al-Dhalmi: Professor and lecturer in the College of Education, Baghdad University.
Killed 16 October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
69. Jlid Ibrahim Mousa: Professor and lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Medicine. Killed by
a group of armed men in September 2006. During August and September 2006, 6 professors of medicine
were assassinated in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources].
70. Mohammed Jassim al-Assadi: Professor and dean of the College of Administration and Economy,
Baghdad University. Killed 2 November 2006 by a group of armed men when he was driving to Baghdad
University. Their son was also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2
October 2006].
71. Jassim al-Assadi's wife (name unknown): Lecturer at College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad
University [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Time Magazine, 2 October 2006].
72. Mohammed Mehdi Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University (unknown position) and member of the
Association of Muslim Scholars. Imam of Ahl al-Sufa Mosque in al-Shurta al-Jamisa neighborhood. Killed
14 November 2006 while driving in the neighborhood of al-Amal in central Baghdad. [Source: UMA, 14
November 2006].
73. Hedaib Majhol: Lecturer at College of Physical Education, Baghdad University, president of the
Football University Club and member of the Iraqi Football Association. Kidnapped in Baghdad. His body
was found three later in Baghdad morgue 3 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2
December 2006].
74. Al-Hareth Abdul Hamid: Professor of psychiatric medicine and head of the Department of Psychology
at Baghdad University. Former
6
president of the Society of Parapsychological Investigations of Iraq. A renowned scientist, Abdul
Hamid was shot dead in the neighborhood of al-Mansur, Baghdad, 6 December 2006 by unknown men.
[Sources: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 6 December 2006, and Reuters, 30 January 2007].
75. Anwar Abdul Hussain: Lecturer at the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. Killed in Haifa
Street in Baghdad in the third week of January 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23
January 2007].
76. Majed Nasser Hussain: PhD and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University.
He was killed in front of his wife and daughter while leaving home in the third week of January 2007.
Nasser Hussain had been kidnapped two years before and freed after paying a ransom. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
77. Khaled al-Hassan: Professor and deputy dean of the College of Political Sciences, Baghdad
University. Killed in March 2007. [Source: Association of University Lecturers of Iraq, 7 April 2007].
78. Ali Mohammed Hamza: Professor of Islamic Studies at Baghdad University. Department and college
unknown. Killed 17 April 2007. [Sources: TV channels As-Sharquia and al-Jazeera].
79. Abdulwahab Majed: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Education. Department and college
unknown. Killed 2 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2007].
80. Sabah al-Taei: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 7 May 2007.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources. 8 May 2007].
81. Nihad Mohammed al-Rawi: Professor of Civil Engineering and deputy president of Baghdad University.
Shot dead 26 June 2007 in al-Jadria Bridge, a few meters away from the university campus, when exiting
with his daughter Rana, whom he protected from the shots with his body. [Sources: BRussells Tribunal
and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26-27 June 2007].
82. Muhammad Kasem al-Jaboori: Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed,
together with his son and his brother-in-law, by paramilitary forces 22 June 2007. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 27 June 2007].
83. Samir [surname unknown]: Lecturer at Baghdad University's College of Administration and Economy.
His body was found shot one day after being kidnapped in Kut where he was visiting family. Professor
Samir lived in the Baghdad district of al-Sidiya. [Source: Voices of Iraq,
http://www.iraqslogger.com
, 29 June 2007].
84. Amin Abdul Aziz Sarhan: Lecturer at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. He was
kidnapped from his home in Basra by unidentified armed men 13 October 2007 and found dead on the
morning of 15 October. [Source: Voices of Iraq, 15 October 2007].
85. Mohammed Kadhem al-Atabi: Head of Baghdad University's Department of Planning and Evaluation. He
was kidnapped 18 October 2007 from his home in Baghdad by a group of armed men and found dead a few
hours later in the area of Ur, near to Sadr City, which is under the control of Moqtada al-Sadr's
Mahdi Army. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26 October 2007].
7
86. Munther Murhej Radhi: Dean of the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. He was found dead in
his car 23 January 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 January 2008].
87. Mundir Marhach: Dean of Faculty of Stomatology, Baghdad University. According to information
provided by the Centre for Human Rights of Baghdad, he was killed in March [exact day unknown].
[Source: al-Basrah reported 12 March 2008].
88. Abdul Sattar Jeid al-Dulaimy, a Microbiologist and lecturer in the College of Veterinary Medicine
and in other institutions in the University. He was killed in November 2003 by three gunmen in front
of his wife and his four children. His three assassins were waiting the family return to Baghdad after
have been visiting his parents in al-Ramadi city, west Baghdad. His wife was also sot in her head, but
she survived. His 14 year old eldest child died of a heart problem a year later. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university source, 11 June 2008.]
*. Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad: professor of Arabic Language in the College of Islamic Sciences,
University of Baghdad, killed on 27 May 2010 by an assassin (an student, Baghdad police source
informed) with a silencer gun in his personal office in the University. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university source upon media reports, 27 May 2010.] [Subsequent reports confirm that Professor
Abdulkareem Shenein Mohammad survived the attack.]
89. Mudhafar Mahmoud: associated professor in the Geology Department in the College of Science,
University of Baghdad. Dr Mahmoud was assassinated on 28 November 2010 near his house in Baghdad.
[Source: Iraqi source to BRussells Tribunal on 1st December, 2010.]
90. Ali Shalash: professor of Poultry Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of
Baghdad, killed by assassins who broke into his house in Al-Khadraa area in Baghdad on 17 February,
2011. [Source: Iraqi source to CEOSI on 18 February, 2011.] 91. Ahmed Shakir was a specialist in
cardio-vascular diseases and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Baghdad.
According to security reports, Dr. Shakir was killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in
Zaafaraniyya, south of Baghdad, last Monday 1 July 2013. The report released by UNESCO can be read
here [Source: UNESCO, July 3, 2013].
Al-Maamoon Faculty [private college, Baghdad]
92. Mohammed al-Miyahi: Dean of al-Maamoun Faculty in Baghdad. He was shot with a silencer-equipped
gun in front of his house in al-Qadisiah district, southern Baghdad, as he stepped out of his car 14
December 2007. [Source CEOSI Iraqi source and Kuwait News Agency, reported 19 December 2007, IPS
reported 19 December 2007, and al-Basrah, reported 12 March 2008].
Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad)
8
93. Aalim Abdul Hameed: PhD in preventive medicine, specialist in depleted uranium effects in Basra,
dean of the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
94. Abdul Latif al-Mayah: PhD in economics, lecturer and head of Department of Research,
al-Mustansiriya University. Killed January 9, 2004.
95. Aki Thakir Alaany: PhD and lecturer at the College of Literature, al-Mustansiriya University. Date
unknown.
96. Falah al-Dulaimi: PhD, professor and deputy dean of al-Mustansiriya University's College of
Sciences. Date unknown.
97. Falah Ali Hussein: PhD in physics, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University, killed May 2005.
98. Musa Saloum Addas: PhD, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Educational Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University, killed 27 May 2005.
99. Hussam al-Din Ahmad Mahmmoud: PhD in education
sciences, lecturer and dean at College of Education Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University. Date
unknown.
100. Jasim Abdul Kareem: PhD and lecturer at the College of the Education, al-Mustansiriya University.
Date unknown.
101. Abdul As Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: PhD in history, al-Mustansiriya University, killed 19 June
2005. [A same name and surname lecturer in Engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology,
al-Nahrein University was assassinated in March 2006.]
102. Samir Yield Gerges: PhD and lecturer at the College of Administration and Economy at
al-Mustansiriya University, killed 28 August 2005.
103. Jasim al-Fahaidawi: PhD and lecturer in Arabic literature at the College of Humanities,
al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated at the university entrance. [Source: BBC News, 15 November
2005].
104. Kadhim Talal Hussein: Deputy Dean of the College of Education, al-Mustansiriya University. Killed
November 23, 2005.
105. Mohammed Nayeb al-Qissi: PhD in geography, lecturer at Department of Research, al-Mustansiriya
University. Assassinated June 20, 2003.
106. Sabah Mahmoud al-Rubaie: PhD in geography, lecturer and dean at College of Educational Sciences,
al-Mustansiriya University. Date unknown.
107. Ali Hasan Muhawish: Dean and lecturer at the College of Engineering, al-Mustansiriya University.
Killed March 12, 2006. [Source: Middle East Online, 13 March 2006].
108. Imad Naser Alfuadi: Lecturer at the College of Political Sciences, al-Mustansiriya University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
109. Mohammed Ali Jawad Achami: President of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
110. Husam Karyakus Tomas: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
9
111. Basem Habib Salman: Lecturer at the College of Medicine at al-Mustansiriya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
112. Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Ani: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya
University. Kidnapped, together with his friend Akrem Mehdi, 26 April 2006, at his home in Palestine
Street, Baghdad. Their bodies were found two days later. [CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2006].
113. Jasim Fiadh al-Shammari: Lecturer in psychology at the College of Arts, al-Mustansiriya Baghdad
University. Killed near campus 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 30 May 2006].
114. Saad Mehdi Shalash: PhD in history and lecturer in history at the College of Arts,
al-Mustansiriya University, and editor of the newspaper Raya al-Arab. Shot dead at his home with his
wife 26 October 2006. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, 27 October 2006].
115. Kamal Nassir: Professor of history and lecturer at al-Mustansiriya and Bufa Universities. Killed
at his home in Baghdad in October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 November 2006].
116. Hasseb Aref al-Obaidi: Professor in the College of Political Sciences at al-Mustansiriya
University. Since he was kidnapped 22 October 2006, his whereabouts is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
117. Najeeb [or Nadjat] al-Salihi: Lecturer in the College of Psychology at al-Mustansiriya University
and head of the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq. Al-Salihi, 39 years
old, was kidnapped close to campus and his body, shot dead, was found 20 days after his disappearance
in Baghdad morgue. His family was able recover his body only after paying a significant amount of
money, October 1, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources].
118. Dhia al-Deen Mahdi Hussein: Professor of international criminal law at the College of Law,
al-Mustansiriya University. Missing since kidnapped from his home in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dhia
in 4 November 2006 by a group of armed men driving police cars. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, 5 November 2006].
119. Muntather al-Hamdani: Deputy Dean of the College of Law, al-Mustansiriya University. He was
assassinated, together with Ali Hassam, lecturer at the same college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean
assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both
[Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not].
120. Ali Hassam: Lecturer at the College of Law at al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed together
with Muntather al-Hamdani, deputy dean of the college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean
assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both
[Muntather al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not.
121. Dhia al-Mguter: Professor of economy at the College of Administration and Economy of
al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed
10
23 January 2007 in Baghdad while driving. He was a prominent economist and president of the Consumer's
Defense Association and the Iraqi Association of Economists. A commentator at for As-Sharquia
television, he participated in the Maram Committee, being responsible for investigating irregularities
occurring during the elections held in January 2006. Al-Mguter was part of a family with a long
anti-colonialist tradition since the British occupation. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and
Az-Zaman newspaper, 24 January 2007].
122. Ridha Abdul al-Kuraishi: Deputy dean of the University of al-Mustansiriya's College of
administration and economy. He was kidnapped 28 March 2007 and found dead the next day. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See the letter sent to CEOSI (Arabic)].
123. Zaid Abdulmonem Ali: professor at the Baghdad Cancer Research Center, institution associated to
the Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr. Abdulmomem Ali was killed in March 26, 2011 when an IED
attached to his vehicle went off in al-Nusoor square, west of Baghdad. The explosion also left Ali's
wife and two civilians others wounded. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news agency, on March 26, 2011.]
124. Mohmamed Al-Alwan: Dean of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansirya University in Baghdad. Dr
Al-Alwan was assassinated in his clinic in Harithiyah, Baghdad, on April 29, 2011. He had been the
Dean of Medical College for over 4 years. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 30, 2011 from
Iraqi media and International Iraqi Medical Society.] 125. Naser Husein al Shahmani, professor at
al-Mustansyria University was shot by some gunmen few days ago. They killed him on the spot. [Source:
Ahmad al Farji's article (in Arabic), October 28, 2013.]
University of Technology [Baghdad]
126. Muhannad [or Mehned] al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at the Baghdad
University of Technology. Date unknown.
127. Muhey Hussein: PhD in aerodynamics, lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the
Baghdad University of Technology. Date unknown.
128. Qahtan Kadhim Hatim: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Engineering of the Baghdad
University of Technology. Assassinated May 30, 2004.
129. Sahira Mohammed Machhadani: Baghdad University of Technology. Department and college unknown.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, March 2006].
130. Ahmed Ali Husein: Lecturer at the Baghdad University of Technology, specialist in applied
mechanics. He was killed by a group of armed men in downtown Baghdad 22 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 May 2006].
131. Name unknown: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 27 June 2006 by a group of
armed men. They were driving a vehicle in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Mansur and shot him without
11
stopping. Next day, students and professors staged demonstrations in all universities across the
country opposing the assassination and kidnapping of professors and lecturers. [Source: al-Jazeera and
Jordan Times, 27 June 2006].
132. Ali Kadhim Ali: Professor at Baghdad University of Technology. Shot dead in November 2006 in the
district of al-Yarmuk by a group of armed men. His wife, Dr Baida Obeid -- gynecologist -- was also
killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 16 November 2006].
133. Mayed Jasim al-Janabi: Lecturer in physics at Baghdad University of Technology. Killed 23 May
2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, December 2006].
134. Khalel Enjad al-Jumaily: Lecturer at University of Technology. Department and college unknown. He
was killed 22 December 2006 with his son, a physician, after being kidnapped. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, 24 December 2006].
135. Abdul Sami al-Janabi: Deputy President of the Baghdad University of Technology. Missing after
being kidnapped during the third week of January 2007. In 2004, Abdul Sami al-Janabi was dean of
al-Mustansiriya University's College of Sciences in Baghdad. He resigned from this position after Shia
paramilitary forces threatened to kill him. Such forces began then to occupy university centers in the
capital. Transferred by the Ministry of Higher Education to a new position to preserve his security,
Sami al-Janabi has almost certainly been assassinated. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23
January 2007].
136. Ameer Mekki al-Zihairi: Lecturer at Baghdad University of Technology. He was killed in March
2007. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See pdf].
137. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban: Former Dean of the College of Computer Engineering and Information
Technology in the University of Technology. Killed on Thursday 14 October 2010 by plastic explosive
implanted to his car in Adhamia district of Baghdad. Saad Abd Alwahab Al-Shaaban left Iraq in 2006 and
returned back to Baghdad. He was lately working in the National Center for Computer Science, Ministry
of Higher Education. (Source: [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources on Alane News Agency, , October
15, 2010.]
138. Saad Abdul Jabar: professor at the Technological University in Bagdad. Assassinated in Al-Siyada
district, Southwest Baghdad, while driving his car by murderers using silenced guns on 26 February,
2011.[Source: Asuat Al-Iraq agency, 26 February, and Yaqen agency, February 27, 2010.]
Al-Nahrein University [Baghdad]
139. Akel Abdel Jabar al-Bahadili: Professor and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of
Medicine. Head of Adhamiya Hospital in Baghdad. He was a specialist in internal medicine, killed 2
December 2005.
140. Mohammed al-Khazairy: Lecturer at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital, al- Nahrein
University. He was a specialist in plastic surgery.
12
141. Laith Abdel Aziz: PhD and lecturer at the College of Sciences, al-Nahrein University. Date
unknown. [Source: al-Hayat, 28 February 2006].
142. Abdul as-Satar Sabar al-Khazraji: Lecturer in engineering at the College of Computer Science
Technology, al-Nahrein University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March
2006]. [A same name and surname PhD in history, lecturer at Al-Munstansiriya University was killed on
19 June 2005.]
143. Uday al-Beiruti: Professor at al-Nahrein University. Kidnapped in University College al-Kadhemiya
Hospital's parking lot by armed men dressed in Interior Ministry uniforms. His body was found with
sigs of torture in Sadr City. Date unknown: July/August 2006. His murder took place during a wave of
assassinations in which seven of his colleagues were killed. [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24
September 2006].
144. Khalel al-Khumaili: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found
shot dead in December 2006 [exact date unknown] after being kidnapped at University College
al-Kadhemiya Hospital, together with his son, Dr Anas al-Jomaili, lecturer at the same college.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006].
145. Anas al-Jumaili: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. He was found shot
dead in December [exact date unknown] with his father, Dr Jalil al-Jumaili, professor of medicine,
after being kidnapped at University College al-Kadhemiya Hospital. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, 24 December 2006].
146. Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was
found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped from his home 28 January 2007 together with
lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found
dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February
2007].
147. Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He
was found dead 31 January 2007 after having been kidnapped 28 January 2007 on his way home, together
with lecturers Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid and Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy, and a student. All were found
dead in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February
2007].
148. Aamer Kasem al-Kaisy: Lecturer at the College of Law, al-Nahrein University. He was found dead 31
January 2007 after having been kidnapped on his way home 28 January 2007, together with a student and
lecturers Abdul Mutaleb Abdulrazak al-Hashimi and Adnan Mohammed Saleh al-Aabid. All were found dead
in Baghdad morgue. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Quds al-Arabi, 1 February 2007].
149. Khaled al-Naieb: Lecturer in microbiology and deputy dean of al-Nahrein University's College of
Higher Studies in Medicine. Killed 30 March 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Having been
threatened by the Mahdi Army, Moqtada as-Sadr's militia, Dr al- Naieb had moved to work in Irbil.
During a brief visit to his family in Baghdad, and after recently becoming a father, he was killed at
the main entrance
13
to the college on his way to collect some documents. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 4 April
2007. Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report dated April 7, 2007. See pdf].
150. Sami Sitrak: Professor of English and dean of al-Nahrein University's College of Law. Professor
Sitrak was killed 29 March 2007. He had been appointed dean of the College after the former dean's
resignation following an attempt to kill him along with three other College lecturers. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
151. Thair Ahmed Jebr: Lecturer in the Department of Physics, College of Sciences, al- Nahrein
University. Jebr was killed in the attack against satellite TV channel al-Baghdadiya April 5, 2007.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, April 7, 2007. See pdf].
152. Iyad Hamza: PhD in chemistry, Baghdad University. He was the academic assistant of the President
of al-Nahrein University. On May 4, 2008 he was killed near his home in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
source, May 6, 2008].
153. Khamal Abu Muhie: Professor at the College of Medicine, al-Nahrein University. Killed on 22
November 2009 at his home in the neighborhood of Adamiya, Baghdad. [Source: Al-Sharquia TV, November
22, 2009].
Islamic University [Baghdad]
154. Haizem al-Azawi: Lecturer at Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown. He was
35 years old and married and was killed 13 February 2006 by armed men when he arriving home in the
neighborhood of Habibiya. [Source: Asia Times, March 3, 2006].
155. Saadi Ahmad Zidaan al-Fahdawi: PhD in Islamic science, lecturer at the College of Islamic
Science, Baghdad University. Killed March 26, 2006.
156. Abdel Aziz al-Jazem: Lecturer in Islamic theology at the College of Islamic Science, Baghdad
University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
157. Saad Jasim Mohammed: Lecturer at the Baghdad Islamic University. Department and college unknown.
Killed, together with his brother Mohammed Jassim Mohammed, 11 May 2007 in the neighborhood of
al-Mansur. The armed men who committed the crime where identified by the Association of Muslims
Scholars as members of a death squad. [Sources: press release of the Association of Muslims Scholars,
May 12, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi University sources, May 13, 2007].
158. Qais Sabah al-Jabouri: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group
of armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Alaa Jalel
Essa and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured respectively. [Sources Association
of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, June 9, 2007].
159. Alaa Jalel Essa: Professor at the Baghdad Islamic University. Killed 7 June 2007 by a group of
armed men who shot him from a car when he was leaving the university with the lecturers Qais Sabah
al-Jabouri and Saad Jalifa al-Ani, who were killed and seriously injured
14
respectively. [Sources: Association of Muslims Scholars press release, June 7, 2007, and CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, June 9, 2007].
Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education [Baghdad]
Academics killed after a massive kidnapping occurred November 13, 2006:
160. Abdul Salam Suaidan al-Mashhadani: Lecturer in political sciences and head of the Scholarship
section of the Ministry of Higher Education. He was kidnapped November13, 2006, in an assault on the
Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI
Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006.]
161. Abdul Hamed al-Hadizi: Professor [specialty unknown]. He was kidnapped on November 13, 2006 in an
assault on the Ministry. His body was found with signs of torture and mutilation, 24 November 2006.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 26, 2006].
162. Thamer Kamel Mohamed: Head of the Department of Human Right at the Ministry of Higher Education.
Shot on 22 February 2010 on his way to work in one of main Baghdad streets [al-Qanat Street]. The
assassins used silencers fitted in their guns. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, February 23,
2006 and Alernet].
Al-Mansour University [Baghdad]
163. Amal Maamlaji: IT professor at the al-Mansour University in Baghdad. She was born in Kerbala and
got involved in human rights – particularly women's rights. She was shot dead in an ambush while
driving her car [160 bullets were found in her car] according to her husband, Athir Haddad, to whom
France24 interviewed by telephone. [Source: France24, July 4, 2008,].
Baghdad Institutes
164. Izi al-Deen al-Rawi: President of the Arabic University's Institute of Petroleum, Industry and
Minerals. Al-Rawi was kidnapped and found dead November 20, 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, November 20, 2006].
BABYLON Hilla University
165. Khaled M al-Khanabi: PhD in Islamic history, lecturer in Hilla University's School of Humanities.
Date unknown.
166. Mohsin Suleiman al-Ajeely: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the College of Agronomy, Hilla
University. Killed on December 24, 2005.
167. Fleih al-Gharbawi: Lecturer in the College of Medicine. Killed in Hilla [capital of the province
of Babylon, 100 kilometers south of Baghdad] 20 November 2006 by armed men. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
sources, 20 November 2006].
168. Ali al-Grari [or Garar]. Professor at Hilla University. He was shot dead November 20, 2006 by
armed men in a vehicle on the freeway
15
between Hilla and Baghdad. [Source: Iraqi police sources cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
AT-TAMIM Kirkuk University
169. Ahmed Ithaldin Yahya: Lecturer in the College of Engineering, Kirkuk University. Killed by a car
bomb in the vicinity of his home in Kirkuk, February 16, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources, February 17, 2007].
170. Hussein Qader Omar: professor and Dean of Kirkuk University's College of Education Sciences.
Killed in November 20, 2006 by shots made from a vehicle in the city center. An accompanying colleague
was injured. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, November 21, 2006, and Iraqi Police Sources
cited by Reuters, November 20, 2006].
171. Sabri Abdul Jabar Mohammed: Lecturer at the College of Education Sciences at Kirkuk University.
Found dead November 1, 2007 in a street in Kirkuk one day after being kidnapped by a group of
unidentified armed men [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November
2, 2007].
172. Abdel Sattar Tahir Sharif: Lecturer at Kirkuk University. Department and college unknown.
75-years-old, he was assassinated March 5, 2008 by armed men in the district of Shoraw, 10 kilometers
northeast of Kirkuk. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq/Voices of Iraq, 5 March 2008].
173. Ibrahim Shaeer Jabbar Al-Jumaili: Pediatrician and professor of Medicine at Kirkuk University.
Dr. Ibrahim S.J. Al-Jumaili, 55 years old, was murdered July 22, 2011, after he resisted attempts by
four people to kidnap him, police said. [Source: AFP, July 22, 2011]. 174. Amer al-Doury: Dr. Amer
al-Douri was the Dean of the Administration and Economic College in Kirkuk. He was first handcuffed
and then executed in Hawija at protesters site, when Maliki's SWAT Security Forces raided the peaceful
protesting site and killed 86, injured hundreds, and arrested more on Tuesday April 23, 2013. [Source
Al Sharquiya TV News 20].
NINEVEH
Mosul University
175. Abdel Jabar al-Naimi: Dean of Mosul University's College of Humanities. Date unknown.
176. Abdul Jabar Mustafa: PhD in political sciences, dean of Mosul University's College of Political
Sciences. Date unknown.
177. Abdul Aziz El-Atrachi: PhD in Plant Protection in the College of Agronomy and Forestry, Mosul
University. He was killed by a loose bullet shot by and American soldier. Date unknown.
178. Eman Abd-Almonaom Yunis: PhD in translation, lecturer in the College of Humanities, Mosul
University. Killed August 30, 2004.
179. Khaled Faisal Hamed al-Sheekho: PhD and lecturer in the College of Physical Education, Mosul
University. Killed April 11, 2003.
180. Leila [or Lyla] Abdu Allah al-Saad: PhD in law, dean of Mosul University's College of Law.
Assassinated in June 22, 2004.
16
181. Mahfud al-Kazzaz: PhD and lecturer at University Mosul. Department and college unknown. Killed
November 20, 2004.
182. Mohammed Yunis Thanoon: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer in the College of Physical Education,
Mosul University. Killed January 27. 2004.
183. Muneer al-Khiero: PhD in law and lecturer in the College of Law, Mosul University. Married to Dr
Leila Abdu Allah al-Saad, also assassinated. Date unknown.
184. Muwafek Yahya Hamdun: Deputy Dean and professor at the College of Agronomy, Mosul University.
[Source: al-Hayat, February 28, 2006].
185. Omar Miran: Baghdad University bachelor of law [1946]. PhD in history from Paris University
[1952], professor of history at Mosul University, specialist in history of the Middle East. Killed,
along with his wife and three of his sons, by armed men in February 2006 [exact date unknown].
186. Naif Sultan Saleh: Lecturer at the Technical Institute, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
187. Natek Sabri Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Mechanization and head of the
College of Agronomy, Mosul University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report,
March 2006].
188. Noel Petros Shammas Matti: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Mosul University. Married and
father of two daughters, was kidnapped and found dead August 4, 2006.
189. Noel Butrus S. Mathew: PhD, professor at the Health Institute of Mosul University. Date unknown.
190. Ahmad Hamid al-Tai: Professor and head of Department of Medicine, Mosul University. Killed 20
November 2006 when armed men intercepted his vehicle as he was heading home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources, November 20, 2006].
191. Kamel Abdul Hussain: Lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Law, Mosul University. Killed in
January 11, 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007].
192. Talal Younis: Professor and dean of the College of Political Sciences. Killed on the morning of
April 16, 2007 at the main entrance to the college. Within less than half an hour Professor Jaafer
Hassan Sadeq of the Department of History at Mosul University was assassinated at his home. [Sources:
CEOSI Iraqi university sources and al-Mosul].
193. Jaafer Hassan Sadeq: Professor in the Department of History of Mosul University's College of
Arts. Killed April 16, 2007 at home in the district of al-Kafaaat, northwest of Mosul. Within less
than half an hour, Professor Talal Younis, dean of Mosul University's College of Political Sciences,
was killed at the main entrance to the college. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and
al-Mosul].
194. Ismail Taleb Ahmed: Lecturer in the College of Education, Mosul University. Killed 2 May 2007
while on his way to college. [Source: al-Mosul, May 2, 2007].
195. Nidal al-Asadi: Professor in the Computer Sciences Department of Mosul University's College of
Sciences. Shot dead by armed men in the district of al-Muhandiseen, according to police sources in
Mosul.
17
[Sources: INA, May 2, 2007, and Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, May 3, 2007].
196. Abdul Kader Ali Abdullah: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic, College of Education Sciences,
Mosul University. Found dead 25/26 August 2007 after being kidnapped five days before by a group of
armed men. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI August 26-27, 2007].
197. Unknown: Lecturer at Mosul University killed in the explosion of two car bombs near campus,
October 1, 2007. In this attack, six other people were injured, among them four students. [Source:
KUNA, October 1, 2007].
198. Aziz Suleiman: Lecturer at Mosul University. Department and College are unknown. Killed in Mosul
January 22, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, January 24, 2008].
199. Jalil Ibrahim Ahmed al-Naimi: Director of the Sharia Department [Islamic Law] at Mosul
University. He was shot dead by armed men when he came back home [in Mosul] from University, 30
January 2008. [Sources: CEOSI and BRussells Tribunal University Iraqi sources, Heytnet and al-Quds
al-Arabi, January 31, 2008].
200. Faris Younis: Lecturer at Agriculture College, Mosul University. Dr. Younis was killed June 2,
2008 as a result of a car bomb put in his car. Different sources reported that dozens of academics and
students from Mosul University were arrested by Badr militias and Kurd pershmergas. These facts
occurred at the end of May, 2008, when the city was taken over by US occupation and Iraqi forces
[Source: CEOSI University Iraqui sources, June 3, 2008].
201. Walid Saad Allah al-Mouli, a university professor [Department unknown] was shot down on Sunday 15
June 2008 by unknown gunmen while he was on his way to work in Mosul's northern neighborhood of
al-Hadbaa, 405 Km northern Baghdad, killing him on the spot. In the attack, two of his sons were
seriously wounded and are in a critical condition. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq-[VOI], June
16, 2008].
202. Ahmed Murad Shehab: professor of Mosul University's Faculty of Administration and Economics.
Ahmed Murad Shehab was fatally shot in the neighborhood of al-Nur, on Mosul's left bank. [Source:
Press TV, 21 de abril de 2009].
203. Unidentified female university professor: The professor of law was assassinated in front of her
home in the al-Intissar district of western Mosul by unknown gunmen on Tuesday, the local police said.
They declined to give her name. [Source: PressTV, April 21, 2009].
204. Unknown: lecturer at Mosul University. On May 24, 2009, gunmen ambushed killed a university
teacher near his home in Al Andalus neighborhood, Mosul. [Source: The New York Times May 24, 2009].
205. Ibrahem Al-Kasab: professor in the College of Education, Mosul University. Dr. Al-Kasab was shot
dead on 4th October, 2010. Unknown gang assassinated him in his home at the eastren part of Mosul.
[Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Al-Sabah al-Yadid October 4, 2010].
206. Amer Selbi: professor at College of Islamic Science, Mosul University. Assassinated on his way to
College by murderers using
18
silenced guns on 6th March 2011. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 10 March, 2011].
207. Yasser Ahmed Sheet: assistant Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty of the Mosul University. Gunmen
opened fire on Yasser Ahmed Sheet in front of his house in al-Muthanna neighborhood, eastern Mosul, on
April 9, 2011, a local security source told to Aswat al-Iraq news agency. [Source: Aswat al-Iraq news
agency, on April 9, 2011.]
208. Mohammed Jasem al Jabouri: professor in the Faculty of Imam al-Adham, Mosul, province of Niniveh,
was killed during the night last 2 July, 2012 by gunmen who shot him to death near his house.
[Sources: Association of Muslim Scholars and Safaq News, 3 July, 2012]
QADISIYA
Diwaniya University
209. Hakim Malik al-Zayadi: PhD in Arabic philology, lecturer in Arabic literature at al-Qadisyia
University. Dr al-Zayadi was born in Diwaniya, and was killed in Latifiya when he was traveling from
Baghdad 24 July 2005].
210. Mayid Husein: Physician and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Diwaniya University. [Source:
Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
211. Saleh Abed Hassoun: al-Qadisiyah University's Dean of the School of Law. Salih Abed Hassoun was
shot dead by a group of armed men when driving his car in downtown Baghdad on 7 July 2008.
[Source:McClatchy, 8 July 2008.]
BASRA
Basra University
212. Abdel al-Munim Abdel Mayad: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
213. Abdel Gani Assaadun: Bachelor and lecturer at Basra University. Date unknown.
214. Abdul Alah [or Abdullah] al-Fadhel: PhD, professor and deputy dean of Basra University's College
of Medicine. Killed January 1, 2006.
215. Abdul-Hussein Nasir Jalaf: PhD in agronomy, lecturer at the College of Agronomy's Center of
Research on Date Palm Trees, Basra University. Killed May 1, 2005.
216. Alaa Daoud: PhD in sciences, professor and chairman of Basra University [also reported as a
lecturer in history]. Killed 20 July 2005.
217. Ali Ghalib Abd Ali: Bachelor of sciences, assistant professor at the School of Engineering, Basra
University. Killed April 12, 2004.
218. Asaad Salem Shrieda: PhD in engineering, professor and dean of Basra University's School of
Engineering. Killed Octobre 15, 2003.
219. Faysal al-Assadi: PhD in agronomy, professor at the College of Agronomy, Basra University. Date
unknown.
220. Ghassab Jabber Attar: Bachelor of sciences, lecturer at the School of Engineering, Basra
University. Assassinated June 8, 2003.
19
221. Haidar al-Baaj: PhD in surgery, head of the University College Basra Hospital. Date unknown.
222. Haidar Taher: PhD and professor at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
223. Hussein Yasin: PhD in physics, lecturer in sciences at Basra University Killed 18 February 2004
at his home and in front of his family.
224. Khaled Shrieda: PhD in engineering, dean of the School of Engineering, Basra University. Date
unknown.
225. Khamhour al-Zargani: PhD in history, head of the Department of History at the College of
Education, Basra University Killed 19 August 2005.
226. Kadim Mashut Awad: visiting professor at the Department of Soils, College of Agriculture, Basra
University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
227. Karem Hassani: PhD and lecturer at the College of Medicine, Basra University. Date unknown.
228. Kefaia Hussein Saleh: PhD in English philology, lecturer in the College of Education Sciences,
Basra University. Assassinated May 28, 2004.
229. Mohammed al-Hakim: PhD in pharmacy, professor and dean of Basra University's College of Pharmacy.
Date unknown.
230. Mohammed Yassem Badr: PhD, professor and chairman of Basra University. Date unknown.
231. Omar Fakhri: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date
unknown.
232. Saad Alrubaiee: PhD and lecturer in biology at the College of Sciences, Basra University. Date
unknown.
233. Yaddab al-Hajjam: PhD in education sciences and lecturer at the College of Education Sciences,
Basra University. Date unknown.
234. Zanubia Abdel Husein: PhD in veterinary medicine, lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine,
Basra University. Date unknown.
235. Jalil Ibrahim Almachari: Lecturer at Basra University. Department and college unknown. Killed 20
March 2006 after criticizing in a public lecture the situation in Iraq. [Arabic Source: al-Kader].
236. Abdullah Hamed al-Fadel: PhD in medicine, lecturer in surgery and deputy dean of the College of
Medicine at Basra University. Killed in January 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
237. Fuad al-Dajan: PhD in medicine, lecturer in gynecology at the College of Medicine, Basra
University. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi
university sources].
238. Saad al-Shahin: PhD in medicine, lecturer in internal medicine at Basra University's College of
Medicine. Killed at the beginning of March 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university
sources].
239. Jamhoor Karem Khammas: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. [Source: Iraqi
Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
240. Karem Mohsen: PhD and lecturer at Department of Agriculture, College of Agronomy, Basra
University. Killed 10 April 2006. He worked in the field of honeybee production. Lecturers and
students called for a
20
demonstration to protest for his assassination. [Source: al-Basrah, April 11, 2006].
241. Waled Kamel: Lecturer at the College of Arts at Basra University. Killed 8 May 2006. Other two
lecturers were injured during the attack, one of them seriously. [Source: al-Quds al-Arabi, May 9,
2006].
242. Ahmad Abdul Kader Abdullah: Lecturer in the College of Sciences, Basra University. His body was
found June 9, 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, June 10, 2006].
243. Kasem Yusuf Yakub: Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Basra University. Killed 13 June
2006 at the university gate. [Sources: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 14 June 2006 and al-Quds
al-Arabi, June 16, 2006].
244. Ahmad Abdul Wadir Abdullah: Professor of the College of Chemistry, Basra University. Killed 10
June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report, May1 – June 30, 2006].
245. Kathum Mashhout: Lecturer in edaphology at the College of Agriculture, Basra University. Killed
in Basra in December 2006 [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 December
2006].
246. Mohammed Aziz Alwan: Lecturer in artistic design at the College of Fine Arts, Basra University.
Killed by armed men 26 May 2007 while walking in the city. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources,
June 1, 2007].
247. Firas Abdul Zahra: Lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Basra University. Killed at
home by armed men July18, 2007. His wife was injured in the attack. [Source: Iraqi university sources
to the BRussells Tribunal, August 26, 2007].
248. Muayad Ahmad Jalaf: Lecturer at the College of Arts, Basra University. Kidnapped 10 September
2007 by a group of armed men that was driving three cars, one of them with a government license plate.
He was found dead in a city suburb the next day. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells
Tribunal, September 12, 2007].
249. Khaled Naser al-Miyahi: PhD in medicine, Professor of neurosurgery at Basra University. He was
assassinated in March 2008 [exact date unknown]. His body was found after his being kidnapped by a
group of armed men in the streets of Basra. There were no ransom demands, according to information
provided by Baghdad's Center for Human Rights.[Source: al-Basrah, March 12, 2008].
250. Youssef Salman: PhD engineering professor at Basra University. He was shot dead in 2006 when
driving home from the University with three other colleagues, who were spared, according to the
information provided by her widow to France24, in an phone interview [Source: France24, July 4, 2008].
Technical Institute of Basra
251. Mohammed Kasem: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Killed on
January 1, 2004.
252. Sabah Hachim Yaber: Lecturer at the Technical Institute of Basra. Date unknown.
21
253. Salah Abdelaziz Hashim: PhD and lecturer in fine arts at the Technical Institute of Basra.
Kidnapped in 4 April 2006. He was found shot dead the next day. According to other sources, Dr Hashim
was machine-gunned from a vehicle, injuring also a number of students. [Sources: CEOSI university
Iraqi sources, April 6, 2006, Az-Zaman, April 6, 2006, and al-Quds al-Arabi, April 7, 2006].
TIKRIT
Tikrit University
254. Basem al-Mudares: PhD in chemical sciences and lecturer in the College of Sciences, Tikrit
University. His body was found mutilated in the city of Samarra 21 July 2004.
255. Fathal Mosa Hussein Al Akili: PhD and professor at the College of Physical Education, Tikrit
University. Assassinated June 27, 2004.
256. Mahmoud Ibrahim Hussein: PhD in biological sciences and lecturer at the College of Education
Sciences, Tikrit University. Killed September 3, 2004.
257. Madloul Albazi Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of
University Lecturers report, March 2006].
258. Mojbil Achaij Issa al-Jabouri: Lecturer in international law at the College of Law, Tikrit
University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
259. Damin Husein al-Abidi: Lecturer in international law at College of Law, Tikrit University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
260. Harit Abdel Yabar As Samrai: PhD student at the College of Engineering, Tikrit University.
[Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006].
261. Farhan Mahmud: Lecturer at the College of Theology, Tikrit University. Disappeared after being
kidnapped 24 November 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, November 26, 2006].
262. Mustafa Khudhr Qasim: Professor at Tikrit University. Department and college unknown. His body
was found beheaded in al-Mulawatha, eastern Mosul, 21 November 2007. [Sources: al-Mosul, November 22,
2007, and Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI, November 22-25, 2007].
263. Taha AbdulRazak al-Ani: PhD in Islamic Studies, he was professor at Tikrit University. His body
was found shot dead in a car on a highway near al-Adel, a Baghdad suburb. Also, the body of Sheikh
Mahmoud Talb Latif al-Jumaily, member of the Commission of Muslim Scientists, was found dead in the
same car last Thursday afternoon, May 15, 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources May 21, 2008].
264. Aiad Ibrahem Mohamed Al-Jebory: Neurosurgeon specialist at the College of Medicine in Tikrit
University. Picked up with his brother by military raid on his village in Al Haweja on the night of
6th March 2011. His body was delivered the following day to Tikrit Hospital. His brother fate is
unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, March 10, 2011].
DIYALAH
22
Baquba University
265. Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher: PhD in physical sciences, professor and dean at the College of Sciences,
Baquba University. Killed December 21, 2004.
266. Lez Mecchan: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April 2006
with his wife and another colleague. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
267. Mis Mecchan: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Wife of Professor Lez
Mecchan, also assassinated. Both were killed with another colleague 19 April 2006. [Sources: DPC and
EFE, 19 April 2006].
268. Salam Ali Husein: Taught at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed 19 April
2006 with two other colleagues. [Sources: DPC and EFE, 19 April 2006].
269. Meshhin Hardan Madhlom al-Dulaimi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college
unknown. Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source:
CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
270. Abdul Salam Ali al-Mehdawi: Professor at Baquba University. Department and college unknown.
Killed at the end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI
university Iraqi sources, 10 May 2006].
271. Mais Ganem Mahmoud: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the
end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi
sources, 10 May 2006].
272. Satar Jabar Akool: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed at the
end of April, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi
sources, 10 May 2006].
273. Mohammed Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and head of the
College of Education, Baquba University. Killed 19 August 2006 together with Professor Kreem Slman
al-Hamed al-Sadey, 70 years old, of the same Department. A third lecturer from the same department
escaped the attack carried out by a group of four armed men Students and lecturers demonstrated
against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi
newspaper Az-Zaman, CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25 December 2006].
274. Karim al-Saadi: Lecturer at Baquba University. Department and college unknown. Killed August
2006. Students and lecturers demonstrated against his and other lecturers' deaths. [Source: World
Socialist, 12 September 2006, citing the Iraqi newspaper Az-Zaman].
275. Kreem Slman al-Hamed al-Sadey: Professor in the Department of Arabic Language at the College of
Education, Baquba University. He was 70 years old when killed 19 August 2006. In the attack Mohammed
Abdual Redah al-Tamemmi, head of Education Department was also killed. A third lecturer from the same
department escaped the attack of a group of four armed men. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources,
25 December 2006].
23
276. Hasan Ahmad: Lecturer in the College of Education, Baquba University. Killed December 8, 2006.
[Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
277. Ahmed Mehawish Hasan: Lecturer in the Department of Arabic at the College of Education, Baquba
University. Killed in December [exact date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 25
December 2006].
278. Walhan Hamid Fares al-Rubai: Dean of the College of Physical Education, Baquba University.
Al-Rubai was shot by a group of armed men in his office 1 February 2007. According to some sources his
son was also killed. [Source: Reuters and Islammemo, 1-3 February 2007 respectively, and CEOSI
university Iraqi sources, 2 February 2007].
279. Abdul Ghabur al-Qasi: Lecturer in history at Baquba University. His body was found by the police
10 April 2007 in Diyalah River, which crosses the city, with 31 other bodies of kidnapped people.
[Source: Az-Zaman, 11 April 2007].
280. Jamal Mustafa: Professor and head of the History Department, College of Education Sciences,
Baquba University. Kidnapped at home in the city of Baquba 29 October 2007 by a group of armed men
driving in three vehicles. [Source: Iraqi university sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 30 October
2007].
281. Ismail Khalil Al-Mahdawi: professor at Al-Assmai Faculty of Education, Diyalah University. Died
after serious injuries sustained due to exposure to fire arms equipped with silencers on 4 June, 2011,
while he was on his way back home in Katoun area, western Baquba (Diyalah Governorate) according to a
security sources. Dr. Al-Mahdawi was released two months ago after five-year detention at the US
forces in Iraq. He was rushed to Baquba General Hospital. [Sources: Baghdad TV; Aswat Al-Iraq, College
of Education Al-Assmai, Al-Forat TV, on June 4 & 5, 2011.]
282. Abbas Fadhil al-Dulaimi: Pressident of Diyalah University has been injured when targeted by a
landmine near an intersection of roads and bridges in Bakoabah, Diyalah, on Tursday, January 13, 2013.
The explosion killed two and wounded three of his security and body guards [Source: CEOSI's Iraqi
sources]
AL-ANBAR
Ramadi University
283. Abdel Karim Mejlef Saleh: PhD in philology, lecturer at the College of Education Sciences,
al-Anbar University.
284. Abdel Majed Hamed al-Karboli: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Killed December 2005 [exact date
unknown].
285. Ahmad Abdl Hadi al-Rawi: PhD in biology, professor in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar
University. Date unknown.
286. Ahmad Abdul Alrahman Hameid al-Khbissy: PhD in Medicine, Professor of College of Medicine,
al-Anbar University. Date unknown.
287. Ahmed Abbas al-Weis: professor at Ramadi University, al-Anbar. The attackers were dressed in
military outfit when they shot the professor near his home in al- Zeidan district on August 25, 2009.
[Source: Khaleej Times Online, 25 August 2009].
24
288. Ahmed Saadi Zaidan: PhD in education sciences, Ramadi University. Killed February 2005 [exact
date unknown].
289. Hamed Faisal Antar: Lecturer in the College of Law, Ramadi University. Killed December 2005
[exact date unknown].
290. Naser Abdel Karem Mejlef al-Dulaimi: Department of Physics, College of Education, Ramadi
University. Killed December 2005 [exact date unknown].
291. Raad Okhssin al-Binow: PhD in surgery, lecturer at the College of Medicine, al-Anbar University.
Date unknown.
292. Shakir Mahmmoud Jasim: PhD in agronomy, lecturer in the School of Agronomy, al- Anbar University.
Date unknown.
293. Nabil Hujazi: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Ramadi University. Killed in June 2006 [exact
date unknown]. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, 20 June 2006, confirmed by Iraqi Ministry of
Higher Education].
294. Nasar al-Fahdawi: Lecturer at Ramadi University. Department and college unknown. Killed 16
January 2006. [Source: CEOSI university Iraqi sources, December 2006].
295. Khaled Jubair al-Dulaimi: Lecturer at the College of Engineering, Ramadi University. Killed 27
April 2007. [Source: Iraqi sources to the BRussells Tribunal, 3 May 2007].
Fallujah University
296. Saad al-Mashhadani: University professor in Fallujah [Unknown Department]. Saad al-Mashhadani was
critically wounded on 26 December, 2009 in an attack that killed his brother and wounded two of his
security guards. [Source: The Washington Post, December 27, 2009].
297. Khalil Khalaf Jassim: Dean of Business and Economics College in Anbar University was assassinated
in an armed attack last May 4, in al-Nazizah area, central Fallujah, according to a police source in
Anbar province. Unidentified gunmen attacked his car, killing him on the spot Security forces cordoned
off the crime scene and began an inspection in searching of militants, while the body was transferred
to the Forensic Medicine Department. [Source, Shafaq News, May 4, 2013]
NAJAF
Kufa University
298. Khawla Mohammed Taqi Zwain: PhD in medicine, lecturer at College of Medicine, Kufa University.
Killed May 12, 2006.
299. Shahlaa al-Nasrawi: Lecturer in the College of Law, Kufa University. Assassinated 22 August 2007
by members of a sectarian militia. [Source: CEOSI University Iraqi sources, 27 August 2007].
300. Adel Abdul Hadi: Professor of philosophy, Kufa University's College of Arts. Killed by a group of
armed men 28 October 2007 when returning home from university. [Source: Iraqi University sources to
the BRussells Tribunal, October 30, 2007].
SALAH AL-DEEN
University of Salah al-Deen
25
301. Sabah Bahaa Al-Deen: Dr. Sabah is a faculty member at Salah Aldeen University's College of
Agriculture. He was killed by a car bomb stuck on his car last Wednesday Dec 12 when he was leaving
the College. (Source: Aswat Al- Iraq).
KARBALA
University of Karbala
302. Kasem Mohammed Ad Dayni: Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, College of Pedagogy, Karbala
University. Killed April 17, 2006. [Source:
http://www.albadeeliraq.com]
.
OPEN UNIVERSITY
303. Kareem Ahmed al-Timmi: Head of the Department of Arabic Language in the College of Education at
the Open University. Killed in Baghdad, February 22, 2007.
COMMISSION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
[CTE is an academic body that belongs to the Higher Education Ministry. Its headquarters are located
in al-Mansur, Baghdad neighborhood. Almost twenty Technical Superior Institutes, booth from the
capital and Central and Southern provinces, are dependent on this body].
304. Aamir Ibrahim Hamza: Bachelor in electronic engineering, lecturer at the Technical Institute.
Killed August 17, 2004.
305. Mohammed Abd al-Hussein Wahed: PhD in tourism, lecturer at the Institute of Administration.
Assassinated January 9, 2004.
306. Mohammed Saleh Mahdi: Bachelor in sciences, lecturer at the Cancer Research Centre. Killed
November 2005.
INSTITUTIONAL POSITIONS
307. Emad Sarsam: PhD in surgery and member of the Arab Council of Medicine. Date unknown.
308. Faiz Ghani Aziz: PhD in agronomy, director general of the Iraqi Company of Vegetable Oil. Killed
September 2003.
309. Isam Said Abd al-Halim: Geologic consultant at the Ministry of Construction. Date unknown.
310. Kamal al-Jarrah: Degree in English philology, researcher and writer and director general at the
Ministry of Education. Date unknown.
311. Raad Abdul-Latif al-Saadi: PhD in Arabic language, consultant in higher education and scientific
research at the Ministry of Education. Killed April 28, 2005.
312. Shakier al-Khafayi: PhD in administration, head of the Department of Normalization and Quality at
the Iraq Council. Date unknown.
313. Wajeeh Mahjoub: PhD in physical education, director general of physical education at the Ministry
of Education. Killed Abril 9, 2003.
314. Wissam al-Hashimi: PhD in petrogeology, president of the Arab Union of Geologists, expert in
Iraqi reservoirs, he worked for the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum. Assassinated August 24, 2005.
26
UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION UNKNOWN
315. Amir Mizhir al-Dayni: Professor of telecommunication engineering. Date unknown.
316. Khaled Ibrahim Said: PhD in physics. Date unknown.
317. Mohammed al-Adramli: PhD in chemical sciences. Date unknown.
318. Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly: PhD in chemical sciences. He was tortured and killed by US troops. His
body was sent to the Baghdad morgue. The cause of death was initially registered as ―brainstem
compression‖. Date unknown.
319. Nafi [or Nafia] Aboud: Professor of Arabic literature. Date unknown.
320. Ali Zedan Al-Saigh: PhD in Medicine and lecturer on Oncological Surgery (unknown university). Ali
Zedan Al-Saigh was assassinated at Al-Harthia district (Bagdad) on June 29, 2010 after returning
recently to Iraq. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, June 30, 2010]
321. Adnan Meki: Specialty and University unknown. According to police sources, his corpse was found
on July 13, 2010 with signals of stabbing at his home in Al-Qaddisiya neighborhood, western Baghdad.
[Source: Al-Rafadan website, July14, 2010].
322. Unknown Identity: Specialty and University unknown. On July 14, 2010, unidentified gunmen riding
in a car shot a university professor dead as he was leaving his home in the University District, West
Baghdad, according to the report of an official security source. [Source: AKnews, July 14, 2010].
323. Mohamed Ali El-Din (Al-Diin) Al-Heeti: Professor in Pharmacy, unknown University. Mohamed Ali
El-Din Al-Heeti was killed the afternoon of the 14th August, 2010 in the area of Al-Numaniya (north of
Al-Wasat governorate) in an attack by unknown armed men. The professor came back to Iraq a few months
ago to Iraq after a period of studies in George Washington University in the USA. [Source: Association
of Muslim Scholars, 15 August, 2010.]
OTHER CASES
324. Khalel al-Zahawi [or Khalil al-Zahawi]: Born in 1946, al-Zahawi was considered the most important
calligraphist in Iraq and among the most important in the Arab-Muslim world. He worked as a lecturer
in calligraphy in several Arab countries during the 1990s. He was killed 19 May 2007 in Baghdad by a
group of armed men. He was buried in Diyalah, where he was born. [Source: BBC News, 22 May 2007. His
biography is available on Wikipedia].
Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists
overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians
and their proxies.
Some
might argue that the overthrow of the Shah was simply the unseating of a brutal US-imposed
tyrant whose regime was about as merciless as that of Pinochet, the Sauds, or any of the other despots that
the US has installed and supported over the years.
The difference between my 'some' and your 'some' is that mine would be closer to the truth.
If the Chinese imposed a brutal and oppressive puppet regime on Australia, I would go so far as to
support the whackballs from the Westboro Baptists if they were the group capable of overthrowing the puppet
regime.
If you wouldn't do the same for your own neck of the woods, I am sure that there is as perfectly good
explanation.
The US does have a puppet regime (albeit one that doesn't register on the brutality scale yet) it's not
Chinese, of course.
@Rich
'Well, yes, every member of every military is a legitimate target. Especially a general. If it sounds
logical to you, that's because not only is it logical, it's common sense '
That's why we were cool
with Pearl Harbor. Just military personnel. No harm, no foul.
So America, how does it feel to be the world's assassin? Gives the "War on Terror" a whole new meaning,
doesn't it? At least you have one last true friend, a great "Haver," who will watch your back.
@Alfred
This assessment of Trump's has been around for a while but how, specifically, would the US ever be made to
leave Iraq and Syria? The only theoretical possibility would consist of a combined effort of the Iraqi
government and people directed against the occupation force in that country. That would probably have to
play out as a popular uprising against the Americans. But what if American troops, cheered on by Zionist
circles back in the US, started to kill large numbers of Iraqis indiscriminately? Would the Iraqis have the
stomach for that? And how could Trump declare victory and leave Iraq under such circumstances?
At the time
of this writing, we have already seen the second round of killings of high-ranking Iranian and Iraqi
commanders in Iraq, all of them Shiah. If the Shiah are said to be calculating, then these Shiah commanders
have not been calculating this time, serving themselves on a platter to the Americans. The remaining
commanders will have to wise up to the new reality quickly and switch over to full Hezbollah mode if they do
not want to be wiped out altogether.
Aspects of the attack against the Aramco facility point to it having been an Israeli false flag at least
in part. Pictures showed several dome-shaped oil tanks, all of them having a big, circular hole punched into
them at zero deflection and precisely the same steep angle from precisely the same direction. This kind of
damage cannot be achieved using GPS guided drones. Either the Iranians possess an unknown stealth
capability, in which case the military equation in the Middle East changes drastically, or a false flag is
left as the only remaining possibility. Israel would be the most likely culprit for that; the objective
consists of duping Trump into war against Iran.
So, Trump may have been led to believe that Iran carried out the attack against the Aramco facility. Then
somebody suggested to him to kill the Iranian general and several other Iranians partly as an act of
revenge. Several Iraqi commanders also get slaughtered. Iraqi popular unrest boils over at the same time as
more American troops are poured into the country, a massacre of Iraqi Shiah ensues and Iran is forced to
react. That may be the calculation behind it all. The threat of impeachment and subsequent imprisonment does
the rest to gird Trump along.
Right now, there are severe strains on the financial system with the Fed bailing out the repo market and
also monetizing US debt at nearly 100%. The US is down to pure money printing; this mode of operation cannot
go on for long before the whole house of card comes crashing down. The powers that be may be reckoning that
the time for war against Iran is now or never.
So, the best course of action that heartland (Iran, Russia, China) may take may be to wait it out by
doing as little as possible.
@Maiasta
It remains to be seen if America will actually suffer a level of retaliation for the assassination that will
surprise them. So far I think evidence suggests the miscalculation was Soleimani's. His Sept 2019 drone
attacks on the main Saudi oil facilities were deliberately not very destructive, being intended as
indication of what Iran can do, but America will not permit anyone to be a threat hanging over Saudi Arabia.
The Wikileaks cables show that US diplomats thought Soleimani was behind or at least supplying lethal
assistance to attacks on US forces, and were willing to quietly negotiate with him. None of those putative
hundreds of American deaths mattered all that much in the grand scheme of things. Masterminding the drone
attack on Saudi oil was completely different, that was what made him a marked man.
@Alfred
Did you say there are credible rumors that Iran brought down PanAm 103 and Israel made it look like Libya in
order to throw off suspicions from Iran? And, you say, the proof is that "Since PA103, no Iranian civilian
aircraft of any sort has been attacked or threatened by the USA or any other country?" Are you some kind of
Intelligence Analyst? This is deep. Or are you really saying there are credible rumors that Israel brought
down PanAm 103 and made it look like Libya? Which, of course, is not so deep. And the proof is that
Andrei, if as you say the Persians have imagination, why not imagine making peace with Israel? you also
quoted before that politics is art of possible. well and good, peace is possible if there is realization and
imagination that Israel is really not going anywhere. an eye for eye will make everyone blind. gandi?
btw, with all the mahdi stuff going on, how much rational are the Persian leaders?
what say the cyber warriors and armchair generals on drone warfare? is it ethical? moral? right? just?
necessary? sane?
We all know perfectly well you haven't read it yourself.
Maybe we can start a go-fund-me page for Rich, and it can pay for his Koranic education, and then he can
be shipped over to Tehran to tell them just how wrong they are – in his own kind of way. I'm sure they'll
listen, and drop everything to worship at the holy altar of
((Rich))
. And then he can reply back with
a big fat
"I told you so!"
.
@Kratoklastes
As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it? They
invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries. Now that they have already invaded
Afghanistan and Iraq in preparation for the war on Iran, they could well roll in after a thorough aerial
pounding. So if they suffer great losses so what? Did they ever care about their own soldiers or citizens
that much anyway? If there's loot to be had they'll go for it.
This incident had one goal in mind and it was successful: Raising the price of crude by stirring up the Mid
East. Raising the oil price will raise the US stock market and re-elect Trump. Expect more of the same prior
to this year's elections. Same old, same old; people die, people win elections. Obama showed the way.
"Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo belong to a doomsday cult and may be trying to bring on the Apocalypse "
richardawkins.net
"Brought to Jesus the evangelical grip on the Trump administration"
theguardian.com
It's scary that a lobbyist for a major arms manufacturer and a true believer in the Apocalypse are both
advising a psychopath on US military action in the Middle East .
@Adrian
Yes, Wesley Clark spilled the beans. Seven nations to destroy is how the first Israel was formed.
Wesley said the nations that would be destroyed:
Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Iran.
Wesley says this is for nine eleven (false flag).
He said it would take 5 years to do so. 5 years was a guess since within 5 years is all it took to do WWI
and WWII.
Iran is the only nation of the seven mentioned that has not been messed up by ZUS, its friends and its
best friend Israel.
Nine eleven combo is a Kabbala theme. Nine is one less and eleven is one more than the Tree of Life
number ten of Yahweh. Thus, this combo represents chaos and destruction.
The 911 number was created in 1968. WTC was being built around that time.
Nine Eleven date in the Jewish calendar is 12.23. 5761. Notice the 12th Jewish month of Elul and the 23th
day of that month. The first Zion century began with the FED on 12. 23. 1913 of the Christian Calendar. This
second Zion Century began on 12.23 on the Jewish Calendar.
12.23 in the Jewish Calendar is the date of the second dove coming back to Noah with an olive branch.
12.25 two days later is the date of the when God (Yahweh) created the world. Six days later man was
created by Yahweh. That is the day of the Jewish New Year which celebrates Yahweh's creation of man. Thus,
the 6 million game comes from that. 6 represents man.
On 12.25. 5761 ( 9.13.2001) all the planes were "allowed" to fly again in the US. It was a creation of
"new" world after the end of the "flood of fear" like Yahweh did on that day in the Tanakh.
@BeenThereDunnit
Beware the false flag attack , if American servicemen or citizens get killed by "Iranians",it won't take
much to get the public behind a "decisive " attack on Iran , the objective would not be to defeat them but
to create another failed state for the benefit of Israel , we are good at that, just look at Syria , Yemen,
Libya , Afghanistan and Iraq .
"Israel made attack on Saudi oil fields"
streetwisereports.com
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Even if you are correct that Iranians do not have the capacity to defend themselves from the zionized US
military (armed on the Fed Reserve banksters' money), the ongoing war in the Middle East will be more
devastating for the US (and the EU) than for the natives who try to defend their families and their culture.
The moral death of the US is within reach.
The Jewish State has been running the famous Milgram experiment (dubbed "Nazi experiment") on
Palestinians for 70 years.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
Whereas the Milgram experiment was terminated (due to its ugliness) in the US, the Milgram experiment has
been at the heart of Israel for 70 years. They, Israelis, have managed to create a new kind of people -- the
amoral hypocrites. Or perhaps, the ongoing Milgram study in Israel has exposed the true nature of Talmudism
("is this good for Jews?" -- then everything goes).
The impeachment proceedings of Trump pushed him to satisfy the deep state by making this idiotic move.
Netanyahu is also under investigation and should have been in jail. A war with IRAN is a nice way out of the
impasse.
@Rich
" the violent spread of Islam throughout the world"
-- Actually, there has been the violent spread of
zioconism throughout the world, including the Wars for Israel in the Middle East (and the flooding of Europe
with the dispossessed refugees and radicalized jihadies), the Jewish assault on the First Amendment in the
US, the physical assault and imprisonment of honest researchers in WWII on behalf of zionists (zionists
cannot tolerate factual information that does not agree with Elie Wiesel's inventions), the zionization of
US military, the blackmailing of persons in a position of power by Mossad (see Epstein-Maxwell saga of
underage prostitution), and a cherry on the top -- the casual attitude of zionist to all non-jews as
subhumans (see Gaza Ghetto, the suicided American veterans of the Wars for Israel, and the murdered
civilians in eastern Ukraine, courtesy the US-supported Banderites).
Who needs reading the Quaran when the Jewish State has been arming Ukrainian neo-Nazi and arming and
saving fanatical jihadi terrorists (including the murderous "white helmets") in Syria? Your quetching tribe
is nothing but a rapacious amoral predator working in cahoots with the worst scum among the mega-banksters
and mega-war-profiteers. At least you have already erected the numerous monuments (the Holobiz Museums) to
remind the non-Jews about Jewish depravity.
Join the Zionist Crusade!
Join the U.S military and fight for Israel.
Seven Islamic countries need to be destroyed for Greater Israel Project.
1.Afghanistan- check
2.Iraq-check
3.Sudan-check
4.Libya-check
5.Somalia-check
6.Syria-In Progress
7.Iran-TBA
@Kratoklastes
Those beheadings are fake, nothing more than cheap Hollywood stunts. All of the ISIS videos come from a
single source, Rita Katz/SITE, who is known to have Mossad connections.
Some might argue that the Iranians drew first blood when the present group of radical medievalists
overthrew the Shah and then seized the US embassy in 1979 or a whole load of other attacks by Iranians
and their proxies.
Of course those would be dumb bastards with no knowledge of history the CIA installed the Shah in a 1953
coup.
@Tulip
Kim Jong Un just called Trump a dotard a few weeks ago is testing more nuclear missiles and is back to
taunting the Trump Administration. That makes Trump look weak but because the N. Koreans have the ability to
massively retaliate against U.S. forces and because they are a nuclear power Trump does nothing but tweet.
If Iran had short range nuclear missiles that could reach Israel and Saudi Arabia they would be getting
far more respect and Trump would be treading lighter like he is with N. Korea.
@Maiasta
The interesting thing about Ostrovsky's book (and probably the real reason it generated controversy) is that
he admits that the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its
operations abroad.
@Colin Wright
Anyone with even a limited knowledge of the laws of war knows that a military base is a legitimate target.
That doesn't mean any nation that is attacked is going to be happy about it. For better or worse Pearl
Harbor was a legitimate target and the US was negligent in its defenses there. Of course, I believe the Nips
were sorry for that move in the end. Should've stuck to fighting poorly armed, divided Asian countries.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
On the other hand, Saddam simply sat on his fat *ss and watched how US built up fighting force of 150 000
men, planes and whatnot.
If Iran has any strategic sense it simply does not allow this to happen. Sometimes pre-emptive strikes are
the correct strategy. And then US is left only with carriers far from iranian shores and airbases in Jordan
or even further away. Of course, it can still destroy most of Iran's infrastructure eventually – while
simultaneously watching how his client states in Gulf will be levelled to ground. But bringing land forces
to Iran without relying on friendly ports and airbases will be D-day scale operation – much, much larger
than Desert Storm of Iraq Freedom.
"Iran HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly."
That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what
israel wants them to do?
"Right now, the Dems (still the party favored by the Neocons)"
Total nonsense. The neocons are overwhelmingly republicans, both leaders and followers. They got their
real start in the republican reagan regime and have increased their influence in each republican regime
since.
"Now think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able to get the US goyim to strike
Iran AND get rid of Trump."
LOL, why kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? The neocon trump is 100% israel's boy. In fact, he
should be considered an extension of the israeli likud political block, which is who backs and promotes
neoconnery in the usa. The neocon american media such fox and the various conservative talk radio networks
are neocon. They promote trump, demonize the democrats and are fanatical likud israeli loyalists.
"For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was
not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of
IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really
happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East."
Not credible, propaganda instead. The zionazis blamed Libya, Iran and Syria, depending on which served
their psywar needs of the moment. One saw the same zionazi strategy used after the 9/11 wtc attack. As the
zionazis attacked other countries, they justified it in their psywar as a response to that country's
"involvement" in 9/11. The air liner was likely destroyed through an israeli/western security service
falseflag act, like the later 9/11 falseflag.
This article posits some useful ideas, it also reinforces some zionazi policy goals and propaganda.
@Realist
Somewhat sad that your poor education has misinformed you about the origins of the Shah and the Pahlavi
dynasty. The Pahlavis came to power in 1925 when Reza Khan overthrew the Qajar dynasty who had ruled the
region since the late 18th century. The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by
Mossadegh which was almost successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power.
Is it a coup if there's an attempt to seize control of the government by communists but the king is able to
hold onto power? I don't think so. Shame the Tsar wasn't able to stop the Bolsheviks and their reign of
terror.
@Rich
"Somewhat sad your poor education blah blah blah"
Rich is a joo goblin pretending to be an aging boomerwaffen still fighting the big one from high atop his
barstool lookout down at the VFW lounge. Have another $2 double, Rich, and tell us again how you kicked ass
over there in 'Nam followed by your latest prostate troubles .
@Beefcake the Mighty
"the Mossad relies on diaspora Jews for intelligence gathering, cover, etc. for running its operations
abroad."
-- The ongoing mass slaughter in the Middle East and the triumph of Banderites (neo-Nazis) in
Ukraine are some of the glorious achievements of the Israel-firsters.
This is not the first time when the obnoxious tribe puts a lot of effort to cut a branch on which the
tribe perches. The disloyal treacherous scum of the Mega Group-Epstein-Maxwell kind has been at the ZUSA
wheel for some time already. The ziocons will not stop their bloody treachery until the US citizenry at
large begins taking actions against the dreamers of Eretz Israel.
Russia and Germany are examples of what can happen to a sovereign state when the "most moral and
victimized" are left to their ugly devices. The shameless AIPAC and 52 main Jewish American organizations
bear the principle responsibility for the ongoing wars that are becoming more dangerous with each day.
Is that what you thought when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet?
Look, I'll keep it short because this gaggle is locked into some seriously delusion thinking.
Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage crisis.
Do you knuckleheads really think that Trump was going to fall for it?
Especially since it was so obvious. With the Ayatollah shouting that Trump "couldn't do a damn thing."
And Senator Murphy teeing up what was soon to come by declaring the POTUS "impotent."
That is just the latest, most desperate provocation, by Iran in coordination with the Democrats.
So killing Soleimani, along with those in the second airstrike, was anything but an escalation. This is
what Milley was signaling when he said "The ball is in Iran's court." Khamenei stupidly revealed beforehand
that he had sanctioned this plot. That constitutes enormous risk not only to the Iranian regime but the
Democrats colluding with them.
@Rich
Poor "Rich," we guess that you need to make a living, but do your superiors understand that your posts make
more harm to "Jewish cause" than any jihadis' activities?
Though the Jewish State is, of course, one of the main sponsors of fanatical jihad (because this is good
for Jews and bad for Syrians) and of the neo-nazi in Ukraine (because this is good for Jews and bad for
Russians).
Keep posting. The exposure of the sick logic of Israelis is educational.
That is exactly what zionazia wants Iran to do. Why does saker want the Iranians to do exactly what
israel wants them to do?
Iranians are very shrewd and they will never start a war with USA. At appropriate time Iran will
annihilate Israel and USA will be scratching their heads. What will USA do, after the annihilation of
Israel? Commit suicide for the sake of annihilated Israel?
Saker's Quote: "For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the destruction of PanAm 103
over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct retaliation for the deliberate
shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a
fact that this is what really happened, only that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the
Middle-East."
Saker is showing his true colors, that he only cares for mother Russia. How can he post this stuff, while
he very well knows that when Iraq used chemicals, Iran refused to do so in return. Russia like USA will
intentionally kill civilians to achieve their goal, but Iran will NEVER intentionally kill innocent
civilians. Saker has been smoking too much lately, and forgetting that it is NOT spiritual to kill innocent
civilians. No, no and no, everything is not fair in war and love ..
Iran is ethical and has morals where as USSR and Russia seems to lack them .
The 1953 incident you refer to is the attempted communist takeover by Mossadegh which was almost
successful but prevented by the US and UK who helped keep the Pahlavis in power.
The US and UK were after Iranian oil. The Shah was their puppet plain and simple.
@Rich
But Rich, almost all the Communists are Jews and Mossadegh was not Jewish. How could he be a Communist? All
he did was nationalize the oil industry for Iranians instead of for the British. And you call Shiism
Medievalist, but isn't Judaism a stone age religion? Do you put those little boxes with magic amulets on
your head?
@Rich
You're certainly right, Rich, that any true Muslim is obligated to spread Islam by any means necessary,
including violence and intimidation -- our Quality Commenter Talha's eloquent and shrewd apologia to the
contrary notwithstanding. I wouldn't trust the people running Iran or any other Muslim country, and I'd not
let any Muslims settle in our lands.
BUT the us gov does seem to be consistently lying and trying to pick
a fight far from our shores. That dishonesty and belligerence is not obviated by the nature of the contrived
opponent. And they do seem to be doing it at the behest of Israel and its powerful domestic lobby and media,
often with no benefit to the American people, or affirmative harm to us.
Can't we both be realistic and not naive about Islam, AND not aggress or provoke a war?
@Colin Wright
That's a fair point, but there are similar conclusions drawn by long, detailed analyses of the koran by
ex-Muslims who are fluent in Arabic.
These are people who know both the Koran and the subsequent interpretive writings well. Doesn't mean
they're necessarily all correct, just that the very fearful and critical view of Islam that many of us find
persuasive, is NOT based only on selective or ill-informed readings of those texts.
@Robert Magill
I don't doubt that the elites behind the us gov would cause tension, violence, even war to profit from it,
through higher oil prices or otherwise.
As for the us stock market, though, how many of the 100 biggest,
500 biggest, or 5000 biggest publicly traded companies (by capitalization) would benefit from a spike in oil
and nat gas prices?
Wouldn't modt publicly traded US companies be harmed by the higher fuel prices causing higher prices for
groceries, clothes, and other goods that are shipped, flown, or trucked by vehicles burning fossil fuels?
Consumers wouldn't be able to afford to buy as much of those companies' goods and services after shelling
out exorbitant prices to fuel their cars and heat / cool their homes, paying more for non-locally sourced
groceries, etc. When the average American has to pay seven bucks for a gallon of gas, he will cut back on
other spending and/or borrow (charge) more to survive. That means many fewer people spending on luxuries
such as vacations and dining out and entertainment. More people postponing home renovation or repair,
forgoing medical or dental care, and so on.
As for the states and localities of the USA, some might benefit on balance from higher oil and gas
prices, but most definitely suffer from it. Much of Texas would benefit, including any state and local
governments getting extraction taxes, but none of the nine million people in New Jersey, the 20 million
people in Florida, and so on. I would wager that most US states are not net energy exporters but net energy
consumers, but I'll check for stats on that.
@Rich
US troops are only legitimate targets to the extent they are uninvited combatants in another country. Your
reasoning on this is bizarre.
My comment had nothing to do with dissing Israel or defending Iran, but
since you mention both, the US is entirely too subservient to the former since its inception and has been
screwing in the internal affairs of the latter for the better part of a century. When I said the US drew
first blood, I wasn't talking about last week.
@Not Raul
russia monitors all usa nukes, if they see any large scale nuclear attack they can not wait to make sure its
heading just south of their border or just north of it.
any large scale nuclear launch by the usa would trigger mad.
and im sure the nuclear armed muslim power right next door will not particularly enjoy having to deal with
the country smothered in fall out and the dead bodies of 80 million muslims.
Solemani was commanding an operation to put Trump in the position Carter was in with the hostage
crisis.
Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni has
another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.
The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the
Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.
One thing could end this quickly and bloodlessly for all sides -- The IRGC removing the highly unpopular
Khameni, thus protecting the people of Iran. This will not happen tomorrow, but
Trump just took advantage
of Khameni's errors
to bring that day closer.
______
Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no
one believes them.
@Beefcake the Mighty
The September 2019 attacks occurred in the very special context of Aramco's Initial Public Offering (IPO).
For the first time ever, Aramco, considered the largest company in the world in terms of valuation, was
about to sell 1.5% of its shares on the stock market.
The attacks on the Aramco facilities at the time
caused the total valuation to drop from an initial $2 trillion estimate to only 1,7 $trillion. So the
attacks were extremely convenient for some international financial institutions who wanted to
buy Aramco
shares on the cheap
.
The close relationship between such financial institutions and the Israeli government, who could have
carried the attacks and blame it on Iran, is of course a complete coincidence. Or so we are told.
@Beefcake the Mighty
The only explanation would be that the Israelis got wind of the impending attack. Then they used it as a
cover for their own attack. They may also have put themselves on alert, waiting for an attack having taking
place. Then they struck the same target in near real-time, using ready-made plans. Both possibilities would
certainly be far fetched. But they would not be completely illogical because oil installations being
targeted could be expected after all the prior drone attacks carried out by the Yemenis. OTOH, a quick
search on the Internet shows that GPS guidance has become considerably more precise in recent years. If the
Iranians are able to make use of such technology after all, then a war in the Middle East would become an
interesting proposition to say the least. The Americans can switch off GPS and they can jam GLONASS and the
other GPSes that exist. But that's not possible over the entire Middle East. That would be too costly both
in terms of the jamming itself and the losses incurred in the wider economy. GPS is terribly important in
these days. Everything depends on it from oil tankers navigating to excavators being guided along.
@A123
Thank Yahweh that your average, drooling, red-white-and-duh American is always ready to believe any simple
and obvious lie conjured by paid Israeli shills such as yourself.
Iran is in a no-win situation. If they do nothing and bide their time then I believe the Trump admin will
manufacture a casus belli for additional military action this time possibly striking targets inside Iran.
Trump's window is between now and the November 2020 election and his re-election is far from a lock given
the demographic changes in the electorate since 2016 which is why Iran may decide just wait things out.
The real question is if Russia will get involved to assist Iran or just sit on the sidelines and whine
and wimper about American aggression and violations of international law?
Others saw Donald Trump as a Dr. Strangelove when he was running for president but I thought that was
ridiculous since I saw Trump as more of a showman and entertainer but I now see that they were right and I
was wrong.
@ivegotrythm
I'm a Chrisrened and Confirmed Catholic and if those $99 DNA tests are accurate, I have no ashkenazi or
semitic ancestors. Just Europeans and Neanderthals in my family line. Not sure what I've written that seems
to trigger everyone into thinking I'm Jewish.
I will admit that growing up I did date a couple of secular Jewish gals and I did have a few Jews among
my childhood friends. That being said, I also have secular Muslim associates who are decent enough people. I
try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view. Guess that offends
many here who only want to live in an echo chamber where everyone has the same opinions.
@Anthony Aaron
What if Russia started to declassify documents and info they must have in their possession on 9/11?
That would
*really*
cause "dissension" in the US of A.
Also, what if Russia put some kind of screws on Israel?
With the two "countries'" (scare quos meant for the Jewish National State) long and somewhat troubled
association, there must be something the Russkies can do to scare the Zionists.
Actually, any 9/11 info would probably do both tricks at once.
@Biff
By the same token if you criticize those who are currently attacking Trump via the impeachment charade you
will be accused of being a "Trump supporter/lover/apologist/kissing Trump's sphincter (yes, this is at Moon
of Alabama, no less!).
This is the "Trump gotcha" equivalent of the MSM labeling anyone who advances a hypothesis besides the
"official" narrative of events such as Dallas or 9/11 a conspiracy theory.
@Paul holland
Yes, Iran's best move would be to take out Bibi himself or one of Trump's bosses in the US, like Adelson. If
Bibi himself is hit, Israel can't hide behind Trump's skirt any longer but will have to take the war to Iran
itself.
Trump's actions were proportionate and well considered. Instead of 'recapturing past glory', Khameni
has another massive failure to his name. The weak leader is growing weaker as time goes by.
Well, making himself part of the plot against Trump by shooting his mouth off ("You can't do a damn thing
about it.") must be deeply unsettling within the Iranian regime about his leadership.
I've long given the Iranians their resistance due but it's becoming clear they're overrated. The W Bush
and Obama administrations were gifts to Iran. It's impossible to overstate how thoroughly they overplayed
their hand with Obama on JCPOA.
The strike also impacts the thinking of Iranian military leaders. They now understand that if the
Ayatollah orders an irrational & unwinnable escalation, they may suffer personal consequences.
We have two fairly recent related analogues -- when Turkey shot down the Russian fighter and that lame
US-backed coup against Erdogan. In the first case, unsurprisingly because Putin knows what he's doing,
Russia extracted geopolitical gains for itself in return for letting Erdogan climb out of the tree. In the
latter, Obama acted pretty much like the 11 year old girl that he was throughout his figurehead terms. Trump
is still having to deal with the problem, all because Obama wouldn't give up the CIA Islamist living in PA,
an entirely reasonable demand to put a period on things.
No doubt, the Iranians have already been told we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Trump LOVES
making deals, particularly when he has the counter-party by the shorthairs.
The Saker forgets to mention the way this event went down. Trump walked into a room at the Mar-a-Lago where
he was met by a bunch of Neocons including Kuchner. They told him of Soleimani presenting a target of
opportunity and Trump ok'ed the attack. This paints a picture of Trump having lost every bit of control that
might still have been in his hands. He was visibly agitated when he went on TV. Probably he had begun to
realize what he has gotten himself into. The US then doubled down by striking a second time. You have to
pause your breath to take in what has happened. The US have officially killed government officials of a
country where they have stationed troops and that officially is an ally of the US. The US have also
officially killed officials of another country that were on an official, diplomatic visit to their ally.
Lots of uses of the word "official" here. But what it basically means is that all damns have broken. Total
chaos is now the order of the day. The US have resorted to naked violence in their dealings with the rest of
the world. Nobody is safe who cannot hold the US at gunpoint. It's the Wild West with nuclear weapons. It
was true before but now the US have begun acting on it completely overtly. And the US congress is in the
process of passing a bill that declares Russia a supporter of terrorism. You have to wonder what will happen
once this bill has passed and some high-ranking Russian official makes his next visit to Kaliningrad via
plane across the Baltic Sea.
@Kratoklastes
I put as much stock in your "expertise" as I do in that of all the other military geniuses on the internet,
which is to say, none at all.
@RadicalCenter
It is, of course, reasonable to wish to avoid another foreign adventure in a distant land. I'm of two minds
on the prospect. On the one hand, I agree that the US should turn its back on the Middle East, let them
settle their own differences. On the other hand, there is a legitimate argument that the day the US backs
down from these foreign entanglements, we lose the dollar as the world's reserve currency and this results
in extreme economic hardship in the US (as well as much of the rest of the world).
In the meantime, both major parties support our foreign entanglements, both firmly support Israel and no
one who is anti-Israel or anti-MIC is anywhere close to being elected to any high office in the country. So,
observing from that angle, the argument for withdrawal has no chance of winning, and the argument for
preventing the expansion of a loudly anti-US country from increasing its influence is not without merit. If
we're going to be there anyway, we might as well keep winning.
As far as the opinion that the US is acting at the behest of Israel, I think it's more a case of sharing
mutual interests at this time. Jews are a very rich and powerful ethnic group in this country, and will
continue to be for quite some time. Their support for Israel is not unlike the old Anglos who twice dragged
America into unnecessary wars against Germany for the benefit of merry old England. I'd rather all Americans
were more concerned with the future and security of the US, but that's not the way it is.
@Beefcake the Mighty
Because I dated a Jewish girl ? I don't think you know what a cuck is. Ask that fellow who picks up your
wife in the evening, then brings her home in the morning to explain the meaning of the word.
@Passer by
Two hundred and fifty million dollar exercise??? Wow and they got smoked in ten miunutes. Very telling.
Suicide bombers in zodiacs crazy to think of that..
Thanks for that.
I want to see the one where the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup .My team and maybe our year.
@Z-man
Yup.
Here's the insanity of it all. Here in Scotland and I presume the rest of the UK, there are certain branches
of Christianity who go out at the weekend, going around bars, giving leaflets on Jesus and engaging in
conversation with homosexuals. I've had a few debates with them, but they just make me laugh. I know their
bible better than them. Last time I asked them
"ever heard of the Talmud?"
They looked at me goggle
eyed. I told them, specifically what it stated about their Jesus and Mary and they said I was lying. They
stated that Jews would never do such things.
This is what we're dealing with. We're dealing with an
utterly ignorant Christian following who truly do believe the crap about Jews, because they're utterly
indoctrinated. The biggest problem isn't so much Judaism, it's the morons who wilfully follow the Jews, as
God's chosen, believing they do no wrong. Utterly and completely indoctrinated fools.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Qassem Soleimani was indeed a celebrated Iranian general. He was known as an honorable man and talented
military commander.
As for 'Gleimhart Mantooso' -- never heard of her.
@BeenThereDunnit
Important point. Trump now threatens to hit 52 major Iranian sites if there is any retaliation for the
Soleimani assassination. The Russians will observe this precipitous escalation and factor it into the next
standoff between Russian and American forces. Russia will have to assume that 'Murka will escalate
massively, and will therefore be on a hair-trigger for the use of nuclear weapons. Massive escalation is now
the order of the day, and presages nuclear war.
If Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable President", and their goals require him out of
the way, "at which point the Neocons will jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient
individual (say Pence or Pelosi)"
Scary thought: The neocons/Israel/DeepState/MIC/media have been going all out to either control and/or
get rid of Trump through Russiagate and now impeachment. Having succeeded in getting Trump to commit this
huge mistake, could they now decide it's worth going further than just impeachment to get rid of him, in
order to create a horrible false flag to pin on Iran, get Pence/Pelosi into power, and have the US destroy
Iran for Israel with media-orchestrated US public support?
Really wish Trump had had the sense to say no to this when they presented their murderous plan to him.
@Rich
Rich: You imply that "Their dead general was a member of the military and a legitimate target." How on earth
could any s-a-n-e person arrive at your conclusion? Are you nucking futs??
This twisted thinking would imply that any member of a sovereign country's military, while visiting another
country on a peace mission, from your perspective, is a 'legitimate target'? With people like you, it is
little wonder that the world ends up with imbeciles like Trump.
Well help me doG
@Rurik
First comes the vote to expel the US forces, then when they don't leave, the constant pinprick attacks and ,
if available, taking out a high value US target and it all gets blamed on Iraq irregular forces
I try to see things as clearly as I can and also from a patriotic American point of view.
Perhaps you should consider having your eyes and hearing checked by a specialist. Also, some additional
education regarding the history of the United States of America starting with the Declaration of
Independence would appear to be long overdue. (Hint: The clue is in the word independence and the efforts
that patriots made to achieve it)
No less alarming is that this creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag ŕ la "USS
Liberty". Right now, the Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities
in the entire Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a missile/torpedo/mine at any
USN ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political elites will do what they did
the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs (read up on the USS Liberty
if you don't know about it)
I made a remark about the likelihood of a False Flag in another thread and was lumped in as "weak-minded"
and "know-it-all Unz-ite". LOL. (
https://www.unz.com/estriker/the-line-in-the-sand/
).
My comment on how Trump is stupid and a great scapegoat was also targeted because the person said Trump is
"playing a charade" and is all deep state. Well, I don't think so at all. Trump is a walking Ego stick and
an excellent scapegoat if anything goes wrong.
But seriously, how can anyone not see the immense gravity of the situation? My god, they murdered a
General, which is next to killing a President. This is a clear provocation and I agree 100% with the
possibilities that Saker brings up.
I'll take it further as well. There could be a nuke used against Iran in the event a False Flag of
massive proportions directed at civilians gets people onboard for a fight. They don't want to get bogged
down in a long war with Iran. My guess is Israel wants them out of the picture for a long time or for good.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Well, annamaria is a much respected commenter here who often adds better information to those comments
lacking much of anything substantial, such as your own. Consider it a favour to you and bear in mind also
that a great many people read the comments without commenting themselves so they too are the beneficiaries
of her well researched contributions. Have a nice day.
All the options presented by Saker are viable and desirable. They don't even have to be limited to
either/or. The political option of hitting exclusively IsraHell with salvos of missiles would be another
option. Israel is, after all, the culprit behind the scenes.
Last time I asked them "ever heard of the Talmud?" They looked at me goggle eyed.
I too was ignorant of it until my later years.
An anecdotal story: Years ago at my 'office' Christmas party the one Jew in our group shared,
with his
goy coworkers
, that he was struggling with
The Talmud
. You see he was a very secular ok kind of
guy who liked to hang out with the 'un-chosen'. But he was now married to a very 'orthodox' woman and he had
to learn about the Talmud. He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles. He was at a
crossroad. I noticed the struggle he was going thru. I believe he stayed with his wife, I haven't seen him
in years.
Thanks to him I became even more 'woke' to the
truths
of Judaism.
As if Afghanistan isn't inhospitable mountainous terrain? So somehow Iran's topography is worse is it?
They invaded Afghanistan without even controlling any neighbouring countries.
Have you looked at where KOP is? By 2007 that was still a 'forward base'. It's only 100 miles from Kabul.
Also, while the US didn't explicitly 'control' Uzbekistan (which is where the initial force staged),
Karimov was a US ally and there is no love lost between the Uzbeks and the Pashto.
Today, the US controls only those parts of Afghanistan that the Taliban haven't decided to take back yet.
It's not clear why you would consider US strategy in Afghanistan as a good example – it's now widely-known
to have been so bad that it required 17 years of official bullshit to cover its failure.
.
You've also missed about fifty key points of difference between Afghanistan and Iran.
The ones that most people don't need reminding about include –
① Afghanistan had no organised military to speak of;
② it had absolutely no air defence capabilities and limited airspace monitoring;
③ its disorganised military was having a hard time with Dostum, Massoud and Hekmatyar;
④ the initial US insertion was about 6 SAD guys whose main role was to meet up with the Northern
Alliance; they, and the rest of TF Dagger arrived by helo from K-K in Uzbekistan (the US had always
supported Karimov) – the TF Dagger insertion
is now the record for the longest helo insertion in military
history
;
⑤ Kandahar and Kabul had already fallen before FOB Rhino was established – in other words, the Northern
Alliance plus US air power had done the job before ISAF even got its shit unpacked;
⑥ Notwithstanding the unseating of the Taliban,
The US lost
. They knew in 2001 that they were
losing, and lied about it for 17 years.
On ⑥: when you're a superpower,
if you fail to impose your Imperial Will on the place that is a LOSS
.
.
Ordinarily, in these sort of situations it's left as an exercise to work out which of those points are
critical in the new game (where the US tries to do the same thing in Iran).
But since most people are imbeciles, I'll put a thumb on the scales.
More below the fold. Read it or don't, but if you think of some counter-argument it's best to assume I've
already thought of it, coz I'm good at this. (The folks at JWAC probably don't know my name any more,
because the Yanks our crew helped train in the 90s have moved on since then).
[MORE]
In the case of Iran:
Re ①: Iran has a well-equipped professional military with an excellent senior staff. (That said:
Afghanistan didn't have much by way of
formal
military, but it did have
millions
of
people with battlefield experience against a technologically superior enemy about half of whom were
on the Taliban side).
Re ⑤: Ain't gonna happen because ④ can't happen.
④ is made orders of magnitude harder by !{②,③} (! is the 'NOT' operator, indicating that {} is
untrue in the Iranian case).
Dealing with !③ first: there is no domestic insurgency worth talking to in Iran – certainly not one
that is remotely analogous to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001, which was basically a
full-fledged opponent in a civil war (which the NA won, with the aid of US air power). Whoever crosses
the threshold cannot rely on divided attention of the Iranian military.
OK, now !②. More convoluted – requires more space.
Insertion of the whole force by rotor is really hard if the adversary has any significant air
defences. (At the time that the US invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban couldn't even rely on
regularly-updated satellite imagery to detect movements in US naval assets: now you can do that from
your phone, and if you're a government you have drones).
With a sophisticated enemy it's so hard to insert large numbers of boots by rotor, that it can be
ruled out.
So if you want to get boots on the ground
without
everyone having to traverse a mountain
range (exposing flanks and supply lines), you a need to get reliable control over a big lump of land
that has an airport on it capable of landing troop transports (or being converted to same).
(The passel of land has to be on the 'enemy' side of the mountains – I put that in because some
readers went to US schools and geography is not a strong point.)
Controlling an air base would require a battalion on the ground on the bad-guy side of the hills.
You sure as fuck don't want to fight your way over the hills and then try to control an airbase.
Trying to get a battalion-sized presence in by rotorcraft would mean using MH-47s, which are slow
and (
ahem
) not very stealthy (actually, they're
very
not
stealthy) and the US
would require more than a battalion on the ground.
Airdrop? Same problem: if the incoming aircraft is detected, you know everything about manpower
disposition (troop size and position) before the men hit the ground.
Iran has the capability to see airborne things coming; it also has a range of solutions to make
airborne things lose their airborne-ness.
For mobile overwatch, Iran has AWACS – 3 old Orions and some retroftted An-140s for maritime, and a
bunch of unarmed drones (they've been cranking out UAVs as fast as possible). They also have JY-14
medium-long range radar, which is handy because their range means that they can be lit up earlier than
short-range AA radar.
And if you don't think that they have an intel-sharing arrangement with Russia, you're not thinking
hard enough.
As far as making flying things stop flying, they have a fuckton of SAMs. A genuine fuckton –
especially relative to what the US has faced in any engagement since Korea.
They have a similar fuckton of MANPADs: even primitive RPGs are bad news for helos, and MANPADs are
much more
worser
think of how badly "
Hind
vs
Stinger
" played out in the 80s, and
you are on roughly the right page
They also have a little over 1500 AA batteries (most of those will be dead on first contact, but
they're still a nuisance).
The Iranian Air Force itself – forget it, it's irrelevant.
The first sign things are kicking off will be a bunch of TLAMs fucking up every airbase in Iran.
(Plus the obligatory US/NATO SOP war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure for electricity
generation, water treatment, sewage treatment, and telecommunications)
This is why Iran has fuck-all air-superiority assets: and a little over a hundred 1980s-level
offensive aircraft (about 150 of them: F14; Fulcrum; Su22, 24 and 25).
They learned from the experience of Iraq's Air Force in 1991: it was much much larger than Iran's
is now, but a shitload of it was destroyed on the ground due to the regime's appalling lack of
preparedness.
So from all that
⑥ is a foregone conclusion.
Some things that play no part in the conclusion:
ⓐ that I despise US* hypocritical bromides about freedom and 'democracy';
ⓑ that the US military is a bloated set of boondoggles run by grifters,with the mindset of a
20-something NPC who just watched '300';
ⓒ that the US has had its arse kicked by several sets of raggedy-ass peasants from 1968 onwards and
has underperformed in every peer engagement since 1789. (inb4 WWI and WWII they were on the winning
side
, but others – e.g., the Soviets – did the actual
winning
)
.
"
Topography matters
" doesn't mean that topography is
all
that matters. The gap
between combatants has to be
extremely
wide in order for technology and manpower to overcome
terrain.
In fact it's hard to know how wide the gap needs to be fortech/power to win, because all of the
'invade without properly considering terrain disadvantages
" has resulted in strategic losses for
the superior force at all times since WWII.
We can say that the gap has to be
wider
than "
Viet Cong vs US
" or "
Mujahedin vs
USSR
" or
USC/SNA vs US/UNOSOM
" or "
Taliban vs US/ISAF
".
.
People who are interested in how shit works in modern warfare need to read William Lind, or John
Robb or Arreguín-Toft.
Start with the short-ish paper (which is now a book):
@Anonymous
I wonder whether, as you suggest, Trump hasn't just walked into a trap.
And has just figured out that this time, he's the patsy.
If such is the case, his best option might be to address the American people directly as to what has gone
down with this murder and sack Pompeo and Kushner. (Turn the former over to Iran???? Just kidding . . . but
depriving him of security would accomplish the same thing.)
The problem is that the vipers are within his own family: Ivanka and Jared Kushner. Stupidest thing he
could have done, having those two on his "diplomatic" and "advisory" staff.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
Are they treated as Julian Assange is in the UK or as Maria Butina was for a year-and-a-half in a US jail
forced to plead guilty for something she was not guilty of in the first place? Or as Manning is being held
in solitary confinement because he will not lie for a get-out-of-jail card? Are the Koreans subjected to
execution by black murderers while in their cells? Let us know when you have some evidence.
@the grand wazoo
Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel, because they
simply don't like Jews. They may be fooled into hating Russia because they are white, but they'll side with
an underdog Iran over a belligerent Israel every time.
If the Democrats get control, they will effectively control the USA indefinitely, because they seem
perfectly happy to import all the Democratic voters they'll require to remain in power
The window for Jews to utilize the American state as their wrecking ball are limited. Trump might be the
best chance they will ever get. America is on such shaky footing on so many levels, they may implode
domestically before they can the job done.
So I would guess that the appropriate tit-for-tat splash would be LtGen Scott Berrier (G2 – Intel).
Everyone's heard of that guy, right?
No I didn't know him but now we all do. Ok that would be tit for tat, but I would still go for a 4 Star.
(Grin)
Plus, if they splashed Pompous, the resulting fatberg would burn for longer than the Springfield tyre
fire. Nobody wants that.
LOL!!!
He is the most dispicable NEOCON stooge out there, even worse than 'Linda' Graham. Christian Zionists, the
personification of OXY
MORON
.
Ok, not Plump'eo but we gotta give the Iranians one real Neo-cohen, to scare the be-Jesus out of them (the
Jooz that is). (Grin)
@Desert Fox
"Israel and the ZUS want a nuclear war with Russia "
A few years ago I would have LOL 'd at such a proposition. Today, I scratch my head.
Is the US so completely
insane
as to attack a peer or (indeed) stronger nuclear power such as Russia?
I don't think so but .
@UninformedButCurious
Is Trump "disposable" ? Maybe. But unlikely.
Given that Tel Aviv is in charge (a synonym for "neocon") , & Trump has virtually tripped over his own
tongue in his haste to lick their boots (& other bodily parts) it wouldn't appear that Trump has yet lost
his value.
And in a more domestic sense --
Pence
! OMG, is there a political leader with less charisma? Pence
makes Corbyn look like Ronald Reagan.(People greatly under rate charisma & other subjective leadership
qualities)
So dumping Trump would have severe political repercussions.
@John Chuckman
Iran will "carefully plan a response, and that response may not be clear and unambiguous, and it might be
multi-faceted and done over time."
Agreed.
Hopefully Iran will respond largely through proxies. And also concentrate on non-military responses.
IE, putting maximum pressure on Iraq's parliament to force all US forces out of Iraq -- difficult, but that
would be a
huge
win. Of course, they'll still get the blame -- but should a cat in Patagonia die in
suspicious circumstances Iran would get the blame for that
too
.
As for
any
nuclear response by Iran, that truly would be "acting foolishly". Anything along nuclear
lines would be a perfect provocative to Israel /the US.
@Kratoklastes
I think the Iranian leadership and populace would be more convinced of the effectiveness of the Iranian
military if Soleimani had managed to keep himself alive.
@SeekerofthePresence
Not only that, he has even stated that among them are sites of great cultural importance. Do they want to
attack mosques? Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of
architecture. Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad
but we will see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory. They might "just"
attack sites commemorating the fallen of the war against Iraq. That would be nearly as bad.
Anyways,
refraining from any more threats, as Trump has demanded, is a near impossibility. What is a threat and what
not? Are red flags of revenge on display in Iran already a threat? The probability of war has to reckoned at
near 100% now.
The Iranians should disperse their assets urgently. Nuclear assets that can be dispersed have to be at
the top of the list. They should actually try to avoid making any more threats for now. Trump has
conveniently laid out his strategy to them, allowing them to have the war started by the Americans at a
point of time of their choosing. After a period of restraint, they should gradually start making slight
threats again, placing the ball in the American court. The dust will have settled somewhat by then, world
opinion will have realized how criminally the US have behaved by killing Iraqi and Iranian officials. The
later the war starts, the better for the Iranians. That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right
now.
If Iran really got hold of some Ukrainian nuclear warheads back when the Soviet Union dissolved, then the
time for testing one of them would be now.
The big question has to be how China and Russia position themselves. The Americans and Israelis seem to
think that Putin and Xi are weak enough internally to allow them to go through with it all. The true
battlefield will be Russian and and Chinese public opinion. If Putin and Xi can convince their peoples that
Iran has to be supported, then the equation would shift. They should at least start making weapon
deliveries. Russia could even claim that it has to protect the nuclear site in Busher where Russians work,
deploying S-400s manned by its own personnel. China could claim that war in the Persian Gulf would be too
much of a threat to its economy. Both claims would be true.
Perhaps they'll be able to gin up some popular riots and demonstrations throughout the Muslim world.
That should be the best strategy for Iran to invoke the common heritage of the true monotheist faith we
share, of which there is much.
On a personal level, even if I have reservations about Shi'sm, and what I see as clear deviancy, I, and I
am sure many other true monotheist brothers, are still on the side of Iran, because my suspicion of Shi'sm
is far less than my visceral hatred for Whitey/Joonist Imperialism. May the Almighty One's wrath befall the
satanically evil pagan/godless Whitey/Joonist Imperialists, those avowed enemies of True Monotheism.
Iran should find ways to communicate with the Arab street directly using Whitey/Zionist Imperialist
tools like Twitter and Facebook, as long as it will be allowed. The irony is not lost on me.
Also, there is a large faction within the Democratic party who will never go to war for Israel,
because they simply don't like Jews.
They don't get to decide. The uppermost elites do. Lower-level Democrats are just rubber-stampers. They
may not like Israel but must still serve it. Jewish Money and Media compel them to.
I believe a not insignificant amount -- perhaps even the majority -- of pro-war Americans know this to be
true: That they and their progeny are mere cannon fodder for Zionist imperialism. But they simply don't
care or are even proud of dying for so "worthy" a cause. Never underestimate the persistent and
deeply-rooted hysterical adulation that Israel commands -- nor the utter foolishness of your average
American.
This is so true. American Protestant Christianity – Evangelicalism in particular – has been warped and
modified by Zionism. Whereas for 1800 years Christians believed and preached that God took on human form and
that Jesus died for the sins of all humanity, the belief now seems to be that God is a real estate agent. I
think that even if Evangelicals were to find out that the Talmud teaches that in the Millennium every Jew is
to have 2,800 goyim as slaves, they would accept it.
@A123
Of course, the paid Iranian shills posting here will decry this simple and obvious truth. Fortunately, no
one believes them.
I was out of work for forty seven years (due to my issues with women, and my
extreme myopia, not to mention my body odour). So I was really happy to be offered a job as a cyber warrior
by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command under their blessed leader General Qasem Soleimani at what I
thought was a really good rate of pay.
Imagine my disillusion when I discovered how few pounds I could get for my Rials, thanks to the
continuing US economic sanctions. So, with a heavy heart I realised that I had no alternative other than to
go to work for Mossad to finance my sex offending.
People need to realize that the dynamic has changed completely. For Iran, patience is no longer an option.
Israel/USA will continue to attack. Seriously, look at Trump's 52 target tweet. It sounds like the ranting
of Hitler during his last days in the bunker. Not fighting back is the worst thing Iran can now do.
Regarding the court of public opinion: Iran had the sympathy of the majority of people in the world long
before the new year. It counts for nothing when it comes to avoiding war. All that matters is the western
media and the brainwashed western public. Iran can never win that PR fight. In fact, if you polled Americans
and gave them the option of ending the Iran problem by nuking them that the majority would support this
action. A large number of Canadians would also support this. More importantly, after such a nuclear attack
and 80 million dead Iranians the main thing westerners will care about is getting back to business as usual.
America will resort to a nuclear attack because it believes it can get away with it. What does Iran have to
lose?
I hope the following happens Monday:
1) the Houthis strike and shut down all Saudi oil production.
2) a cyber attack in the USA. Maybe take down the power grid. We know how much Americans love war when
they can sit in front of their tv and cheer on the US military. How much will they love it, or the people
who brought them this war, when they're stuck in their unheated homes in the middle of January?
I also hope they are seriously considering the following:
3) hitting every US military target in the region that could be used to bomb Iran.
4) Hizbollah and Syria launching attacks against Israel. The Israeli's are the real provocateurs. If they
pay no price they will continue to push for further aggression.
No matter what is done by Iran or its allies the retaliation by the US will be greater than what we've
seen so far. Even if nothing is done Israel/USA will create another incident for an excuse to attack again.
The war has started. One sure way for Iran to lose it is to not participate.
@Rich
World War I – fought on behalf of ZIONISTS who influenced Jews in Woodrow Wilson's cabinet (the "brain
trust", and a certain Jewish man, STEPHEN WISE, known as the 'Red Rabbi' for his affinity for Communism!).
This deal was in exchange for Britain giving Palestine to the Zionist Jews (even though it wasn't even
Britain's to give at the time)! Surely you have heard of the BALFOUR DECLARATION, right? Quit spinning this
disingenuous pseudo-history!
World War II – Franklin Delano Roosevelt's cabinet was ALSO chock-full of
Zionists, and a certain Jewish man, now in his older years but still very influential, STEPHEN WISE yet
again, was also one of his closest advisors. And Churchill, who ALSO was bought and paid for by Zionist
interests, was in on this as well read Pat Buchanan's "Hitler, Churchill, and the Unnecessary War" for a
pretty mainstream take on this subject. But basically World War II was ALSO fought for Zionists, and what
was the result?
Britain: LOST THEIR EMPIRE
Zionists: CREATED THE COLONIALIST SETTLER STATE OF ISRAEL BY EVICTING PALESTINIANS THROUGH TERRORIST GROUPS
LIKE THE IRGUN
So WHO was that really done on behalf of???
You lot really need to quit spinning this nonsense here; it's just not going to work with anyone who's
educated and intelligent enough to research for themselves and it makes you and your cause look very
foolish.
@Rich
Why don't you go to Iran and tell the millions mourning in the streets there for this man who symbolised the
resistance to the evil Zionist World Order how 'wrong' they are
Or are all of them just horribly misguided and confused? Or maybe they're just 'evil' people who ought to be
destroyed? And we need to 'bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran'? How convenient!
For the record, some of those mourning
Soleimani's death the most are the ethnic Christian communities whom he so bravely defended from ISIS (who
we now know were supported by Israel and the 'rebel' forces that Zionists in the West helped fund). But I am
guessing your kind doesn't support the continued existence of some of the oldest Christian communities in
existence that are in the Middle East, because you probably cheered when their homes got bulldozed by the
Zionists in the Naqba–many of them still have the keys to their houses, by the way.
@Gleimhart Mantooso
I'm not a Muslim, nor am I inbred.
I honour Soleimani's sacrifice because he was one of the foremost defenders of Christians from ISIS, and the
ancient Christian communities in the Middle East are some of those grieving his murder the most. Do you not
care about them, or are you just that ignorant?
@animalogic
Part of Trump's plan is to rid Iraq of it's Iranian influence. It will be the Iranians ejected not the US.
He has eliminated Soleimani, the leader of Iran's Iraqi proxy forces and killed, arrested or forced into
hiding many other pro Iranian urgers.
The riots in the south of the country are largely about removing Iranian influence and the artificial
Sunni/Shia sectarian differences. Expect this social movement to be energised in a pro US way.
There will be no all out war in the middle east. No one in the ME is
any position to deal in such a fashion with the US and it would be suicidal to try. Dear leader in Iran has
only bad choices and even using proxies, he places his entire regime on a chopping block. Those 52 targets
were selected in a way that Iran's economy will be crushed quickly.
So let the Imams go ahead and try to get their blood revenge. They are only digging their own graves.
By the by, Soleimani was not murdered. He was a terrorist leader and got what he had coming to him.
@Quartermaster
No, it's not up to Iran if there will be a war, it is up to USA, and it wants the war, and there is nothing
Iran can do to prevent it except make the yanks and their stooges in the region pay the biggest price
possible given their own resources and resourcefulness. Did you people forget Iraq? After sanctions and
years of the USAF bombing targets to enforce those "no fly" zones, one set up in the south specifically to
protect the Shiites they're now turning on, they still went all out and invaded Iraq without Saddam having
done anything to provoke them, and in fact being most cooperative and even allowing inspectors into the
country to confirm that he had no WMDs. Unless of course you think Saddam brought down WTC on 911.
@BeenThereDunnit
Persia, Russia, and China all have a gift for long-term survival (though Russia and China are capable of
immediate and devastating action). As PCR has suggested, Russia will likely counsel Iran to bide it's time;
why attack a dinosaur already frothing at the mouth and collapsing under its own weight?
And as you
mention, there is much preparation Iran can do now. The battlespace has changed: Neocon Crazies (Pence,
Pompeo) are now making command decisions (the Soleimani hit, decision on 52 major follow-up strikes) at the
Pentagon.
Therefore Iran must be doubly cautious before moving. As Sun Tzu would say: If a stronger enemy goads you
to fight, then hold back and wait for the proper moment. Never do what the enemy wants or expects.
@Z-man
I found out about the talmud around 12 years ago now. I have to say I was shocked with what it stated
within, but that was also because I was Jew ignorant. This opened up the door to Judaism and what it was all
about.
I'm not religious. I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son
of God' concept. The jury is out on that. However what annoyed me was the fact that this was the major
teaching within Judaism and no one had ever heard about it. Were there anything remotely similar to this,
about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly
know about this and still support Judaism and see them as God's chosen. It just beggars belief.
"He confessed that the 'manual' was not too kind to gentiles."
There you go. From the very own horse's mouth. What more needs to be said? As stated, tell people to
forget about the online talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within. Jews
doing what Jews do – deceive.
@Kratoklastes
I take it as axiomatic that the U.S. Military could not successfully occupy Iran, and is very well aware of
that reality. Nor is there, as far as I can see, any overriding political reason to do so.
IMO, the primary objective of any U.S. attack on Iran would be:
To destroy Iran as a modern country,
and foreclose, if possible, any chance Iran could become a modern country in the foreseeable future.
To that end, look for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and cultural monuments, as others here
have postulated, and as was done in Iraq. The (unstated) aim would be to break the national will and destroy
the cultural identity of the Iranian people, using the specious claim of "fighting terrorism."
Look for the Great Mosque of Isfahan:
to be high on the target list, along with the Iranian parliament building and countless other non-military
objectives.
Is such an attack (by air power alone) likely to succeed?
A1. In the short term, yes.
A2. In the longer term, success is not guaranteed.
If experience in Europe, i.e. Germany, is any guide, I expect Iran could manage to rebuild itself in twenty
years or so.
In the meantime, the U.S. will have completed its transformation to a full-on outlaw nation, having
flagrantly violated the Nuremberg prohibition, which itself established, against "waging aggressive war,"
and become the groveling, depraved toady of a small, and otherwise insignificant, middle eastern "state"
founded upon the theft of land and resources from the indigenous population by a thugocracy of European
interlopers who claim some kind of "divine right of possession," or "land title from God," based on the
assertion that some members of their tribe lived in that area thousands of years ago.
In short, the U.S is now the titular head of an Evil Empire.
Long live the Resistance.
@Harbinger
I too was uninformed of
my
Catholic religion and that's funny because I went to Catholic administered
schools from grammar school to college. (Grin)
Were there anything remotely similar to this (The Talmud), about Jews or blacks, there'd be a public
outcry and heads would roll, yet millions of Christians openly know about this and still support Judaism
and see them as God's chosen.
It just beggars belief.
Vatican II had a lot to do with this 'accepting' of Jews. Christian Zionists are the biggest culprits
today.
forget about the online Talmuds. They've been conveniently changed to remove the 'bad parts' within.
Jews doing what Jews do – deceive.
I'm sure.
I do believe there was a man named Christ, a revolutionary and I struggle with the 'son of God'
concept.
You gotta have
faith
.
See Brother Nathaniel, a converted Jew. A bit over the top when you
first see him, on the net, but a man of faith and truth.
@Harbinger
Alternative theory: Trump, like Nixon, is a genius.
Trump tweeted he wanted out of Syria. The military industrial complex said no. So Trump then said OK, I
going to give the military industrial complex what it wants 'good and hard' to quote HL Mencken. This is
kind of like how Nixon ended the US involvement in Vietnam, he forced to US military to confront North
Vietnamese regular army and everybody, including the military industrial complex, involved objected to it,
so the US had to leave.
@Quartermaster
Soleimani was fighting the terrorists who were created by the ZUS and Israel and Z-Britain and Z-NATO, these
being AL CIADA aka ISIS aka ISIL aka Daesh etc..
The middle east wars were brought on by the joint attack
on the WTC by Israel and the ZUS , to be blamed on the muslims , thus giving Israel and ZUS the excuse to
destroy the middle east for the zionists greater Israel project.
@Assad al-islam
Iranians are hardly shrewd. They ripped themselves a permanent asshole with us Americans in 1979 (and no, I
don't need a lecture on the Shah, since that doesn't magically make their actions shrewd). And they have
continued ever since by calling us "the great Satan" and chanting "death to America." They did themselves no
favors by shooting down our drone a few months ago, and they were tempting fate last week when they
arrogantly boasted "You (we Americans) can't do anything." It's like Michael Ledeen is their chief adviser.
None of that is shrewd. It is damned foolish.
And yes, I know that American foreign policy is damned
foolish, too (yet another thing I don't need anyone here to lecture me about). And I know that Israel is the
major cause of Middle East problems. But acknowledging all that doesn't mean that Iran is a noble, virtuous,
innocent party in the entire affair. So many people have the absurd mindset that "the enemy of my enemy is
my friend." Muslims are ever bit as supremacist as Jews are. And as long as that remains the case, people
are not going to be persuaded to pressure the American government to stop reading from the Neocon script.
Venerating Iran and lionizing the dead general is going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people, and a big
part of that dynamic is Iran's fault.
@Not Raul
Lol now I didn't know that Russia was hundreds,thousands of mile away from Iran,thank for the heads up those
damnable Iranians have upped and moved their border again,tsk,tsk,tsk.!!!
@Rich
For Gods sake quit posting it only makes you out the fool.Now Iran elected a leader by means that we use
ourselves the ballot box,now what's wrong we that? then the democratic elected president states that Iran's
oil belongs to Iran and its people,you boys are out.
Now Churchill gets his undies in a twist whining but
wait England's industry runs on CHEAP Iranian oil (25 cent a barrel oil),so he calls up the M15 tells them
to join their partners in the C.I.A. and over throw that asshole who thinks that their oil belong to
them,and as they say the rest is history,I trust its the real history not the revised history you spout,!!
@Beefcake the Mighty
They oppose the shooting of Soleimani, and so do you. If I'm a cuck because my support of killing terrorist
Muslims also happens to be the same position as Bibi Netanyahu's , I guess following your logic, your
support of the same position as the commie trio I named, makes you a cuck. In fact I guess you also kneel in
front of AOC and that hijab wearing Ilhan Omar. Following your logic even further, you must be Al Sharpton's
shoe shine boy and Maxine Waters wig washer, since they also opposed the shooting.
Or, could it be that we
just have different viewpoints on an issue, and it's only a coincidence that some others share that opinion
in this case? I don't check with the Israeli embassy before I make my mind up and I'm open to changing my
mind if a convincing argument is made. Do you, since your opinion is exactly the same as theirs, check with
the DNC before forming an opinion?
Epsteinistan murders the general,
Threatens we will pummel you with more strikes.
Pimps himself to glories ephemeral,
World domination the jackboot he licks.
@Quartermaster
You are naive person. The US will have to fight the whole Shia world if it attacks Iran, including Iraq. You
live in the past and never realised the decline of the US in the world. You were just kicked by Iraq.
Legislation was accepted forcing the US to withdraw from Iraq and cease all kind of collaboration.
You can
forget about US companies operating there too, China and Russia will move there instead. Its resources and
arms market are lost to you. Americans are hated in the country and can't even leave the Embassy in safety.
We also learned today officialy from Iraq's Prime Minister Adil Abdul al Mahdi how Donald Trump uses
diplomacy:
US asked Iraq to mediate with Iran. Iraq PM asks Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him
the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport.
No options for Iran? Let's hope "someone" doesn't provide manpads to the Taliban. You lost aganist them
too, and soon will be kicked out from Afghanistan in humiliation.
Do you know who Muqtada Al Sadr is? The most influential person in Iraq, a country with huge oil and gas
reserves and young combat ready population rising fast. The man who kicked the arse of the US occupation of
Iraq. Muqtada Al Sadr demands the total removal of not only US troops, but the of US embassy and all US
diplomats in Iraq as well. And an Axis Of Resistance against the US by all Shia groups all around the world.
This will cut off supply lines to your remnants in Syria and put the few US soldiers there under siege,
hated by almost all sides. They won't make it in Syria for long.
Meanwhile, you managed to make the Turks hate you too. Just keep doing that.
Iran's FM said something interesting yeasterday: The end of Malign US Influence in West Asia has begun.
The US will be gradually kicked out from the region.
The 2020s will be a time of great power transition where the rest of the world rises and the US declines,
being kicked out from many places. You made a big mistake, making more and more enemies everywhere in the
world.
Iran, Russia and China should attacked the Achilles Hell of the US which is Gold. China should sell its
US$1.2 Trillion of US Treasury bonds and keep buying Gold. That will send the Gold price soaring to
US$10,000 an oz. Interest rates will spike and Wall St and the US$1.5 quadrillion Derivatives market will
collapse, bankrupting all major US banks.
-- The visceral ethnic hatred of the real bosses and the fabled
American incompetence of the profiteers-in–charge do not have a place for any rationality.
"Anyone who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Cheka," wrote Jewish historian Leonard
Schapiro, "stood a very good chance of finding himself confronted with, and possibly shot by, a Jewish
investigator."
In Ukraine, "Jews made up nearly 80 percent of the rank-and-file Cheka agents," reports W. Bruce
Lincoln, an American professor of Russian history. Beginning as the Cheka, or Vecheka, the Soviet secret
police was later known as the GPU, OGPU, NKVD, MVD and KGB. [Remember Holodomor in Ukraine? Add to the
Kaganovich fame of mass murderer the fame of Nuland-Kagan, the collaborator with Ukrainian neo-nazi and
promotor of the ongoing civil war in eastern Ukraine].
In light of all this, it should not be surprising that Yakov M. Yurovksy, the leader of the Bolshevik
squad that carried out the murder of the Tsar and his family, was Jewish, as was Sverdlov, the Soviet
chief who co-signed Lenin's execution order.
@Rich
Sadly, Ron Unz has been extremely negligent in omitting the inclusion of a MORON button. I really couldn't
label you a TROLL as that would in fact be complimentary towards you.
@Momus
Tel Aviv is home to zionist cowards who hide behind the US skirt while parasitizing on the body of the US.
Your attempt at presenting yourself as a brave warrior is ridiculous. After shooting the civilians
(including children of all ages) on the occupied territories, Israelis have got a delusional idea of being
the brave soldiers and military geniuses. Relax. Yours is an Epstein nation of Israel.
@BeenThereDunnit
"That explains why the US are escalating so heavily right now. "
The neocons probably want a spring war.
For themselves, and to do Bibi the most good.
Spring is the most convenient time for warmaking.
Nice weather.
If they are planning for this war, they are already well along in putting the logistics in place.
We are probably screwed.
I read somewhere fairly recently an analysis of why a spring war would "work" well for both the Dems and the
Repugs. But I cannot recall the rationales.
So it seems like all sides are angling and wangling to move Trump in the direction of a spring attack on
Iran.
As for ":Some of those Iranian mosques are not only holy sites as such, they are marvels of architecture.
Attacking them would be a crime against the heritage of all mankind. That would be truly mad but we will
see, sadly. It would enrage Muslims to a degree not seen in living memory."
It would make a LOT of people worldwide furious. Not just Muslims.
Bomb Isfahan? Shiraz? Tabriz? Our "leaders" are mad.
@Quartermaster
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Nuland-Kagan and Banderites. Oops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with "white helmets." Oops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has sided with Bibi. Ooops.
The gullible "Quartermaster" has been trusting wholeheartedly the presstitutes of MSM and even became the
MSM's deputy on the Unz Forum to deliver the MSM lies. What's wrong with you?
Soleimani was extraordinarily effective when fighting the ISIS; hence the rabid hatred of Israelis and US
war profiteers towards the honorable man.
Too many Oops on your part, gullible "Quartermaster"
If I thought that America was responsible for every dastardly dirty crime in the world, I would applaud the
article. This article was written from the basis that America's involvement began with the death of a
terrorist, where is the history propelling Trump to act?
I smell a coward writing this article. What action would the author have recommended following the death of
a American contractor, send the killers more cash?
When Iran invaded the American embassy, did they not invade America? Are not embassies located of the soil
of the occupying nation? Did any of the embassy employees attack Iran or it's citizens? Does an invasion
constitute an act of war?
@Smith
Too say the "Jews" told him to do something without naming them is suspect. Support your argument with
facts, like names, how communicated, when, and how you came by this info.
@animalogic
The zionists hate Christians more than they hate any other religious group. If by launching a nuclear war,
it is guaranteed that Christians will cease to exist, you can be sure they will start a nuclear war. It's
not just me talking about, it's in their scriptures.
Zionists hate for Russia is purely because it's
predominantly white and Christian nation.
@Skeptikal
A spring war would give Iran plenty of time to prepare. It would also give Putin and Xi time to shore up
public opinion and deploy assistance. The Russians could even send some of their super-quiet Diesel subs to
the Gulf.
If this war goes through, Putin and Xi will come out very weak. Syria on a much grander scale
but without Russia and China doing anything about it.
It's all going to be a cakewalk, the Iranians will welcome the destruction of their country with open arms.
The Iranians won't dare to confront the US or we'll just turn their country into glass. lol
@whattheduck
Good but the Jews won't want complete destruction of the European races because then, no one will protect
them. Ideally they'll destroy Christianity while having a polyglot atheist white race serving them.
As I've said many times before the Jew power structure hates Russia, and specifically Putin, because he
re-established Orthodox Christianity to the
Motherland
which they tried to destroy in the communist
revolution.
PS. When I started reading on these sites, years ago, I found it almost amusing when people attacked
Vatican II. After all, I was indoctrinated as a youth that V-II was the best thing since sliced bread, 'the
Church had to become
modern
.' Needles to say I've become a fan of the SSPX and beyond, like the good
Bishop Williamson who said before he was excommunicated,
"[T]he people who hold world-wide power today
over politics and the media are people who want the godless New World Order, and" "they have fabricated a
hugely false version of World War Two history to go with a complete fabricated religion to replace
Christianity."
@Rich
" The Iranians could not defeat the ragtag forces of Saddam Hussein, but they can defeat the United States?
Preposterous."
Actually, it is the other way around !
And .. Saddam, had the almighty USA behind him; so, I must assume that your initial paragraph and the
entire comment, is pretty much a childish one.
By the way you articulated your comment, I wonder; what the heck are you reading these articles for, if you
do not have neither the knowledge or the understanding of these geopolitical themes.
As a friendly advise, I would suggest, getting a hot water bottle, seat in your armchair and watch
television.
he Iraqi parliament approved a measure that called for an end to the U.S. military presence
in Iraq. The prime minister spoke in favor of a departure of U.S. forces, and it seems very
likely that U.S. forces will be required to leave the country in the near future. The
president's response to this was in keeping with his cartoon imperialist attitudes about other
countries:
Trump threatens Iraq with sanctions if they expel US troops: "If they do ask us to leave,
if we don't do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they've never
seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Trump doesn't see other countries as genuinely sovereign, and he doesn't respect their
decisions when they run counter to what he wants, so his first instinct when they choose
something he dislikes is to punish them. Economic war has been his preferred method of
punishment, and he has applied this in the form of tariffs or sanctions depending on the
target. Iraq's government is sick of repeated U.S. violations of Iraqi sovereignty, and the
U.S. strikes over the last week have strengthened the existing movement to remove U.S. forces
from the country. One might think that Trump would jump at the chance to pull U.S. troops out
of Iraq and Syria that the Iraqi parliament's action gives him. It would have been better to
leave of our own accord before destroying the relationship with Baghdad, but it might be the
only good thing to come out of this disaster. It is telling that Trump's reaction to this news
is not to seize the opportunity but to threaten Iraq instead. Needless to say, there is
absolutely no legitimate basis for imposing sanctions on Iraq, and if Trump did this it would
be one more example of how the U.S. is flagrantly abusing its power to bully and attack smaller
states.
In another instance of the president's crude cartoon imperialism, he
repeated his threat to target Iran's cultural heritage sites:
President Trump on Sunday evening doubled down on his claim that he would target Iranian
cultural sites if Iran retaliated for the targeted killing of one of its top generals,
breaking with his secretary of state over the issue.
Aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump
reiterated to reporters traveling with him the spirit of a Twitter post on Saturday, when he
said that the United States government had identified 52 sites for retaliation against Iran
if there were a response to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani's death. Some, he tweeted, were of
"cultural" significance.
Such a move could be considered a war crime under international laws, but Mr. Trump
said Sunday that he was undeterred.
When o when will this man leave the stage? Who oh who will stand up against him and save
the world from this man? God have mercy on us all and deliver us from this anti-christ.
Trump really really enjoyed telling his "Black Jack Pershing's bullets dipped in pig's
blood" fairy tales during the campaign, and so did the rallygoers. He loves reveling in the
amoral gutter, and his base loves him unconditionally. Ailes, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity,
and now Trump: their aggresive, barbaric, venal leaders and spokesmen. Whaddayagonnado?
They can't help it. They follow the guy who calls the opposition within his own party
"human scum." Takes one to know one, right? That's right. Trump is a visceral hedonist, so
yes, he likes aggression.
As reactions are emerging around the world, it seems pretty clear that the US will be
almost completely isolated in this situation. Europe may finally be growing a spine.
Most interesting is the reaction from the UK. Dominic Raab initially made some
"balanced" remarks pointing out that Soleimani was a bad actor but counseling restraint.
The next day, presumably under directions from Boris Johnson, he retracted that and said
that the UK is on the same page as the US. This is a portent of things to come. I think
that most people who voted for Brexit did so because they wanted to take back their
sovereignty from Brussels. But this weekend is probably the first step in the UK's march
towards becoming, in practical terms, a US colony. The UK's economy and other influence are
simply not large enough to stand alone against those of the US, the EU, and China. They
will be in something of a beggars can't be choosers position when negotiating trade deals
with these larger entities. They can expect the EU to do them no favors given their chaotic
dealings with them. China will probably take a pragmatic approach to them. Their best hope
for favorable treatment is with the United States, and Johnson has fawned over Trump enough
to have reason to believe it might happen. But it also entails that the UK will not be free
to dissent from US foreign policy in the slightest way. In fact, if we end up in a
conventional war with Iran, I suspect that the UK will be the only nation in the world that
sends troops there with us. (The UAE, Israel and the Saudis will, of course, cheer us on,
even goad us, but will not risk any of their own blood.) I wonder how Brexit supporters
will feel about that. At least Brussels never dragged them into any stupid wars.
Remember this date. It marks the date the UK began its journey from the frying pan into
the fire.
At this point the question is, can Trump have even a vaguely normal conversation about
anything? Certainly not foreign policy. Just how much of this manure can he spew before the
Republican Party responds? My guess is they've gone so far past the point of normal that
there's no coming back This is both sad and frightening.
One common response to Trump's threat to attack Iranian cultural sites is that the
military would not carry out such obviously illegal orders
I wouldn't put any hope in the US military disobeying such orders. It's not what they
are really trained for. They may pay lip service to having respect for laws of war but they
won't actually pay any attention to them. Respect for culture? Remember Dresden? The crude
barbarism of Sherman and Sheridan is the spirit of the US military.
As a conservative (not a Republican, but certainly not a Democrat) who cannot abide
thinking of any of the democratic candidates as President, I would love to see impeachment.
Mike Pence would be infinitely preferable as President to this little psychopathic bully.
Seriously, the last few days should principled non-interventionists know that Trump is
empjatically not one of us. He'd gladly sabotage the future of the United States on the
alter of his own ego.
"He sees war only in the crudest terms of plunder and atrocity."
It's a blunt but true observation. We spend most of our time justifying wars as noble
and moral, using euphemism to disguise the reality to ourselves and others. Two cheers for
being truthful.
I also note that destroying cultural monuments is claimed to be a war crime, while
inevitable civilian deaths are just acceptable collateral damage.
Let's not pretend that the long history of the imperial coveting of either Iraq's or
Iran's resources has ever been much more than plunder, often making use of atrocity. What
doesn't qualify as that, is great game imperialist jockeying for geostrategic advantage
against commercial rivals.
Of course "things" would be sacrosanct, while human lives are not, in the wholly
materialist calculus of warmongering.o
Attacking cultural-heritage sites, Pres. Trump? Like what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of
Bamyan? Or what ISIS did to ancient art, architecture, and artifacts in Mosul, Palmyra,
Raqqa, and more? What a barbarian!
Will Congress dare to eliminate funds for the occupation of Iraq and for attacking Iran?
Will all those that would vote for continuation of funding will be removed from office
through elections, in the very gerrymandered locales, in a FPTP system, with no ability to
leave work early to go to vote, with so many disenfranchised? The system is fully rigged to
be a dictatorship all but in name...
Another thing: Trump's decrying of the Iraqi war was merely a way he could rail at the
other Republican candidates. If the establishment was for it, he was against it. That's how
he works.
Maybe he fools himself into thinking he's got principles. Maybe he even thinks he has a
coherent foreign policy (or policy of any kind). But no, he's just narcissism and id all
the way down.
There's still no border wall. Still troops in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Planned
Parenthood is still funded.
Oh, but he waves the flag, doesn't he? That makes up for everything...right?
"... How do you think Soleimani organized, sustained and coordinated his Resistance Militias in different countries turning them into a formidable military offensive resistance strategy? With strategic military and diplomatic savvy. Soleimani was sent as an envoy to Russia by Iran's Supreme Leader at a critical time in the Syrian war and also at Putin's request. If Soleimani was lured by the U.S. and Saudis on a pretext of peace to be assassinated by a U.S. drone this proves just how depraved Trump is. This strategy is right out of the Zionist dirty tricks playbook and Trump has proven in every way he is all in with Zionists and is one of them. ..."
"... I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his administration to be impeached on treasonous grounds. ..."
How do you think Soleimani organized, sustained and coordinated his Resistance Militias in different countries turning them
into a formidable military offensive resistance strategy? With strategic military and diplomatic savvy. Soleimani was sent as an envoy to Russia by Iran's Supreme Leader at a critical time in the Syrian war and also at Putin's
request. If Soleimani was lured by the U.S. and Saudis on a pretext of peace to be assassinated by a U.S. drone this proves just how
depraved Trump is. This strategy is right out of the Zionist dirty tricks playbook and Trump has proven in every way he is all
in with Zionists and is one of them.
As reported by krollchem @ 67 and by b in this and the following post, the involvement of Trump directly in premeditated murder
cannot be absolved, and the circumstances are abhorrent to any patriotic American citizen. May God have mercy on the souls of
the peace makers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his administration to be impeached on treasonous
grounds.
Where that will lead in terms of the rest of the US government I cannot say but VP Pence is also impeachable here, so
it is difficult to see who is least culpable in this. It may mean that there is need for a provisional government to be put in
place - not party organized. If impeachment proceeds apace as it should, behind the scenes such a people's approved peaceful
citizens coalition needs to be considered. This cannot stand as official US government policy. It is heinous.
I too, as forward @ 24 has done, sent prayers for the souls of the departed Iran general as well as his friend from Iraq and
their companions this morning in my home chapel. It is the Sunday before Christmas, old calendar. May the Lord bring them and
so many others before them to a place where the just repose.
"... "I think the more people who are prepared to stand up and say it [the assassination] is completely, not only inappropriate, not only illegal, not only unjust, but an act of war to do something like this, the better," said Nicole Rousseau with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which has been planning anti-war protests in D.C. since 2002. ..."
"... This is the moment, as Donald Trump embraces the neoconservative dream of war with Iran, that the Republican base must stand on their hind legs, lock arms with their progressive allies, and say no . ..."
Now is the time for Republicans of conviction to stand together.
t speaks to the state of American politics when for three years the continued defense of
Donald Trump's record has been: "well, he hasn't started any new wars." Last week,
however, that may have finally changed.
In the most flagrant tit-for-tat since the United States initiated its economic war against
Iran in the spring of 2018, the Trump administration assassinated Major General Qasem
Soleimani, who for more than 20 years has led the Iranian Quds Force. The strategic mind behind
Iran's operations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the rest of the Middle East, Soleimani's death
via drone strike outside of Baghdad's airport is nothing short of a declaration of open warfare
between American and Iranian-allied forces in Iraq.
While the world waits for the Islamic Republic's inevitable response, the reaction on the
home front was organized in less than 36 hours. Saturday afternoon, almost 400 people gathered
on the muddy grass outside the White House in Washington, D.C., joined in solidarity by
simultaneous rallies in over 70 other U.S. cities.
The D.C. attendees and their co-demonstrators were expectedly progressive, but the
organizers made clear they were happy to work across political barriers for the cause of
peace.
"I think the more people who are prepared to stand up and say it [the assassination] is
completely, not only inappropriate, not only illegal, not only unjust, but an act of war to do
something like this, the better," said Nicole Rousseau with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, which
has been planning anti-war protests in D.C. since 2002.
Code Pink's Leonardo Flores, when asked what politicians he believed were on the side of the
peace movement, named Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders and Republican Senator Rand Paul. "I
don't think peace should be a left and right issue," he said. "I think it's an issue we can all
rally around. It's very clear too much of our money is going to foreign wars that don't benefit
the American people and we could be using that money in many different ways, giving it back to
the American people, whether it's investing in social spending or giving direct tax cuts."
This is the moment, as Donald Trump embraces the neoconservative dream of war with Iran,
that the Republican base must stand on their hind legs, lock arms with their progressive
allies, and say no .
It's happened before. In 2013, when the Obama administration was ready for regime change in
Syria, Americans, both left and right, made clear they didn't want to see their sons and
daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters die so the American government could
install the likes of Abu Mohammed al-Julani in Damascus.
Of course, it was much easier for Republicans to stand up to a Democratic president going to
war. "It's been really unfortunate that so much of politics now is driven on a partisan basis,"
opined Eric Garris, director and co-founder of Antiwar.com, in an interview with TAC .
"Whether you're for or against war and how strongly you might be against war is driven by
partisan points of view."
When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the movement that saw millions march against George
W. Bush's war in Iraq disappeared overnight (excluding a handful of stalwart organizations like
Code Pink). Non-interventionist Republicans can't repeat that mistake. They have to show that
if an American president wants to start an unconstitutional, immoral war, it's the principle
that matters, not the R or D next to their names.
Garris said the reason Antiwar.com was founded in 1995 was to bridge this partisan divide by
putting people like Daniel Ellsberg and Pat Buchanan side by side for the same cause. "These
coalitions are only effective if you try to bring in a broad coalition of people," he said. "I
want to see rallies of thousands of people in Omaha, Nebraska, and things like that, where
they're reaching out to middle America and to the people that are actually going to reach the
unconverted."
The right is in the best position it's been in decades to accomplish this. "I don't know if
you saw Tucker Carlson Tonight , but it was quite amazing to watch that kind of
antiwar sentiment on Fox News," Garris said. "You would not have seen [that] in recent history.
And certainly the emergence of The American Conservative magazine has been a really
strong signal and leader in terms of bringing about the values of the Old Right like
non-interventionism to a conservative audience."
It's the anti-war right, in the Republican tradition of La Follette, Taft, Paul, and
Buchanan, that has the power to stop middle America from following Trump into a conflict with
Iran. But it's both sides, working together as Americans, that can finally end the endless
wars.
Hunter DeRensis is a reporter with The National Interest and a regular contributor to
The American Conservative. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .
I also recommend reading the SOFA with Iraq which is a masterpiece of semantic and
legalistic deception- (and they have one year to actually get out after termination of the
"agreement")
Talking about deception, James Corbett did a brilliant exposé of the "difficulties of
crisis initiation" vs. Iran
After watching this enlightening video, reading the transcript of the "special briefing on
Iraq" by the State Dept. is like "stepping thru the looking glass" into a surreal world of
self-delusion, ("believing six impossible things before breakfast"), here is an example: (SSD
stands for senior state department official "One, Two or Three" (whose names apparently have to
be kept secret )
QUESTION: Thank you. Could you take us through the – so you – could you take us
through the diplomatic strategy for DE-ESCALATION? I mean, after the strike, what are the
main elements of our diplomatic plan to --
SSD OFFICIAL ONE: [SSD official Three] can both talk about this.
SSD OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah, first of all, we're stressing that we want to stay on in Iraq.
We have an important mission there, the coalition. We just spoke with most of the key
coalition members this morning, making that message to them. They also took the – well,
you need to de-escalate. We raised the point – and [SSD official One] can talk about
this is more detail – that we are ready to talk with the Iranians. We've tried to do
this in the past. That's on the table.
And again, the point I took with them, and I'll take it again here today: We cannot promise
that we have BROKEN the circle of violence. What I can say from my experience with Qasem
Soleimani is it is less likely that we will see this now than it was before, and if we do see
an increase in violence, it probably will not be as devilishly ingenious. Other than Usama
bin Ladin, he's the only guy – with Cafe Milano – a senior terrorist leader
around the Middle East who has tried to seriously plot in detail a mass casualty event on
American soil. Let him rest in peace.
"We did not wish to re-examine, condemn, and confront the violence in the
extra-constitutional power structure that finally ascended to hegemony over our citizenry and
over much of the world "
„I have never declared the covert actions of the U.S. intelligence agencies to be
incompetent. They are almost invariably and unerringly competent in murdering, individually and
massively, in defense of U.S. military dominance and empire."
(Vincent J. Salandria, author of The JFK Assassination: A False Mystery Concealing State
Crimes )
These days the murdering takes place in "overt" action a barbaric act sold to the world as
"self-defense"
A Final thought:
Is there a more cowardly , dastardly act (by the "best military in the world") than
to tear apart a renowned military commander who fought the real war "on terror" (against
ruthless imperialism), with a drone??
Teevee coverage of the recent events in the ME has been predictable. Those who hated Trump
continue to hate him, etc.
A few observations:
1. I had hoped that Trump's decision to kill an Iranian general engaged in a diplomatic
mission (among other things) while the man was on the soil of a supposed ally of the US was
something Trump pulled out of his fundament either inspired by war movies or on the
recommendation of "our greatest ally" but I am informed that in fact some idiot in the DoD
included this option in the list of possibilities that was briefed to the CinC in Florida. The
decision process in such matters requires that when options are demanded by the CinC the JCS
prepares a list supported for each option by fully formulated documentation that enables the
president to approve one (or none) and then sign the required operational order. Trump himself
chose the death option. I would hold General Milley (CJCS) personally responsible for not
striking this option from the list before it reached the CinC.
2. The Iranians are a subtle people. IMO they will bide their time whilst working out the
"bestest" way to inflict some injury on the US and/or Israel. When the retaliation comes it
will be imaginative and painful.
3. Trump is now threatening the Iraqis with severe sanctions if they try to enforce their
parliamentary decree against the future presence of foreign (US mostly) troops on their soil.
IMO a refusal to leave risks a substantial Shia (at least) uprising against the US forces in
Iraq. We have around 5,500 people there now spread across the country in little groups engaged
in logistics, intelligence and training missions. They are extremely vulnerable. There are
something like 150 marines in the embassy. There are also a small number of US combat forces in
Syria east and north of the Euphrates river. These include a battalion of US Army National
Guard mechanized troops "guarding" Syria's oil from Syria's own army and whatever devilment the
Iranians might be able to arrange.
4. This is an untenable logistical situation. Supply and other functions require a major
airfield close to Baghdad. We have Balad airbase and helicopter supply and air support from
there into Baghdad is possible from there but may become hazardous. Iraq is a big country. It
is a long and lonely drive from Kuwait for re-supply from there or evacuation through there.
The same thing is true of the desert route to Jordan.
5. Trump's strategery appears to be based on the concept that the Iraqis will submit to our
imperial demands. "We will see." pl
Apart from those you mention, what about Kushner, Netanyahu´s agent in Oval Office?
Or what about the siamesian creature Esper-Pompeo? It seems Pompeo was bomabrding he Donald
since months ago on Soleimani...One sees the face of Pompeo when graduating and WP and you
immediately feel a chill in your spine...There it is a guy who will not stop at anything so
as to go up...
Of course, I do not discard a master puppet behind him...but I would look for more in
Herzliya of whatever the name is...I doubt the Rothschilds are beihn Pompeo, otherwise he
would not look so ambitious, he already would show so calm and confident like Macron...
Yes, it's Ben Norton and the Gray Zone providing more in-depth info about
the peace mission Soleimani was conducting. Don't miss the NY Times extract provided at the
linked tweet:
"Iraq's efforts at brokering peace talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran were going very
smoothly... until the US empire blew it all to pieces by murdering a top Iranian general and
Iraqi commander."
Very clearly to me at least, Iran's Hope proposal was beginning to be acted upon, and as I
wrote two days ago, that couldn't be allowed to stand. Thus, how Iran responds is further
complicated by the initial success of their initiative--provided the Saudi position was
genuine and not a feint. Recall the HOPE proposal allowed for outside participation which
back in September I wrote it would be wise for Trump to applaud and promote--IF--he genuinely
desired Peace. Now the equation's been changed. The goal is now to completely oust the Evil
Outlaw US Empire from the region, but that can still be accomplished through the HOPE
proposal.
Now Zarif's been barred by the usual shitheads from attending the UNSC. IMO, the UNGA must
reconsider Russia's request to relocate numerous UN activities as the Evil Outlaw US Empire
has effectively ceded its position within the UN and clearly doesn't belong there.
US officials
said the majority stood with Washington "in stark contrast to the United Nations Security
Council's silence due to two permanent members – Russia and China – not allowing a
statement to proceed."
This after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a day after Soleimani's death that the US had launched
an "illegal power" move which should instead be based on dialogue with Tehran.
Forbes characterized Russian objections within the context of the UN
further :
He [Lavrov] said that the actions of a UN member state to eliminate officials of another
UN member state on the territory of a third sovereign state "flagrantly violate the
principles of international law and deserve condemnation."
Similarly China has stood against Washington's unilateral military action, with Chinese
Foreign Minister Wang Yi
saying the US must not "abuse force" and instead pursue mutual dialogue.
"The dangerous US military operation violates the basic norms of international relations and
will aggravate regional tensions and turbulence," Wang told Javad Zarif in a phone call days
ago.
Diplomatically speaking, the US faces an uphill battle on the UN National Security Council,
considering its already provoked the ire of two of its formidable members, who increasingly
find themselves in close cooperation blocking US initiatives.
Interesting. Look what Iranian General fought alongside the Americans when fighting the
Taliban. More and more convinced Israel owns the US and our foreign policy.
Hey jerkoff, look who a certain Iranian General fought alongside the US when fighting the
Taliban. Your projection and deception have all the hallmarks of a dirty ***.
Maybe, just maybe, China and Russia blocked the United Nations Security council statement
because it accused Iran of having provoked the attack on the US embassy in Baghdad.
Of some reason or another ZH does not tell us what the declaration said.
What part of "We don't have the money to fight endless wars" doesn't the MIC
understand?
Homeless people everywhere, bums outside every big box store parking lot, opiod epidemic
in our towns, low wage "jobs" everywhere, schools where are children are sitting in trailers
to study, tens of millions with no access to proper medication or health care, and the
assholes traitors want to waste BILLIONS on useless chest thumping all over the word.
The situation is like an drunk, impotent man walking around threatening to rape ladies up
and down the street.
Sad what has become of this one truly great nation.
The Neocons are not rational actors in any normal sense of the word. They would destroy
and/or enslave every person on this planet if they thought they could pull it off and it
would be to their benefit.
"... According to the Western media, General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' élite Al-Quods force, was preparing an operation intended to win back Iraqi public opinion ..."
"... The strategy attributed to General Soleimani is in no way consistent with his well-known modus operandi , nor with that of the Iranian secret services. Quite the contrary, it is strangely reminiscent of US Ambassador John Negroponte's rationale: foment an Iraqi civil war as a means of stifling the Iraqi Resistance. ..."
"... Other interpretations of the events are of course possible, starting with a US desire to seize on the mutual paralysis of the Iranian government forces and the Revolutionary Guards. ..."
According to the Western media, General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards' élite Al-Quods force, was preparing an operation intended to win
back Iraqi public opinion. [ 1 ]
In the midst of the Shiite community's escalating protests against Iranian influence over
the Iraqi political class, attacks have been allegedly carried out against US interests,
triggering a US response against Iraqi protesters, which in turn ignited Iraqi nationalism to
the detriment of the ongoing revolt.
It was, purportedly, in order to frustrate this plot that, on 2 January 2020, the United
States assassinated Qasem Soleimani and his loyal supporter Abu Mehdi al-Mouhandis. [
2 ] According
to the US, Iran had been forewarned through a statement delivered by US Defense Secretary Mark
Esper. [ 3
]
This narrative, even if logical, is hardly credible. The strategy attributed to General
Soleimani is in no way consistent with his well-known modus operandi , nor with that of
the Iranian secret services. Quite the contrary, it is strangely reminiscent of US Ambassador John Negroponte's
rationale: foment an Iraqi civil war as a means of stifling the Iraqi Resistance.
Other interpretations of the events are of course possible, starting with a US desire to
seize on the mutual paralysis of the Iranian government forces and the Revolutionary
Guards.
In their descriptions of Qassem Soleimani U.S. media fail to mention that Soleimani and the
U.S. fought on the same side. In 2001 Iran supported the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It
used its good relations with the Hazara Militia and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, which
both the CIA and Iran had supplied for years, to support the U.S. operation. The
Wikipedia entry for the 2001 uprising in Herat lists U.S.
General Tommy Franks and General Qassem Soleimani as allied commanders.
The collaboration ended in 2002 after George W. Bush named Iran as a member of his "
Axis of Evil ".
In 2015 the U.S. and Iran again collaborated. This time to defeat ISIS in Iraq. During the
battle to liberate Tikrit the U.S. air force flew in support of General Soleimani's ground
forces. Newsweek
reported at that time:
While western nations, including the U.S., were slow to react to ISIS's march across
northern Iraq, Soleimani was quick to play a more public role in Tehran's efforts to tackle
the terror group. For example, the commander was seen in pictures with militiamen in the
northern Iraqi town of Amerli when it was recaptured from ISIS last September.
...
Top U.S. general Martin Dempsey has said that the involvement of Iran in the fight against
ISIS in Iraq could be a positive step, as long as the situation does not descend into
sectarianism, because of fears surrounding how Shia militias may treat the remaining Sunni
population of Tikrit if it is recaptured. The military chief also claimed that almost two
thirds of the 30,000 offensive were Iranian-backed militiamen, meaning that without Iranian
assistance and Soleimani's guidance, the offensive on Tikrit may not have been possible.
Iran is not responsible for the
U.S. casualties in Iraq. George W. Bush is. What made Soleimani "bad" in the eyes of the U.S.
was his support for the resistance against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. It was Israel
that wanted him 'removed'. The media explanations for Trump's decision fail to explain that
point.
Elias Magnier also reported in his latest tweet that Soleimani encouraged Muqtada
El Sadr to cooperate with the Americans in order to achieve stability in Iraq. And the
Americans (on the orders of the Israelis) kill him in the most violent fashion possible.
On Friday's broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," network contributor Geraldo Rivera clashed with show
co-host Brian Kilmeade over Quds Force Supreme Commander Qasem Soleimani being killed in an airstrike directed by
President Donald Trump.
"I fear the worst," Rivera said. "You're going to see the U.S. markets go crazy today. You're going to see the
price of oil spiking today. This is a very, very big deal."
Kilmeade said, "I don't know if you heard. This isn't about his resumé of blood and death. It is about what was
next. We stopped the next attack. That's what I think you're missing."
Rivera replied, "By what credible source can you predict what the next Iranian move would be?"
Kilmeade said, "The Secretary of State and American intelligence provided that material."
Rivera added, "Don't for a minute start cheering this on. What you have done, what we have done, we have unleashed
-- "
Kilmeade insisted, "I will cheer it on. I will cheer it on. I am elated."
Rivera said, "Then you, like Lindsey Graham, have never met a war you didn't like!"
Kilmeade said, "That is not true. And don't even say that!"
Iraq will have to ask another country to provide air support. Iran can't do it. But Russia has those capabilities. I wonder if
relations b/w Iran + Russia will warm in 2020.
Iran has declared it will no longer abide by any of the
restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal.
In a statement it said it would no longer observe limitations on its capacity for enrichment,
the level of enrichment, the stock of enriched material, or research and development.
The statement came after a meeting of the Iranian cabinet in Tehran.
Tensions have been high over the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the US in
Baghdad.
Reports from Baghdad say the US embassy compound there was targeted in an attack on Sunday
evening. A source told the BBC that four rounds of "indirect fire " had been launched in the
direction of the embassy. There are no reports of casualties.
Under the 2015 accord, Iran agreed to limit its sensitive nuclear activities and allow in
international inspectors in return for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.
US President Donald Trump abandoned it in 2018, saying he wanted to force Iran to negotiate a
new deal that would place indefinite curbs on its nuclear programme and also halt its development
of ballistic missiles.
Iran refused and had since been gradually rolling back its commitments under the agreement.
About 5,000 US soldiers are in Iraq as part of the international coalition against the Islamic
State (IS) group. The coalition paused operations against IS in Iraq just before Sunday's vote.
Mr Trump has again threatened Iran that the US will strike back in the event of retaliation for
Soleimani's death, this time saying it could do so "perhaps in a disproportionate manner".
Image
Copyright @realDonaldTrump
@realDonaldTrump
Report
<figure> <span> <img alt="Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump: These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner. Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/socialembed/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160~/news/world-middle-east-51001167" width="465" height="279"> <span>Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump</span> <span aria-hidden="true">@realDonaldTrump</span> </span> <div><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/contact-us/editorial" aria-label="Report Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump">Report</a></div> </figure>
The 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, on life support ever since the Trump administration abandoned
it in May 2018, may now be in its final death throes.
Donald Trump, throughout his presidential campaign and then as president, has never failed to
rail against what he calls his predecessor President Barack Obama's "bad deal". But all of its
other signatories - the UK, France, Russia, China, Germany and the EU - believe that it still has
merit.
The agreement, known as the JCPOA, constrained Iran's nuclear programme for a set period in a
largely verifiable way but its greatest significance - even more so given the current crisis - is
that it helped to avert an imminent war. Before its signature there was mounting concern about
Tehran's nuclear activities and every chance that Israel (or possibly Israel and the US in tandem)
might attack Iran's nuclear facilities.
Since the US withdrawal, Iran has successively been breaching some of the key constraints of the
JCPOA. Now it appears to be throwing these constraints over altogether. What matters now is
precisely what it decides to do. Will it up its level of uranium enrichment, for example, to 20%?
This would reduce significantly the time it would take Tehran to obtain suitable material for a
bomb. Will it continue to abide by enhanced international inspection measures?
We are now at the destination the Trump administration clearly hoped for in May 2018 but the
major powers, while deeply unhappy about Iran's breaches of the deal, are also shocked at the
controversial decision by Mr Trump to kill the head of Iran's Quds Force, a decision that has again
brought the US and Iran to the brink of war.
What did Iran say?
Iran had been expected to announce its latest stance on the nuclear agreement this weekend,
before news of Soleimani's death.
A statement broadcast on state TV said the country would no longer respect any limits laid down
in the 2015 deal.
"Iran will continue its nuclear enrichment with no limitations and based on its technical
needs," the statement said.
Enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons.
The statement did not, however, say that Iran was withdrawing from the agreement and it added
that Iran would continue to co-operate with the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
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The statement added that Iran was
ready to return to its commitments once it enjoyed the benefits of the agreement.
Correspondents say this is a reference to its inability to sell oil and have access to its
income under US sanctions.
Iran has always insisted that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
Sanctions have caused Iran's oil exports to collapse and the value of its currency to plummet,
and sent its inflation rate soaring.
How has the international community reacted?
The other parties to the 2015 deal - the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia - tried to keep
the agreement alive after the US withdrew in 2018.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has invited Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif,
to visit Brussels to discuss both the nuclear deal and how to defuse the crisis over the Soleimani
assassination.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime
Minister Boris Johnson to work towards de-escalation in the Middle East, a German government
spokesman was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
"... Several days after Efraim Inbar's paper was published, David M. Weinberg, director of public affairs at the BESA Center, wrote a similarly-themed op-ed titled "Should ISIS be wiped out?" in Israel Hayom, a free and widely read right-wing newspaper funded by conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson that strongly favors the agenda of Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . ..."
"... On his website, Weinberg includes BESA in a list of resources for " hasbara ," or pro-Israel propaganda. It is joined by the ostensible civil rights organization the Anti-Defamation League and other pro-Israel think tanks, such as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). ..."
"... In the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA and U.S. allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia armed, trained and funded Islamic fundamentalists in their fight against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan's Soviet-backed socialist government. These U.S.-backed rebels, known as the mujahideen, were the predecessors of al-Qaida and the Taliban. ..."
The director of an Israeli think tank backed by the US government and NATO, BESA, wrote that ISIS "can be a
useful tool in undermining" Iran, Hezbollah, Syria, and Russia and should not be defeated.
By Ben Norton /
Salon
According to a US-backed think tank that does contract work for NATO and the Israeli government, the West should
not destroy ISIS, the fascist Islamist extremist group that is committing genocide and ethnically cleansing minority
groups in Syria and Iraq.
Why? The so-called Islamic State "can be a useful tool in undermining" Iran, Hezbollah, Syria and Russia, argues
the think tank's director.
"The continuing existence of IS serves a strategic purpose," wrote Efraim Inbar in "The Destruction of Islamic
State Is a Strategic Mistake," a
paper
published
on Aug. 2.
By cooperating with Russia to fight the genocidal extremist group, the United States is committing a "strategic
folly" that will "enhance the power of the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus axis," Inbar argued, implying that Russia, Iran and
Syria are forming a strategic alliance to dominate the Middle East.
"The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not its destruction," he added. "A weak IS is,
counterintuitively, preferable to a destroyed IS."
US government and NATO support for ISIS-whitewashing Israeli think tank
Efraim Inbar, an influential Israeli scholar, is the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, a
think tank that says its
mission
is
to advance "a realist, conservative, and Zionist agenda in the search for security and peace for Israel."
The think tank, known by its acronym BESA, is affiliated with Israel's Bar Ilan University and has been
supported
by the U.S. embassy in Israel, the NATO Mediterranean Initiative, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International
Affairs, and the Israeli government itself.
BESA also says it "conducts specialized research on contract to the Israeli foreign affairs and defense
establishment, and for NATO."
In his paper, Inbar suggested that it would be a good idea to prolong the war in Syria, which has destroyed the
country, killing hundreds of thousands of people and displacing more than half the population.
'Stability is not a value in and of itself. It is desirable only if it serves our interests.'
As for the argument that defeating ISIS would make the Middle East more stable, Efraim Inbar maintained:
"Stability is not a value in and of itself. It is desirable only if it serves our interests."
"Instability and crises sometimes contain portents of positive change," he added.
Inbar stressed that the West's "main enemy" is not the self-declared Islamic State; it is Iran. He accused the
Obama administration of "inflat[ing] the threat from IS in order to legitimize Iran as a 'responsible' actor that
will, supposedly, fight IS in the Middle East."
Despite Inbar's claims, Iran is a mortal enemy of ISIS, particularly because the Iranian government is founded on
Shia Islam, a branch that the Sunni extremists of ISIS consider a form of apostasy. ISIS and its affiliates have
massacred and ethnically cleansed Shia Muslims in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
Inbar noted that ISIS threatens the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. If the Syrian government
survives, Inbar argued, "Many radical Islamists in the opposition forces, i.e., Al Nusra and its offshoots, might
find other arenas in which to operate closer to Paris and Berlin." Jabhat al-Nusra is Syria's al-Qaida affiliate, and
one of the most powerful rebel groups in the country. (It recently changed its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.)
Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based militia that receives weapons and support from Iran, is also "being seriously taxed
by the fight against IS, a state of affairs that suits Western interests," Inbar wrote.
"Allowing bad guys to kill bad guys sounds very cynical, but it is useful and even moral to do so if it keeps the
bad guys busy and less able to harm the good guys," Inbar explained.
More Israeli think tankers warn against defeating 'useful idiot' ISIS
Several days after Efraim Inbar's paper was published, David M. Weinberg, director of public affairs at the BESA
Center, wrote a similarly-themed
op-ed
titled "Should ISIS be wiped out?" in Israel Hayom, a free and widely read right-wing newspaper funded by
conservative billionaire Sheldon Adelson that
strongly
favors
the agenda of Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu
.
In the piece, Weinberg defended his colleague's argument and referred to ISIS as a "useful idiot." He called the
U.S. nuclear deal with Iran "rotten" and argued that Iran and Russia pose a "far greater threat than the terrorist
nuisance of Islamic State."
Weinberg also described the BESA Center as "a place of intellectual ferment and policy creativity," without
disclosing that he is that think tank's director of public affairs.
After citing responses from two other associates of his think tank who disagree with their colleague, Weinberg
concluded by writing: "The only certain thing is that Ayatollah Khamenei is watching this quintessentially Western
open debate with amusement."
On his website, Weinberg includes BESA in a list of resources for "
hasbara
,"
or pro-Israel propaganda. It is joined by the ostensible civil rights organization the Anti-Defamation League and
other pro-Israel think tanks, such as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the Washington Institute
for Near East Policy (WINEP).
Weinberg has
worked
extensively
with the Israeli government and served as a spokesman for Bar Ilan University. He also identifies
himself on his website as a "columnist and lobbyist who is a sharp critic of Israel's detractors and of post-Zionist
trends in Israel."
'Stress the "holy war" aspect': Long history of the US and Israel supporting Islamist extremists
Efraim Inbar boasts an array of accolades. He was a member of the political strategic committee for Israel's
National Planning Council, a member of the academic committee of the Israeli military's history department and the
chair of the committee for the national security curriculum at the Ministry of Education.
He also has a prestigious academic record, having taught at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown and lectured at Harvard,
MIT, Columbia, Oxford and Yale. Inbar served as a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and
was appointed as a Manfred Wörner NATO fellow.
The strategy Inbar and Weinberg have proposed, that of indirectly allowing a fascist Islamist group to continue
fighting Western enemies, is not necessarily a new one in American and Israeli foreign policy circles. It is
reminiscent of the U.S. Cold War policy of supporting far-right Islamist extremists in order to fight communists and
left-wing nationalists.
In the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the CIA and U.S. allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
armed,
trained and funded Islamic fundamentalists
in their fight against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan's
Soviet-backed socialist government. These U.S.-backed rebels, known as the mujahideen, were the predecessors of
al-Qaida and the Taliban.
In the 1980s, Israel adopted a similar policy. It supported right-wing Islamist groups like Hamas in order to
undermine the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, a coalition of various left-wing nationalist and communist
political parties.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," Avner Cohen, a retired Israeli official who worked in Gaza for
more than 20 years,
told
The
Wall Street Journal.
As far back as 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower
insisted
to the CIA
that, in order to fight leftist movements in the Middle East, "We should do everything possible to
stress the 'holy war' aspect."
The world's largest evangelist of neoliberalism, the International Monetary Fund, has
admitted that it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Neoliberalism refers to capitalism in its purest form. It is an economic philosophy espoused
by libertarians -- and repeated endlessly by many mainstream economists -- one that insists
that privatization, deregulation, the opening up of domestic markets to foreign competition,
the cutting of government spending, the shrinking of the state, and the "freeing of the market"
are the keys to a healthy and flourishing economy.
Yet now top researchers at the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, the economic institution
that has proselytized -- and often forcefully imposed -- neoliberal policies for decades, have
conceded that the "benefits of some policies that are an important part of the neoliberal
agenda appear to have been somewhat overplayed."
"There are aspects of the neoliberal agenda that have not delivered as expected," the
economists write in " Neoliberalism: Oversold? ", a
study published in the June volume of the IMF's quarterly magazine Finance &
Development.
In analyzing two of neoliberalism's most fundamental policies, austerity and the removing of
restrictions on the movement of capital, the IMF researchers say they reached "three
disquieting conclusions."
One, neoliberal policies result in "little benefit in growth."
Two, neoliberal policies increase inequality, which produces further economic harms in a
"trade-off" between growth and inequality.
And three, this "increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of
growth."
The top researchers conclude noting that the "evidence of the economic damage from
inequality suggests that policymakers should be more open to redistribution than they are."
In some cases, they add, the consequences "will have to be remedied after they occur by
using taxes and government spending to redistribute income."
"Fortunately, the fear that such policies will themselves necessarily hurt growth is
unfounded," the IMF economists stress -- that is to say, increasing taxes and boosting
government spending will not necessarily hurt growth.
The collapse of neoliberalism
These statements represent an enormous reversal for the IMF. It is somewhat like the Pope
declaring that there is no God; it is a volte-face on almost everything that the IMF has ever
stood for.
Since the 2008 financial collapse, widespread rebellions have been waged against these
failed neoliberal policies, with Occupy Wall Street in the U.S. and similar grassroots
movements around the world.
Before the 1970s, neoliberalism was relegated to the obscure margins of mainstream
economics, preached by free-market fundamentalists like Milton Friedman and Friedrich
Hayek.
In the last few decades, however, it became the hegemonic ideology. The IMF has been one of
the most crucial institutions, along with the World Bank, in the spread of neoliberalism.
By the end of the Cold War, socialist alternatives to capitalism had been brutally crushed
in a long series of wars. By the 1980s, with the rise of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in
the U.K. and President Ronald Reagan in the U.S., neoliberalism had come to dominate the new
world order.
Even before the Thatchers and the Reagans, however, there were the Pinochets. The policies
the IMF advocated for decades were rooted in extreme violence and repression.
Chile's
violent neoliberal dictatorship
Chile was the first country to implement neoliberal policies. Still today, neoliberal
ideologues quote Milton Friedman, speaking of the legacy of the reign of far-right, U.S.-backed
capitalist dictator Augusto Pinochet as Chile's "economic miracle." What they overlook is how
Pinochet used a bloodstained iron fist to implement these neoliberal policies.
A
bloody CIA-backed 1973 coup toppled Chile's popular democratically elected Marxist leader,
Salvador Allende, and replaced him with Pinochet. For millions of Chileans, his "economic
miracle" was a disaster.
Pinochet combined fascistic police state repression with extreme free-market policies,
killing, disappearing and torturing tens of thousands of Chilean leftists, labor organizers and
journalists, forcing hundreds of thousands more into exile.
"Chile's pioneering experience with neoliberalism received high praise from Nobel laureate
Friedman, but many economists have now come around to" more nuanced views, the IMF researchers
note in their article.
Boom and bust cycles 'are the main story'
The study was co-authored by three members of the IMF's research department -- Jonathan
Ostry, the deputy director, Prakash Loungani, a division chief, and Davide Furceri, an
economist.
The researchers don't throw neoliberalism out completely. "There is much to cheer in the
neoliberal agenda," they write. But it fails in some crucial regards.
For one, opening emerging economies up to some types of unrestricted foreign capital inflows
frequently leads to financial crises, the IMF researchers note, which in turn create large
declines in economic output and "appreciably" increase inequality.
These boom and bust cycles are not merely "a sideshow they are the main story," the
economists add.
"Capital controls are a viable, and sometimes the only, option," the IMF concludes. This is
a huge reversal. The researchers themselves point out that "the IMF's view has also changed --
from one that considered capital controls as almost always counterproductive to greater
acceptance of controls to deal with the volatility of capital flows."
Austerity can lead
to an 'adverse loop' of economic decline
Moreover, the study notes that it is often better for indebted governments to allow "the
debt ratio to decline organically through growth," rather than to impose austerity. This is
another reversal.
The IMF has for many years ordered countries to cut spending, gutting social services in
order to pay off debt. This has in turn led to a shrinking of the economy, trapping countries
in a spiral of debt.
Greece is a painful contemporary example , although there are many more.
"Austerity policies not only generate substantial welfare costs," the IMF researchers
continue, "they also hurt demand -- and thus worsen employment and unemployment."
Austerity results in "drops rather than by expansions in output." Studies show that, when
government deficits and debts are reduced with a fiscal consolidation of 1 percent of a
country's GDP, the long-term unemployment rate often increases by 0.6 percentage point and
income inequality grows by 1.5 percent within five years.
Taken in conjunction, these effects could lead to an "adverse loop," the IMF warns, where
austerity fuels inequality, which decreases growth that neoliberals insist must be cured with
more austerity.
"The increase in inequality engendered by financial openness and austerity might itself
undercut growth, the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting," the IMF
researchers write. "There is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both
the level and the durability of growth."
The importance of this study is hard to overstate. The IMF is essentially admitted that many
of the policies that it demanded countries implement for decades only made things worse.
The International Monetary Fund appears to be inching toward a more Keynesian economic
position.
To be clear, just because IMF researchers acknowledge the economic reality billions of
working people in the world intimately understand does not mean the IMF as an institution will
act on their research and end these policies -- just as the U.S. government does not
necessarily act on the research of State Department, which has
acknowledged Israel's crimes .
But the IMF's recognition that neoliberalism is not the panacea that cures all economic ills
establishes an incredibly significant precedent, and is a huge victory in the fight for
economic justice -- and in the class war.
Ben Norton Ben Norton
is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the
producer of the Moderate Rebels
podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton . bennorton.com
Putin's Hour Is At Hand was published in the Russian press Monday morning, January 6,
2020.
Putin's Hour Is At Hand
Paul Craig Roberts
Vladimir Putin is the most impressive leader on the world stage. He survived and arose from
a Russia corrupted by Washington and Israel during the Yeltsin years and reestablished Russia
as a world power. He dealt successfully with American/Israeli aggression against South Ossetia
and against Ukraine, incorporating at Crimea's request the Russian province back into Mother
Russia. He has tolerated endless insults and provocations from Washington and its empire
without responding in kind. He is conciliatory and a peacemaker from a position of
strength.
He knows that the American empire based as it is on arrogance and lies is failing
economically, socially, politically, and militarily. He understands that war serves no Russian
interest.
Washington's murder of Qasem Soleimani, a great Iranian leader, indeed, one of the rare
leaders in world history, has dimmed Trump's leadership and placed the limelight on Putin. The
stage is set for Putin and Russia to assume the leadership of the world.
Washington's murder of Soleimani is a criminal act that could start World War 3 just as the
Serbian murder of the Austrian Archduke set World War 1 in motion. Only Putin and Russia with
China's help can stop this war that Washington has set in motion.
Putin understood that the Washington/Israeli intended destabilization of Syria was aimed at
Russia. Without warning Russia intervened, defeated the Washington financed and armed proxy
forces, and restored stability to Syria.
Defeated, Washington and Israel have decided to bypass Syria and take the attack on Russia
directly to Iran. The destabilization of Iran serves both Washington and Israel. For Israel
Iran's demise stops support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has twice defeated
Israel's army and prevented Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon. For Washington Iran's
demise allows CIA-supported jihadists to bring instability into the Russian Federation.
Unless Putin submits to American and Israeli will, he has no choice but to block any
Washington/Israeli attack on Iran.
The easiest and cleanest way for Putin to do this is to announce that Iran is under Russia's
protection. This protection should be formalized in a mutual defense treaty between Russia,
China, and Iran, with perhaps India and Turkey as members. This is hard for Putin to do,
because incompetent historians have convinced Putin that alliances are the cause of war. But an
alliance such as this would prevent war. Not even the insane criminal Netanyahu and the crazed
American neoconservatives would, even when completely drunk or deluded, declare war on Iran,
Russia, China, and if included in the alliance India and Turkey. It would mean the death of
America, Israel and any European country sufficiently stupid to participate.
If Putin is unable to free himself from the influence of incompetent historians, who in
effect are serving Washington, not Russian, interests, he has other options. He can calm down
Iran by giving Iran the best Russian air defense systems with Russian crews to train the
Iranians and whose presence serve as a warning to Washington and Israel that an attack on
Russian forces is an attack on Russia.
This done, Putin can then, not offer, but insist on mediating. This is Putin's role as there
is no other with the power, influence and objectivity to mediate.
Putin's job is not so much to rescue Iran as to get Trump out of a losing war that would
destroy Trump. Putin could set his own price. For example, Putin's price can be the revival of
the INF/START treaty, the anti-ballistic missile treaty, the removal of NATO from Russian
borders. In effect, Putin is positioned to demand whatever he wants.
Iranian missiles can sink any American vessels anywhere near Iran. Chinese missiles can sink
any American fleets anywhere near China. Russian missiles can sink American fleets anywhere in
the world. The ability of Washington to project power in the Middle East now that everyone,
Shia and Sunni and Washington's former proxies such as ISIS, hates Americans with a passion is
zero. The State Department has had to order Americans out of the Middle East. How does
Washingon count as a force in the Middle East when no American is safe there?
Of course Washington is stupid in its arrogance, and Putin, China, and Iran must take this
into consideration. A stupid government is capable of bringing ruin not only on itself but on
others.
So there are risks for Putin. But there are also risks for Putin failing to take charge. If
Washington and Israel attack Iran, which Israel will try to provoke by some false flag event as
sinking an American warship and blaming Iran, Russia will be at war anyway. Better for the
initiative to be in Putin's hands. And better for the world and life on Earth for Russia to be
in charge.
More people at Mara Lago knew that General Suliemeni was going to be hit than congressmen and congresswomen? That tells me
trump was bragging about how much power he has. He's so insecure and feeble that he has no business holding the most power office
in the land!
The main beneficiaries of Solimanies death are his arch enemies, Isis. Trump turned on both his field allies against Isis,
the Kurds and Solimani's militia. Who are America's allies in the field, now?
Let me tally this up for the wonderful viewers, an American backed coupe of a democratically elected prime minister who wanted
to nationalize the oil fields of Iran which at time was owned by Britain. The shooting down of a plane with 290 people in it by
an American Naval vessel. The backing of Saddam with chemical weapons and millions of dollars, to go to war with Iran leaving
half a million dead. The installation of a dictator whose secret police force imprisoned, tortured and killed political dissidence.
Learn your history.
All jokes aside but everyone this isnt a joke anymore becuase of our wreckless president making dumb distractions ive ever
heard of trump is a sociopath he makes the rich richer, the poor poorer. Just remember this guy and his family are banned from
having fun raisers in the state of new york becuase trump held a big fundraiser to help fight kids cancer he stole money from
kids to search to find a cure for cancer. He nearly shut down the gouverment becuase Congress refused to give him the money for
him to build the wall but not most of all 5 general from the us resigned becuase they didnt agree with his intensions. He doesnt
care about anyone but himself and anyone with common sense can sse that and im done with the US government and this isnt the American
that i grew up loving. All the hatred for eachother is disgusting and disturbing
The Iranian fiasco started in 1953 when America overthrew Iran's democratically elected government, so we could get their oil.
The autocrat we installed had a nasty habit of torturing and murdering any who opposed him, but he did sell us oil. In 1979 the
Iranians, united by their clergy, threw him out. We keep stirring the hornets nest we created and are surprised when we get stung?
Now you too can have a front row seat at this foreign policy debacle! War? We don't need no stinking war. Trump is desperate to
distract the American people from seeing how incompetent and stupid he really is.
"... If the plan is/was to leave Syria and Iraq, it was not. In this case it was a screwed, albeit mafia-style, tactical move killing two birds with one stone. ..."
Most
of the attention in this recent attack by a US drone at the Baghdad Airport has been on it
killing Iranian Quds Force commander, Qasim (Qassem) Solmaini (Suleimani), supposedly plotting
an “imminent” attack on Americans as he flew a commercial airliner to Iraq at the
invitation of its government and passed through passport control. But much less attention has
been paid to the killing in that attack of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, commander of the Popular
Mobilization Forces in Iraq and reportedly an officer in the Iraqi military, as well as being,
according to Juan Cole, a Yazidi Kurd, although the PMF is identified as being a Shia militia
allied with Iran.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no
Iraqi officials in this group; it was supposedly “clean.” But there was
al-Muhandis, with his PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in
the Iraqi parliament. The often anti-Iranian Shia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined with
Fath and other groups to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American
troops from Iraq.
... ... ...
There is much more that can be said about this, but among less noticed responses I note that
although Israeli PM Netanyahu made a strong statement supporting the attack, apparently he has
ordered his aides not to talk about it further, and the Israelis are worried about possible
escalation of this In KSA, “Bone-Saw” MbS has said nothing, although supposedly the
Saudi had sought to kill Solemaini themselves.
Oh, and of course Mike Pompeo announced that this move has made Americans “safe”
in the region, even as Americans have been urged to leave Iraq immediately. So, yeah, they will
be more safe by getting the heck out.
likbez , January 6, 2020 3:22 am
@Terry, January 5, 2020 10:37 pm
it is not clear to me that killing Solemaini was a mistake.
If the plan is/was to leave Syria and Iraq, it was not. In this case it was a screwed,
albeit mafia-style, tactical move killing two birds with one stone.
But a more plausible hypothesis is that it was spontaneous Trump-style overreaction on
siege of the US embassy which now start backfiring in a spectacular and very dangerous way,
because Iran views this as the declaration of war (and not without reasons, see below)
"Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was
scheduled to meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to
Iraq in response to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated
Soleimani before the letter could be delivered by him. Abdul-Mahdi also said that Trump had
asked him to mediate between the U.S. and Iran. Did he do that to trap Soleimani? It is no
wonder then that Abdul-Mahdi is fuming."
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop
presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups
to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized .
He called for closure of the US embassy and forming united Shia paramilitary groups to
fight occupation which he named "Resistance legions"
More specifically, Sadr issues a statement with demands:
• close the US embassy
• end security deal immediately
• close US bases in a humiliating way
• protection of Iraq should be handed to the Resistance militias
• boycott of US products
Tucker Carlson is livid with anger and frustration at Trump's actions .
Death to America is a rallying point for Iran to emphasize the same aspect of American
status .
They talk in future . Carlson is reminding that we are already there .
If people woke up with anger at Iran., they would find that the dead horse isn't able to
do much but only can attract a lot of attention from far .
The reason Taliban didn't inform Mulla Omar's death was to let the rank and file continues
to remain engaged without getting into internal feuding fight .
A trues state of US won't be televised until the horse starts rotting but then that would be
quite late .
I don't recall any dissent until this assassination . Now 70 cities are witnessing
protests and a few in Media are not happy at all .
There is a big unknown if and when Iran would strike back and at who. Persian is not like
khasaogi murderer or Harri kidnapper .
"... In other blowbacks from the murder of Soleimani the Qatar leaders are fuming over the use of a Qatar based reaper drone to launch the missiles and were controlled remotely by operators at the US Air Force base in Creech, Nevada. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1608386/middle-east ..."
"... The picture of the meeting between the Qatar FM and the Iranian FM showed the Qatar flag with the red replaced by black in respect. https://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/04/01/2020/Qatar-Foreign-Minister-meets-Iranian-counterpart-in-Tehran ..."
"... It should be noted that Qatar owes a debt of honor to Iran for supplying need food goods to survive a blockade by KSA and the UAE. Likewise, Qatar has close ties with Turkey due to the presence of a couple thousand Turkish troops that prevented a KSA invasion and has been supplying a lot of LGN fuel to Turkey. ..."
Wow the iraq PM office just stated that The US government had asked Iraq to invite Soleimani
to iraq for face to face deescalation talks with the US then murdered in the airport. Even by
outlaw empire standards this was insane they murdered a diplomat on talks they invited him
to. US diplomacy has been on decline for decades but this is reckless terrorist diplomacy,
with a single action the US has lost the middle east and killed the value of US assurances
and diplomacy
The Soliemani assassination now looks even more abhorent. Now it looks like one of the oldest
and most abhorent types of war acts: a fake parley turned into a murder zone. What the people
who seem to have arranged this - presumably the US and Israel and maybe Saudi Arabia -
apparently did not expect was that Soleimani was to become a martyr in the eyes of his
people.
Mercouris suggests that Soleimani expected and planned on exactly this: that he would become
a martyr and a unifying symbol in the end. Presumably he did not know when it would happen
exactly, or perhaps he did have a sense. Several people here suggested as much and it doesn't
seem so farfetched now. I'm reminded of Martin Luther King's death, though of course
Soleimani was far from being a man of peace as MLK was. MLK seemed to know that he was soon
to become a martyr and he seemed to accept this as a necessary thing, even as perhaps the
best way for him to continue his work. Obi Wan Kenobi lol! ,
But there is a correlating thought I don't see anyone picking up on yet. If this was indeed
an ambush, possibly, then it was preplanned. Trump's reported veiled references to people at
his resort ('something huge is coming') also seem to point to this. In that case it seems
even more likely that the initial rocket attack was itself a false flag operation.
They invited all the Tibetan leaders to attend the peace conference.. As a gesture of
respect, everyone removed a single shot from their rifle which left the Tibetan security
guards single shot muskets defenceless when the British opened fire and ended the tibetan
political power and started drawing the new borders.. After a while the communists took over
when the british left and a leaderless tibetan homeland as their own.. China is one third the
Tibetan empire.. It was taken without any resistance at all.. China in 5000 years was never
able to conquer Tibet.. But like the US helping exterminate christians world wide.. The
british helps other cultures get destroyed..
3. If Saudi tricked Suleimani by getting Iraq to "mediate" (Iraq's prime minister was
expecting a message by him on the mediation when he was assassinated), Saudi will get
targeted.
Posted by: somebody | Jan 5 2020 16:52 utc | 44
More likely, Saudi will be pissed off at Israel enough to have a serious impact on their
relations! All the more reason to patch up with Iran and go for the HOPE plan.
All the attention is focussed on how Trump has messed up so badly, which he has - but
Israel has messed itself up even more badly.
Posted by Naijaa_Man at the Saker site on January 05, 2020 · at 9:58 am EST/EDT
"From Iraq Prime Minister's speech in Parliament, I gathered that:
(1) Trump told the Prime Minister that he will attack Iraqi PMU Militias, The Prime Minister
objected and Trump ignored him
(2) After the US Embassy protests ended, Trump called the Prime Minister and thanked him for
successfully persuading Iraqi PMU Militias to withdraw from Embassy grounds and Green Zone.
Trump refused to apologize for defying the Prime Minister's request to respect Iraq
Sovereignty and strike the PMU militias
(3) Trump asked Iraq to be a mediator between USA/Saudi axis and the Iranians. The Prime
Minister agreed and communicated the message to Iran. The Prime Minister asked Americans to
stop conducting helicopter overflights above PMU military bases, Trump ignored him
(4) With respect to the mediation issue, Qassem Solemani was in Iraq to deliver a personal
message from Ayatollah Khamenei to the Prime Minister when the Americans assassinated
him."
So technically, The Iraqi parliament voted to "ask" the Iraqi government to end the
security agreement with the US, end the presence of foreign troops & the international
coalition's mandate against ISIS, even in Iraqi air space "for whatever reason."
The surge in US forces only occurred following the 2014 defeat of ISIS in the battle for
Latakia, Syria where the Obama Administration backed islamists (many imported from Libya)
were relocated into Iraq and joined former Saddam military forces to roll back Iraqi Shia
forces. http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/ISIS_Governance.pdf
As discussed in the latest Grayzone 2 hour discussion it was Qassem Soleimani who was key
to the defeat of the US/Israeli/KSA/UAE backed ISIS forces.
As reported in RT, "Iraqi parliament has voted to have foreign troops removed from the
country, heeding to a call from its caretaker prime minister. The move comes after US
assassination of a top Iranian general and a commander of Iraqi militia The resolution, which
was passed anonymously, instructs the government to cancel a request for military assistance
to the US-led coalition, which was issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS,
formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the
jihadists and can close its airspace to coalition aircraft."
According to Press TV, some
Western military presence may remain for training purposes. The resolution says Iraqi
military leadership has to report the number of foreign instructors that are necessary for
Iraqi national security At the same time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had
turned to the UN Security Council with complaints about US violations of its sovereignty The
interim prime minister said after the incident that it was clear it was in the interest of
both the US and Iraq to end the presence of foreign forces on Iraqi soil
More specifically, Sadr issues a statement saying the partial end proposal was weak
anyway, with demands:
• close the US embassy
• end security deal immediately
• close US bases in a humiliating way
• protection of Iraq should be handed to the Resistance militias
• boycott of US products
Meanwhile, "Iraq's (Kurdish) President Barham Salih has threatened to step down rather
than approve a candidate for prime minister put forward by Iran-linked political parties,
pushing Baghdad deeper into political turmoil after nearly three months of anti-government
protests."
"Protesters have demanded that the next prime minister be someone unconnected to political
parties they accuse of corruption. Yet the Iran-linked Binaa parliamentary voting bloc has
nominated Asaad al-Edani, a former minister and governor of oil-rich Basra province. Binaa's
bloc is mostly made up of the Fatah party led by militia leader turned politician Hadi
al-Ameri, who is close to Tehran. The rival Sairoon bloc, headed by populist Shia cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, said it would not participate in the process of nominating a new
premier." https://www.ft.com/content/50f09fe4-27f4-11ea-9a4f-963f0ec7e134
However, "Out of an eagerness to spare blood and preserve civil peace, I apologize for not
naming Edani prime minister," the letter continued. "I am ready to submit my resignation to
parliament." https://time.com/5755588/iraq-president-resignation/
My take is that the best way to minimize further violence would for the US to accept
Muqtada al-Sadr demands.
In other blowbacks from the murder of Soleimani the Qatar leaders are fuming over the use
of a Qatar based reaper drone to launch the missiles and were controlled remotely by
operators at the US Air Force base in Creech, Nevada. https://www.arabnews.com/node/1608386/middle-east
It should be noted that Qatar owes a debt of honor to Iran for supplying need food goods
to survive a blockade by KSA and the UAE. Likewise, Qatar has close ties with Turkey due to
the presence of a couple thousand Turkish troops that prevented a KSA invasion and has been
supplying a lot of LGN fuel to Turkey.
Today, the first blowback came as Al Shabab (backed by Qatar and the UAE) attacked for the
first time a US base in Kenya which came a few hours after the Qatari FM visited Teheran.
Link:
On a related note, Putin is scheduled to visit Turkey on January 8, 2020 to "officially"
open the Turkstream pipeline. Putin had better have extra security given the many murders
conducted for geopolitical gain by Western powers and their agents!
I close with a visionary French rock opera Starmania "story of an alternate reality where
a fascist millionaire famous for building skyscrapers is running for president on an
anti-immigration policy, and where the poor are getting more and more desperate for their
voices to be heard." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LytR-6Xmk
Well that didnt take too long Marco Rubio (little Marco) is already calling on the US to
ignore the parliament's resolution and support a break away kurdistan in northern iraq
Trump is real clear. He has a target list of 52 sites. They will be hit if Iran does anything
at all. Or if Iran does nothing they will be hit. Paranoids invent slights and offenses. So
the bombs will fly, soon.
The only questions are what delivery systems, what armaments, how good are Iran's air
defences? I suspect Iran's air defences are quite good and plenty gets through anyway. So is
it nukes or "only" mini-nukes on the first round? Any way you look at it there will be a
second round. And then the next question. Can anyone or anything put the brakes on this
sequence of events?
Trump is just a second string gangster. The gangsters who are firmly in his camp are also
second string. The big boys have largely been absent, they don't much care who is US
President or how the little squabbles go. Wondering here if Rockefellers and Rothschilds and
the older families have good means for quickly getting a Hollywood rewrite on all these
antics or if the avalanche is now unstoppable.
As for the new information that Soleimani was lured and ambushed --- why would anyone do
diplomacy with US again? Even Lavrov has to wonder if he is safe anywhere. Ordinary diplomats
and functionaries at UN have to wonder if they are safe. Who would want to be so much as a
consular assistant?
Well that didnt take too long Marco Rubio (little Marco) is already calling on the US to
ignore the parliament's resolution and support a break away kurdistan in northern iraq
Forward @24. I believe yours is the correct interpretation. Israeli fingerprints are all over
this. Its the only thing that makes sense. Trump may have averted all hell by claiming
credit, but the truth will soon be out. And you can bet the farm that Iran already knows the
truth. This has already backfired spectacularly in uniting Sunni and Shia against the
US/Israel/Saudi. And we are still in the period of mourning. It hasn't begun yet.
@ oldhippie # 71 who wrote
"
Trump is just a second string gangster. The gangsters who are firmly in his camp are also
second string. The big boys have largely been absent, they don't much care who is US
President or how the little squabbles go. Wondering here if Rockefellers and Rothschilds and
the older families have good means for quickly getting a Hollywood rewrite on all these
antics or if the avalanche is now unstoppable.
"
I am of the opinion that what is going on is part of the elite script for our world and
only would be proven wrong if they go nuclear. This circus we have been seeing is the throw
America under the bus ploy while global private finance get to cull the heard and stay in
charge of human finance.....I hope they fail but having read The Shock Doctrine, I have had
this scenarion in my head for quite some time. Look at this forum and how many are of
faith....If the faith leaders back the God of Mammon core then think about how hard it would
be to eliminate......in spite of China's growing example.
It doesn't slow down from here, IMO, so we should have a pretty good read of what is
playing out in 6 months or so
Especially in times like these, people should remember what drives US foreign policy more
than anything else: maintaining the reserve-currency status of the US dollar. It's no
coincidence at all that the countries that the US establishment considers its biggest
adversaries are those countries which are resisting the dollar hegemony the most. The US
establishment may stop at nothing to maintain the dollar hegemony. Certainly it won't shy
away from such underhanded tactics as those employed in the assassination of Soleimani.
It's entirely predictable that the Iraqi parliament would order the withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq. And it's entirely predictable that the US will ignore that order. Likewise,
it's predictable that Iran will respond in some way against US military targets in the Middle
East, which will trigger US airstrikes against targets in Iran (as Trump has already
promised). At that point, it's war, plain and simple. Iran will most likely declare war on
the US after the airstrikes and then launch an all-out missile attack against as many US and
allied targets in the Middle East as possible. What happens beyond that is more difficult to
see. It may well become a case of "Apres nous, le deluge."
"Before the vote Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi told the parliament that he was scheduled to
meet with Soleimani a day after his arrival to receive a letter from Iran to Iraq in response
to a de-escalation offer Saudi Arabia had made. The U.S. assassinated Soleimani before the
letter could be delivered by him. "
So if this report is correct, is there any word on whether the Saudi regime still stands
by this offer, and has Mahdi received it yet by another channel?
As for the vote, I've predicted in the last several threads that the US clearly is
throwing down the mask completely, will never abide by legal demands to leave, and will
resort to straight brute violence in an attempt to hold onto the country as a staging ground
for war. They'll try to force regime change if they can (though now that such a coup would be
directly engineered by the abominable occupier, it's hard to see what significant number of
Irakis would support it and serve in a puppet government. It would be like the fake,
zero-supported Mussolini retread regime the Germans installed after invading Italy in
1943.
Failing that, the US will try to wreck the place completely, turn it into total chaos.
Of course USA has threatened many times to nuke many contries, North Korea and China were
threatened many many times from the Mc Arthur times (1950) to just recently; of course North
Vietnam was repeatedly threatened with devastating nuclear attacks, and many others have been
subject to the same bully tactics that never ever worked and could have medium term
consequences, in the american citicens, difficult to predict.
Any nuclear unprovoked first strike attack of the USA to another country, to put it on their
kness, will be follow for a complete nuclear proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery
systems all around the world by nations and terrorist groups, and I think in few years it is
nos unthinkable some nuclear devices could explode in some american cities (by unknown
people).
China and Russia will prepare themselves all their allies for that eventuality bigly
Why do they think nuclear threats will work now with people with a martyrdom mentality
like Iran if it did not work in the past? why do the american military thinks the iranians
are so easy to scare? what do they think Iran and every Shia group in the world will do next
in the case of a nuke attack on Iran soil?
The world will be x1000 more dangerous for the american people.
Even nuking failed made Japan surrender, in fact was Zhukov crushing defeat of the
japanese Manchuria army and the fear that would be the Soviet Union who invades Japan and put
a red flag in the emperor's palace (you know uncle Joe was less fearful of soldiers' losses
than the americans counterpart).
The statement by the Iranian government regarding the measure reads:
"The Islamic Republic of Iran, in the fifth step in reducing its commitments, discards the
last key component of its limitations in the JCPOA, which is the "limit on the number of
centrifuges."
As such, the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear program no longer faces any operational
restrictions, including enrichment capacity, percentage of enrichment, amount of enriched
material, and research and development.
From here on, Iran's nuclear program will be developed solely based on its technical
needs.
If the sanctions are lifted and Iran benefits from its interests enshrined in the JCPOA,
the Islamic Republic is ready to return to its commitments.
Iran's cooperation with the IAEA will continue as before.
With reference to Iran's defense capability, it has been noted elsewhere that Iran purchased
the Russian S500 system which is currently being rolled out. Inquiring minds would predict
that delivery is accelerated. Also, Iraq was considering the S 400 system and, again this
could be predicted to be an unpublished immediate decision. Looks like Erdogan was right to
stand his ground regarding the S400s.
Discussions appear to assume that Iran is relatively isolated politically. Perhaps
forgetting that they are allied in a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China, are an
applicant for the Shanghai Cooperative Association and a dialogue partner with the BRICS.
This covers considerable ground geostratically with players who are reflective, disciplined
and play a long game in attaining their goals. More probably than not engaged in dialogues
which are never revealed in media voices. Retaliation and revenge will be international,
ranging far beyond the middle east.
Posted by: Jose Garcia | Jan 5 2020 18:56 utc | 84
An election campaign with US soldiers getting killed by Iranian proxies with a
decentralized command structure? With a big explosion in October? Considering a "surge"
AGAIN?
As reported by krollchem @ 67 and by b in this and the following post, the involvement of
Trump directly in premeditated murder cannot be absolved, and the circumstances are abhorrent
to any patriotic American citizen. May God have mercy on the souls of the peace makers, for
they shall be called the sons of God.
I take the Iraqi Prime Minister at his word, and reassert the need for Trump and his
administration to be impeached on treasonous grounds. Where that will lead in terms of the
rest of the US government I cannot say but VP Pence is also impeachable here, so it is
difficult to see who is least culpable in this. It may mean that there is need for a
provisional government to be put in place - not party organized. If impeachment proceeds
apace as it should, behind the scenes such a people's approved peaceful citizens
coalition needs to be considered. This cannot stand as official US government policy. It is
heinous.
I too, as forward @ 24 has done, sent prayers for the souls of the departed Iran general
as well as his friend from Iraq and their companions this morning in my home chapel. It is
the Sunday before Christmas, old calendar. May the Lord bring them and so many others before
them to a place where the just repose.
The empire feeling it necessary to burn its assets like our resident bunny's credibility by
forcing the spin control beyond its limit is an indication of desperation (thank you bevin
@89 for bringing attention to that)
We can take pleasure from circumstances spinning out of the evil empire's control, but
keep in mind that means the empire's behavior will become more desperate and irrational the
further control slips from its grasp. More irrational and psychotic behavior from the empire
puts all of humanity in danger. It also makes analysis of that behavior more of a
challenge.
I fear oldhippie @71 might be correct. Even if Iran does nothing, the empire's psychotic
delusions are now so intense that America may lash out spastically anyway.
This is an interesting post which outlines the complexity of such situation and unpredictable
development of events after the initial crime
Notable quotes:
"... America's naive belief in the miracle of the assassination fantasy, especially when applied in the Middle East, reminds me of an Alzheimer's patient who believes in magic beans but fails to remember that the beans never sprout. We keep on planting the same seed and look anxiously for a beanstalk that never sprouts. ..."
"... We were no longer "peacekeepers." We chose sides and were fighting against Palestinians and Shia and, indirectly, Iran. A hotbed of military activity was the Hezbollah bases in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The recently deceased Soleimani, along with the members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), trained and equipped Hezbollah to battle the Christian controlled government in Beirut. ..."
"... We justify/excuse our act because Suleimani was really, really bad. Of course, we have trouble precisely defining the line that someone must cross in order to be "really, really bad." There are many instances in our history where we embraced really, really bad people (Joseph Stalin comes to mind) in order to pursue a goal important to us. Kim Jong Un, who also is responsible for the death of at least one innocent American, is another suspected bad guy who has gotten the pass to sit with President Trump rather than take a Hell Fire up the caboose. ..."
"... This latest strike is likely to come back to haunt us. We should not be surprised in the future if other countries, such as Russia and China, embrace our new doctrine of assassinating people we say are "imminent" threats. I used to believe that our moral authority counted for something. I no longer believe that to be true. I remain eager to be proven wrong, but if history is any guide, we have not learned the lessons we need to in order to create a better future. ..."
America's naive belief in the
miracle of the assassination fantasy, especially when applied in the Middle East, reminds me of
an Alzheimer's patient who believes in magic beans but fails to remember that the beans never
sprout. We keep on planting the same seed and look anxiously for a beanstalk that never
sprouts.
Killing Qassem Soleimani is the latest meaningless chapter in this blood soaked narrative of
revenge and retribution against a "bad" guy. Killing a "bad" guy makes us feel proud and
provides the emotional equivalent of a sugar rush. But there is no compelling evidence that
these killings actually advance the cause of peace or coerce the other bad guys into hiding in
a cave and praying that we go away.
Let me take you for a walk down memory lane. Let's start in Beirut in 1982--that's 38 years
ago. In other words, if you are younger than 45 this is likely to be new to you. The United
States during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan decided to send troops to Lebanon in late 1982 in
order to help "calm" a civil war. In June 1982, the Israel Defense Forces invaded Lebanon with
the intention of rooting out the PLO. The next two months witnessed furious battles in West
Beirut. Despite the raging civil war, the Lebanese held a Presidential election in August 1982
and Bachir Gemayel emerged the victor. Gemayel was famous in Lebanon for leading the most
powerful militia in Lebanon, which ferociously and successfully battled the Palestine
Liberation Organization and the Syrian Army. But his victory was short-lived. On 14 September a
bomb exploded in his Beirut
Phalange headquarters, killing Gemayel along with 26 others.
Two days later, Gemayel's party took revenge in the in the Sabra neighborhood and the
adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, where several thousand Palestinians and
Lebanese Shiites lived. That massacre left between 500 and 3500 dead. The killing took place as
Israeli forces stood by and observed. The Israelis did nothing to stop the murder of women and
children.
That event created a deep thirst among both Palestinian and Shia leaders for revenge and the
war in Lebanon intensified. About a week after the massacre in Sabra and Shatila, the U.S. 32nd
Marine Amphibious Unit arrived in Beirut as part of a multinational "peacekeeping" force. But
instead of keeping the peace, U.S. troops fought on the side of Gemayel's Phalange party.
One of the targets for U.S. naval gunfire were Syrian backed forces fighting on behalf of
Palestinians and Shias .
Two United States Navy ships off Beirut fired dozens of shells today in support of Lebanese
Army units defending the town of Suk al Gharb on a ridge overlooking Beirut. It was the first
direct military support of the Lebanese Army by United States forces.
The cruiser Virginia and the destroyer John Rodgers, both guided missile warships, moved to
within nearly a mile of shore to fire five-inch shells at Syrian-backed Druse militiamen and
Palestinian guerrillas who were attacking army positions.
We were no longer "peacekeepers." We chose sides and were fighting against Palestinians and
Shia and, indirectly, Iran. A hotbed of military activity was the Hezbollah bases in the
Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley in Lebanon. The recently deceased Soleimani, along with the
members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), trained and equipped Hezbollah to
battle the Christian controlled government in Beirut.
Reagan's decision to fight against the Iranian supported forces had tragic consequences.
In April of 1983, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was virtually destroyed by a truck bomb.
On April 18, 1983, a suicide bomber detonated a one-half-ton pickup truck laden with
2,000 pounds of TNT near the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 63 people,
including 17 Americans. It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission to date, and
changed the way the U.S. Department of State secured its resources and executed its missions
overseas.
At 6:22 on Sunday morning Oct. 23, 1983, a 19-ton yellow Mercedes stake-bed truck entered
a public parking lot at the heart of Beirut International Airport. The lot was adjacent to the
headquarters of the U.S. 8th Marine Regiment's 1st Battalion, where some 350 American service
members lay asleep in a four-story concrete aviation administration building that had been
successively occupied by various combatants in the ongoing Lebanese Civil War. . . .
Sergeant of the guard Stephen Russell was alone at his sandbag-and-plywood post at the
front of the building but facing inside. Hearing a revving engine, he turned to see the
Mercedes truck barreling straight toward him. He instinctively bolted through the lobby toward
the building's rear entrance, repeatedly yelling, "Hit the deck! Hit the deck!" It was futile
gesture, given that nearly everyone was still asleep. As Russell dashed out the rear entrance,
he looked over his shoulder and saw the truck slam through his post, smash through the entrance
and come to a halt in the midst of the lobby. After an ominous pause of a second or two, the
truck erupted in a massive explosion -- so powerful that it lifted the building in the air,
shearing off its steel-reinforced concrete support columns (each 15 feet in circumference) and
collapsing the structure. Crushed to death within the resulting mountain of rubble were 241
U.S. military personnel -- 220 Marines, 18 Navy sailors and three Army soldiers. More than 100
others were injured. It was worst single-day death toll for the Marines since the World War II
Battle of Iwo Jima.
Looking back at these events with the benefit of 37 years of experience, we can see that
assassinations by both sides (U.S. and Iran) did little to create an unambiguous victory or
achieve peace.
Hezbollah also employed another tactic that limited the military response of the United
States--hostage taking. Between 1982 and 1992, elements of Hezbollah in direct contact with
Iran's Revolutionary Guard kidnapped 104 foreign hostages . The most
notable of these were the CIA Chief of Station in Beirut, William Buckley, and Marine Lt
Colonel Rich Higgins (Higgins was later promoted to Colonel while in captivity). Buckley was
nabbed on 16 March 1984 and Higgins on February 17, 1988, while serving as the Chief, Observer
Group Lebanon and Senior Military Observer, United Nations Military Observer Group, United
Nations Truce Supervision Organization. Both men were executed by their Hezbollah captors.
None of this stopped the cycle of violence. In February 1992, Israeli forces launched a raid
into southern Lebanon and "assassinated" Sayyed Abbas Mussawi, Hezbollah's secretary general,
had led a commemoration marking the eighth anniversary of the assassination of Sheikh Ragheb
Harb. (Nicholas Blanford. "Warriors of God."
https://books.apple.com/us/book/warriors-of-god/id422547646)
Then we have Imad Mughniyeh, the founding member of Lebanon's Islamic Jihad Organization and
number two in Hezbollah's leadership. He was believed to be responsible for bombing the Marine
barracks in Beirut, two US embassy bombings, and the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners in
Lebanon in the 1982-1992 period. He also was indicted in Argentina for his alleged role in the
1992 Israeli embassy attack in Buenos Aires.
In February 2008, Mughniyeh was killed on the night of the 12th by a car bomb in Damascus,
Syria, which was planned in a joint operation by the CIA and Mossad.
It is worth nothing that Hezbollah and Iran dramatically shifted after 1995 from the
retaliatory terrorist strikes that were their calling card during the 1980s. As the Shias
carried out fewer terrorist attacks, Sunnis, principally Osama Bin Laden, ratcheted up
attacks--the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the coordinated bombings of U.S Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000. There is
controversy surrounding who to blame for the bombing of the US military based in Dharan, Saudi
Arabia in 1995. The FBI concluded it was Hezbollah and blamed Mugniyeh. But other intelligence
pointed to Al Qaeda.
Since the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the United States has done a lot of killing of
terrorists, real and imagined. Yet, the threat of terrorism has not been erased.
Before we get too excited about the effectiveness of assassination, it would be useful to
recall the dismal record of this method during the last 38 years. It has not made the world
safer or more stable.
The killing of Suleimani is likely to put Iran back in the business of attacking our
embassies and military installations. I also believe kidnapping of Americans will be back in
vogue. And these actions, as in the past, will be met with further U.S. retaliation and the
cycle of violence will continue to spin furiously.
There is another effect now that the United States has openly embraced the "Jamal Khashoggi
solution." The Saudis decreed Khashoggi a "bad" man and a terrorist threat. To their way of
thinking that gave them the excuse to chop him up on the sovereign soil of another country. In
this case, Turkey. We have now basically done the very thing that we condemned the Saudis for.
Yes, I know, Khashoggi was a journalist and Soleimani was a "terrorist." But the Saudis saw a
terrorist. Consider this as a corollary to the saying, "beauty is in the eye of the
beholder."
We justify/excuse our act because Suleimani was really, really bad. Of course, we have
trouble precisely defining the line that someone must cross in order to be "really, really
bad." There are many instances in our history where we embraced really, really bad people
(Joseph Stalin comes to mind) in order to pursue a goal important to us. Kim Jong Un, who also
is responsible for the death of at least one innocent American, is another suspected bad guy
who has gotten the pass to sit with President Trump rather than take a Hell Fire up the
caboose.
This latest strike is likely to come back to haunt us. We should not be surprised in the
future if other countries, such as Russia and China, embrace our new doctrine of assassinating
people we say are "imminent" threats. I used to believe that our moral authority counted for
something. I no longer believe that to be true. I remain eager to be proven wrong, but if
history is any guide, we have not learned the lessons we need to in order to create a better
future.
The number 52 refers to the hostages in Iran at the beginning of the revolution. Trump has
always used that to rally his idiotic base and sell any lemon he can think of in that
context. How dare they take "Americans" as hostages, is the attitude of this moron? And in
his childish brain he wants revenge for what happened 40 hears ago.
When the Iranian students took them hostage, it was a tense and chaotic time and nobody
knew who was in charge, including "the people in charge". But they kept them, they housed
them and fed them in a house arrest setting. Pretty much treated them as a guests, albeit
unwanted guests. Youtube is full of videos of ordinary Iranians bringing them food and books
and pleading with the guards to treat them well.
Unlike us, who we have a different take on hostages and "guests". We send them to the
Caribbean, give them orange jump suits, water board them, play loud heavy metal music 16
hours a day and keep them without food., without charge and without trial.
And in the end, these so called 52 hostages were used as a political pun by Jim Baker and
his team for the election of Reagan and he made sure they were not released until Carter had
been defeated and released on the day of inauguration. How convenient and coincidental.
Unfortunately, the sheep who comprise the bulk of the 30% Trump base, and perhaps many
more on the democratic side, will always buy this lemon with their warped sense of
patriotism.
This
summary by sputniknews (RIA novosti) of the US in Iraq since about 2011 is very concise
but decent and could be perfect for anyone in the US and elsewhere who doesn't know or
understand the situation.
So the Sunni's are going to be ticked off Trump took on Iran?
The Sunni man-in-the-street is much more likely to set aside his differences with the
Shi'a, than to takes sides with the kufar .
Think of it this way: if China invaded the US, which side would most Canadians
support?
Also, think about close-to-theatre demographics.
Iraq will be the US military 'boots on the ground' staging area in any conventional war
against Iran. Shi'a opinion will make all the difference.
Land warfare is significantly harder if your primary staging area is knee-deep in people
who are very sympathetic to the other side.
So consider
2/3rds of the Iraqi Muslim population are Shi'ite . They are concentrated in the
South-East of Iraq. Shi'a are a majority of the population of Baghdad, where the decent-sized
airports are (ignore USAB Ayn Al Asad: landing US forces in the middle of Iraq and driving
all the way to the Iranian border would be retarded).
So Baghdad would become a very (ahem) problematic staging area – especially
if Sistani and Sadr start to rile up the Shia (and Sadr has been doing that since Soleimani's
assassination).
The Sunni are split roughly 50/50 between Arabs and Kurds; the Kurds have no strong
affection for the Arabs, Sunni or otherwise.
So the only place the US has a relatively high proportion of friendlies (even assuming no
fraternity-of-convenience between Iraqiyyun and Jazirani ) is in Iraqi
Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdistan borders Iran sounds like a plan!
Well
You might look at a Google Map and think – " Well, all the Kurds are in the
North-East, so the US could just stage from Erbil or Kirkuk and have a straight shot to
TeheranU!S!A!!U!S!A! ".
Meanwhile there are people who have DEMs of the region (so can say things about
topography), and who understand how hard it is to transport men, WATER, artillery and armour
over mountains – even if you own the airspace outright (which the US won't, in any
engagement with Iran).
Think " Korengal ", but with an opponent with 21st century weapons and near-peer
air defences.
The effect of the latter on air-cav alone, should make people think really hard:
helicopters are critical in infil/exfil, medevac, resupply and operational overwatch –
and they are as slow as fuck and have pissweak countermeasures. 1Cav hasn't gone up against a
peer opponent since Korea.
.
Topologically The US has one logistically (almost-)non-suicidal option for 'boots on the
ground' invasion of Iran: everybody knows that.
That is why the US will resort to Hermann Göring fag-tardery, i.e., trying to rely on
air superiority to win a ground war.
For these reasons, the US will either lose or will use nuclear weapons – which will
hand Russia and China a moral victory, because it will permanently destroy US
self-hagiography about freedom and so forth.
.
And if the US attacks Iran, how long do you think it would take for a supertanker to be
sunk in the Straits?
Trick question – the correct response is " Which Straits? Hormuz or
Malacca ?"
The US has shown it can't protect Malacca without crashing into shipping: in a recent
display of historic comedic irony, the USS John McCain (named after Hanoi
Songbird 's Dad), showed itself to be as incompetent as the Songbird hisself, who
killed more US seamen than the Viet Cong.
And it might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be the long-awaited
beginning of the end of America's imperial ambitions.
One must ask; Is the US presence in the ME really because of imperial ambition? At least
if it is I can understand. I mean, it's bad but that's what nations have done for centuries.
Or is America in the ME at Israel's insistence? Hers's the roll: Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq
2003, Libya in 2011, Syria shortly after that; not one of these countries threatened America,
not one. Yet we invaded these nations, and brutally murdered Qadhaffi and Hussain, and we did
it all based on lies dreamed up by Jewish dual citizens who call themselves American patriots
but who are really agents of Israel.
I'm not using the term neocons any longer, as the term is a lie, a mask. They are just a
large group of powerful dual citizen Jews many descended from Trotskyites that immigrated
from Russia in the 1930s. They hide their real intentions. And what are those intentions? To
protect Israel by scaring the American public through their propaganda organ known as the
MSM, scaring us into allowing a Trillion dollar military budget, and these forever wars. And
anyone who questions them is an anti-Semite. And, that's right from the mouth of Nathan
Perlmutter in his essay; "The Real Anti-Semite In America"
These parasitic dual citizen Jews and their Washington Think Tanks have to go. They are
liars and cowards who will fight for Israel to the last drop of blood spills from the last
American soldier. Trump knowingly, or not, is being used by these bastards. Today he's a
traitor and a liar too. Iran poses no threat to America. None Zilch
Rome was imperialist, Spain, England yes, but the US doesn't fit the definition. What does
fit is 'hired gun'. Right? So, who hired the USA? And, are they paying, or are they somehow
threatening us or blackmailing us?
"... After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US used the Northern Alliance to establish a foothold in Afghanistan and eventually drive the Taliban from power. Soleimani played a major role behind the scenes helping make the US-Northern Alliance partnership viable, including providing operational and intelligence support. ..."
"... "an Axis of Evil" ..."
"... The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created another opportunity for Iranian-American cooperation, which the US promptly fumbled. While Iran had no desire for increased American military presence in the region, it found common cause with the US in removing its archenemy, Saddam Hussein, from power. ..."
"... Likewise, when the Islamic State erupted on the scene in 2014, it was Soleimani, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, who helped organize and equip various Shi'a militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Force. Soleimani went on to direct the PMF in a series of bloody battles that helped turn the tide against the Islamic State well before the US became decisively engaged in the fighting. Soleimani played a defining role in shaping the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11, positioning Iran to become a major power in the region, if not the major power. ..."
"... Soleimani's actions in accomplishing this outcome, however, were not part of a master Iranian plan for regional domination, but rather part and parcel of Iran's ability to react effectively to the mistakes made by the United States ..."
"... "maximum pressure" ..."
"... Murdered, Soleimani is transformed into a martyr-hero whose exploits will motivate those who seek to replicate them against an American foe void of the kind of self-constraint and wisdom born of experience. ..."
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. He served in the Soviet Union
as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf's staff during the Gulf
War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. The US is unprepared for the consequences of
its assassination of Qassem Soleimani, if only because it knows nothing about the reality of
the man it murdered, and can't gauge the impact of his death on Iran or the Middle East. Qassem
Soleimani, an Iranian military commander whose paramilitary organization, known as the Quds
Force, helped position Iran as a modern regional power, was assassinated on January 3, 2020, on
order of the President of the United States, Donald Trump. American political leaders of both
major parties have been united in their description of Soleimani as an evil man whose death
should be celebrated, even while the consequences of his demise remain unknown.
The celebration of Soleimani's death, however, is born of an ignorance regarding the events
and actions that shaped the work he directed, and which defined the world in which he operated.
While the US has cast Soleimani as a byproduct of Iran's malign intent in the Middle East, the
reality is much starker: Soleimani is the direct result of America's irresponsibly aggressive
policies. In a world defined by cause-effect relationships, the link between Soleimani and the
United States is undeniable.
... ... ...
While senior Iranian military leadership advocated a massive punitive
expedition into western Afghanistan, Soleimani advised a more constrained response, with his
Quds Force providing training and material support to the Northern Alliance, an umbrella group
of forces opposed to the Taliban. Soleimani personally directed this effort, transforming the
Northern Alliance into an effective fighting force.
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US used the Northern Alliance to establish a
foothold in Afghanistan and eventually drive the Taliban from power. Soleimani played a major
role behind the scenes helping make the US-Northern Alliance partnership viable, including
providing operational and intelligence support.
The US-Iranian cooperation was short-lived; President Bush's designation of Iran as being
part of "an Axis of Evil" caused Iran to terminate its cooperation with the
Americans.
Training the anti-US Iraq rebels
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 created another opportunity for Iranian-American
cooperation, which the US promptly fumbled. While Iran had no desire for increased American
military presence in the region, it found common cause with the US in removing its archenemy,
Saddam Hussein, from power.
... ... ...
Likewise, when the Islamic State erupted on the scene in 2014, it was
Soleimani, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, who helped organize and equip various
Shi'a militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Force. Soleimani went on to
direct the PMF in a series of bloody battles that helped turn the tide against the Islamic
State well before the US became decisively engaged in the fighting. Soleimani played a defining
role in shaping the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11, positioning Iran to become a major
power in the region, if not the major power.
Soleimani's actions in accomplishing this outcome, however, were not part of a master
Iranian plan for regional domination, but rather part and parcel of Iran's ability to react
effectively to the mistakes made by the United States and its allies in implementing
policies of aggression in the region.
In the aftermath of the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Agreement in 2018, and the
subsequent implementation of the so-called "maximum pressure" campaign of economic
sanctions and geo-political containment undertaken by the United States, Soleimani cautioned
President Trump against embarking down a path toward confrontation.
... ... ...
Murdered, Soleimani is transformed into a martyr-hero whose exploits will motivate those
who seek to replicate them against an American foe void of the kind of self-constraint and
wisdom born of experience.
Far from making the Middle East and the world a safer place to live and work, President
Trump's precipitous assassination of Qassem Soleimani has condemned yet another generation to
suffer the tragic consequences of American overreach in the post-9/11 era.
"... Iraq's parliament passed a resolution, urged by its caretaker prime minister, calling for the removal of foreign troops from the country, after the US' assassination of a top Iranian general and a commander of an Iraqi militia. The non-binding resolution instructs the government to cancel a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition, which was issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the jihadists and can close its airspace to coalition aircraft. ..."
"... Speaking at an emergency parliament session on Sunday, Iraq's caretaker PM Adil Abdul Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation. ..."
"... Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stated in a letter that Iraq should go further and shut down the US embassy. ..."
Iraq's parliament passed a resolution, urged by its caretaker prime minister, calling for
the removal of foreign troops from the country, after the US' assassination of a top Iranian
general and a commander of an Iraqi militia. The non-binding resolution instructs the
government to cancel a request for military assistance from the US-led coalition, which was
issued in response to the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). With IS supposedly
defeated, Iraq will not need foreign troops to fight the jihadists and can close its airspace
to coalition aircraft.
The Iraqi government must work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil
and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason.
According to Press TV, some Western military presence may remain for training purposes. The
resolution says Iraqi military leadership has to report the number of foreign instructors that
are necessary for Iraqi national security.
At the same time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had turned to the UN Security
Council with complaints about US violations of its sovereignty.
Speaking at an emergency parliament session on Sunday, Iraq's caretaker PM Adil Abdul
Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes
before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to
continue with the operation.
... ... ...
Influential Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stated in a letter that Iraq should
go further and shut down the US embassy.
Some wondeer whether Isreal will exist in 25-50 year and it might be better emigrants from
Ukraine to move back.
Notable quotes:
"... John Kashis on CNN speaking from Ohio today reminded the host Wolf Blitzer that US under Trump scuttled and undermined a potential thaw in relations between US and Iran with Japan 's Abe mediating the contacts and subsequent meeting despite initially agreeing . Not unbelievable given what was done to NK. by Bolton gang . ..."
"... As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by Israeli agenda, ..."
@BLJohn
Kashis on CNN speaking from Ohio today reminded the host Wolf Blitzer that US under Trump
scuttled and undermined a potential thaw in relations between US and Iran with Japan 's Abe
mediating the contacts and subsequent meeting despite initially agreeing . Not unbelievable
given what was done to NK. by Bolton gang .
No Trump was not serious He thought he could billow smoke and scare Iranian like he
thought he could Venezuela and NK . Around this time last year this mean man bought and
raised by Zionists was exactly doing same thing to NK hoping they would fold.
Guess what Iran may not have nukes But it wont fold. Trump is psychopath a bully otherwise
he would have raised hell against Israel and against the overt bribing of him by Adelshon.
That is his character . He puffs and huffs . He knows sometimes those puffs might sway a reed
but he doesn't know it won't break or uproot them .
Trump is not honest even by his own standard .Patriotism or White nationalism is the cloak
he wears to hide this defect.
As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven
by Israeli agenda,
In fact, this crime and prompt approval of it by Bibi hurt Israeli interests a lot. This
was Bibi's agenda. Bibi hopes that a war with Iran would save him from a well-deserved prison
sentence. I hope not. He deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his miserable life.
"... So far we have aggression by sending of armed bands and irregulars; armed attack on the civilian population; a sneak attack in breach of the Convention relative to the Opening of Hostilities; illegal war propaganda, to wit, fabricated chemical weapons attacks; and murder, a war crime in universal jurisdiction. ..."
"... Now we have one more compounding war crime: perfidy. Using the pretext of parley for ambush. ..."
Add one more war crime to the pile for when the SCO pulls Gina out of the fake rock and puts
her in the glass cage at Nuremberg II.
So far we have aggression by sending of armed bands and irregulars; armed attack on the
civilian population; a sneak attack in breach of the Convention relative to the Opening of
Hostilities; illegal war propaganda, to wit, fabricated chemical weapons attacks; and murder,
a war crime in universal jurisdiction.
Now we have one more compounding war crime: perfidy. Using the pretext of parley for
ambush.
When it's time to decapitate the CIA regime, the victors can really clean house. The US
used the purported Pearl Harbor sneak attack as legal justification for nuking Japan. That's
a handy precedent to have. No doubt there are some decent human beings inside the beltway,
but if Russia or China turn it into a sinkhole of molten basalt, no one will complain. The
USG's a cancer on the world. They've got to be put down like rabid dogs.
Most of the attention in this recent attack by a US drone at the Baghdad Airport has been on
it killing Iranian Quds Force commander, Qasim (Qassem) Solmaini (Suleimani), supposedly
plotting an "imminent" attack on Americans as he flew a commercial airliner to Iraq at the
invitation of its government and passed through passport control.
But much less attention has been paid to the killing in that attack of Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis, commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and reportedly an officer in
the Iraqi military, as well as being, according to Juan Cole, a Yazidi Kurd, although the PMF
is identified as being a Shia militia allied with Iran.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no
Iraqi officials in this group; it was supposedly "clean." But there was al-Muhandis, with his
PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in the Iraqi parliament.
The often anti-Iranian Shia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined with Fath and other groups
to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
It might be good for them to go, although Trump has just sent in 3,500 more Marines to
protect the US embassy that came under attack and protests after an earlier US attack on
pro-Iranian militias.
As an American who lives abroad, this is just a repainting of the target I've had on my back
for decades, compliments of people who live behind big defence perimeters and are surrounded
by teams of bodyguards.
Many lies (of course) and disinformation, but also clear policy.
Example: "Frankly, this war kicked off – people talk about the war. This war kicked
off when the JCPOA was entered into. It told the Iranians that they had free rein to develop
a Shia crescent that extended from Yemen to Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon, surrounding our
ally, Israel, and threatening American lives as well."
Pompeo refers to being at war with Iran. There has been no declaration of war by either
side.
The so-called Shia crescent is a major regional country developing regional allies,
regardless of the religous makeup of the various countries referred to. The implication is
that USA government will dictate the foreign policy of Middle East countries from Romes
headquarters 7,000 miles away.
It underscore that the policy is based on fear that Israel will be under military pressure
once regional countries have advanced missile systems, presuming that the foreign policy of
Iran is to militarily attack Israel.
USA knows this won't happen, but the occupied territories may well be sent arms by Iran.
Taking, in other words, a page from the USA government playbook, as it does exactly the same
thing. Evidence exhibit #1 = arms to so-called 'opposition' and to religous criminals in
Syria.
Israel is reaching a demographic (and water) crisis. It has no choice but to obey
International law and settle with the Arab population. It has been intransigent,
confrontational and obstructive for years. Now, it will be forcede to negotiate by the
realities of passing time.
Israel would do well to play fair and enter a genuine negotiation on fair terms (not a
one-sided diktat).
Iran would do well to abandon its 'maximum pressure' policy on Israel, recognize its right
to exist behind the Security Council agreed borders, and actively work diplomatically to
arrive at a fair solution.
Another example:
"In October of this year, George, the JCPOA, that nuclear deal, will permit arms trade with
Iran. That's crazy. That's crazy – have missiles and systems – high-end systems,
from China and Russia in Iran lawfully in October."
Pompeo is playing the definition game: 'our missiles = good. Your missiles = bad'.
Every country has a right to defend itself, no exceptions.
Which country has illegally invaded a sovereign country in the Middle East?
Which country illegally bombed the most developed country of the Middle East to a state of
infrastructural destitution?
So the USA foreign policy, it seems, is to prohibit sovereign Iran from developing any
means of defending itself with modern weaponry. Perhaps they will be 'allowed' to have
slingshots to defend themselves against USA government aggression.
The USA will have to change its foreign policy to accomodate new realities in the Middle
East. It's so-called allies, its Middle East NATO is a big fail. No suprise.
If it doesn't want to embrace the Iranian plan for all Gulf members to unites to police
the Gulf, maybe it should join the long-standing Russian effort for a multi-sided
consensus-driven Gulf peace plan.
"... Iran had every right not to renegotiate with US . Deal was deal. Trump could have left and followed the agreements . Instead his masters donors and his Jewish advisers made it sure that they could do through him what they all along wanted -- - ,strangling Iran through more sanctions. . ..."
@BLIran had
every right not to renegotiate with US . Deal was deal. Trump could have left and followed
the agreements . Instead his masters donors and his Jewish advisers made it sure that they
could do through him what they all along wanted -- - ,strangling Iran through more sanctions.
.
Iran didn't provoke unless killing the rebels and ISIS supported by Israel US Saud are
considered as acts of provocations . Unless Iran demanding implementation of JOPA was act of
defiance .
The lies about Iran killing 600 have been laid bare by Scott Horton in http://www.antiwar.com
CNN William Cohen is saying false flag and blamed enough Iran
Most probably Pompeo was cheating and deceived Trump to get the approval of this asssasination. now with his head on the block he
is trying to avoid the responsibility.
Notable quotes:
"... Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough. ..."
"... Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides answers on "how this decision was reached ... then this move is questionable , to say the least." ..."
"... "I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives are at stake right now." ..."
"... the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations, which have led to U.S. deaths . ..."
Democrats on Sunday demanded answers about the
killing of top Iranian
Gen.
Qassem Soleimani as tensions mounted with Iran and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that the United States had faced an
imminent threat.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC's "This Week" that he worried that President Donald Trump's decision
"will get us into what he calls
another
endless war in the Middle East ." He called for Congress to "assert" its authority and prevent Trump from "either bumbling or
impulsively getting us into a major war."
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such
a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough.
"I think we learned the hard way ... in the Iraq War that administrations sometimes
manipulate
and cherry-pick intelligence to further their political goals," he said.
"That's what got us into the Iraq War. There was no WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he said. "I'm saying that they have
an obligation to present the evidence."
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides
answers on "how this decision was reached ... then
this move is questionable
, to say the least."
"I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives
are at stake right now."
The fraught relationship with Iran has significantly deteriorated in the days since Soleimani's death, which came days after rioters
sought to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and a U.S. contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base
in Kirkuk.
The Defense Department said Soleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force, who was accused of controlling
Iranian-linked proxy militias across the Middle East, orchestrated the attacks on bases in Iraq of the U.S.-led coalition fighting
the Islamic State militant group, including the strike that killed the U.S. contractor. In addition, the Defense Department said
Soleimani approved attacks on the embassy compound in Baghdad.
"
We
took action last night to stop a war ," Trump said Friday in a televised address, referring to the airstrike that killed Soleimani.
"We did not take action to start a war."
But the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years
of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations,
which have led to U.S. deaths .
Iran and its allies vowed to retaliate for the general's death, and Trump has since escalated his language in response.
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Rival Shi'ite political leaders on Friday called for American troops to be expelled from Iraq
after a U.S. air strike in Baghdad killed a senior Iranian general, in an unusual show of
unity among factions that have squabbled for months.
How can the neocons and chickenhawks justify results like this No, Russia nd China are not
next Because they have nukes ad the means to deliver them. Trump can't even stop
groveling to North Korea.
"... As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by Israeli agenda, it is creating popular unity in Iran despite all the recent socio-economic turmoil, political unity in Iraq despite the faction fractures, provides the framework for expelling US forces from Iraq, strengthens the Shia Crescent, brings together Shia and Sunni in all of the Muslim world, will provide the opportunity for some traditional US allies (Germany, France) to devise a more independent foreign policy, and the list of unintended consequences goes on. ..."
"... Iran is not like the US, who let Israel murder its citizens in total impunity during 9/11; they will use this adverse event to re-shape the region at their advantage. ..."
@Colin Wright
The way President Trump's ME policy is seen by the people of the region (as summarised by
Hassan Nasrallah) is that his strategies led to utter and complete failure.
– He repudiated the JCPOA and applied sanctions, requiring Iran to beg for
negotiations; they completely ignored him.
– Lebanon's Hezbollah has tremendously improved their military capabilities against the
demented racist state North of Gaza.
– Iraq is breaking free.
– The US-led coalition has lost the war on Syria.
– President Trump has recently made a political somersault and was obliged to initiate
talks with the Talibans, talks he initially repudiated.
– He just further lost credibility by abandoning the US Kurd allies to be slaughtered
by Erdogan.
– The wretched, impoverished, powerless Palestinians have superbly ignored his "Deal of
the Century"; they did not even attend the meetings.
If this is success, I wonder how failure looks like.
As for the murder of the late Solaimani, which I have no doubt was primarily driven by
Israeli agenda, it is creating popular unity in Iran despite all the recent socio-economic
turmoil, political unity in Iraq despite the faction fractures, provides the framework for
expelling US forces from Iraq, strengthens the Shia Crescent, brings together Shia and Sunni
in all of the Muslim world, will provide the opportunity for some traditional US allies
(Germany, France) to devise a more independent foreign policy, and the list of unintended
consequences goes on.
Only short-sighted Hasbara trolsl can think that the Solaimani murder is a success.
Iran is not like the US, who let Israel murder its citizens in total impunity during 9/11;
they will use this adverse event to re-shape the region at their advantage.
Israel is a short-sighted, greedy poker player; Iran is a profound, sophisticated chess
player who will win the long game.
Not only Mossad but probably many others would like to see a suicide bomber blow himself
up somewhere in the US killing alot of people. That makes it difficult to figure out who
did it and maybe impossible to figure it out. It would be a mess.
But they could always find an un-scorched Iranian passport in mint condition among the
debris of the explosion.
@ChuckOrloski
At the time I thought that it might be justified, if Al Qaida actually did 9/11. Now I know
that Al Qaida was and is a CIA operation and have my doubts regarding its involvement in
9/11.
Even if it was, that was on direct orders of its American handlers.
What's more, now I
know for sure that the US government spreads shameless lies, so you can't believe anything it
says. In fact, you can safely assume that everything it says is a lie and be right 99.9% of
the time.
So, I did not see it as a war crime back then, but I do now.
"... work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason ..."
"... Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized . ..."
"... The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation! ..."
First, let’s begin by a quick summary of what has taken place (note: this info is still coming in, so there might be corrections
once the official sources make their official statements).
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran
and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was
on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA .
The Iraqi Parliament has now voted on a resolution requiring the government to press Washington and its allies to withdraw
their troops from Iraq.
Iraq’s caretaker PM Adil Abdul Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes
before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
The Iraqi Parliament has also demanded that the Iraqi government must “ work to end the presence of any foreign troops
on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason “
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had turned to the UN Security Council with complaints about US violations of
its sovereignty .
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go
far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized
.
The Pentagon brass is now laying the responsibility for this monumental disaster on Trump (see
here ). The are now slowly waking up to this immense clusterbleep and don’t want to be held responsible for what is coming
next.
For the first time in the history of Iran, a Red Flag was hoisted over the Holy Dome Of Jamkaran Mosque , Iran. This indicates
that the blood of martyrs has been spilled and that a major battle will now happen . The text in the flag say s “ Oh Hussein we
ask for your help ” (u nofficial translation 1) or “ Rise up and avenge al-Husayn ” (unofficial translation 2)
The US has announced the deployment of 3’000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to Kuwait .
Finally, the Idiot-in-Chief tweeted the following message , probably to try to reassure his freaked out supporters: “
The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World!
If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and
without hesitation! “. Apparently, he still thinks that criminally overspending for 2nd rate military hardware is going to
yield victory…
Analysis
Well, my first though when reading these bullet points is that General Qasem Soleimani has already struck out at Uncle Shmuel
from beyond his grave . What we see here is an immense political disaster unfolding like a slow motion train wreck. Make no mistake,
this is not just a tactical "oopsie", but a major STRATEGIC disaster . Why?
For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA
(Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void.
Second, the US now has two options:
Fight and sink deep into a catastrophic quagmire or Withdraw from Iraq and lose any possibility to keep forces in Syria
Both of these are very bad because whatever option Uncle Shmuel chooses, he will lost whatever tiny level of credibility he has
left, even amongst his putative "allies" (like the KSA which will now be left nose to nose with a much more powerful Iran than ever
before).
The main problem with the current (and very provisional) outcome is that both the Israel Lobby and the Oil Lobby will now be absolutely
outraged and will demand that the US try to use military power to regime change both Iraq and Iran.
Needless to say, that ain't happening (only ignorant and incurable flag-wavers believe the silly claptrap about the US armed forces
being "THE BEST").
Furthermore, it is clear that by it's latest terrorist action the USA has now declared war on BOTH Iraq and Iran.
This is so important that I need to repeat it again:
The USA is now at war, de-facto and de-jure , with BOTH Iraq and Iran.
I hasten to add that the US is also at war with most of the Muslim world (and most definitely all Shias, including Hezbollah and
the Yemeni Houthis).
Next, I want to mention the increase in US troop numbers in the Middle-East. An additional 3'000 soldiers from the 82nd AB is
what would be needed to support evacuations and to provide a reserve force for the Marines already sent in. This is NOWHERE NEAR
the kind of troop numbers the US would need to fight a war with either Iraq or Iran.
Finally, there are some who think that the US will try to invade Iran. Well, with a commander in chief as narcissistically delusional
as Trump, I would never say "never" but, frankly, I don't think that anybody at the Pentagon would be willing to obey such an order.
So no, a ground invasion is not in the cards and, if it ever becomes an realistic option we would first see a massive increase in
the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not more (depending on the actual plan).
No, what the US will do if/when they attack Iran is what Israel did to Lebanon in 2006, but at a much larger scale. They will
begin by a huge number of airstrikes (missiles and aircraft) to hit:
Iranian air defenses Iranian command posts and Iranian civilian and military leaders Symbolic targets (like nuclear installations
and high visibility units like the IRGC) Iranian navy and coastal defenses Crucial civilian infrastructure (power plants, bridges,
hospitals, radio/TV stations, food storage, pharmaceutical installations, schools, historical monuments and, let's not forget that
one, foreign embassies of countries who support Iran). The way this will be justified will be the same as what was done to Serbia:
a "destruction of critical regime infrastructure" (what else is new?!)
Then, within about 24-48 hours the US President will go on air an announce to the world that it is "mission accomplished" and
that "THE BEST" military forces in the galaxy have taught a lesson to the "Mollahs". There will be dances in the streets of Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem (right until the moment the Iranian missiles will start dropping from the sky. At which point the dances will be replaced
by screams about a "2nd Hitler" and the "Holocaust").
Then all hell will break loose (I have discussed that so often in the past that I won't go into details here).
In conclusion, I want to mention something more personal about the people of the US.
Roughly speaking, there are two main groups which I observed during my many years of life in the USA.
Group one : is the TV-watching imbeciles who think that the talking heads on the idiot box actually share real knowledge and expertise.
As a result, their thinking goes along the following lines: " yeah, yeah, say what you want, but if the mollahs make a wrong move,
we will simply nuke them; a few neutron bombs will take care of these sand niggers ". And if asked about the ethics of this stance,
the usual answer is a " f**k them! they messed with the wrong guys, now they will get their asses kicked ".
Group two : is a much quieter group. It includes both people who see themselves as liberals and conservatives. They are totally
horrified and they feel a silent rage against the US political elites. Friends, there are A LOT of US Americans out there who are
truly horrified by what is done in their name and who feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it. I don't know about the young
soldiers who are now being sent to the Middle-East, but I know a lot of former servicemen who know the truth about war and about
THE BEST military in the history of the galaxy and they are also absolutely horrified.
I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong.
I am now signing off but I will try to update you here as soon as any important info comes in.
The Saker
UPDATE1 : according to the Russian website Colonel
Cassad , Moqtada al-Sadr has officially made the following demands to the Iraqi government:
Immediately break the cooperation agreement with the United States. Close the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Close all U.S. military bases
in Iraq. Criminalize any cooperation with the United States. To ensure the protection of Iraqi embassies. Officially boycott American
products.
Cassad (aka Boris Rozhin) also posted this excellent caricature:
UPDATE3 : al-Manar reports that two rockets have landed near the US embassy in Baghdad.
UPDATE4 :
Zerohedge
is reporting that Iranian state TV broadcasted an appeal made during the funeral procession in which a speaker said that each
Iranian ought to send one dollar per person (total 80'000'000 dollars) as a bounty for the killing of Donald Trump. I am trying to
get a confirmation from Iran about this.
UPDATE5 : Russian sources claim that all Iranian rocket forces have been put on combat alert.
UPDATE6 : the Russian heavy rocket cruiser "Marshal Ustinov" has cross the Bosphorus and has entered the Mediterranean.
The Essential Saker III: Chronicling The Tragedy, Farce And Collapse of the Empire in the Era of Mr MAGA
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Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire
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Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran
and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was
on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA.
If this is true, it makes America's murder of General Soleimani even more outrageous. This would be like the USA sending an
American regime official to some other country for a negotiation only to have him/her drone striked in the process!
America reveals its malign character as even more sick that even its opponents have thought possible.
Perhaps, Iran should request that Mike Pompeo come to Baghdad for a negotiation about General Soleimani 's murder and then
"bug splat" Pompeo's fat ass from a drone!
"For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA
(Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void."
-I actually read somewhere that the Iraqi government is just a caretaker government and even thought it voted to remove foreign
forces, it is not actually legally binding.
I'm no lawyer. I don't see why that would matter. If a caretaker government is presented with a crisis, why would it not have
the authority to act?
That said, It could be the line the US government chooses to use to insist its presence is still legal. If course the MSM will
repeat and repeat and make it seem real.
Couldn't agree more. When I read that my jaw dropped and I'm sure my eyes went huge. I just couldn't believe they could be that
stupid, or that immoral, that sunk in utter utter depravity. They truly are those who have not one shred of decency, and thus
have no way of recognising or understanding what decency is. Pure psychopath – an inability to grasp the emotions, values, and
world view of those who are normal. This truly is beyond the pale, and this above everything else will ensure the revenge the
heartbroken people of Iran are seeking. May God bless them.
The US Armed Forces do not need to be 'THE BEST". All they need is mountains of second rate ordinance to re-bury Iraq bury Iran
under rubble. They can then keep their forces in tightly fortified compounds and bomb the c**p out of any one who wants to 'steal
their oil', or any one who wants to 'steal the land promised by God to the Chosen People'. The U.S. has always previously been
limited in their avarice for destruction by their desire to be viewed as the 'good guy'. This limitation has now been stripped
away. There is now nothing to stop the AngloZionist entity except naked force in return.
"realistic option we would first see a massive increase in the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not
more (depending on the actual plan)."
Yes, but these are not part of a single force, many of these are more a target than a threat. Besides, they need to be concentrated
into a a few single forces to actually participate in an invasion.
The Saker
To understand troop size and relevance think along these lines. For every US front line soldier there will be 5 others in support
roles, logistics etc. So for every front line fighting Marine there will be 5 others who got him there and who support him in
his work. 10,000 front line fighting troops means 50,000 troops shipping out to the borders of Iran. I think perhaps you would
need 100,000 US front line troops for an invasion AND occupation (because we all know if they go in they aren't going to leave
quickly) We're talking about half a million US troops, this simply isn't going to happen for multiple reasons, not least they
need to amass at some form of base (probably Iraq – yeah right) maybe Kuwait? They'd just be a constant sitting target. Saker
is correct in that if this goes down it's going to be an air campaign (will the Iranians use the S300s they have?) and possibly
Navy supported. the Israelis will help out but in turn make themselves targets at home for rocket attacks. Again I can't see it
happening, it would take too long to arrange plus from the moment it kicks off every US base, individual is just a target to the
majority of anti US forces spread across the whole middle east. I expect back door diplomacy, probably to little effect, and a
ham fisted token blitz of cruise missiles and drone bombs at Iranian infrastructure, sadly this will not work for the Americans,
we will have a long running campaign on ME ground but also mass terrorist activity across the US and some of its allies. Its a
best guess scenario but if that plays out whatever happens to Iran this war will be another long running death by a 1000 cuts
for the US and will guarantee Trump does not get re-elected.
Whoever sold this to Trump (Bolton via Pompeo? Bibi?) has really lit the touch paper of ruin. Yes it stinks of Netanyahoo but
it also reaks of full strength neocon, Bolton style. Trump is dumb enough to fall for it and obviously did.
1. To read the Colonel Cassad website in English or any other language, just go to
https://translate.yandex.com/ and then paste in the Cassad URL, which
is given above but again, it's https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/
The really nice thing is that when you click on links, Yandex Translate automatically translates those links. Two problems, though.
1. For some unknown reason, Yandex always first translates Cassad as English-to-Russian, and then you have to click on a little
window near the top left, to again request Russian-to-English and then it translates everything fine. I do not experience this
problem when using Yandex on any other website. 2. Unlike what Benders-Lee intended when he invented the web browser, the "back
button" almost doesn't work on Yandex Translate. So always right-click to open links in a new tab.
2. The US could probably carry out a large number of air attacks, but the Iranian response would be to destroy all the Gulf
oil facilities AND everything worth bombing in Israel. This potential for offense is Iran's best defense, and, I think, the main
reason why there hasn't been a war. Iran's air defense missiles are probably more effective than the lying MSM will admit, and
might shoot down a large percentage of the humans and aluminum the US would throw at Iran, but it's a matter of attrition, and
Iran would suffer grave damage. We can't rule out that that might be the plan since the Empire is run by psychopaths. A US Army
elite training manual, from 2012 in Kansas, implied that by 2020, Europe would not be a major power. Perhaps they were thinking
that Europe would go out of business from a lack of Persian Gulf oil.
3. As for a ground war against Iran, I don't think the US or even the US with the former NATO coalition, would have any hope
and they know it. A real invasion force would require at least 250,000 troops, probably 500,000, maybe more. 80 million very determined
and united Iranians, many of whom who don't fear martyrdom, would make the Vietnam War look like a bad picnic with fire ants
. Yes, Vietnam had jungle for guerillas to hide behind, but South Vietnamese society was divided and many supported the Americans.
Iran has no such division. Even the Arab province of Khuzestan would stand united, knowing how the Shiite Arabs are mistreated
in the Eastern Province and in Kuwait.
Count me in as part of group two. As a former U.S. Army service member I can assure anyone reading this that this action is an
historic strategic mistake. What the Saker has outlined above is very likely. There is most probably no way to walk back now.
Who in the ME would negotiate with the U.S. Government? Their perfidy is well known. Many citizen in this country feel like they
are held hostage by a government that doesn't represent their interests or feelings. I hope the people in the ME know this.
Since the folks in the ME know that the US is a "pretend democracy" they also realize that the people of the USA are just as oppressed
by the AngloZionist regime as the people abroad. Frankly, I have traveled on a lot of countries and I have never come across anything
like real hostility towards the US American people. The very same people who hate Uncle Shmuel very much enjoy US music, literature,
movies, novel ideas, etc. I believe that the Empire is truly hated across the globe, but not the people of the USA.
Kind regards
The Saker
As long as people of the USA tolerate their government criminal activities around the world, and this is happening for last 70
years, I don't agree with your comment. These crimes are commited in the name of people of the USA, who are doing nothing to prevent
them. As for movies coming from US, most of them are propaganda about 'exceptional nation'. No thanks.
The United States of America is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. That being said, the fall elections are going
to be of significant interest.
Couldn't agree with you less Saker. They share the spoils of war, generation after generation. From the killing of indigenous
population to neocolonial resource extraction today, they get their cut. You cannot have it both ways, enjoying the spoils of
war and hiding behind invalid rationalizations, pretending you have no-thingz to do with that.
Russian TV says that there were anti-war demonstrations in 80 (!) US cities.
I don't have the time to check whether this is true, but it sure sounds credible to me.
The Saker
This information is true. I personally took part in the march in Denver, Colorado. I would estimate we had about 500 people,
which is a lot more than most anti-war protests have ever gotten in recent memory.
Do not count out the possibility of a sudden large and massive anti-war movement suddenly springing out of nowhere.
Unfortunately, I do not see how "peaceful" protests will accomplish anything on their own. Rioting may be necessary. The system
needs to be shut down and commerce slow to a crawl so that nobody may ignore this.
I agree that there will first be a period of violent confusion, followed by -- well, what sane person even wants to think about
what possible horrors lie ahead?
The threat of one or more spectacular false flag attacks to further fan the flames would also appear to be a possibility.
Real evil has been unleashed, that is clear. The empire has decided to fight, and to fight very dirty.
Wasn't the Saker working in the employ of the US or NATO when they attacked Srbija without cause? Because that was my understanding.
Actually, no. I was working at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
But thanks for showing everybody how ugly, petty and clueless ad hominem using trolls can be!
The Saker
"I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong."
My personal observation is unfortunately the opposite. I think the population that is over 40 is probably leans 80% toward
the TV-watching imbecile category with zero critical thinking abilities and exposure to four plus decades of propaganda. The population
under 40 is largely too apathetic to have an opinion and unwilling to engage in research.
History will most likely play out in disaster resulting from a corrupt ruling class, systemic institutional rot, and brain-washed
public not realizing what's happened.
I will hazard a guess and say there are far more men than women in Group 1, and many more draft-age young adults of both sexes
in Group 2.
But by and large a disturbing number of people in America regard world events as being akin to a football game, with Team A
and Team B and a score to be kept. If things don't appear to be going well for their "team," they speak and behave irrationally,
with crass statements like "nuke the whole place and turn it into a glass parking lot." Impressive, isn't it? Grown adults, comporting
themselves like overindulged little children, always accustomed to getting their way – and displaying a terrifying willingness
to set the whole house on fire when they don't.
It is a spiritual illness which pollutes the USA. Terrible things will have to happen before the society can become well, again
Even if only 20% of the population join us, that will be enough. Because guess what? The TV-watching imbeciles are fat, lazy,
and they won't do anything to support the government either, and they definitely aren't brave enough to get in the way of an angry
mob
It's interesting to me, this comment of Sakers'. I have been thinking, with these revelations of the utter depravity and total
lack of what was once called "honour " and treating the enemy with respect, of a few instances which seemed to show me that not
all of America was like this.
There is a scene in the much loved but short lived** TV series "Firefly" in which the rebel "outsider" spaceship Captain offers
a doctor on the run a berth with them. The Doctor says "but you dont like me. You could kill me in my sleep" to which the Captain
replies "Son, you dont know me yet, So let me tell you know, If i ever try to kill you, you will be awake, you will be facing
me, and you will be armed"
Exactly I thought. There is a Code of Honour by which battles used to be fought. This latest by US has shown how low it's Ruling
Regime is, that is doesn't not see that. But from examples like the above, I gathered that there are people in America who still
hold to it closely – and that's good to know.
** Short lived because it showed as it's heroes a group of people who lived outside the Ruling Tyrannical Regime, who had fought
for Independence and lost, and now lived "by their wits" and not always according to law. Not surprising that the rulers of US
weren't going to allow that to go to air!!
Unfortunately I believe the largest group in the USA is the "nuke 'em group". All of my friends watch Fox and none have an understanding
of the empire.
Sake thank you as always for your excellent work. What do you think Iran will attack first?
Thanks Saker for this discussion/information space you provide when nothing is very trustworthy and on what is a holiday week
end for you.
Two points:
Never underestimate the perfidy of the Kurds. They held back on the censure/withdrawal vote in the Iraqi\
parliament and are probably offering withdrawal airport space for US military.
And Agreed, about most Americans being absolutely horrified and ashamed.Even Alex Jones had to put Syrian Girl on and to post
her on video.banned. One of his callers demanded that Alex apologize to his listening audience on "bended knee" for his support
of Trump's attack on Iran. When Alex tried to schmooze
the irate caller -- The man started yelling -- "Who cares, Alex, who cares about Iran my neighbors have no jobs
and are dying from drug overdoses. who cares about Israel? Let them take care of themselves."
Trump has sealed his own fate on many levels and ours her in looneylandia. It is said that a nation gets the leadership it
deserves. We are about to become a nation of the yard-sale.
Whew, this is something to chew on and try to digest. That first point jumped right off the page. General Soleimani was on an
official diplomatic mission, requested by the U.S.! They set him up and were waiting for him to get in his car at the airport
and go onto the road.
The entire world will know there is no way to justify this. It is just as ugly as the public murder of JFK. They have zero credibility
in all they say and do. It will be interesting to see who supports what is coming and who have gotten the message from this murder
and have decided they cannot support this beast.
How many missiles does the us have in the middle east?
How many air defense missiles does have iran?
Does iran have the ability to destroy us airbases to prevent aircraft from attacking iranian territory? That would be my first
move: destroying the ennemy s fighter jets while they are still on the ground.
How many missiles does iran can launch ? How far can they hit?
I think these are important questions if we want to make a good assessment of the situation
Thank you for the continuing courageous, fact-based reporting.
All as-yet-unenslaved-minds of the oppressed people living under the auspices of the empire share the horror of what has happened,
made worse so, for I personally, learning the evil duplicity of the 'fake' diplomacy of the masters of the U.S.A. administration.
If there had been any credibility whatsoever, left for the U.S.A. diplomatic integrity, it is now completely murdered.
I should like to point out, yet again, the perverse obviousness of the utter subordination of the utterly testiclesless
america n ' leadership ' by the affiliates, dually loyal extra-nationals, aligned to the quasi-nation of
pychopathic hatred against humanity.
In spite of, and now increasingly because of, the absurd perception management/propaganda agencies, completely controlled by
this aforementioned affiliation, and their ongoing absurd efforts, people are becoming aware of the ultimate source of the hatred
and agenda we re witnessing in the ME, and indeed, in ever country under the auspices of the empire.
It is becoming impossible to cover, even for the most timid followers of the citizens of empire-controlled nation states.
The war continues against the non-subliminated citizens, and will certainly escalate as the traction of the perception-management
techniques have been pushed way over their best-before date.
Even not wanting to know this, people are becoming aware of it.
I urge all those self-identifying with this affiliation of secretive hatred against humanity to disavow either publicly, or
privately, this collective of hatred.
The recusement of the fifth-column will undermine these machinations.
It is now the time to realize that no promise of superior upward mobility, in exchange for activities supporting the affiliation,
is worth the stark prospect of complete destruction of the biosphere.
Saker: what makes you think it will just be a couple of days of bombing? I would have thought they would set up a no fly zone
then fly over that country permanently blowing the shit out of any military thing on the ground until the gov collapses.
Iran doesn't have the ability to prevent this & running a country under these conditions is impossible.
Set up a no-fly zone over Iran? Iran is well aware of American air-power. They have a multi-layer air defense. And I wouldn't
be surprised that the Iranian's are capable of taking out U.S. satellites.
Iran knows their enemy. They have been preparing for conflict with the U.S. for 40 years. This is a sophisticated, and highly
advanced nation, with brilliant leadership. They understand what their weaknesses are, and what their strengths are.
The wild cards are threefold: Russia. China. North Korea. If one wants to think about the possible asymmetrical capabilities
of those three, let alone the pure power their militaries, it boggles the mind.
Prediction: The U.S. stands down on orders of their own military. People like John Bolton quietly pass away in their sleep.
The only no fly zone to be implemented will be on all american warplanes over Iran and Iraq. Do you remember the multimillion
drone that went down? Multipliy it by hundreds of manned planes. God, how delusional can you be?!!!
You have a fighting force that is a disgrace composed by little girls that start screeming once they get bullets flying over their
heads. You have aircraft battle groups that are sitting ducks waitng to go to the bottom of the sea. Wake up and get your pills,
man!
Paul23, from where will the aircraft take off to implement your "no-fly zone"? Any air base within 2,000 km would be destroyed
by a shower of cruise missiles and possibly drones.
It is Group 1 -- loud, reactionary, extremely vulgar, militant parasites -- which defines the US national character. Exceptional
and indispensable simply mean "entitled to other peoples' natural resources and labour output". Trying to reason with these lowlives
is a waste of time. Putin understands this; hence the new Russian weapons. The latter will be needed very soon.
Americans are a good people but America is one of the most heavily propagandized nations in the world. The media is corrupt.
The educational systems teach a sanitized version of history. But that is only a part of it.
Pro-Military propaganda is everywhere. Even before the Superbowl, jet bombers fly over the stadium – as if Militarism constituted
a basic American value. At Airports, "Military Personnel" are given preferential boarding. At retail stores customers are asked
to make donations to "military families." College football games are dedicated to "Military Appreciation Day." High Schools work
in unison with Military Recruiters to steer students into the Military. Even playground facilities for children that have video
displays display pro military messages. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Most of this propaganda is paid for out of the obscene military budget. The average citizen doesn't have a chance.
Americans are a good people, if they really knew what was being done in their name, they would put a stop to it.
Militant parasites do live in a world of total lies, deception, and delusion but never at the expense of their survival
instincts. US imperial coercion, mayhem, and murder globally are absolutely crucial to the American way of life, and the 99% know
it. Their living standards would drop enormously without the imperial loot. Thus, they dearly yearn for all the repression, war,
and chauvinism they vote for and more.
One thing is telling, at least for me. Who the f in the right state of mind kills other state's official and then admits of doing
it?!? The common sense sense tells me that you do something and to avoid bigger consequences you stay quet and deny everything.
Just like CIA is doing. Trump just put US military personnel in grave danger. We know how they accused Manning for showing the
to the world US war crimes. They put him in the jail for what Trump just did. But, I cannot believe that they are that much stupid.
If US does not want war, as Trump is saying, they could have done this and then blame someone else because now it has been shown
that they wanted to "talk" to Iran, as Iraqis PM said. At least, US brought new meaning to the word "talk"
The most damaging, no most devestating, assymetrical attack on the US would be a 'non violent' attack.
Let me quickly explain.
It has been well known since the exposure of the man behind the curtain during the great financial crisis of 2007-08 that all
Human operations – all Human life in fact – is financialised in some way.
Some ways being so sophisticated or 'subtle' that barely 1 person in 1000 is even aware, much less capable of understanding
them, much less the financial control grid (and state / deepstate power base) which empoverishs them and enslaves them to an endless
cycle of aquiring and spending 'money'.
Look deeply and the wise will see how 'Human resources' (as opposed to Human Beings) are herded like cattle to be worked on
the farm, 'fleeced', or slaughtered as appropriate to the money masters.
We have been programmed, trained, and conditioned to call 'currency units' (dollar/euro/pound/yuan, etc) 'money', when they
are actually nothing of the sort, they are state or bank issued money substitutes.
In the middle east and north africa some leaders recognised this determined how to escape slavery and subjegation. They attempted
to field this knowledge like an economic-nuke, but without the massive protection required, and they were destroyed by the empire
– Sadam Hussain with his oil for Gold (and oil for Euros) program, and Col. Gadaffi of Libya with his North African 'Gold Dinar'
and 'Silver Durham' Islamic money program.
To cut a very long story short – the evil empire depends upon all nations and peoples excepting thier pieces of paper currency
units as 'real' money – which the empire print / create in unlimited quantities to fund thier war machine and global progrram
of domination.
All financial markets are either denominated or settled in US Dollars (or are at least convertable).
All Nations Central Banks (except Irans I believe) are linked via various US Dollar exchange / liquidity mechanisms, and all
'settle' in US Dollars.
Currently all nations use US controlled electronic banking communications / exchange / tranfer systems (swift being the most
well known).
Would it therefore not make sence to go for the very beating heart of the Beast – the US financial system?
The most powerful attack against the empire would therefore be against this power base – the global reserve currency – the
US dollar – and the US ability to print any quantity of it (or create digits on a screen and call them 'Dollar Units').
It would be pointless trying to fight an emnemy capable of printing for free enough currency to buy every resource (including
peoples lives) – unless that super ability was destroyed or disrupted.
Example of a massive nuclear equivilent attack on the beast would be an internal and major disrruption of interbank electronic
communications (at all levels from cash machine operation and card payment readers up to interbank transfers and federal banking
operations).
Shut down the US banking system and you shut down the US war machine.
Not only that you shut down the US ability to buy resources and bribe powerful leaders – which means they wont be able to recover
from such a blow quickly.
Shutting down banking and electronic payments of all kinds would cause the US people – particularly those currently enjoying
bread and circus distraction and pacification – to tear appart thier own communities, and each other, as the spoiled and gready
fight for the remaining resources, including food and fuel.
The 'grid' has been studied in great depth by both Russia and China (and Israel as part of thier neo-sampson option) and we
can therefore deduce that Iran has some knowledge of how it works and where the weak links are (and not just the undersea optical
cables and wireless nodes).
I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on
this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar.
Reducing the US to an empoverished 3rd world state by taking its check book away would be a worthy and lasting revenge and
humiliation.
" I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on
this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar. "
No, the best way would be for each nation to ditch the intertwined, privately ( Rothschild ) controlled central banks, and
to return to printing their own money. Anything, short of that will just perpetuate the same system from a different home base
( nation ), most likely China next. This virus can jump hosts and it will given a chance.
Who knows what will happen, but an actual boots on the ground invasion of Iran will not happen. Iran is not Irak and things have
changed since that war.
US does not have 6 to 12 months to gather it's forces and logistics for an invasion (remember, the election is coming), plus
US no longer has the heavy lift assets to do this. Toss in the fact that Iran is now on a war footing and has allies in the general
AO, hired RoRo's and other logistics and supply assets will be targets before they get anywhere near the ports or beaches to off
load. Plus, you can kiss oil goodbye, Iran will close the straights a nanosecond after the first bomb is in the air.
An air assault such as Serbia will be very expensive, Iran will fight back from the first bomb if not before, and Iran has
a pretty viable air defense system and the missiles to make life miserable for any cluster of troops and logistics within roughly
300 kilometers of the borders if not longer. Look at a map. There is a long border between Iran and Irak, but as such and considering
the terrain, any viable ground attack has to come from Irak territory. With millions of Iraki's seething at what Uncle Sugar just
did and millions of Iranians seething at what Uncle Sugar just did, any invading troops will not be greeted with showers spring
blossoms. To paraphrase a quote, 'You will be safe nowhere, our land will be your grave.'
Toss in the fact that an invasion of Irak, if even half successful, will put American troops on a war footing perilously close
to Russian territory and possibly directly on the Russian Lake, aka Caspian Sea, and sovereign territory of Russia. Won't happen,
VVP will not allow it.
Ergo, in spite of all the bluster and chest beating, at best all Foggy Bottom can do is bomb, bomb some more and bomb again.
The cost in airframes and captured pilots will be a disaster and if RoRo's and other logistic heavy lift assets or bases are hit,
the body bags coming back to Dover will be of numbers that can not be hidden as they are today with explanations that the dead
are victims of training accidents or air accidents.
Foggy Bottom, and Five Points with Langley, have painted themselves in to a corner and unfortunately for them, (and it's within
the realm of possibility that Five Points egged Trump on for this deal regardless of their protestations of innocence and surprise)
they are now in a case of put up or shut up. As a point of honor they will continue down the spiral path of open warfare and war
is like a cow voiding it's watery bowels, it splatters far beyond the intended target.
As my friend said a few years ago, damn you, damn your eyes, damn your souls, damn you back to Satan whose spawn you are. Go
back to your fetid master and leave us in peace.
Never The Last One, paper back edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521849056
A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.
"UPDATE2: RT is reporting that "One US service member, two contractors killed in Al-Shabaab attack in Kenya, two DoD personnel
injured". Which just goes to prove my point that spontaneous attacks are what we will be seeing first and that the retaliation
promised by Iran will only come later."
Saker, Some of us might be curious to know what your experience with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research informs you about
the imminent Virginia gun bans and confiscations planned for this year and next. Can Empire afford to fight an actual shooting
war on two fronts, one externally against Iraq/Iran and the second internally against its own people, some of whom will paradoxically
be called away to fight on the first front? Perhaps the two conflicts could become conjoined as Uncle Shmuel mislabels every peaceful
gun owner who just wants to be left alone as a foreign enemy-sympathizer and combatant by default, thereby turning brother against
brother in a bloody prolonged hell in the regions immediately around Washington DC? Could the Empire *truly* be that suicidal?
'Mr. Trump, the Gambler! Know that we are near you, in places that don't come to your mind. We are near you in places that you
can't even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom. We are the nation of Imam Hussein You are well aware of our power and capabilities
in the region. You know how powerful we are in asymmetrical warfare You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities.
You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end '
Gen. Soleimani (2018)
Hello Saker,
I would like to ask you a question.
According to the Russian nuclear doctrine "The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the
use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against itself or its allies and also in response to large-scale aggression
involving conventional weapons in situations that are critical for the national security of the Russian Federation and its allies."
In your opinion does Russia consider Iran such an ally? Will Russia shield Iran against USAn / Israeli nuclear strikes? In case
of an imminent nuclear strike on Iran is Russia (and possibly others) going to issue a nuclear ultimatum to the would-be aggressor?
And in case an actual nuclear attack on Iran happens is Russia going to retaliate / deter further attacks with its own nukes?
What is your opinion?
One thing: please do not start explaining why the above scenario is completely unthinkable, unrealistic and why it would never
ever happen. I need your opinion on the possible events if such an attack does take place or it is about to happen. I do not need
reasons why it would not happen; I need your opinion what might take place if it does happen. If you cannot answer my question,
have no opinion or simply do not want to answer it please let me know it.
In case there is a formal commitment by Russia – one I know not of – when, where was it made?
Thanks in advance.
I think USA still has nuclear option.
They will not hesitate to use it on Iran if Israel is in danger.
So, I think Iran shall be defeated anyway, as USA is much stronger.
Wrong. If the US uses nukes, then this will secure the total victory of Iran.
The Saker
How does this secure a total victory, dear Saker? Please help my to understand this: Nukes on every major city, industrial site,
infrastructure with pos. millions dead – how is this a victory?
I think that if Iran were to launch some devastating missiles into Israel, either a US ship/submarine or Israel will launch a
nuclear bomb into Iran. The US knows there is nothing to be gained by a ground invasion. If we [the US] were to start launching
missiles into Iran, Iran would rightfully be launching sophisticated arms back toward US ships and Israel and the US can't stand
for that. We are good at dishing it out, but lousy at receiving it.
I can only believe we assassinated Solieman [apologies] because it is the writhing of a dying petrodollar. The US is desperate.
But I don't understand how going to war is supposed to help?
"Beijing's ties with Tehran are crucial to its energy and geopolitical strategies, and with Moscow also in the mix, a broader
conflagration is a real possibility"
Last but not least, Happy Nativity to all Orthodox Christians (thanks for the beautifully illustrated Orthodox calendar, The
Saker.)
Let us all pray for peace.
Trump is the King of the South. Killing under a flag of parley is a rare thing these days and is the reason why Trump will end
up going to war with no allies by his side just like the path mapped oit for him in Daniel.
It's not a blunder.
Trump's goals pre-assassination:
1) withdraw US troops from the ME ("Fortress America") and
2) placate Israel
This is how it is done. Not a direct "hey guys, we have to bring the boys home." Trump tried that and got smashed by the Deep
State and Israel. Instead, he is going to force the Islamic world to do the talking for him by refusing to host our pariah army
(that's all they have to do, not destroy a major US base or two). Then even the Deep State will admit it's a lost cause. He can
say he did all he could while achieving his goals.
As The Saker pointed out, the troops being sent now are to evacuate, not to conquer Tehran. Next time this year the US will have
its troops home and Trump will be reelected
Looks like Trump administration buried the Treaty of non-proliferation once and for all. From now on only a country with
nuclear weapons can be viewed as a sovereign country.
Notable quotes:
"... To remind the reader once more, however, none of this would be happening had Iran not abandoned its "nuclear ambiguity" by agreeing to the 2015 Rouhani-Obama deal, with that event in hindsight being the tripwire that provoked the American military into wantonly escalating tensions with Iran ..."
"... Because they realized that the maximum costs that the Islamic Republic could inflict on it in response to their actions could be "manageable". ..."
"... The lesson to be learned from all of this is that the possession of nuclear weapons safeguards a country's sovereignty by enabling it to inflict "unmanageable"/"unacceptable" costs on its foes and thus deter their aggression, failing which leaders on both sides can be manipulated into a serious crisis. ..."
Trump is wholly responsible for his own actions, but he -- just like the Ayatollah -- is
being pushed in a direction where it's impossible to back down and still "save face". Neither
men can afford to do so, which makes it likely that a lot more people than just Maj. Gen.
Soleimani might be about to die.
To remind the reader once more, however, none of this would be happening had Iran not
abandoned its "nuclear ambiguity" by agreeing to the 2015 Rouhani-Obama deal, with that event
in hindsight being the tripwire that provoked the American military into wantonly escalating
tensions with Iran (despite believing that they're doing so in "self-defense)
Because they realized that the maximum costs that the Islamic Republic could inflict
on it in response to their actions could be "manageable".
The lesson to be learned from all of this is that the possession of nuclear weapons
safeguards a country's sovereignty by enabling it to inflict "unmanageable"/"unacceptable"
costs on its foes and thus deter their aggression, failing which leaders on both sides can be
manipulated into a serious crisis.
"... This switch in US foreign policy was known in the White House of 2007 as "the redirection". It meant that Sunni jihadists like Al-Qaida and later al-Nusra were able to switch back to being valued allies of the United States. It redoubled the slavish tying of US foreign policy to Saudi interests. The axis was completed once Mohammad Bin Salman took control of Saudi Arabia. His predecessors had been coy about their de facto alliance with Israel. MBS felt no shyness about openly promoting Israeli interests, under the cloak of mutual alliance against Iran, calculating quite correctly that Arab street hatred of the Shia outweighed any solidarity with the Palestinians. Common enemies were easy for the USA/Saudi/Israeli alliance to identify; Iran, the Houthi, Assad and of course the Shia Hezbollah, the only military force to have given the Israelis a bloody nose. The Palestinians themselves are predominantly Sunni and their own Hamas was left friendless and isolated. ..."
"... Such precarious balance as there ever was in Iraq was upset this last two months when the US and Israelis transported more of their ISIL Sunni jihadists into Iraq, to escape the pincer of the Turkish, Russian and Syrian government forces. The Iranians were naturally not going to stand for this and Iranian militias were successfully destroying the ISIL remnants, which is why General Qassem Suleimani was in Iraq, why a US mercenary assisting ISIL was killed in an Iranian militia rocket attack, and why Syrian military representatives were being welcomed at Baghdad airport. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Tel Aviv and Riyadh will also be celebrating today at the idea that their dream of the USA destroying their regional rival Iran, as Iraq and Libya were destroyed, is coming closer. The USA could do this. The impact of technology on modern warfare should not be underestimated. There is a great deal of wishful thinking that fantasizes about US military defeat, but it is simply unrealistic if the USA actually opted for full scale invasion. ..."
"... Technology is a far greater factor in warfare than it was in the 1960s. The USA could destroy Iran, but the cost and the ramifications would be enormous, and not only the entire Middle East but much of South Asia would be destabilized, including of course Pakistan. My reading of Trump remains that he is not a crazed Clinton-type war hawk and it will not happen. We all have to pray it does not. ..."
For the United States to abandon proxy warfare
and directly kill one of Iran's most senior political figures has changed international
politics in a fundamental way. It is a massive error. Its ramifications are profound and
complex.
There is also a lesson to be learned here in that this morning there will be excitement and
satisfaction in the palaces of Washington, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Tehran. All of the political
elites will see prospects for gain from the new fluidity. While for ordinary people in all
those countries there is only the certainty of more conflict, death and economic loss, for the
political elite, the arms manufacturers, the military and security services and allied
interests, the hedge funds, speculators and oil companies, there are the sweet smells of cash
and power.
Tehran will be pleased because the USA has just definitively lost Iraq. Iraq has a Shia
majority and so naturally tends to ally with Iran. The only thing preventing that was the Arab
nationalism of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Socialist Party. Bush and Blair were certainly fully
informed that by destroying the BA'ath system they were creating an Iranian/Iraqi nexus, but
they decided that was containable. The "containment" consisted of a deliberate and profound
push across the Middle East to oppose Shia influence in proxy wars everywhere.
This is the root cause of the disastrous war in Yemen, where the Zaidi-Shia would have been
victorious long ago but for the sustained brutal aerial warfare on civilians carried out by the
Western powers through Saudi Arabia. This anti-Shia western policy included the unwavering
support for the Sunni Bahraini autocracy in the brutal suppression of its overwhelmingly Shia
population. And of course it included the sustained and disastrous attempt to overthrow the
Assad regime in Syria and replace it with pro-Saudi Sunni jihadists.
This switch in US foreign policy
was known in the White House of 2007 as "the redirection". It meant that Sunni jihadists like
Al-Qaida and later al-Nusra were able to switch back to being valued allies of the United
States. It redoubled the slavish tying of US foreign policy to Saudi interests. The axis was
completed once Mohammad Bin Salman took control of Saudi Arabia. His predecessors had been coy
about their de facto alliance with Israel. MBS felt no shyness about openly promoting Israeli
interests, under the cloak of mutual alliance against Iran, calculating quite correctly that
Arab street hatred of the Shia outweighed any solidarity with the Palestinians. Common enemies
were easy for the USA/Saudi/Israeli alliance to identify; Iran, the Houthi, Assad and of course
the Shia Hezbollah, the only military force to have given the Israelis a bloody nose. The
Palestinians themselves are predominantly Sunni and their own Hamas was left friendless and
isolated.
The principal difficulty of this policy for the USA of course is Iraq. Having imposed a
rough democracy on Iraq, the governments were always likely to be Shia dominated and highly
susceptible to Iranian influence. The USA had a continuing handle through dwindling occupying
forces and through control of the process which produced the government. They also provided
financial resources to partially restore the physical infrastructure the US and its allies had
themselves destroyed, and of course to fund a near infinite pool of corruption.
That US influence was balanced by strong Iranian aligned militia forces who were an
alternative source of strength to the government of Baghdad, and of course by the fact that the
center of Sunni tribal strength, the city of Falluja, had itself been obliterated by the United
States, three times, in an act of genocide of Iraqi Sunni population.
Through all this the Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi had until now tiptoed with great
care. Pro-Iranian yet a long term American client, his government maintained a form of
impartiality based on an open hand to accept massive bribes from anybody. That is now over. He
is pro-Iranian now.
Such precarious balance as there ever was in Iraq was upset this last two months when the US
and Israelis transported more of their ISIL Sunni jihadists into Iraq, to escape the pincer of
the Turkish, Russian and Syrian government forces. The Iranians were naturally not going to
stand for this and Iranian militias were successfully destroying the ISIL remnants, which is
why General Qassem Suleimani was in Iraq, why a US mercenary assisting ISIL was killed in an
Iranian militia rocket attack, and why Syrian military representatives were being welcomed at
Baghdad airport.
It is five years since I was last in the Green Zone in Baghdad, but it is extraordinarily
heavily fortified with military barriers and checks every hundred yards, and there is no way
the crowd could have been allowed to attack the US Embassy without active Iraqi government
collusion. That profound political movement will have been set in stone by the US assassination
of Suleimani. Tehran will now have a grip on Iraq that could prove to be unshakable.
Nevertheless, Tel Aviv and Riyadh will also be celebrating today at the idea that their
dream of the USA destroying their regional rival Iran, as Iraq and Libya were destroyed, is
coming closer. The USA could do this. The impact of technology on modern warfare should not be
underestimated. There is a great deal of wishful thinking that fantasizes about US military
defeat, but it is simply unrealistic if the USA actually opted for full scale invasion.
Technology is a far greater factor in warfare than it was in the 1960s. The USA could destroy
Iran, but the cost and the ramifications would be enormous, and not only the entire Middle East
but much of South Asia would be destabilized, including of course Pakistan. My reading of Trump
remains that he is not a crazed Clinton-type war hawk and it will not happen. We all have to
pray it does not.
There will also today be rejoicing in Washington. There is nothing like an apparently
successful military attack in a US re-election campaign. The Benghazi Embassy disaster left a
deep scar upon the psyche of Trump's support base in particular, and the message that Trump
knows how to show the foreigners not to attack America is going down extremely well where it
counts, whatever wise people on CNN may say.
So what happens now? Consolidating power in Iraq and finishing the destruction of ISIL in
Iraq will be the wise advance that Iranian statesman can practically gain from these events.
But that is, of course, not enough to redeem national honor. Something quick and spectacular is
required for that. It is hard not to believe there must be a very real chance of action being
taken against shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, which Iran can do with little prior
preparation. Missile attacks on Saudi Arabia or Israel are also well within Iran's capability,
but it seems more probable that Iran will wish to strike a US target rather than a proxy. An
Ambassador may be assassinated. Further missile strikes against US outposts in Iraq are also
possible. All of these scenarios could very quickly lead to disastrous escalation.
In the short term, Trump in this situation needs either to pull out troops from Iraq or
massively to reinforce them. The UK does not have the latter option, having neither men nor
money, and should remove its 1400 troops now. Whether the "triumph" of killing Suleimani gives
Trump enough political cover for an early pullout – the wise move – I am unsure.
2020 is going to be a very dangerous year indeed.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster, human rights activist, and former diplomat. He
was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the
University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. The article is reprinted with permission from
his website .
"... As is evident from the yellow, green, red and black circles on the map below, which circles outline each missile's striking range, the overwhelming bulk of Iran's missile force has a range of 500 miles or less. These missiles are capable of hitting targets in the immediate vicinity of the Persian Gulf, or roughly the same area which encompasses the 35 military bases designated by American flags in the graphic above. ..."
"... Stated differently, Iran's extremely modest military capacities are not remotely about an offensive threat to the American homeland. They are overwhelmingly about defending itself in its own neighborhood, where Washington has been intervening and occupying with massive firepower and hostile intent for decades. ..."
"... So left to its own devices, Tehran would produce 5 million barrels per day from its abundant reserves. That's barely one-tenth of its present meager output, which is owing to Washington's vicious sanctions against any and all customers for its oil and potential investors in modernizing and expanding it production capacity. ..."
"... So if it's not ISIS or oil, exactly why does Washington maintain the circle of 35 bases displayed in the graphic above and keep thousands of US troops and other personnel in harms' way in the region? ..."
"... The answer, of course, is that the foreign policy apparatus of the US government is controlled by anti-Iran neocons and regime changers. We are still in Syria not to fight ISIS, which is gone, but to block Iran's land route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah); and we remain in Iraq solely to use it as a base for clandestine US and Israeli attacks on these allies and proxy forces. ..."
"... Likewise, the US military-industrial complex's greed and appetite for power and pelf is so voracious that it will embrace any and all missions anywhere on the planet – no matter how stupid or futile or immoral, as per the case of 19-years in Afghanistan – that keep the budgetary loot flowing. ..."
"... For crying out loud, Washington has been demonizing, ostracizing and economically attacking Iran for decades, and is now literally attempting to destroy its economy and society through is oil sanctions and its "maximum pressure" campaign that aims to bring the fate of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi to its top leaders in Tehran. ..."
"... That's why Secretary of State Pompeo's statement justifying the Donald's act of naked aggression is so hideous. ..."
"... Washington is putting the entire nation of Iran at risk in the very place where God or evolution, as the case may be, formed the peninsula on which it resides; and it is doing so without any Iranian provocation against the security of the American homeland whatsoever. ..."
"... "I can't talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should know that the President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives," Pompeo told CNN. ..."
By the twisted logic of Imperial Washington you could
say the Iranians were asking for it. After all, they had the nerve to locate their country
right in the middle of 35 U.S. military bases!
Then again, your saner angels may ask: What in the hell is Washington doing with a massive
military footprint in a region and in a string of backwater countries that have virtually no
bearing on homeland security, safety and liberty?
In fact, Washington destroyed the former for no good reason and based on egregious Big Lies
about Saddam's nonexistent WMDs and sheltering of al-Qaeda. That turned Iraq into a failed
state hellhole pulsating with sectarian frictions and anti-American grievances – even as
the rump state of Iraq centered in Baghdad fell under the control of Iran-friendly Shiite
politicians and militias.
At the same time, Iran itself is zero threat to the American homeland. It's tiny $350
billion GDP amounts to 6 days of US annual output and its $20 billion defense budget is
equivalent to what the Pentagon wastes every 8 days.
Militarily, it has no blue water navy, an air force that could double as a cold war museum
and a short and medium range missile force that is self-evidently dedicated to defense and
deterrence in the region, not an attack on the USA way over on the yonder side of the deep blue
seas.
Its 300 or so active aircraft, for example, include 175 US F-4, F-5, F-14 and sundry
transports, helicopters and trainers purchased by the Shah during the 1970s and
kept together since the revolution with bailing wire and bubble gum. It also fields 60 or so
Soviet vintage MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su attack aircraft – plus a few dozen European and
Chinese planes of mostly ancient design.
Likewise, even its most advanced medium range cruise missile (Soumar) can barely get to
Rome, Italy, to say nothing of Rome, Georgia.
As is evident from the yellow, green, red and black circles on the map below, which circles
outline each missile's striking range, the overwhelming bulk of Iran's missile force has a
range of 500 miles or less. These missiles are capable of hitting targets in the immediate
vicinity of the Persian Gulf, or roughly the same area which encompasses the 35 military bases
designated by American flags in the graphic above.
Stated differently, Iran's extremely modest military capacities are not remotely about an
offensive threat to the American homeland. They are overwhelmingly about defending itself in
its own neighborhood, where Washington has been intervening and occupying with massive
firepower and hostile intent for decades.
Therein, of course, lies a hint. More than 13 years after Saddam's last hurrah on a Baghdad
gallows, the US still has upwards of 30,000 troops and contractors in the immediate vicinity of
the Persian Gulf. But why?
It can't be owing to ISIS. The Islamic State was never much more than a no count salient of
dusty, woebegone towns and villages on the Upper Euphrates straddling Western Iraq and
northeastern Syria that was destined to collapse on its own barbaric madness anyway; and which
was essentially dispatched by the Russian air force, Assad's military and the Shiite militia
forces organized by the dead man himself, Major General Soleimani.
Likewise, it should be obvious by now that it's not the oil, either. At the moment the US is
producing nearly 13 million barrels per day and is the world's leading oil producer –
well ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia; and is now actually a net exporter of crude for the
first time in three-quarters of a century.
Besides, the Fifth Fleet has never been the solution to oil security. The cure for high
prices is high prices – as the great US shale oil and Canadian heavy oil booms so
cogently demonstrate, among others.
And the route to global oil industry stability is peaceful commerce because virtually every
regime – regardless of politics and ideology – needs all the oil revenue it can
muster to fund its own rule and keep its population reasonably pacified.
Surely, there is no better case for the latter than that of Iran itself – with an
economy burdened by decades of war, sanctions and mis-rule and an 80-million population that
aspires to a western standard of living.
So left to its own devices, Tehran would produce 5 million barrels per day from its abundant
reserves. That's barely one-tenth of its present meager output, which is owing to Washington's
vicious sanctions against any and all customers for its oil and potential investors in
modernizing and expanding it production capacity.
So if it's not ISIS or oil, exactly why does Washington maintain the circle of 35 bases
displayed in the graphic above and keep thousands of US troops and other personnel in harms'
way in the region?
Or more to the moment, why has the Donald been unable to bring the forces home as he has so
often proclaimed to be his policy?
The answer, of course, is that the foreign policy apparatus of the US government is
controlled by anti-Iran neocons and regime changers. We are still in Syria not to fight ISIS,
which is gone, but to block Iran's land route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah);
and we remain in Iraq solely to use it as a base for clandestine US and Israeli attacks on
these allies and proxy forces.
These Washington instigated or conducted attacks on Iranian allies, in fact, are why there
was growing pressure in the Iraqi government to demand that the US finally leave. These
pressures will now become overwhelming in light of this week's US bombing of five PMF camps
(Popular Mobilization Forces) which are Shiite militias that have been integrated into the
Iraqi army and which are under the command of its prime minister, and last night's
assassination of their Deputy Commander along with Soleimani.
To be sure, Iran's choice of allies has nothing to do with America's homeland security: None
of the sovereign governments of Lebanon (where Hezbollah is the leading political party) or
Syria or even Iraq (which is an ostensible US ally) have protested these confession (i.e.
Shiite) based arrangements and the aid and benefits which flow from them.
That's because the so-called Shiite crescent is a bogeyman invented by Bibi Netanyahu and is
the excuse for his hysterical anti-Iranian foreign policy. The latter is not even designed to
enhance Israel's own security, but to vilify a "far enemy" that can keep his rightwing
coalition glued together and himself in power.
Likewise, the US military-industrial complex's greed and appetite for power and pelf is so
voracious that it will embrace any and all missions anywhere on the planet – no matter
how stupid or futile or immoral, as per the case of 19-years in Afghanistan – that keep
the budgetary loot flowing.
Accordingly, the Washington apparatus conspires to keep the 35 Mideast bases in place and to
trigger actions like last night's insane assassination of Iran's foremost military leader in
order to reify the threat and to periodically stoke tensions and counterattacks that keep
missions alive and the forces deployed.
Indeed, we are hard-pressed to imagine a more poignant case of the pot calling the kettle
black than Washington's claim that it had to retaliate owing to actual and expected Iranian
"aggression".
For crying out loud, Washington has been demonizing, ostracizing and economically attacking
Iran for decades, and is now literally attempting to destroy its economy and society through is
oil sanctions and its "maximum pressure" campaign that aims to bring the fate of Saddam Hussein
and Muammar Gaddafi to its top leaders in Tehran.
So do ya think a regime under a veritable existential threat might gravitate toward
retaliation as an alternative to extinction?
And we needs be clear about the matter of striking back in self defense. Washington's
current sanctions campaign against Iran is so aggressive and brutal that it constitutes war by
any other name.
When you surround a sovereign nation with an armada of land, sea and air-based high-tech
lethality and than declare outright economic war on it with a barely-disguised aim of regime
change, it must and will fight back however it can.
That's why Secretary of State Pompeo's statement justifying the Donald's act of naked
aggression is so hideous.
Washington is putting the entire nation of Iran at risk in the very place where God or
evolution, as the case may be, formed the peninsula on which it resides; and it is doing so
without any Iranian provocation against the security of the American homeland whatsoever.
But this neocon knucklehead has the gall to insist that when it comes to the actual
anti-Iranian belligerents (i.e. U.S. forces) Washington has bivouacked where they have no
business being at all, that not a hair on their head should come to harm.
That's Imperial arrogance of a kind rarely seen in a world history which is littered with
exactly that.
"I can't talk too much about the nature of the threats. But the American people should
know that the President's decision to remove Soleimani from the battlefield saved American
lives," Pompeo told CNN.
The IRGC general had been "actively plotting" in the region to "take big action,
as he described it, that would have put hundreds of lives at risk," according to
Pompeo.
Undoubtedly, things will now spiral out of control because the Iranian regime must and will
retaliate for Soleimani's death. Indeed, by vaporizing the latter, the Donald has now also
vaporized any chance of actually implementing the "America First" policy upon which he ran, and
which was the principal basis for his freakish elevation to the Oval Office.
The fact is, the only decent thing Obama did on the foreign policy front was the Iran Nuke
Deal. Under the latter, Iran gave up a nuclear weapons capability it never had or wanted for
the return of billions of escrowed dollars (which belong to Tehran in the first place), while
putting itself in a straight-jacket of international inspections and controls that even Houdini
could not have broken free from.
But the Donald wantonly shit-canned this arrangement, not because Iran violated either the
letter or spirit of the deal, but because the neocons – led by his bubble-headed
son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu errand boy, Jared Kushner – blatantly lied to him about its
alleged defects.
Indeed, the resulting Washington pivot to the current "maximum pressure" aggression against
Iran is fast becoming the Empire most demented and shameful hour – even as it crystalizes
like rarely before the difference between homeland defense and imperial aggression.
Under the former, not one American serviceman, contractor or civilian official would be in
harms' way because the ring of hostile bases surrounding Iran would not exist nor would
Washington be waging economic warfare on what would otherwise be a prosperous 5 million barrel
per day oil trade with the world.
Only empires put their citizens needlessly in harms' way and thereby trap their leader's
into a cycle of violence which feeds upon itself.
The Donald is now yet another American president ensnared in the kind of tit-for-tat trap
that is the modus operandi of Empire First.
"... Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar. ..."
"... The shmuck was elected to stop the unnecessary, and criminal, external wars for the Jews and protect the US from the internal Jewish war – through unchecked immigration – on the US citizens. ..."
"... Iran's response will certainly include legal redress, and the honor component of the US wrongful act can be quite adequately handled in state responsibility of satisfaction for internationally wrongful acts. The last couple times CIA faced Iran in the Hague (Oil Platforms and Aerial Incident,) Iran wiped the floor with the third-rate DoS shysters. ..."
"... Since this is so self-evidently disastrous for the US, why would the US civil/military command structure present this as an option? CIA doesn't like Trump – he tweaked them with a feint at ARCA compliance, and mocked their contempt for the national interest in a speech at Langley. ..."
"... Trump's been more insubordinate than any presidential figurehead since Nixon. So why not let him hold the bag for a crime big as the one Nixon got stuck with? CIA made Nixon their helpless patsy for their bombing of neutral Cambodia at great risk of general nuclear war. ..."
"... They purged him with a bill of impeachment that briefly included that crime. CIA never tries anything new, so now they'll make Trump their helpless patsy for murder at great risk of general nuclear war. The absurd existing bill of impeachment can easily incorporate murder as an inchoate crime, Trump's common plan and conspiracy for war, Nuremberg count 1. What does CIA get out of that? By personalizing aggression, CIA gets off the hook. ..."
WHAT COMES NEXT AFTER THE US ASSASSINATION OF QASSEM SOLEIMANI? THE OPTIONS.
The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani on Thursday
at 11:00 PM local time at Baghdad airport. Usually, when Soleimani was arriving in Baghdad,
security commander Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a deputy officer to al Muhandes, would have welcomed
him. This time, al-Lami was outside Iraq and al-Muhandes replaced him. The US plan was to
assassinate an Iranian General on Iraqi soil, not to kill a high-ranking Iraqi officer. By
killing al-Muhandes, the US violated its treaty obligation to respect the sovereignty of Iraq
and to limit its activity to training and offering intelligence to fight the "Islamic State",
ISIS. It has also violated its commitment to refrain from overflying Iraq without permission
of the Iraqi authorities.
Wow! Own goal! Are "evil" and "incompetent" synonymous?
Donald Trump rode to victory in 2016 on a promise to end the useless wars in the Middle
East, but he has now demonstrated very clearly that he is a liar.
True, and this mistake puts him firmly in the wastebasket where all other liar-politicians
reside.
The shmuck was elected to stop the unnecessary, and criminal, external wars for the Jews
and protect the US from the internal Jewish war – through unchecked immigration –
on the US citizens.
It's possible to overdo the focus on the personal here. سپاه has a
very deep bench and it's not subject to decapitation. Soleimani's murder will have no more
effect on the command structure than Pompeo's murder would: removing the primus inter pares
of a corps of brilliant strategists smarts a bit; and if the US lost Pompeo, one of many
delusional religious fanatics with community-college level training from a laughingstock
military academy, So what?
This murder is first and foremost an insult, of course. The CIA regime is much more of an
honor culture than Iran because these days the DO is stuffed with lumpen redneck jarheads.
But organizational aspects worldwide will determine the outcome.
Iran's response will certainly include legal redress, and the honor component of the US
wrongful act can be quite adequately handled in state responsibility of satisfaction for
internationally wrongful acts. The last couple times CIA faced Iran in the Hague (Oil
Platforms and Aerial Incident,) Iran wiped the floor with the third-rate DoS shysters.
And
for the first time the US faces Iran without their British dancing boys on the bench –
Britain got kicked off the ICJ bench for arbitrary actions of its own. So that's gonna cost
ya, $$$! The ICC can weigh in propria motu, and should do. Absent efficacious criminal
sanctions, Iran ally China has shown that you can take international criminal law into your
hands quite effectively (ask William Bennett and his wifey!) Iran's status in the SCO is an
additional degree of freedom. If Russia chooses to get involved, it can use its superior
missile technology to control escalation at every level. This is the perfect opportunity for
its doctrine of coercion to peace.
Since this is so self-evidently disastrous for the US, why would the US civil/military
command structure present this as an option? CIA doesn't like Trump – he tweaked them
with a feint at ARCA compliance, and mocked their contempt for the national interest in a
speech at Langley.
Trump's been more insubordinate than any presidential figurehead since
Nixon. So why not let him hold the bag for a crime big as the one Nixon got stuck with? CIA
made Nixon their helpless patsy for their bombing of neutral Cambodia at great risk of
general nuclear war.
They purged him with a bill of impeachment that briefly included that
crime. CIA never tries anything new, so now they'll make Trump their helpless patsy for
murder at great risk of general nuclear war. The absurd existing bill of impeachment can
easily incorporate murder as an inchoate crime, Trump's common plan and conspiracy for war,
Nuremberg count 1. What does CIA get out of that? By personalizing aggression, CIA gets off
the hook.
With the family jewels and inside knowledge of the JFK coup, Nixon graymailed CIA for a
pardon. They won't let Trump get away like that. The current status of international criminal
law requires that heads must roll. Just like Charles Taylor got put away for Israeli state
crimes against peace, the equally disposable Donald Trump will hold the bag for grave CIA
crimes.
To those who assured us there would be no war with Iran:
For the First time in it's History #Iran has Raised
The Red flag, IRAN has issued a terrifying warning to the US as it raised a red flag over
the Holy Dome Jamkarān Mosque as a symbol of a severe battle to come. pic.twitter.com/mnWgmu2eS4
Thanks, C&D. I'm very familiar with the two Alexes of the Duran Report. While I
think they provide very objective reporting on world events, they are also very reluctant
to touch the third rail, the 800 lb gorilla in the room.
Yes, it is far too easy and fashionable to pin it all on the "deep state" without ever
naming the Jew.
Wow! The idiot-in-chief just threatened Iran with bombing their cultural targets.
"Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we
have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many
years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,
and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no
more threats!"
To those who assured us there would be no war with Iran:
I am one of those that did – and I stand by that assertion. Technically, we just
declared war on Iran, however, I expect there to be thousands of skirmishes, but nothing the
equivalent of the Iraq invasion.
If you listen to what Donald Trump said when he was campaigning, you will hear what the
majority of the American people want. Improved relations with Russia, exit from pointless
Middle East conflicts, greatly reduced immigration and a wall on the Southwest border, money
spent on the crumbling US infrastructure etc etc
Unfortunately, what the majority of the American people want matters very little if at
all. It's pretty much the same everywhere "democracy" and "democratic principles" reign.
It's a joke. A sick fucking game.
I don't believe Trump is a bad man. I believe he truly loves this country and it's people.
But he has surrounded himself with and trusted the wrong people from the beginning.
It pains me to say it, but NOTHING will change in this once great nation until there is
either collapse and/or revolution. The Deep State and it's (((Ruling Elite))) will then move
on to another host.
I find it hard to believe that with the history of so many recent false flag operations that
everyone is just assuming what is being presented is actually what happened. I personally
think it all is a little too convenient at this point in time. Israel has wanted a war with
Iran almost forever. While Netanyahu is having a bromance with Donald Trump and getting every
single thing he wants to the point of changing a make America great again to make Israel
great again, I find the whole thing extremely suspicious. It just seems like another War
being started for the benefit of Israel, business as usual.
Iranian Kataib Hezbollah is present in Iraq over the objections of many Arab citizens
(mostly Shia) who resent Persian interference.
So many lies in just one sentence. As always, you spread misinformation with lot of mumbo
jumbo. There is no such thing as Iranian Kataib Hezbollah. Kataib Hezbullah consist of Iraqi
volunteers. They may have been trained by Iran but they are still Iraqis.
You keep calling Khamenei a sociopath. The real sociopath is your hero Netanyahu.
You are one of the group of Zionist agents who are just waiting with canned comments for
the articles to appear. You are so predictable.
And please take that symbol off. By posting it does not make you a peace lover. You are
nothing but a war monger.
Developing- Operation Iran: The Pentagon is Deploying Troops to Saudi Arabia
(Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Rockwell Collins, L3
Engilitycorp mercenaries)
By C. Sorensen:
f'ing bastards .. who's commanding all these strikes?
Well, at least indirectly, according to Pepe Escobar, it is the usual suspects,
Israel/deep state, with a compliant US.
President Donald Trump may have issued the order. The U.S. Deep State may have ordered
him to issue the order. Or the usual suspects may have ordered them all.
According to my best Southwest Asia intel sources, " Israel gave the U.S. the
coordinates for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the
repercussions of taking the assassination upon themselves."
@A123
Obviously a (((Fellow American))). Remember the Liberty, Hymie. Still trying to destabilize
the ME with your golem. Maybe this time Bibi bit off more than he can chew. The cost of human
life and suffering is no doubt immaterial for a politician desperate to stay in power.. and
out of prison. Once again the Jewish lobby is causing an uproar. Only three things are
certain; death, taxes and Israel getting the US into Middle Eastern wars
How does the US justify carrying out assassinations within the territory of a friendly power
without even obtaining the consent of that power? Don't we at least pretend to respect Iraq's
sovereignty?
@ra And
backing Trump has what purpose? Would he pay your rent if you were laid off? Then he is just
a picture on your wall. Just like jock sniffers idolize apeletes, and masturbaters luvs their
porn performers, political groupies actually imagine that their favorite political crush
gives a shit about them. If one isn't a multimillionaire, then they matter not at all to the
political class. Have to bring something to the party other than bootlicking. There are
plenty of those in higher places than a broke ass
fan. Meanwhile grow the f ** k up. Trump isn't your friend. Unless you're name is Adelson or
Netanyahu anyway
Another striking aspect of all this is that while I suspect doubts about this are very
widespread among the actual people, the mainstream media seem to be all but unanimous in
their approval.
Trump is threatening to attack 52 Iranian cultural sites. He doesn't seem to care that many
of these are world heritage sites and it is a war crime to destroy them.
If @realDonaldTrump hits holy
sites in #Iran , no place
for any American in the world will be safe. It will be an all-ou-war.
In one day, thousands were killed in #Iraq after the
destruction of Zarqawi (like Trump today) destroyed Shia Holy Shrine in Samarra.
@Cloak And
Dagger Perhaps if Russia gave one of these missile to Iran peace would breakout ..lol.
Hypersonic Missiles Are a Game Changer
No existing defenses can stop such weapons -- which is why everyone wants them.
Last week, President Vladimir Putin of Russia announced the deployment of the Avangard,
among the first in a new class of missiles capable of reaching hypersonic velocity --
something no missile can currently achieve, aside from an ICBM during reentry
Such weapons have long been an object of desire by Russian, Chinese and American military
leaders, for obvious reasons: Launched from any of these countries, they could reach any
other within minutes. No existing defenses, in the United States or elsewhere, can intercept
a missile that can move so fast while maneuvering unpredictably.
Whether or not the Avangard can do what Mr. Putin says, the United States is rushing to match
it. We could soon find ourselves in a new arms race as deadly as the Cold War -- and at a
time when the world's arms control efforts look like relics of an inscrutable past and the
effort to renew the most important of them, a new START agreement, is foundering
Giraldi seldom comes up with any new facts to shed light on a situation. He just runs through
the same anti-neocon boilerplate. I agree with his boilerplate, but it's not enough to
justify reading his articles.
I'm not using the term neocons any longer, as the term is a lie, a mask. They are just a
large group of powerful dual citizen Jews many descended from Trotskyites that immigrated
from Russia in the 1930s.
@Bragadocious
Hey, Israeli hasbara, why didn't you read the above article carefully?
The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next few weeks is
clearly on Donald Trump's hands as this war was never inevitable and served no U.S.
national interest.
One more time for you: this war [with Iran] serves no U.S. national interests. The
only "benefiting" party is the Jewish State, the bloody theocracy of obnoxious supremacists
known for their cowardice and deception. The Epstein nation of Israel.
American veterans kill themselves every day, every hour. None of the dead veterans is
Jewish.
Here is how the usual schema works: First, the zionist scum finds kindred spirits among
the locals; see Cheney the Traitor, greedy Clintons, and the cowardly US brass thirsty for
money and comforts (exhibit one, Donny Rumsfeld). Second, the zionist scum arranges mass
media by putting the eager presstitutes on key positions in the previously honorable papers
and journals (exhibit one, The New Yorker). And voila, the war profiteers unite with Israel
firsters and get free hands to plunder whatever country they want to plunder. On the American
citizenry dime & limb.
It does not take much effort to recognize the extraordinary difference between the piggish
and thoroughly corrupt Bibi and the noble and valiant Soleimani.
@A123 Really?
How stupid can one get? Sir, it would behove all of us to read and understand history. Noone
likes the Ayatollahs but the only reason they are ruling Iran is because of the USA. And
everyone has the right to defend themselves – including the Iranians. Just look at our
behaviour and compare it to a bully. No difference at all!!
Unfortunately, it is very well established in the world that USA has degenerated from being a
good guy to a bully, assassin and a terrorist. We shall reap the whirlwind and the hurricane
. unfortunately it will be the common person who suffers always.
Rumour has it that 52 sites were chosen so that it corresponded to the number of major
Jewish-American organizations in America, lol!
I 'second' that LOL!!!
52 is for the fifty two embassy hostages from 1979. And he said he's going to hit cultural
sites in that 52 number. So you museum curators in Tehran 'watch out!'
On a serious note, I consider myself a patriotic American but I just can't root for my
country in this regard. Honestly it makes me feel bad but following the truth does not always
make you feel good. But it's the right thing to do.
Iran has been 'set up' since Donald got out of the nuclear deal. Tucker Carlson says Iran has
been the target for decades. I can just hope that the kinetic action is brief, loss of
American and Iranian life small and that, as Giraldi predicts, America will finally get out
of there, to the frustration of the Zionists.
But then we have the aforementioned Zionists and their Samson option it never ends.
Until Israel ends
Anti Iran war protest going on in cities , at WH, at Trump Hotels etc..
"The American people have had enough with U.S. wars and are rising up to demand peace with
Iran!" tweeted CodePink, an anti-war group that helped organize the nationwide
demonstrations.
I have found the guy to star in my assassination movie . an Iraq war vet you need to
hear:
From all indications, the Iranian general was a revered man inside and outside Iran.
The arrogant ignorance on this site tweeters between alarming and comedic.
The rank and file MUST gnash their teeth and wail over this terrorist's death. There are
more Secret Police in Iran than the Stasi had. If they don't show grief, their family members
or they will pay the price.
Do you know any Persians? They detest living under a brutal theocracy. They don't care
about Soleimani. They care about their children, jobs and being happy.
They act the fool in the street to mourn his death because it is expected, it's a way to
let off steam and it's social.
Now would be the perfect time for the Mossad to do its false flag shtick. They wouldn't
even have to try very hard to pin it on Iran. I'll bet that when the news came out that the
Iranian guy had been killed, every neocon on the planet popped a boner that will last for
days. Michael Ledeen is probably mazel tov-ing his ass off.
Michael "FASTER PLEASE!" Ledeen? Yes, I don't doubt. And as regards a Mossad false flag:
Giraldi writes that the Iraqi PM will inevitably "ask American forces to leave." THAT should
be the greenest of green lights for Trump to withdraw them from that bottomless hellhole
except who wants them there forevermore?
I don't care about the dead Muslim who got killed, since that's the only kind of "good
Muslim" you're ever going to find, but I would still prefer for the U.S. to get out of the
Middle East altogether. Let those two warring anti-Christ peoples kill each other to their
hearts' content.
Verily. Alas, look for Congress now to reauthorize those thoroughly corrupt FISA courts,
so that honorable American heroes and patriots such as Gums Page and Peter Strzok can thwart
evil Iran terrorists before they perpetrate their dastardly acts against innocent Americans.
Now, remind me of the nationalities of those who committed the 9/11/2001 atrocities
again?
All glory, praise, and honor to Our Lord Jesus Christ -- may He and St Michael ever watch
over those of us redeemed by Him.
@vespasian
Qaani is a Muslim name. Not likely Jewish.
Times of Israel says Qaani was Soleimani's deputy.
Khamenei appointed / anointed Qaani to step into Soleimani's place. Why would Khamenei do
this if he wanted to eradicate Soleimani's style?
Khamenei echoes Achmadinejad's call that "zionism will disappear from the pages of
history." Not a Jewish sentiment.
Pahlavi broke down the ghettoes and hired a lot of Jews, but there is no indication that
Pahlavi was Jewish. His physiognomy is so typically Persian he's practically a caricature of
the breed.
in other words, you're full of crap.
Leave propagandistic mimetics to the cretins who know how to do it.
There's a rumor that part of Israel's Samson option includes nuclear bombs hidden in 25
American cities. Veterans Today has mentioned it several times. Is it true? Maybe. Maybe
someone should find out.
It would end Democrat prattle about presidential elections by popular vote in lieu of
electoral college.
Giraldi is maybe little bit somber here, so I do have to say no.
Irani thinkers know that the affair is just a thick worm on the hook.
They will do what they did before consolidate She_ite power in the Levant to end any
cooperation of states with the great Satan there.
The quote is from a 24 Oct 2004 article "Jews, Israel and America" in the New York
Times by Thomas L. Friedman. Friedman proceeds to criticize the Bush admin for inept
communications in Iraq. One wonders which will be found first: the weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, or the real killers of Ron and Nicole by OJ Simpson.
Once the US began seriously enforcing sanctions on Iranian oil exports, the US effectively
declared war on Iran. Iran has done what it could, but its response has been limited.
After you have already attempted and partially succeeded in wrecking a country's economy,
what does a drone strike add to the situation?
The incident makes very little sense for the US, which is vulnerable in Iraq. Iran is
still under severe economic siege, so not much has really changed there either.
Everyone seems to want this to be a major inflection point, but why would Iran suddenly
become stupid? Maybe Trump has changed, but he has resisted number of attempts to get him to
sign on to military adventures.
News flash: Pence says Suleimani aided the 9/11 highjackers.
Let us see what else can we accuse him of masterminding.
1. Gulf of Tonkin incident
2. Bombing of Laos
3. Sabotaging the space shuttle
4. JFK Assassination
5. And yes, of course, starting the American Civil War.
This guy is nuts and this is what we will get as a result of Trump's impeachment.
2) The issue of #Jerusalem
seems to have been a critical point of Shamrani's anger. His second-most recent of his
tweets (just before his will) was an RT of Trump's December 2017 Jerusalem speech, made
sometime in the last 48 hours. pic.twitter.com/wjP7FMzZXW
A few days after John Bolton was sacked as Trump's national security adviser, Soleimani
humiliated the US by a blatantly Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities, which Pompeo
called an act of war.
Shill better. You people say this over and over, but don't give a logical reason we should
believe it, and why even give us Pompeo's opinion?
The murder of General Qasem Soleimani shows that, nothing on this scale of U.S. violence,
criminality and violation of international law has been seen before, not even in Nazi
Germany. The assassination of two well-known leaders is an act of Terrorism. It was a
cowardice act, because the two leaders were travelling in public. What the US regime gained
from this premeditated murder?
As I stated in several articles, we live under a brutal form of Fascism that has no
equivalent in human history. There are no longer the rules of law and civilised norms. It is
a barbaric, lawless, rogue, terrorising and distinctly global AngloZionist Fascism.
"
COME on, we are waiting for you. We are the real men on the scene, as far as you are
concerned. You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start
the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end," Qassem Soleimani said in a fiery
July 2018 speech directed at Trump
Not exactly taking the heat out of the situation in which Iran is confronting the world's
most powerful country. A good state has to know its limitations, as Mearsheimer says.
He had flown into to town to attend the funerals of the 26 Iraqi militiamen that we
Americans had killed earlier in the week!
Most interesting. I wonder if those militiamen were maybe killed in the expectation that
he would fly in to attend the funeral.
Really? How stupid can one get? Sir, it would behove all of us to read and understand
history. Noone likes the Ayatollahs but the only reason they are ruling Iran is because of
the USA. And everyone has the right to defend themselves – including the Iranians.
Just look at our behaviour and compare it to a bully. No difference at all!!
Unfortunately, it is very well established in the world that USA has degenerated from being
a good guy to a bully, assassin and a terrorist. We shall reap the whirlwind and the
hurricane . unfortunately it will be the common person who suffers always.
True that the only reason the Ayatollahs are ruling Iran is because of the USA's hatred of
democracy. Though the bull in the china shop grunts about democracy all the time it really
hates democracy. Better to install a single dictator who will take orders, rather than having
to bribe every elected member of a parliament and gamble that that will work.
Degenerated okay. A frightful country of gangster rule, a murderous thug as President,
giant levels or homelessness, giant prices of medicines, giant levels of police killings etc.
etc. and the economic hit-men who caused it to fall apart, crumbled infrastructure because
privatized, want to obey Israhell and pocket the worthless dollar, nothing else.
As an American who lives abroad, this is just a repainting of the target I've had on my
back for decades, compliments of people who live behind big defence perimeters and are
surrounded by teams of bodyguards.
There used to be a simple escape-clause: pretend to be Canadian.
As they've happily jumped on the War Bandwagon as well, that clause is now void.
@Johnny F.
Ive Rita Katz !! The lady who used to upload the vile movies of beheading even before the
Jihadists had uploaded . How come !!!
Israel usually knows when war would start against Libya Syria Iraq and against Iran . How
come!! Israel would claim that war will be soon. What gives!
Rita 's circle was playing same roles the cabal plays in agitating for wars .
Contra Madame Condolezza's (aka. "Condi") affirmation in 2006 that we were witnessing
"the
birth pangs of a New Middle East" when Israel went all Warshaw Ghetto on various pieces
of Palestine, these could be the REAL birth pangs of a New Middle East.
The flag used in the ceremony is called the 'Ya la-Tharat al-Husayn', which dates back
to the late 7th century. It was first raised after the Battle of Karbala in a call to
avenge the death of Imam Husayn ibn Ali, which became one of the key events that led to the
split between Shia and Sunni Islam. It has been reported that the red flag has never been
unfurled atop the Jamkaran (a major holy site since the early Middle Ages) until now.
You know shit is going down when it's getting Game of Thrones out there.
@Meimou It's
also unimportant whether some bureaucrat of the US says that this and that happening far away
is an "act of war" while engaging in acts of war like sanctions, targeted assassination of
lower-rung people, support of "regime change" operations laying waste to whole regions,
bombing of civvies in Yemen, bombing of selected targets all over the Middle East and on and
on.
@Meimou The
Embassy thing might not have been ordered by Soleimani, but the coup of of hitting Saudi oil
facilities would surely have to be authorised by him in his capacity as commander of all
Iranian paramilitary actions abroad. Yet this humiliation of the US forces in and around
Saudi Arabia came days after Trump had sacked Iran's greatest foe in the Administration, John
Bolton.
I think that if the interests of Iran was the objective paramount in Soleimani's mind, the
timing of the attack on Saudi oil facilities was a truly catastrophic failure of
comprehension. Michael Ledeen (Iran's biggest enemy in the US) must have been weeping tears
of gratitude. And that was only one of Soleimanis great mistakes, if fame was not his real
goal.
PATRICK Cockburn noted pro Iranian militia leaders were pointing to 'the failure of Trump
to retaliate after the drone attack on Saudi oil facilities earlier in September that
Washington had blamed on Iran' and a sign that Trunp would avoid a war. Moreover:
[T]here was a small demonstration in central Baghdad demanding jobs, public services and
an end to corruption. The security forces and the pro-Iranian paramilitaries opened fire,
killing and wounding many peaceful demonstrators. Though Qais al-Khazali later claimed that
he and other Hashd leaders were trying to thwart a US-Israeli conspiracy, he had said
nothing to me about it. It seemed likely that General Soleimani, wrongly suspected that the
paltry demonstrations were a real threat and had ordered the pro-Iranian paramilitaries to
open fire and put a plan for suppressing the demonstrations into operation disastrous for
Iranian influence in Iraq. [ ]
General Soleimani died in the wake of his greatest failure and misjudgement
Not only did he strengthen the hand of anti Iran opinion in the White House by making
Trump look stupid, Soleimani's Baghdad massacre of protesting Shiite Arabs was a wedge
in the Iraqi– Iranian Shia alliance. Soleimani acted as if he was controlled by Ledeen,
and yet also worked on the higher plane of US divide and rule grand strategy for the Middle
East a la Kissinger.
I sense desperation from Washington.
What has been accomplished in the middle-east since the 'war on terror' began?
Pick any goal, real or not and evaluate the success from the beginning of the century:
Terrorism down?
Israel safer?
Better access to oil and gas for U.S. companies?
Democracy on the rise?
Stronger strategic position in the region?
Russia and China kept at bay?
Trade opportunities?
Status of the dollar?
Relations to allies in Europe and elsewhere?
All I see is negatives, perhaps someone can enlighten me?
Is it getting better or worse, is time on the U.S. side in this struggle? I can't see it.
If I was running this show I would be desperate too. And perhaps for the people actually
running the show, the biggest problem is how to exit the stage and guard Israel at the same
time.
@geokat62 If
Israel has over 500 nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them (this according to
former President Jimmy Carter), AND Israel has refused ALL inspections by the IAEA , then
this is a legitimate threat to Iran.
The world should see that Iran has a right to defend itself with nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon and White House have been insisting that Iran was behind an alleged Kata'ib
Hezbollah attack on a U.S. installation that then triggered a strike by Washington on
claimed militia targets in Syria and also inside Iraq.
But clearly this attack was much longer in the planning because of the prisoner exchange
between the US and Iran on December 12th ( https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-hopes-prisoner-exchange-will-lead-broader-discussion-iran
). Obviously, that exchange took place in order not to leave any potential hostages in Iran
when the escalation was triggered. All the excuses for the assassination were later tailored
to fit the story as it developed.
Also, there is the State Department and Pompeo's own quote which purports that the attacks
were not in retaliation for something but in order to forestall future attacks (as if this
could ever be justifiable).
What this indicates to me, is that, contrary to the peddled story, a major escalation was
planned, which started with a prisoner exchange, the next step was adopting the Israeli
strategy of using completely disproportionate responses in order to trigger some ever
increasing responses from the Iranians. Stage 1: One rocket attack (probably staged by
US-Israeli secret services); response: 23 soldiers killed by US. Stage 2: embassy protests,
no casualties; response: Soleimani and Iraqui official killed.
Pompeo's excuse that the assassination of Soleimani was not for previous action on the
general's part but in order to prevent some great escalation which he was planning, was more
likely one of the stories they sold each other, Trump, and the public, in order to create
some 'plausible' deniability for the plan. What friggin' criminals!
Not sure why so many commenters engage hasbara clowns like A123. Why engage people who
aren't debating in good faith?
True thoughts and wise words, my friend.
All those hasbara clowns are on my 'Commneters to Ignore' list. They can say
whateva they want [freedom of speech], but I don't have to waste my time reading or
commenting on it.
@TKK Why then
are there large protests from the Persian community in Los Angeles? They don't have to worry
about secret police. Personally I think he was a good man because he helped destroy ISIS.
@jack daniels
I would imagine that, given Giraldi's background and experience, he is more than qualified to
offer his analysis of the circumstances, situation and possible consequences on the topic
under discussion and many people value that.
You don't have to agree at all but making empty comments like that are just a waste of
your time.
Remember the Maine and 9/11 ! The yellow press and Alex Jones are already talking about
Iranian sleeper cells in the US , there will likely be a false flag attack on the "Homeland"
,with civilian casualties ,which will be blamed on Iran , as a result the public will be
propaganized into supporting "decisive" action against Iran .
@Bragadocious
As you well know, Supercilious, Hezbollah was the military force which handed the Israelis
their asses when they tried to invade Lebanon in 2006; Soleimani, being one of the organizers
of that resistance.
Subsequently, Israel used its complete control of its vassal, the US government, in order
to declare them a terrorist organization in 2009. The reason they did it then is the same
reason they want to destroy Iran, is in order to, among other things, have a free hand and
take southern Lebanon and be able to finally keep it.
Wow what an impressive bit of confusion. Giraldi says a big bunch of mistakes have been made
and the end result might be the US withdrawing its troops from over seas bases. In other
words a massive victory for the taxpayers and the rest of the world.
@TKK Crazy
TKK lay in hay & he done obey the Israeli way & thus ge doth say: "They (Persians)
act the fool in the street to mourn his death because it is expected, it's a way to let off
steam and it's social."
@John
Chuckman @123 is spot on. Soeimani and the aye are toller have had this coming for about
2 decades. Did they really think that a full scale attack on a US embassy would go unanswered
after the 2013 Benghazi atrocity?
The 2 main protagonists have been eliminated and so have various minor Iranian minions.
Many others have been arrested by US special forces and are being held.
The Iranians are paralysed because their strategic brain has gone and they have no good
retaliatory options.
If they missile a US warship Donald will destroy their nuclear program. That is his end game.
If they missile Tel Aviv the Israelis will strategically nuke them. The Iranians are shitting
bricks.
@Daniel Rich
Might we assume that the US has the coordinates of every Iranian facility cancerned with
their generational nuclear and missile program and the means to destroy them.
The US has all the good options. The very fact that Iran has done nothing a week after the
base attack and days after Soleimani's removal indicates they are paralysed with fear.
@Daniel Rich
Might we assume that the US has the coordinates of every Iranian facility cancerned with
their generational nuclear and missile program and the means to destroy them.
The US has all the good options. The very fact that Iran has done nothing a week after the
base attack and days after Soleimani's removal indicates they are paralysed with fear.
So who exactly are the blessed? The Christian/Hindoo/ whiteys/blackeys/brownies ? Those
who regularly contort their minds into pretzels trying to comprehend their pagan polytheist
mangods-worshipping faith?
You whitey idiots are such a confused lot that, at a spiritual level, you seem to be
splitting like the amoeba, all the time. It is hilarious, and it is pathetic.
Is that called a blessing in your pagan/godless kind's spiritual dictionary?
Lol!
The Almighty One has blessed us true monotheists with these 4 verses, and much much more.
If we get nothing else, these are enough;
Say, "He is Allah, [who is] One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is
born, Nor is there to Him any equivalent." : 112
@TKK Dummy
TKK doth obey the Israeli way, and naturally, he lay down in all wet hay, & he done say:
"They (Persians) act the fool in the street to mourn his (Soleimani's) death because it is
expected, it's a way to let off steam and it's social."
Hey TKK! (Zigh)
Re, above; As you're aware, you are a low rent U.R. hasbarist.
Haha. You stupidly figure guys like me have forgotten the mind-numbing & week long
mourning pageant, extensively covered by ZUS TalmudVision,* for the ultra-Shabbos goy
anti-hero, Senator John McCain, who famously cackled "Bomb, bomb Iran."
* Credit creative geokat for spoton "TalmudVision."
Your use of the word Jew as a pejorative is childish and simple minded. Max Blumenthal is
a Jew .he very much appears to agree with the crux of Giraldi's article. Unz is a Jew, who
allows Giraldi to post articles like the one you are responding to do you hold him in
disdain?
@anon The
most vicious attack against me and my country I've witnessed came at the hands of young
American Jews from NYC. I'd been back for a few years from a combat role in Vietnam and, at a
party in our building where my wife and I were the only non-Jews, a bunch of Jews who'd just
returned from fighting for Israel in some capacity during its '73 war went after me with a
hatred that I can still feel to this day. They were saying that American soldiers suck and
how much better Israelis were in the field. It ended when a woman no less yelled at me, "All
we want is your money." This from supposed Americans. As they like to say, "We
Jews shit on you Christians." If you haven't worked on Wall Street with them, this may seem
academic. The hate is palpable.
I cannot understand how our higher ups bow and scrape before them, except to note the
baked in contradiction of American military leadership -- that those officers who're early on
identified for transfer to some HQ company are so selected because they're generally
order-taking martinets and the antithesis of warrior leaders, becoming in time the perfumed
princes we see paraded like trained poodles before the kosher cameras on TV to sell out their
country for Israel. I offer as proof their willingness to send Americans to do the dying and
suffering so good Israeli boys need not. Can you imagine anything more disgusting than a
putative man complying with crimes against humanity because he's afraid of neocons like Max
Boot or Fiona Hill and then has the gall to call it his sworn, patriotic duty? I can't.
All it need is getting a researchers on Fox and get him or her publish about the trauma
experienced from a distance from the killing of an adversary despite the killing wanted by
the Jews . Wordsmithing can follow New jargon will appear . People with those ideas will be
showcased and promoted to Harvard or Yale or to the Anti semitism society of the US Cabinet (
It is not there but it exists ) . Money will be earmarked to get few extra senate vote or
something like that .
@Daniel Rich
I have to hold my tongue or fear putting myself at risk, but to give you an idea of what I'm
thinking, I wish Iran all the luck in the world.
When those transfer tubes come home, filled with our dead soldiers, killed fighting endless
wars for Wall Street and Israel, will the flag draping the tube be one Made in the USA?
And how much money did Jared K make by shorting certain stocks? He would of known of the
coming murder of the Iranian general, I seriously doubt he would of let a money-making
opportunity like that pass.
The report says Israel was "on the verge" of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near
Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that
Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general.
It was Obama that warned Iran because the US Iran nuclear agreement was in effect and
Israel was trying everything possible to wreck it and just as they are doing now, to goad
Iran into war.
The way to stop Israel is to spill more Jewish blood than they can stand, and there may be
enough Muslims and Arabs willing to die themselves to do that.
Very upset at this news. It is an obvious escalation by the Israeli led USA and puppet Trump.
They have some excellent forms of blackmail going on Trump. He walked into this mess with his
big ego; and they saw him coming and are making the best use of this stupid man.
Our nation has already brought so much shame on itself for attacking the Middle East under
Bush and Obomber. I still have a photo of a little Iraqi boy who was laying in a hospital bed
with no legs or arms, just a head and torso left. He was a victim of USA Bombing (Shock &
Awe) in 2003 Baghdad. He looks at the camera with a look I have never seen before.
I wish all this will go away, but we all know it is about to get worse and all the
Israelis need to get the American population onboard for a new fight is a major False Flag.
So, be vigilant and careful. We have no idea where they will strike and then blame Iran.
To this day I remember Mr. Linh Dinh's saying on Unz Review, to paraphrase; Trump is a shill,
owned by the Jews/Israelis, on top of which they would never allow anyone who wouldn't grovel
before them to be president. He was obviously correct.
Be that as it may. I want war. Only a war in which the paper tiger that is the US gets
itself real bloody nose is there a possibility of ending Jew supremacist's control of my
county.
It is indeed a foolhardy move. I've taken a lot of grief for supporting Trump while always
pointing out his ways of frustrating and stringing the neo-cons along. My one desperate and
perhaps foolish hope is that being foiled in trying to extricate us from Syria, Afghanistan
and Iraq, he has agreed to this act(whether post or pre, and I suspect post) to allow
them(the neo-cons and MIC) enough rope to hang themselves. The Iraqi parliament will
certainly vote to have us leave. If my desperate hope is true, we will do so. If not, at
least it hastens the end of our imperial age, which I would greatly welcome, at best without
nuclear war.
Comments on ZH are mostly negative, so looks like Trump lost an additional part of
independents vote. He might also lost the election, because now impeachment is the most logical
way out of this situation, with Trump servings as a sacrificial lamp for the MIC and neocon (he
was neocon prostitute all his term (MIGA instead of MAGA), so nothing essentially changed)
At the same time, Iran itself is zero threat to the American homeland. It's tiny $350 billion
GDP amounts to 6 days of US annual output and its $20 billion defense budget is equivalent to
what the Pentagon wastes every 8 days.
The most dangerous reaction of Iran now is is that it it can hit any US target. That would be
profoundly stupid. The most dangerious reaction sis that it can quietly develop nuclear
weapons.
The principal difficulty of this policy for the USA of course is Iraq. Having imposed a
rough democracy on Iraq, the governments were always likely to be Shia dominated and highly
susceptible to Iranian influence. The USA had a continuing handle through dwindling occupying
forces and through control of the process which produced the government.
They also provided financial resources to partially restore the physical infrastructure the
US and its allies had themselves destroyed, and of course to fund a near infinite pool of
corruption.
* * *
Unlike his adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat,
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every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate. Subscriptions
to keep Craig's blog going are gratefully received .
Trump claims to have evidence of an Iran attack threat, but he won't let Congress or the
American people see it. A president who has lied tens of thousands of times about things
both big and small while in office is now expecting the American people to take his word
for it on Iran.
Defense Officials Say Trump Is Lying About Iran Threat
Although Trump has said he has 52 more targets, its really doubtful he knows what to do
beyond that, if the Iranians retaliate. Then, there is the big problem of the Russian and the
Chinese navies in the region of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The U.S. is not in any winnable
situation, anyway you look at it. They will be forced to deploy more troops and materials to
the Middle East, and the money for all of that will come out of your Social Security checks,
and by reducing other entitlements, like Medicare, they will have to print more
money----meaning, the money you have in hand will be worth less. We had this very same
situation back in 1968-1969 with Vietnam, when the U.S. ran out of money to support the war
there, and we entered into an inflationary period in the early 1970's. We eventually lost
that war, if any one of you recall, and America was far better off then than what it is now.
Simply put, America is in no position to be going to war.
The orange genius is a clueless ignorant moron and like wax in the hand of his hawkish
advisors. With this imbecilic terrorist attack and loudmouth rhetoric afterwards he is now
basically forced to attack Iran whenever something looks like Iranian retaliation. Which is
basically an invitation to Tel Aviv to trigger the war at their discretion. Make Israel great
again!
Saddam Husein was a friend of the United States, fought against Iran, was part of the Bush
family. But when he decided to sell oil not only in dollars but also in euros, his country
was destroyed, and he himself was hanged for dubious reasons. It is dangerous to be an enemy
of the United States, but even more dangerous to be a friend of the United States. The USA is
a colony, since lobbying is not prohibited in the USA, and the fittest mass of lobbyists has
Israeli citizenship. They determine US foreign policy. So you are absolutely right, this is
not a country, it is a cancerous tumor. And she looks disgusting even in comparison with the
Saudis, they at least do not hypocritical in their atrocities.
Will a new bout of slaughter by the not so Great Satan and its vile little Satan be enough
to stop the inevitable civil war reloaded in Slumville when the Wall St Ponzi shitter finally
erupts and blows Trumptard's beautiful Washing town sewer with it?
Iran knows well, like China and Russia, that time is on their side. USSA is the most
bankrupt deadbeat in human history and its Saudi albatross and their collective fiat filth
IOU petroscrip toilet paper dollah can no longer be saved despite the wanton murder, genocide
and ravings of the Pentacon mobsters and their Agent Orange juice.
The so called Green Zone will be burned like Benghazi before it and it will happen when
USSA is least expecting it. Looking at Agent Orange's Soleimani gambit last week simply shows
how frightened the anglozionazi regime has in fact become in light of what these terrorists
call "the facts on the ground" i.e. the ongoing anglozionist war against the ruling Shia
majority inside Iraq. All the "boots on the ground" that USSA can now muster in the region
will only guarantee all the more bodybags that will be needed to ferry their remians back to
Slumville in the coming collap$e of all things USSAN.
In case any resident of Slumville still imagines that hired killer Agent Orange was not
ensnared in his best buddy Jeffrey Pedovore's Maralago Mossad kiddy **** show then why are
Pentacon hired killers from Slumville protecting Soleimani in this photo?
Russia, Russia, Russia, you know Putin's not a stupid. He's sounding very logical and
sane. Perhaps Iran could be the same. Sober sanity is a good thing for people and the
world.
We the people have no control over this. Cheering team A over team B is the preoccupation
of the peanut gallery. The deed has been done. What follows are the consequences. There are
muslim cultural centers all over the United States. We don't know if they are Shia or Sunni.
What we do know is that they have a mutual hatred of Christians. Expect the attacks on
Christians to escalate. Look to your people, their provisions and their security.
This is 40 years plus in the making. When the USA abandoned the Shah (not a nice guy)
during the Carter administration, two significant events occurred.
One, Iran went from a quasi-secular, pro-western nation, to one that in spite of, or
despite the wishes of its population, a vehemently anti-Western, and anti-USA nation, with
heavy religious leanings.
(And make no mistake, Iran has been interfering with, killing, and attacking the USA in
various ways for quite some time)
Two, because we (USA) needed a "player" in the middle east, we turned to the Saudis. Well
Saudi's (Arabs) are not Iranians (Persians), and we learned that, or should have, when a much
younger OBL issued his first "manifesto". (Which had nothing to do with Jews, but everything
to do with the stationing of US troops in the same country as Mecca and Medina)
Iran has a long history of being interfered by western powers (Most notably Britain. Ohhh
Britain). This leads to a duality: one, they can claim (at least until 1953 or so) that they
were being kept down financially by: {INSERT COUNTRY HERE}. There is some truth to that
(again - Britain). However, while claiming they are being kept weak, they can't get out of
their own way when it comes to running their own country. (Ostensibly, pre-1978 the
mercantile class, versus the people, versus the ruling class)
The United States has, in the past 40 years, handled Iran with kid gloves. You may not
like that statement, but when we are warning people to exit Oil platforms to minimize
casualties, I'm not lying. What happens next, militarily? I can't say. But unfortunately, it
will be the Iranian people who will suffer the most.
No matter who we get in the White House, they are always won over by the so-called
"Intelligence" services and the Pentagon. A little bit of kow-towing to them by staff and
others and they forget who they are and why they ran in the first place. In the case of
Trump, Netanyahu is an old friend. So did we ever expect any thing else? The Israelis think
they own us, and Netanyahu has aid so, so did Sharon. As for the end-of-timers, they think
they will be gathered in a cloud and watch while we all suffer nuclear war. With people like
this, who needs enemies?
Kiwikris , January 4, 2020 at 23:38
Pepe, while I respect your work hugely I must disagree with your assertion that Trump is
trapped by Impeachment. The "impeachment", until it's delivered to the Senate is a big fat
nothing. Even if it ever does make it to the Senate, I doubt VERY much if it will come to
anything & I believe Trump is not worried in the slightest. Donations to his re-election
campaign have skyrocketed, Zogbys latest poll (for what they are worth) shows his support up
across the board. And the Republicans control the Senate, not withstanding the potential
turncoat RINOs
Ron Johnson , January 4, 2020 at 18:26
Casey, swing voters will decide everything in 2020. Trump very well might keep his base,
but he could also lose the swing voters who believed him when he said he wanted peace. They
knew Hillary was a war monger, and they hoped for better with Trump. Now Trump has proven
himself to be just as blood thirsty, so that opens the door to anyone who can convincingly
argue that they are for peace, or at least for more restraint.
Robert Emmett , January 4, 2020 at 11:35
A little doggerel for some of those sharp toothed cats out there.
"Yeah, that was that cat alright."
ass faced men (pomp-a-don)
ass ass i' the-nation
passpass yer quid-
pro-quo-tay-shun
murderer had it comin'
screw turns harder
ain't no time
to bicker or to barter
just out of sight
in the dead of night
another screw turns loose
more money gets thrown
off the back of the caboose
run around town with open pockets
while men in hoods pull eyes out they sockets
best keep peepers & peeps at home
seal their names in a golden tome
help those in need act on yer own
ass-faced men are on the loose
Michael , January 4, 2020 at 20:58
"This the way the Roaring, Raging Twenties begin: not with a bang, but with the release of
whimpering dogs of war."
This is very poetic and deeply moving. I hope it will be remembered for the ages.
John Drake , January 4, 2020 at 11:05
Probably not a good time to be an American in the Mideast. I remember during Vietnam when
quite a few American tourists wore Canadian lapel pins abroad.
Trump is so stupid. With over 700 military bases abroad and dependency on Mideast oil he
doesn't understand how incredibly vulnerable US assets are.
This will probably further alienate US' so called allies (vassal states); as their leaders
will realize this is creating a lose-lose scenario. Except Britain which has almost equally,
mentally challenged leadership.
Looking on the bright side, another nail in the coffin of US hegemony is being forged.
And when is Israel going to haul Bibi away in cuffs?
paul , January 4, 2020 at 10:40
Let's see how fond of these murderous antics the Exceptional and Indispensable Folk feel
when the body bags start coming home and the $6 trillion already thrown down the rabbit hole
starts looking like chump change.
Moi , January 4, 2020 at 02:26
What makes the US the enemy of mankind is that, in their foreign policy, they are never
the architects of their own misfortune. Blowback on Americans is always someone else's fault
no matter how ham-fisted their machinations in the lead-up to an event.
Until the exceptionalists can say "mea culpa" of themselves the innocents of this world
will end up paying the price.
Ben Novick , January 4, 2020 at 00:29
Don't underestimate the US. We can annihilate half the world's population in the next
hour, if required.
Zhu , January 4, 2020 at 07:12
What good would that do?
Cornelius Pipe , January 4, 2020 at 07:32
Nope. All you can annihilate is yourselves. Should the US choose to use a nuclear bomb in
a world where nuclear weapons proliferate the US will find out why people in glass houses
should not throw stones. i.e. the US should think long and hard before it swaps Washington
for Tehran.
caseyf5 , January 4, 2020 at 07:36
Hello Ben Novick,
And will in the future!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anthony Shaker , January 4, 2020 at 09:51
I don't know what this inane comment is meant to convey, but perhaps you should ponder
what you just wrote. What is your religion, exactly? There is an intolerable element of evil
in your words. What you are saying also is that, in the end, the US, which is no longer an
island in today's world, is being led by a death wish. Is that the apocalypse that the
howling lunatics of the pseudo-religious Church of Wealth presently unfurling itself on the
Evangelical crowd in America (and now Latin America) are waiting for? Everything the US does
another can do and do with growing efficiency.
Truth first , January 4, 2020 at 11:55
Sheeee!!
Apparently Ben does not realize that the US CANNOT annihilate "half the world's
population" without annihilating half of the US population.
Like a US patriot he is perfectly prepared to kill billions "if required". Only a
psychopath would ever consider killing billions of innocents "if required"
E depois fariam o que ! virariam zumbis 'sobre os escombros .como filmes de mad max.
kgw , January 4, 2020 at 13:51
We? Define "We,", Mr. Novick. I am a native of the U.S., and the only "We" that would act
in such a way are not aware of being human.
Mrs. Debra L. Carr de Legorreta , January 4, 2020 at 14:07
Ben Novick we cannot eliminate half the world's population without eliminating all of
it.
That's the problem. We have no sense of proportionality.
They kill one "contractor" we kill 25 militia members.
They trash one embassy, hurting no one; we murder their top general, murder several other top
officials, and we drone the heck out of a new group of protesters getting on their way to the
same embassy. Totally disproportionate.
Like you, these neocons are overly impressed with their toys and their self-righteousness.
They couldn't stomach brown people desecrating their pretty billion-dollar embassy in
Baghdad.
YOUR way of thinking IS the problem.
Your comments remind me of Hillary Clinton cackling on getting the news that Gaddafi had been
sodomized and murdered.
You proud? Is that what being a "patriot" means to you, that you can murder anyone you
want?
LJ , January 4, 2020 at 17:33
Hey Ben, Learn something. Look up Bomb Carbon. It is going to disappear in a few years so
government funded Scientists are doing a lot of testing and engaging in various kinds of
research trying to make good use of it while the fun lasts. . Bomb Carbon is short for a
radioactive by product of the nuclear explosions that were ended by the early 60's after the
ban on Testing of Nuclear weapons above ground like at Bikini Atoll, Area 51, etc. Now I
guess you think there's a good reason to create a whole lot more bomb carbon. It will be
great . Good for research? We got to keep those guys gainfully employed? We've got to keep
ahead of them damn Ruskies and the Chinese too , the ones that aren't already employed at
MIT, Lawrence Livermore Lab and elsewhere here in the Brigand Nation that assassinates with
impunity without regard to International Law or Borders then lies about it on TV. Well, since
we can't do it to American Indians anymore we got to find new victims?
This was a historic mistake. 650 million Shiites will not ever forget This. This man was a
hero and definitely expected assasination and martyrdom. Read about Twelvers. The Shia Branch
of Islam. Their religion is based on and centers around revering the 11 already martyred
Imans that were assassinated/murdered by unjust powers. I don't make this stuff up. This
plays right into what they believe. No Shiite could side with the USA on this. Not possible .
There are hundreds of millions of them.
This was a stupid decision by stupid men and unless the Democrats are just as stupid they are
going to resist this, come out against a Trump War and Trump is going to lose the election in
a landslide. Americans want No More War despite what the News Media and the Pentagon and yes
the Deep State say.
Trump- LOSER.
geeyp , January 3, 2020 at 23:27
At least where Pepe reports from, he has access to great food for our Last Supper, as some
portray this stupid action from President Trump and the all too eager Pentagon, who is the
only group to generously gain from this. Netanyahu may now think he does and we wouldn't want
him or expect him to think any other way.
Mark Stanley , January 3, 2020 at 19:35
Excellent Pepe, but disturbing
The whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. Happy New Year? Will Americans really swallow
this treble hook whole again?
I keep wondering how much insider or opportunistic trading goes on. Any one who knew about
this 10 minutes beforehand could simply go long oil, or gold. Quite predictable. The markets
are so volatile nowadays, over reacting to news events. Much of this is due to AI trading
systems that are programmed to react to news, and they get the feeds before anyone else and
react instantly–buy/sell. Deep state creeps certainly made a killing in the markets
today. No brainer there. It would be interesting to check out the volume on various options
and commodities contracts prior to the assassination. The term "elephant tracks" has been
used to identify massive buy/sell orders by unidentified players.
As an old hippy guy, I really thought our world would be a better place by now. Au contrere.
No matter what political system, the sociopaths continue to rise to the top like toxic
scum.
Jeff Harrison , January 3, 2020 at 18:12
I imagine that the Iranians will be able to demonstrate that the the US isn't the only
nation that can assassinate at a distance and I also suspect that Israel will discover a few
dead bodies of their own. I expect that the Iraqis will kick the US out of their country.
They certainly don't want to be the battle field for an Iran/US war either. The real question
will be – what will Russia's and China's response to this be?
Clark M Shanahan , January 3, 2020 at 22:13
I wish that calm heads shall prevail.
BTW: the Saudi's can expect payback, too.
rosemerry , January 4, 2020 at 13:17
There is an agreement between the USA and Iraq about US troops inside Iraq,and this act
has clearly broken it, and if the Iraqis do not kick all the US troops out they will get no
support from anyone. There is NO excuse to treat the government of an "allied, sovereign"
country in such a way, involving Iraqi government forces and militias as well, of course, as
Gen. Suleimani.
karlof1 , January 3, 2020 at 17:54
Wonder what the odds are on Pompeo, Trump, or Esper dying non-violently at some point in
the near future? IMO, Trump also killed his reelection. My other initial and subsequent
comments were made at Moon of Alabama and don't need repeating here. I will post this there
along with a few quotes from Pepe, whose Facebook is also jammed.
caseyf5 , January 4, 2020 at 07:41
Hello karlof1,
I vehemently disagree in your belief that the tRump will lose the 2020 election. His cult
followers think that war with Iran is a great thing!
Tom Kath , January 3, 2020 at 17:53
There can be no clearer DECLARATION OF WAR. Choose your sides and prepare to die
regardless which side you choose.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini and Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, right
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons).
Last October Yossi Cohen, head of Israel's Mossad, spoke openly about assassinating Iranian
general Qassem Soleimani, the head of the elite Quds Force in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps.
"He knows very well that his assassination is not impossible," Cohen said in an
interview. Soleimani had boasted that the Israel's tried to assassinate him in 2006 and
failed.
"With all due respect to his bluster," Cohen said, "he hasn't necessarily committed the
mistake yet that would place him on the prestigious list of Mossad's assassination
targets."
Soleimani's convoy was struck by U.S. missiles as he left a meeting at Baghdad's airport
amid anti-Iranian and anti-American demonstrations in Iraq. Supporters of an Iranian-backed
militia had agreed to withdraw
from the U.S. diplomatic compound in return for a promise that the government would allow a
parliamentary vote on expelling 5,000 U.S. troops from the country.
The Pentagon confirmed the military operation, which came "at the direction of the
president" and was "aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans." The Pentagon claimed in a
statement that Gen. Soleimani was "actively developing plans to attack American diplomats
and service members in Iraq and throughout the region."
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, under indictment for criminal charges, was the first
and only national leader to support Trump's action, while claiming that that Trump acted
entirely on his own.
"Just as Israel has the right to self-defense, the United States has exactly the same
right," Netanyahu
told reporters in Greece. "Qassem Soleimani is responsible for the deaths of American
citizens and other innocents, and he was planning more attacks."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed retaliation for the general's death, tweeting that
"Iran will take revenge for this heinous crime."
Capable Foe
Soleimani was the most capable foe of the United States and Israel in the region. As chief
of the
Al-Quds force, Soleimani was a master of Iran's asymmetric warfare strategy, using proxy
forces to bleed Iran's enemies, while preserving the government's ability to plausibly deny
involvement.
After the U.S. invasions of Iraq, he funded and trained anti-American militias that launched
low-level attacks on U.S. occupation forces, killing upward of 600 U.S. servicemen and
generating pressure for U.S. withdrawal.
In recent years, Soleimani led two successful Iranian military operations: the campaign to
drive ISIS out of western Iraq in 2015 and the campaign to crush the jihadist forces opposed to
Syria's Bashar al-Assad. The United States and Israel denounced Iran's role in both operations
but could not prevent Iran from claiming victory.
Soleimani had assumed a leading role in Iraqi politics in the past year. The anti-ISIS
campaign relied on Iraqi militias, which the Iranians supported with money, weapons, and
training. After ISIS was defeated, these militia maintained a prominent role in Iraq that many
resented, leading to demonstrations and rioting. Soleimani was seeking to stabilize the
government and channel the protests against the United States when he was killed.
In the same period, Israel pursued its program of targeted assassination. In the past decade
Mossad
assassinated at least five Iranian nuclear scientists, according to Israeli journalist
Ronen Bergman, in an effort to thwart Iran's nuclear program. Yossi Melman, another Israeli
journalist, says that Mossad has assassinated
60-70 enemies outside of its borders since its founding in 1947, though none as prominent
as Soleimani.
Israel also began striking at the Iranian-backed militias in Iraq last year. The United
States did the same on December 29, killing
19 fighters and prompting anti-American demonstrations as big as the anti-Iranian
demonstrations of a month ago.
Now the killing of Soleimani promises more unrest, if not open war. The idea that it will
deter Iranian attacks is foolish.
"This doesn't mean war," wrote former Defense Department official Andrew Exum, "It
will not lead to war, and it doesn't risk war. None of that.
It
is
war. "
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported a year ago that Washington had given Israel the
green light to assassinate Soleimani . Al-Jarida, which in recent years has broken
exclusive stories from Israel, quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that "there is an
American-Israeli agreement" that Soleimani is a "threat to the two countries' interests in the
region." It is generally assumed in the Arab world that the paper is used as an Israeli
platform for conveying messages to other countries in the Middle East.
Trump has now fulfilled the wishes of Mossad. After proclaiming his intention to end
America's " stupid endless wars," the
president has effectively declared war on the largest country in the region in solidarity with
Israel, the most unpopular country in the Middle East.
This article first appeared on Jefferson Morley's TheDeepStateBlog .
ast Friday, the Iranian-backed militia Kata'ib Hizbollah or KH launched yet another attack
against American forces in Iraq, resulting in the death of one American civilian, and injuries
to four American service members, as well as two of our partners in the Iraqi Security Forces.
This continues a string of attacks against bases with U.S. forces and Iraqi Security Forces. KH
has a strong linkage to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and has received lethal
aid, support, and direction from Iran.
Over the last couple of months Iranian-backed Shia militias have repeatedly attacked bases
hosting American forces in Iraq. These attacks have injured our partners in the Iraqi Security
Forces, but fortunately Americans were not casualties of these attacks until last week. On
November 9th, Iranian-backed Shia militias fired rockets at Q-West Air Base located in
North-West Iraq. On December 3rd, they conducted a rocket attack against Al Asad Air Base, and
on December 5th, they launched rockets against Balad Air Base. Finally, on December 9th, these
same militia groups fired rockets at the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center located on the
Baghdad International Airport. It is clear that these attacks are being directed by the Iranian
regime, specifically IRGC leadership.
In response, U.S. leaders have repeatedly warned the Iranians and their Shia militia proxies
against further provocative actions. At the same time, we have urged the Iraqi government to
take all necessary steps to protect American forces in their country. I personally have spoken
to Iraqi leadership multiple times over recent months, urging them to do more.
After the attack last Friday, at the direction of the President, U.S. forces launched
defensive strikes against KH forces in Iraq and Syria. These attacks were aimed at reducing
KH's ability to launch additional attacks against U.S. personnel and to make it clear to Iran
and Iranian-backed militias that the United States will not hesitate to defend our forces in
the region.
On Tuesday, December 31st, at the instigation of Shia militias, violent rallies of members
of these militias outside the American embassy in Baghdad resulted in damage to exterior entry
facilities and buildings at the embassy compound. We know it was Iranian-backed Shia militias
because key leaders were spotted in the crowd and some militia members showed up wearing their
uniforms and carried the flags of their militia, including KH. We continue to urge the Iraqi
government to prevent further escalation. Leaders of the Iraqi government have condemned the
attack on the U.S. embassy, including the Iraqi president, prime minister, foreign minister,
and speaker of the parliament. Additionally, regional and international partners have condemned
the attacks on U.S. facilities, including Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain in the region, and the
E.U., Germany, France, and others around the globe.
On Tuesday, to ensure the security of the Americans at the embassy in Baghdad, we
immediately deployed Marines from Kuwait who arrived at the embassy in a matter of hours. We
also deployed a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division to ensure that we can provide
additional defensive support to the embassy in Baghdad or elsewhere in the region as
needed.
Let me speak directly to Iran and to our partners and allies. To Iran and its proxy
militias: we will not accept continued attacks against our personnel and forces in the region.
Attacks against us will be met with responses in the time, manner, and place of our choosing.
We urge the Iranian regime to end their malign activities.
To our partners and allies: we must stand together against the malign and destabilizing
actions of Iran. The 81 nations and member organizations of the Defeat ISIS Coalition are in
Iraq and Syria, and cooperating around the globe to defeat ISIS. We have worked closely with
our partners in the Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian Democratic Forces to roll-back the
so-called ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria and liberated millions of Iraqis and Syrians. NATO
nations are also in Iraq to assist with building the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces.
Unlike the Iranians who continue to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs and seek to use
corruption to further Tehran's malign influence, the United States and our allies are committed
to an independent, stable, secure, and sovereign democratic Iraq that addresses the aspirations
and needs of the Iraqi people, who we see protesting for these very things and objecting to
Iran's malign influence. We call on our friends and allies to continue to work together to
reduce Iran's destabilizing influence so Iraq is governed by Iraqis without this interference
in its internal affairs. Mark T. Esper
After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and the
death of the Soviet Union was confirmed two years later when Boris Yeltsin courageously stood
down the Red Army tanks in front of Moscow's White House, a dark era in human history came to
an end.
The world had descended into a 77-Year War, incepting with the mobilization of the armies of
old Europe in August 1914. If you want to count bodies, 150 million were killed by all the
depredations that germinated in the Great War, its foolish aftermath at Versailles, and the
march of history into World War II and the Cold War that followed inexorably thereupon.
Upwards of 8% of the human race was wiped out during that span. The toll encompassed the
madness of trench warfare during 1914-1918; the murderous regimes of Soviet and Nazi
totalitarianism that rose from the ashes of the Great War and Versailles; and then the carnage
of WWII and all the lesser (unnecessary) wars and invasions of the Cold War including Korea and
Vietnam.
At the end of the Cold War, therefore, the last embers of the fiery madness that had
incepted with the guns of August 1914 had finally burned out. Peace was at hand. Yet 28 years
later there is still no peace because Imperial Washington confounds it.
In fact, the War Party entrenched in the nation's capital is dedicated to economic interests
and ideological perversions that guarantee perpetual war. These forces ensure endless waste on
armaments; they cause the inestimable death and human suffering that stems from 21st-century
high-tech warfare; and they inherently generate terrorist blowback from those upon whom the War
Party inflicts its violent hegemony.
Worse still, Washington's great war machine and teeming national security industry is its
own agent of self-perpetuation. When it is not invading, occupying and regime changing, its
vast apparatus of internal policy bureaus and outside contractors, lobbies, think tanks and
NGOs is busy generating reasons for new imperial ventures.
So there was a virulent threat to peace still lurking on the Potomac after the 77-Year War
ended. The great general and President, Dwight Eisenhower, had called it the
"military-industrial complex" in his farewell address. But that memorable phrase had been
abbreviated by his speechwriters, who deleted the word "congressional" in a gesture of comity
to the legislative branch.
So restore Ike's deleted reference to the pork barrels and Sunday-afternoon warriors of
Capitol Hill and toss in the legions of Beltway busybodies who constituted the civilian
branches of the Cold War armada (CIA, State, AID, NED and the rest) and the circle would have
been complete. It constituted the most awesome machine of warfare and imperial hegemony since
the Roman legions bestrode most of the civilized world.
In a word, the real threat to peace circa 1991 was that the American Imperium would not go
away quietly into the good night.
In fact, during the past 28 years Imperial Washington has lost all memory that peace was
ever possible at the end of the Cold War. Today it is as feckless, misguided and bloodthirsty
as were Berlin, Paris, St. Petersburg, Vienna and London in August 1914.
A few months after that horrendous slaughter had been unleashed 105 years ago, however,
soldiers along the western front broke into spontaneous truces of Christmas celebration,
song and even exchange of gifts . For a brief moment they wondered why they were
juxtaposed in lethal combat along the jaws of hell.
A sudden cold snap had left the battlefield frozen, which was actually a relief for
troops wallowing in sodden mire. Along the Front, troops extracted themselves from their
trenches and dugouts, approaching each other warily, and then eagerly, across No Man's Land.
Greetings and handshakes were exchanged, as were gifts scavenged from care packages sent from
home. German souvenirs that ordinarily would have been obtained only through bloodshed –
such as spiked pickelhaube helmets, or Gott mit uns belt buckles – were bartered for
similar British trinkets. Carols were sung in German, English, and French. A few photographs
were taken of British and German officers standing alongside each other, unarmed, in No Man's
Land.
Near the Ypres salient, Germans and Scotsmen chased after wild hares that, once caught,
served as an unexpected Christmas feast. Perhaps the sudden exertion of chasing wild hares
prompted some of the soldiers to think of having a football match. Then again, little prompting
would have been necessary to inspire young, competitive men – many of whom were English
youth recruited off soccer fields – to stage a match. In any case, numerous accounts in
letters and journals attest to the fact that on Christmas 1914, German and English soldiers
played soccer on the frozen turf of No Man's Land.
British Field Artillery Lieutenant John Wedderburn-Maxwell described the event as
"probably the most extraordinary event of the whole war – a soldier's truce without any
higher sanction by officers and generals ."
The truth is, there was no good reason for the Great War. The world had stumbled into war
based on false narratives and the institutional imperatives of military mobilization plans,
alliances and treaties arrayed into a doomsday machine and petty short-term diplomatic
maneuvers and political calculus. Yet it took more than three-quarters of a century for all the
consequential impacts and evils to be purged from the life of the planet.
The peace that was lost last time has not been regained this time, however, and for the same
reasons. Historians can readily name the culprits from 105 years ago.
These include the German general staff's plan for a lightning mobilization and strike on the
western front called the Schlieffen Plan; the incompetence and intrigue in the court at St.
Petersburg; French President Poincare's anti-German irredentism owing to the 1871 loss of his
home province, Alsace-Lorraine; and the bloodthirsty cabal around Winston Churchill who forced
England into an unnecessary war, among countless others.
Since these casus belli of 1914 were criminally trivial in light of all that metastasized
thereafter, it might do well to name the institutions and false narratives that block the
return of peace today. The fact is, these impediments are even more contemptible than the
forces that crushed the Christmas truces one century ago.
IMPERIAL WASHINGTON – THE NEW GLOBAL MENACE
There is no peace on earth today for reasons mainly rooted in Imperial Washington –
not Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, Damascus, Mosul or the rubble of Raqqa. Imperial Washington has
become a global menace owing to what didn't happen in 1991.
At that crucial inflection point, Bush the Elder should have declared "mission accomplished"
and parachuted into the great Ramstein air base in Germany to begin the demobilization of the
America's war machine.
So doing, he could have slashed the Pentagon budget from $600 billion to $250 billion (2015
$); demobilized the military-industrial complex by putting a moratorium on all new weapons
development, procurement and export sales; dissolved NATO and dismantled the far-flung network
of U.S. military bases; reduced the United States' standing armed forces from 1.5 million to a
few hundred thousand; and organized and led a world-disarmament and peace campaign, as did his
Republican predecessors during the 1920s.
Unfortunately, George H. W. Bush was not a man of peace, vision or even middling
intelligence.
He was the malleable tool of the War Party, and it was he who single-handedly blew the peace
when, in the very year the 77-Year War ended with the demise of the Soviet Union, he plunged
America into a petty argument between the impetuous dictator of Iraq and the gluttonous emir of
Kuwait. But that argument was none of George Bush's or America's business.
By contrast, even though liberal historians have reviled Warren G. Harding as some kind of
dummkopf politician, he well understood that the Great War had been for naught, and that to
ensure it never happened again the nations of the world needed to rid themselves of their huge
navies and standing armies.
To that end, he achieved the largest global-disarmament agreement ever during the Washington
Naval Conference of 1921, which halted the construction of new battleships for more than a
decade. And even then, the moratorium ended only because the vengeful victors at Versailles
never ceased exacting their revenge on Germany.
And while he was at it, President Harding also pardoned Eugene Debs. In so doing, he gave
witness to the truth that the intrepid socialist candidate for president and vehement antiwar
protester, who Wilson had thrown in prison for exercising his First Amendment right to speak
against US entry into a pointless European war, had been right all along.
In short, Warren G. Harding knew the war was over and the folly of Wilson's 1917 plunge into
Europe's bloodbath should not be repeated, at all hazards.
But not George H. W. Bush. The man should never be forgiven for enabling the likes of Dick
Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Gates and their neocon pack of jackals to come to power –
even if he eventually denounced them in his doddering old age.
Alas, upon his death, Bush the Elder was deified, not vilified, by the mainstream press and
the bipartisan duopoly. And that tells you all you need to know about why Washington is
ensnared in its Forever Wars and is the very reason why there is still no peace on earth.
Even more to the point, by opting not for peace but for war and oil in the Persian Gulf in
1991 Washington opened the gates to an unnecessary confrontation with Islam and nurtured the
rise of jihadist terrorism that would not haunt the world today save for forces unleashed by
George H. W. Bush's petulant quarrel with Saddam Hussein.
We will momentarily get to the 45-year-old error that holds the Persian Gulf is an American
lake and that the answer to high oil prices and energy security is the Fifth Fleet.
Suffice it to say here that the answer to high oil prices everywhere and always is
high oil prices – a truth driven home in spades by the oil busts of 2009 and 2015 and the
fact the real price of oil today (2019 $) is lower than it was on the eve of the great oil
embargo of 1973.
But first it is well to remember that in 1991 there was no plausible threat anywhere on the
planet to the safety and security of the citizens of Springfield, MA, Lincoln, NE or Spokane,
WA when the Cold War ended.
The Warsaw Pact had dissolved into more than a dozen woebegone sovereign statelets; the
Soviet Union was now unscrambled into 15 independent and far-flung republics from Belarus to
Tajikistan; and the Russian motherland would soon plunge into an economic depression that would
leave it with a GDP about the size of the Philadelphia MSA.
Likewise, China's GDP was even smaller and more primitive than Russia's. Even as Mr. Deng
was discovering the People's Bank of China's printing press, which would enable it to become a
great mercantilist exporter, an incipient Chinese threat to national security was never in the
cards.
After all, it was the 4,000 Wal-Marts in America upon which the prosperity of the new Red
Capitalism inextricably depended and upon which the rule of the Communist oligarchs in Beijing
was ultimately anchored. Even the hardliners among them could see that in swapping militarism
for mercantilism and invading America with tennis shoes, neckties and home textiles –
that the door had been closed to any other kind of invasion thereafter.
NO ISLAMIC TERRORISTS OR JIHADI THREAT CIRCA 1991
Likewise, in 1991 there was no global Islamic threat or jihadi terrorist menace at all. What
existed under those headings were sundry fragments and deposits of Middle Eastern religious,
ethnic and tribal histories that were of moment in their immediate region, but no threat to
America's homeland security whatsoever.
The Shiite/Sunni divide had coexisted since A.D. 671, but its episodic eruptions into
battles and wars over the centuries had rarely extended beyond the region, and certainly had no
reason to fester into open conflict in 1991.
Inside the artificial state of Iraq, which had been drawn on a map by historically ignorant
European diplomats in 1916, for instance, the Shiite and Sunni got along tolerably. That's
because the nation was ruled by Saddam Hussein's Baathist brand of secular Arab nationalism,
flavored by a muscular propensity for violent repression of internal dissent.
Hussein championed law and order, state-driven economic development and politically
apportioned distributions from the spoils of the extensive government-controlled oil sector. To
be sure, Baathist socialism didn't bring much prosperity to the well-endowed lands of
Mesopotamia, but Hussein did have a Christian foreign minister and no sympathy for religious
extremism or violent pursuit of sectarian causes.
As it happened, the bloody Shiite/Sunni strife that plagues Iraq, Syria and the greater
middle east today and which functioned as a hatchery for angry young jihadi terrorists in their
thousands was initially unleashed only after Hussein had been driven from Kuwait in 1991 and
the CIA had instigated an armed uprising in the Shiite heartland around Basra..
That revolt was brutally suppressed by Hussein's republican guards, but it left an undertow
of resentment and revenge boiling below the surface. That was one of many of George H. W.
Bush's fetid legacies in the region.
Needless to say, when it came their turn, Bush the Younger and his cabal of neocon
warmongers could not leave well enough alone.
When they foolishly destroyed Saddam Hussein and his entire regime in the pursuit of
nonexistent WMDs and alleged ties with al-Qaeda, they literally opened the gates of hell,
leaving Iraq as a lawless failed state where both recent and ancient religious and tribal
animosities were given unlimited violent vent.
WHY THE WAR PARTY NEEDED TO DEMONIZE IRAN
Also circa 1990, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was no threat to America's safety
and security – even if it was an unfortunate albatross on the Persian people.
The very idea that Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the
rest of the world is a giant fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party
and its Bibi Netanyahu branch in order to win political support for their confrontationist
policies.
Indeed, the three-decade-long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose.
Namely, it has enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby
justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military
mobilization.
Indeed, Iran has not been demonized by happenstance. When the Cold War officially ended in
1991, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US
military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic
environment.
In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way
of keeping defense spending at high Cold War levels. If the fearsome Soviet Union was gone, a
vastly inflated threat emanating from Iran's minuscule GDP of $350 billion and tiny defense
budget of $15 billion would needs be invented and hyperbolized.
And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to
come out of the Beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then
threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!
To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa
against the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that
enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime
of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much
different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.
That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA
overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and
megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne to rule as a puppet on behalf
of US security and oil interests.
During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of
the Persian nation; with the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret
police force known as SAVAK. The latter made the East German Stasi look civilized by
comparison.
All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic
organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the
SAVAK agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:
Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest,
detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own
prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places
throughout the country as well. Many of those activities were carried out without any
institutional checks.
Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah had embarked on a massive civilian
nuclear-power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape
with dozens of nuclear power plants.
He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from
Western companies – and also fuel-cycle support services such as uranium enrichment
– in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.
At the time of the revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but
the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset
of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion
deposit languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the
Shah to fund a ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of
reactors.
Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was
not hell-bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst
of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa
against biological and chemical weapons.
Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces
– some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking
satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture
was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for
nukes.
However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy that ruled Iran did not
consist of demented warmongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own
forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.
HOW WASHINGTON INSPIRED THE MYTH OF IRAN'S SECRET NUCLEAR-WEAPONS PROGRAM
Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some
additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French
enrichment-services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German
suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when they tried to get their $2 billion
deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.
To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off-again, on-again efforts by
the Iranians to purchase dual-use equipment and components on the international
market, often from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's
relentless efforts to block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty to complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.
Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics that
inhabited Washington's national-security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin
every attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret
campaign to get "the bomb".
The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear mongering that came out of this neocon
campaign are truly deplorable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George H. W.
Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury the
hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held in
Lebanon in 1989.
Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States
and the West; and after the devastation of the eight-year war with Iraq, he was wholly focused
on economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.
It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even Bush
the Elder's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.
So the prisoner-release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the
CIA was assumed in 1991 by the despicable Robert Gates.
He was one of the very worst of the unreconstructed Cold War apparatchiks who looked peace
in the eye, and elected, instead, to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim. That is, Gates
spent the rest of his career searching the globe for monsters to fabricate.
In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right-hand
man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan Administration. Among the many
untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his
career when it blew up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.
From his post as deputy national-security director in 1989 (and then as CIA head shortly
thereafter), Gates pulled out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed off
the White House goodwill from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was
both sponsoring terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.
Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple
of War Party propaganda after 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that Iran
is an aggressive would-be hegemon and a fount of terrorism dedicated to the destruction of the
state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.
The latter giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi
Netanyahu's coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that
Iran posed an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli
politics that kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades – a plague on mankind
that hopefully is finally ending.
But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability.
And compared to the latter's 200-odd nukes, Iran never even had a nuclear weaponization program
after a small-scale research program was abandoned in 2003.
And that is not our opinion. It was the sober assessment of the nation's top 17 intelligence
agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates for 2007 , and has been
confirmed ever since.
It's the reason that the neocon plan to bomb Iran at the end of George W. Bush's term didn't
happen. As Dubya confessed in his autobiography, even he couldn't figure out how he could
explain to the American public why he was bombing facilities that all his intelligence agencies
had said did not exist. That is, he would have been impaled on WMD 2.0 on his way out of the
White House.
Moreover, now via a further study arising from the 2015 international nuclear accord –
which would have straitjacketed even Iran's civilian program and eliminated most of its
enriched-uranium stockpiles and spinning capacity had not the Donald foolishly shit-canned it
– the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has also confirmed that Iran had no
secret nuclear-weapons program after 2003.
The whole scary bedtime story was false War Party propaganda manufactured from whole
cloth.
MORE WAR PARTY LIES – DEMONIZATION OF THE SHIITE CRESCENT
In this context, the War Party's bloviating about Iran's leadership of the so-called Shiite
Crescent is another component of Imperial Washington's 28-year-long roadblock to peace. Iran
wasn't a threat to American security in 1991, and since then it has never organized a hostile
coalition of terrorists that requires Washington's intervention.
Start with Iran's long-standing support of Bashir Assad's government in Syria. That alliance
goes back to his father's era and is rooted in the historic confessional politics of the
Islamic world.
The Assad regime is Alawite, a branch of the Shiites, and despite the regime's brutality, it
has been a bulwark of protection for all of Syria's minority sects, including Christians,
against a majority-Sunni ethnic cleansing. The latter would surely occur if US and
Saudi-supported rebels, led by the Nusra Front and ISIS, had been permitted to take full
power.
Likewise, the fact that the Baghdad government of the broken state of Iraq – that is,
the artificial 1916 concoction of two striped-pants European diplomats (Messrs. Sykes and Picot
of the British and French foreign offices, respectively) – is now aligned with Iran is
also a result of confessional politics and geo-economic propinquity.
For all practical purposes, Iraq has been partitioned. The Kurds of the Northeast have
declared their independence and have been collecting their own oil revenue for the past few
years and operating their own security forces.
And the western Sunni lands of the upper Euphrates, of course, were first conquered by ISIS
with American weapons dropped in place by the hapless $25 billion Iraqi army minted by
Washington's departing proconsuls; and then obliterated during Obama's vicious bombing and
droning campaign designed to uproot the terrorist evil that Washington itself had spawned.
Accordingly, what is left of the rump state of Iraq is a population that is overwhelmingly
Shiite and nurses bitter resentments after two decades of violent conflict with the Sunni
forces. Why in the world, therefore, wouldn't they ally with their Shiite neighbor?
Likewise, the claim that Iran is now trying to annex Yemen, thereby justifying the sheer
genocide wreaked upon it by the Saudi air war, is pure claptrap. The ancient territory of Yemen
had been racked by civil war off and on since the early 1970s. And a major driving force of
that conflict has been confessional differences between the Sunni South and the Shiite
North.
In more recent times, Washington's blatant drone war inside Yemen against alleged terrorists
and its domination and financing of Yemen's government eventually produced the same old outcome
– that is, another failed state and an illegitimate government that fled at the 11th
hour, leaving another vast cache of American arms and equipment behind.
Accordingly, the Houthis forces now in control of substantial parts of the country are not
some kind of advanced guard sent in by Tehran. They are indigenous partisans who share a
confessional tie with Iran, but who have actually been armed, if inadvertently, by
Washington.
Finally, there is the fourth element of the purported Iranian axis – the
Hezbollah-controlled Shiite communities of southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley in the
northeast. Like everything else in the Middle East, Hezbollah is a product of historical
European imperialism, Islamic confessional politics and the frequently misguided and
counterproductive security policies of Israel.
In the first place, Lebanon was not any more a real country than Iraq was when Sykes and
Picot laid their straight-edged rulers on a map. The result was a stew of religious and ethnic
divisions – Maronite Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Copts, Druse, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites,
Kurds, Armenians, Jews and countless more – that made the fashioning of a viable state
virtually impossible.
At length, an alliance of Christians and Sunnis gained control of the country, leaving the
40% Shiite population disenfranchised and economically disadvantaged, as well. But it was the
inflow of Palestinian refugees in the 1960s and 1970s that eventually upset the balance of
sectarian forces and triggered a civil war that essentially lasted from 1975 until the turn of
the century.
It also triggered a catastrophically wrong-headed Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in
1982, and a subsequent repressive occupation of mostly Shiite territories for the next 18
years. The alleged purpose of this invasion was to chase the PLO and Yasser Arafat out of the
enclave in southern Lebanon that they had established after being driven out of Jordan in
1970.
Eventually Israel succeeded in sending Arafat packing to North Africa, but in the process
created a militant, Shiite-based resistance movement that did not even exist in 1982 and that
in due course became the strongest single force in Lebanon's fractured domestic political
arrangements.
After Israel withdrew in 2000, the then-Christian president of the country made abundantly
clear that Hezbollah had become a legitimate and respected force within the Lebanese polity,
not merely some subversive agent of Tehran:
"For us Lebanese, and I can tell you the majority of Lebanese, Hezbollah is a national
resistance movement. If it wasn't for them, we couldn't have liberated our land. And because of
that, we have big esteem for the Hezbollah movement."
So, yes, Hezbollah is an integral component of the so-called Shiite Crescent, and its
confessional and political alignment with Tehran is entirely plausible. But that arrangement
– however uncomfortable for Israel – does not represent unprovoked Iranian
aggression on Israel's northern border.
Instead, it's actually the blowback from the stubborn refusal of Israeli governments –
especially the right-wing Likud governments of modern times – to deal constructively with
the Palestinian question.
In lieu of a two-state solution in the territory of Palestine, therefore, Israeli policy has
produced a chronic state of confrontation and war with the huge share of the Lebanese
population represented by Hezbollah.
The latter is surely no agency of peaceful governance and has committed its share of
atrocities. But the point at hand is that given the last 35 years of history and Israeli
policy, Hezbollah would exist as a menacing force on its northern border even if the Iranian
theocracy didn't exist and the shah or his heir was still on the Peacock Throne.
In short, there is no alliance of terrorism in the Shiite Crescent that threatens American
security. That proposition is simply one of the big lies that was promulgated by the War Party
after 1991 and that has been happily embraced by Imperial Washington since then in order to
keep the military-industrial-security complex alive, and justify its self-appointed role as
policeman of the world.
WASHINGTON'S ERRONEOUS VIEW THAT THE PERSIAN GULF IS AN AMERICAN LAKE – THE ROOT OF
SUNNI JIHADISM
The actual terrorist threat has arisen from the Sunni, not the Shiite, side of the
Islamic divide. But that, in turn, is largely of Washington's own making; and it is
being nurtured by endless US meddling in the region's politics and by the bombing and droning
campaigns against Washington's self-created enemies.
At the root of Sunni-based terrorism is the long-standing Washington error that America's
security and economic well-being depend upon keeping an armada in the Persian Gulf in order to
protect the surrounding oil fields and the flow of tankers through the straits of Hormuz.
That doctrine has been wrong from the day it was officially enunciated by one of America's
great economic ignoramuses, Henry Kissinger, at the time of the original oil crisis in 1973.
The 46 years since then have proven in spades that it doesn't matter who controls the oil
fields, and that the only effective cure for high oil prices is the free market.
Every tin pot dictatorship from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to
Saddam Hussein, to the bloody-minded chieftains of Nigeria, to the purportedly medieval mullahs
and fanatical revolutionary guards of Iran has produced oil – and all they could because
they desperately needed the revenue.
For crying out loud, even while the barbaric thugs of ISIS were briefly in power in eastern
Syria, they milked every possible drop of petroleum from the tiny, wheezing oil fields
scattered around their backwater domain. So there is no economic case whatsoever for Imperial
Washington's massive military presence in the Middle East.
The truth is, there is no such thing as an OPEC cartel – virtually every member
produces all they can and cheats whenever possible. The only thing that resembles production
control in the global oil market is the fact that the Saudi princes treat their oil reserves
not much differently than Exxon.
That is, they attempt to maximize the present value of their 270 billion barrels of
reserves, but ultimately are no more clairvoyant at calibrating the best oil price to
accomplish that than are the economists at Exxon or the International Energy Agency.
During the last decade, for example, the Saudis have repeatedly underestimated how rapidly
and extensively the $100-per-barrel marker reached in early 2008 and again in 2014 would
trigger a flow of investment, technology and cheap debt into the US shale patch, the Canadian
tar sands, the tired petroleum provinces of Russia, the deep waters offshore Brazil and the
like. And that's to say nothing of solar, wind and all the other government-subsidized
alternative sources of BTUs.
Way back when Jimmy Carter was telling us to turn down the thermostats and put on our
cardigan sweaters, those of us in Congress on the free market side of the so-called
energy-shortage debate said that high oil prices would bring about their own cure. Now we
know.
So the Fifth Fleet and its overt and covert auxiliaries should never have been there –
going all the way back to the CIA's coup against Iranian democracy in 1953.
But having turned Iran into an enemy, Imperial Washington was just getting started when 1990
rolled around. Once again in the name of "oil security" it plunged the American war machine
into the politics and religious fissures of the Persian Gulf, and did so on account of the
above referenced small-potatoes conflict that had no bearing whatsoever on the safety and
security of American citizens.
As US Ambassador Glaspie rightly told Saddam Hussein on the eve of Hussein's Kuwait
invasion, America had no dog in that hunt.
Kuwait wasn't even a country; it was a bank account sitting on a swath of oil fields
surrounding an ancient trading city that had been abandoned by Ibn Saud in the early 20th
century. That's because Saud didn't know what oil was or that it was there; and in any event,
it had been made a separate protectorate by the British in 1913 for reasons that are lost in
the fog of diplomatic history.
Likewise, Iraq's contentious dispute with Kuwait had been over its claim that the emir of
Kuwait was "slant drilling" across his border into Iraq's Rumaila field. Yet it was a wholly
elastic boundary of no significance whatsoever.
In fact, the dispute over the Rumaila field started in 1960 when an Arab League declaration
arbitrarily marked the Iraq – Kuwait border two miles north of the southernmost tip of
the Rumaila field.
And that newly defined boundary, in turn, had come only 44 years after a pair of English and
French diplomats had carved up their winnings from the Ottoman Empire's demise by laying a
straight-edged ruler on the map. In so doing, they thereby confected the artificial country of
"Iraq" from the historically independent and hostile Mesopotamian provinces of the Shiites in
the South, the Sunnis in the West and the Kurds in the North.
In short, it did not matter who controlled the southern tip of the Rumaila field – the
brutal dictator of Baghdad or the opulent emir of Kuwait. Neither the price of oil, nor the
peace of America, nor the security of Europe nor the future of Asia depended upon it.
THE FIRST GULF WAR – A CATASTROPHIC ERROR
But once again Bush the Elder got persuaded to take the path of war. This time it was by
Henry Kissinger's economically illiterate protégés at the National Security
Council and Bush's Texas oilman secretary of state. They falsely claimed that the
will-o'-the-wisp of "oil security" was at stake, and that 500,000 American troops needed to be
planted in the sands of Arabia.
That was a catastrophic error, and not only because the presence of "crusader" boots on the
purportedly sacred soil of Arabia offended the CIA-trained mujahedeen of Afghanistan, who had
become unemployed when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The 1991 CNN-glorified war games in the Gulf also further empowered another group of
unemployed crusaders. Namely, the neocon national-security fanatics who had misled Ronald
Reagan into a massive military buildup to thwart what they claimed to be an ascendant Soviet
Union bent on nuclear-war-winning capabilities and global conquest.
All things being equal, the sight of Boris Yeltsin, vodka flask in hand, facing down the Red
Army a few months later should have sent the neocons into the permanent disrepute and obscurity
they so richly deserved. But Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz managed to extract from
Washington's Pyrrhic victory in Kuwait a whole new lease on life for Imperial Washington.
Right then and there came the second erroneous predicate – to wit, that "regime
change" among the assorted tyrannies of the Middle East was in America's national interest.
More fatally, the neocons now insisted that the first Gulf War proved it could be achieved
through a sweeping interventionist menu of coalition diplomacy, security assistance, arms
shipments, covert action and open military attack and occupation.
What the neocon doctrine of regime change actually did, of course, was to foster the
Frankenstein that ultimately became ISIS. In fact, the only real terrorists in the world
who threaten normal civilian life in the West are the rogue offspring of Imperial Washington's
post-1990 machinations in the Middle East.
The CIA-trained and CIA-armed mujahedeen mutated into al-Qaeda not because bin Laden
suddenly had a religious epiphany that his Washington benefactors were actually the Great Satan
owing to America's freedom and liberty.
His murderous crusade was inspired by the Wahhabi fundamentalism loose in Saudi Arabia. This
benighted religious fanaticism became agitated to a fever pitch by Imperial Washington's
violent plunge into Persian Gulf political and religious quarrels, the stationing of troops in
Saudi Arabia, and the decade-long barrage of sanctions, embargoes, no-fly zones, covert actions
and open hostility against the Sunni regime in Baghdad after 1991.
Yes, bin Laden would have amputated Saddam's secularist head if Washington hadn't done it
first, but that's just the point. The attempt at regime change in March 2003 was one of the
most foolish acts of state in American history.
Bush the Younger's neocon advisers had no clue about the sectarian animosities and
historical grievances that Hussein had bottled up by parsing the oil loot and wielding the
sword under the banner of Baathist nationalism. But shock and awe blew the lid and the
de-Baathification campaign unleashed the furies.
Indeed, no sooner had George Bush pranced around on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln
declaring "mission accomplished" than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a CIA recruit to the Afghan war a
decade earlier and smalltime specialist in hostage taking and poisons, fled his no-count
redoubt in Kurdistan to emerge as a flamboyant agitator in the now-dispossessed Sunni
heartland.
The founder of ISIS succeeded in Fallujah and Anbar province just like the long list of
other terrorist leaders Washington claims to have exterminated. That is, Zarqawi gained his
following and notoriety among the region's population of deprived, brutalized and humiliated
young men by dint of being more brutal than their occupiers.
Indeed, even as Washington was crowing about the demise of Zarqawi, the remnants of the
Baathist regime and the hundreds of thousands of demobilized republican guards were coalescing
into al-Qaeda in Iraq, and their future leaders were being incubated in a monstrous nearby
detention center called Camp Bucca that contained more than 26,000 prisoners.
As one former U.S. Army officer, Mitchell Gray, later described it,
"You never see hatred like you saw on the faces of these detainees," Gray remembers of
his 2008 tour. "When I say they hated us, I mean they looked like they would have killed us in
a heartbeat if given the chance. I turned to the warrant officer I was with and I said, 'If
they could, they would rip our heads off and drink our blood.
What Gray didn't know – but might have expected – was that he was not
merely looking at the United States' former enemies, but its future ones as well. According to
intelligence experts and Department of Defense records, the vast majority of the leadership of
what is today known as ISIS, including its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, did time at Camp
Bucca.
And not only did the US feed, clothe and house these jihadists, it also played a
vital, if unwitting, role in facilitating their transformation into the most formidable
terrorist force in modern history.
Early in Bucca's existence, the most extreme inmates were congregated in Compound 6.
There were not enough Americans guards to safely enter the compound – and, in any event,
the guards didn't speak Arabic. So the detainees were left alone to preach to one another and
share deadly vocational advice . . .
Bucca also housed Haji Bakr, a former colonel in Saddam Hussein's air-defense force.
Bakr was no religious zealot. He was just a guy who lost his job when the Coalition Provisional
Authority disbanded the Iraqi military and instituted de-Baathification, a policy of banning
Saddam's past supporters from government work.
According to documents recently obtained by German newspaper Der Spiegel, Bakr was the
real mastermind behind ISIS's organizational structure and also mapped out the strategies that
fueled its early successes. Bakr, who died in fighting in 2014, was incarcerated at Bucca from
2006-' 08, along with a dozen or more of ISIS's top lieutenants."
The point is, regime change and nation building can never be accomplished by the lethal
violence of 21st-century armed forces; and they were an especially preposterous assignment in
the context of a land rent with 13-century-old religious fissures and animosities.
In fact, the wobbly, synthetic state of Iraq was doomed the minute Cheney and his bloody
gang decided to liberate it from the brutal but serviceable and secular tyranny of Saddam's
Baathist regime. That's because the process of elections and majority rule necessarily imposed
by Washington was guaranteed to elect a government beholden to the Shiite
majority .
After decades of mistreatment and Saddam's brutal suppression of their 1991 uprising, did
the latter have revenge on their minds and in their communal DNA? Did the Kurds have dreams of
an independent Kurdistan spilling into Turkey and Syria that had been denied their
30-million-strong tribe way back at Versailles and ever since?
Yes, they did. So the $25 billion spent on training and equipping the putative
armed forces of post-liberation Iraq was bound to end up in the hands of sectarian militias,
not a national army.
In fact, when the Shiite commanders fled Sunni-dominated Mosul in June 2014 they transformed
the ISIS uprising against the government in Baghdad into a vicious fledgling state in one fell
swoop. But it wasn't by beheadings and fiery jihadist sermons that it quickly enslaved dozens
of towns and several million people in western Iraq and the Euphrates Valley of Syria.
THE ISLAMIC STATE WAS WASHINGTON'S VERY OWN FRANKENSTEIN
To the contrary, its instruments of terror and occupation were the best weapons that the
American taxpayers could buy. That included 2,300 Humvees and tens of thousands of automatic
weapons, as well as vast stores of ammunition, trucks, rockets, artillery pieces and even tanks
and helicopters.
And that wasn't the half of it. The Islamic State also filled the power vacuum in Syria
created by its so-called civil war. But in truth that was another exercise in
Washington-inspired and Washington-financed regime change undertaken in connivance with Qatar
and Saudi Arabia.
The princes of the petro-states were surely not interested in expelling the tyranny next
door. Instead, the rebellion was about removing Iran's Alawite/Shiite ally from power in
Damascus and laying the gas pipelines to Europe – which Assad had vetoed – across
the upper Euphrates Valley.
In any event, due to Washington's regime change policy in Syria, ISIS soon had even more
troves of American weapons. Some of them were supplied to Sunni radicals by way of Qatar and
Saudi Arabia.
More came up the so-called ratline from Gaddafi's former arsenals in Benghazi through
Turkey. And still more came through Jordan from the "moderate" opposition trained there by the
CIA, which more often than not sold them or defected to the other side.
So, that the Islamic State was Washington's Frankenstein monster became evident from the
moment it rushed upon the scene in mid 2014. But even then the Washington War Party could not
resist adding fuel to the fire, whooping up another round of Islamophobia among the American
public and forcing the Obama White House into a futile bombing campaign for the third time in a
quarter century.
But the short-lived Islamic State was never a real threat to America's homeland
security.
The dusty, broken, impoverished towns and villages along the margins of the Euphrates River
and in the bombed-out precincts of Anbar province did not attract thousands of wannabe
jihadists from the failed states of the Middle East and the alienated Muslim townships of
Europe because the caliphate offered prosperity, salvation or any future at all.
What recruited them was outrage at the bombs and drones dropped on Sunni communities by the
US Air Force and by the cruise missiles launched from the bowels of the Mediterranean that
ripped apart homes, shops, offices and mosques which mostly contained as many innocent
civilians as ISIS terrorists.
The truth is, the Islamic State was destined for a short half-life anyway. It had been
contained by the Kurds in the North and East and by Turkey with NATO's second-largest army and
air force in the Northwest. And it was further surrounded by the Shiite Crescent in the
populated, economically viable regions of lower Syria and Iraq.
Absent Washington's misbegotten campaign to unseat Assad in Damascus and demonize his
confession-based Iranian ally, there would have been nowhere for the murderous fanatics who had
pitched a makeshift capital in Raqqa to go. They would have run out of money, recruits,
momentum and public acquiescence in their horrific rule in any event.
But with the US Air Force functioning as their recruiting arm and France's anti-Assad
foreign policy helping to foment a final spasm of anarchy in Syria, the gates of hell had been
opened wide, unnecessarily.
What has been puked out was not an organized war on Western civilization as former French
president Hollande so hysterically proclaimed in response to one of the predictable terrorist
episodes of mayhem in Paris.
It was just blowback carried out by that infinitesimally small contingent of mentally
deformed young men who can be persuaded to strap on a suicide belt.
In any event, bombing did not defeat ISIS; it just temporarily made more of them.
Ironically, what did extinguish the Islamic State was the Assad government, the Russian air
force invited into Syria by its official government and the ground forces of its Hezbollah and
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard allies. It was they who settled an ancient quarrel that had
never been any of America's business anyway.
But Imperial Washington was so caught up in its myths, lies and hegemonic stupidity that it
could not see the obvious. Accordingly, 28 years after the Cold War ended and several years
after Syria and friends extinguished the Islamic State, Washington has learned no lessons. The
American Imperium still stalks the planet for new monsters to destroy.
And that's why there is still no peace on earth 28 years after it should have broken out, as
did the Christmas Truce of 1914.
BTL the usual misdirection pointing just to Israel; never are the Sunni Arab oil sheiks in
the picture:
blinded by anti Zionism. The Gulf rulers love this aspect best.
Israel has little to offer to the US military-industrial complex except being an
unsinkable aircraft carrier.
The Sunni Arab oil sheiks on the other hand have massive amount of cash and oil reserves,
just what the US dollar needs to keep on floating against financial gravity.
With the Shia Iranian power exports as bogey these few individuals are also great clients
for the Anglo protection racket. Iran is more about mass movements, hard to be a wise guy
for.
Brianeg ,
I am as perplexed as anybody over the assassination of Soleimani, seeing no tactical
advantage and in fact serious disadvantages and dangers.
I can add little to the excellent article and excellent comments except to say that last
year, I saw a documentary about Soleimani and I felt at the time, he was perhaps the only
person that might bring peace to the whole of the Middle East and it may be for that reason
somebody thought he was dangerous and had to go.
At the very least, the Iraqi Government have now been given the chance to kick America and
NATO out of Iraq and maybe Syria as well. With that in mind, I am sure that MSM will then say
that this is all a Russian plot. I am sure that Pompeo's flight to Kazakstan is perhaps to
prepare an air base if a rapid Vietnam style evacuation needs to occur.
The options left open for America, NATO and Israel are fairly limited to remote offshore
missile attacks as any form of close engagement against battle hardened troops when your own
forces have only experience against unarmed civilians and forces only armed with small arms
would be fraught with danger. I am sure that Trump's advisers and their experience of playing
war games on their computers might think differently.
As for a major missile strike like that after Douma when only a handful of rockets hit
their targets especially as Syria did not have the latest anti missile systems, there is a
likelihood that not one might reach its target.
2020 is shaping up to become a very interesting year and by its end destined to become a
very changed world.
Trump's actions appear to be that of a very poor gambler trying to take desperate measures
to improve his luck. I believe Hitler had great faith in his astrologer, does Trump use
one?
richard le sarc ,
I rather see Israel, ie Bibi behind this. It is a diversion from his corruption crisis, it is
pure Talmudism, with its murder of Israel's 'enemies', and it brings forward the prospect of
'obliterating' 'Persia' in a New Purim that would cement Bibi's place as a 'King of Israel'
for all time ie a few more years. I really think that assuming that the architects of this
action are rational and sane, when they are mad, bad, dangerous to know and infinitely
blood-thirsty, is mistaken.
adlskfj ,
Ah, didn't take long to see Off Guardian's never ending commitment to the most vile President
in US history, and that's saying a lot. The Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!
So did the Deep State direct this fascist, racist, misogynist, jerk of epic proportions
Trump to pimp for war against Iran during his campaign? Can't see from this jerk's body
language that he sees himself as a "tough guy". Did the Deep State force him to take on super
neocon ex CIA director Woolsey as a foreign policy advisor during his campaign, or force him
to suck up to the State of Israel in an AIPAC speech outdoing Clinton's, or suck up to the
House of Saud bragging about arms sales with an effing poster, or force him to move the US
Embassy to Jerusalem, or force him to increase military operations in the ME including new
rules of engagement making it easier for US troops to slaughter civilians, or force him to
attack the Syrian regime, or force him to commit to "take the oil", or force him to name
torture queen Haspel to direct the CIA, or force him to nominate an oil tycoon as Secretary
of State then replace him with torture advocate ex CIA director Pompeo, or force him to
re-initiate and increase military hardware from war zones going to police departments, and
the sorry list goes on that OG and other compromised "leftists" regard poor Trump being
forced to do by the Deep State.
But the Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OG just loves their Trump, but likely not as much as the Deep State.
paul ,
I think like many people you are partly blinded by an understandable hatred of Trump.
I hold no brief for him, except to say Clinton would have been even worse.
But people trying to make sense of the latest ill starred US foreign policy adventure only
need to understand two things.
1. The complete Zionist stranglehold over US politics and media.
2. The character of the political leadership in the US (and its satellites.)
1. From a Zionist point of view, Iraq, Libya and Syria (to a lesser extent) are all a rip
roaring success. The first two are failed states that have been bombed back to the Stone Age.
Syria is only slightly better off. Iran is unfinished business, the last major target on the
Zionist hit list. All of this achieved by the US and its satellites providing all the money
and the muscle.
2. US and western leadership in general is abysmal, the worst in its history. Arrogant,
venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, delusional, and ideologically driven, buying in to its
own exceptionalist propaganda.
You cannot expect policies or programmes adopted to be in any way rational or coherent.
What passes for an administration in the Trump Circus consists largely of competing, mutually
antagonistic factions and fiefdoms, each pursuing their own objectives and generally fighting
like rats in a sack. Trump is far from a dictator. He is more like a bewildered bystander
presiding over what is at best a chaotic turf war.
This is not to absolve Trump of responsibility -- if he is incapable of asserting his
authority, he simply shouldn't be there. But people like Bolton and others were foisted upon
him at the behest of Adelson and Zionist interests. Bolton was openly trying to undermine him
in North Korea and elsewhere. There are many other similar examples. Seditious and mutinous
spooks and dirty cops were conspiring to unseat him even before he was elected.
In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department were all following their own
competing agendas, sponsoring different terrorist groups, following different objectives. Mid
level bureaucrats like Vindman and Ioanovitch in all three organisations felt perfectly
entitled to formulate and implement their own preferred policies, without any reference to
the White House.
I don't see much to admire in Trump. But apart from some coarse and bumptious behaviour,
how does he differ from Obomber or Dubya? It's a mistake to go down the MSM rabbit hole of
seeing everything in terms of personalities.
Martin Usher ,
Trump hasn't shown much interest in geography unless its somewhere he can put a casino so I
doubt if he really understood the implications of what he's been encouraged to do. This
action isn't Trump's, it most likely Pompero (who I find amusing in his 'who me' type
innocence when he complains that the world isn't lining up behind the US, its just the usual
roll of toadies).
The "Deep State" isn't really a thing, its all of us, its the way that we've been trained
from birth to think in terms of American exceptionalism and Cold War rivalry. Its thousands
of people doing their jobs to the best of their ability and as Hannah Arendt pointed out in
her essay on the Banality of Evil these people are able to be the very best or very worst
depending on how they're led and used. To that end the article in the Guardian proper is very
telling and points to something that needs significant investigation .
I would say that it's something much lower down the evolutionary chain than that: these
people are all criminal psychopaths -- or if you want a more polite term: batshit
crazies.
"... 1. Increasing tensions serves the interests of the military-industrial complex – US military spending has increased enormously, and without enough tensions, there may be a "danger" that military spending will be cut in the future. Of course, this increased military spending is only in the interest of a small minority – but it is a very influential minority that spends a lot of money on politicians. ..."
"... It sounds as if his enemies in the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies have tricked Trump perhaps by not telling him who the target was going to be? ..."
"... You are being sidetracked by personalities. "If only we had Obama/ Reagan/ Whoever back, everything would be fine." It wouldn't. Whoever is occupying the Oval Office, whether it's Trump/ Creepy Joe Biden/ Buttplug/ Pocahontas or some other cretin, it's just another monkey dancing to the tune of the same organ grinder. ..."
"... No capitalist regime, particularly the neo-liberal type, can ever even remotely resemble a 'democracy' of any type. ..."
Mourners surround a car carrying the coffins of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani
and Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, killed in a US air strike. (Photo by SABAH
ARAR / AFP)
The dust is settling somewhat over the latest and strangest act of imperial hubris in the
Middle East, and a few things are becoming clearer – though no less strange.
Trump held a slightly bizarre
presser at his vacation resort in Florida, wherein he tried to assure the media he had no
wish to provoke either war with or regime change in Iran, saying
We took action last night to stop a war. We do not take action to start a war."
Even the slavering warhound, Pompeo was taking a more conciliatory tone, and the word
'de-escalation' began featuring prominently in his Twitter feed.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and I discussed the decisive defensive action
@realDonaldTrump employed in
Baghdad to protect American lives. I emphasized that de-escalation is the United States'
principal goal.
In my conversation today with @masrour_barzani , we discussed
yesterday's defensive action and our commitment to de-escalation. I thanked him for his
steadfast partnership. We agreed on the need for continued, close cooperation.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab , is also
urging "all parties de-escalate" – for what that's worth.
At the same time early claims by the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) that the US had
launched another air strike against them north of Baghdad were later retracted. According to
RT:
The Iraqi Army, however, later denied that an airstrike took place there. In a statement
quoted by local media, the military urged everyone to be "careful" about spreading unverified
information and "rumors" in the future.
Some of this implies an attempt on both sides (Iraq and the US at least) to pull back. But
while this may be welcome it does nothing to explain why the US administration escalated in the
first place, in what still looks like a suicidally self-defeating move.
What is the empire up to at this point? Does it have a plan? is it coherent? is it even
sane?
The Saker took a look yesterday at The Soleimani murder –
what could happen next . He thinks, as he has said before, that Trump is regarded as a
disposable asset by his Deep State handlers and is being used as a front man for risky policy
actions that he can be scapegoated for if/when they go wrong:
I have always claimed that Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons. What
do I mean by that? I mean that the Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly
fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy decisions towards Israel and/or Syria)
for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and dangerous, he will
either get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail or
the consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will
jettison him and replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In
other words, for the Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and
fantastically stupid is a win-win situation!
I tend to agree with this. When Clinton was dumped last minute as POTUS (too crazy, too
weird), and the Deep State pivoted to Trump, it was clear from very early on he – the
unwanted outsider – was going to be used just as Saker says, as a handy scapegoat; and
it's interesting to note in this regard that he is indeed being blamed in many places today
(Spiked ,
the Guardian etc), as the sole architect of the Soleimani murder.
That he is in any way solely, or even directly, responsible is of course vanishingly
improbable. US presidents don't, in real terms, have that kind of power now, if they ever did.
It's far more likely Trump just rubber stamped an action urged by Pompeo and his war-crazed
backers, or even that he only knew about it after it was done.
But that's just detail. The fact Trump is being scapegoated implies that – at least
for now – those really responsible are backtracking and thinking better of the
venture.
But what was the venture? What the desired outcome? No one seems to have a very
satisfactory answer to that right now.
As we said yesterday, war with Iran has been the auto-erotic fixation for the hardcore war
nuts in Washington for years, and imminent confrontation has been predicted regularly since at
least 2005.
But it's never become a reality because the non-crazies in Washington know the risks
outweigh the benefits for US interests.
Sure, we know in recent times the Trump administration has been ramping up the tensions
again. Tearing up the nuclear deal, re-imposing sanctions, sabre-rattling, making threats. But
this has all been within the familiar framework that always just stops short of actual
conflict.
The murder of Soleimani is orders of magnitude beyond anything they have ever risked before.
Good analysts like the Saker and Moon of Alabama have pointed out that the US has basically
defeated its own aims, all but destroyed itself in the region. In
MoA's words:
The U.S. has won nothing with its attack but will feel the consequences for decades to
come. From now on its position in the Middle East will be severely constrained. Others will
move in to take its place.
Even if this turns out too dire and sweeping a prediction, the truth still is clear that the
US have apparently gained nothing from this venture and lost a great deal.
Of course both the US and Israel now have carte blanche to stage as much false flag
'terrorism' as they want and blame it on Iranian 'revenge'. Whatever else happens, we can
almost certainly look forward to some of that.
And, there is the bonus of being able to drive the US homeland even further toward fascism
in the guise of 'preparing' for new waves of terror attacks. The Mayor of New York is already
doing his own narrative preparation for this, claiming, per the
Jerusalem Post that
We have to assume this action puts us in a de facto state of war
But all this seems small gains for massive losses. The question 'what were you thinking?'
hangs there, currently unanswered. If this was clever geopolitical chess it's currently so deep
as to defeat all analysis.
Claims that the US is just doing Israel's bidding don't even cut it. If the US loses its
hold on the ME as a result of an ill-judged war with Iran, how will this benefit Israel? Does
it believe it can inherit the imperial mantle? If so, it's deluded. Without US protection
Israel would not last long in its current form.
Some have suggested it's a 'clever' plot to hike up oil prices. But really? There are much
lower risk ways of doing that than launching a war and forcing Iran to close the Straits of
Hormuz.
The QAnon crowd have even suggested it's an ultra smart way of getting the US out of Iraq.
Well, we have to admit that could be the result. But does anyone really believe that was the
plan?
No one has yet, to my knowledge, put out the US simply goofed and are now desperately trying
to cover themselves – but that is at least as likely as some of the above.
The major question really though is – will this backtracking and odd claims of wanting
de-escalation actually do anything to de-escalate? Will it persuade Iran not to seek
retaliation, supposing this is now what Pompeo et al want?
Currently the answer to that looks like a 'no.' In fact Iran has just now issued a list of
potential
retaliation targets related to the US. Even if this is mostly posturing, it's hard to see
how Iran can avoid some form of response to this heinous act of frank terrorism. Even if the US
administration's 'de-escalation' stance is genuine, it may well be pointless.
And how long will the US remain in a 'de-escalation' mindset anyhow? It's become a
commonplace to describe US foreign policy as 'insane', and it's an apposite description. But
the murder of Soleimani takes the evident insanity to new and self-defeating levels.
Who can say what the empire's next moves will be in the coming days or weeks? More utterly
lunatic 'defensive' missile strikes are entirely possible.
It appears that 2020 has got off to a shit hot start with Golf Cart Goofy been slipped the
Turd Doctrine engineered by Bolt-on brain, the deranged psychopath of Washington. From sleepy
hollow the message went out to shoot first and let the policy slide along afterwards. How are
the people of the land of the free going to swallow this piece of fascist wrangling?
Meanwhile in old Blighty Johnson has not even had chance to sober up from the New Year
bash with his Russian friend and patron, Евгений
Лебедев – bringing a whole new meaning to the
phrase going down the swanee. Who said Russians don't interfere in elections? Well those with
British golden passports at any rate
Antonym ,
BTL the usual misdirection pointing just to Israel; never are the Sunni Arab oil sheiks in
the picture:
blinded by anti Zionism. The Gulf rulers love this aspect best.
Israel has little to offer to the US military-industrial complex except being an unsinkable
aircraft carrier. The Sunni Arab oil sheiks on the other hand have massive amount of cash and
oil reserves, just what the US dollar needs to keep on floating against financial gravity.
With the Shia Iranian power exports as bogey these few individuals are also great clients for
the Anglo protection racket. Iran is more about mass movements, hard to be a wise guy for.
Jo ,
Thanks for this. I've dodged all news since I first heard about the assassination but my
initial thoughts concerned the unspeakable Pompeo and Israel. Like the author I found it
absurd that Trump had personally engineered this.
On the idea that Pompeo now wants to row back, I'm not convinced. Sorry to provide a
Guardian link but I saw this earlier and it seems he's scolding mainland Europe and the UK
for not being more "supportive" of his insanity.
I am as perplexed as anybody over the assassination of Soleimani, seeing no tactical
advantage and in fact serious disadvantages and dangers.
I can add little to the excellent article and excellent comments except to say that last
year, I saw a documentary about Soleimani and I felt at the time, he was perhaps the only
person that might bring peace to the whole of the Middle East and it may be for that reason
somebody thought he was dangerous and had to go.
At the very least, the Iraqi Government have now been given the chance to kick America and
NATO out of Iraq and maybe Syria as well. With that in mind, I am sure that MSM will then say
that this is all a Russian plot. I am sure that Pompeo's flight to Kazakstan is perhaps to
prepare an air base if a rapid Vietnam style evacuation needs to occur.
The options left open for America, NATO and Israel are fairly limited to remote offshore
missile attacks as any form of close engagement against battle hardened troops when your own
forces have only experience against unarmed civilians and forces only armed with small arms
would be fraught with danger. I am sure that Trump's advisers and their experience of playing
war games on their computers might think differently.
As for a major missile strike like that after Douma when only a handful of rockets hit
their targets especially as Syria did not have the latest anti missile systems, there is a
likelihood that not one might reach its target.
2020 is shaping up to become a very interesting year and by its end destined to become a
very changed world.
Trump's actions appear to be that of a very poor gambler trying to take desperate measures
to improve his luck. I believe Hitler had great faith in his astrologer, does Trump use
one?
David Macilwain ,
I'm less optimistic Catte – the claims to want deescalation come from those who just
escalated, in a calculated and well planned act of war, in which I believe the UK and
Australia were already well briefed. I would also venture, as suggested in "Official Secrets
and Lies" – that Pompeo's demand that Corbyn would not be PM was making sure that there
would be no anti-war PM in the UK in the new year, when the launching of the next decade of
the war of terror would take place – so timely on 01.02.2020. Do we not remember that
the attack on Iraq was planned months in advance, and launched – allegedly – at
20.30 on 20.03.2003?
And surely also, the faked killing of Baghdadi was part of this planning, as he had to be out
of the way, specially nowhere near AL Qaim/Baghouz, for the killing of Soleimani to be
possible. Truly it is the evil empire, with all that this includes, and Trump like a pimple
waiting to burst sitting on top of the rotten pile.
According to our Emily WMDs and the blood bath that followed in Iraq was all just a
'mistake'.
Sickening pontificating from her in the Guardian about how it is bad to murder people
(without just cause) apparently oblivious to the fact her own party committed Britan to an
illegal war without a shred of evidence that Saddam Hussein was a threat to our national
security.
I held my nose and read her article – not a single word about Tony Blair, or the
fact that the quagmire in the Middle East (as she describes it) was largely a result of
NuLabour's love in with US neonazis.
People like Thornberry seem to be utterly devoid of even the most primitive form of
decency.
O/T Ha ha – Integrity Initiative codswallop has landed with added rusty iron on
Cambridge Analytica election meddling ! Guess what it only seems to be about Trump 2016 and
Trump 2020!
Ah needed that laugh back to Armeggedon Now watch.
richard le sarc ,
I rather see Israel, ie Bibi behind this. It is a diversion from his corruption crisis, it is
pure Talmudism, with its murder of Israel's 'enemies', and it brings forward the prospect of
'obliterating' 'Persia' in a New Purim that would cement Bibi's place as a 'King of Israel'
for all time ie a few more years. I really think that assuming that the architects of this
action are rational and sane, when they are mad, bad, dangerous to know and infinitely
blood-thirsty, is mistaken.
If true, these reports are to be expected, because it wasn't just Qassem Suleimani who was
assassinated by the American psychopaths, but also the Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis.
If the reports are true, it's quite expected, yet it has nothing to do with Iranian
retaliation.
Iranian retaliation will be coming sometime in the future; and you might need to hold your
hats when that happens.
I haven't looked at the bookmakers with regard to all this. It will be interesting to see
what odds they are now giving on Trump being re-elected.
I've no idea of the veracity of this report. There was a similar report on Friday that
turned out to be untrue.
adlskfj ,
Ah, didn't take long to see Off Guardian's never ending commitment to the most vile President
in US history, and that's saying a lot. The Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!
So did the Deep State direct this fascist, racist, misogynist, jerk of epic proportions
Trump to pimp for war against Iran during his campaign? Can't see from this jerk's body
language that he sees himself as a "tough guy". Did the Deep State force him to take on super
neocon ex CIA director Woolsey as a foreign policy advisor during his campaign, or force him
to suck up to the State of Israel in an AIPAC speech outdoing Clinton's, or suck up to the
House of Saud bragging about arms sales with an effing poster, or force him to move the US
Embassy to Jerusalem, or force him to increase military operations in the ME including new
rules of engagement making it easier for US troops to slaughter civilians, or force him to
attack the Syrian regime, or force him to commit to "take the oil", or force him to name
torture queen Haspel to direct the CIA, or force him to nominate an oil tycoon as Secretary
of State then replace him with torture advocate ex CIA director Pompeo, or force him to
re-initiate and increase military hardware from war zones going to police departments, and
the sorry list goes on that OG and other compromised "leftists" regard poor Trump being
forced to do by the Deep State.
But the Deep State made him do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OG just loves their Trump, but likely not as much as the Deep State.
paul ,
I think like many people you are partly blinded by an understandable hatred of Trump.
I hold no brief for him, except to say Clinton would have been even worse.
But people trying to make sense of the latest ill starred US foreign policy adventure only
need to understand two things.
1. The complete Zionist stranglehold over US politics and media.
2. The character of the political leadership in the US (and its satellites.)
1. From a Zionist point of view, Iraq, Libya and Syria (to a lesser extent) are all a rip
roaring success. The first two are failed states that have been bombed back to the Stone Age.
Syria is only slightly better off. Iran is unfinished business, the last major target on the
Zionist hit list. All of this achieved by the US and its satellites providing all the money
and the muscle.
2. US and western leadership in general is abysmal, the worst in its history. Arrogant,
venal, corrupt, irredeemably ignorant, delusional, and ideologically driven, buying in to its
own exceptionalist propaganda.
You cannot expect policies or programmes adopted to be in any way rational or coherent.
What passes for an administration in the Trump Circus consists largely of competing, mutually
antagonistic factions and fiefdoms, each pursuing their own objectives and generally fighting
like rats in a sack. Trump is far from a dictator. He is more like a bewildered bystander
presiding over what is at best a chaotic turf war.
This is not to absolve Trump of responsibility – if he is incapable of asserting his
authority, he simply shouldn't be there. But people like Bolton and others were foisted upon
him at the behest of Adelson and Zionist interests. Bolton was openly trying to undermine him
in North Korea and elsewhere. There are many other similar examples. Seditious and mutinous
spooks and dirty cops were conspiring to unseat him even before he was elected.
In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department were all following their own
competing agendas, sponsoring different terrorist groups, following different objectives. Mid
level bureaucrats like Vindman and Ioanovitch in all three organisations felt perfectly
entitled to formulate and implement their own preferred policies, without any reference to
the White House.
I don't see much to admire in Trump. But apart from some coarse and bumptious behaviour,
how does he differ from Obomber or Dubya? It's a mistake to go down the MSM rabbit hole of
seeing everything in terms of personalities.
Martin Usher ,
Trump hasn't shown much interest in geography unless its somewhere he can put a casino so I
doubt if he really understood the implications of what he's been encouraged to do. This
action isn't Trump's, it most likely Pompero (who I find amusing in his 'who me' type
innocence when he complains that the world isn't lining up behind the US, its just the usual
roll of toadies).
The "Deep State" isn't really a thing, its all of us, its the way that we've been trained
from birth to think in terms of American exceptionalism and Cold War rivalry. Its thousands
of people doing their jobs to the best of their ability and as Hannah Arendt pointed out in
her essay on the Banality of Evil these people are able to be the very best or very worst
depending on how they're led and used. To that end the article in the Guardian proper is very
telling and points to something that needs significant investigation .
I would say that it's something much lower down the evolutionary chain than that: these
people are all criminal psychopaths – or if you want a more polite term: batshit
crazies.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The Social Psychology determinant of Deindividuation allows people to immerse themselves
psychologically into the in-group in order to oppose out-groups whether
it be along lines of ethnicity against minority ethnic groups or otherwise some other
negatively viewed determinant like gender, or age.
Fascists typically join likeminded individuals to fulfill the process of deindividuation
into in-groups they perceive to be socially beneficial for reasons of political
opposition.
Deindividuation allows the elite to internalize their own social-psychological
perspectives to in-group bias of entitlement et cetera. Out-group members are viewed as
inferior, and dispossessed of perspective of what it is like to be rich & wealthy in
in-group perspective.
Bikers deindividuate into biker gangs of likeminded in-group collective thinking.
Out-group is anyone that is not aligned with the in-group binary of identity with the
group.
I suspect that human beings somehow imprint on group membership much like Conrad Lorenz found
with ducklings & geese whilst studying learning processes.
MOU
jay ,
'merica has been 'attacking' Iran for the last 10 years.
It is all smoke and mirrors.
Once upon a time there was a CIA fommented coup to overthrow a popular and decent government, placing the Shah
in power. Then we had the Islamic Revolution led by the Ayatolah The Ayatolah had been
sojourning in Paris presumably enjoying the folies bergere and some tasty charcuterie. Then
right on time, He was flown business class by Air France back to Iran.
The NWO and Radical Islam go together like ram-a-lam-ding-dong
The car Soleimani was killed in appears to have been 'exploded' into a block with very little
damage to the surrounding area or scorching. A car set on fire by neds in Glasgow makes more
mess.
However in a change from the ubiquitous 'mysteriously' appearing passport, we have a deluxe
ring that 'identified' Him.
The ring appears to change from one image to another
tonyopmoc ,
jay,
There is other evidence to support this view, admittedly from around 10+ years ago. The
Iranians in a Big Blow-Up boat (don't mock our Lifeboat service uses them too to save lives
in some of the most hazardous seas – and most of them are unpaid volunteers), stopped a
British metal warship, who they claimed had infiltrated Iranian Waters. The Iranians arrested
several members of The Royal Navy. The Iranians also arrested the BBC Cameraman, and his
Soundman, and took them into the blow-up boat too, and they carried on filming, whilst they
took them to jail in Iran.
I p1ssed myself laughing almost immediately, and I don't normally watch TV.
After a few days, The Iranians, let them all go. The Royal Navy said sorry, we won't do it
again.
That just had to be a pre-planned set-up between the British and the Iranians.
I suspect neither told the Americans, cos they would f'ck it all up and try to start a
war.
The premise of this article is somewhat dubious. The Deep State never "pivoted to Trump."
It wanted Clinton, regardless of how crazy and corrupt she was.
They have never accepted Trump's presidency.
The spooks and the dirty cops worked tirelessly to undermine his campaign to prevent him
being elected.
Having failed in this, it did everything possible to sabotage his administration
subsequently.
It has perpetrated various subversive and treasonous hoaxes, fantasies and conspiracy
theories, culminating in the current impeachment circus.
They never tried to make the best of a bad job, from their point of view, to "manage
Trump."
This has remained constant, no matter how much pandering he does to Zionist interests, or how
many trillions he gifts to the military industrial complex.
They don't accept him, and never will. They hate him, and they want him dead, or at least in
jail, stripped of his businesses and money, and his relatives as well.
Why is this? After all, he's gifted Nuttyyahoo Jerusalem, occupied Syria and the West
Bank. The current military budget (true figure) is $1,134 billion. You might think that would
cut him a bit of slack.
It's because he upset the apple cart for the Zionist interests who rule the roost in
Washington.
Clinton was supposed to take over and implement their programme.
Syria was supposed to have been destroyed now, and Assad dead.
The war with Iran was supposed to have been begun long ago.
But Trump failed to deliver.
The tentative peace feelers being put out to Russia (because he was more concerned about
China) enraged that same dual national constituency with their visceral hatred of Russia.
And this is so much more the case because those same interests realise they are working
under time pressure. This may be their last chance. America is declining rapidly. The Zionist
stranglehold that has taken a century to achieve is a declining asset. And the parasite may
find it difficult to find another host.
Is Russia going to give Israel billions of dollars and unlimited free weaponry every year?
Will Chinese troops be "happy to die for Israel" as US ones are (at least according to their
general?
Trump may have been dragged along on the coat tails of the dual nationals and their goy
stooges, rabid religious nut jobs like Pence and Pompeo. But if Trump is hoping to row things
back, he is likely to be disappointed. Iran has to respond decisively, or else give a green
light to endless similar (and worse) provocations by the Boltons and the Netanyahus, like
Israel in Syria. It cannot afford to show any weakness. And when the retaliation comes, Trump
will not get away with bombing some empty airfield.
The problem is not just the AIPAC and JINSA which long since should have been labeled Foreign
Agents under FARA but the Christian Zionist nutballs who are banking on Armageddon so that
they can be raptured off to heaven while all of us are turned into radioactive toast.
paul ,
Yes, that includes Pence, Pompeo, Hagee, and (according to some claims) 40 million of the
Exceptional and Indispensable Folk.
richard le sarc ,
The USA these days is like one of those zombie ants, infected with a toxic fungus, Ziophilia
prostatens, that takes over its brain, and makes it climb up a branch, so that, when the
fungus explodes from its dead body, its spores can drift further away. Or, even better, the
toxic protozoon, Toxoplasma gondii, that, when it infects rats, makes them suicidally
unafraid of cats, they get eaten, and the protozoon goes forth, distributed through the cat's
faeces. I suppose we could call the infection controlling the minds of the Washington
detritus and making them genocidal as well as suicidal a 'protozion', for easy
identification.
You nail it. Israel provided co ordinates for Soleimani's whereabouts, Trump, in his sheer
stupidity, did the deed.
And now payback is coming. And it's likely to escalate into a massive war.
Ridiculous ABC doing their little bit for Empire and the 'fight for freedom' .
More airstrikes on a PMU base on the Iraq-Syria border earlier today, another 5 killed.
One guess who was responsible. Fecken insanity.
Adrian E. ,
I think the following two explanations are most plausible:
1. Increasing tensions serves the interests of the military-industrial complex – US
military spending has increased enormously, and without enough tensions, there may be a
"danger" that military spending will be cut in the future. Of course, this increased military
spending is only in the interest of a small minority – but it is a very influential
minority that spends a lot of money on politicians.
2. The goal may be sowing chaos and violence because this increases the role of the
military in international relations, and in military matters, the US in its current state is
(or thinks it is – they probably want to avoid a war against a strong army that would
let them find out better) more competitive than in economic matters. As far as economic
matters are concerned, we can more or less predict that the "Western world" (US and EU/NATO)
will almost certainly be dwarfed by China (and to some degree other East Asian countries and
emerging economies). Of course, some time in the future, when urbanization will be completed
to a large degree, Chinese growth will slow, but it is unlikely that this won't still mean
that the US and EU economies will be tiny compared to it. If the US manages to decrease the
role of economics and increase the role of the military, it may be able to slow down the
decline in its significance somehow, and what it needs for that is violence, chaos, and
instability.
Of course, one may say that all these instances of sowing chaos are counterproductive for the
US empire. In many concrete instances, one can show that this is the case, e.g. Iran was
strengthened by the US aggression against Iraq. But on the whole, is the US empire really
weaker than it would have been without all these aggressions? The US economy probably is, but
if we specifically talk about US empire – the US has military bases around the world in
a way no empire has ever had, and without enough violence, chaos, and tensions in order to
justify them, it might be difficult to keep them long-term. It is also important to attempt
to analyze counterfactual scenarios. If the US has just been relieved after the end of the
Cold War, reaped a huge peace dividend and if it had not committed an aggression every few
years, it would probably be more prosperous, but it would hardly be an empire. Probably, NATO
would not exist any more (the aggression against Yugoslavia and later stoking up historical
hatred in Eastern EU member countries played an important role). The US would probably be
more respected than it is now, but its international significance would probably have
decreased more than it has in our current reality where the US has increased the role of the
military by sowing chaos.
The idea of Empire may not fit the modern world of broad spectrum globalism.
Expecting such a world to make sense may buy into being manipulated further by an ever
consolidating pattern of possession and control – that works a kind of narrative or
mind capture alongside globally set regulatory structures to protect the lie at any cost and
by any and all means.
Yarkob ,
that was supposed to be a link, admins i even used the code button
It sounds as if his enemies in the Pentagon and the Intelligence Agencies have tricked Trump
perhaps by not telling him who the target was going to be? Now he owns the policy and the
chances of getting rid of him rise especially if the retaliation is serious and he fails to
start throwing nukes around.
As with JFK over the Bay of Pigs it puts him in a very hard
place. Working with Pence would probably suit the Military Complex. Ideas of withdrawing from
conflict in the ME and Afghanistan are as crazy to them as Kennedy's plans to disarm.
alskdjf ,
Paul you just love your Trump. The epic corrupt capitalist globalist fascist epic jerk I'm
sure would regard you with much love if he knew you existed or cared.
paul ,
You are being sidetracked by personalities.
"If only we had Obama/ Reagan/ Whoever back, everything would be fine."
It wouldn't.
Whoever is occupying the Oval Office, whether it's Trump/ Creepy Joe Biden/ Buttplug/
Pocahontas or some other cretin, it's just another monkey dancing to the tune of the same
organ grinder.
TFS ,
Is it me, or does the definition of what constitutes a Democracy, seem out of date?
Surely, where country such as Blighty likes to refer to iself as a Democracy, then it
should hold true that its people are past masters of holding its rulers to account?
If we are a Democracy and we don't, as has been the case for the past 50yrs of my life,
aren't we guilty of some sort of crime?
Are we (adults) all non persons, a person called 'Collateral Damage' for when Karma comes
a calling?
Will we cry foul and bemoan the injustice of it not being our fault as our leaders rape
the planet?
I dunno, calling Blighty a Democracy seems to be quite Arrogant and Offensive.
richard le sarc ,
No capitalist regime, particularly the neo-liberal type, can ever even remotely resemble a
'democracy' of any type.
Robyn ,
An fundamental of democracy is a free press so that citizens can cast an informed vote. There
is no longer a free press (to the extent that there ever was) and, with increasing censorship
of ethical journalism, the ideal of democracy becomes more remote each day.
"... I have the feeling , just the suspicion , that they contributed to the Ukrainian disaster out of their genetic Drang nach Osten Nordic greed , is that right ? ..."
"... Anyway since the Ukrainian disaster the cohesion of the EU is going going down . Germany which was gifted with the German reunification , is less and less trusted specially in south Europe , and even less in the EU far west , in England which is going out of the EU . ..."
"... As a curiosity in 1945 the Zionists asked Stalin to give Crimea to the jews , Stalin refused . https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/164673/crimea-as-jewish-homeland ..."
"... is 2019 and life in Ukraine is barely better than it was 25-50 years ago, population has actually dropped from its peak in early 1990's. Millions of Ukrainians live abroad (I know some of them) and have – to be polite – at best an ambivalent attitude towards their homeland. Almost all of them prefer to be somewhere else, even to become someone else. ..."
"... I don't agree with the facile name-calling that sees Nazis everywhere and exaggerates throw-away symbolism. But Ukraine has not been functioning and it can't go like this much longer. Not because it will collapse, it won't, but because during an era of general prosperity Ukraine can't be a unstable exception (oh, I get it, they are better than Moldova, good for them.) ..."
"... Rebellions against geography are doomed. Projecting one's personal frustrations on external enemies (Kremlin!) has never worked. Ukraine needs rationality – accepting that they will not be in EU, that attempting to join Nato would destroy Ukraine, and that they can't beat Russia in a war. And following advise of half-mad and half-ignorant well-wishers from Washington or Brussels is a road to ruin. Nulands, Bidens and Tusks will never live in Ukraine, they really deeply don't care about it. They have no skin in that game, it is just entertainment for them. ..."
"... During WWII, Germany actually established settlements in Crimea. Think about it: there is a massive war, you have like 1-2 years, short on transport and resources, and you start sending settlers to Crimea – that's how much drang-nach-osten types wanted it. And the Turks, etc This must be driving them absolutely nuts. ..."
"... The mexicans say : when God created Mexico He gave Mexico everything ; land , mountains , plains , tropical forests , deserts , two oceans , agriculture , gold , silver , oil . then God saw how beautiful and perfect Mexico was and He though that He should also give something bad to the country to prevent the sin of pride , and then he populated Mexico with pure pendejos ,( idiots ) . ..."
"... If you want a decent analysis of current events in the Ukraine, which is what The Saker provides, I guess you'll just have to put up with his terminology. ..."
"... My experience is that Ukrainians individually are far from being pendejos . But they are unable to act as a group or as a nation. (Well, they 'act', but it mostly somehow fails.) ..."
"... Maybe it is the relative shallow and heterogenous history of Ukraine. Or – and this is what I have observed – a fundamental inner disloyalty to the Ukraine as a homeland. When one observes the assorted Porkys, Timoshenkas, Yanuks, the oligarchs, but also the crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about to leave Ukraine or are thinking about leaving. Societies can't be built with one foot always at the airport, or in an old car in a 5-km column waiting on the border of Poland. Or Russia. ..."
@Alfred I had the same thoughts. Zelenskii should show a similar coffin with the text
"This one is still empty" and then start rounding up the terrorists. He finally has a good
excuse.
Thank you Saker and Unz for the very interesting article .
I wonder what has been the role of Germany in the Ukrainian disaster . ...I have the
feeling , just the suspicion , that they contributed to the Ukrainian disaster out of their
genetic Drang nach Osten Nordic greed , is that right ?
Anyway since the Ukrainian disaster the cohesion of the EU is going going down . Germany
which was gifted with the German reunification , is less and less trusted specially in south
Europe , and even less in the EU far west , in England which is going out of the EU .
Most of the people in the EU would like to keep collaborating with the US , of course ,
but also with Russia and with the rest of the world . Most of the people in the UE are scared
of the dark forces operating in Ukraine trying to provoke a war with Russia .
The stupid name-calling like the term "ukronazi" makes this article look like a rant like
North Korean communiques or the ravings of some Arab despot's propagandist. It is not better
than calling "The Saker" a "Moskal", "Sovok" or "Putler's stooge" etc. He should keep this
lingo to directly "debating" "Ukronazis" on twitter or youtube commentst etc. not for an
article that is supposed to be a serious analysis.
I understand that it is hard for a Russian nationalist to accept that the majority of
Ukrainians don't want to belong to their dream Russkiy Mir, they were seduced by the West,
which is more attractive with all its failings, because mostly of simple materialistic
reasons.
Ukrainians happily go to EU countries that now allow them in as guest workers. The
fact, like it or not that majority of them chose the West over Russkiy Mir despite being very
close to Russians in culture, language, history etc. He is still in the first stage of grief
it seems.
All in all, Ukrainians are probably way above average in most human characteristics. The
area of Ukraine is by planetary standards one of the best available: arable land, great
rivers, Black see, pleasant and liveable.
But it is 2019 and life in Ukraine is barely better than it was 25-50 years ago,
population has actually dropped from its peak in early 1990's. Millions of Ukrainians live
abroad (I know some of them) and have – to be polite – at best an ambivalent
attitude towards their homeland. Almost all of them prefer to be somewhere else, even to
become someone else.
Now why is that? A normal society would have enough introspection to discuss this, to look
for answers. Throwing a temper-tantrum on a big square in Kiev every few years is not looking
for a solution. That is escapism, Orange-this, Maidan-that, 'Russians bad', 'we are going
West', 'golden toilets', and always 'Stalin did it'.
I don't agree with the facile name-calling that sees Nazis everywhere and exaggerates
throw-away symbolism. But Ukraine has not been functioning and it can't go like this much
longer. Not because it will collapse, it won't, but because during an era of general
prosperity Ukraine can't be a unstable exception (oh, I get it, they are better than Moldova,
good for them.)
Rebellions against geography are doomed. Projecting one's personal frustrations on
external enemies (Kremlin!) has never worked. Ukraine needs rationality – accepting
that they will not be in EU, that attempting to join Nato would destroy Ukraine, and that
they can't beat Russia in a war. And following advise of half-mad and half-ignorant
well-wishers from Washington or Brussels is a road to ruin. Nulands, Bidens and Tusks will
never live in Ukraine, they really deeply don't care about it. They have no skin in that
game, it is just entertainment for them.
Or alternatively you can pray that Russia collapses – good luck waiting for
that.
There is not much 'drang' left in Germany, so I think this is mostly fingers on the map
post dinner empty talk.
in 1945 the jewery asked Stalin to give Crimea to the jews , Stalin refused
Crimea is a jewel, but has one big problem: not enough water. But that's also true about
Israel, maybe there is a deep genetic memory of coming out of a desert environment.
During WWII, Germany actually established settlements in Crimea. Think about it: there is
a massive war, you have like 1-2 years, short on transport and resources, and you start
sending settlers to Crimea – that's how much drang-nach-osten types wanted it.
And the Turks, etc This must be driving them absolutely nuts.
The mexicans are able to make fun of themselves , that`s a good thing . They have a joke
which aplies also to Ukraina ( and other countries )
The mexicans say : when God created Mexico He gave Mexico everything ; land , mountains ,
plains , tropical forests , deserts , two oceans , agriculture , gold , silver , oil . then
God saw how beautiful and perfect Mexico was and He though that He should also give something
bad to the country to prevent the sin of pride , and then he populated Mexico with pure
pendejos ,( idiots ) .
@AWM "Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references?
If you want a decent analysis of current events in the Ukraine, which is what The Saker
provides, I guess you'll just have to put up with his terminology.
The world won't miss a thing if Curmudgeon or AWM goes off in a huff, to sit on his toilet
and read the "one joke per dump" volume lodged on the tank and stops reading The Saker's very
thorough analysis as a protest action!
@AnonMy experience is that Ukrainians individually are far from being pendejos .
But they are unable to act as a group or as a nation. (Well, they 'act', but it mostly
somehow fails.)
Maybe it is the relative shallow and heterogenous history of Ukraine. Or – and this
is what I have observed – a fundamental inner disloyalty to the Ukraine as a homeland.
When one observes the assorted Porkys, Timoshenkas, Yanuks, the oligarchs, but also the
crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about to leave Ukraine or are thinking
about leaving. Societies can't be built with one foot always at the airport, or in an old car
in a 5-km column waiting on the border of Poland. Or Russia.
Another good article – thanks – Yep, the US/EU NWO is not going to let their
"West Ukraine Isis" battalions and intel gang lose their funding , arms trafficking ops, or
terrorist reputation. This is a no win situation in Ukraine and the West knows it –
Even if NovoRossiya gets some independence, the Ukraine Isis will/can reek havoc and murder
for a long time along the border. The modern Cheka { Ukraine Isis } has been modified for the
security of the new Farmland owners – Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and the rest of the
Globalist Corporations and their ports close to Odessa.
One point of contention since it wasn't made clear in this article – Novorussia
consists of Luhansk and Donetsk, but not Kharkov. While Kharkov has more Russians than most
other provinces of Ukraine do, it does not have a plurality like Donetsk and Luhansk.
All of Ukraine's doomsayers have been crying about Ukraine's demise for the lat 25
years, yet the fact is that it' s getting stronger and stronger every year,
USA diaspora keeps on delivering.
Shoutout to quarter/half Poles USA citizens LARPing as Ukrainian patriots in the
comments.
Ukraine is now a pawn in a big geopolitical game against Russia. Which somehow survived 90th when everybody including myself has
written it off.
That's why the USA, EU (Germany) and Russia pulling the country in different directions. But the victory of Ukrainian nationalists
is not surprising and is not solely based on the US interferences (although the USA did lot in this direction) pursuit its geopolitical
game against Russia. Distancing themselves from Russa is a universal trend in Post-Soviet space. And it often takes ugly forms.
So Ukraine in not an exception here. It is part of the "rule". Essentially the dissolution of the USSR revised the result on WWII.
And while the author correctly calls Ukrainian leader US stooges, they moved in this direction because they feel that it is necessary
for maintaining the independence. In other words anti-Russian stance is considered by the Ukrainian elite as a a pre-condition for mainlining
independence. Otherwise people like Parubiy would be in jail very soon. They are tolerated and even promoted because they are useful.
It repeats the story of Baltic Republics, albeit with a significant time delay. There should be some social group that secure independence
of the country and Ukrainian nationalists happen to be such a group. That's why Yanukovich supported them and Svoboda party (with predictable
results).
Notable quotes:
"... The ideological fissures that are growing in the United States are beginning to resemble the warring camps that characterize the Ukrainian political world. The divide in Ukraine pits groups who are described as "right wing" and many are ideological descendants of real Nazis and Nazi sympathizers against groups with a strong affinity to Russia. This kind of gap cannot be bridged through conventional negotiations. ..."
"... Jump ahead now to the April 2014 "uprising" of anti-Russian forces in the Ukraine (Maidan 2). The US was firmly on the side of the protesters, who ultimately succeeded in ousting the elected President. And who were helping lead this effort? ..."
"... The US support, both overt and covert, for Ukrainian politicians is grounded in an anti-Soviet (now anti-Russian) ideology. We have convinced ourselves that Russia is hell bent on world domination. Therefore we must do whatever is necessary to stop Russia, which includes uncritical, blind support for elements in Ukraine that also detest the Russians. But in doing so we have closed our eyes to the filthy underbelly of the virulent anti-Semitism that lurks in western Ukraine. ..."
"... US meddling in the Ukraine is astonishing in its breadth. It ranges from the fact that the wife of former President Viktor Yuschenko was an American citizen and former senior official in the US State Department. Do you think there would be no complaints if Melania Trump was born in Russia and had served in the Russian Foreign Ministry? Yet, most Americans are happily ignorant of such facts. ..."
"... US interference was not confined to serendipitous relationships, such as the Yushchenko marriage. It also included the open and active funding of certain political groups and media outlets. The US State Department sent money through a variety of outlets. One of these was the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening aka CEPPS. ..."
"... This is : ..."
"... Count me as one of the people who is outraged by the hypocrisy and stupidity now on display in the United States. I am not talking about Trump. I am referring to the Republicans and Democrats and pundits and media mouthpieces who are fuming about Russian citizens writing on Facebook as one of the worst catastrophes since Pearl Harbor or 9-11. ..."
"... There clearly is meddling going on in America's political landscape. But it isn't the Russian Government. No. There are foreign and domestic forces aligned who are keen on portraying Russia as a threat to world order that must be opposed by more defense spending and tougher sanctions. That is the propaganda that dominates the media in the United States these days. And that is truly dangerous to our nation's safety and freedom. ..."
"... A CIA guy recently said the US only interferes to 'promote democracy' - tell that to Australia, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Congo, Russia, Ukraine...it's a long long list. ..."
"... An independent Ukraine was also a project of German foreign policy after the Brest-Litowsk Treaty (the equivalent of the Versailles Treaty, only aimed at Russia) SO I have o wonder how much of the enthusiasm for Vicky Nuland's Israel friendly Nazi state-let (oh what irony!) is a product of Germany wanting to reassert itself in the east, using NATO solidarity as a fig leaf. Maybe they will make Ukraine import a lot o Africans "refugees" so that Soros' project of creating a brown Europe will be advanced in the Slavic sphere as well as the west. ..."
"... The liberal party - who provides the prime-minister - EU leader Hans van Baalen and Belgian ex-prime minister Guy Verhostad held a controversial speech on the Maidan square in support of the protesters that the EU will support them. ..."
"... I wouldn't put to much stress on Bandera having been a bad guy. His enemies were no better. They just won the war and the victors write history. The deeper problem of Ukraine is the fact that in the East of the country (and maybe even the majority of the country) Bandera is indeed regarded as a villain. But in the West he is a hero to this day. Even in Soviet times people from Western Ukraine were regarded as "fascists" by much of the rest of the country. No wonder as there were anti soviet partisans until late in the fifties. ..."
"... "Prorussian" Kutshma turned into a Ukrainian "patriot" (such is the logic of statehood) and the same thing happened with Yanukovich. People forget that he would have signed an association agreement with Europe had Europe not refused because he was insufficiently "democratic". ..."
"... But the West wanted it all. They wanted Ukraine firmly in the "Western" camp. Thereby they ripped the country apart. As a good friend of mine who has studied in Kiev in Soviet times remarked: to ask Ukraine to choose between East and West is like asking a child in divorce proceedings who it liked more: daddy or mummy? ..."
"... A very interesting conversation between Victoria Nulland and ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, caught at picking the future rulers of liberated Ukraine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxZ8t3V_bk This is not meddling. This is a defensive (preemptive?) action against Russian agression. ..."
"... I've never seen such an intense barrage of propaganda before in my life. America is fracturing apart like Ukraine. This is no coincidence. In both countries, oligarchs have seized power, the rule of law abandoned and there is a rush of corruption. ..."
"... What we did to Ukraine is shameful in every way. A remember a video of a pallet of money being unloaded from a USG place at Kiev during Maidan 2. That's in addition to Nuland's bag of cookies. I always thought that one of the objectives of our meddling in Ukraine was to make Sevastopol into a NATO naval base. ..."
"... Our leaders are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. The Ukraine was almost evenly divided between pro-Western and pro-Russian sides. Our government, rather than waiting for an election, assisted an armed rebellion against the elected pro-Russian government. Among the groups our government allied with in this endeavor were out and out Nazis. ..."
The ideological fissures that are growing in the United States are beginning to resemble the warring camps that characterize
the Ukrainian political world. The divide in Ukraine pits groups who are described as "right wing" and many are ideological descendants
of real Nazis and Nazi sympathizers against groups with a strong affinity to Russia. This kind of gap cannot be bridged through conventional
negotiations.
Who is the United States government and media supporting? The Nazis . You think I'm joking. Here are the facts, but we must go
back to World War II
:
When World War II began a large part of western Ukraine welcomed the German soldiers as liberators from the recently enforced
Soviet rule and openly collaborated with the Germans. The Soviet leader, Stalin, imposed policies that caused the deaths of almost
7 million Ukrainians in the 1930s--an era known as the Holomodor).
Ukrainian divisions, regiments and battalions were formed, such as SS Galizien, Nachtigal and Roland, and served under German
leadership. In the first few weeks of the war, more than 80 thousand people from the Galizien region volunteered for the SS Galizien,
which later known for its extreme cruelty towards Polish, Jewish and Russian people on the territory of Ukraine.
Members of these military groups came mostly from the organization of Ukrainian nationalists aka the OUN, which was founded in
1929. It's leader was Stepan Bandera, known then and today for his extreme anti-semitic and anti-communist views.
CIA documents just recently declassified show strong ties between US intelligence and Ukrainian nationalists since 1946.
Jump ahead now to the April 2014 "uprising" of anti-Russian forces in the Ukraine (Maidan 2). The US was firmly on the side
of the protesters, who ultimately succeeded in ousting the elected President.
And who were helping lead
this effort?
Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council is Andriy Parubiy. Parubiy was the founder of the Social National
Party of Ukraine, a fascist party styled on Hitler's Nazis, with membership restricted to ethnic Ukrainians.
The Social National Party would go on to become Svoboda, the far-right nationalist party whose leader,
Oleh Tyahnybok was
one of the three most high profile leaders of the Euromaidan protests. . . .
Overseeing the armed forces alongside Parubiy as the Deputy Secretary of National Security is
Dmytro Yarosh , the leader of the Right
Sector – a group of hardline nationalist streetfighters, who
previously boasted they were ready for
armed struggle to free Ukraine.
The US support, both overt and covert, for Ukrainian politicians is grounded in an anti-Soviet (now anti-Russian) ideology.
We have convinced ourselves that Russia is hell bent on world domination. Therefore we must do whatever is necessary to stop Russia,
which includes uncritical, blind support for elements in Ukraine that also detest the Russians. But in doing so we have closed our
eyes to the filthy underbelly of the virulent anti-Semitism that lurks in western Ukraine.
US meddling in the Ukraine is astonishing in its breadth. It ranges from the fact that the wife of former President Viktor
Yuschenko was an American citizen and former senior official in the US State Department. Do you think there would be no complaints
if Melania Trump was born in Russia and had served in the Russian Foreign Ministry? Yet, most Americans are happily ignorant of such
facts.
But Viktor Yushchenko is not an American who speaks a foreign language. He is very much a Ukrainian nationalist and steeped in
the anti-Semitism that dominates the ideology of western Ukraine. During the final months of his Presidency, Yushchenko made the
following declaration:
In conclusion I would like to say something that is long awaited by the Ukrainian patriots for many years I have signed a decree
for the unbroken spirit and standing for the idea of fighting for independent Ukraine. I declare Stepan Bandera a national hero of
Ukraine.
Without hesitation or shame, Yushchenko endorsed the legacy of Bandera, who had happily aligned with the Nazis in pursuit of his
own nationalist goals. Those goals, however, did not include Jews. And here is the ultimate irony--Bandera was born in Austria, not
the Ukraine. So much for ideological consistency.
US interference was not confined to serendipitous relationships, such as the Yushchenko marriage. It also included the open
and active funding of certain political groups and media outlets. The US State Department sent money through a variety of outlets.
One of these was the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening aka CEPPS.
This is :
a USAID program with other National Endowment for Democracy-affiliated groups: the National Democratic Institute for International
Affairs, the International Republican Institute and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. In 2010, the reported disbursement
for CEPPS in Ukraine was nearly $5 million.
The program's efforts are described on the USAID website as providing "training for political party activists and locally elected
officials to improve communication with civic groups and citizens, and the development of NGO-led advocacy campaigns on electoral
and political process issues."
Anyone prepared to argue that it would be okay for Russia, through its Foreign Ministry, to contribute several million dollars
for training party activists in the United States?
What we do not know is how much money was being spent on covert activities directed and managed by the CIA. During the political
upheaval in April 2014 (Maidan 2), there was this news item:
Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan travelled to Kiev, nobody knows exactly why, but some speculate that he intends to
open US intelligence resources to Ukrainian leaders about real-time Russian military maneuvers. The US has, thus far, refrained from
sharing such knowledge because Moscow is believed to have penetrated much of Ukraine's communications systems – and
Washington isn't about to hand over its surveillance secrets to the
Russians.
Do you think Americans would be outraged if the head of Russia's version of the CIA, the SVR or FSB, traveled quietly to the United
States to meet with Donald Trump prior to his election? I think that would qualify as meddling.
Count me as one of the people who is outraged by the hypocrisy and stupidity now on display in the United States. I am not
talking about Trump. I am referring to the Republicans and Democrats and pundits and media mouthpieces who are fuming about Russian
citizens writing on Facebook as one of the worst catastrophes since Pearl Harbor or 9-11.
There clearly is meddling going on in America's political landscape. But it isn't the Russian Government. No. There are foreign
and domestic forces aligned who are keen on portraying Russia as a threat to world order that must be opposed by more defense spending
and tougher sanctions. That is the propaganda that dominates the media in the United States these days. And that is truly dangerous
to our nation's safety and freedom.
Good post pt.. thanks... i never knew ''the wife of former President Viktor Yushchenko was an American citizen and former senior
official in the US State Department.'' That is informative.. i recall following this closely back in 2014.. the hypocrisy on display
in the usa at present is truly amazing and frightening at the same time.. it appears that the public can be cowed very easily..
On the twitters, you would be accused of "whatabouttism" - which is the crime of excusing Putin's diabolism by pointing out
American interference with the internal politics an elections of other nations. A CIA guy recently said the US only interferes
to 'promote democracy' - tell that to Australia, Vietnam, Mexico, Chile, Congo, Russia, Ukraine...it's a long long list.
An independent Ukraine was also a project of German foreign policy after the Brest-Litowsk Treaty (the equivalent of the
Versailles Treaty, only aimed at Russia) SO I have o wonder how much of the enthusiasm for Vicky Nuland's Israel friendly Nazi
state-let (oh what irony!) is a product of Germany wanting to reassert itself in the east, using NATO solidarity as a fig leaf.
Maybe they will make Ukraine import a lot o Africans "refugees" so that Soros' project of creating a brown Europe will be advanced
in the Slavic sphere as well as the west.
It's not only the US. The EU borg are also meddling. In my country we had a referendum about Ukraine. The population voted "Against"
on the question: "Are you for or against the Approval Act of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine?"
This was the only referendum that was done since it was implemented in 2015. A second one is being organized on the Intelligence
and Security Services which has controversial parts with regard to access to internet traffic.
This referendum will take place on March 21, 2018 and will probably be voted against because of the controversial elements
(in part because there is still living memory of our Eastern neighbors in the second world war)
These 2 will probably be the last. Our house of representatives have voted yesterday to end the referendum law (with a majority
vote of 76 out of 150 representatives!)
So much for democracy. The reason stated that the referendum was controversial (probably because they voted against the EU
borg). Interesting is that the proposal was done by the party that wanted the referendum as a principal point. This will almost
certainly ensure that the little respect left for traditional parties is gone and they will not be able to get a majority next
elections.
The liberal party - who provides the prime-minister - EU leader
Hans van Baalen and Belgian ex-prime minister Guy
Verhostad held a controversial speech on the Maidan square in support of the protesters that the EU will support them.
I wouldn't put to much stress on Bandera having been a bad guy. His enemies were no better. They just won the war and the
victors write history. The deeper problem of Ukraine is the fact that in the East of the country (and maybe even the majority
of the country) Bandera is indeed regarded as a villain. But in the West he is a hero to this day. Even in Soviet times people
from Western Ukraine were regarded as "fascists" by much of the rest of the country. No wonder as there were anti soviet partisans
until late in the fifties.
Even in the nineties anybody who travelled in Ukraine could feel the tension between East and West. The Russians were certainly
aware of it and mindful not to rip the country apart they cut the Ukrainians an enormous amount of slack. Of course they supported
"their" candidates and shoveled money into their insatiable throats. Only to be disappointed time and again. "Prorussian"
Kutshma turned into a Ukrainian "patriot" (such is the logic of statehood) and the same thing happened with Yanukovich. People
forget that he would have signed an association agreement with Europe had Europe not refused because he was insufficiently "democratic".
Really the West should have been content with things as they were.
But the West wanted it all. They wanted Ukraine firmly in the "Western" camp. Thereby they ripped the country apart. As
a good friend of mine who has studied in Kiev in Soviet times remarked: to ask Ukraine to choose between East and West is like
asking a child in divorce proceedings who it liked more: daddy or mummy?
Really the West (not only the US -the Eu is also guilty) is to blame. It is long past time to get down from the high horse
and stop spreading chaos and mayhem in the name of democracy,
An informative column. The coup & later developments soured me on the MSMedia. I'm an initiate into modern Russian
history: NATO in the Ukraine = WW3!
Some additional history:
A Ukrainian nation did not exist until after WW1; one piece was Russian, another Polish and another Austrian. The Holodomor
is exaggerated for political purposes; the actual number dead from famine appears to be 'only' 2M. It wasn't Soviet bloody mindedness,
it was Soviet agricultural mismanagement; collectivizing agriculture drops production.
They did this right before the great drought of the 1930s - remember the dustbowl. There was a famine in Kazakestan at the
same time; 1.5M died.
The Nazis raised 5 SS divisions out of the Ukraine. As the Germans were pushed back they ran night drops of ordnance into the
Ukraine as long as they could. The Soviets had to carry on divisional level counter insurgency until 1956. After the war, Gehlen,
Nazi intelligence czar, kept himself out of jail by turning over his files, routes & agents to the US. He also stoked anti Soviet
paranoia.
The Brits ended up with a whole Ukr SS division that they didn't want, so they gave it to Canada. Which is why Canada has such
cranky policy around the Ukraine!
A very interesting conversation between Victoria Nulland and ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, caught at picking the future rulers
of liberated Ukraine : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QxZ8t3V_bk
This is not meddling. This is a defensive (preemptive?) action against Russian agression.
I'm sure you'd like us to ignore Bandera. I bet he liked children and dogs. Just like Hitler. Bandera was a genuine bad
guy. There is no rehabilitating that scourge on society. Nice try though.
I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that your final comment is sarcasm. When you have two senior US Government officials
who will and will not constitute a foreign government, you have gone beyond meddling. It is worse.
The media is hysterical. Today, Putin's Facebook Bot Collaborator contacted the Kremlin before his mercenaries attacked Americans
in Syria.
I've never seen such an intense barrage of propaganda before in my life. America is fracturing apart like Ukraine. This
is no coincidence. In both countries, oligarchs have seized power, the rule of law abandoned and there is a rush of corruption.
A World War is near. The realists are gone. The Moguls are pushing Donald Trump pull the trigger. Either in Syria with an assault
to destroy Hezbollah (Iran) for good or American trainers going over the top of trenches in Donbass in a centennial attack of
the dead.
Hallelujah and jubilation! We're in full agreement on this subject. What we did to Ukraine is shameful in every way. A
remember a video of a pallet of money being unloaded from a USG place at Kiev during Maidan 2. That's in addition to Nuland's
bag of cookies. I always thought that one of the objectives of our meddling in Ukraine was to make Sevastopol into a NATO naval
base.
I would definitely want to see a full account of what support we provided to the nazi thugs of Svoboda and Pravy Sektor. We
have a long history of meddling, at least twice as long as the Soviet Union/Russia. But that does not mean we should stop investigating
the Russian interference in our 2016 election. Just stop hyperventilating over it. It no more deserves risking a war than our
continuing mutual espionage.
Our leaders are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. The Ukraine was almost evenly divided between pro-Western and pro-Russian
sides. Our government, rather than waiting for an election, assisted an armed rebellion against the elected pro-Russian government.
Among the groups our government allied with in this endeavor were out and out Nazis.
As a result of this rebellion, the Russian majority in Crimea overwhelming voted to leave the Ukraine and rejoin Russia, which
they had been part of for over 150-years. While our government continues to provide military aid to Israel, which used force of
arms take over the West Bank, it imposed sanctions against Russia when the people of Crimea voted to join their former countrymen.
Mind boggling.
Now we understand that it was Adelson money talking for Trump, when he campaigned in 2016 on
the platform of hostility of Iran and abandonment of the nuclear deal.
While derail who and how ordered the assassination, one thing it clear: Trump no longer
deserve re-election. He is yet another Hillary now. Any of Dem opponents excluding Biden, who is
dead fish in any case, are better then Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump campaigned on belligerence toward Iran and trashing the Obama-led Iran nuclear deal, and he has followed through on those threats, filling his administration with the most vile, hawkish figures in the U.S. national security establishment. After appointing notorious warmonger John Bolton as national security adviser, Trump fired him last September. But despite reports that Trump had soured on Bolton because of his interventionist posture toward Iran, Bolton's firing merely opened the door for the equally belligerent Mike Pompeo to take over the administration's Iran policy at the State Department. ..."
"... Now Pompeo is the public face of the Suleimani assassination, while for his part, the fired Bolton didn't want to be left out of the gruesome victory lap: ..."
"... Trump, who had no idea who Qassim Suleimani was until it was explained to him live on the radio by conservative journalist Hugh Hewitt in 2015, didn't seem to need many details to know that he wanted to crush the Iranian state. ..."
"... Much as the neoconservatives came to power in 2001 after the election of George W. Bush with the goal of regime change in Iraq, Trump in his bumbling way assembled a team of extremists who viewed him as their best chance of wiping the Islamic Republic of Iran off the map. ..."
"... Assassination has been a central component of U.S. policy for many decades, though it has been whitewashed and normalized throughout history, most recently with Obama's favored term, "targeted killings." ..."
"... While many Democratic politicians are offering their concerns about the consequences of Suleimani's assassination, they are prefacing it with remarks about how atrocious Suleimani was. Framing his assassination that way ultimately benefits the extremist cabal of foreign policy hawks who agitated for this very moment to arrive. There's no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani. This is an aggressive act of war, an offensive act committed by the U.S. on the sovereign territory of a third country, Iraq. This assassination and the potential for a war it raises are, unfortunately, consistent with more than half a century of U.S. aggression against Iran and Iraq. ..."
"... Five months ago, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would have prohibited this very type of action, but it was removed from the final bill. "Any member who voted for the NDAA -- a blank check -- can't now express dismay that Trump may have launched another war in the Middle East," Khanna wrote on Twitter after Suleimani's assassination. "My Amendment, which was stripped, would have cut off $$ for any offensive attack against Iran including against officials like Soleimani." ..."
"... Trump is responsible for whatever comes next. But time and again, the worst foreign policy atrocities of his presidency have been enabled by the very politicians who claim to want him removed from office ..."
While the media focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around "Russia
collusion" and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the
open -- the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE
drive to war with Iran .
On August 3, 2016 -- just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College
vote and ascend to power -- Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower.
For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed
a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it.
At this meeting was George Nader, an American citizen who had a long history of being a
quiet emissary for the United States in the Middle East. Nader, who had also worked for
Blackwater and Prince, was a convicted pedophile in the Czech Republic and is facing similar
allegations in the United States. Nader worked as an adviser for the Emirati royals and has
close ties to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince. Join Our NewsletterOriginal reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I'm in There was also an
Israeli at the Trump Tower meeting: Joel Zamel. He was there supposedly pitching a
multimillion-dollar social media manipulation campaign to the Trump team. Zamel's company,
Psy-Group, boasts of employing former Israeli intelligence operatives. Nader and Zamel were
joined by Donald Trump Jr. According to the New York Times, the purpose of the meeting
was "primarily to offer help to the Trump team, and it forged relationships between the men and
Trump insiders that would develop over the coming months, past the election and well into
President Trump's first year in office."
One major common goal ran through the agendas of all the participants in this Trump Tower
meeting: regime change in Iran. Trump campaigned on belligerence toward Iran and trashing
the Obama-led Iran nuclear deal, and he has followed through on those threats, filling his
administration with the most vile, hawkish figures in the U.S. national security establishment.
After appointing notorious warmonger John Bolton as national security adviser, Trump fired him
last September. But despite reports that Trump had soured on Bolton because of his
interventionist posture toward Iran, Bolton's firing merely opened the door for the equally
belligerent Mike Pompeo to take over the administration's Iran policy at the State
Department.
Now Pompeo is the public face of the Suleimani assassination, while for his part, the
fired Bolton didn't want to be left out of the gruesome victory lap:
Congratulations to all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani. Long in the making, this
was a decisive blow against Iran's malign Quds Force activities worldwide. Hope this is the
first step to regime change in Tehran.
Trump, who had
no idea who Qassim Suleimani was until it was explained to him live on the radio by
conservative journalist Hugh Hewitt in 2015, didn't seem to need many details to know that he
wanted to crush the Iranian state.
Much as the neoconservatives came to power in 2001 after the election of George W. Bush
with the goal of regime change in Iraq, Trump in his bumbling way assembled a team of
extremists who viewed him as their best chance of wiping the Islamic Republic of Iran off the
map.
While Barack Obama provided crucial military and intelligence support for Saudi Arabia's
scorched earth campaign in Yemen, which killed untold numbers of civilians, Trump escalated
that mass murder in a blatant effort to draw Iran militarily into a conflict. That was the
agenda of the gulf monarchies and Israel, and it coincided neatly with the neoconservative
dreams of overthrowing the Iranian government. As the U.S. and Saudi Arabia intensified their
military attacks in Yemen, Iran began to insert itself more and more forcefully into Yemeni
affairs, though Tehran was careful not to be tricked into offering this Trump/Saudi/UAE/Israel
coalition a justification for wider war.
Protesters shout slogans against the United States and Israel as they hold posters with the
image of top Iranian commander Qassim Suleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq,
and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani during a demonstration in the Kashmiri town of Magam on
Jan. 3, 2020.
Photo: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images The assassination of Suleimani -- a popular figure
in Iran who is viewed as one of the major drivers of ISIS's defeat in Iraq -- was one of only a
handful of actions that the U.S. could have taken that would almost certainly lead to a war
with Iran. This assassination, reportedly ordered directly by Trump, was advocated by the most
dangerous and extreme players in the U.S. foreign policy establishment with that exact
intent.
Assassination has been a central component of U.S. policy for many decades, though it
has been whitewashed and normalized throughout history, most recently with Obama's favored
term, "targeted killings." The U.S. Congress has intentionally never legislated the issue
of assassination. Lawmakers have avoided even defining the word "assassination." While every
president since Gerald Ford has upheld an executive order banning assassinations by U.S.
personnel, they have each carried out assassinations with little to no congressional outcry.
Read Our Complete
Coverage The Iran Cables In 1976, following Church Committee recommendations regarding
allegations of assassination plots carried out by U.S. intelligence agencies, Ford signed an
executive order banning "political assassination." Jimmy Carter subsequently issued a new order
strengthening the prohibition by dropping the word "political" and extending it to include
persons "employed by or acting on behalf of the United States." In 1981, Ronald Reagan signed
Executive Order 12333, which remains in effect today. The language seems clear enough: "No
person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or
conspire to engage in, assassination."
As I
wrote in August 2017, reflecting on our Drone Papers series from two years earlier, "The
Obama administration, by institutionalizing a policy of drone-based killings of individuals
judged to pose a threat to national security -- without indictment or trial, through secret
processes -- bequeathed to our political culture, and thus to Donald Trump, a policy of
assassination, in direct violation of Executive Order 12333 and, moreover, the Fifth Amendment
of the U.S. Constitution. To date, at least seven U.S. citizens are known to have been killed
under this policy, including a 16-year-old boy. Only one American, the radical preacher Anwar
al-Awlaki, was said to have been the 'intended target' of a strike."
There's no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani.
While many Democratic politicians are offering their concerns about the
consequences of Suleimani's assassination, they are prefacing it with remarks about how
atrocious Suleimani was. Framing his assassination that way ultimately benefits the extremist
cabal of foreign policy hawks who agitated for this very moment to arrive. There's no
justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Suleimani. This is an aggressive
act of war, an offensive act committed by the U.S. on the sovereign territory of a third
country, Iraq. This assassination and the potential for a war it raises are, unfortunately,
consistent with more than half a century of U.S. aggression against Iran and Iraq.
For three years, many Democrats have told the country that Trump is the gravest threat to a
democratic system we have faced. And yet many leading Democrats have voted consistently to give
Trump unprecedented military budgets and surveillance powers.
Five months ago, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna offered an amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act that would have prohibited this very type of action, but it
was removed from the final bill. "Any member who voted for the NDAA -- a blank check -- can't
now express dismay that Trump may have launched another war in the Middle East," Khanna
wrote
on Twitter after Suleimani's assassination. "My Amendment, which was stripped, would have cut
off $$ for any offensive attack against Iran including against officials like
Soleimani."
Trump is responsible for whatever comes next. But time and again, the worst foreign
policy atrocities of his presidency have been enabled by the very politicians who claim to want
him removed from office . Wait! Before you go on about your day, ask yourself: How likely
is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The
Intercept hadn't done it? Consider what the world of media would look like without The
Intercept. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? How
many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if
our reporters weren't on the beat? The kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but
it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. We
don't have ads, so we depend on our members -- 35,000 and counting -- to help us hold the
powerful to account. Joining is simple and doesn't need to cost a lot: You can become a
sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. That's all it takes to support the
journalism you rely on.
"... Somehow the Ziocons around Trump have forgotten that the present state of Iraq refused to yield to Obama's demands for a SOFA and in effect expelled the US from the country. ..."
"... The Iraqi parliament is going to vote in emergency session over the issue of the death of al-Muhandis. Will they vote to expel the US from their country? ..."
"... What a lot of commentators seem to overlook is that America has basically declared war on Iraq, while our soldiers are hosted on joint bases with Iraqi soldiers. ..."
"... "We need to get out of Iraq and Syria now. That is the only way that we're going to prevent ourselves from being dragged into this quagmire, deeper and deeper into a war with Iran." Tulsi Gabbard. ..."
"... Assassination of generals, one from an allied country, one from a country with which we have no declared war, and both assassinations performed on the territory of an allied, sovereign country without permission? This is piracy. Why should anyone trust the word of a country which does not honor the most basic of international law? ..."
"... Will we go if they vote that way? I'll go with no. The Neocons desperately want us in Iraq to protect Israel and stick it to Iran as much as possible. They have a laundry list of prepared arguments and we have the dumbest, most compliant, state media in recorded history. We also have a President who believes that intnl law is for weaklings and loves saying 'take the oil'. ..."
"... Take a look at this interview to David Petraeus by FP on yesterday´s summary executions...What you make of this? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03 He sounds as if he were the brain behind this operation on summary executions..along some other think tankers.. ..."
"... Whoever is President we will have war. The President is just a feckless puppet controlled by the Zionist. I'll never vote again. It's a waste of time and a farce. Hillary or Donald no different just a matter of timing. Obama destroyed Libya and Syria. Bush II the simpleton and his fairy tale WMD lie. I've lost all respect for whatever "the republic" is suppose to be. On top of that the masses are too stupid for democracy to work. ..."
Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian soldier. He lived by the sword and died by the sword. He met
a soldier's destiny. It is being said that he was a BAD MAN. Absurd! To say that he was a BAD
MAN because he fought us as well as the Sunni jihadis is simply infantile. Were all those who
fought the US BAD MEN? How about Gentleman Johhny Burgoyne? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Sitting
Bull? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Aguinaldo? Another BAD MAN? Let us not be juvenile.
The Iraqi PMU commander who died with Soleimani was Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. He was a member
of a Shia militia that had been integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. IOW, we killed an Iraqi
general. We killed him without the authorization of the supposedly sovereign state of Iraq.
We created the present government of Iraq through the farcical "purple thumb" elections.
That government holds a seat in the UN General Assembly and is a sovereign entity in
international law in spite of Trump's tweet today that said among other things that we have
"paid" Iraq billions of US dollars. To the Arabs, this statement that brands them as hirelings
of the US is close to the ultimate in insult.
Somehow the Ziocons around Trump have forgotten that the present state of Iraq refused to
yield to Obama's demands for a SOFA and in effect expelled the US from the country.
The Iraqi parliament is going to vote in emergency session over the issue of the death of
al-Muhandis. Will they vote to expel the US from their country?
Will we go if they vote that way? We should. If we do not, then we will be exposed as
imperialist hypocrites.
Trump should welcome such a vote. He wants to get out of the ME? What greater opportunity
could we have to do so?
Let us leave if invited to go. Let the oh, so clever locals deal with their own hatreds and
rivalries. pl
What a lot of commentators seem to overlook is that America has basically declared war on
Iraq, while our soldiers are hosted on joint bases with Iraqi soldiers.
But...Elora guesses you are being rhetorical here...because... if he would have died by
the sword...would not have he had the opportunity to defend himself against his
enemy/opponent?
Instead...he was caught on surprise...unarmed...and hit by an overwhelming force...he was
going to some funerals...
"We need to get out of Iraq and Syria now. That is the only way that we're going to prevent
ourselves from being dragged into this quagmire, deeper and deeper into a war with Iran."
Tulsi Gabbard.
Some impressive images worth thousands words...just to remember everybody that this man was
an appreciated human being...doing his duty....for his motherland...and his God....
To better understand the pain of that elderly yazidi woman in the video, some testimony by
Rania Khalek on the role of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis ( the other militia commander killed who is
being as well slandered as terrorist along Soleimani ...) in stopping yazidi genocide in Iraq
when nobody else was giving a damn, less any help, for this people...
Assassination of generals, one from an allied country, one from a country with which we have
no declared war, and both assassinations performed on the territory of an allied, sovereign
country without permission? This is piracy. Why should anyone trust the word of a country
which does not honor the most basic of international law?
And am I alone to be disgusted to see the senior members of our government lie blatantly
and constantly, when they're not fellating the nearest likudnik....
We go where we are wanted and appreciated. We have no skin in Iraq. Build the Wall and
protect our own borders. Concentrate our resources on cyber-security.
Tulsi makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately that disqualifies her for the presidency, not
because she couldn't execute the functions of the presidency, but because neither the party
apparatchiks nor the voters would give her the chance. These days either nationalistic
claptrap or promises of more freebies are what carry the day. Quelle domage, eh?
As for the Iraqi parliament voting to expel U.S. forces? That's an interesting question. If
they did, they'd better vote to expel the "den of spies" at the embassy and insist on our
having a normal sized legation (as all countries would be well advised to do). But if they
do, would we leave? I personally doubt it even though it would be best if we did and let the
Iraqis do what they will, which would probably be reverting back to some sort of strongman
govt, of a type more suited to their cultural traditions and inclinations. It's high time we
afforded the rest of the world the type of cultural and political autonomy we claim to revere
so much.
So, we leave? A good thing for us and for them and the world at large.
Or, we don't? Then we expose the truth the rest of the world already knows, but we at least
expose the truth to our own people who have been fed a steady diet of mendacious BS about
what we've been doing over there all these years.
That attack on the "airport limo" vehicles leaving Baghdad airport sure took some nerve on
our part to think that we could sell something like that...
And, did Trump actually order it, or did someone else in the MIC order it first and Trump
laid claim to it afterwards? Uncle Joe, if he had ordered it, would have afterwards announced
the execution of a fall guy and denied any complicity! If Trump didn't order it, he should
throw whoever did under the bus instead of crowing and wrapping himself in the flag. I wonder
about what actually happened in planning this hit job on prominent military people on their
way to a funeral for 31 people who may or may not have had anything whatsoever to do with the
death of a single American mercenary in Iraq in an attack by persons unknown on a small
outpost.
It's times like this I wish I was a fly on the wall, listening to what the Russian General
Staff conversations regarding this assassination are at this moment.
Trump IMHO would do well to seek Putin's counsel on how to exit the corner that Trump has
backed US into. While this spells problems for our US, it also creates additional problems
for Russia in the ways that could cause them MAJOR problem as well as in a full blown Mideast
War with many players in the mix. Not a good mix either.
Israel can't handle a full blown Mideast War, no matter how much their narcissistic
national psyche thinks they can. Israel is a mere postage stamp in a sea of rage, which
tsunami waves could very easily consume them. Sheldon Adelson and his Likud/NEOCON blowhards
have no concept of what is on the short horizon, that can go one way or the other.
I'm glad I'm retired in this instance. My glass of bourbon is more palatable than the
grains of Mideast sand that fixing to get stirred up.
God help us all.
Pat, why does the US military always get left with the shit-storms to clean up after?
Why?
Will we go if they vote that way? I'll go with no. The Neocons desperately want us in Iraq to protect Israel and stick it to
Iran as much as possible. They have a laundry list of prepared arguments and we have the
dumbest, most compliant, state media in recorded history. We also have a President who
believes that intnl law is for weaklings and loves saying 'take the oil'.
I can hear the talking points already ...
1. 'Obama made the same mistake and it created ISIS.'
2. 'Iran has taken over Iraq, it's not a legitimate request' (look at how we selectively
recognize govts in South America and no one blinks).
3. 'Iran will use Iraq as a base to attack us' (yeah, its about 100 miles closer).
I can't stand what we have become, the jackals have taken over and the MSM attacks the
very few who are not jackals.
OK. Who do you think would have had the power to order the strike? Not the CIA, the
military would not accept such an order. Not the chairman of the JCS, he is not in the chain
of command. That leaves Esper, SECDEF. Really? He looks like a putschist to you? You are
ignorant of the American government.
Take a look at this interview to David Petraeus by FP on yesterday´s summary
executions...What you make of this?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03 He sounds as if he were the brain behind this operation on summary executions..along some
other think tankers..
Whoever is President we will have war. The President is just a feckless puppet controlled by
the Zionist. I'll never vote again. It's a waste of time and a farce. Hillary or Donald no
different just a matter of timing. Obama destroyed Libya and Syria. Bush II the simpleton and
his fairy tale WMD lie. I've lost all respect for whatever "the republic" is suppose to be.
On top of that the masses are too stupid for democracy to work.
Iran should probably be very careful not to overplay his hand. The time in working it its favor.
Notable quotes:
"... Lavrov said in June 2019 "Those who rely on inciting tension between Arabs and Persians, Arabs and Kurds, and inside the Arab world – between the Sunnis and the Shiites, are not guided by the interests of the peoples of the region, but by their own narrow geopolitical motives." ..."
"... USA has not legally declared war on Iran. This is murder. Murder of an Iranian Government employee. He may also have been covered by a diplomatic passport. If he is (I don't know) this has major repercussions for Diplomatic immunity. ..."
"... The USA 'new' unilateral principle is that any official in any country may now be murdered by the USA government at the whim of the President of the day. ..."
"... The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic sanctions warfare. ..."
The subject is 'revenge' and what Iranian authorities may or may not do.
The 'big picture' is re-building the security (and well-being) of ordinary Iranian,
Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni people - and all other decent people of the Middle East and beyond.
Tribal reaction is deep and strong. We all know and experience that. But to achieve 'the big picture' the first instinctive hind-brain reaction must be set
aside - or at least, allowed to 'recede'. Of course there must be re-balancing, which carries with it a feeling of vindication, if
not revenge.
Lavrov said in June 2019 "Those who rely on inciting tension between Arabs and Persians,
Arabs and Kurds, and inside the Arab world – between the Sunnis and the Shiites, are
not guided by the interests of the peoples of the region, but by their own narrow
geopolitical motives."
Well the USA Government is guilty must apologise publicly and humbly. Compensation must be
paid.
Dialogue started.
USA has not legally declared war on Iran. This is murder. Murder of an Iranian Government
employee. He may also have been covered by a diplomatic passport. If he is (I don't know)
this has major repercussions for Diplomatic immunity.
The USA 'new' unilateral principle is that any official in any country may now be murdered
by the USA government at the whim of the President of the day.
Clearly, decent people in USA need to campaign to limit Presidential powers. Revenge creates a spiral of escalation which becomes a vortex of destruction, perhaps
global. How does that improve peoples daily lives?
The duty of government is ensuring the security of its people. Does 'revenge' achieve this
in the years ahead? It is the instinctive option, yes, but is it the BEST long term
option?
In the end, parties must meet, compensation paid, and the hard slow work of building
acceptable inter-state relations based on rule of law and the UN Charter re-commenced.
In my view, there is no other option that meets the long term need of ordinary people.
But building this requires special people. Not wreckers and haters.
Will the urgency of the situation see them emerge?
@ Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 4 2020 22:18 utc | 84
Thank you. Someone making sense. Most are talking about this like it's halftime in a
sporting match - completely juvenile.
Iran needs to pull back and focus on making themselves stronger in economy and technology
and for strong ties with other responsible players. They have opportunities with many
countries which are increasingly disenchanted with the west. And the west is headed for an
economic beating - which explains the desperate behavior.
Even if Iran is very careful in their behavior Irael is going to continue to press for war
- the psychotic fears most those that he has attacked.
But maybe with careful behavior and planning and efforts to repair and maintain ties the
Iraninans could be ready for that eventuality.
Espen and Trump have made it clear that they will hold Iran responsible for whatever may
happen in the region and that they will strike in response or preemptively. Essentially, that
makes the real Iranian reaction largely irrelevant. And Israel could create a false flag
incident #a la USS Liberty. Or some rogue groups that Iran cannot control might attack US
troops or installations. Whether by design or accident, there will be a pretext to base
another military strike against Iran on. And then another, until a full blown US-Iran war
erupts which Bibi, Lieberman & co so desperately want.
Years of relentless demonization of Iran in the US and the UK have brainwashed large swaths
of the population. They will accept a war against Iran, albeit reluctantly, as long as not
too many Americans get killed in its wake.
I don't believe for a second that the US would "accept" a limited retaliation. They will
jump at any opportunity. Lindsey Graham stands between Trump and impeachment and that
warmonger is on record for seeking to bomb Iran's oil refineries. Incidentally, he was the
only senator who Trump consulted prior to the murder. Could well be that Graham is right now
the real P0TUS , at least until the senate has voted on impeachment. Conveniently, pelosi has
put the impeachment on hold, thereby prolonging that situation. Coincidence? I don't think
so.
Maybe the Israelis/neocons fear that Trump might lose in November and want to start the
war while Bibi's favorite lapdog is still P0TUS. Not, that the Democrats are peacelovers
(except for Sanders and Gabbard). But they might be more afraid of a negative reaction by the
electorate.
Murdering Suleimani NOW was not some hasty decision without a plan. I am afraid, it was done
to get THE ultimate war in the middle east going, no matter if and how much restraint Iran
will show.
I do think, btw that Trump blew his reelection by killing Suleimani. Another warmonger
will assuredly take his place.
After reading what Magnier has to say, a reasonable guess is that although emotions are
running high currently, Irans leadership will likely concentrate omn the work that must be
done during such a period, which is to (attempt to) influence the Iraqi parliamentry vote on
the continued presence of United States forces. As some have pointed out, this may lead to a
US retreat to the Kurdish areas, but even that can only be considered a victory, with
consequent practically free movement of Iranian military supplies to their allies in Syria
and Lebanon. With this development hopefully secured there is then plenty of time to
precisely calibrate any further responce to a level where dignity is preserved, without
necessarily bringing the wider ME area into further strife. Any waiting period is also useful
in further building up capability where needed, specifically in the case where US aggression
continues as it has done so far. US leaders seem not to appreciate that their showy
applications of force don't win them friends locally, and could eventually succeed in
unifying Iraq in a way Iran never could on its own.
This may have been referenced before, and b's previous post begins with a description of the
importance of Soleimani, but here is a further link for those who are still in doubt as to
his significance for everyone in the region:
I will also add from a post by Active Patriot at the Saker site: "...if Iran is a
friend and ally to Iraq and Syria they would not craft a response which drags either of those
2 countries deeper into more war and hardship."
Solameini's martyrdom is surely recognized as such by all in the ME who have suffered and
are suffering the century-long occupation/meddling/manipulating/lying that Western powers
have inflicted on the whole ME since before the Great War---now with the USA in the lead.
(One of Churchill's war aims in WW1 was to destroy the Ottoman Empire and grab as much of it
as Britain could grab. Then of course there was the Balfour Declaration crime.)
What is the "purpose" of martyrdom if it is not to galvanize action of some kind? To
galvanize a dramatic quantum leap in consciousness of the meaning of the martyr's
sacrifice---of his martyrdom. Surely Solameini will be seen to have died *for* something. For
what?
Perhaps to inspire a new setting aside of existing local conflicts to form an effective
front to *eject* the foreign virus from the body of the whole ME? To create a new coalition
among all citizens of all faiths in all of the besieged ME countries to oust the "crusaders"?
Didn't Nasser aspire to take charge of his region via the United *Arab* Republics? What about
United Sovereign Nations from the Levant to the Hindu Kush. And, make things uncomfortable
for Erdogan if he continues to host American Air Force?
Just wondering.
Also, what is Kurdish reaction to this murder? Kurds seem to be an element standing in the
way of unity of purpose in the ME.
1) Get a list of your favorite sites, then do a DNS lookup on their names, and put those
IP addresses in a HOSTS
file . If a site appears to go offline, try the IP address. If that doesn't work either,
well...
2) I have an old laptop that has wifi and an ethernet port, and it runs an older version
of Linux Mint. I wish I had an older version, and I may start looking. The more recent the
operating system (any!), the more likely it will have backdoors or some other 'critter'
running about and working against you.
3) If you have the hardware and some friends nearby, start an out-of-band neighborhood
network. This, as I envision it (with limited oracular ability, mind you), can be like the
Little Free
Library - just an accumulation of stuff each person has saved over the years, or whatever
can be obtained, and scanned if necessary. Wifi can work for this short-term, but plan to
bury multiple cables eventually. DO NOT EVER (knowingly) CONNECT THIS NETWORK TO THE
INTERNET!!!
4) Start planning for long-term storage of important books. Niven's novel Lucifer's Hammer describes
one character's efforts in this direction - he sunk a huge library of important 'civilization
cranking' books in a cesspool on a neighbor's property.
There's more, but we've a broad spectrum of things to consider at the moment, so I'll not
hog the thread.
As a matter of standing up and showing some jackasses in this thread that US citizens aren't
all Rambo...
I, Thomas James Kenney, hereby publicly state that it is my opinion the only way out of
this mess (and the only chance to save some semblance of a country) is to very publicly try
and imprison these vermin for high treason. They have committed an act that runs counter to
every attempted description of civilized behavior ever written.
It is also my considered opinion that it is not necessary for Iran to do anything at all.
Simply stay the course. We are almost bled out in this disintegrating 'republic', and people
around me are conversing about ways to disconnect from some of the toxic facets of this
society. There is not much support for a war, despite what the 'required 20%' continue to
scream.
The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based
on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq
and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic
sanctions warfare.
The death and maiming and poisoning of millions of Iraqis has been the
American contribution to Iraq, over the last several decades. What for? How has this helped
the United States? Or Europe? The main advocates for this supreme criminality has been the
Israel lobby, Israel, and the supporters of Israel.
The American Apache helicopters are still buzzing around over Baghdad, dealing out terror
and intimidation and death. The murder by the United States of yet more Iraqi soldiers and
officials recently has been largely absent from the propaganda narratives. But could those be
'the final straw'?
As far as Trump's 52 target threat, this comes after the apparent please don't escalate
and we'll make a deal - good cop-bad cop routine.
The 52 number was used to remind mind-controlled Americans that the evil Iranians
outrageously took 52 Americans hostage. American's don't just take people hostage; they give
them orange suits and torture them, unless they kill them. Apart from murdering and maiming
by the millions, they even stage fictional killings, like Osama bin laden, to entertain the
zombies, and stick out their chests, hand out medals and the like.
Just a reminder: Iran is not an Arabic country.
And many non-Arabs and non-Muslims live in ME countries (I am not counting Is as an ME
country in this context).
Which is why I express hope of perhaps a broader regional coalition.
The shooting down of flight 655 was a criminal act of manslaughter that should've brought
charges against the people responsible. But does b really consider destroying another plane
of civilians a justified retribution?
I wonder if Putin will force Trump to stop the escalation and show remorse to Iran before
any revenge happens.
This will end great, a fucked up circus called congress who hasn't had the balls to do their
job and legally declare war for nearly three decades, and a president who can't even defend
himself from a gang of thugs staging a direct coup against him in his own government. What
could possibly go wrong?
The second are the immortal words of Thucydides: "the strong do what they will, the weak
suffer what they must."
Yeah, I heard Thucydides had some issues with resolution of uncertainties for targeting,
especially for stand-off precision guided weapons. Plus there were some issues with long
range air-defense systems in Greece in times of Plato and Socrates. You know, GLONASS wasn't
fully operational, plus EW was a little bit scratchy.
So, surely, it all fully applies today, especially in choke points. Plus those Athenians
they were not exactly good with RPGs and anti-Armour operations. Other than that, Thucydides
nailed it.
Interesting to note that it was the party professing those words - Athens - who started
the Peloponnesian War, driven in large part by that haughty attitude. It was Athens that also ended that war, of course. They did so when they surrendered to the Spartans.
Good point Afghanistan. The newly appointed General Ghaani was active in Afghanistan. As he
is famimiar with the place, that may well be where he decides to retaliate.
The introduction of manpads would be no less significant an impact on the occupying force as
it was when the Soviet's were there when the SEE EYE AYE showered the Afghani's with
Stingers. It completely changed the modus of the Soviet army once they were introduced.
Helicopters became dangerous to be in and could no longer fly near the ground. Good
observations though, the assassination of Assad could prove to be magnitudes greater a spark
than any of us could imagine. I hope for the sake of, among the many, the Christians he's
been protecting from the foreign merc's. that he stays safe. He must keep a low profile and
let's hope the S400's will take care of any Predator drones that try to fly the Damascus
airspace.
It seems US (or perhaps Israel) didn't give you time enough to think about what could be the
next move (breaking news from Sputinik, 23:30 GMT): vehicle convoy carrying Iraqi PMF leaders
hit by airstrike, 6 dead at least.
Thanks for posting this. I wonder if Soleimani consciously ( on many human and beyond human
levels) wanted to offer the Yanks a "target" (a type of sacrifice, namely himself) that was
just too big to ignore, knowing that the stupid enemy would take the bait, and having a
secure knowledge that his death would set in motion a chain of events that will (underline
will) result in the final terrible fall of the US, and Israel. Stupid American "leaders",
right now, they are dancing in idiotic joy, saying foolish words for which we will pay, also
knowing what the future holds: the death of countless people, throughout not only the Middle
East, but here in the US as well. Yes, I do hate them for what they have unleashed.
Rest In Peace, Soleimani. You very well may achieve far more in death that you attained in
your eventful life.
Oh, it was certainly a grave miscalculation by the US. The NeoCons must have been pushing for
it for years, and it wasn't the first assassination attempt. But I don't think the reprisal
will be immediate. Retaliation needs to be carefully thought out, in order to avoid an
exchange mounting in tension leading to outright war (certainly part of the US plan).
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure' a
response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a big
thing. Football scores more important.
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed,
believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted,
good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders", the
basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially the
chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago coffee
deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or Russia.
They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
Yes I also noticed this, what I believe is most depressing is how dumb people are.
Trump/White house tell alot of lies which then become the truth for alot of his supporters
and he also manage to get MSM where he wants, because MSM do not seems to care either, they
are on-board when it comes to war.
And yes additional to that, a clear psychological operation going on to get the propaganda
out.
I try to counter it on social media, I hope everyone here also do the same.
Its about conditioning people that its the new normal. Anything goes, "do as thou wilt".
So long as it serves the interests of our masters. With no fear that MSM or alt media can or
will provide sustained or effective criticism, and the corruption of religious or secular
morals among the population thanks to hollywoods cultural marxism/propaganda and corruption
of christianity , they can get support among the people for just about anything. People can
be made to believe anything. The past 100 years has proven that beyond all doubt. With all
doubt now removed they can show their true colors and this will be accepted as the new
normal.
The problem with the US is most everyone in the US military, US citizenry, and US government
believe their own Exceptionalism propaganda and act accordingly. Attacking the PMU units of
the Iraqi army was certainly an unwise decision, but killing Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi
Al-Muhandis is an act of complete moronic insanity!
The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based
on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq
and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic
sanctions warfare. The death and maiming and poisoning of millions of Iraqis has been the
American contribution to Iraq, over the last several decades. What for? How has this helped
the United States? Or Europe? The main advocates for this supreme criminality has been the
Israel lobby, Israel, and the supporters of Israel.
The American Apache helicopters are still buzzing around over Baghdad, dealing out terror
and intimidation and death. The murder by the United States of yet more Iraqi soldiers and
officials recently has been largely absent from the propaganda narratives. But could those be
'the final straw'?
As far as Trump's 52 target threat, this comes after the apparent please don't escalate
and we'll make a deal - good cop-bad cop routine.
The 52 number was used to remind mind-controlled Americans that the evil Iranians
outrageously took 52 Americans hostage. American's don't just take people hostage; they give
them orange suits and torture them, unless they kill them. Apart from murdering and maiming
by the millions, they even stage fictional killings, like Osama bin laden, to entertain the
zombies, and stick out their chests, hand out medals and the like.
"... What Clapper chokes on -- and avoids saying -- is that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of WMD either. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put him in charge of the agency responsible for analyzing imagery of all kinds -- photographic, radar, infrared, and multispectral -- precisely so that the absence of evidence from our multi-billion-dollar intelligence collection satellites could be hidden, in order not to impede the planned attack on Iraq. That's why, as Clapper now admits, he had to find "what wasn't really there." ..."
Former DNI James Clapper had his own words read back to him by Ray McGovern, exposing his
role in justifying the Iraq invasion based on fraudulent intelligence.
... ... ...
Clapper was appointed Director of National Intelligence by President Barack Obama in June
2010, almost certainly at the prompting of Obama's intelligence confidant and Clapper friend
John Brennan, later director of the CIA. Despite Clapper's performance on Iraq, he was
confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Obama even allowed Clapper to keep his job for three and a
half more years after he admitted that he had lied under oath to that same Senate about the
extent of eavesdropping on Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA). He is now a
security analyst for CNN.
In his book, Clapper finally places the blame for the consequential fraud (he calls it "the
failure") to find the (non-existent) WMD "where it belongs -- squarely on the shoulders of the
administration members who were pushing a narrative of a rogue WMD program in Iraq and on
the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn't
really there." (emphasis added ) .
So at the event on Tuesday I stood up and asked him about that. It was easy, given the
background Clapper himself provides in his book, such as:
"The White House aimed to justify why an invasion of and regime change in Iraq were
necessary, with a public narrative that condemned its continued development of weapons of
mass destruction [and] its support to al-Qaida (for which the Intelligence Community had no
evidence)."
What Clapper chokes on -- and avoids saying -- is that U.S. intelligence had no evidence of
WMD either. Indeed, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put him in charge of the agency
responsible for analyzing imagery of all kinds -- photographic, radar, infrared, and
multispectral -- precisely so that the absence of evidence from our multi-billion-dollar
intelligence collection satellites could be hidden, in order not to impede the planned attack
on Iraq. That's why, as Clapper now admits, he had to find "what wasn't really there."
Members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) who have employed Clapper
under contract, or otherwise known his work, caution that he is not the sharpest knife in the
drawer. So, to be fair, there is an outside chance that Rumsfeld persuaded him to be guided by
the (in)famous Rumsfeld dictum: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
But the consequences are the same: a war of aggression with millions dead and wounded;
continuing bedlam in the area; and no one -- high or low -- held accountable. Hold your breath
and add Joe Biden awarding the "Liberty Medal" to George W. Bush on Veteran's Day.
' Shocked'
Protection Racquet , November 17, 2018 at 02:46
When did this perjurer before Congress have any credibility? The guys a professional
liar.
Mild -ly Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 17:27
The guy is a professional liar,and
a member of The Establishment
"The Anglo-American Establishment"
Copyright 1981/ Books in Focus, Inc,
Vallejo D , November 19, 2018 at 21:15
No shit. I saw the video of Clapper perjuring himself to the US Congress on national
television, bald-face lying about the NSA clocking our emails.
I wouldn't believe Clapper if he the sky is blue and grass is green. EPIC liar.
PS: Erstwhile national security state "friend" actually had the nerve to claim that
"Clapper lied to protect you." As if. My bet is that ONLY people on the planet who didn't
know about the NSA's grotesque criminal were the American taxpayers.
Mild -ly Facetious , November 20, 2018 at 12:38
RECALL THIS EXTRAORDINARY STATEMENT -- from the GW Bush administration
There was, however, one valuable insight. In a soon-to-be-infamous passage, the writer,
Ron Suskind, recounted a conversation between himself and an unnamed senior adviser to the
president:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which
he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of
discernable reality."
I nodded and murmured something about Enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me
off.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create reality. And while you are studying that reality –
judiciously, as you will – we'll act again creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
Anonymot , November 16, 2018 at 20:56
Mild -ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 19:33
Anonymot , Yes!
Here Is A Sequence of books for those who reside in chosen darkness:
"The Lessons of History" by Will & Edith Durant – c. 1968
"The Anglo-American Establishment" by Carroll Quigley – c. 1981
"Understanding Special Operations" by David T. Ratcliffe – c. 1989 / 99
" The Secret War Against The Jews" by John Loftus and Mark Aarons c. 1994
Douglas Baker , November 16, 2018 at 19:42
Thanks Ray. The clap merry-go-round in Washington, D.C., with V.D. assaulting brain
integrity has been long playing there with James Clapper another hand in, in favor of the
continuation of those that direct the United States' war on world from Afghanistan to Syria,
staying the course of firing up the world as though Northern California's Camp fire sooting up
much of the state with air borne particulate matter and leaving death and destruction in its
wake.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:29
All this is fine, except it dares not touch the still taboo subject among these
"professionals" of how all of this started getting justified in the first place when America
attacked itself on September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington in the most sophisticated
and flawed false flag attack in history, murdering thousands of its own citizens Operation
Northwoods style, blaming it on 19 Saudi hijackers with box cutters, the most grandiose of all
conspiracy theory, the official 911 story.
The incriminating evidence of what happened that day in 2001 is now absolutely overwhelming,
but still too incredible and controversial for even these esteemed folks to come to grips with.
If we're going to take a shower and clean all this excrement off ourselves, let's do it
thoroughly.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:46
In fact, wait! Let's ask the really important question of Clapper.
What was he doing and where was he on 9/11, the "New Pearl Harbor," and what was his role in
the coverup and transformation of the CIA in the ensuing years?
Why doesn't Ray ask him about that?
GKJames , November 16, 2018 at 06:46
(1) One needn't be a Clapper fan to say that he was merely a cog in a body politic that (a)
lives and breathes using military force to "solve" geopolitical problems; and (b) has always
been driven by the national myth of American exceptionalism and the American love of war. The
only issue ever is the story Americans tell themselves as to why a particular assault on some
benighted country that can't meaningfully shoot back is justified. But for that, there are
countless clever people in the corridors of power and the Infotainment Complex always eager to
spread mendacity for fun and profit. Sure, hang Clapper, but if justice is what you're after,
you'd quickly run out of rope and wood.
(2) What doesn't compute: Clapper is quoted as saying that he and cohort "were so eager to
help that [they] found what wasn't really there". That's followed by: "Rumsfeld put him in
charge so that the absence of evidence could be hidden . Clapper now admits [that] he had to
find 'what wasn't really there'". While Rumsfeld's intent was exactly that, i.e., to prevent a
narrative that he and Cheney had contrived, that's not the same as Rumsfeld's explicitly
instructing Clapper et al to do that. Further, it mischaracterizes Clapper's admission. He
doesn't admit that "he had to find" what wasn't there (which would suggest prior intent). What
he does admit is that the eagerness to please the chain of command resulted in "finding" what
didn't exist. One is fraud, the other group-think; two very different propositions. The latter,
of course, has been the hallmark of US foreign policy for decades, though the polite (but
accurate) word for it is "consensus". Everybody's in on it: the public, Congress, the press,
and even the judiciary. By and large, it's who Americans are.
(3) Does this really equate the WMD fiasco with the alleged "desperate [attempt] to blame
Trump's victory on Russian interference"? Yes, Clapper was present in 2003 and 2016. But that's
a thin reed. First, no reasonable person says that Russian interference was the only reason
that Clinton lost. Second, to focus on what was said in January 2017 ignores the US
government's notifying various state officials DURING THE CAMPAIGN in 2016, of Russian hacking
attempts. If, as is commonly said, the Administration was convinced that Clinton would win, how
could hacking alerts to the states have been part of an effort to explain away an election
defeat that hadn't happened yet, and which wasn't ever expected to happen? And, third, as with
WMDs, Clapper wasn't out there on his own. While there were, unsurprisingly, different views
among intelligence officials as to the extent of the Russian role, there was broad agreement
that there had been one. Once again, fraud vs. group-think.
Skip Scott , November 16, 2018 at 13:46
I think there is a big difference between "group think" and inventing and cherry picking
intelligence to fit policy objectives. I believe there is ample evidence of fraud. The "dodgy
dossier" and the yellow cake uranium that led to Plame being exposed as a CIA operative are two
examples that come immediately to mind. "Sexed up" intelligence is beyond groupthink. It is the
promoting of lies and the deliberate elimination of any counter narrative in order to justify
an unjust war.
The same could be said of the "all 17 intelligence agencies" statement about RussiaGate that
was completely debunked but remained the propaganda line. It was way more than "groupthink". It
was a lie. It is part of "full spectrum dominance".
I do agree that "Clapper wasn't out there on his own". He is part of a team with an agenda,
and in a just world they'd all be in prison.
It wasn't "mistaken" intelligence, or "groupthink". You are trying to put lipstick on a
pig.
GKJames , November 17, 2018 at 07:21
Fraud is easy to allege, hard to prove. In the case of Iraq, it's important to accept that
virtually everyone -- the Administration, the press, the public, security agencies in multiple
countries, and even UN inspectors (before the inspections, obviously) -- ASSUMED that Saddam
had WMDs. That assumption wasn't irrational; it was based on Saddam's prior behavior. No
question, the Administration wanted to invade Iraq and the presumed-to-exist WMDs were the
rationale. It was only when evidence appeared that the case for it wasn't rock-solid that
Cheney et al went to work. (The open question is whether they began to have their own doubts or
whether it never occurred to them, given their obsession.) But there is zero evidence that
anyone was asked to conclude that Saddam had WMDs even though the Americans KNEW that there
weren't any. That's where the group-think and weak-kneed obeisance to political brawlers like
Cheney come in. All he had to do was bark, and everyone fell in line, not because they knew
there were no WMDs, but because they weren't sure but the boss certainly was.
In that environment, what we saw from Clapper and his analysts wasn't fraud but weakness of
character, not to mention poor-quality analysis. And maybe that gets to the bigger question to
which there appears to be an allergy: Shouting Fraud! effectively shuts down the conversation.
After all, once you've done that, there's not much else to say; these guys all lied and death
and destruction followed. But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security
state created by Truman has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by
the people it's supposed to serve? What if the people in that business aren't all that clever,
let alone principled? After all, the CIA is headed by a torture aficionada and we haven't heard
peep from the employee base, let alone the Congress that confirmed her. That entire ecosystem
has been permitted to flourish without adult supervision for decades. Whenever someone asks,
"that's classified". What do you do when Americans as a whole are perfectly fine with that?
Sam F , November 18, 2018 at 08:17
But fraud from the top was shown very well by Bamford in his book Pretext For War. Where
discredited evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors like
the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser into
"stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the known-bad "evidence" to Rumsfeld &
Cheney.
Skip Scott , November 18, 2018 at 09:27
They seem to conveniently classify anything that could prove illegality such as fraud, or in
the case of the JFK assassination, something much worse. They use tools such as redaction and
classification not only to protect "national security", but to cover up their crimes.
"But what if the answer is just as likely that the national security state created by Truman
has grown into something uncontrollable, beyond legitimate oversight by the people it's
supposed to serve?"
I believe this is very much the case, but that doesn't preclude fraud as part of their
toolkit. The people at the top of the illegalities are clever enough to use those less sharp
(like Clapper) for their evil purposes, and if necessary, to play the fall guy. And although
the Intelligence Agencies are supposed to serve "We the People", they are actually serving
unfettered Global Capitalism and the .1% that are trying to rule the world. This has been the
case from its onset.
Furthermore, I am an American, and I am definitely NOT FINE with the misuse of
classification and redaction to cover up crimes. The way to fix the "entire ecosystem" is to
start to demand it by prosecuting known liars like James Clapper, and to break up the MSM
monopoly so people get REAL news again, and wake people up until they refuse to support the two
party system.
GKJames , November 19, 2018 at 10:20
(1) Assuming you could find a DOJ willing to prosecute and a specific statute on which to
bring charges, the chance of conviction is zero because the required fraudulent intent can't be
proved beyond reasonable doubt. All the defendant would have to say is, We thought WMDs were
there but it turned out we were wrong. Besides, the lawyers said it's all legal. And if you
went after Clapper only, he'd argue (successfully) that it was a highly selective prosecution.
(2) If you're going to create a whole new category of criminal liability for incompetence
and/or toadyism and careerism, Langley corridors would quickly empty. It's certainly one way to
reduce the federal workforce. (3) The intelligence agencies ARE serving "We the People". There
isn't anything they do that doesn't have the blessing of duly elected representatives in
Congress. (4) That you, yourself, are "NOT FINE" overlooks the reality that your perspective
gets routinely outvoted, though not because of "evil" or "fraud". A Clapper behind bars would
do zero to change that. Why? Because most Americans ARE fine with the status quo. That's not a
function of news (fake or real); Americans are drowning in information. Like all good service
providers, the media are giving their customers exactly what they want to hear.
Skip Scott , November 19, 2018 at 11:25
GK-
(1) It is you who is "assuming" that fraud could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
What if evidence was presented that showed that they didn't really think there were WMD's, but
were consciously lying to justify an invasion. I agree that it would be nearly impossible to
find a DOJ willing to prosecute within our corrupted government, but if we could get a 3rd
party president to sign on to the ICC, we could ship a bunch of evil warmongers off to the
Hague. (2) As already discussed, I don't buy the representation of their actions as mere
"toadyism". (3) As shown by many studies, our duly elected representatives serve lobbyists and
the .1%, not "We the People". Here's one from Princeton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig
(4) From your earlier post: "What do you do when Americans as a whole are perfectly fine with
that?" Since I am part of the "whole", your statement is obviously false. And Americans are
drowning in MISinformation from our MSM, and that is a big part of the problem. And please
provide evidence that most Americans are fine with the status quo. Stating that I get routinely
outvoted when many Americans see their choice as between a lesser of two evils, and our MSM
keeps exposure of third party viewpoints to a minimum, is an obvious obfuscation.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 21:01
I will second Skip on that.
The groupthink of careerists is not "who Americans are."
"Broad agreement" on an obvious fraud is a group lie.
What Clapper did was fraud. What went on in his head was group-think. The two are by no
means incompatible. The man admits to outright fabrication-
"my team also produced computer-generated images of trucks fitted out as 'mobile production
facilities used to make biological agents.' Those images, possibly more than any other
substantiation he presented, carried the day with the international community and Americans
alike."
He knew exactly what he was doing.
wootendw , November 15, 2018 at 22:41
"Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
said vehicle traffic photographed by U.S. spy satellites indicated that material and documents
related to the arms programs were shipped to Syria "
Syria and Iraq became bitter enemies in 1982 when Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq
War. Syria even sent troops to fight AGAINST Saddam during the first Iraq War. Syria and Iraq
did not restore diplomatic relations until after Saddam was captured. The idea that Saddam
would send WMDs (if he had them) to Syria is ludicrous.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:54
Cheney wanted to steal the oil. Bush wanted to fulfill prophecy & make Jesus Rapture him
away from his problems. Neither plan worked.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:50
Our big shots never suffer for their crimes against humanity. Occasionally a Lt. Calley will
get a year in jail for a massacre, but that's it.
bostonblackie , November 16, 2018 at 13:54
Calley was placed under house arrest at Fort Benning, where he served three and a half
years.
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:16
That's like less than 2.5 days served per each defenseless My Lai villager slaughtered,
massacred, in cold blood.
What kind of justice is that? Who gets away with murder that way?
Helen Marshall , November 15, 2018 at 17:41
While serving in an embassy in 2003, the junior officer in my office was chatting with the
long-time local employee, after viewing the Powell Shuck and Jive. One said to the other, "the
US calls North Korea part of the 'Axis of Evil' but doesn't attack it because there is clear
evidence that it has WMD including nukes." And the other said "yes, and that's why the US is
going to invade Iraq because we know they don't." QED
John Flanagan , November 16, 2018 at 22:25
Love this comment!
Taras 77 , November 15, 2018 at 16:36
Thanks, Ray, for an excellent article!
You are one of few who are calling out these treasonous bastards. I am still .waiting for at
least some of them to do the perp walk, maybe in the presence of war widows, their children,
and maimed war veterans.
Clapper played the central role in deceiving America into abandoning the republic and
becoming the genocidal empire now terrorizing Planet Earth. If it is too late; if the criminals
have permanent control of our government, there won't be a cleansing Nuremberg Tribunal, and
our once-great USA will continue along its course of death and destruction until it destroys
itself.
Where are our patriots? If any exist, now is the time for a new Nuremberg.
Zhu , November 15, 2018 at 20:56
The genocidal empire goes back to 1950 the Korean War.
bostonblackie , November 16, 2018 at 13:58
How about 1945 and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
JRGJRG , November 16, 2018 at 19:08
Keep going. Further back than that.
How about the Spanish American War, justified by the false flag blowing up of the Maine in
Havana Harbor, which led to the four-year genocidal war against Filipino rebels and the war
against the Cubans?
How about the 19th Century genocide of Native Americans? What was that justified by, except for
lust for conquest of territory and racism?
How about America's role with other western colonial powers in the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in
China.
The list of American violations of international law is too long to restate here, in the
hundreds.
The only way out of this moral dilemma is to turn a new page in history in a new
administration, hold our war criminals in the dock, and make amends under international law,
and keep them, somehow without sacrificing national jurisdiction or security. America has to be
reformed as an honest broker of peace instead of the world's leading pariah terrorist
state.
bostonblackie , November 17, 2018 at 16:29
How about slavery? America was founded on genocide and slavery!
Skip Scott , November 15, 2018 at 09:44
I think Ray is being a little overly optimistic about Clapper being travel restricted.
Universal Jurisdiction is for the small fry. Even with Bush and Rumsfeld, their changing travel
plans was probably more about possible "bad press" than actual prosecution. Maybe down the
road, when the USA collapse is more obvious to our "vassals" and they start to go their own
way, such a thing could happen. Even then, we've got tons of armaments, and a notoriously itchy
trigger finger.
My hope is that the two party system collapses and a Green Party candidate gets elected
president. He or she could then sign us on to the ICC, and let the prosecutions begin. I know
it's delusional, but a guy's gotta dream.
Robert Emmett , November 15, 2018 at 08:52
It occurs to me that even given Cheney's infamous 1% doctrine, these no-goodniks couldn't
even scratch together enough of a true story to pass that low bar. So they invented, to put it
mildly, plausible scenarios, cranked-up the catapults of propaganda and flung them in our faces
via the self-absorbed, self-induced, money grubbing fake patriots of mass media.
But, geez, Ray, it's not as if we didn't already know about fixing facts around the policy,
resignations of career operatives because of politicizing intelligence, reports of Scott
Ritter, plus the smarmy lying faces & voices of all the main actors in the Cheney-Rumsfeld
generated mass hysteria. I doubt these types of reveals, though appreciatively confirming what
we already know, will change very many minds now. After all, the most effective war this cabal
has managed to wage has been against their own people.
Perhaps when these highfalutin traitors, treasonous to their oaths to protect the founding
principles they swore to preserve, at last shuffle off their mortal coils, future generations
will gain the necessary perspective to dismiss these infamous liars with the contempt they
deserve. But that's just wishful thinking because by then the incidents that cranked-up this
never-ending war likely will be the least of their worries.
In the meantime, the fact that this boiled egghead continues to spew his Claptrap on a major
media channel tells you all you need to know about how deeply the poison of the Bush-Cheney era
has seeped into the body politic and continues to eat away at what remains of the foundations
while the military-media-government-corporate complex metastasizes.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 21:03
Ray knows that the well-informed know much of the story, and likely writes to bring us the
Clapper memoir confession and summarize for the less informed.
I am always glad to see confirmation in such matters, however, for people who work to inform
themselves and think critically, there are no real surprises to be discovered about the
invasion of Iraq.
It could be clearly seen as a fraud at the time because there were a number of experts,
experts not working for the American government, who in effect told us then that it was a
fraud.
What the whole experience with Iraq reveals is a couple of profound truths about imperial
America, truths that are quite unpleasant and yet seem to remain lost to the general
public.
One, lying and manipulation are virtually work-a-day activities in Washington. They go on at
all levels of the government, from the President through all of the various experts and agency
heads who in theory hold their jobs to inform the President and others of the truth in making
decisions.
Indeed, these experts and agency heads actually work more like party members from George
Orwell's Oceania in 1984, party members whose job it is to constantly rewrite history, making
adjustments in the words and pictures of old periodicals and books to conform with the Big
Brother's latest pronouncements and turns in policy.
America has an entire industry devoted to manufacturing truth, something the rather feeble
term "fake news" weakly tries to capture.
The public's reaction to officials and agencies in Washington ought to be quite different
than it generally is. It should be a presumption that they are not telling the truth, that they
are tailoring a story to fit a policy. It sounds extreme to say so, but it truly is not in view
of recent history.
We are all watching actors in a costly play used to support already-determined destructive
policies.
Two, the press lies, and it lies almost constantly in support of government's decided
policies. You simply cannot trust the American press on such matters, and the biggest names in
the press – the New York Times or Washington Post or CBS or NBC – are the biggest
liars because they put the weight of their general prestige into the balance to tip it.
Their fortunes and interests are too closely bound to government to be in the least trusted
for objective journalism. Journalism just does not exist in America on the big stuff.
This support is not just done on special occasions like the run-up to the illegal invasion
of Iraq but consistently in the affairs of state. We see it today in everything from
"Russia-gate" to the Western-induced horrors of Syria. Russia-gate is almost laughable,
although few Americans laugh, but a matter like Syria, with more than half a million dead and
terrible privations, isn't laughable, yet no effort is made to explain the truth and bring this
monstrous project – the work equally of Republicans and Democrats – to an end.
Three, while virtually all informed people know that Israel's influence in Washington is
inordinate and inappropriate, many still do not realize that the entire horror of Iraq, just
like the horror today of Syria, reflects the interests and demands of Israel.
George Bush made a rarely-noticed, when Ariel Sharon was lobbying him to attack other Middle
Eastern countries following the Iraq invasion, along the lines of, "Geez, what does the guy
want? I invaded Iraq for him, didn't I?"
Well, today, pretty much all of the countries that Sharon thought should be attacked have
indeed been attacked by the United States and its associates in one fashion or another –
covertly, as in Syria, or overtly, as in Libya. And we are all witnessing the ground being
prepared for Iran.
It has been a genuinely terrifying period, the last decade and a half or so. War after war
with huge numbers of innocents killed, vast damages inflicted, and armies of unfortunate
refugees created. All of it completely unnecessary. All of it devoid of ethics or principles
beyond the principle of "might makes right."
It simply cannot be distinguished, except by order of magnitude, from the grisly work of
Europe's fascist governments of the 1930s and '40s.
All the discussions we read or see from America about truth in journalism, about truth in
government, and about founding principles are pretty much distraction and noise, meaningless
noise. The realities of what America is doing in the world make it so.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 20:56
Very true.
tpmco , November 16, 2018 at 02:48
Great comment.
john Wilson , November 15, 2018 at 04:47
It seems to me that showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair, while laudable, doesn't
really get us anywhere. The guilty are never and will never be brought to account for their
heinous crimes and some of the past villains are still lying, scheming, and brining about war,
terror and horror today.
If the white helmets in Syria, the lies about Libya, the West engineered coupé in The
Ukraine, Yemen, etc, aren't all tactics from the same play book used by the criminal cabals of
the Iraq time, then we are blind. These days, the liars in the deep state, an expression which
encapsulates everything from Intel to think tanks, don't even try to tell plausible lies, they
just say anything and MSM cheers them on. Anyone challenging the MSM/government/deep state etc
are just ridiculed and called conspiracy theorists, no matter how obvious and ludicrous the
lies are.
Sam F , November 15, 2018 at 06:26
In fact "showing up the blatant lies of the Iraq affair" informs others, to whom the MSM can
no longer cheer on liars, nor ridicule truth. Truth telling, like contemplation, is essential
before the point of action.
Randal , November 15, 2018 at 02:38
I remember a woman reporter saying the reason we invaded Iraq was because Sadam Husien had
put a bounty on the Bush family for running him out of qwait. This was a personal revenge to
take out Husien before he had a chance at the Bush's. Any way the reporter was silenced very
quickly. I personally believe the allegation.
You have my complete and total respect Mr. McGovern. That was beautiful! Thank you.
F. G. Sanford , November 15, 2018 at 01:33
"We drew on all of NIMA's skill sets and it was all wrong."
Every time I hear the term, "skill sets", I recall a military colleague who observed, "We
say skill sets so we don't have to say morons." They used to say, "The military doesn't pay you
to think." Now they say, "We have skill sets." It's a euphemism for robotized automatons who
perform specific standardized tasks based on idealized training requirements which evolve from
whatever the latest abstract military doctrine happens to be. And, they come up with new ones
all the time.
"The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." This is a phrase Rumsfeld borrowed
directly – and I'm not making this up – from the UFO community. It was apparently
first uttered by Carl Sagan, and then co-opted by people like Stanton Friedman. He's the guy
who claims we recovered alien bodies from flying saucers at Roswell, New Mexico. The scientific
antidote to the "absence of evidence" argument is, of course, "Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary proof." Simply put, absence of evidence really just means "no evidence". A
hypothesis based on "no evidence" constitutes magical thinking.
It's probably worth going to Youtube and looking up a clip called "Stephen Gets a Straight
Answer Out of Donald Rumsfeld". He admits to Colbert that, "If it was true, we wouldn't call it
intelligence." Frankly, Clapper's gravest sin is heading up a science-based agency like NIMA,
but failing to come to the same conclusion as General Albert Stubblebine. People who analyze
reconnaissance imagery are supposed to be able to distinguish explosive ordnance damage from
other factors. But, I guess Newtonian Physics is "old school" to this new generation of magical
thinkers and avant-garde intelligence analysts.
Sam F , November 16, 2018 at 10:44
Part of the problem of "intelligence" is its reliance upon images that show a lot of detail
but without any definite meaning, and upon guesses to keep managers and politicians happy. So
"expert assessments" that milk trucks in aerial photos might be WMD labs became agency
"confidence" and then politician certainties, never verified.
When suspect evidence was retained by intel agencies, as in the Iraq War II case, traitors
like the zionist Wolfowitz simply installed known zionist warmongers Perl, Feith, and Wurmser
into "stovepipe" offices at CIA, DIA, NSA to send the non-evidence to Rumsfeld. See Bamford's
Pretext For War.
Gen Dau , November 14, 2018 at 22:20
Thank you, Ray, for a very good article that treats Clapper objectively and not as a
demi-god, as most of the MSM and the Democratic establishment does. It is totally unacceptable
for a government official, current or former, to answer "I don't know." That is the hideout of
irresponsible scoundrels. Questioners should be allowed to ask follow-up questions such as, "If
you didn't know, did you try to think about why the President's opinion on this very important
question was different from yours? Is simply not knowing acceptable for an intel officer,
especially one in a leadership position?" I look forward to your further reports and
analyses.
Thanks also to the editors for returning at least the main text to a readable font. But why
not go whole hog and make reading everything a pleasure again? Putting the headlines in a
hard-to-read and distracting font is especially unfortunate, since some casual visitors to
Consortium News may be turned off by the headlines and skip reading the very important articles
attached to the headlines.
According to my calculations (admittedly simplistic), the world has past the point of peak
oil and in aggregate cannot produce enogh oil to meet present and future demand and that may
very well be why the US is doing its best to destroy or damage as many economies in the world
as it can even if it has to go to war to do it. Once it becomes well established that we are
past peak oil no telling what our financial markets will look like. Would appreciate hearing
from someone who has more expertise than I have. https://www.gpln.com
anon4d2s , November 14, 2018 at 22:23
Why are you trying to change the subject? Please desist.
I'm offering you the, or a, motive of why the deep state is pursuing the agendas we see
unfolding, which is to say, the crimes, the lies, the treason that the likes of Clapper, Bush,
Obama, Clinton and others are pursuing to cover up their reaction to their own fears. Of course
9/11, the false flag coup and smoking gun that proves my point is still the big elephant in the
room and will eventually bring us down if the truth is never released from its chains.
I didn't change the subject. I'm offering you an answer as to the motive of why so many
officials are willing to trash the Constitution in order to accomplish their insane agendas.
It's all about money and power and the terrified Deep State fear of facing the blowback from
the lies that have been propagated by the government and media regarding just about everything.
Here's another place you might want to look in addition to my website: https://youtu.be/CDpE-30ilBY It's not just about oil. But
this is where the rubber's going to meet the road. This is about what's going to hit the fan at
any moment and in the absence of the Truth, we are all going to face this unprepared. 9/11 is
still the smoking gun. It not just a few liars and cheats we're talking about.
I didn't change the subject. The purpose of the search for WMD was to misdirect the public's
attention away from the real purpose of the invasion which was to gain control of Iraq's oil
reserves primarily. Misdirection is primary skill used by those in power and very
effectively.
Thanks, as always, go out to Ray for his continued bravery in speaking truth to power. I
remember years ago when David McMichaels, Ex-CIA, gave a talk at Ft Lewis College in Durango,
CO, about Ronnie Reagan's corruption in what the US was doing to the elected government in
Nicaragua. Thanks to both of these men for trying to inform us all about the corruption so
rampant in our government. This is further proof that Trump is only a small pimple on top of
the infectous boil that is our government.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 21:52
Hurray for Ray McGovern! A beautiful and superbly-planned confrontation. We are lucky that
Clapper admitted these things in his memoir, but we needed you to bring that out in public with
full and well-selected information. You are truly a gem, whom I hope someday to meet.
Sam F , November 14, 2018 at 22:19
An astounding revelation of systematic delusion in secret agencies.
But until now my best source on the Iraq fake WMD has been Bamford's Pretext For War, in
which he establishes that zionist DefSec Wolfowitz appointed three known zionist operatives
Perl, Wurmser, and Feith to "stovepipe" known-bad info to Rumsfeld et al. Does the memoir shed
any light there, and does your information agree?
mike k , November 14, 2018 at 19:58
Spies lie constantly, they have no respect for the truth. To trust a spy is a sign of
dangerous gullibility. Spies are simply criminals for hire.
Gen Dau , November 14, 2018 at 22:30
Yes, I also hope our replies will be in a more civil and less reader-hostile font. The same
font as the article text would be fine.
dfnslblty , November 15, 2018 at 09:59
I would offer that spies do not lie ~ they gather information.
Spy masters do lie ~ they prevaricate to fit the needs of their masters.
Tomonthebeach , November 15, 2018 at 23:48
To paraphrase in a way that emphasizes the deja vu. Trump lies constantly, he has no respect
for the truth. To trust Trump is a sign of dangerous gullibility. Trump is simply a crook for
hire, and it would seem that Putin writes the checks.
anon4d2s , November 16, 2018 at 10:48
Gosh, you fooled everyone so easily with standard Dem zionist drivel!
Why not admit that every US politician is bought, including Dems?
Don't forget to supply your unique evidence of Russian tampering.
Mild-ly - Facetious , November 18, 2018 at 16:44
"Clapper's Credibility Collapses"
as does Colin Powell's U.N.BULL Spit Yellow Cake propaganda/
all that's required is a Sales Pitch to everyday striving citizens into
how a brutal strain of aristocrat have come to rule america
and how you must delve into the Back-Stories of, for example,
GHW Bush CIA connection and his presents in Dallas, 1963
credibility collapses abound under weight of 'what really happened'
after Chaney convened summit of oil executives just PRIOR to 9/11?
"... Add in the war-profiteers, wide open borders, collapsing infrastructure and history-making wealth inequality, and an entire generation of healthy young white men destroyed by drugs and suicides, a despair engineered by Jews, who unlike Iranians, mock us as they do it. Let's see tranquility on the home front survive skyrocketing food and gas prices. ..."
"... We must prepare our own populist anti-war protest movement to bring the war home. We must remain steadfast in the face of a coming era of political repression nobody has seen in generations. ..."
"... "The U.S. did not only murder Qassem Soleimani. On December 29 it also killed 31 Iraqi government forces. Five days later it killed Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed al-Shabi) and leader of Kata'ib Hizbollah Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. There were also four IRGC and four Kata'ib Hizbollah men who were killed while accompanying their leaders. The PMU are under direct command of the Iraqi Prime Minister. They are official Iraqi defense forces who defeated ISIS after a bloody war. Their murder demands that their government acts against the perpetrators." ..."
"... "Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had it coming and Iran should be nuked. Glass parking lot is the desired end." ..."
"... That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed, believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted, good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade". ..."
"... US murder of another nation's leader has no frigging importance in moral or consequential terms. Such is the general IQ status of the west today. Really, it takes someone intelligent and inquisitive enough for years and years to really get aghast and appreciative enough to ponder what the murder of Soleimani in Trump's hand in the manner it was executed would mean to world peace. MSM counts on this stupidity and thrives in lies and false-flag propaganda. ..."
"... The idiots at the helm of the Evil Outlaw US Empire really have absolutely no clue as their short term thinking has destroyed what mental capacities they once had and has reduced them to imbeciles. ..."
The US shows every symptom of an empire on the brink of collapse: an irreconcilably divided
and decaying citizenry, racial and cultural incoherence, a totally detached oligarchy, no
overarching mission or narrative, and an over reliance on international mercenaries to fight
its wars. By 2009, soldiers of fortune outnumbered US military personnel 3-1 in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Add in the war-profiteers, wide open borders, collapsing infrastructure and history-making
wealth inequality, and an entire generation of healthy young white men destroyed by drugs and
suicides, a despair engineered by Jews, who unlike Iranians, mock us as they do it. Let's see
tranquility on the home front survive skyrocketing food and gas prices.
A war with Iran is our line in the sand as well. All white men must boycott the military,
which is run by people who despise us more than any supposed international enemy ever will.
The last 3 years of having our rights and civil liberties whittled away show that it is white
Americans who will always be the US plutocracy's first and last enemy. If you are currently
serving, you can get honorably discharged by declaring yourself a worshipper of Asatru and
anonymously emailing your superior officers pretending to be a deeply concerned member of
Antifa. Even if open war doesn't break out, the recent massive troop buildups in the Middle
East guarantee you will be a target. Let Zion send its anarchist neo-liberal foot soldiers in
your place!
We must prepare our own populist anti-war protest movement to bring the war home. We must
remain steadfast in the face of a coming era of political repression nobody has seen in
generations.
The people of Iran are not our enemy. They share the same abominable foe and deserve our
solidarity. They must know that the citizens of America are ignorant of who rules them, and
that decisions made using our flag are not made by us.
In the name of the existence of our people and the future of our children, and even
broader in the name of humanity, we must ensure that this will be Judah's last war.
thank you b... i see you articulated a paragraph that is out of grasp of the american msm
crowd, so i am going to repeat it.. it is worth repeating...see bottom of post... my main
thought is that no matter what happens everything will be blamed on iran - false flag, and
etc. etc. you name it... all bad is on iran and all good is on usa-israel.. that is the
constant meme that the msm provides 24-7 and that us politicians and the state dept run with
24-7 as well. it is so transparent it is beyond despicable..
@ 13 old hippie.. that about sums up my impression.. thanks
@ 22 BM.. thanks.. i share your perspective, but am not as articulate..
here is the quote from b..
"The U.S. did not only murder Qassem Soleimani. On December 29 it also killed 31 Iraqi
government forces. Five days later it killed Soleimani and the Deputy Commander of the
Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU/Hashed al-Shabi) and leader of Kata'ib Hizbollah Abu
Mahdi al-Muhandis. There were also four IRGC and four Kata'ib Hizbollah men who were killed
while accompanying their leaders. The PMU are under direct command of the Iraqi Prime
Minister. They are official Iraqi defense forces who defeated ISIS after a bloody war. Their
murder demands that their government acts against the perpetrators."
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure' a
response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a big
thing. Football scores more important.
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked. Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly brainwashed,
believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the "White hatted,
good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders", the
basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially the
chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago coffee
deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or Russia.
They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
You guys are right on money! I'm a retiree in my seventy's. My social circles are old
school college graduates in late fifties to late seventies, supposedly the segment of
population wise enough to decipher world affairs.
But no, they care more about who's gonna
win today between Titans and patriots or whether Tiger Wood will win another major in 2020.
US murder of another nation's leader has no frigging importance in moral or consequential
terms. Such is the general IQ status of the west today. Really, it takes someone intelligent
and inquisitive enough for years and years to really get aghast and appreciative enough to
ponder what the murder of Soleimani in Trump's hand in the manner it was executed would mean
to world peace. MSM counts on this stupidity and thrives in lies and false-flag
propaganda.
"24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown -- masquerading as a diplomat -- claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq. Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their
response across their soil. End of US malign presence in West Asia has begun."
The idiots at the helm of the Evil Outlaw US Empire really have absolutely no clue as
their short term thinking has destroyed what mental capacities they once had and has reduced
them to imbeciles.
Soleimani is the equivalent of Iran killing a top American regional commander, veteran government figure, and war hero all rolled
into one. This is big.
It feels like an escalation far out of proportion to the events that preceded it. If Washington thinks it'll make Iran fold
or beg they're crazy. If they think it'll force Iran into events leading to war, they're evil and have learned nothing.
if you are making an argument for proportionate, then you ignore history...this is a confrontation that cannot be avoided and
hiding under our desks will not save us...we do not have to invade, only use the options we possess without restraint and fight
total war...we would have peace for a hundred years...
I'm surprised it took him this long to make a war. Next he'll call for everyone to rally behind him. Those who don't he'll call
traitors. It's the oldest trick of authoritarianism.
Please provide concrete and specific examples comparing Trump's alleged "respect for constitutional limits and the rule of law"
and how his predecessors violated the same limits and the rule of law.
He's been busy calling the political opposition "traitors" for his entire administration.
Of course, it's not the Democrats whose standard bearer is openly proclaimed to be a puppet of a rival power on that power's
state television, and has been bankrolled by that power's organized crime syndicates for a while.
I voted for the president, but I don't get this at all. For what? I hope he comes to his senses, but it's probably already too
late to prevent some bad consequences.
The man is a compulsive liar. A man who is unashamedly unfaithful to his wife is not going to be faithful about anything he has
ever said to you. Every MAGA hat wearing devotee knew this before the election. I still can't figure out what kind of self deception
led so many of them to believe that he would act differently once in office?
It is deeply upsetting to witness the hijacking of our government by foreign interests. We know from their many public statements
on the subject that Israel and Saudi Arabia have at least one shared, longstanding goal, which is to get the US to fight a war
against Iran. Trump has now bowed to their demands. It has made Americans less safe and will inevitably result in wasting even
more American money and blood on the Middle East.
I am baffled. I someone who supported Trump and voted for Trump can now only think of him as a complete moron and a dangerous
quisling for Israel. I can see the end of our nation now. It's in plain sight for anyone with eyes to see. Once it falls there
will be no putting humpty dumpty back together. I have nothing but loathing for the Woke Democrats and the Neocon Establishment
Republicans. Now Trump will top Dubya Bush as the Biggest Prostitute for Israel of the 21st Century. So much for America First.
So much for making America Great Again. Watch it all fall apart before our very eyes under the leadership of this silver spoon
raised reality tv star. America is finished. It's over. You can put a fork in it. It's done. The Deep State won. It doesn't matter
if Trump wins or loses in 2020. The Deep State will get what they want either way. Then it will all come tumbling down. Watch
the real players behind the scenes move quickly to consolidate wealth and power in the Former USA (as happened after the collapse
of the USSR) in the aftermath of our coming collapse. For American Nationalists lik me Trump is more than a disappointment after
this caper. He is an outright disaster. There is no hope for Washington. It is beyond repair. Our nation's Grave Stone may well
read, "The United States of America, 1776-2020".
My initial feeling was as yours. A few deep breaths and some sleep and I find it difficult not to agree still. There are of course,
always events left to play out and seldom do predictions happen in purely linear equation.
Iran is limited in how it may respond. This makes the situation more not less, dangerous. The JCS surely understand that a
ground war with Iran would require unacceptable numbers of forces and result in a postwar quagmire that would make Iraq look like
a cakewalk.
Trump, like Obama and Bush before him should be impeached for this action but we all should be aware by now that a cowardly
Congress has abdicated its war making responsibilities to the President and military.
The only possible reason for any optimism is that Trump, after events like this, tends to feel he can use it as a negotiating
tactic for future use. Unfortunately as Larison has pointed out elsewhere, events like this inspire little trust and engender
more blowback elsewhere. We have no solutions for the region and even the loudest neocon cheerleaders have no desire to send themselves
or their children to risk death there.
"I someone who supported Trump and voted for Trump can now only think of
him as a complete moron and a dangerous quisling for Israel."
Me too. I increasingly wonder whether the America in which I grew up even exists anymore. It seems to be dying, taken over
and strangled by foreign interests. It started under Clinton, accelerated under the younger Bush and Obama, and under Trump it
has become almost absurdly overt, with people like Sheldon Adelson openly giving elected officials millions of dollars to advance
specific Israeli foreign policy goals.
I don't mean to sound snarky, but there is nothing baffling about it. Trump is weak, stupid, reckless and easily manipulated.
This has been abundantly obvious for a long time now.
your response is silly son, as the iranian general was a world class terrorist...maybe just maybe this makes it clear to the iranian
mullahs that they will be held accountable...
Pretty much anyone who fights asymmetrical warfare is easily classified as a terrorist by his opponent. He no doubt has some immoral
things to his name but if it were Trump in the middle of 5th avenue it would be a virtue.
Did you honestly think before the election that the man had any character or was capable of anything besides delivering zingers?
I ask this honestly. From the very start the man came across as a BS artist. I have never been able to figure out what people
saw in him.
As i am writing this, the US has targeted and killed Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Iranian Quds Force SOC.
If there was ever a doubt by any American that US soldiers will leave Iraq and Syria and/or the ME in general, let that doubt
be cast aside now.
Rest assured, Iran will see to it to extract this price in American blood and treasure. In other words, because of the headline-seeker-in-chief,
he just signed the death warrants of Americans and signed a cheque for 1 Billion+ dollars.
For those not familiar with a billion, it is $1,000,000,000+
"Iran will see to it to extract this price in American blood and treasure."
And, if Iran won't be provoked into an attack, the warmongers will gladly make sure there is a big one that will be blamed
on Iran. They've been salivating for a war with Iran and want it sooner rather than later. They are doing what they can to get
Trump re-elected, but they want their war soon, just in case. They've been laying the groundwork for months ("Iran-backed" this
and "Iran-backed" that).
"Candidate Donald Trump understood that Iraq was a grievous -- "big, fat" -- mistake. "We've destabilized the Middle
East and it's a mess," he said in 2015. It "may have been the worst decision" in U.S. history. "It started ISIS, it started Libya,
it started Syria," Trump said as George W. Bush's brother looked on. "Everything that's happening started with us stupidly going
into the war in Iraq . and people talk about me with the button. I'm the one thatdoesn't want to do this, okay?""
TAC was expressly launched to oppose interventionism in the George W. Bush administration, so I'm not sure why you thought its
antiwar position was for the sake of opposing Obama.
Anti-war factions exist on both the right and left, unfortunately as small minorities in both camps. The recently signed defense
authorization bill originally contained provisions that blocked the use of any funds for military action against Iran without
explicit Congressional authorization, but that provision was taken out of the bill at the last minute by the Democratic leadership.
Max Boot and Rachel Maddow are now BFF. Neoconservative ideology dominates both parties and prevails widely among non-partisan
liberals and conservatives alike.
You might be interested in looking into the newly formed Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. It is dedicated to developing
a cadre of foreign policy positions (and expertise to staff foreign policy in some future administration) supporting the use of
diplomacy and reserving the use of force to only those situations where it is the only reasonable way to defend the actual United
States. It is anti-war and anti-empire. And it has received funding from both the Koch brothers and George Soros.
Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the threat of war with Iran at a campaign rally in Anamosa,
Iowa on Friday. Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the threat of war with
Iran at a campaign rally in Anamosa, Iowa on Friday. Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP The legacy of
the Iraq war, and the prospect of a bloody sequel sparked by Donald Trump's assassination of a
senior Iranian official in Baghdad this week, has the potential to transform the Democratic
primary, offering voters radically different visions of how the next commander-in-chief
proposes to deal with the ongoing chaos caused by the 2003 invasion.
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren described the drone strike
ordered by Trump as a dangerous escalation and promised to end American wars in the Middle
East. Joe Biden, the former vice president, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend,
Indiana, offered more muted criticism, suggesting that the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim
Suleimani might have been justified if a more responsible commander-in-chief was in
charge.
"We must do more than just stop war with Iran," Sanders tweeted on Friday. "We must
firmly commit to ending U.S. military presence in the Middle East in an orderly manner. We must
end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. We must bring our troops home from
Afghanistan."
We must do more than just stop war with Iran.
We must firmly commit to ending U.S. military presence in the Middle East in an orderly
manner.
We must end our involvement in the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen.
It has been pointed out to me that until his retirement in October 2019, JCS Chairman Joe
Dunford was a factor in tempering neocon fervor for war. The same was true for his
predecessor Martin Dempsey. Now we have a self-described "West Point Mafia" class of 1986 and
a JCS Chairman far more politically motivated than Dunford and Dempsey. This looks to be to
be more dangerous than when Bolton the chicken hawk was running around the West Wing. This is
a recent Politico profile of the new Defense team, including Pompeo, Esper and other key
national security advisors to Trump.
Rand Paul opposing the nomination of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, March 2018: "I'm
perplexed by the nomination of people who love the Iraq War so much that they would advocate
for a war with Iran next. It goes against most of the things President Trump campaigned
on."
Thanks for the link. The Trump triumvirate of class of '86 advisors did the minimum time
on active duty and left service for greener pastures. The move to politics is reminiscent of
the neocons decameron mentioned on the prior thread. It looks like the move to war which only
the neocons want is coming on in full force.
After around 25 people were killed by a U.S. attack over the weekend, and subsequently the
damage was being done to the "embassy" in Iraq, it looked like a real problem was developing.
But it seemed as if Iraqi security people had let the demonstrators and attackers into the
area where the U.S. embassy is, and then the following day were not letting them in, and so
the embassy cleanup would begin. At that time I felt better about the situation. In other
words, the Iraqi government, such that it is, allowed the protest and damage at the embassy
to occur, and then was stopping it after making the point of a protest.
However, that defusing of the situation by the Iraqi government by shutting down the
embassy protest was for naught when the ignorant people in the U.S. government carried out
the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and several others inside Iraq
itself. Now there is a real problem.
Given the real masters of the universe are the very rich, would the Iranians see them as
logical targets?
Sheldon Adelson comes to mind, as he is a primary backer of both Trump and Netanyahu. As
well as likely not known, or appealing to Trump's base, so avenging his death wouldn't appeal
in the same way as soldiers or diplomats. Especially leading up to the election. Not only
that, but if the very rich were to sense their Gulfstreams are somewhat vulnerable to someone
with a Stinger at the end of the runway in quite a few tourist destinations, Davos, etc, the
pressure from the People Who Really Matter might be against further conflict.
The rule of law has its uses and destroying the structure on which their world rests does
have consequences.
b, the US controls "Israel". Thinking that "Israel" set up a think tank to trick or
manipulate Trump into declaring war on Iran confuses the situation. Iran has been a target
of Western interests stretching back to the 1920s -- way before Israel was even founded. It
was the US/British who toppled its gov in '53, and there are plenty of other examples of
egregious interference in other MENA countries before '67.
The US ruling class -- large banks, oil companies, mining companies, arms manufacturers
-- wants a war on Iran in a vain attempt to recover the general rate of profit
when its economy is about to default in the coming recession.
When on the previous thread I posted something about what Magnier had said regarding
Trump trying to get Iran to temper its response, you said of this information "its fake of
course".
Now, b above has reproduced the same extract from Magnier. Care to tell us how you know
that it's fake?
Here is Paveway IV's post for the prior thread to complement b on the red flag
symbolism:
"The Shia Red Flag was raised on the top of the Jamkaran Mosque in the Iranian city of
Qom, second largest in the Persian country, after General Qassem Soleimani, head of the
Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' (IRGC's) elite Quds Force, was assassinated in an
aerial attack when his vehicle was targeted in the Baghdad International airport. The Red
Flag is the flag of Imam Hussein and marks the colour of blood which, many say, symbolises
revenge and an impending severe battle."
Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they had
it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end.
This sentiment is bottom to top in America. Measured response? No way can Iran 'measure'
a response.
More generally the sentiment is that a little war in Iran, a few nukes, is not even a
big thing. Football scores more important.
Sasha , Jan 4 2020 18:21 utc |
15Isabella , Jan 4 2020
18:22 utc |
16
"Sitting in coffee shop in Chicago listening to Americans. The general sentiment is they
had it coming and Iran should be nuked.
Glass parking lot is the desired end."
That's pretty much the picture i get from reading responses in UK MSM, not only from
English, but many giving American addresses. They are all pretty much thoroughly
brainwashed, believing as gospel the lies they've told, and still think that they are the
"White hatted, good guys, who do good things for the places they bomb and invade".
it seems they will be supportive of an attack on Iran, and if their maniac "leaders",
the basement crazies who got out of the basement, realise this, it increases substantially
the chances of a "hot" war. In that case, should it escalate out of control, your Chicago
coffee deadheads will get the Glass parking lot they want. It just wont be in the ME. Or
Russia. They can have their very own, in their own back yard.
... So what happened to the naive people who were putting their peace hopes in Trump? He just
said he will strike important sites in Iran, including cultural sites.
"... It is time b and the others admit that they made a mistake. b has been supportive of keeping Trump in power and his reelection. This is a mistake. karlo1 also expressed some support for Trump, which is naive, and inexcusable, for such an intelligent person. ..."
"... Let's make a bet that all of those who somehow supported Trump here will eat their words this year. ..."
"... It is time for people to think very carefully and deeply about things. Do not be naive. Think very carefully. Get your brains working, please. ..."
So what happened to the naive people who were putting their peace hopes in Trump? He just
said he will strike important sites in Iran, including cultural sites.
It is time b and the others admit that they made a mistake. b has been supportive of
keeping Trump in power and his reelection. This is a mistake. karlo1 also expressed some
support for Trump, which is naive, and inexcusable, for such an intelligent person.
Let's make a bet that all of those who somehow supported Trump here will eat their words
this year.
It is time for people to think very carefully and deeply about things. Do not be naive.
Think very carefully. Get your brains working, please.
If I were China at this point, watching the schoolyard bully beating up on a fellow
citizen, I might just want to take the Bully's focus off the fellow citizen and, with
Russia's backing, tell the bully to pick on someone their own size.
Given the brazenness of the threats and provoking going on to start some military
conflict, maybe China needs to play the "I won't sign the trade deal and I want to cash in my
US Treasuries." cards to redirect the narrative and focus.
I like the silence of nations watching the bully trying to goad the world into military
war. It speaks volumes that Trump is being the biggest bully he can to incite military
warfare which they would lose if they don't go nuclear.
I find it saddening that so many commenters here don't seem to grasp that asymmetrical
warfare that is needed now is not the eye for eye type. Military warfare is the problem, not
the solution.
"Trump: "We targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran
many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture,
and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no
more threats!"
Threats! I.e., Trump to Iran: If you don't let us off the hook for what we did to you, you
will be sorry!! Wouldn't this also be a war crime per . . . Geneva? Nuernberg? Destruction of
cultural sites?
The man is really a terrifying nutter who thinks nothing of destroying ancient cultures
while sitting in his gauge, glitzy digs in the Trump Tower or Mar-a Lago.
Thanks to Really @ 124 - Yes, I do know that Iran is not Arabic - the interview I was
remembering was in Qatar in October after a meeting that Zahir had addressed concerning his
HOPE initiative, and that interview had been posted on twitter - I could not find it in my
search just now, but my confusion was due to, I believe, his mentioning Arabic countries at
one point. Apologies for the misstatement. You are correct that the initiative is aimed more
widely than that.
Lozion@62 - Re: Your Magnier quote, "The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the
Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier
General Qassem Soleiman"
The light bulb above my chimpanzee brain just flickered (briefly). Somewhere on SST (maybe
Lang?): something to the effect of 'Never underestimate US gov/mil incompetence'. Maybe it
was the opposite of what Magnier thought really took place.
Treasonous, dual-citizen chickenhawks of the US possibly targeted Hashd al-Shaabi
vice-commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes . They were trying to kill him because they found
out from some snitch that he just showed up at the airport for some reason. The all-seeing US
didn't realize Soleimani was even there . I guess because the sneaky Soleimani flew
commercial into Baghdad and probably carried his bags to the waiting SUVs. Who would have
expected that ? How devious!
This seems entirely plausible to me. Soleimani was too expensive a target - end of the
State of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all. But whacking a vice-commander of Hashd
al-Shaabi with a quarter-million dollar JAGM? Hell YEAH! We live for this kind
of preventative assassination heroism in the US. Especially if accompanied by colorful
graphics.
The awkward and delayed response of the usual US mil/gov mouthpieces makes this ridiculous
scenario even more believable. I have thoroughly convinced myself that this was a US screw-up
of EPIC proportions. In case the US government is reading MoA, this was all Lozion's doing.
I'm an innocent conspiracy primate.
I don't trust Magnier's reporting about an offer made by USA to Iran and his
speculation that Trump "offering the life of a 4-star general" is as nonsensical as it is
irresponsible.
In the past I've found Magnier to be unreliable - like when he has lauded Israel and
hinted that Iran was behind the tanker attacks. It sometimes seems to me that Magnier
relishes the possibility of a war with Iran.
Magnier's reporting is inconsistent with Trump Administration actions now and in the past.
Trump was "locked and loaded" for war with Iran in September! So why would Trump offer to
lift sanctions and strike a nuclear deal now EXCEPT AS A RUSE.
We should also be mindful that the Iranians have refused to negotiate while sanctions are
in place. This has been Iran's position for quite some time. Reporting about an rebuffed
offer without noting this is irresponsible and a disservice to readers.
PS Why does Magnier's site track users via graph.facebook?
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I find it highly doubtful that Iran brought down PanAm 103 .
Such speculation only plays into USA's depiction of Iran as a terrorist state.
I know we are not to feed the trolls, but this is a meme worth commenting on:
"...So what happened to the naive people who were putting their peace hopes in
Trump?..."
Many here are emphasizing this doubtful implication (even Circe, whom I praised for a
stellar observation on the subject of Iran - and it even crept into my own cut and paste of
Suilimani's attributes.
We do not know (and I'm grateful to Pepe for entering this into his recent article) how
much of this is being orchestrated by Trump of his own unadulterated initiative. We agree
it's a mafia operating. Is he the boss of it? That's speculation. What is important is that
those (and we've seen how they operate) in 'power' are calling the shots.
So I'm viewing with suspicion any post (including mine) that accidentally or not inserts
this meme.
Bin Laden, Al Baghdadi, etc were not beloved state officials or state actors of any kind.
Qaddafi, like Saddam, was toppled in actions that were designed to look like regime change
from below -- but I agree to some extent that his death comes close, but was Qaddafi singled
out by a precision hit in the precise fashion we are seeing here. But my point is that a
bridge has been crossed here in terms of scale, brazenness, and the extent to which no
attempt was made to conceal that it was a hit ordered directly by POTUS. It is an
unprecedented shift in international relations where a host of other covert tactics were
fully available and would have achieved the same outcome.
I guess I'm the only human round here who finds the child like refusal by so many to believe
that Iran played a payback card with Lockerbie, a very small stunt that didn't require much
at all in the way of participants, while they lap up lurid (& frequently white
supremacist at heart) nonsense conspiracies such as that 911 was a deliberate strategy (one
that would have required a cast of hundreds if not thousands, all staying schtum for
evermore) - f++king ludicrous.
The Iranians had to teach amerika that shooting down a passenger jet had major consequences.
They did that while benefiting from real world politics where amerika needed to have Iran
& Syria (who had assisted) onside for gulf war 1. Libya got stitched up because they were
convenient mugs who lacked friends in the ME because the colonel had no time for pretty much
every other ME leader - his interest had always been Africa.
This is pretty typical of people who have a need to see everything in black or white. Don't
say anything bad about Iran or Syria because they are enemies of fukasi eh. What use are
nations such as Iran or Syria if they are not prepared to get their hands dirty once in a
while? No use.
The fact that Iran got just the right payback in a just way then stopped is something people
should be proud of Iran for, rather than squealing "No No they wouldn't they couldn't do
that."
I can remember celebrating down the workers' club on the day news of the Lockerbie bombing
came out. What had occurred was obvious, sure a few innocents died, that happens in war, the
war amerika had kicked off and if that plane hadn't gone down most of the passengers would
have been sitting in a coffee shop today with half a chubbie in their pants at the thought
amerika had showed that 'Sullymanny' who was the boss.
b is correct to bring up that action because it encapsulates exactly how Iran is, truth
and justice are at the heart of everything Iran's leadership believes & does. It wasn't
Iran who fitted up Libya - amerika & england did that. Iran had merely insisted that the
entire plane saga be buried if amerika wanted any assistance with Saddam Hussein, who let's
face as far as Iran was concerned deserved everything he got. George H Bush showed himself to
be at least as silly as his son - neither had any comprehension of what would happen should
Ba'ath be removed from power in Iraq, that Iran would be the major beneficiary.
That I reckon is a major part of why amerikan leaders & their zionist proxies get so hot
on Iran. Iran played them like a bitch and now they know it.
If Lockerbie incident substantiated with Rober Fisk stories or world powers intelligence
evidences, Iran definitely would be sanctioned and would pay very high price, would be tried
in international criminal court.
Why they did not brought Gadhafy to the court? Because they did not have clear evidence.
Look other works of Robert Fisk, how is Independent now? What color is it now?
My view about Trump is based on my psychological portrait of Trump. He is a US
supremacist, plus a military (see their presence around him and the large increase in mil
budgets) and a zionist (see his family) puppet.
I see him as an aggressive animal. He will start a war if he can get away with it. He also
likes to grandstand, so he hates the US decline in the world. He wants to brag how great he
(and by proxy the US) is. It is also known that he does not like muslims. No way for him to
have good relations with Iran.
He is a gambler. He will push and push, as long as he could get away with it. In
international relations though, especially in the relations with some countries, who have
strong grievances against the US, this could lead to war.
Trump said that he could nuke Afghanistan is necessary. Sorry, but i do not see in this
talk his advisors behind him, but only his own animalistic nature.
Truth is, i was supportive of Trump in the past, but with time i changed my opinion. After
careful observation. And i'm glad i did. It shows that my mind is still flexible, and will
accept even the unpleasant truth, as long as it is the truth.
If i'm calling now a person that i was relatively supportive in the past "an animal" you
can imagine my disappointment.
Addendum to @143
Unless of course the lack of concealment was a deliberate provocation to incite a real war.
In which case Iran must choose asymmetry. Hit KSA and close the Gulf. The world will sideline
the US in a panicked scramble to quieten everything down. But I don't see evidence that the
markets believe this will happen. Oil not really moving up that much. A good analysis of the
financial markets' view on this would shed some light.
Also, does anybody have an accurate summary of the current structure of the Iraqi
parliament, someone who can crunch the numbers? The US would surely have been preparing well
in advance to prevent a spill to evict them, but is it in the bag or is it fluid? I wonder
what the bookies are offering...
Too much noise from the US, as usual, threats blah blah, there are simply not enough fire
power in the Gulf to go to war against Iran, just recall what took from many countries to
invade Iraq, so no WWIII, no major confrontation is expected. The Orange Man is clearly
agitated, his few TV appearances, are showing a very disturbed person, not the usual Trumpest
we know about.
The backstage is intense, Iran has to retaliate, the US gets that, but it is trying to reduce
the impact, this is definitively what is being dealt in the Swiss, Oman and Qatar meetings in
the past 24 hrs. There will be more contacts until this whole mess is done.
Iranians and Iraqis are not afraid, they want confrontation, it will be hard for their
leaders to hold them at bay, but I believe the payback is coming slowly, in pieces, not once,
but in several blows, a masterpiece could be against American allies in the region, since the
US will have hard time re retaliate, and the damage to the US will be done as it was with the
tankers, agains KSA etc... We should also expect IEDs to kill many soldiers and US
mercenaries, the later will be focused for sure, and that means in Iraq and Syria.
Would like to share with the SyrPers visiting MoA, that until the site is not back on
line, we are trying to gather at Platosgun.com, at Taxi's place, so far we managed to some
Syrpers there and get out comment section back to live in a different address, at least for
while. See you there SyrPers.
Have we missed an obvious explanation for shocking behavior?
That control of Iran is needed to enable the Crown to do Brexit and flourish? That
middle-east oil/gas and the politics of global availability are crucial to the Crown's
survival as elitist Royalty.
The US.gov has acted as the Crown's proxy for a very long time, knowingly or
unknowingly.
Look at a global map of Planet Earth. Look at England [if you can find it]. And don't
confuse it with Japan, which also knows something about needing/wanting proxies...knowingly
or not.
Now, go do Brexit without guaranteed [under control] sources of energy and other
plunder.
People have lost their fear of Nuclear weapons. If the U.S. use Nukes against Iran, the
radioactive cloud will be blown across the Atlantic Ocean and land where?
Quite apart from the fact that if the U.S. use Nukes without a serious retaliation, nowhere
is safe. Putin has been quoted that any form of nuclear weapon used on any of it's allies
will be considered as a nuclear attack on Russia itself and will be responded to by a full
scale retaliatory strike.
As the U.S. has no defense against the latest Russian weaponry, they will realize that
indeed, the living will envy the dead.
I have no idea as to what the attack strategy of Russia will be but I doubt it will be to
kill millions of people. Far more effective Is to wipe out major infrastructure, transport,
water and energy systems and then see what 340 million people do to survive.
Well put. We in Australia have a mini-Trump for PM (an embarrassing fawning dog licking
Trump's balls on his recent visit to the US) who is currently mismanaging our bushfire
catastrophe due to a total lack of empathy. A former marketing manager, Scott Morrison is a
sociopath who makes bullies look like Mother Teresa. The combination of self-righteous
evangelism with fanatical neoliberal ideology, when wedded to a lust for power at all costs
and the crushing of any dissent (usually through awful marketing-school cynicism), makes for
extreme social and political toxicity. He adores Trump and actually took notes at an Ohio
rally (I kid you not). As the east coast burns like never before (a region the size of Texas
gone, 1500 homes, 20+ lives lost) he went on holiday to Hawaii (staying in a Trump hotel).
When he returned he was greeted by visceral hostility (enormously satisfying to watch
here ). His instinct was to make an ad explaining how great his leadership is(n't). His
position is owed to his commitment to Australia's only three sources of wealth: selling coal
and iron ore to China, real estate (ponzi scheme), banking (even bigger ponzi scheme). I
would drone strike him and Trump in a New York minute
"A new California law fines you $1,000 if you shower and do 1 load of laundry in the
same day. And if the Gov declares a drought, the fine goes up to *$10,000*."
@139 PWIV. My take here from before Magnier's post:
Posted by: Lozion | Jan 4 2020 2:25 utc | 363
"Killing Mohandes was not part of the plan imo. Note how he is never mentioned in Western
press? The US will now have to contend with an extraordinary parliament session this Sunday
and likely a vote for US troop ousting will be made. Surely that's not what the US wanted
though it had to be anticipated if Mohandes got hit. Either they ignored he was present or
decided it was worth the risk. Now its blowback time. Lets see what Sadr's block will vote.
He will finally reveal is true colors by making or breaking the vote (53 MP's).."
You may be right though and it is the opposite but I think IL leaked the info on Soleimani
going to Baghdad for the funeral of the martyred PMU soldiers and the hit was
greenlighted..
And this way we already can test who inspired the US/Israel sponsored terrorists in Syria
and Iraq to destory all the cultural heritage there...sicne The Donals just confess this was
in their strategic manuals....The Syrian government should keep a capture of that Twitt for
further claims on compensations at ICC...
Obviously, nobody swallowed that was an ingenious occurence of those brutes to the
eyebrows of Captagon...Someon wanted those treasure destroyed and payed to smugle those able
to be so..
Iran has already been under attack: And much lied about:
From Oct. 2019 Iran claims two explosions on board the Iranian Sabiti oil tanker were
caused by a missile attack in the Red Sea
Sept 2018 At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in a terrorist attack
on a military parade in south-west Iran, responsibility claimed by Islamic State and a
separatist group.
Aug 2015 "Israel's defense minister hinted on Friday that the Jewish state's intelligence
services were behind the rash of killings of Iranian nuclear scientists."
And then there are the false accusations: June 2019 Hours after the U.S. released video
footage that 'showed' an Iranian boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of an oil
tanker, the Japanese owner of that vessel said that the ship was likely damaged by a "flying
object" and dismissed claims of a mine attack as "false."
The news was distorted and interpreted, hand-to-hand differently.
Swiss Ambassador in Tehran was summoned for Solaimani assassination, he went to Iran foreign
ministry, yesterday morning ( Swiss is represent and protect USA affairs in Iran). At the
same visit he delivered a letter from USA to Iran. What is the content of the letter is not
known to public. The Sepah commander in his speech hinted that American ( through a country)
has requested to set a limit ( or ceiling) for retaliation and Iran has reject the request. (
who was the third country? Nobody knows, many countries are trying to mediate every
hour).
In an interview Zarif explained that Swiss ambassador was summoned, he came in the morning,
in the same session he delivered an indecent letter from USA. He was summoned in the
afternoon, came and received our sturdy an tough written response.
A 4 star general or like that are logical interpenetration. Why you do not look Chris
Morphy's speeches?
He ( Morphy) said equivalent to Solaimani is American secretary of defense. Would you satisfy
with Morphy interpretation?
>>Also, does anybody have an accurate summary of the current structure of the Iraqi
parliament, someone who can crunch the numbers? The US would surely have been preparing well
in advance to prevent a spill to evict them, but is it in the bag or is it fluid? I wonder
what the bookies are offering...
In the iraqi parliament, sunnis and kurds are against expelling the US. They are a
minority though. There are also two small shia factions who are against that.
But the expellers will have the majority if Muqtada al Sadr supports them. So by the
coming vote, it will become clear who is a US agent in Iraq, and who is not.
My bet is a 70 % probability for a vote to expell the US from Iraq.
@Moon
Fitst, as others have pointed out, it is unclear who was responsible for the downing of
Pan AM 103 . Many took credit for it and ultimately it may have been the CIA itself.
Second, Iran has always been of strategic interest to great powers even before
Israel existed or oil was discovered there. To suggest that the US would have no strategic
interest in controlling Iran if it were not for Israel is ridiculous. The US deep state
has been trying to reclaim Iran since Carter lost it. Also, note that Israel supplied
weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran during the the Iran-Iraq war.
If want to look to past history of what Iran will do, you only need to look back to the
Iran-Iraq war. After the US wiped out all Iranian oil platforms and the Iranian navy in
operation Praying Mantis, a ceasefire and peace was negotiated soon afterwords. Trump and
Lindsey Graham have warned Iran that they will lose all their oil refineries if they attempt
retaliation. Iran no longer has any doubts that Trump will make good on that threat. To
suggest that Iran will act irrationally and retaliate regardless of US consequences is the
height of racism.
Also to think that China or Russia will somehow defend Iran against US attacks is wishful
thinking,
Trump is the perfect man, in the perfect position, at the perfect time, to finally get their
wish and attempt to smash up Iran. He is no more than a front man. Every president is backed
by some interests and competing interests back various candidates.
If he (they) think he (they) can play the "rocket man" game against the Persian he (they)
are sadly mistaken. Obviously Obama took a much different tack with Iran while smashing up
some of the old Arab secular countries at the same time. I would not know how to begin to
think through this madness of Empire regime planning.
Below is a Reuters article, so you know it is low balling the numbers but, admitting that not
ALL Americans are on board with the Iran/Iraq attack
"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Groups of protesters took to the streets in Washington and other U.S.
cities on Saturday to condemn the air strike in Iraq ordered by President Donald Trump that
killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Trump's decision to send about 3,000
more troops to the Middle East.
"No justice, no peace. U.S. out of the Middle East," hundreds of demonstrators chanted
outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel a few blocks
away.
Similar protests were held in New York, Chicago and other cities. Organizers at Code Pink,
a women-led anti-war group, said protests were scheduled on Saturday in numerous U.S. cities
and towns.
Protesters in Washington held signs that read "No war or sanctions on Iran!" and "U.S.
troops out of Iraq!"
Speakers at the Washington event included actress and activist Jane Fonda, who last year
was arrested at a climate change protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
"The younger people here should know that all of the wars fought since you were born have
been fought over oil," Fonda, 82, told the crowd, adding that "we can't anymore lose lives
and kill people and ruin an environment because of oil."
"Going to a march doesn't do a lot, but at least I can come out and say something: that
I'm opposed to this stuff," said protestor Steve Lane of Bethesda, Maryland. "And maybe if
enough people do the same thing, he (Trump) will listen."
Soleimani, regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran, was killed in the U.S.
strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport on Friday in a dramatic escalation of hostilities in
the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies.
Public opinion polls show Americans in general have been opposed to U.S. military
interventions overseas. A survey last year by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 27%
of Americans believe military interventions make the United States safer, and nearly half
said they make the country less safe.
"
One point: Since Iran now knows that it will be blamed for *anything* that happens in the
Middle East - witness the Houthis attack on the Saudi oil fields, it does not have much
incentive to keep its retaliation "plausibly deniable." So I suspect Iran will make it clear
that it is responsible for whatever retaliation it conducts. It will only keep such
retaliation at a level below a direct strike against senior US officials such as Pence,
Pompeo, or the Joint Chiefs.
My guess would be a strike against a division level or regional US military officer in the
region - possibly via car bomb in the UAE or even Europe. Or an equivalent strike against an
Israeli officer or diplomat via Hezbollah - although that might difficult due to limited
access. That will make it obvious that is was Iran, but Iran may still use a cut-out such as
Hezbollah or Shia elsewhere so no Quds Force operative can be identified as being
involved.
"Military security" is an oxymoron, as SEAL Richard Marcinko demonstrated with his Red
Cell team decades ago. Every US military member in the world is now at increased risk for
assassination and every US base in the world is at risk for a serious attack similar to the
Marine Barracks bombing.
I'd hate to be any US official flying into any airport in the Middle East - given that an
equivalent drone strike can be done by almost every militant group in the Middle East, now
that the Houthis have demonstrated how.
Below is another Reuters article, this one about the lying, boot licking and obfuscating UK
"
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain urged all parties to show restraint on Saturday after the United
States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in an air strike, but said its
closest ally was entitled to defend itself against an imminent threat.
Defence minister Ben Wallace said in a statement that he had spoken to his U.S.
counterpart Mark Esper, adding: "We urge all parties to engage to de-escalate the
situation.
"Under international law the United States is entitled to defend itself against those
posing an imminent threat to their citizens," he added.
"
LYSSANDER the only suspect for the bombing of Capt William Roger's wife's van was a former
family friend involved in some sort of personal dispute over a divorce.
> Grudge, not terrorism, seen in Rogers bombing
> Joe Hughes
> Tribune Staff Writer
>
> 10/02/1989
> The San Diego Union-Tribune
>
> TRIBUNE; 1,2,3,4,5
> A-1:1,2,3,4; B-1:5
> (Copyright 1989)
>
>
>
> Federal investigators have turned away from
> terrorism as a motive for the
> pipe-bombing of a van driven by the wife of Navy
> Capt. Will C. Rogers III
> and are looking at an American believed to have a
> grudge against Rogers,
>
Thanks for the succinct summary. That seems to accord with the balance across the country.
It's hard to tell in Iraq whether religion (Sunni v Shi'a) means more than ethnicity (Arab v
Persian). Like all these artificial nations created after the collapse of the Ottoman empire
the ethno-tribal, religious and class breakdown is impenetrable and mercurial. It always
reminds me of Frank Herbert's masterpiece Dune. 70% eh? I like those odds.
In passing, it reached 49 degrees celsius where I live in western Sydney yesterday (a
Sydney record) and the smoke haze is now so bad from multiple fire fronts on the edges of the
city that driving is dangerous and motorways are closing. With heavy water restrictions in
place my garden is dead. All my capsicums burnt on the stem yesterday as the road bitumen
melted outside. This is the case from Queensland to South Australia, a coastline 2000km long.
Plus Australia currently has the worst air quality in the world. And this is only one month
into a 3 month fire season. Very depressing.
"The anti-Benghazi!" President Donald Trump replied after liberals referred to the
storming of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as his Benghazi, referencing the assault on the
American consulate in Libya under the previous administration. Trump, supporters maintained,
did not hesitate to repel the attack. In fact, in breaking news Wednesday night it was reported
that the U.S. military, at the direction of President Trump, killed the leader of the Iranian Quds
Force, General Qassem Soleimani, in an airstrike at Baghdad's international airport.
The United States has a right to defend its embassies and military bases overseas as well as
the duty to protect Americans and other personnel. But the partisan finger-pointers are
overlooking the real significance of Benghazi: it was the symbol of a failed military
intervention for which Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton bore greater culpability than the
grisly murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues. The regime change war Washington
launched left Libya teeming with terrorists, full of territory that was chaotic, violent and
unsafe.
So too the war in Iraq, which initially created a power vacuum that empowered radicals who
resemble the militant forces that attacked America on 9/11. In recent years, our focus has been
on fighting ISIS rather than nation-building. But the longer-term result of the Iraq
misadventure was to overthrow the Sunni state that controlled Baghdad and replace it with a
Shiite government that would inevitably mean greater Iranian influence. The toppled Iraqi
government was Iran's main counterweight in the region.
Candidate Donald Trump understood that Iraq was a grievous -- "big, fat" -- mistake. "We've
destabilized the Middle East and it's a mess," he said in 2015. It "may have been the worst
decision" in U.S. history. "It started ISIS, it started Libya, it started Syria," Trump said as
George W. Bush's brother looked on. "Everything that's happening started with us stupidly going
into the war in Iraq . and people talk about me with the button. I'm the one that doesn't want
to do this, okay?"
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in his first year as president of
the United States, Trump laid into the Mesopotamian mishaps. "We've spent trillions of dollars
overseas, while allowing our own infrastructure to fall into total disrepair and decay. In the
Middle East, we've spent as of four weeks ago, $6 trillion. Think of it," he said. "And by the
way, the Middle East is in -- I mean, it's not even close, it's in much worse shape than it was
15 years ago. If our presidents would have gone to the beach for 15 years, we would be in much
better shape than we are right now, that I can tell you."
"Great nations do not fight endless wars," Trump
declared in his State of the Union address just last year. "Our brave troops have now been
fighting in the Middle East for almost 19 years. In Afghanistan and Iraq, nearly 7,000 American
heroes have given their lives. More than 52,000 Americans have been badly wounded. We have
spent more than $7 trillion in the Middle East."
Yet Iran has always been the unprincipled exception to Trump's
skepticism of regime change. In his zeal to reverse Obama's legacy, he risks repeating Obama's
folly. For the 44th president also owed his election to the fact that he recognized Iraq was a
"dumb war." He left office with the U.S. mired in more wars of choice than before, including
interventions in Libya, Yemen and Syria that have to varying degrees kept smoldering under
Trump.
Trump's foreign policy team is replete with advisers ready to turn proxy wars with Iran
inside Iraq into a wider conflict, people whose vision of "America First" is indistinguishable
from the vision that gave us endless wars in the first place. So far, the president has
held
them off . But his present course creates a high risk of war with Iran, and a resumption of
hostilities in Iraq not limited to the fight against ISIS, whether he knows it or not.
At the very least, Trump may cede the war issue to the Democrats. "We should end the forever
wars, not start new ones," tweeted Elizabeth Warren, the liberal presidential candidate who
trails Trump in
the battleground states and is even
losing to him in Virginia, according to the latest Mason-Dixon poll, which hasn't voted for
a Republican White House aspirant since 2004. Why throw her a lifeline by implementing the
foreign policy of candidates he defeated in 2016?
Trump was elected to guard American borders. Patrolling the Iran-Iraq border will not get
him reelected.
W. James Antle III is the editor of The American Conservative.
I t does not matter where the green light for the U . S . targeted assassination in Baghdad
of Quds Force commander Major General Qassem Soleimani and the Hashd al-Shaabi
second-in-command Abu Madhi al-Muhandis came from.
This is an act of war. Unilateral, unprovoked and illegal.
President Donald Trump may have issued the order. The U . S . Deep State may have ordered
him to issue the order. Or the usual suspects may have ordered them all.
According to my best Southwest Asia intel sources, "Israel gave the U . S . the coordinates
for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the repercussions of taking
the assassination upon themselves."
It does not matter that Trump and the Deep State are at war.
One of the very few geopolitical obsessions that unite them is non-stop confrontation with
Iran – qualified by the Pentagon as one of five top threats against the U . S . , almost
at the level of Russia and China.
And there cannot be a more startling provocation against Iran -- in a long list of sanctions
and provocations -- than what just happened in Baghdad. Iraq is now the preferred battleground
of a proxy war against Iran that may now metastasize into hot war, with devastating
consequences.
Please Make a 25th Anniversary Winter Fund DriveDonationToday.
We knew it was coming. There were plenty of rumbles in Israeli media by former military and
Mossad officials. There were explicit threats by the Pentagon. I discussed it in detail in
Umbria last week with sterling analyst Alastair Crooke – who was extremely worried. I
received worried messages from Iran.
The inevitable escalation by Washington was being discussed until late Thursday night here
in Palermo, actually a few hours before the strike. (Sicily, by the way, in the terminology of
U.S. generals, is AMGOT: American Government Occupied Territory.)
Once again, the Exceptionalist hands at work show how predictable they are. Trump is
cornered by impeachment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted. Nothing
like an external "threat" to rally the internal troops.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei knows about these complex variables as much as he knows of
his responsibility as the power who issued Iran's own red lines. Not surprisingly he already
announced, on the record, there will be blowback: "a forceful revenge awaits the criminals who
have his blood and the blood of other martyrs last night on their hands." Expect it to be very
painful.
Qasem Soleimani (left) with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (right) at a 2017 ceremony commemorating
the father of Soleimani, in Mosalla, Tehran. (Fars News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia
Commons)
Blowback by a Thousand Cuts
I met al-Muhandis in Baghdad two years ago -- as well as many Hashd al-Shaabi members. Here
is my full report . The Deep
State is absolutely terrified that Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular
Mobilization Forces) , a grassroots organization, are on the way to becoming a new Hezbollah,
and as powerful as Hezbollah. Grand Ayatollah Sistani, the supreme religious authority in Iraq,
universally respected, fully supports them.
So, the American strike also targets Sistani -- not to mention the fact that Hash al-Shaabi
operates under guidelines issued by the Iraqi Prime Minister Abdel Mahdi. That's a major
strategic blunder that can only be pulled off by amateurs.
Major General Soleimani, of course, humiliated the whole of the Deep State over and over
again -- and could eat all of them for breakfast, lunch and dinner as a military strategist. It
was Soleimani who defeated ISIS/Daesh in Iraq -- not the Americans bombing Raqqa to rubble.
Soleimani is a super-hero of almost mythical status for legions of young Hezbollah supporters,
Houthis in Yemen, all strands of resistance fighters in both Iraq and Syria, Islamic Jihad in
Palestine, and all across Global South latitudes in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
There's absolutely no way the U.S. will be able to maintain troops in Iraq, unless the
nation is re-occupied en masse via a bloodbath. And forget about "security": no imperial
official or imperial military force is now safe anywhere, from the Levant to Mesopotamia and
the Persian Gulf.
The only redeeming quality out of this major strategic blunder cum declaration of war may be
the final nail in the coffin of the Southwest Asia chapter of the U.S. Empire of Bases. Iranian
Prime Minister Javad Zarif came out with an appropriate metaphor: the "tree of resistance" will
continue to grow. The empire might as well say goodbye to Southwest Asia.
In the short term, Tehran will be extremely careful in their response. A hint of --
harrowing -- things to come: it will be blowback by a thousand cuts. As in hitting the
Exceptionalist framework -- and mindset -- where it really hurts. This is the way the Roaring,
Raging Twenties begin: not with a bang, but with the release of whimpering dogs of war.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong
Kong-based Asia Times . His latest
book is "
2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
T he drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani
evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to
World War I. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of "severe
revenge." That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And
escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the
multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and in
nearby waters.
What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated.
Quite the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval
exercises with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S.
in the region.
Cui Bono?
It is time to call a spade a spade. The country expecting to benefit most from hostilities
between Iran and the U.S. is Israel (with Saudi Arabia in second place). As you no doubt are
aware, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. He continues to
await from you the kind of gift that keeps giving. Likewise, it appears that you, your
son-in-law, and other myopic pro-Israel advisers are as susceptible to the influence of Israeli
prime ministers as was former President George W. Bush. Some commentators are citing your
taking personal responsibility for providing Iran with a casus belli as unfathomable.
Looking back just a decade or so, we see a readily distinguishable pattern.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon payed a huge role in getting George W. Bush to
destroy Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Usually taciturn, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security
adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, warned in August 2002 that "U.S. action
against Iraq could turn the whole region into a cauldron." Bush paid no heed, prompting
Scowcroft to explain in Oct. 2004 to The Financial Times that former Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush "mesmerized"; that Sharon has him "wrapped around his
little finger." (Scowcroft was promptly relieved of his duties as chair of the prestigious
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.)
In Sept. 2002, well before the attack on Iraq, Philip Zelikow, who was Executive Secretary
of the 9/11 Commission, stated publicly in a moment of unusual candor, "The 'real threat' from
Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The unstated threat was the threat against Israel."
Zelikow did not explain how Iraq (or Iran), with zero nuclear weapons, would not be deterred
from attacking Israel, which had a couple of hundred such weapons.
Zombie Generals
When a docile, Peter-principle, "we-are-still-winning-in-Afghanistan" U.S. military
leadership sends more troops (mostly from a poverty draft) to be wounded and killed in
hostilities with Iran, Americans are likely, this time, to look beneath the equally docile
media for answers as to why. Was it for Netanyahu and the oppressive regime in Israel? Many
Americans will wake up, and serious backlash is likely.
Events might bring a rise in the kind of anti-Semitism already responsible for domestic
terrorist attacks. And when bodybags arrive from abroad, there may be for families and for
thinking Americans, a limit to how much longer the pro-Israel mainstream media will be able to
pull the wool over their eyes.
Those who may prefer to think that Gen. Scowcroft got up on the wrong side of the bed on
Oct. 13, 2004, the day he gave the interview to The Financial Times may profit from
words straight from Netanyahu's mouth. On Aug. 3, 2010, in a formal VIPS Memorandum for your
predecessor, we provided some "Netanyahu in his own words."
We include an excerpt here for historical context:
"Netanyahu's Calculations
Netanyahu believes he holds the high cards, largely because of the strong support he
enjoys in our Congress and our strongly pro-Israel media. He reads your [Obama's] reluctance
even to mention controversial bilateral issues publicly during his recent visit as
affirmation that he is in the catbird seat in the relationship.
During election years in the U.S. (including mid-terms), Israeli leaders are particularly
confident of the power they and the Likud Lobby enjoy on the American political scene.
Netanyahu's attitude comes through in a video taped nine years ago and shown on Israeli
TV, in which he bragged about how he deceived President Clinton into believing he (Netanyahu)
was helping implement the Oslo accords when he was actually destroying them.
The tape displays a contemptuous attitude toward -- and wonderment at -- an America so
easily influenced by Israel. Netanyahu says:
" America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't
get in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd."
Israeli columnist Gideon Levy wrote that the video shows Netanyahu to be "a con artist who
thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes," adding
that such behavior "does not change over the years."
Recommendation
We ended VIPS' first Memorandum For the President (George W. Bush) with this critique of
Secretary of State Colin Powell's address at the UN earlier that day:
"No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is
"irrefutable or undeniable" [as Powell claimed his was]. But after watching Secretary Powell
today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond
the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and
from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."
We are all in a limina l moment. We write with a sense of urgency suggesting you avoid
doubling down on catastrophe.
For the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military
Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and Division Director, State
Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Graham Fuller, former Chairman, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence
Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate
VIPS)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic
Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense
watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist and Technical Director (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential
briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East &
CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel
(ret.)
Sarah Wilton, Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency
(ret.)
Robert Wing, former U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer (Associate
VIPS)
"... Trump's closeness to Benjamin Netanyahu also plays into this scenario. I won't fall-off my bar stool in shock and surprise should such a joint operation prove to be true. ..."
"... "America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't get in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." Benjamin Netanyahu ..."
"... CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' No evidence, no eye witnesses, no communique with WADC, no confirmation from Trump himself. Check, and mate. ..."
"... The Neocons did it. They really did it! Any cogent political world analysis is drawn into a cauldron and destroyed. Everything devolves to 'Trump, Russia and Iran' now. Deep State wins! ..."
"... Maybe the Israelis/neocons fear that Trump might lose in November and want to start the war while Bibi's favorite lapdog is still P0TUS. Not, that the Democrats are peacelovers (except for Sanders and Gabbard). But they might be more afraid of a negative reaction by the electorate. Murdering Suleimani NOW was not some hasty decision without a plan. I am afraid, it was done to get THE ultimate war in the middle east going, no matter if and how much restraint Iran will show. ..."
When President Trump announced the assassination of General Qassim Soleimani, he said that
there was "unambiguous" information that Soleimani was planning attacks on US forces in Iraq
and Syria. My first thought was what were the sources of that "unambiguous" information?
I'll
bet dollars to donuts that it was Israel's Mossad. The sheer precision and timing of that
"hit" had all the smell and feel of a Mossad operation. While the US did the actual killing,
the Israelis did the 'fingering.'
Trump's closeness to Benjamin Netanyahu also plays into
this scenario. I won't fall-off my bar stool in shock and surprise should such a joint
operation prove to be true.
"America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't get
in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." Benjamin Netanyahu
This bold statement of Israeli/Jewish hubris remains as true today as it was when he said
it, over 20 years ago. This fact is only understood by examining 'who' controls the
media.
Israel requested this hit. And the Americans were stupid enough to oblige.
Joerg , Jan 4 2020 18:49 utc |
31Paul Leibowitz , Jan 4 2020 18:51 utc |
32
CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily
assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' No evidence, no eye witnesses, no communique with
WADC, no confirmation from Trump himself. Check, and mate.
Having 'beheaded' Trump and launched what will be enormous death and destruction, the PNAC
pesharim and their Neocon noodniks are desperate to deflect responsibility onto Trump,
essentially they are 'necklacing' Trump and the Republican administration using the compliant
poodled MSM.
This allows the DNC WarHogs to pretend to be the 'People's Populist Party of Peace' at
their Convention in July, and bring about the final Bolshevik takeover that Brexit and Hong
Kong and a 1,000,000 man Deplorable march on Milwaukee had threatened to defeat.
The high crimes of the Biden's, Kerry's and Pelosi's in Ukraine, and the genocidal crimes
against humanity of Maidan itself, are now ink-blotted out of history.
The Neocons did it. They really did it! Any cogent political world analysis is drawn into
a cauldron and destroyed. Everything devolves to 'Trump, Russia and Iran' now. Deep State
wins!
The Iranians know who the real enemy is. The US(Trump) is just the dumb executioner -
they'll get their response in due time. In the mean time, the 1st response will be felt in
Tel Aviv.
Since coming to office, pompous Pompeo's been tripping back-n-forth between Tel Aviv and
DC, taking his mad orders from Bibi.
One thing for sure, US presence in the ME is on borrowed time.
The Iranians know who the real enemy is. The US(Trump) is just the dumb executioner - they'll
get their response in due time. In the mean time, the 1st response will be felt in Tel Aviv.
Since coming to office, pompous Pompeo's been tripping back-n-forth between Tel Aviv and
DC, taking his mad orders from Bibi.
One thing for sure, US presence in the ME is on borrowed time.
Israel wanted USA to go to war with Iran even well before the Syria debacle. Consequential
considerations of such an event caused the US to hesitate, especially after UK parliament
voted against being a partner to such a shenanigan. Now a US-Iran War may well be at hand.
Whether this would conflagrate the whole ME, and later the whole world, remain to be seen.
US soldiers ready to die for Israeli interests under Israeli command:
"The United States and Israel enjoy a strong and enduring military-to-military partnership
built on a trust that has been developed over decades of cooperation," said USAF Third Air
Force commander Lt.-Gen. Richard Clark, who also serves as the commander for the deploying
Joint Task Force – Israel.
...
According to Clark, the US and Israeli troops will work side-by-side under each other's
relevant chain of command.
"As far as decision-making, it is a partnership," he continued, stressing nonetheless that
"at the end of the day it is about the protection of Israel – and if there is a
question in regards to how we will operate, the last vote will probably go to Zvika
[Haimovitch]."
Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist
Israel with missile defense in times of war and, according to Haimovitch, "I am sure once the
order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team
to defend the State of Israel."
And those US troops who would be deployed to Israel, are prepared to die for the Jewish
state, Clark said.
"We are ready to commit to the defense of Israel and anytime we get involved in a kinetic
fight there is always the risk that there will be casualties. But we accept that – as
every conflict we train for and enter, there is always that possibility," he said.
George V 24
Same here. A drone/missile strike to take out a leader, claim he's responsible for many
deaths ("millions" DJT), and then claim innocence at any response is a classic Israeli
tactic. They did this to test Iron Dome. There had been a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel killed
a Hamas leader they claimed responsible for an attack 6 months earlier, and then pointed out
Hamas when the usual rockets were launched.
arata , Jan 4 2020 20:42 utc |
71Circe , Jan 4 2020 20:46 utc |
72
First I want to express admiration of Iranian courage in resisting the corrupting influence
of Zionist expansionism and condolences for the immense loss of a brave hero and unparalleled
military leader, Soleimani, who was not a general's general, but a soldier's general admired
by many.
Iran is a bastion of resistance against Zionism and therefore the number one target and
enemy of Zionists. Despite, the invasion of Iraq, Israeli assault on Lebanon, proxy invasions
of Syria and Yemen, and the severest of sanctions, the Iran domino remains standing. For this
reason, Zionist Trump came into power guns blazing against Iran, intent on its destruction.
There was no doubt on that, and his assassination of Iran's most revered general removes all
doubt on his intent. The murder of Soleimani represents a cowardly act typical of a coward
like Trump not to have to face a foreign opponent and military leader like Soleimani leading
the Iranian offensive against Zionism and the looming war on Iran. But mark my words,
Soleimani's spirit will be there on the battlefield of any war initiated by Trump and
his cabal.
Trump, the jackass liar that he is, justifies his barbaric act as a response to an
imminent threat against U.S. forces and personnel. THIS IS A BALD-FACED LIE. If the
threat were imminent then the logical urgent step would have been to sabotage the ACTUAL
threat mounted as Soleimani did not arrive in Iraq to carry out any attack himself. This
proves Trump is lying when he bragged this lie to the crowd at yesterday's rally. The truth
is really that Trump wanted a shrewd Iranian general and formidable opponent out of the way
to facilitate the Zionist goal to take on Iran. Trump resorted, as usual, to his con way of
fooling everyone with this fabrication. Also, Soleimani had the stature to become the next
President of Iran, and this was a sobering thought feared by the Zionist Trump cabal. Imagine
a man of strength and intelligence, feared by many but loved by more, ruling Iran. Gutless,
crass Trump killed that potential. As I wrote previously, Trump killed the albatross and
misery will follow him for it. All said, Iran did have every right to avenge the killing of
numerous militia by the U.S.; the funeral of which Soleimani was to attend in Iraq, making
the act perpetrated on him from a drone all the more repulsive and dishonorable. It was as if
yellow-belly Trump shot Soleimani in the back robbing him of the dignity of death in battle
he deserved as a warrior of his calibre, albeit not of the glory that will never be
Trump's.
IMHO, Iran should first and most importantly, ferret out TRAITORS not loyal to the cause
of resistance who delivered Soleimani to the enemy. Iran needs to tighten its security and
scrutinize, clean up and enhance its intelligence network especially in view of escalating
momentum towards war. It must use this time of mourning to rally public sentiment both in
Iran and Iraq and strengthen its alliances great and small to the cause of resistance to
imperial domination and, regionally, OCCUPATION--Zionist U.S. OCCUPATION in the Middle East.
Unifying, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, even Palestine to the cause of ending ZIONIST U.S.
OCCUPATION and ousting America from the Middle East and derailing corrupt Zionist expansion
and influence should be PRIORITY NUMBER ONE. This means decrying high and low the monumental
destruction, corruption and evil that this occupation has wrought on the entire Middle East
and the hardship of massive displacement suffered and being suffered by millions.
That is the fundamental goal, however, ending the occupation in Iraq by U.S. forces
first is Iran's domino to victory . As far as retaliation, in my view, the multi-pronged
strategy (death by a thousand cuts) I hear and read Iran might be contemplating would be more
effective than one spectacular event, because it would make clear the ubiquitous nature of
Iran's reach, and make the Zionist American opponent think twice about attacking Iran with
deadly tentacles that will activate and mobilize anywhere to the detriment of its enemy.
My first thought with all of this has been, why now? After reading I have a possible
answer.
Background:1. The Russians have been building up in Syria for a major assault on remaining
ISIS on the Syrian/Iraq border, the Iraqi/Iran forces announced that the planned assault
would begin hours before the five Iraq/Iran military bases were hit. 2. Israel just suffered
a defeat when they launched six missiles at Syria and five were taken out by Syria using
Russian supplied weaponry. The sixth missile fell in the desert, was recovered by Syria and
given to Russia.
These two events are key; the US/Israeli ISIS teams in Syria and on the Iraqi border were
about to be wiped out and control of the border by Syria leaving the US northern Syria
installations without a supply line. The Israeli failed attacked showed that the Syrian
defense systems were now fulling integrated with Russia and that the upcoming attack on ISIS
would probably end them as well as Israel's ability to destroy Syrian/Iranian sites in
Syria.
I think the US military and Pompeo panicked, they came up with a quick casus belli by having
one of their proxies lob missiles at a US encampment with the intent of killing a US citizen.
They then hit the Iraqi/Iran teams that were part of the planned Russian assault shutting
down the planned Russian attack. Pompeo and the Generals immediately flew to Fla to tell
Trump what they had done. Silence from Trump,why? Because he knew that this decision was a
trap to damage his reelection, he saw the plot which is why he stayed in Florida.
Then things really went sideways IMO. Israel seeing it's chance in the confusion, used it's
pawn Pompeo to order a hit on the airport killing the General, you will note that Israel says
it was told before the hit, my guess is no, they told Pompeo to take the hit and he did.
Israel immediately said it had nothing to do with the decision, Pompeo immediately said Trump
ordered it. Trump was forced to say it was his decision and defend it IMO.
Yes it is possible that Trump was told of an opportunity to take out the General but the
MIC/Pompeo know Trump historically pulls back from attacks, remember the Bolton fiasco with
the tankers, with the drone, they couldn't get Trump to attack then, why would he now attack
a Iraqi airbase when the attack on the Iraq/Iran bases was such a disaster for US Iraqi
relations? Why would they bother to ask him now after having put him in a box with the first
strikes?
Now there is talk that Trump has sent a Qatar rep to Iran to cut a deal. THAT is his
initiative, none of the prior events are his initiatives. Could be wrong, and for all that is
not to like about Trump he is not stupid, his goal is to win a Pulitzer prize as the peace
president.
Yes he rants about Iran, the guys who finance his campaign demand that, but push come to
shove, who the hell wants to be remembered as the guy who started a nuclear war...and lost??
Told you all it's Nutandyahoo who is in charge of jUSA. The Tronald is only his stooge:
Patriot Ali
@LogicalAnalys1s
Viral video shows official from SaudiArabia congratulating Israel pm Netanyahu over the
death of #Qasem_Suleimani . Video is spreading like wildfire in pro #Iran accounts
😡
World OSINT
/>
1:04
8:44 AM - 4 Jan 2020 https://twitter.com/LogicalAnalys1s/status/1213501484790407171
@ Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 4 2020 22:18 utc | 84
Thank you. Someone making sense.
Most are talking about this like it's halftime in a sporting match - completely juvenile.
Iran needs to pull back and focus on making themselves stronger in economy and technology and
for strong ties with other responsible players. They have opportunities with many countries
which are increasingly disenchanted with the west. And the west is headed for an economic
beating - which explains the desperate behavior.
Even if Iran is very careful in their behavior Irael is going to continue to press for war -
the psychotic fears most those that he has attacked.
But maybe with careful behavior and planning and efforts to repair and maintain ties the
Iraninans could be ready for that eventuality.
In all of this, and the many comments, I must praise Circe for this final one @ 72. It
strikes a definitive chord:
"...That is the fundamental goal, however, ending the occupation in Iraq by U.S. forces
first is Iran's domino to victory. As far as retaliation, in my view, the multi-pronged
strategy (death by a thousand cuts) I hear and read Iran might be contemplating would be more
effective than one spectacular event, because it would make clear the ubiquitous nature of
Iran's reach, and make the Zionist American opponent think twice about attacking Iran with
deadly tentacles that will activate and mobilize anywhere to the detriment of its enemy."
It is clear that Qasseem Soleimani was of a stature for Iran that his legacy will be part
of the determination for what follows in the eyes of his dedicated compatriots. I agree with
Circe here - what will immediately follow is important. It might even include the extraction
from Syria of American influence, which would require the cooperation of Assad. I am
remembering that Iraq's foreign minister recently gave a speech concerning the unification of
Arabic countries toward a peaceful end. That now must include the departure of US troops and
is the antithesis to war, something that would make a commendable legacy for both generals
who have now had their funeral at an important spiritual center.
War is not on. The fall of the black domino is. But this is not retribution; that will
come. Bravo Circe; good post.
" I cannot recall an act of this kind in the last 50 years especially in the extent to which
it seems to take for granted an underlying legitimacy and thus an naive openness, almost
childlike in its self-belief..."
patroklos @77
Doesn't Osama bin Laden count? Obama ordered and took open credit for the assassination of
dozens of individuals, many of them later shown to have been totally innocent of any
involvement in politics, many children etc.
And then, of course there was one Colonel Ghadaffi publicly assassinated, after his
surrender, with extreme brutality.
The only new thing about this is that the victim was a person of power and eminence.
Pepe Escobar: "According to my best Southwest Asia intel sources, "Israel gave the US the
coordinates for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the
repercussions of taking the assassination upon themselves." https://thesaker.is/us-starts-the-raging-twenties-declaring-war-on-iran/
Espen and Trump have made it clear that they will hold Iran responsible for whatever may
happen in the region and that they will strike in response or preemptively. Essentially, that
makes the real Iranian reaction largely irrelevant. And Israel could create a false flag
incident #a la USS Liberty. Or some rogue groups that Iran cannot control might attack US
troops or installations. Whether by design or accident, there will be a pretext to base
another military strike against Iran on. And then another, until a full blown US-Iran war
erupts which Bibi, Lieberman & co so desperately want.
Years of relentless demonization of Iran in the US and the UK have brainwashed large swaths
of the population. They will accept a war against Iran, albeit reluctantly, as long as not
too many Americans get killed in its wake.
I don't believe for a second that the US would "accept" a limited retaliation. They will
jump at any opportunity. Lindsey Graham stands between Trump and impeachment and that
warmonger is on record for seeking to bomb Iran's oil refineries. Incidentally, he was the
only senator who Trump consulted prior to the murder. Could well be that Graham is right now
the real P0TUS , at least until the senate has voted on impeachment. Conveniently, pelosi has
put the impeachment on hold, thereby prolonging that situation. Coincidence? I don't think
so.
Maybe the Israelis/neocons fear that Trump might lose in November and want to start
the war while Bibi's favorite lapdog is still P0TUS. Not, that the Democrats are peacelovers
(except for Sanders and Gabbard). But they might be more afraid of a negative reaction by the
electorate.
Murdering Suleimani NOW was not some hasty decision without a plan. I am afraid, it was done
to get THE ultimate war in the middle east going, no matter if and how much restraint Iran
will show.
I do think, btw that Trump blew his reelection by killing Suleimani. Another warmonger
will assuredly take his place.
"CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily
assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' "
Leibowitz # 32
Why would they do this *after* the strike?
That sounds kind of silly. And "hastily" sounds as though they were taken unawares . . . They
were surprised to hear that Solameini had been taken out?????
Lozion@62 - Re: Your Magnier quote, "The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the
Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier
General Qassem Soleiman"
The light bulb above my chimpanzee brain just flickered (briefly). Somewhere on SST (maybe
Lang?): something to the effect of 'Never underestimate US gov/mil incompetence'. Maybe it
was the opposite of what Magnier thought really took place.
Treasonous, dual-citizen chickenhawks of the US possibly targeted Hashd al-Shaabi
vice-commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes . They were trying to kill him because they found
out from some snitch that he just showed up at the airport for some reason. The all-seeing US
didn't realize Soleimani was even there . I guess because the sneaky Soleimani flew
commercial into Baghdad and probably carried his bags to the waiting SUVs. Who would have
expected that ? How devious!
This seems entirely plausible to me. Soleimani was too expensive a target - end of the
State of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all. But whacking a vice-commander of Hashd
al-Shaabi with a quarter-million dollar JAGM? Hell YEAH! We live for this kind
of preventative assassination heroism in the US. Especially if accompanied by colorful
graphics.
The awkward and delayed response of the usual US mil/gov mouthpieces makes this ridiculous
scenario even more believable. I have thoroughly convinced myself that this was a US screw-up
of EPIC proportions. In case the US government is reading MoA, this was all Lozion's doing.
I'm an innocent conspiracy primate.
Tulsi makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately that disqualifies her for the presidency, not
because she couldn't execute the functions of the presidency, but because neither the party
apparatchiks nor the voters would give her the chance. These days either nationalistic
claptrap or promises of more freebies are what carry the day. Quelle domage, eh?
As for the Iraqi parliament voting to expel U.S. forces? That's an interesting question.
If they did, they'd better vote to expel the "den of spies" at the embassy and insist on our
having a normal sized legation (as all countries would be well advised to do). But if they
do, would we leave? I personally doubt it even though it would be best if we did and let the
Iraqis do what they will, which would probably be reverting back to some sort of strongman
govt, of a type more suited to their cultural traditions and inclinations. It's high time we
afforded the rest of the world the type of cultural and political autonomy we claim to revere
so much.
So, we leave? A good thing for us and for them and the world at large.
Or, we don't? Then we expose the truth the rest of the world already knows, but we at
least expose the truth to our own people who have been fed a steady diet of mendacious BS
about what we've been doing over there all these years.
That attack on the "airport limo" vehicles leaving Baghdad airport sure took some nerve on
our part to think that we could sell something like that...
And, did Trump actually order it, or did someone else in the MIC order it first and Trump
laid claim to it afterwards? Uncle Joe, if he had ordered it, would have afterwards announced
the execution of a fall guy and denied any complicity! If Trump didn't order it, he should
throw whoever did under the bus instead of crowing and wrapping himself in the flag. I wonder
about what actually happened in planning this hit job on prominent military people on their
way to a funeral for 31 people who may or may not have had anything whatsoever to do with the
death of a single American mercenary in Iraq in an attack by persons unknown on a small
outpost.
"The U.S. has won nothing with its attack but will feel the consequences for decades to
come. Others will move in to take its place."
Wait for awhile on that one. Iraq will have to take some major hits if it tries moving
to the Russia China sphere. And it will have to deal with the fith column which are
strong. Iraq will have to go through the fire - like Donbass, Syria ect until it is
distilled to a solid core and then they will get support that will drive back the
yanks.
To summarize b: The US doesn't gain anything, and potentially loses everything they
sought out to do in Iraq (and by extension; Syria), from the killing of Soleimani.
So why do it? Was Soleimani really the target? Who benifits by drawing the US and Iran
closer war?
I wouldn't be surprised if an article about 'bad intel received from a 3rd party' pops
up in the NYT in a few months time.
The price of crude oil has jumped over $2 USD on the world markets since the news
I expect the US to fully resist being booted out of Iraq (which would also make
it's two major positions in Syria highly untenable). who could now believe that US
troops in Iraq and Syria won't come under sustained attack now, by the many allies
Iran has in the area?
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Sistani considers "the #US attack against the
#BaghdadAirport is a clear violation of #Iraq sovereignty".
That is clear support for the US withdrawal from #Iraq.
AND
S Sistani condemns the "attack against Iraqi (not Iranian-militia) position on
the borders killing our Iraqi sons to the hateful attack on #BaghdadAirport is a
violation and internationally unlawful (US) act against anti-#ISIS hero(s) leading
to difficult times for #Iraq".
I've been following Elijah M. and several others on twitter, as well as more
mainstream sources for several hours after learning of these assassinations.
the absolute stupidity, maliciousness and wickedness of the US Political and Military
Elites is truly astonishing. They have misjudged every single thing in that part of the
world since 9/11 and the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and then Iraq - and
spent/wasted well over $5 trillion. not to mention the horrific loss of life everywhere
from Syria to Iraq and Yemen. And we are now looking at another even more catastrophic
war.
it is unbelievable
"This was not Trump`s decision. Trump had to take responsibilty to show he is in
command. He will soon realize that he was played by the CIA and the Israelis."
I'd expect the Iranians to be more subtle than that. I don't think there's any
advantage for the Iranians to directly attack the US position in the ME.
At this early stage, it is not clear how Iran's retaliation will be carried out. Due in
large part to Soleimani's own efforts over the past 20 years, Tehran
has many options and venues at its disposal for reprisals through its proxies in the Middle
East -- Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
While the United States claimed direct responsibility for the airstrike, Tehran or its
proxies may seek their vengeance by striking US allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Speaking to Iranian state media, IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif explicitly threatened the
State of Israel with retaliation.
"The fleeting happiness of the Americans and the Zionists will in no time turn into
mourning," Sharif said.
Though Iran has typically refrained from launching large-scale strikes directly from its
territory for fear of direct retaliations against the country itself, preferring instead to
conduct attacks from the countries in which its proxies operate -- such a strike is by no means
outside the realm of possibility.
In addition to any physical reprisals, Tehran could bring to bear its extensive offensive
cyber capabilities against the United States and its allies.
The fleeting happiness of the Americans and the Zionists will in no time turn into
mourning
Iran, which was already expected to announce a further violation of the JCPOA next week, may
also decide to further step up its uranium enrichment as a response to Soleimani's
assassination.
However, nothing is inevitable or certain. Though Soleimani was undoubtedly a key figure in
the region and the US killing him presents serious potential for a wider and deadlier conflict
between the American and Iranian alliances, recent Middle East history contains several cases
of hugely important officials being killed without earth-shattering retaliations.
Fri 3 Jan 2020 12.29 EST Last modified on Fri 3 Jan 2020 17.32 EST
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email The constant
sense of insecurity that Americans and allies will feel will be part of the revenge.
Photograph: Nazanin Tabatabaee/Wana/Reuters Iran has spent decades preparing for
a moment like this , developing methods and networks around the world that give Tehran the
widest possible choice when it comes to taking revenge.
In the weeks immediately after
the airstrike that killed Iran's most powerful general , the threat against Americans and
their allies will be greatest in the Middle East, but the risk will balloon out across the
globe over the months and years to come.
Any US outpost in Syria and Iraq, military or diplomatic, is vulnerable to attacks, likely
to come from
Iranian-backed militias linked to Kata'ib Hezbollah , which has served as Tehran's most
reliable fist in Iraq. In Iraq, there will be even less protection from the state, which is
furious about the attack outside Baghdad airport.
The second ring of possible reprisals could follow an already familiar path, targeting oil
shipments through the Persian Gulf. The leadership in Tehran will be conscious that one avenue
of revenge against Donald Trump would be strike at his
chances of re-election. An oil price spike, coupled with a backdrop of global instability and
US vulnerability, would certainly hurt his campaign.
In Afghanistan, Iran has longstanding ties
with Hazara militias and solid basis for operations in Herat.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah has long been Iran's right arm, and can strike Israel and US regional
interests at any time. And Hezbollah has networks much further afield where there are pockets
of Lebanese Shia diaspora, for example in Latin America and West Africa.
Iranian intelligence has carried out assassinations in Europe, and there are a string of
other attacks globally in which Iran or Hezbollah is suspected but not proven to
be involved.
While Tehran has ample choices, it also has limitations. It will want to avoid triggering an
all-out war with the US and its allies. It may now decide to build up a covert nuclear arsenal,
no longer bound by the 2015 nuclear deal which Donald Trump walked out of. It would be harder
to go down that road in the middle of a firefight. And each act of retribution could use up the
political capital Iran has around the world, most importantly backing from Russia and
China.
ss="rich-link"> Iran vows revenge for US killing of top general Qassem Suleimani
Read more
But while Iran is likely to choose its targets carefully, with an eye to deniability, there
is little doubt that reprisals will come at a time and place of Tehran's choosing. The constant
sense of insecurity that Americans and allies will feel will be part of the revenge.
"I frankly have never seen the Iranians not respond – tit for tat. It's just never
happened," said Robert Baer, a former CIA officer. "It's so in their DNA, [as is using] a
proxy, which makes it more difficult to respond to. And their options are unlimited."
Russia is unlikely to tolerate the destruction of Iraq yet again and it's descent into
Libya-like chaos - which is what could happen if the US refuses to leave. Russia is unwilling
to see a repeat of Libya. My speculation is that Russia might have issued very severe
warnings to the US with respect to this to deter such conduct, similar to what seems to have
happened when the US threatened Venezuela. One example of such a possible threat that I see
as plausible might be that if the US takes further action in Iraq likely to result in civil
war, Russia will totally destroy every US base in Syria (which on the invitation of the
Syrian President they are legally entitled to do at any time).
The alleged recent movement of Russian strategic command aircraft to Syria, capable of
controlling the launch of strategic ballistic missiles, might be directed either to assist
Russia in controlling any escallation connected with the destruction of US bases in Syria, or
it could be to control the threat of Israel launching a nuclear attack against Iran, in the
event of a war against Iran and Iran's inevitable reprisals against Israel.
Russia repeatedly emphasises that it is not the world policeman, which is why Russia is
normally very restrained in responses to US aggression, and responds only in relation to
threats to Russian national security; nevertheless the breakdown of Iraq due to the refusal
of the US to leave would certainly pose serious threats to Russian national security, and
President Putin has been signalling recently that Russia's tolerance for US lawlessness is
coming to an end.
In traditional Arab culture, a mediator - someone with the trust of both parties, objective,
and who has the stature and ability to force compliance should a possible agreement be
abrogated - brokers a 'pause', consults with both parties, to convey expectations.
If the mediator considers the parties 'reconcilable' he arranges a "sulha" - a meeting
where the leaders concerned meet face to face to to haggle out the details.
Only Putin or Xi has such stature, only Putin may be able to enforce agreement.
Reconciliation requires a level of respect for the other. The US respects no one, not even
Putin.
Iran has zero reason to trust any US agreement (JCPOA?)
The US brings $ to its negotiations(offer to lift sanctions) reflecting its values-$, Iran
looks for justice(punishment of those who did the deed), reflecting its value of life.
The red flag says there is no possibility of reconciliation.
The United States launched a war of aggression, the supreme crime, upon Iraq in 2003, based
on blatant lies, and are still there. Prior to that, they helped foment the war between Iraq
and Iran, then attacked Iraq in 1991, and on top of the overt warfare there was the economic
sanctions warfare. The death and maiming and poisoning of millions of Iraqis has been the
American contribution to Iraq, over the last several decades. What for? How has this helped
the United States? Or Europe? The main advocates for this supreme criminality has been the
Israel lobby, Israel, and the supporters of Israel.
The American Apache helicopters are still buzzing around over Baghdad, dealing out terror
and intimidation and death. The murder by the United States of yet more Iraqi soldiers and
officials recently has been largely absent from the propaganda narratives. But could those be
'the final straw'?
As far as Trump's 52 target threat, this comes after the apparent please don't escalate
and we'll make a deal - good cop-bad cop routine.
The 52 number was used to remind mind-controlled Americans that the evil Iranians
outrageously took 52 Americans hostage. American's don't just take people hostage; they give
them orange suits and torture them, unless they kill them. Apart from murdering and maiming
by the millions, they even stage fictional killings, like Osama bin laden, to entertain the
zombies, and stick out their chests, hand out medals and the like.
"... He fired missiles into Syria on the basis of false propaganda and while he's ostensibly ordered troops out of Syria, it's like the Pentagon is thumbing their nose at him, while he tweets ..."
"... In many ways Trump seems like Governor William J. Le Petomane, in Blazing Saddles. ..."
"... Bush & Cheney supported by both parties invaded Iraq and created the ascendancy of Iran. Then Obama comes along and aids & abets Al Qaeda to head-chop Christians in Syria, once again with support from both our political parties. ..."
"... Trump comes along as the "no more wasting money in the Middle East" guy. But surrounds himself with all neocons including his daughter & son-in-law. And he has shown to be generally clueless on anything beyond one slide on a Powerpoint. He thinks he's still on the set of The Apprentice. ..."
"... I'd like to say that the US is no longer a Constitutional Republic. We have law enforcement & intelligence who ran a coup attempt and half the country thinks that was a good thing. We have coteries that lie and propagandize us into war that has cost the American people several trillion that they've had to borrow from future generations. With the Patriot Act, FISA and all kinds of other "anti-terrorist laws", we essentially have a lawless national security surveillance state. ..."
"... the reason for Suleimani to be in Iraq early on Friday morning: to attend the funeral of the Iraqi soldiers who died during those strikes neal al-Qaim. ..."
Trump is weak, stupid, reckless and easily manipulated. This has long been obvious.
That is not an argument in favor of Team D, the Resistance, the Deep State, the Blob or
whatever (if anything it is an argument against their conspiracy theories), but Trump is what
he is.
I don't believe Trump ordered this attack. I believe that the neocons/neolibs are afraid they
would lose power when the coup plot is revealed. So, this is a pre-emptive action against
Trump winning re-election. It seems Nancy Pelosi was consulted by Secretary of Defense Esper
first, although she denies she was briefed about the asassination. Well, we all know where to
stick her denials, don't we?
https://www.enmnews.com/2020/01/03/pelosi-briefed-thursday-night-after-strike-killing-soleimani/
"Trump inherited the mess. Perhaps he is trying to salvage something out of it."
Admittedly he did inherit this mess. However, IMO, he's done nothing to salvage it. He
fired missiles into Syria on the basis of false propaganda and while he's ostensibly ordered
troops out of Syria, it's like the Pentagon is thumbing their nose at him, while he tweets.
And rather than putting in place a plan and executing on getting out of the wars that have
cost us trillions of dollars and destabilized the entire Middle East he's just aggravated it
further by blowing up people on the Iraqi/Syrian border. And now he's escalated it further.
The bodybags still keep coming home from Afghanistan, where we know with certainty that we'll
have to exit and that it will revert back to its natural state. I'm afraid he just went along
to get along with the neocon warmongers that he's ensconced in all the top places in his
administration.
In many ways Trump seems like Governor William J. Le Petomane, in Blazing Saddles.
Yours is precisely the point. Iraq was a secular country under the "tyrannical" Saddam's
Baathist regime. So is Syria a secular country under Assad. Saddam had nothing to do with
9/11. The Saudis did. He would have been a natural counter-weight to Iran. Of course he may
have kicked out the Al Sauds soon enough to hang out in London, New York and Paris after he
consolidated Kuwait. That may have been a good thing in hindsight.
Bush & Cheney supported by both parties invaded Iraq and created the ascendancy of
Iran. Then Obama comes along and aids & abets Al Qaeda to head-chop Christians in Syria,
once again with support from both our political parties.
Trump comes along as the "no more wasting money in the Middle East" guy. But surrounds
himself with all neocons including his daughter & son-in-law. And he has shown to be
generally clueless on anything beyond one slide on a Powerpoint. He thinks he's still on the
set of The Apprentice.
I'd like to say that the US is no longer a Constitutional Republic. We have law
enforcement & intelligence who ran a coup attempt and half the country thinks that was a
good thing. We have coteries that lie and propagandize us into war that has cost the American
people several trillion that they've had to borrow from future generations. With the Patriot
Act, FISA and all kinds of other "anti-terrorist laws", we essentially have a lawless
national security surveillance state.
We are fucked because so many of our fellow citizens fall for the black & white Rambo
movie plot, while their ass is being taken to the cleaners.
Amen! Most Americans are ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL. They don't know which way is UP! They haven't a
clue. They are easy prey to the progandists in the US government (dominated by
Zionists/Israel-Firsters) and in the US media (also dominated by the Zionist narrative).
In addition Eric forgot what happened on December 29th and the reason for Suleimani to be
in Iraq early on Friday morning: to attend the funeral of the Iraqi soldiers who died during
those strikes neal al-Qaim.
Do other countries have any right to self determination?
How would Americans react to foreign powers controlling our country and killing our
citizens at will?
When we instilled a democracy in Shiite majority Iraq who would get voted into power? What
was the result of disbanding the Arab baathist Iraqi army?
There is a reason civilized nations do not do assassinations, but then you may have forgotten
how WW1 started.
I shudder at the world you plan to leave our children, but empires do not last forever (or
much longer with an easily manipulated moron in charge) and you may live to see
assassinations of Americans on US soil as common "geopolitics."
No but he could well have gone to the top in their politics as his next career move. With a
satisfaction rating over 80% he was a probable future President.
Unintended consequences of a high level assassination.
No good pathway to de-escalate for any side once open hostilities start.
Block heads running things (President f---ing moron - quote Tillerson), born again
fundamentalists believing in the second coming calling the shots on one side and the Mahdi on
the other.
But if you want to focus on a title, I guess nothing to see.
EN: So you, like many here, are fine with people that organize attacks on our
embassies?
I fully agree, outrageous! Simply outragepus! Now of course I have to reflect in what ways
those men could have joined Americans in celebration of the dead of their comrades.
ISL: There is a reason civilized nations do not do assassinations
didn't Trump suggest somewhere that the Geneva Convention is obsolete anyway? Not that it
matters anyway anymore, other then to US soldiers maybe? Some of them? ... The US writes the
rules for to its own convience anyway?
Please don't laugh or pooh-pooh if I introduce Christian preacher - activist Rick Wiles'
assessment of the penetration and protests at the US embassy in Baghdad: Wiles, whose
colleague spent time in Iraq w/ US military, asked how it was that "Iraqi" protesters could
get inside the Green Zone, apparently protected by a 10 mile perimeter, and also inside the
building itself, to cause damage.
How is it Reuters was on the scene to photograph the protests and the damage?
How is it the protesters were so quickly called off by a word from the PM?
US military guards the embassy, right?
If one argued that Iraqi soldiers permitted Iraqi protesters to gain access, that could
make sense: didn't Russian soldiers refuse to fire upon citizens who stormed the Czar's
palace?
But that is apparently not what happened.
So Wiles conjectures that US military allowed the penetration and destruction of US
embassy, in order to blame it on _____ . Callers to C Span Washington Journal this morning
raised the issue of "Iranians took our embassy in 1979." Do tell.
Eric, you make many assertions, but provide no facts to support them. For example, you claim
Soleimani was planning attacks on both US troops and our embassy. You also claim Iran took
over our embassy. However, you provide no facts supporting those assertions and I am not
aware of any. So tell us, what evidence or facts do you have proving your claims?
Additionally, you seem to have skipped over the part where Bush agreed all US troops would
withdraw from Iraq and Obama was unwilling to agree to have US troops remain if they would be
subject to the Iraqi justice system. So all of them left, only for some to be allowed back
when ISIS threatened.
Obviously, when all US troops left Iran did not take over Iraq. When all US troops leave
again, which Trump just about insured will happen very soon, Iran will again not take over
Iraq. They will remain allies, but one will not rule the other.
"I'm a 100% isolationist personally, but if you're not, you have to do something to keep Iran
in its place. I recognize that there's a lot I don't understand about reasons to not be an
isolationist and maybe there are good reasons."
Tell me, if you are a "100% isolationist" why must Iran be kept "in its place"? Then, tell
me how many countries Iran has invaded in the last 100 years? (The answer is - ZERO!)
It's good that you recognize that there are things that you don't know or understand.
Blindly following Trump will not lead you to greater understanding. Nor will making excuses
for people when they betray you.
"Soleimani was in Iraq architecting attacks on the US embassy and on Americans."
Wrong, actually, but don't let facts get in the way.
Soleimani was in Iraq to attend the funeral of Iraqi soldiers killed by US airstrikes.
That is a fact.
So the US took the opportunity to kill him. Via airstrike. That is also a fact.
Perhaps you should take off those blinkers for once and consider this possibility: most of
what you think you understand about this has been brought to your attention by people who
have made a career out of lying to you.
When anti-Syria propaganda was running strongest, "Assad must go" I always asked "Then what?
What comes next?"
We have a big stick but we need more than running around clubbing others. We never should
have abandoned the international law we helped to create.
We can create fear, most people fear a powerful bully but they don't respect them and will
work to undermine them. It is a weak form of power and sooner or later you end up
isolated.
All stick and no carrot, hard power and no soft power just isn't a vision you can build
on. So, Now what? What comes next? What comes after a war with Iran?
O/T, perhaps: Machiavelli wrote in The Prince that the effective leader must be feared AND
loved: were he only feared, the people would turn against him as quickly as an opportunity
emerged.
I donated a significant sum (all things being relative) to my local library and requested
that it be used to teach the mostly-Black and impoverished young people who frequent that
library, about Machiavelli: I'd just read about a very wealthy community in my state where
high school students participated in an essay contest on Machiavelli. They will be the next
generation's leaders. I though the poor kids in my neighborhood should have the same
opportunity.
Library administrators all the way up and down the line resisted my proposal: "Our kids
are not capable of such a project."
Instead, the library system is proliferating Drag Queen Story Hours.
They want me to put my gift in the hands of the local librarians who introduced this
program to the library system.
"So, Now what? What comes next?"
Drag Queen Story Hours for your 1 yr to 5th grade children and grandchildren.
Your son - grandson dressed in high heels, chiffon, and a wig.
Your little girl telling you she needs drugs and surgery because she "feels like a boy."
When I had to move out of a large house into a small apartment recently, I donated over 900
books from my personal library to the local university library. My books reflected my major
and minor areas of study: Literature from all periods of English and American authors, many
books on the theories and research about linguistic theory and often brain research in regard
to linguistics. I also had many books from my minor in German.
I was an avid user of libraries from the time I was quite young. My mother dropped me and
my siblings off at the local library while she did the Saturday shopping and bill paying. The
librarians never directed us in regard to what we should study. They helped us to find
resources on each of our varied interests. My brother and two sisters had quite different
interests from mine. I was then studying all I could in Greek and Roman mythology and in the
Acient history of Greece and Rome.
It's the old, You can take the horse to the water, but...." Expose children to the rewards
they get from reading and studying, but let their own personal interests determine what they
read.
Our problem is not that our students now "should" be reading ......(fill in the space. Our
problem is currently that our children are now totally unacquainted with reading much in
depth. They want sound bites and quick Google searches.
As for the topic of Larry's post, I'm convinced that few Americans are even aware of the
event or have any idea of why it happened and no opinion about whether it should have
happened.
I hold my breath every day, hoping that we don't become involved in another big mess that
will cause the life and maiming of our young people in the military and of the people on the
ground in the places they are sent to.
But I have no opinion of why or whether Trump's decision was right or wrong. All I can do
is pray fervently that really God is ultimately in charge and God will control it for His
purposes. I never assume that God is always on "our side." I just put my faith that it is all
in God's hands, no matter what the personal price I or anyone else will have to pay for His
decisions.
I also pray that Trump will always make his deicisions based on good and sound advice and
on his own sense of right and wrong. It must be hard picking and choosing from the many
people who surround him and from their various ideas of what is right or what is wrong to
do.
I certainly did not want the previous Middle East War and do not want another.
If it makes you feel better, the only thing that Machiavelli will do for the more clued-in
sort of mostly Black poor people is put in words what they already know deep down.
The Prince caused such an outrage because Machiavelli merely described how rulers actually
behave.
prawnik, In my Machiavelli proposal to the library I urged that the works of Machiavelli
scholar Maurizio Viroli be offered to the young people. Viroli maintains that the key chapter
in The Prince is the final chapter -- classical rhetoricians know that the most powerful
theme must come last, as that is what the audience will remember. Chapter 26 is nearly a
prayer (Machiavelli was deeply Christian, tho he hated the Roman Catholic papacy), a prayer
for a courageous leader - redeemer, like Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, who would deliver Florence,
which he loved "greater than my soul," from "barbarous cruelties and oppressions" to a life
of republican self-government.
The critical concept is his deep love for Florence.
I hoped that the young people could be moved beyond the CliffNotes version of The Prince to
an understanding that would arouse passion, pride and patriotism.
We did not ask the Iraqi government for permission and we are obligated to do so, yes? Is it
possible the Iraqi government will tell us to pick up our personnel and all our stuff and
leave -- and never come back?
If the USA refuses to go then... what happens next?
I assume it is not under dispute that if those US forces refuse to go then the Iraqis have
a right under international law to attempt to eject them. After all, it is their
territory.
This isn't 2003 and the US forces inside Iraq do not number in the hundreds of thousands.
Something in the region of 5,000 is my understanding, with another 4,000 on standby. Is that
enough?
Thank you, Mr. Johnson, for your always pointed and concise analysis. If I understand
correctly, the US/Israel bloc believes it has Iran in checkmate. If Iran retaliates (or if
some provocation is arranged that can plausibly be blamed on Iran), then the Empire launches
a full-on attack. If Iran doesn't retaliate (or a provocation doesn't arise), Iran looks weak
and unable to defend itself and limps to the negotiating table, where its carcass will be
picked apart.
The only way this makes sense is if the Empire is convinced it can flatten Iran and pick
apart its carcass without taking significant losses. Is that delusional and, possibly,
"terminally stupid?"
I wouldn't use the term checkmate but I do agree that the situation is precarious for
Iran...this was a pointed provocation and they are forced to respond. But that response has
got to be well-calibrated to not bite off more than it can chew in terms of escalation. They
need a spectacle more than anything.
When James Woolsey was Trump's spokesthingie during the 2016 election, I placed multiple bets
that "Trump attacks Iran to be a 'war-time president' for 2020 election."
I've endured mocking phonecalls as Trump wildly vacillated but his NSC choices (all 4 or 5
of them...) were all NeoCons. And if you bed with the NeoCons, you catch their disease.
I haven't watched the news in the last 3 years but the phone-calls are starting again, but
the attitude is all different.
If thing keep going this way, I guess this hippie socialist is about his win bet with a
bunch of pollyanna veterans and bubble-headed conservatives who could not face reality.
I can't imagine a war scenario that is positive for the US, except for the neo-con fantasy
that the oppressed Iranian people will rise up and overthrow the wicked mullahs when things
get bad enough. I don't know anything about the internal politics of Iran, but I'm not so
sure how well America holds up after gas prices triple at the pump. Of course by that time
they'll be a draft and rationing. The only way to avoid that outcome would be to nuke 'em,
which is something I wouldn't put pass the Israelis or Trump.
I don't believe our leaders are thinking long-term, but acting out of a combination of
financial self interest for war spending in general and contracts within Iraq in particular;
and emotional self satisfaction: for powerful Boomers this kind of belligerance somehow makes
them feel like worthy sucessors to their dead "Greatest Generation" parents.
except for the neo-con fantasy that the oppressed Iranian people will rise up and overthrow
the wicked mullahs when things get bad enough
In the last around 20 years or so this was a foundation for operational planning in the
US. This is not to mention a key fact of neocons being utterly incompetent in warfare with
results of this lunacy being in the open for everyone to see.
Please add to your list the assassination of US high level personnel (diplomat or
military) in Europe by sleeper cells.
Interestingly (as in stupidly), the US also arrested the head of the Iraqiya MP who heads
the largest block in the Iraqi parliament - apparently he had the audacity to appear at a
protest of the US bombing without authorization Iraqi citizens. One suspects that Iran will
have full Iraq support in retaliation. The big question is whether Turkey makes a play and
bans flights from Incirlik. Note US carrier groups are not in the gulf or even nearby to fly
support missions...
If we are that vulnerable to iranian retaliation on so many levels as you just set out, best
we start dealing with this extortion threat right here now. Lance the festering boil and
build t a new line of defenses.
No matter what the triggering incident, we might as well accept we needed a reality check
regarding this level of global threat. Not pretty, but apparently necessary if the Iranians
are as capable of global disruption as you just present.
It did not take an assassination in Sarajevo to set of WWI, it was festering well before
and was an inevitable march off the cliff regardless. If we are that vulnerable to cyber
terrorism and infrastructure terrorism, does it matter what finally lights the match?
If the world powers are gunning for an all out war, it will happen regardless. Mind your
narratives. They are far scarier than the facts on the ground. Was this bad guy
"assassinated", or taken out by a good guy with a gun as he was poised to strike.
Why have Democrats spent the past three years saber-rattling over Russia, Russia, Russia,
as if any hint of favor or benign contact was high treason. C'mon people, what is really
going on in this world today. Who has really created this current scenario of being a nation
in imminent peril from nefarious foreign threachery by even the flimsiest of
implications.
Just a few days ago our entire national security was predicated on Trump delaying arms to
Ukraine by a few weeks. Ukraine, fer crisssakes which few can even find on a map. Isn't that
the jingoist frothing we were just asked to believe by our loyal opposition party to the
point of initiating impeachment proceedings due to Trump's alleged risking of our entire
nation's place of honor on this entire planet?
We suffer from internal hyperbole, as much as outside bad actors. A world who wants war,
will get it. A world who wants peace will get that too. Running off to the corner pouting and
hand-wringing brings neither.
I will take the other side of the Russians will help coin, if anything I would suggest the
Russians may have even provided intel to the Americans on Qasem Soleimani location and
movements, Putin was recently in the news thanking Trump for providing intel stopping a
Terrorist attack in St Petersburg recently, I still think the Russians provided intel on the
whereabouts of the head of the head of the Islamic state Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the
Americans and Putin did nothing about the deaths of the 20 Russian airmen or the cruise
missile attacks on Syria, as bad a Ally as the USA is the Russian Federation is clearly
worse, the Russians clearly can't be trusted.
why do you think the US could not have this intel on its own? A high level visit to a
friendly nation by a top military and you have to posit Russians? You insult US Intel.
The Russians aren't going to do anything, Putin does whats best for Russia, he is clearly not
interested in confronting the Americans and if anything would probably like to see Iranian
influence in Syria diminished. 20 dead airmen, cruise missile attacks in Syria and he didn't
do anything. If anything my money is on the Russians providing intel to the US on Qasem
Soleiman's location and movements. I still think they provided intel on the location of the
Islamic state leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and last week Putin was thanking Trump for intel
that stopped an attack in St Petersburg, so perhaps rolling over on Soleiman was his way of
saying thanks to Trump. I don't think the Russians intentions are as pure as people think. As
untrustworthy as the USA is the Russians are worse.
I still think they provided intel on the location of the Islamic state leader Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, and last week Putin was thanking Trump for intel that stopped an attack in St
Petersburg,
What a fantastically convoluted scenario. Russia and the US are cooperating on terrorism
threats for years now, and the latest on St. Petersburg was not the first one issued by the
US. Russia wouldn't mind some limits to Iranian influence in Syria but not at the price of
surrendering a man who was to a large degree responsible for getting Russia into Syria and
cooperating with her there, which was a crucial factor in success of the campaign. I also do
not see problems with US "developing" own targeting on Baghdadi w/o any Russia's help.
Rand Paul opposing the nomination of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, March 2018: "I'm
perplexed by the nomination of people who love the Iraq War so much that they would advocate
for a war with Iran next. It goes against most of the things President Trump campaigned
on."
It has been pointed out to me that until his retirement in October 2019, JCS Chairman Joe
Dunford was a factor in tempering neocon fervor for war. The same was true for his
predecessor Martin Dempsey. Now we have a self-described "West Point Mafia" class of 1986 and
a JCS Chairman far more politically motivated than Dunford and Dempsey. This looks to be to
be more dangerous than when Bolton the chicken hawk was running around the West Wing. This is
a recent Politico profile of the new Defense team, including Pompeo, Esper and other key
national security advisors to Trump.
Thanks for the link. The Trump triumvirate of class of '86 advisors did the minimum time
on active duty and left service for greener pastures. The move to politics is reminiscent of
the neocons decameron mentioned on the prior thread. It looks like the move to war which only
the neocons want is coming on in full force.
It must be late in Spain. The trio left active duty in the early 90s; that's almost 3 decades
ago and plenty of time to "earn their own merits" but not necessarily enough to earn
wisdom.
After around 25 people were killed by a U.S. attack over the weekend, and subsequently the
damage was being done to the "embassy" in Iraq, it looked like a real problem was developing.
But it seemed as if Iraqi security people had let the demonstrators and attackers into the
area where the U.S. embassy is, and then the following day were not letting them in, and so
the embassy cleanup would begin. At that time I felt better about the situation. In other
words, the Iraqi government, such that it is, allowed the protest and damage at the embassy
to occur, and then was stopping it after making the point of a protest.
However, that defusing of the situation by the Iraqi government by shutting down the
embassy protest was for naught when the ignorant people in the U.S. government carried out
the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and several others inside Iraq
itself. Now there is a real problem.
I am curious LJ. Some lateral drift on my part.
Been reading that much of the funding for these proxies are from coming Iran. According to
the Treasury. So the following is BS from State?
(Nov 2019)
"The State Department's most recent Country Reports on Terrorism, released Friday, stated
that Iran is still the "world's worst state sponsor of terrorism," spending nearly $1 billion
per year to support terror groups including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad."
There is much nashing of proverbial teeth in our media. Peeps like Sen Graham saying "the
Iraqi's need to choose between us or Iran."
(That choice is a Sunni sandwich with Kurdish Bread and Shia Mayo)
There critical mass in 72 hours and the straight of Hormuz will be closing soon.
LJ are you stating that there was no Intel on emerging threats from Iran? Or the strike
Saudi oil plant was not via Iran?
Seems to me China and Russia have to much $$$ invested in Iran to see it go up in smoke.
Given the real masters of the universe are the very rich, would the Iranians see them as
logical targets?
Sheldon Adelson comes to mind, as he is a primary backer of both Trump and Netanyahu. As well
as likely not known, or appealing to Trump's base, so avenging his death wouldn't appeal in
the same way as soldiers or diplomats. Especially leading up to the election. Not only that,
but if the very rich were to sense their Gulfstreams are somewhat vulnerable to someone with
a Stinger at the end of the runway in quite a few tourist destinations, Davos, etc, the
pressure from the People Who Really Matter might be against further conflict.
The rule of law has its uses and destroying the structure on which their world rests does
have consequences.
The US airstrike that killed a senior Iranian commander near Baghdad will exacerbate
tensions throughout the Middle East, the Russian foreign ministry has warned. Qassem Soleimani,
the commander of Iran's Quds Force, was killed in a US operation at Baghdad International
Airport on Friday morning. Moscow considers the operation "an adventurous move that will
lead to an escalation of tension throughout the region," the ministry said.
"Soleimani served devotedly the cause of defending the national interests of Iran. We
express our sincere condolences to the Iranian people," the short statement
said.
The Russian Defense Ministry slammed the US airstrike that targeted the Iranian general as
"short-sighted," warning that it would lead to a "rapid escalation" of tensions
in the Middle East and would be detrimental to international security in general.
The ministry also praised Soleimani's efforts in fighting international terrorist groups in
Syria and Iraq by saying that his achievements in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS) in Syria are "undeniable."
The targeted assassination has sparked anger in Iran and Iraq. Officials in Tehran pledged
to avenge the death of the high-profile member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)
while Iran's caretaker prime minister called it an act of aggression against his country that
violates the terms under which American troops are hosted on Iraqi soil.
Washington considers the IRGC a terrorist organization and claims Soleimani was plotting
attacks on American citizens. The killing comes days after Iran-backed Iraqi militias staged a
riot at the US embassy in Baghdad, a response to US retaliatory airstrikes at militia
forces.
Military commanders are in dangerous occupation and the death is always lurking around. Loss
of one, even extremely talented, general does not mean much for Iran army. Acquiring a military new technology is of higher
priority then retaliation. Larger geopolitical realities should be given top considerations. Right now conflict with the USA
means compete destruction of the Iran. The decision to go ahead with the construction of nuclear bomb is
credible option as it will protect the country from the direct invasion and devastating air strikes.
And while the US action violated international norms, the decision to retaliate immediately at the US forces in Iraq and
elsewhere is
stupid and shortsighted.
Actually alliance of Iran with Syria and Iraq (82 million, 40 million, 17 million) would be very formidable military
alliance, which is capable to protect itself from anybody but the USA, Russia and China. If they add nuclear armed Pakistan, even
the USA would think twise attacking any of the country.
The US govt has confirmed it deliberately targeted leading Iranian general Qassem Soleimani
in its missile (some say drone) attack near Baghdad airport that killed 10 people, including
Soleimani and leaders of the Iraqi Shia militia.
The Pentagon has made a public statement justifying the action as a 'defensive' act aimed at
protecting US servicemen from future attacks, claiming the general was behind recent attacks on
the US embassy in Baghdad and adding:
General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service
members in Iraq and throughout the region
There's no way this can be verified of course, and even if true, does not excuse what
amounts to an extraordinary act of terrorism against a sovereign nation with whom no state of
war existed.
The apparent craziness here is off the charts.
Quick recap. The most insane & deluded of the war-profiteers/sadists/mad ideologues have
been begging for a move against Iran since around 2005. It's the seventh and final country in
Wes Clarke's famous ' seven countries in five years ' story. But so
far it has never been attacked directly by the US.
The reason for this is the realists in the Pentagon know they could easily lose that
war.
Iran isn't Iraq. Iran isn't Syria. Iran is a wealthy, organized state, with a well-trained
and fearsome military well capable of defending itself.
The non-crazies in the Pentagon know this and know a war with these people could end up
wiping the US out in the Middle East, to say nothing of escalating wildly, up to and including
direct confrontation with Russia, that has its own powerful reasons for not wanting to see Iran
become a chaotic US vassal.
This is why, after fifteen years of talking the talk, no US administration has ever dared to
actually walk the walk. The non-crazy generals have vetoed it, spelled out what a disaster it
could become, made it clear the risks are not worth the gains.
So it always has been for 15 years – until now.
At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action
to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.
On the face of it the murder of Soleimani and the Pentagon statement of intent appears to be
some kind of coup for the lunatics. Do the war-profiteers/sadists and ideologues who seem to
have grabbed the initiative really understand what they have done?
Is Dominic Raab remotely cognizant of where his alleged rubber-stamping of Pompeo's lunacy
might lead? (Dom himself hasn't verified Pompeo's bombast yet, which may or may not be
signficiant).
Discussed with @DominicRaab the recent decision to
take defensive action to eliminate Qassem Soleimani. Thankful that our allies recognize the
continuing aggressive threats posed by the Iranian Quds Force. The U.S. remains committed to
de-escalation.
Let's hope they are all privy to some important info we don't have that means this is not
the apocalyptic suicide bid it looks like.
Time will tell.
Meanwhile "
WW3 " is a trending hashtag on Twitter, which is a little premature perhaps, but sells the
sense of horror and disbelief people are feeling. Here are some examples
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praises Donald Trump for killing top Iranian
general and says US has a 'right to defend itself' https://t.co/ZJasi2GFxX
For all intents & purposes, any talk inside #Iran of negotiation
with the US, or in choosing a more peaceful policy in the region is now over. Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei, has vowed vengeance for this attack, and it will be very bitter.
https://t.co/lKIjvHKljC By @karimsh89
Possibly significant and interesting take by blue tick John Simpson
Killing #Soleimani isn't
like killing bin Laden, who had masterminded the worst terrorist attack against America.
Soleimani was a competitor, who was highly effective in fighting ISIS as well as American
interests. Assassinating him seems like a step back to a more savage past.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, talking a certain amount of sense:
The US assassination of Qasem Soleimani is an extremely serious and dangerous escalation
of conflict with global significance. The UK government should urge restraint on the part of
both Iran and the US, and stand up to the belligerent actions and rhetoric coming from the
US.
Keir Starmer, potential future leader of the Labour Party, is also not convinced:
The Government's response to Donald Trump's actions is not good enough.
The UK Government should hold him to account for his actions and stand up for
international law, not tacitly condone the attack. https://t.co/3OCyiuphRt
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Antonym ,
The Anglo's are favoring Sunni Muslims since long time:
Yes, planning for Operation Gulmarg started way back in 1943. The British were certain
Kashmir would go to Pakistan and pulled out all the stops in advance to ensure
this.
Whereas the Zionists prefer setting all sides at each others' throats, as they did in Lebanon
during the Civil War, or when they promoted Hamas to oppose the PLO, or the terrorist
death-squad South Lebanese Army to attack Hezbollah etc, or al-Nusra Front, in particular,
during the salafist attack on Syria. Not to forget the partition of Sudan, a long-term
Zionist project.
Antonym ,
The Australian-born Major-General Robert "Bill" Cawthome, once a British Army officer
who had later joined the Pakistan Army, remains the longest-serving Director General of the
Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) for over nine years from 1950 to 1959.
I don't buy it, without real proof. The bloody hand with a similar ring isn't enough.
Soleimani is a master strategist and tactician, his intelligence service is way better than
the Americans'. I don't see him, with another high ranking official, in the same vehicle,
exposed to attack. Too careless for a very careful man.
So, Iranian false flag trick? Leak a fake rendez-vous, hide their VIG Soleimani for the next
operation, divert Iranian public anger outward at the US, unite Iraqi and Iranian resistance
against the US? Sounds more believable. Let's see
tonyopmoc ,
It seems to me, that no-one I know, noticed any news whatsoever today, nor showed the
slightest interest, when I tried to mention it. So www 3 is extremely unlikely, cos no one
gives a sh1t. So I reckon its best to ignore it. They will go back into their holes.
propaganda too much – like when you couldn't stand mustang sally again 10 years ago,
and for a special occasion they do it again, and you still think its a crap song, but join in
cos its a party, and to be polite, but you can't stand it for a 3rd time, well past its 2nd
death.
Can our Leaders please start making sense. That is what we employ you for. To represent
our best interests – not yours. You volunteered for the job, so now you have got it, do
what we elected you and told you to do.
That is Your Job. You are a Member of Parliament now.
We elected you.
Please Get on with it.
Do your Job.
Thanks.
Tony
Estompista ,
Iran isn't going to do shit.
Antonym ,
Sorry, was Qassem Soleimani some kind of saint? Did he never organize any mass suicide
bombing/ assassination of an opponent in Irak, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon or elsewhere?
Going against Sunni Arab KSA was kind of natural for a Persian Shia, working against
Israel was good for brownie points among Muslims and Western Leftovers but ultimately
dumb.
richard le sarc ,
Compared to Netanyahu, Sharon, Shamir, Begin, Peres, Rabin etc, yes he was a veritable saint.
Trump has had years to drone Soulemani. QS' morale visits to the frontlines in Syria and Iraq
were extensively documented on social media by Iranian proxies and allies. No doubt Israel
noticed them as well but passed on striking at him.
My only conclusion is to Trump's rationale is to speculate that Trump calculates Iranian
backlash is limited and a double win for him; In rallying support around the flag for
electoral purposes (what impeachment?) and providing a causus belli for a range of punishing
strikes across a wide variety of targets across Iran. The economic toll on Iran would be
crushing on top of the sanctions. Trump's khaki election gambit ?
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
When a corporation such as the United States of America falls into debt to the tune of $23
trillion USD heading into certain long term recessionary headwinds they have no alternative
but to start bombing antiquated economically challenged countries that are struggling to
survive. This allows the American bullies to feel empowered & respected through fear of
their mass text book Psychopathology that they peddle to the populations for purposes of
creating unease & fear, or terror, whatever the case may be.
The Central Intelligence Agency has been doing this sort of regime change gig forever
where they first utilize Economic Hit Men to entice leadership to acquiesce to CIA demands.
If the Economic Hit Men fail the mission the jackals are sent in to assassinate. If
assassination fails & Economic Hit Men fail, it falls to the generals & war planners
in the bureaucracy.
The end game superordinate goal for all Americans in the mix of state is to murder the
competition even if it means destroying entire regions of the world to do it.
And never forget the Queen of Mean stating that 'only the little people pay taxes'.
Believe me when I state that Leona Helmsley would push you down a flight of stairs in a
wheelchair if you were an invalid much like Richard Widmark did in The Kiss of Death.
What the United States has done is completely insanity. And for Pompeo to be tweeting that
the United States 'is committed to de-escalation' is cloud cuckoo land stuff.
I've been following this on various other sites as well. Iran is officially in mourning, and
after that is completed, they will respond
We will soon find out what that response is.
We now face the very strong likelihood of a cataclysmic war in the Middle East.
This is an incredibly dangerous situation.
My gut feeling is this is also the beginning of the end for this truly evil, parasitical
Empire.
They cannot see the consequences of what they have done with this act of terrorism.
They are fully blinded by their sheer arrogance and hubris.
I can't back this up with any links, so all I can say is that I'm hearing murmurs that the
Iranians have now told the Americans to pull all of their warships out of Middle Eastern
waters by this time next week, otherwise American warships will be attacked and sunk.
The Iranians are quite capable of doing this in the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and
the Oman Gulf (which 35% of the world's tanker oil moves through). Iranian missiles can also
quite easily hit Saudi oil fields. Who's going to buy shares in ARAMCO? The price of oil is
already going through the roof. How much do you want to pay to fill up your vehicle? or do
you believe all the MSM bullshit about twerrorists?
Anyhows, this is still all just rumour at the moment; but if it's true it's a very smart
move by the Iranians.
I was going to reply to your other comment, but breaking news that the United States has
launched more airstrikes in Iraq apparently killing 6 Shia militia leaders.
Pompeo is a raving liar and lunatic.
If this news is true, the bastards want war.
More insane provocations.
Just about to check some sources to verify this. Yes, I commented to you first before I
checked
Buckle up, things are getting very rocky.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
Americans have wanted control over the entire Gulf of Oman since before I was born.
The Gulf of Oman oil fields are the best in the entire world for really top grade oils. It's
a massive oil field.
Americans are corporate pirates not unlike fiction. Brig Gen Smedley Butler bragged of
having more territory than Al Capone. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson owns Al Capones old gun
that he purchased at auction.
MOU
JudyJ ,
For information – RT News has just reported that they are receiving reports that the US
have attacked another vehicle convoy just north of Baghdad. They have no more details at
present.
richard le sarc ,
It's just Bibi and his pet goy appealing to their 'bases'. Killing is their religion, quite
literally.
JudyJ ,
Reports now say that convoy was attacked by an airstrike at 1 a.m. local time, 6 Iranian
backed Shia militia leaders killed and 5 others injured. As a US peace activist just said on
RT, 'this attack is on local Iraqis who have been fighting against ISIL and are on their home
territory; and such attacks are totally inexcusable'.
Thanks Judy. Just heard that news over at The Saker and was about to check, but you confirmed
this.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
And they're like a chimpanzee playing with a live grenade inside a small room.
And the Chimps between you and the door.
This is fecken madness.
nottheonly1 ,
How prophetic of myself to have foreseen the end of my online commenting for all the wrong
reasons. Can't take all the shit anymore. It is indeed like the 80's Fun Boy Three hit "The
lunatics have taken over the asylum" and the meds have run out a few weeks ago.
Nobody has even the slightest idea what is unfolding now. To that end, I will state it
once more:
How long is the window of opportunity open for those who attempt a global takeover? Will
they allow Russia and China to get even more advanced weaponry?
No. It is 'now or never again' and they are going for it. Either in utter derangement, or
infinite stupidity, the people behind this takeover do believe that they can win WW3 and
after some cleanup enjoy their United States of Earth.
On the other hand, what if some folks studied STUXNET and are now preparing a number of
NPP in the West to shut off their cooling pumps and generators. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
This time although, it will be Karma for all the shit the West has done to the people of the
Near/Middle/Far East.
richard le sarc ,
The USA created Daash, as they did al-Qaeda, along with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
despotisms and Israel, so they are bound to act 'kinetically' to assure that it is
revitalised in Iraq, to attack Central Asia and the BRI.
I went to the tweets cited and noted that many blood thirsty war pigs were happily oinking
their approval for the Imperial Death Stars latest act of terrorism ludicrously called a
"defensive" action by the Terrorist and Thief who turns out to be just another lying sack of
shit.
Ian Beeby ,
So Donald Duck has confirmed to the whole world that he ordered this act of terrorism and
murder. Not only that but as it was a murder/terrorist act in another country that also makes
it a war crime. So when are we going to see him and cronies including those in the UK facing
the international criminal court for war crimes.
Jack_Garbo ,
Didn't they tell you? The US & UK do not recognize the ICC. Next
richard le sarc ,
They don't recognise it, but they control it, and their pet Aunty Tom, Bensouda.
richard le sarc ,
Well this is plainly Trump, the premier Sabbat Goy, doing his Master, Sheldon Adelson's,
bidding. Killing is central to Judaism and Zionism and American Exceptionalism. Just recently
Trump, as he obsequiously groveled to one of the alphabet soup of Zionist groups, the Israeli
American Council, that control US politics, congratulated Jews for being ' brutal killers-not
nice people at all'. The anti-Trump Zionists proclaimed that 'antisemitism', not realising it
was intended as a compliment.
Perhaps they were worried, as well, that it might be too revelatory of the lust for murder
that lies at the heart of Judaism. As the highly influential 'Yesha Council of Rabbis and
Torah Sages' declared in 2006, as Israel was bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age,
targeting, schools, mosques, power stations, hospitals and fleeing civilians, under Judaic
Law killing civilians is not just permissible, but is considered a mitzvah, or good deed.
International Humanitarian Law to the contrary was contemptuously dismissed as mere
'Christian morality'.
The Godfather of Likudnik Zionism, Jabotinsky, bluntly stated the ideological equivalent of
that doctrine-'We will kill anyone who gets in our way'. And Israeli PMs Begin, Shamir,
Sharon and Rabin all had plenty of the blood of innocents on their paws. Last year a book
appeared, 'Rise and Kill First' that listed the huge series of assassinations of resistance
leaders, often with their families ('Down to the fourth generation' as the Talmud demands)or
mere bystanders and neighbours, committed by Israel, and it was generally lauded and the
author treated with mandatory sycophancy.
The French Jewish intellectual, Bernard Lazare, noted, late in the 19th century, that Jews
had experienced conflict with the local communities almost everywhere they had settled,
despite the differences of social arrangements, religions, histories etc, and he, a firm
opponent of Judeophobia and supporter of Dreyfuss, simply observed that 'Israel' (ie Jews)
must bear at least some blame for those events. That, of course, is the very essence of
really existing 'antisemitism' today-to assert that any Jew, anywhere, has ever done a bad,
or wrong, or even mistaken thing. These are, after all, as Begin used to declare, 'Gods upon
the Earth'. However, this time, they surely have gone too far. Both the corrupt thug
Netanyahu, and the simple thug, Trump, need diversions, and they will soon get them, in
spades. Pity the poor innocents who will suffer for them indulging their blood-lusts.
Estompista ,
"Central to Judaism." And boom: there goes your mask.
richard le sarc ,
Central to Talmudic, Orthodox Judaism-unarguable. Bang goes your mask. Many Jews reject the
murderous xenophobia at the heart of Talmudic Judaism, hence the Reform and Liberal
tendencies, (and non-religious Jews), which are NOT recognised as true Judaism in Israel,
which is controlled by the Orthodox goy-haters. Learn something about your own religion
before you start pontificating and smearing.
Tallis Marsh ,
Hi OffG, I wondered if it would be possible to get an article on the Australian fires –
to get a plethora of views on the situation? Tens of thousands are being urged to evacuate
the South-East now, apparently.
Off the top of my head – a few questions to set the ball rolling if we do get an
article:
What is actually happening; how are the fires being started? Who is starting them? Why are
firefighters having trouble with all of it?
Years & years of deliberate mismanagement? Arson? Sabotage? D.E.Ws/Scalar/Smart
Meters?
Coup against current leader, Scott Morrison (maybe because he did not play ball withe the
climate change people)?
Agenda 21/2030 in motion? SDGs being rolled out etc – deliberate displacement of
people (ultimately off rural & suburban areas and into cities (I think the UN name it
something like City-densification)?
People don't need to agree – just get their views, observations and hopefully some
evidence. Anyway, just putting some thoughts out there
richard le sarc ,
It's anthropogenic climate destabilisation, as all the local fire chiefs and many of the
recently retired, have declared, for some time. Predicted twenty and thirty years ago by
science, and here, now, a few decades ahead of expectations.
Tallis Marsh ,
Interesting. I am not fully on board with the idea of human-induced climate change
(anthropogenic climate change). I need much more convincing than what is available out there
currently. Maybe humans cause an extremely teeny amount but not anyway near enough to change
our environment? Really, is anthropogenic climate change causing all the current things like
flooding, 'wildfires' landslides etc that are suddenly all happening in many different places
at the frequency & level over this last decade or so ,and suddenly being plastered all
over our MSM, press, tv etc ad nauseum without any differing views allowed to be aired
without ridicule or slap-downs or censorship?
Who are XR's funders, allies and founders? What are their deeper motives?
What about the fact that the Earth's climate naturally goes through cycles; some people
tend more towards the climate experts who believe we are now entering the cooling period, the
Maunder Minimum? People like Piers Corbyn have been correctly predicting long-range weather
and climate cycles for many years?
Also, CO2 is important for plant/tree growth? We cannot have life without carbon in its
many forms?
All these questions and more need to be explored and debated by many different experts who
have alternative views (not solely the same views espoused in the corporate media) before I
can come to any firm conclusions. For now, I feel like the establishment is hammering the
public with a cult-like religion of 'climate emergency' and suspect they want to use it for
ulterior motives rather than help the environment & humans – probably part of the
agenda to control the planet including humans?
Tallis Marsh ,
* Should say: " probably part of the agenda to take complete control of the planet including
humans?"
richard le sarc ,
The 'evidence out there' is enough to convince EVERY Academy of Science and scientific
society on Earth, all of whom concur with the theory. The natural weather and climate
disasters are, in the main, either being caused, or made worse, by the injection of added
energy into the Earth system that is caused by the increased level of heat trapping
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. XR's backers are irrelevant to the science. The world's
climate does exhibit many cycles, but they are being disturbed and exacerbated by the added
energy trapped in the Earth system. There is no 'Grand Minimum' just the end of cycle 24 of
sunspot activity. Piers Corbyn is NO climate expert-if you rely on him rather than the 99% of
real climate scientists who agree with the theory then you are very much mistaken, in my
opinion. CO2 is essential for plant growth, but it's levels need to be constant, or slowly
changing, for plants to adapt, not increasing by 50% in 200 years. Moreover climate
destabilisation brings high temperatures, floods, deluges and other manifestations that are
very deleterious to plant growth and well-being. These facts have been debated for 200 years,
and the science is 'settled'. Your proposition for further debate, as the climate rapidly
destabilises, is, in my opinion, akin to 'debating' the harms of sarin gas, as the victim
convulses before our eyes.
MLS ,
How exactly is AGW causing these fires? What is the mechanism?
Is the climate in NSW hotter, drier than before?
By how much if so?
How much worse is the burning?
Since the bush in that part of the world is 'designed' to burn periodically (many local
plants need fire in order to set seed), how do you separate the alleged AGW effect from other
natural causes and other non-AGW variables, such as reduction in pre-emptive burns over
recent years?
Tallis Marsh ,
Yes, all very good questions that need answering and debating by experts with differing
stances (not just cookie-cutter experts agreeing with each other with their official,
scripted stance of "it's part of the 'climate crisis!").
richard le sarc ,
They have ALL been debated for decades by real scientists, not fossil fuel denialist industry
paid disinformers. I can tell you that here in Australia, as the country burns, demanding
more phony 'debate' is NOT a popular opinion
Tallis Marsh ,
"I believe you, trillions wouldn't!"
This debate you speak of must have passed me by somehow! If it did happen it must have
happened before my time because all I've seen/heard in the press/tv/radio/school text books
was/is anthropogenic climate change-based.
Estompista ,
I swear, this guy: "The world is burning. Let's have another debate in case we accidentally
save the plamet!"
richard le sarc ,
You obviously don't live in Australia where denialism controls much of the MSM. Totally in
the Murdoch cancer. much of the time elsewhere, but it has no reputable scientific
supporters, just a cabal of aged renegades, fossil fuel stooges and share-holders in coal
mines. The 'debate' was OVER thirty years ago, and the rest has been fossil fuel propaganda
and the Dunning-Krugerites ventilating their lovely combination of idiocy, malice and
arrogant egotism.
richard le sarc ,
The drought in the east of Australia is unprecedented in the 200 years of White occupation.
It is almost certainly driven, to extremes of aridity, by increased average and maximum
temperatures, lack of rainfall and other depredations like widespread vegetation clearance by
Rightwing 'farmers' who hate Greenies. Every single fire fighting commissioner and other
leaders have openly stated that these fires are worsened by anthropogenic climate
destabilisation, and requested a meeting with the PM months ago, but were ignored by our PM,
a denialist religious fanatic.
MLS ,
Sorry but we need data not rhetoric.
What is the measured increase in temps in the fire-hit regions?
What is causing the drought?
What is the source for it being unprecedented? By how much?
Why would clearing vegetation increase fire risk?
I have also seen it said it's the absence of clearing – due to misguided or fake
'Green' policies – that has been exacerbating the current fires.
How can we tell which is true?
What of the claims of politically motivated arson?
Climate change & Australian bushfires are way off topic. No more of that here please. We
may well open a discussion of the latter soon.
richard le sarc ,
Rightio-forgive the last contribution, above.
richard le sarc ,
It is NOT 'rhetoric'. The facts are easily discoverable, at the BOM, CSIRO and the Climate
Council, for starters. Kindly look them up yourself.
Jen ,
My observation among others is that most bushfires are occurring in areas that never had any
before, or in recent memory anyway.
The state of Victoria always seems to have more severe annual bushfire events than other
states, even though other states are much drier and have more extreme weather. This might
suggest Victorian state govt bushfire emergency response policies might be wanting, to say
the least.
I don't live in Victoria but I'd be curious to know what the state of electricity power
lines in rural areas and through forests down there are like. The East Gippsland region in
Victoria (which has the worst bushfire crisis at present) is, erm, very forested. Or it
was.
Our firefighters can't cope because they're underfunded, they don't have modern
firefighting equipment and – this will shock overseas readers – they are not
full-time paid professional firefighters, in a country that experiences major bushfire events
every year.
Tallis Marsh ,
"they are not full-time paid professional firefighters, in a country that experiences major
bushfire events every year."
My! Yes, that is strange & shocking for somewhere like Australia! Who decided that was
a good idea; along with the idea of not managing the bush like they used to do for hundreds
of years. I read somewhere that the Aborigines used/use managed fires as part of their
culture too to maintain and protect the Bush.
richard le sarc ,
The volunteers usually have to work for weeks a year on real, and controllable, local fires.
This year threy have faced months, so far, of megafires. As for that favourite denialist
canard, that the bush is not being properly 'managed', ALL the fire authorities have
REPEATEDLY refuted that, pointing out that hazard reduction burning has increased for years,
but the window for safe burning has grown smaller and smaller as the climate has rapidly
destabilised, and fires break out even in winter. I hope that has cleared up that
misconception for you.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
CANADA is sending over a hundred skilled firefighters yesterday on top of the fifty we sent
first off. CANUCKS will put it out, don't fret. Our outback is much more Boreal forest so we
get really bad bush fires as everyone is well aware. We have tons of water bombers too and we
are in the off-season for our own bush fires so our gals n' guys will be more than happy to
go to Oz for the adventure.
MOU
richard le sarc ,
Most of the fires are burning in areas that have burned regularly, and recently. There have,
however, been places burned in recent years, like alpine heath-lands in Tasmania and
sub-tropical and temperate rainforests, that have not burned for centuries. The difference
this time is that anthropogenic climate change, principally through savage drought, has
worsened conditions markedly.
Doctortrinate ,
Taken from – the weekend Australian.
The Black Thursday conflagration of 1851 burned five million hectares and was so
intense that ships 30km off the coast of Victoria reported coming under ember attack
Those fires covered one-quarter of what is now the state of Victoria.
In the summer of 1974-75, the worst bushfire system the nation had faced in 30 years the
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience estimates about 15 per cent of Australia's
physical landmass, about 117 million hectares, had extensive fire damage.
In a review of Queensland's recent bushfire experience, the Inspector-General of
Emergency Management, Iain Mackenzie, had this to say: "The office heard from associations
representing bushfire managers who conveyed 'indisputable facts' about vegetated areas and
their management.
"Their points were that fires will always start, and that fire management relies on, and must
be led by, managing and reducing fuel. Climate change, they said, had not influenced the past
build-up of fuel; some fires are best left to burn, and response will only be effective if
preparation and mitigation have been effective beforehand.''
"People change farming practices, they change crops they plant. In urban areas people like
vegetation between houses, they have bigger houses, bigger roofs.
"These all reflect heat into vegetation that dries out and you have fuel."
The biggest fires in terms of area burned are actually in low-population areas of the
Northern Territory, Western Australia and north Queensland.
It is when fires occur in populated areas that the explosive combination of high fuel load
and proximity of homes becomes most apparent.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
then there's the money/support – Primonster Morrison et al, wouldn't want to see
their budget surplus going up in ashes – no, it wants profit and more, so are limiting
Government spending on many essential needs – replaced from the Peoples pocket, by
charitable donations and rainy day savings etc .same old story, happy taking short on giving
– and as Rural areas are already hit hardest – add just a little more heat, and
with volunteer fire service numbers on the decline for many, it'll be back to the concrete
jungle.
noseBag ,
You: What is actually happening; how are the fires being started?
Me: Hmmmmm .dryness .heat?
You: Who is starting them?
Me: Hmmmm .the godamnded sun?
You: Why are firefighters having trouble with all of it?
Me: Hmmmm there's a fuck-ton of it?
You: Years & years of deliberate mismanagement?
Me: Yes, spot on, and ..and then
You: Arson? Sabotage? D.E.Ws/Scalar/Smart Meters? .
Me: Can we accuse the sun of arson?
Hmmmm .I'm really not sure, maybe your wisdom could guide me?
there's billions of us, all we need, is a little food and warmth – all we want, is to
get on with our lives, in Freedom and in Peace. It unfortunate then, that there exists a
small Cabal of International Interconnected players who employ Governments of the World/
Leaders of Men, instrumentally, to the construction of divisive entanglements . Sadly it
seems, the People, generation through generation, have become so accustomed to groupthink
falsity, they see themselves collectively responsibile for the ruinous designs of dictatorial
maniacs as if the experience of repeatedly being delivered into a madhouse was a natural
element of existence.
I accidentally posted this comment under the "Douma narrative crumbles" thread, admin can
delete it there , if they like.
The news alert message was supposed to be between the brackets but somehow it disappeared.
The alert msg was supposed to say
Chief BIG Trump little penis declares bombing assassination NOT DECLARATION OF WAR.
MOU
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
And I did not upvote myself above.
MOU
Brian Harry ,
I wonder if the Loonies in the CIA/MIC are currently planning to get rid of "a very important
American", and then blame it on Iran, as justification for attacking Iran. I agree that a war
against Iran would be a dreadful mistake by the USA, but, with Loonies like Pompeo, Mark
Esper, and the likes of Bolton, still lurking in the background, they'll ALL be salivating at
the thought of another War with a staggering death count(on both sides) and so will Mr
Netanyahu, sitting in Israel, pulling the strings and directing the traffic.
It's what they live and breathe for .deranged psychopaths just cannot get enough War
."Draining the Swamp" was NEVER going to happen ..
richard le sarc ,
Excellent speculation. To get rid of Trump, the obvious 'burnt offering', and get a casus
belli for Clinton's much desired 'obliteration' of Iran, Bibi's 'New Purim'-what could be
better?
Estompista ,
Pretty desperate stretch.
richard le sarc ,
Then leave yourself alone!
Brianeg ,
"Revenge is a dish best served cold!.
I am sure that America is expecting a quick retaliation and which can be quickly
countered. I am sure the Iranians are aware of that and will either carry out something that
is deniable or just put pressure on Iraq to kick all the Americans out of their country. What
can America do, bomb the whole country into the stone age?
2020 is destined to be a very bloody and long drawn out war of attrition. Whilst the
Democrats would appear to be handing Trump his second term on a plate, by his rash and badly
planned move, this might be denied him.
I do wonder if nature might intervene. You read about the build up of seismic activity in
California and wonder if this might be the year of the "Big One"? If that was to happen then
all bets are off and all military activity will subside.
I am reminded of the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon when Buster taking the part of America comes
to Jerry's defence when he whistles until that time Buster is carted off to the dog
pound.
As Putin's actions always catch me by surprise, can anybody guess what he might do if
Iran, Iraq or Syria comes under heavy attack? I am sure in the circumstances that it would
always be the right move.
"What can America do, bomb the whole country into the stone age?"
They've already done that in Korea and Vietnam, and to a lesser extent just recently in
Syria (which is why Europe has experienced a tidal wave of refugees).
2020 doesn't have to be bloody, as long as most people can get out of the tidal wave of
MSM war propaganda.
With regard to Putin, we're fast approaching the stage where Russia and China are going to
either have to stand up to America (which means war), or else they'll have to bow down and
become part of a rapidly decaying empire (an empire than can't even look after its own
people).
With the assassination of Soleimani, I think we're now at this tipping point. I don't
believe that Russia and China will bow down to the biggest bunch of criminals/psychopaths
that this world has ever known.
richard le sarc ,
They don't need to bomb every village in Iran. Just take out the power stations,
communications, hospitals (oops, we are SO sorry)warehouses, roads, water infrastructure (as
they did in Iraq)etc and a few Holy spots to indicate the religious/fascist aspect of the
assault, and sundry others (they bombed dairy farms in Iraq). Raytheon and Lockheed must be
slobbering at the profit expectations, and 'religious' fascist psychopaths, like our own
Pentecostal thug PM, 'Smoko' Morrison, drooling as their beloved End Times draw that much
closer.
Gaudy ,
As the article says, Iran isn't Iraq or Syria. The Pentagon knows that better than the man in
the street, why else has it not been invaded yet? If they start this war they could well fail
to win it. Totally different ballgame from anything seen before in the 'war on terror'.
richard le sarc ,
They won't invade-just sit back and bomb.
Loverat ,
The other thing to mention is John Simpson while an establishment buffoon has been to Iran
and wrote a book in around 1980. A not completely bad book.
Jen ,
FreeIran2020 seems to be attracting the Mojaheddin e Khalq cult crazies and deluded Pahlavi
monarchy restorationists. That tells me the movement must be relying on the same US State
Department and National Endowment for Democracy regime-change idiots, and various Washington
NGOs, who support the Banderite turds in Ukraine and the Blackshirt thugs in Hong Kong, for
money and marketing campaign ads and slogans.
The interim prime minister of Iraq has condemned the US assassination of a senior Iranian
commander, calling it an act of aggression against his country. Qassem Soleimani was killed at
Baghdad airport.
Soleimani, the commander of the elite Quds Force, was killed after his convoy was hit by US
missiles. A deputy commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Iraqi militia
collective backed by Iran, was killed in the same airstrike.
In a statement on Friday, the caretaker leader of Iraq's protest-challenged government, Adil
Abdul Mahdi, said the US assassination operation was a "flagrant violation of Iraqi
sovereignty" and an insult to the dignity of his country.
Also on rt.com Iran Quds Force commander killed in US strike on convoy at Baghdad
airport
He stressed that the US had violated the terms under which American troops are allowed to
stay in Iraq with the purpose of training Iraqi troops and fighting the jihadist organization
Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). He added that the killing may trigger a major escalation of
violence and result in "a devastating war in Iraq" that will spill out into the region.
The Iraqi government has called on the parliament to hold an emergency session to discuss an
appropriate response, Mahdi said.
Also on rt.com Killing of Quds commander is another sign of US frustration and weakness in
the region – Iran's Rouhani
The killing of Soleimani marks a significant escalation in US confrontation with Iran.
Washington considers the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to which Quds belongs, a
terrorist organization and claimed the slain commander was plotting attacks on American
citizens.
Tehran said the Quds commander was targeted for his personal contribution to defeating IS in
Iraq and Syria. Soleimani drove Iran's support for militias in both countries that fought
against the terrorist force.
The United States of America has fallen into the trap of its own disinformation policy, as exemplified by the
work of one of its leading strategic study centres, a neocon think tank promoting war on Iran.
During the first weeks of protests in Iraq, a dozen Iraqis burned down the Iranian consulates in Najaf,
Karbalaa and Baghdad. Western analysts based their analysis on social media images and YouTube videos,
particularly those clips which showed protestors chanting "Iran Barra..Barra. Baghdad Tibqa Hurrah" (Iran out,
Baghdad remains free). Analysts and mainstream media -- primarily people sitting thousands of kilometres away from
Iraq who have never visited the country, and never mixed with the population long enough to understand the
dynamics of the country and how Iraqis
really
think – reflected and amplified the opinion that Iraq has
become hostile to Iran.
However, though every wish can come true, yet prevailing winds can defy our hopes and expectations. Analysts'
wishful thinking overwhelmed their sense of reality, notably the possibility of realities invisible to them. They
fell into the same trap of misinformation and ignorance that has shaped western opinion since the occupation of
Iraq in 2003. The invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of "Weapons of Mass Destruction" which never
existed. An information war was waged against Syria with the goal of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. The
US supported terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda for this purpose. Mainstream media coverage of the war in
Syria- mainly through WhatsApp, social media, Skype, activists and jihadists- unfolded at the expense of
destroying its own credibility, and that of western journalism in general.
The shameful irresponsibility of these reporters and analysts became obvious to a large part of the public.
There was no accountability for mass media deceptions: virtually all western media were in the same boat, totally
lacking the necessary professionalism. Western media became a mockery of the noble and demanding profession of
journalism and its mandate to report and share information without manipulation. Journalists were forced to follow
newspaper editorial policies and the political views of their owner- he who pays the piper calls the tune!
Fortunately, the internet made it possible for people to hunt for alternative sources and analyses. For instance,
to a great extent journalistic standards were upheld in Israel, the only place in the Middle East where analysts
and reporters have the freedom to tell the truth about their enemies (regardless the military censure), and about
the limitations on Israeli power. The Israeli media reported on the weakness of the domestic front in case of war
and the huge damage their enemies could inflict on the country through the deterrence policy that Israel has faced
in this century.
The Israeli government has a "Council of Risk Evaluation", which predicts the reaction of the enemy in case of
a "battle between wars", and estimates the results of Israel hitting a target or even hundreds of targets in Gaza,
Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and Iraq. That assessment is always very close to reality, unlike that of the US.
Prestigious Western think-tanks like Brookings, Carnegie, Hudson, the Washington Institute, the "Middle East
Institute" and others promoted a belief in the protestors' anti-Iran objectives in Iraq and Lebanon. They have
advocated a 'weakness of Iran in Iraq', a phenomenon based on a few street comments and a few arson-inspired
fires. Most probably these institutions did not mean to distort reality as they revealed their limited
understanding of the Middle East. Even after the US bombing of the Iraqi Security Forces on the Iraqi-Syrian
borders, some of these analysts hinted Iran would not recover and would not be able to respond, and that "Kataeb
Hezbollah" were weaker than ever. Yet the following day their sympathizers broke into the US embassy in Baghdad
and mobilised thousands of people, creating panic and fear not only at the embassy but also at the Pentagon and
the White House.
There is no doubt President Donald Trump has little foreign policy knowledge and experience. He has never
claimed the opposite. But his Foreign and Defence ministries seem hardly more enlightened.
On 27
th
December 2019, several rockets were fired from unidentified attackers against the K1 Iraqi
military base in Kirkuk, north of Iraq. In this base, as in many others, Iraqi and US military are present on the
same ground and within the same walls, even if they have different command and control HQs. Two Iraqi policemen
and one American contractor were killed and 2 Iraqi Army officers and four US contractors were wounded.
The following day, Defence Secretary Mark Esper called the Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister to inform him of "his
decision to bomb Kataeb Hezbollah bases in Iraq". Mr Abdel Mahdi asked Esper to meet face-to-face, and told his
interlocutor that this would be dangerous for Iraq: he rejected the US decision. Esper responded that he was "not
calling to negotiate but to inform about a decision that has already been taken". Mr Abdel Mahdi asked Esper if
the US has "proof against Kataeb Hezbollah to share so Iraq can arrest those responsible for the attack on K1". No
response: Esper told Abdel Mahdi that the US was "well-informed" and that the attack would take place "
in
a few hours
".
In less than half an hour, US jets bombed five Iraqi security forces' positions deployed along the Iraqi-Syrian
borders, in the zone of Akashat, 538 kilometres from the K1 military base (that had been bombed by perpetrators
still unknown!). The US announced the attack but omitted the fact that in these positions there were not only
Kataeb Hezbollah but also Iraqi Army and Federal Police officers. Most victims of the US attack were Iraqi army
and police officers. Only 9 officers of Kataeb Hezbollah – who joined the Iraqi Security Forces in 2017 – were
killed. These five positions had the task of intercepting and hunting down ISIS and preventing the group's
militants from crossing the borders from the Anbar desert. The closest city to these bombed positions is al-Qaem,
150 km away.
What is the outcome of the US bombing of the Iraqi security forces?
Iran had been struggling to achieve consensus among various Iraqi political parties. In Baghdad, it had been
impossible to unite them to select a new Prime Minister following the resignation of Adel Abdel Mahdi. Political
parties, above all groups representing the Shia majority, were divided amongst themselves and incapable of
selecting a suitable candidate. Protestors were occupying the streets and the Hashd al-Shaabi flag was not
tolerated in Baghdad square.
The US bombing of the Iraqi security forces' positions fell as manna to Iran. Secretaries Pompeo and Esper's
actions were in perfect harmony with the goals of the IRGC-Quds brigade commander Qassem Soleimani. The two US
officials broke the Iraqi political stalemate and diverted the country's attention towards the US embassy and
the break-in of protestors to contest the US bombing of Iraqi security forces.
Members of Hashd al-Shaabi and other Iraqi forces units, along with families and friends of the 79 (killed and
wounded) victims demonstrated outside the US embassy in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Flags of Hashd al-Shaabi were
flying over the entrance of the US embassy. The withdrawal of the US forces from Iraq became the priority of the
Iraqi parliament, and even of Moqtada al-Sadr.
The US paid the price of thousands of killed and wounded and trillions of dollars to maintain a zone of
influence, military bases and a friendly government in Iraq, but they have failed to achieve these objectives.
Irresponsible and erroneous analysis of the situation in Iraq and its dynamics has proved that its authors are
detached and isolated from that reality.
The US may end up being pushed out of Iraq and Syria. It may move to Kurdistan. But if the parliament fails to
reach an agreement over its presence in Iraq, US forces will no longer be in a friendly environment and may be
targeted by various Iraqi groups, bringing back memories of 2005.
One single rushed decision emanating from inexperienced US policymakers, evidently following the advice of
think tanks, has dealt the US a setback in the region. Was the advice of neocon think-tank analysts shaped by
incompetence, or simply by their agenda? They are indeed separated by a great distance from realities on the
ground in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, and US policymakers are clearly not getting sound advice on the
region.
All this plays into the hands of Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani, whose only need is to capitalize on
American mistakes in the Middle East. The US is making Iran stronger, demonstrating the truth of Sayyed Ali
Khamenei's comment: "
Thank God our enemies are imbeciles
".
This will end great, a fucked up circus called congress who hasn't had the balls to do their
job and legally declare war for nearly three decades, and a president who can't even defend
himself from a gang of thugs staging a direct coup against him in his own government. What
could possibly go wrong?
The second are the immortal words of Thucydides: "the strong do what they will, the weak
suffer what they must."
Yeah, I heard Thucydides had some issues with resolution of uncertainties for targeting,
especially for stand-off precision guided weapons. Plus there were some issues with long
range air-defense systems in Greece in times of Plato and Socrates. You know, GLONASS wasn't
fully operational, plus EW was a little bit scratchy.
So, surely, it all fully applies today, especially in choke points. Plus those Athenians
they were not exactly good with RPGs and anti-Armour operations. Other than that, Thucydides
nailed it.
Interesting to note that it was the party professing those words - Athens - who started
the Peloponnesian War, driven in large part by that haughty attitude. It was Athens that also ended that war, of course. They did so when they surrendered to the Spartans.
America's three principal adversaries signify the shape of the world to come: a post-Western
world of coexistence. But neoliberal and neocon ideology is unable to to accept global
pluralism and multipolarity, argues Patrick Lawrence.
Special to Consortium News
The Trump administration has brought U.S. foreign policy to the brink of crisis, if it has
not already tipped into one. There is little room to argue otherwise. In Asia, Europe, and the
Middle East, and in Washington's ever-fraught relations with Russia, U.S. strategy, as reviewed
in my
previous column , amounts to little more than spoiling the efforts of others to negotiate
peaceful solutions to war and dangerous standoffs in the interests of an orderly world.
The bitter reality is that U.S. foreign policy has no definable objective other than
blocking the initiatives of others because they stand in the way of the further expansion of
U.S. global interests. This impoverished strategy reflects Washington's refusal to accept the
passing of its relatively brief post–Cold War moment of unipolar power.
There is an error all too common in American public opinion. Personalizing Washington's
regression into the role of spoiler by assigning all blame to one man, now Donald Trump,
deprives one of deeper understanding. This mistake was made during the steady attack on civil
liberties after the Sept. 11 tragedies and then during the 2003 invasion of Iraq: namely that
it was all George W. Bush's fault. It was not so simple then and is not now. The crisis of U.S.
foreign policy -- a series of radical missteps -- are systemic. Having little to do with
personalities, they pass from one administration to the next with little variance other than at
the margins.
Let us bring some history to this question of America as spoiler. What is the origin of this
undignified and isolating approach to global affairs?
It began with that hubristic triumphalism so evident in the decade after the Cold War's end.
What ensued had various names.
There was the "end of history" thesis. American liberalism was humanity's highest
achievement, and nothing would supersede it.
There was also the "Washington consensus." The world was in agreement that free-market
capitalism and unfettered financial markets would see the entire planet to prosperity. The
consensus never extended far beyond the Potomac, but this sort of detail mattered little at the
time.
The neoliberal economic crusade accompanied by neoconservative politics had its intellectual
ballast, and off went its true-believing warriors around the world.
Happier days with Russia. (Eric Draper)
Failures ensued. Iraq post–2003 is among the more obvious. Nobody ever planted
democracy or built free markets in Baghdad. Then came the "color revolutions," which resulted
in the destabilization of large swathes of the former Soviet Union's borderlands. The 2008
financial crash followed.
I was in Hong Kong at the time and recall thinking, "This is not just Lehman Brothers. An
economic model is headed into Chapter 11." One would have thought a fundamental rethink in
Washington might have followed these events. There has never been one.
The orthodoxy today remains what it was when it formed in the 1990s: The neoliberal crusade
must proceed. Our market-driven, "rules-based" order is still advanced as the only way out of
our planet's impasses.
A Strategic and Military Turn
Midway through the first Obama administration, a crucial turn began. What had been an
assertion of financial and economic power, albeit coercive in many instances, particularly with
the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, took on further strategic and military dimensions. The
NATO bombing campaign in Libya, ostensibly a humanitarian mission, became a regime-change
operation -- despite Washington's promises otherwise. Obama's "pivot to Asia" turned out to be
a neo-containment policy toward China. The "reset" with Russia, declared after Obama appointed
Hillary Clinton secretary of state, flopped and turned into the virulent animosity we now live
with daily. The U.S.-cultivated coup in Kiev in 2014 was a major declaration of drastic turn in
policy towards Moscow. So was the decision, taken in 2012 at
the latest , to back the radical jihadists who were turning civil unrest in Syria into a
campaign to topple the Assad government in favor of another Islamist regime.
Spoilage as a poor excuse for a foreign policy had made its first appearances.
I count 2013 to 2015 as key years. At the start of this period, China began developing what
it now calls its Belt and Road
Initiative -- its hugely ambitious plan to stitch together the Eurasian landmass, Shanghai
to Lisbon. Moscow favored this undertaking, not least because of the key role Russia had to
play and because it fit well with President Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Economic
Union (EAEU), launched in 2014.
Belt and Road Initiative. (Lommes / CC BY-SA 4.0)
In 2015, the last of the three years I just noted, Russia intervened militarily and
diplomatically in the Syria conflict, in part to protect its southwest from Islamist extremism
and in part to pull the Middle East back from the near-anarchy then threatening it as well as
Russia and the West.
Meanwhile, Washington had cast China as an adversary and committed itself -- as it
apparently remains -- to regime change in Syria. Three months prior to the treaty that
established the EAEU, the Americans helped turn another case of civil unrest into a regime
change -- this time backing not jihadists in Syria but the crypto-Nazi militias in Ukraine on
which the government now in power still depends.
That is how we got the U.S.-as-spoiler foreign policy we now have.
If there is a president to blame -- and again, I see little point in this line of argument
-- it would have to be Barack Obama. To a certain extent, Obama was a creature of those around
him, as he acknowledged in his interview
with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic toward the end of his second term. From
that
"Anonymous" opinion piece published in The New York Times on Sept. 5, we know Trump
is too, to a greater extent than Obama may have feared in his worst moments.
The crucial question is why. Why do U.S. policy cliques find themselves bereft of
imaginative thinking in the face of an evolving world order? Why has there been not a single
original policy initiative since the years I single out, with the exception of the
now-abandoned 2015 accord governing Iran's nuclear programs? "Right now, our job is to create
quagmires until we get what we want," an administration official
told The Washington Post 's David Ignatius in August.
Can you think of a blunter confession of intellectual bankruptcy? I can't.
Global 'Equals' Like Us?
There is a longstanding explanation for this paralysis. Seven decades of global hegemony,
the Cold War notwithstanding, left the State Department with little to think about other than
the simplicities of East-West tension. Those planning and executing American diplomacy lost all
facility for imaginative thinking because there was no need of it. This holds true, in my view,
but there is more to our specific moment than mere sclerosis within the policy cliques.
As I have argued numerous times elsewhere, parity between East and West is a 21st century
imperative. From Woodrow Wilson to the post-World War II settlement, an equality among all
nations was in theory what the U.S. considered essential to global order.
Now that this is upon us, however, Washington cannot accept it. It did not count on
non-Western nations achieving a measure of prosperity and influence until they were "just like
us," as the once famous phrase had it. And it has not turned out that way.
Can't we all just get along? (Carlos3653 / Wikimedia)
Think of Russia, China, and Iran, the three nations now designated America's principal
adversaries. Each one is fated to become (if it is not already) a world or regional power and a
key to stability -- Russia and China on a global scale, Iran in the Middle East. But each
stands resolutely -- and this is not to say with hostile intent -- outside the Western-led
order. They have different histories, traditions, cultures, and political cultures. And they
are determined to preserve them.
They signify the shape of the world to come -- a post-Western world in which the Atlantic
alliance must coexist with rising powers outside its orbit. Together, then, they signify
precisely what the U.S. cannot countenance. And if there is one attribute of neoliberal and
neoconservative ideology that stands out among all others, it is its complete inability to
accept difference or deviation if it threatens its interests.
This is the logic of spoilage as a substitute for foreign policy. Among its many
consequences are countless lost opportunities for global stability.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is Time
No Longer: Americans After the American Century (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist. His web
site is www.patricklawrence.us. Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist .
If you valued this original article, please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
adversary: – one's opponent in a contest, conflict or dispute.
& I ask this
"Is it really thus"
"Why must it be thus"
How can China be an adversary of the USA when all their manufactured goods come from
China.
example:- a water distiller – manufactured in & purchased from China retails for
AU$70 odd.
The very same item manufactured in China – but purchased from the USA retails for
US$260 plus.
China should be a most welcome guest at the dinner table of the USA.
R Davis , September 20, 2018 at 04:28
While i'm here – where did China get all their surveillance equipment from –
the place is locked down tighter than a chicken coop plagued by foxes.
relevant article – CRAZZ FILES – Bone Chilling Footage Shows the Horrific
Tyranny Google is Now Secretly Fostering in China.
In my opinion Google is not trying to keep information out of China – BUT –
preventing information from get out of China – to the world at large.
A lockdown as severe as this – tells us that there is something seriously bad happening
inside China.
Maybe even a mass genocide
This analysis is correct as far as it goes. However, what is lacking is an analysis of the
lunatic monetary ideology that has looted the physical economy of the U.S. by putting
enormous fake profits of speculative instruments in the hands of our "elites." It is the post
industrial, information age economy which must be transformed by very painful loss of control
by these putative elites if the world is to survive their insane geopolitics. What the
Chinese are doing by rapid build up of worldwide infrastructure needs to be replicated here.
The only way of doing so is first by ending the Wall St./City of London derivatives nightmare
and then by issuing trillions of credits needed for that very purpose.
Agreed, you speak wisely of the root of the problem. Those who create and distribute money
make ALL the rules and dominate the political and media landscape.
This really is an excellent analysis. I would highlight the following point:
"There is a longstanding explanation for this paralysis. Seven decades of global hegemony,
the Cold War notwithstanding, left the State Department with little to think about other than
the simplicities of East-West tension. Those planning and executing American diplomacy lost
all facility for imaginative thinking because there was no need of it. This holds true, in my
view, but there is more to our specific moment than mere sclerosis within the policy cliques
"
Conformism and its consequences, probably derived in part from Puritanism and further
cemented by the alternating racisms of anti-indigenous and anti black attitudes- the history
of the lynch mob and various wars against the poor which ended up in the anti-communist
frenzies of the day before yesterday constitute the backbone of American history- is the
disease which afflicts Washington.
Don Bacon , September 14, 2018 at 18:03
You don't mention corruption and profiteering, which go hand-in-hand with American
Exceptionalism and the National Security State (NSS) formed in 1947. The leader of the world
which is also an NSS requires enemies, so the National Security Strategy designates enemies,
a few of them in an Axis of Evil. Arming to fight them and dreaming up other reasons to go to
war, including a war on terror of all things, bring the desired vast expenditures, trillions
of dollars, which translate to vast profits to those involved.
This focus on war has its roots in the Christian bible and in a sense of manifest destiny
that has occupied Americans since before they were Americans, and the real Americans had to
be exterminated. It certainly (as stated) can't be blamed on certain individuals, it's
predominate and nearly universal. How many Americans were against the assault by the
Coalition of the Willing upon Iraq? Very few.
Homer Jay , September 14, 2018 at 22:09
"How many Americans were against the assault by the Coalition of the Willing upon Iraq?
Very few."
Are you kidding me? Here is a list of polls of the American public regarding the Iraq War
2003-2007;
Even in the lead up the war when the public was force fed a diet comprised entirely of
State Dept. lies about WMDs by a sycophantic media, there was still a significant 25-40
percent of the public who opposed the war. You clearly are not American or you would remember
the vocal minority which filled the streets of big cities across this country. And again the
consent was as Chomsky says "manufactured." And it took only 1 year of the war for the
majority of the public to be against it. By 2007 60-70% of the public opposed the war.
Judging from your name you come from a country whose government was part of that coalition
of the willing. So should we assume that "very few" of your fellow country men and women were
against that absolute horror show that is the Iraq war?
Don Bacon , September 14, 2018 at 23:05
You failed to address my major point, and instead picked on something you're wrong on.
PS: bevin made approximately the same point later (w/o the financial factor).
"Conformism and its consequences, probably derived in part from Puritanism and further
cemented by the alternating racisms of anti-indigenous and anti black attitudes- the history
of the lynch mob and various wars against the poor which ended up in the anti-communist
frenzies of the day before yesterday constitute the backbone of American history- is the
disease which afflicts Washington."
Homer Jay , September 17, 2018 at 14:47
Respectfully, Your data backs up my comment/data. And to your larger point, again we must
be careful when describing such attitudes as "American", a country with a wide range of
attitudes/ beliefs. To suggest we are all just a war mongering mob is bigoted. You probably
will say that's defensive but it's also right. And making the recklessly inaccurate claim
that "very few" Americans opposed the war in Iraq, without taking into account the
disinformation campaign that played into the initial consent, needs to corrected more than
once.
Sari , September 14, 2018 at 15:15
I just encountered (via Voltairenet) "The Pentagon's New Map," a book written by Thomas
Barnett, an assistant once to Admiral Arthur K. Cebrowski (now deceased). Barnett wrote an
earlier article for the March 2003 Esquire entitled "Why the Pentagon Changes Its Map: And
Why We'll Keep Going to War" ( https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a1546/thomas-barnett-iraq-war-primer/
) describing their ideas which are introduced thusly:
"Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up with an
operating theory of the world -- and a military strategy to accompany it. Now there's a
leading contender. It involves identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively
shrinking them. Since September 11, 2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis at the
U.S. Naval War College, has been advising the Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving
this briefing continually at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now, he gives it
to you."
His basic premise: "Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity,
financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show you
regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and more deaths by suicide
than murder. These parts of the world I call the Functioning Core, or Core. But show me where
globalization is thinning or just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by
politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and --
most important -- the chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of global
terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, or Gap."
One more quote gives you the "Monarch Notes" edition: "Think about it: Bin Laden and Al
Qaeda are pure products of the Gap -- in effect, its most violent feedback to the Core. They
tell us how we are doing in exporting security to these lawless areas (not very well) and
which states they would like to take "offline" from globalization and return to some
seventh-century definition of the good life (any Gap state with a sizable Muslim population,
especially Saudi Arabia).
If you take this message from Osama and combine it with our military-intervention record
of the last decade, a simple security rule set emerges: A country's potential to warrant a
U.S. military response is inversely related to its globalization connectivity."
Of course, we all recognize how much prevarication currently exists in "implementing" this
strategy, but I would suggest that, very likely, the Pentagon is, indeed, following this "New
Map." And, yes, this "map" shows us why the U.S. has been continually at war since 9/11 and
subbornly refuses to leave Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East with their apparent justification
being "Might Makes Right." Thierry Mayssen (Voltairenet) aptly describes the Gap states as
"reservoirs of resources" driven into perpetual war, destabilization, and chaos by a
preeminently overwhelming hegemonic U.S. military.
I had to laugh. One of Barnett's reasons in promulgating this new "map" involves the
continued stability of the Core; however, what do we see today? Huge waves of immigration
greatly destabilizing every aspect of Europe and chaos and destabilization flooding the U.S.
via false/contrived polarization in every sphere of life. BUT! The military has "a Map!"
Psssstt!! Who's "creating" the Gap? Who has funded and armed Al Qaeda/DAESH/ISIS in the
Middle East? We'll need GPS to keep up with the Pentagon's "new map!"
Archie1954 , September 14, 2018 at 14:39
I have often wondered why the US was unable to accept the position of first among equals.
Why does it have to rule the World? I know it believes that its economic and political
systems are the best on the planet, but surely all other nations should be able to decide for
themselves, what systems they will accept and live under? Who gave the US the right to make
those decisions for everyone else? The US was more than willing to kill 20 million people
either directly or indirectly since the end of WWII to make its will sovereign in all nations
of the World!
Bob Van Noy , September 14, 2018 at 21:54
Archie 1954, because 911 was never adequately investigated, our government was
inappropriately allowed to act in the so-called public interest in completely inappropriate
ways; so that in order for the Country to set things right, those decisions which were made
quietly, with little public discussion, would have to be exposed and the illegalities
addressed. But, as I'm sure you know, there are myriad other big government failures also
left unexamined, so where to begin?
That is why I invariably raise JFK's Assassination as a logical starting point. If a truly
independent commission would fix the blame, we could move on from there. Sam F., on this
forum, has mentioned a formal legal undertaking many times on this site, but now is the time
to begin the discussion for a formal Truth And Reconciliation Commission in America Let's
figure out how to begin.
So,"Who gave the US the right to make those decisions for everyone else?", certainly not
The People
Jill Stein said if elected she would boycott all countries guilty of human rights abuses
and she included Saudi Arabia and Israel. She also said she would form a 9/11 commission
comprised of those independent people and groups currently reporting on this travesty.
Meanwhile we have the self-proclaimed "progressive" talk show hosts such as Thom Hartmann,
defending the PNAC NEOCONS while making Stein persona non grata and throwing real progressive
candidates under the bus.
The PNAC NEOCONS understood the importance of creating a galvanizing, catastrophic and
catalyzing event but the alternative media is afraid to call a spade a spade, something about
the truth being too risky to ones career, I assume.
See much more at youtopia.guru
Bob Van Noy , September 17, 2018 at 09:19
Lee Anderson thank you for your response, I agree and I appreciate the link suggestion,
I'm impressed and will read more
didi , September 14, 2018 at 13:49
It is always the unintended consequences. Hence I disagree with some of your views. A
president who takes actions which trigger unintended/unexpected consequences can be held
accountable for such consequences even if he/she could not avert the consequences. It is also
often true that corrections are possible when such consequences begin to appear. Given our
system which makes only presidents powerful to act on war, peace, and foreign relationships
there is no escaping that they must be blamed only.
A very good article. Spoiler and bully describe US foreign policy, and foreign policy is
in the driver's seat while domestic policy takes the pickings, hardly anything left for the
hollowed-out society where people live paycheck to paycheck, homelessness and other assorted
ills of a failing society continue to rise while oligarchs and the MIC rule the
neofeudal/futile system. When are we going to make that connection of the wasteful
expenditure on military adventurism and the problem of poverty in the US? The Pentagon
consistently calls the shots, yet we consistently hear about unaccounted expenditures by the
Pentagon, losing amounts in the trillions, and never do they get audited.
nondimenticare , September 14, 2018 at 12:18
I certainly agree that the policy is bereft, but not for all of the same reasons. There is
the positing of a turnaround as a basis for the current spoiler role: "What had been an
assertion of financial and economic power, albeit coercive in many instances, particularly
with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, took on further strategic and military
dimensions."
To substantiate this "crucial turn," Lawrence makes the unwarranted assumption that the
goal post Soviet Union was simply worldwide free-market capitalism, not global domination:
"Failures ensued. Iraq post–2003 is among the more obvious. Nobody ever planted
democracy or built free markets in Baghdad"; and the later statement that the US wanted the
countries it invaded to be "Just like us."
Though he doesn't mention (ignores) US meddling in Russia after the collapse of the USSR,
I presume from its absence that he attributes that, too, to the expansion of capital. Indeed,
it was that, but with the more malevolent goal of control. "Just like us" is the usual
"progressive" explanation for failures. "Controlled by us" was more like it, if we face the
history of the country squarely.
That is the blindness of intent that has led to the spoiler role.
Unfettered Fire , September 14, 2018 at 11:15
Is it really so wise to be speaking in terms of nationhood after we've undergone 50 years
of Kochian/libertarian dismantlement of the nation-state in favor of bank and transnational
governance? Remember the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski:
"The "nation-state" as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the
principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and
planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state." ~
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970
"Make no mistake, what we are seeing in geopolitics today is indeed a magic show. The
false East/West paradigm is as powerful if not more powerful than the false Left/Right
paradigm. For some reason, the human mind is more comfortable believing in the ideas of
division and chaos, and it often turns its nose up indignantly at the notion of "conspiracy."
But conspiracies and conspirators can be demonstrated as a fact of history. Organization
among elitists is predictable.
Globalists themselves are drawn together by an ideology. They have no common nation, they
have no common political orientation, they have no common cultural background or religion,
they herald from the East just as they herald from the West. They have no true loyalty to any
mainstream cause or social movement.
What do they have in common? They seem to exhibit many of the traits of high level
narcissistic sociopaths, who make up a very small percentage of the human population. These
people are predators, or to be more specific, they are parasites. They see themselves as
naturally superior to others, but they often work together if there is the promise of mutual
benefit."
Your comment is astute and valuable, and consequently deserves to be signed with your real
name, so that you can be identified as someone worth listening to.
Don Bacon , September 14, 2018 at 17:44
Screen names don't matter, content does.
OlyaPola , September 15, 2018 at 11:34
"Screen names don't matter, content does."
Apparently not for some where attribution is sought and the illusion of trust the source
trust the content is held, leading to curveballs mirroring expectations whilst serving the
purposes of others.
""The "nation-state" as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the
principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and
planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state." ~
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970"
The date of publication is of significance as was Mr. Paul Craig Roberts' Alienation in
the Soviet economy of 1971, as was Mr. Andrei Amalrik's "Can the Soviet Union last until 1984
published in 1969.
The period 1968 – 1973 was one significant trajectory in the half-life of "we the
people hold these truths to be self-evident" which underpinned and maintained the "nation
state" misrepresented/branded as the "United States of America" through a change in the
assays of the amalga mutual benefit/hold these truths to be self-evident.
The last hurrah of the "red experts" – Mr. Brezhnev and associates – despite
analyses/forecasts from various agencies agreed, detente based on spheres of influence
facilitating through interaction/complicity various fiats including but not restricted to
fiat currency, fiat economy, fiat politics all dependent on mutations of "we the people hold
these truths to be self-evident".
This interaction also facilitated processes which accelerated the demise of the "Soviet
Union" and its continuing transcendence by the Russian Federation – the choice of title
being a notice of intent that some interpreted as the "End of History" whilst others
interpreted as lateral opportunity facilitated by the hubris of the "End of History".
The "red experts" were not unique in their illusions; another pertinent example is the
strategy of the PLO in maintaining the illusion of the two state solution/"Oslo accords"
facilitating the continuing colonial project branded as "Israel".
Mr. Brzezinski was one of the others who interpreted the "End of History" as linear
opportunity where the assay of amalga of form could be changed to maintain content/function
which was/is to "still" control all the players.
However in any interactive system neither omniscience nor sole agency/control is possible,
whilst by virtue of interaction the complicity of all can be encouraged in various ways to
facilitate useful outcomes in furtherance of purpose, whilst illusions of the "End of
History" and the search for the holy grail of "Full Spectrum Dominance" acted as both
accelerators and multipliers in the process of encouragement, whilst obscuring this process
in open sight through the opponents' amalga of reliance on "plausible belief based in part on
projection", "exceptionalism" and associated hubris.
The "nation state" subsuming illusions of mutual benefit and mutual purpose has always
been a function of the half-lives of components of its ideological facades and practices
– sexual intercourse wasn't invented in 1963 and "The "nation-state" as a fundamental
unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force" wasn't initiated
in 1970.
Unfettered Fire , September 14, 2018 at 13:43
"In our society, real power does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the
private economy: that's where the decisions are made about what's produced, how much is
produced, what's consumed, where investment takes place, who has jobs, who controls the
resources, and so on and so forth. And as long as that remains the case, changes inside the
political system can make some difference -- I don't want to say it's zero -- but the
differences are going to be very slight." ~ Noam Chomsky
Yet there is a thread that leads through US foreign policy. It all started with NSC 68.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSC_68 . Already in
the 1950's, leading bankers were afraid of economic depression which would follow from a
"peace dividend" following the end of WWII. To avoid this, and to avoid "socialism", the only
acceptable government spending was on defense. This mentality never ended. Today 50% of
discretionary govenmenrt spending is on the military. http://www.unz.com/article/americas-militarized-economy/
. We live in a country of military socialism, in which military citizens have all types of
benefits, on condition they join the military-industrial-complex. This being so, there is no
need for real "intelligence", there is no need to "understand" what goes on is foreign
countries, there no need to be right about what might happen or worry about consequences.
What is important is stimulate the economy by spending on arms. From Korean war, when the US
dropped more bombs than it had on Nazi Germany, through Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya
etc etc the US policy was a winning one not for those who got bombed (and could not fight
back) but for the weapons industry and military contractors. Is the NYTimes ever going to
discuss this aspect? Or any one in the MSM?
All that and we constantly have to endure the bankster/MIC-controlled media proclaiming
everyone who joins the military as "heroes" defending our precious"freedoms." The media mafia
is evil.
Walter , September 14, 2018 at 09:26
The "why" behind the US foreign policies was spoken with absolute honest clarity in the
"Statement of A. Wess Mitchell
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs" to the Senate on August 21
this year. The transcript is at :
"It continues to be among the foremost national security interests of the United States to
prevent the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers. The central aim of the
administration's foreign policy is to prepare our nation to confront this challenge by
systematically strengthening the military, economic and political fundamentals of American
power. "
Tellingly the "official" State Department copy is changed and omits the true spoken
words
I would propose that the zionish aspect exists due to the perceived necessity of "Forward
Operating Base Israel" lookit a map, Comrade The ISIS?Saudi?Zionist games divides the New
Silk Road and the Eurasian land mass and exists to throttle said pathways.
Interestingly the latter essay is attributed to Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava
Brother Comrade Putin knows the game. The US has to maintain the fiction for the public
that it does not know the game, and is consequently obliged to maintain a vast public
delusion, hence "fake news" and all the rest.
OlyaPola , September 14, 2018 at 13:49
"I would propose that the zionish aspect exists due to the perceived necessity of "Forward
Operating Base Israel" lookit a map, Comrade"
Some have an attraction to book-ends.
Once upon a time the Eurasian book-ends were Germany and Japan, and the Western Asian
book-ends Israel and Saudi Arabia.
This "strategy" is based upon the notion that bookend-ness is a state of inertia which in
any interactive system is impossible except apparently to those embedded in "we the people
hold these truths to be self-evident".
Consequently some have an attraction to book-ends.
Walter , September 15, 2018 at 12:31
If I understand you correctly, then yes, some imagine that a static situation can exist.
This a natural but delusional way of seeing the world, of course – especially because
Chin and Rus are able to liquidate any counter-forces that attempt to create or maintain
"book-ends.
The actual spoken words to the Senate of Mr. Michell are very significant, as the removal
of them from the ostensibly real, but actually false, State Department "Transcript" implies.
Foolish Mr. Michell! He accidentally spoke the true objective of US foreign policy and also
the domestic objective – total bamboozlement of the US population "prepare the country
for " (Obvious, world war against the Heartland states that fail to "cooperate"
(surrender).
People ought to read the pdf what Michell actually spoke all of it and consider the
logical implications. Michell has a big mouth Good. He confirms the dark truths
The guilty according to circumstantial evidence has confessed his guilt so to say;
confirming the crime
An Israeli-Saudi "Greater Israel" dividing Syria between Saud and zion is of course a goal
that in effect would be a "book-end".
Too late now as it is clear that Syrian skies are probably going to soon be "no-fly-zone"
for foreign invaders
Then will come the "pitch-forks", as Napoleon's retreat from Moscow illustrated
OlyaPola , September 16, 2018 at 04:25
"If I understand you correctly, then yes, some imagine that a static situation can exist.
This a natural but delusional way of seeing the world"
Absolutes including stasis don't exist but the belief of others in book-ends including
extensive foreign bases are lands of opportunities for others facilitating pitch forking
without extensive travel.
Consequently some perceive that the opponents have hopes and wishes which they seek to
represent as "strategies" and "tactics" and some opportunities of lateral challenge derived
there-from.
Some would hold that the opponents' have a greater assay of the rubbing sticks school of
thermo-dynamics in "their" amalga of perception, in some regards even less perceptive than
Heraclitus although Heraclitus lived in his time/interactions as the interaction below
suggests.
One of the consequences is the opponents tendency to bridge doubt by belief to attain
comfort through iteration and subsequent projection, facilitating lateral opportunities for
others with greater perception of fission/metamorphosis/transcendence including the
"unintended consequences" -at least in the opponents' perception – without resort to
Mr. Heisenberg's deliberations, leading to some of the opponents resorting to snake-oil sales
techniques suggesting that their intent/purpose was always what they perceived to be the
concept/construct "chaos".
A further illustration of this and how it was/is not limited to present opponents citing
trajectories during the period 1968 – 1973 and some subsequent consequences was
broadcast through this portal on the 14th of September 2018 but not "published" possibly in
ignorance of Mr. Bulgakov's contention that manuscripts don't burn.
The examples used were detente on the bases of spheres of influence agreed by the
Politburo despite contrary advice from many agencies, the strategy of the PLO and half-life
of these beliefs in the strategies of Hamas.
Detente on the basis of sphere of influence facilitated fiat currency, fiat politics, and
fiat re-branding – "neo-liberalism" -, colonial projects in Western Asia, and how
opening Pandora's box was/is only perceived as wholly a disadvantage for those seeking to
deny lateral process (Stop the Empires War on Russia slogan being a useful example) and those
not so immersed helped facilitate the ongoing transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the
Russian Federation – the title being a notice of intent that opponents perceived as the
"End of History" as functions of their framing and projection.
OlyaPola , September 16, 2018 at 07:51
Some hold that New York, New York was so good they named it twice, whilst some others
wonder whether they named it twice to make it easier for the inhabitants to locate.
Following the precautionary principle I attach below a further illustration of :
" . the opponents have hopes and wishes which they seek to represent as "strategies" and
"tactics" and some opportunities of lateral challenge derived there-from ..
"One of the consequences is the opponents tendency to bridge doubt by belief to attain
comfort through iteration and subsequent projection, facilitating lateral opportunities for
others with greater perception of fission/metamorphosis/transcendence including the
"unintended consequences" -at least in the opponents' perception – without resort to
Mr. Heisenberg's deliberations, leading to some of the opponents resorting to snake-oil sales
techniques suggesting that their intent/purpose was always what they perceived to be the
concept/construct "chaos".
which was alluded to in the "unpublished" broadcast which referenced
1. "The "nation-state" as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the
principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and
planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state." ~
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970.
2. Mr. P.C. Roberts' Alienation in the USSR (1971)
3. Mr Andrei Amalrik's Can the Soviet Union last until 1984 (1969).
in illustration of interactive amalga which some call Russiagate, presumably because the
water had flowed but apparently not under the bridge.
The recent US presidential election process including the "outcomes" were relatively easy
to predict
and required no encouragement from outside – doing "nothing" being a trajectory of
doing for those not trapped in the can do/must do conflation.
Some don't understand Russian very well and so instead of understanding Mr. Putin's remark
that Mr. Trump was "colourful" which has connotations to some with facility in the Russian
culture/language, some sought to bridge doubt by belief to attain expectation on the basis of
"plausible belief".
An increasing sum of some are no longer so immersed as illustrated in
whilst perceptual frames often have significant half-lives.
exiled off mainstreet , September 14, 2018 at 00:42
This is a great series of articles and the comments, including those having reservations,
are intelligent. Since those comments appearing not to appear later seem to have appeared,
mechanical difficulties of some sort seem to have been what occurred. I hope Mr. Tedesky, one
of the most valued commentators writing in the comments, continues his work.
Patrick Lawrence's essay makes perfect sense only when it is applied to US foreign policy
since the end of WW2. It is conventional wisdom that the US is now engaged in Cold War 2.0.
In fact, Cold War 2.0 is an extension of Cold War 1.0. There was merely a 20 year interregnum
between 1990 and 2010. Most analysts think that Cold War 1.0 was an ideological war between
"Communism" and "Democracy". The renewal of the Cold War against both Russia and China
however shows that the ideological war between East and West was really a cover for the
geopolitical war between the two. Russia, China and Iran are the main geopolitical enemies of
the US as they stand in the way of the global, imperialist hegemony of the US. In order to
control the global periphery, i.e. the developing world and their emerging economies, the US
must contain and defeat the big three. This was as true in 1948 as it is in 2018. Thus,
what's happening today under Trump is no different than what occurred under Truman in 1948.
Whatever differences exist are mere window dressing.
Rob Roy , September 15, 2018 at 00:16
Mr. Etler,
I think you are mostly right except in the first Cold War, the Soviets and US Americans were
both involved in this "war." What you call Cold War 2.0 is in the minds and policies of only
the US. Russian is not in any way currently like the Soviet Union, yet the US acts in all
aspects of foreign attitude and policy as though that (very unpleasant period in today's
Russians' minds) still exists. It does not. You says there was "merely a 20 year interregnum"
and things have picked up and continued as a Cold War. Only in the idiocy of the USA,
certainly not in the minds of Russian leadership, particularly Putin's who now can be
distinguished as the most logical, realistic and competent leader in the world.
Thanks to H. Clinton being unable to become president, we have a full blown Russiagate which
the MSM propaganda continues to spread. There is no Cold War 2.0. It's a fallacy to create a
false flag for regime change in Russia. Ms. Clinton, the Kagan family, the MIC, etc., figure
if we can take out Yanukovich and replace him with Fascists/Nazis, what could stop us from
doing the same to Russia. The good news: all empires fail.
Maxwell Quest , September 13, 2018 at 13:41
"This is the logic of spoilage as a substitute for foreign policy. Among its many
consequences are countless lost opportunities for global stability."
Mr. Lawrence is much too accommodating with his analysis. Imagine, linking US "foreign
policy" in the same thought as "global stability", as if the two were somehow related. On the
contrary, "global instability" seems to be our foreign policy goal, especially for those
regions that pose a threat to US hegemony. Why? Because it is difficult to extract a region's
wealth when its population is united behind a stable government that can't be bought off.
Conjuring up Heraclitus..Time is a River, constantly changing. And we face downstream,
unable to see the Future and gazing upon the Past.
The attempt has an effect, many effects, but it cannot stop Time.
The Russian and the Chinese have clinched the unification of the Earth Island, "Heartland"
This ended the ability to control global commerce by means of navies – the methods of
the Sea Peoples over the last 500 years are now failed. The US has no way of even seeing this
fact other than force and violence to restore the status quo ante .
Thus World War, as we see
Recollecting Heraclitus again, the universe is populated by opposites as we see, China and
Russia represent a cathodic opposite to the US
OlyaPola , September 14, 2018 at 09:38
"Conjuring up Heraclitus "
"And we face downstream, unable to see the Future and gazing upon the Past."
Time is a synonym of interaction the perception of which and opportunities derived
therefrom being functions of analysing interactions which require notions and analyses of
upstream-perceived transition point (similar to the concept/construct zero)-downstream
lateral processes, which Heraclitus perceived and practiced.
Heraclitus lived in a previous time/interaction and the perception and uses of
thermodynamics have laterally changed since Heraclitus' time.
Omniscience can never exist in any lateral system, but time/interaction has facilitated
the increase of perceptions and lateral opportunities to facilitate various futures and their
encouragement through processes of fission – the process of strategy formulation,
strategy implementation, strategy evaluation, and strategy modulation refers.
Framing including attempts to deny agency to others and hence interaction thereby denying
time, leads to strategic myopia, and when outcomes vary from expectations/hopes/wishes lead
the myopic to attempt to bridge doubt by belief to attain comfort.
Categorical imperatives are kant facilitating can't, best left to Kant, although
apparently some are loathe to agree.
"The US has no way of even seeing this fact other than force and violence to restore the
status quo ante ."
The temporary socio-economic arrangement misrepresented/branded as "The United States of
America" has a vested interest in seeking to deny time/interaction including through
"exceptionalism" and a history of flailings and consequences derived therefrom.
"Recollecting Heraclitus again, the universe is populated by opposites as we see, China
and Russia represent a cathodic opposite to the US "
As above, Heraclitus lived in a previous time and the perception and uses of
thermodynamics have laterally changed since Heraclitus' time although apparently not
informing the perceptions and practices of some.
Understandably Heraclitus sometimes relied within his framing on notions of moments of
stasis/absolutes (steady states) such as opposites, where as like in all areas of
thermo-dynamics a more modern framework would include the notions of amalga with varying
interactive half-lives.
It would appear that your contribution is also subject to such "paradox" as in "China and
Russia represent a cathodic opposite to the US "
Perhaps a more illuminating but more complex formulation would be found in :
"In other parts of planet earth the assay of amalga and their varying interactive
half-lives differ from those asserted to exist within the temporary socio-economic
arrangements misrepresented/branded as "The United States of America" thereby facilitating
opportunities to transcend coercive relationships such as those practiced by the temporary
socio-economic arrangements misrepresented/branded as "The United States of America", by
co-operative socio-economic relations conditioned by the half-lives of perceptions and
practices derived therefrom.
In part that contributed and continues to contribute to the lateral process of
transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the Russian Federation previously leading to a limited
debate whether to nominate Mr. Brezhinsky, Mr.Clinton, Mr. Fukuyama or Mr. Wolfowitz for the
Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts facilitating the transcendence of the temporary
socio-economic arrangements misrepresented/branded as "The United States of America".
Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2018 at 13:29
I guess I missed this one, Patrick. Great overview but let me put it in a slightly
different context. You start with the end of the cold war but I don't. I could go all the way
back to the early days of the country and our proclamation of manifest destiny. The US has
long thought that it was the one ring to rule them all. But for most of that time the
strength of individual members of the rest of the world constrained the US from running amok.
That constraint began to be lifted after the ruling clique in Europe committed seppuku in
WWI. It was completely lifted after WWII. But that was 75 years ago. This is now and most of
the world has recovered from the world wide destruction of human and physical capital known
as WWII. The US is going to have to learn how to live with constraints again but it will take
a shock. The US is going to have to lose at something big time. Europe cancelling the
sanctions? The sanctions on Russia don't mean squat to the US but it's costing Europe
billions. This highlights the reality that the "Western Alliance" (read NATO) is not really
an alliance of shared goals and objectives. It's an alliance of those terrified by fascism
and what it can do. They all decided that they needed a "great father" to prevent their
excesses again. One wonders if either the world or Europe would really like the US to come
riding in like the cavalry to places like Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. Blindly following
Washington's directions can be remarkably expensive for Europe and they get nothing but
refugees they can't afford. Something will ultimately have to give.
The one thing I was surprised you didn't mention was the US's financial weakness. It's
been a long time since the US was a creditor nation. We've been a debtor nation since at
least the 80s. The world doesn't need debtor nations and the only reason they need us is the
primacy of the US dollar. And there are numerous people hammering away at that.
Gerald Wadsworth , September 13, 2018 at 12:59
Why are we trying to hem in China, Russia and Iran? Petro-dollar hegemony, pure and
simple. From our initial deal with Saudi Arabia to buy and sell oil in dollars only, to the
chaos we have inflicted globally to retain the dollar's rule and role in energy trading, we
are finding ourselves threatened – actually the position of the dollar as the sole
trading medium is what is threatened – and we are determined to retain that global
power over oil at all costs. With China and Russia making deals to buy and sell oil in their
own currencies, we have turned both those counties into our enemies du jour, inventing every
excuse to blame them for every "bad thing" that has and will happen, globally. Throw in
Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and a host of other countries who want to get out from under our
thumb, to those who tried and paid the price. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and
more. Our failed foreign policy is dictated by controlling, as Donald Rumsfeld once opined,
"our oil under their sand." Oil. Pure and simple.
Maxwell Quest , September 13, 2018 at 14:18
I agree, Gerald. Enforcing the petro-dollar system seems to be the mainspring for much of
our recent foreign policy militarism. If it were to unravel, the dollar's value would tank,
and then how could we afford our vast system of military bases. Death Star's aren't cheap, ya
know.
Maxwell Quest , September 13, 2018 at 15:33
I agree, Gerald. Along with ensuring access to "our" off-shore oil fields, enforcing the
petro-dollar system is equally significant, and seems to be the mainspring for much of our
recent foreign policy militarism. If this system were to unravel, the dollar's value would
tank, and then how could we afford our vast system of military bases which make the world
safe for democracy? Death Star's aren't cheap, ya know.
Anonymous Coward , September 13, 2018 at 22:40
+1 Gerald Wadsworth. It's not necessarily "Oil pure and simple" but "Currency Pure and
Simple." If the US dollar is no longer the world's currency, the US is toast. Also note that
anyone trying to retain control of their currency and not letting "The Market" (private
banks) totally control them is a Great Devil we need to fight, e.g. Libya and China. And note
(2) that Wall Street is mostly an extension of The City; the UK still thinks it owns the
entire world, and the UK has been owned by the banks ever since it went off tally sticks
MichaelWme , September 13, 2018 at 12:18
It's called the Thucydides trap. NATO (US/UK/France/Turkey) have said they will force
regime change in Syria. Russia says it will not allow regime change in Syria. Fortunately, as
a Frenchman and an Austrian explained many years ago, and NATO experts say is true today,
regime change in Russia is a simple matter, about the same as Libya or Panamá. I
forget the details, but I assume things worked out well for the Frenchman and the Austrian,
and will work out about the same for NATO.
Putin said years ago, and I cannot quote him, but remember most of it, that it doesn't
matter who is the candidate for President, or what his campaign promises are, or how sincere
he is in making them, whenever they get in office, it is always the same policy.
Truer words were never spoken, and it is the reason why I know, at least, that Russia did
not interfere in the US elections. What would be the point, from his viewpoint, and it is not
only just his opinion. You cannot help but see at this point that that he said is obviously
true.
TJ , September 13, 2018 at 13:47
What an excellent point. Why bother influencing the elections when it doesn't matter who
is elected -- the same policies will continue.
Bart Hansen , September 13, 2018 at 15:43
Anastasia, I saved it: From Putin interview with Le Figaro:
"I have already spoken to three US Presidents. They come and go, but politics stay the
same at all times. Do you know why? Because of the powerful bureaucracy. When a person is
elected, they may have some ideas. Then people with briefcases arrive, well dressed, wearing
dark suits, just like mine, except for the red tie, since they wear black or dark blue ones.
These people start explaining how things are done. And instantly, everything changes. This is
what happens with every administration."
rosemerry , September 14, 2018 at 08:02
Pres. Putin explained this several times when he was asked about preferring Trump to
Hillary Clinton, and he carefully said that he would accept whoever the US population chose,
he was used to dealing with Hillary and he knew that very little changed between
Administrations. This has been conveniently cast aside by the Dems, and Obama's disgraceful
expulsion of Russian diplomats started the avalanche of Russiagate.
Great to see Patrick Lawrence writing for Consortium News.
He ends his article with: "This is the logic of spoilage as a substitute for foreign
policy. Among its many consequences are countless lost opportunities for global stability.
"
Speaking of consequences, how about the human toll this foreign policy has taken on so
many people in this world. To me, the gravest sin of all.
Bob Van Noy , September 13, 2018 at 08:46
I agree with Patric Lawrence when he states "Personalizing Washington's regression into
the role of spoiler by assigning all blame to one man, now Donald Trump, deprives one of
deeper understanding." and I also agree that 'Seven decades of global hegemony have left the
State Department, Cold War notwithstanding, left the State Department with little to think
about other than the simplicities of East-West tension.' But I seriously disagree when he
declares that: "The crisis of U.S. foreign policy -- a series of radical missteps -- are
systemic. Having little to do with personalities, they pass from one administration to the
next with little variance other than at the margins.'' Certainly the missteps are true, but I
would argue that the "personalities" are crucial to America's crisis of Foreign Policy. After
all it was likely that JFK's American University address was the public declaration of his
intention to lead America in the direction of better understanding of Sovereign Rights that
likely got him killed. It is precisely those "personalities" that we must understand and
identify before we can move on
Skip Scott , September 13, 2018 at 09:35
Bob-
I see what you're saying, but I believe Patrick is also right. Many of the people involved
in JFK's murder are now dead themselves, yet the "system" that demands confrontation rather
than cooperation continues. These "personalities" are shills for that system, and if they are
not so willingly, they are either bribed or blackmailed into compliance. Remember when
"Dubya" ran on a "kinder and gentler nation" foreign policy? Obama's "hope and change" that
became "more of the same"? And now Trump's views on both domestic and foreign policy
seemingly also doing a 180? There are "personalities" behind this "system", and they are
embedded in places like the Council on Foreign Relations. The people that run our banking
system and the global corporate empire demand the whole pie, they would rather blow up the
world than have to share.
Bob Van Noy , September 13, 2018 at 14:42
You're completely right Skip, that's what we all must recognize and ultimately react to,
and against.
Thank you.
JWalters , September 13, 2018 at 18:46
I would add that human beings are the key components in this system. The system is built
and shaped by them. Some are greedy, lying predators and some are honest and egalitarian. Bob
Parry was one of the latter, thankfully.
JWalters , September 13, 2018 at 18:30
Skip, very good points. For those interested further, here's an excellent talk on the
bankers behind the manufacutured wars, including the role of the Council on Foreign Relations
as a front organization and control mechanism. "The Shadows of Power; the CFR and decline of America" https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6124&v=wHa1r4nIaug
Joe Tedesky , September 13, 2018 at 09:42
Bob, you are right. I find it most interesting and sad at the same time that in Woodward's
new book 'Fear' that he describes a pan 'almost tragic incident' whereas Trump wanted to sign
a document removing our missiles and troops out of S Korea, but save for the steady hand of
his 'anonymous' staffers who yanked the document off his presidential desk . wow, close one
there we almost did something to enforce a peace. Can't have that though, we still have lots
to kill in pursue of liberty and freedom and the hegemonic way.
Were these 'anonymous' staffers the grandchildren of the staffers and bureaucracy that
undermined other presidents? Would their grandparents know who the Gunmen were on the grassy
knoll? Did these interrupters of Executive administrations fudge other presidents dreams and
hopes of a peaceful world? And in the end were these instigators rewarded by the war
industries they protected?
The problem is, is that this bureaucracy of war has out balanced any other rival agency,
as diversity of thought and mission is only to be dealt with if it's good for military
purposes. Too much of any one thing can be overbearingly bad for a person, and likewise too
much war means your country is doing something wrong.
Bob Van Noy , September 13, 2018 at 14:51
Many thanks Joe, I admire your persistence. Clearly Bob Woodward has been part of the
problem rather than the solution. The swamp is deep and murky
JWalters , September 13, 2018 at 18:36
Bob and Joe, here's a solid review of Woodward's book Fear that points out his
consistent service to the oligarchy, including giving Trump a pass for killing the Iran deal.
Interesting background on Woodward in the comments as well. https://mondoweiss.net/2018/09/woodward-national-security/
will , September 15, 2018 at 22:30
people have been pointing out that Woodward is the exact kind of guy the CIA would recruit
since shortly after Watergate.
The document Gary Cohen removed off Trump's desk –
which you can read here – states an intent to end a free trade agreement with South
Korea.
"White House aides feared if Trump sent the letter, it could jeopardize a top-secret US
program that can detect North Korean missile launches within seven seconds."
Sounds like Trump wanted to play the "I am such a great deal maker, the GREATEST deal
maker of all times!" game with the South Koreans. Letter doesn't say anything about
withdrawing troops or missiles.
Funny how ***TOP-SECRET US PROGRAMS*** find their way into books and newspapers these
days, plentiful as acorns falling out of trees.
You're welcome, Joe. These things get confusing. Who knows anymore what is real and what
isn't?
Trump did indeed say something about ending military exercises and pulling troops out of
South Korea. His staff did indeed contradict him on this. It just wasn't in relation to the
letter Cohn "misplaced," AFAIK.
Nobody asked me, but if they did, I'd say the US interfered enough in Korean affairs by
killing a whole bunch of 'em in the Korean War. Leave'em alone. Let North and South try to
work it out. Tired of hearing about "regime change.'
Bob once again my comment disappeared I hope someone retrieves it. Joe
Joe Tedesky , September 13, 2018 at 12:24
Here's what I wrote:
Bob, you are right. I find it most interesting and sad at the same time that in Woodward's
new book 'Fear' that he describes a pan 'almost tragic incident' whereas Trump wanted to sign
a document removing our missiles and troops out of S Korea, but save for the steady hand of
his 'anonymous' staffers who yanked the document off his presidential desk . wow, close one
there we almost did something to enforce a peace. Can't have that though, we still have lots
to kill in pursue of liberty and freedom and the hegemonic way.
Were these 'anonymous' staffers the grandchildren of the staffers and bureaucracy that
undermined other presidents? Would their grandparents know who the Gunmen were on the grassy
knoll? Did these interrupters of Executive administrations fudge other presidents dreams and
hopes of a peaceful world? And in the end were these instigators rewarded by the war
industries they protected?
The problem is, is that this bureaucracy of war has out balanced any other rival agency,
as diversity of thought and mission is only to be dealt with if it's good for military
purposes. Too much of any one thing can be overbearingly bad for a person, and likewise too
much war means your country is doing something wrong.
Joe Tedesky , September 13, 2018 at 12:24
Again
Bob, you are right. I find it most interesting and sad at the same time that in Woodward's
new book 'Fear' that he describes a pan 'almost tragic incident' whereas Trump wanted to sign
a document removing our missiles and troops out of S Korea, but save for the steady hand of
his 'anonymous' staffers who yanked the document off his presidential desk . wow, close one
there we almost did something to enforce a peace. Can't have that though, we still have lots
to kill in pursue of liberty and freedom and the hegemonic way.
Were these 'anonymous' staffers the grandchildren of the staffers and bureaucracy that
undermined other presidents? Would their grandparents know who the Gunmen were on the grassy
knoll? Did these interrupters of Executive administrations fudge other presidents dreams and
hopes of a peaceful world? And in the end were these instigators rewarded by the war
industries they protected?
The problem is, is that this bureaucracy of war has out balanced any other rival agency,
as diversity of thought and mission is only to be dealt with if it's good for military
purposes. Too much of any one thing can be overbearingly bad for a person, and likewise too
much war means your country is doing something wrong.
Joe Tedesky , September 13, 2018 at 14:03
Thanks for retrieving my comments sorry for the triplicating of them. Joe
Joe Tedesky , September 13, 2018 at 12:25
3 of my comments disappeared boy does this comment board have issues. I'm beginning to
think I'm being targeted.
Deniz , September 13, 2018 at 17:58
Dont take it personally, I see it more of a lawnmower than a scalpel.
rosemerry , September 14, 2018 at 08:36
My comment has disappeared too-it was a reply to anastasia.
Kiwiantz , September 13, 2018 at 08:20
Spoiler Nation of America! You got that dead right! China builds infrastructure in other
Countries & doesn't interfere with the citizens & their Sovereignty. Contrast that
with the United Spoiler States of America, they run roughshod over overs & just bomb the
hell out of Countries & leaves devastation & death wherever they go! And there is
something seriously wrong & demented with the US mindset concerning, the attacks on 9/11?
In Syria the US has ended up arming & supporting the very same organisation of Al
QaedaTerrorists, morphed into ISIS, that hijacked planes & flew them into American
targets! During 2017 & now in 2018, it defies belief how warped this US mentality is when
ISIS can so easily & on demand, fake a chemical attack to suck in the stupid American
Military & it's Airforce & get them to attack Syria, like lackeys taking orders from
Terrorist's! The US Airforce is the airforce of Al Qaeda & ISIS! Why? Because the US
can't stomach Russia, Syria & Iran winning & defeating Terrorism thus ending this
Proxy War they started! Russia can't be allowed to win at any cost because the humiliation
& loss of prestige that the US would suffer as a Unipolar Empire would signal the decline
& end of this Hegemonic Empire so they must continue to act as a spoiler to put off that
inevitable decline! America can't face reality that it's time in the sun as the last Empire,
is over!
Sally Snyder , September 13, 2018 at 07:57
Here is what Americans really think about the rabid anti-Russia hysteria coming from
Washington:
Washington has completely lost touch with what Main Street America really believes.
Waynes World , September 13, 2018 at 07:37
Finally some words of truth about how we want our way not really democracy. A proper way
to look at the world is what you said toward the end a desire to make people's lives
better.
mike k , September 13, 2018 at 07:14
Simply put – the US is the world's biggest bully. This needs to stop. Fortunately
the bully's intended victims are joining together to defeat it's crazy full spectrum
dominance fantasies. Led by Russia and China, we can only hope for the success of the
resistance to US aggression.
This political, economic, military struggle is not the only problem the world is facing
now, but is has some priority due to the danger of nuclear war. Global pollution, climate
disaster, ecological collapse and species extinction must also be urgently dealt with if we
are to have a sustainable existence on Earth.
OlyaPola , September 13, 2018 at 04:39
Alpha : "America's three principal adversaries signify the shape of the world to come: a
post-Western world of coexistence. But neoliberal and neocon ideology is unable to to accept
global pluralism and multipolarity, argues Patrick Lawrence."
Omega: "Among its many consequences are countless lost opportunities for global
stability."
Framing is always a limiter of perception.
Among the consequences of the lateral trajectories from Alpha to Omega referenced above,
is the "unintended consequence" of the increase of the principal opponents, their resolve and
opportunities to facilitate the transcendence of arrangements based on coercion by
arrangements based on co-operation.
Opening Pandora's box was/is only perceived as wholly a disadvantage for those seeking to
deny lateral process.
John Chuckman,
Wow. Thanks! I have just begun reading your commentaries this week and I am impressed with
how clearly you analyze and summarize key points about many topics.
Thank you so much for writing what are often the equivalent of books, but condensed into
easy to read and digest summaries.
I have ordered your book and look forward to reading that.
Regarding the talk of a hypothetical "Iran War", I do not think Washington will actually try
invading Iran, for a couple of reasons.
1. The US does not currently have enough troops to occupy Iran. It would require a
military draft. This would cause massive opposition inside the USA (easily the biggest
internal US political turmoil since the Vietnam War). And the youngest American adults that
would get drafted are the least religious US generation ever (i.e. they are not Evangelical
fundamentalists who want to throw their lives away for "Israel" and the "End Times").
2. Where would Washington launch the invasion from? Iraq? The US will soon be asked to
leave Iraq, and if Washington does not comply it will very quickly turn into another quagmire
for the US just like it was in the 2000s. And if they tried invading from Afghanistan, Iran
could always arm the Taliban. And besides, would Pakistan really allow the US military to
pass through its territory to Afghanistan to invade Iran? I think not.
3. Russia would obviously provide Iran with military supplies, intelligence, and
diplomatic support, making any invasion attempt very costly for the US.
Therefore, Washington's options are rather limited to missile strikes, CIA funded
terrorist attacks, and other lesser forms of meddling.
The price of crude oil has jumped over $2 USD on the world markets since the news
I expect the US to fully resist being booted out of Iraq (which would also make it's two
major positions in Syria highly untenable). who could now believe that US troops in Iraq and
Syria won't come under sustained attack now, by the many allies Iran has in the area?
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Sistani considers "the #US attack against the #BaghdadAirport
is a clear violation of #Iraq sovereignty".
That is clear support for the US withdrawal from #Iraq.
AND
S Sistani condemns the "attack against Iraqi (not Iranian-militia) position on the borders
killing our Iraqi sons to the hateful attack on #BaghdadAirport is a violation and
internationally unlawful (US) act against anti-#ISIS hero(s) leading to difficult times for
#Iraq".
Really, the ball is in Iraq's court. This is an attack on Iraqi sovereignty as much as an act
of war on Iran. We will now see what the Iraqi are made of.
Trump was personally responsible for having the organisation Soleimani led declared a
terrorist organisation. Time to quit the "Trump is a dumbfuck led by others" Trump is around
70 and has been his own boss all his life. He is now commander in chief of the US military.
He gives the orders, nobody else. He doesn't give a shit about the cold war and Europe, hence
people thinking he is a peacenik. What he does care about is enemies of Israel and control of
energy.
The best revenge the Iraninans could have would be the expulsion of US troops from Iraq and
Syria, which by the way was also the overarching goal of Soleimani...
Trump doesn't give a shit about soft power. He believes in hard power. Iraq has no defence
against the US, and Trump intends to attack Iran. He needs a 9 11 to take the American
population with him.
Calls upon Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures,
in compliance with international law, in particular with the United Nations Charter, as
well as international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law, on the territory under
the control of ISIL also known as Da'esh, in Syria and Iraq, to redouble and coordinate
their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL also
known as Da'esh as well as ANF, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and
entities associated with Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United
Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support
Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council, pursuant to the Statement of the
International Syria Support Group (ISSG) of 14 November, and to eradicate the safe haven
they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria;
USA have made it very clear that they are not leaving Syria and the same thinking/excuses
likely applies to Iraq.
Some will argue that using UN2249 as justification for over-staying and virtual
occupation is wrong-headed. Nevertheless, USA claims to remain to ensure against a resurgence
of ISIS. Clearly they intend to stay until their goals are met or they are forced out
militarily.
I suspect I'm not the only MoA barfly who thinks the assassination of Hossein Soleymani could
have been planned with Mossad or other organisations and individuals in Israeli society.
The Iraqis are certainly capable of making life for the US very uncomfortable in Iraq and
Syria, even if not force withdrawal. The present US structure and numbers depend on Iraqi
acquiescence, and that's about shot, even before the assassination. If the position is to be
maintained without Iraqi acquiescence, then thousands more troops would be required, and that
wouldn't go down well back home in the States. That's one of the reasons why the act was a
grave miscalculation.
This was not Trump`s decision. Trump had to take responsibilty to show he is in command. He
will soon realize that he was played by the CIA and the Israelis. By then it is too late.
The US and its vassals are speeding up confrontation with the Axis because they know that the
showdown is inevitable. However, It will not happen according to the US timetable.
Keep a good supply of popcorn on hand. The pandora box has plenty of surprises. The question
remains,
I figure Iran will have to retaliate and thus this will likely escalate. The Saker initially
thinks war is 80% certain, I think it's probably a bit higher than that.
Posted by: TEP | Jan 3 2020 10:49 utc | 36
The Iranians would be foolish to allow themselves to be goaded like that.
"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the
opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
"... That is if the MSM get their way! Maybe I am being overoptimistic, but Russia - as a permanent member of the UNSC and a member of the OPCW - will do everything in it's powers to pursue this matter, and it seems quite possible they will be able to force it onto the main agenda within 2020. If that happens it will be impossible for the MSM to push it under the rug. ..."
"... The other aspect it is that the MSM ability to suppress this news is dependent on behaviour of the MSM community in its totality, and the relationship to reader plausibility ..."
"... What determines whether one MSM decides to break the pack and publish news on OPCW? Well, for one thing, MoA articles can influence individual journalists and individual editors! ..."
B, under the "major stories covered" title you should include Skripal, about which you wrote
many important articles; I believe ultimately - like OPCW and Russiagate - it will prove to
be history-making event in terms of impact on public perceptions of media and the ability of
the media to control public opinion. Probably eventually whistleblowers will come forward
like the OPCW, and only thin will it have it's maximum impact.
(Well, the original event was 2018 not 2019, but some of the reports were in 2019
anyway)
My predictions on these issue for next year are:
...
Mainstream media have suppressed all news about the OPCW scandal. This will only change if
major new evidence comes to light.
That is if the MSM get their way! Maybe I am being overoptimistic, but Russia - as a
permanent member of the UNSC and a member of the OPCW - will do everything in it's powers to
pursue this matter, and it seems quite possible they will be able to force it onto the main
agenda within 2020. If that happens it will be impossible for the MSM to push it under the
rug.
The other aspect it is that the MSM ability to suppress this news is dependent on
behaviour of the MSM community in its totality, and the relationship to reader plausibility.
There are a few factors that could influence this independently of major new evidence, such
as the behaviour of a few outlier MSM's that decide to release information (and whether or
not that information then takes off in the public consciousness); pressure that could build
up in social media calling for the MSM to respond and attacking MSM credibility; or other
forms of pressure from the public calling on the MSM to respond. It is therefore a dynamic
that is not entirely predictable.
Both of the above are distinct from the emergence of new major evidence, although both
cases would seem likely to provoke new revelations in turn.
What determines whether one MSM decides to break the pack and publish news on OPCW? Well,
for one thing, MoA articles can influence individual journalists and individual editors!
We need to begin by quickly summarizing what just happened:
General Soleimani was in
Baghdad on an official visit to attend the funeral of the Iraqis murdered by the USA on the
29th The US has now officially claimed responsibility for this murder The Iranian Supreme
Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
has officially declared that " However, a severe retaliation awaits the criminals who
painted their corrupt hands with his and his martyred companions ' blood last night "
The US paints itself – and Iran – into a corner
The Iranians simply had no other choice than to declare that there will be a retaliation.
There are a few core problems with what happens next. Let's look at them one by one:
First,
it is quite obvious from the flagwaving claptrap in the USA that Uncle Shmuel is "locked and
loaded" for even more macho actions and reaction. In fact, Secretary Esper has basically
painted the US into what I would call an "over-reaction corner" by declaring
that " the game has changed " and that the US will take " preemptive action "
whenever it feels threatened . Thus, the Iranians have to assume that the US will over-react to
anything even remotely looking like an Iranian retaliation. No less alarming is that this
creates the absolutely perfect conditions for a false flag à la " USS Liberty " . Right now, the
Israelis have become at least as big a danger for US servicemen and facilities in the entire
Middle-East as are the Iranians themselves. How? Simple! Fire a missile/torpedo/mine at any USN
ship and blame Iran. We all know that if that happens the US political elites will do what they
did the last time around: let US servicemen die and protect Israel at all costs (read up on the
USS Liberty if you don't know about it) There is also a very real risk of "spontaneous
retaliations" by other parties (not Iran or Iranian allies) . In fact, in his message,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has specifically declared that " Martyr Suleimani is an international
face to the Resistance and all lovers of the Resistance share a demand in retaliation for his
blood . All friends – as well as all enemies – must know the path of Fighting and
Resistance will continue with double the will and the final victory is decidedly waiting for
those who fight in this path. " He is right, Soleimani was loved and revered by many people
all over the globe, some of whom might decided to avenge his death. This means that we might
well see some kind of retaliation which, of course, will be blamed on Iran but which might not
be the result of any Iranian actions at all. Finally, should the Iranians decide not to
retaliate, then we can be absolutely sure that Uncle Shmuel will see that as a proof of his
putative "invincibility" and take that as a license to engage in even more provocative actions.
A spiritual father kisses his beloved son
If we look at these four factors together we would have to come to the conclusion that Iran
HAS to retaliate and HAS to do so publicly .
Why?
Because whether the Iranian do retaliate or not, they are almost guaranteed another US
attack in retaliation for anything looking like a retaliation, whether Iran is involved or not
.
The dynamics of internal US politics
Next, let's look at the internal political dynamics in the USA:
I have always claimed that Donald Trump is a "disposable President" for the Neocons . What
do I mean by that? I mean that the Neocons have used Trump to do all sorts of truly
fantastically dumb things (pretty much ALL his policy decisions towards Israel and/or Syria)
for a very simple reason. If Trump does something extremely dumb and dangerous, he will either
get away with it, in which case the Neocons will be happy, or he will either fail or the
consequences of his decisions will be catastrophic, at which point the Neocons will jettison
him and replace him by an even more subservient individual (say Pence or Pelosi). In other
words, for the Neocons to have Trump do something both fantastically dangerous and
fantastically stupid is a win-win situation !
Right now, the Dems (still the party favored by the Neocons) seem to be dead-set into
committing political suicide with that ridiculous (and treacherous!) impeachment nonsense. Now
think about this from the Neocon point of view. They might be able to get the US goyim to
strike Iran AND get rid of Trump. I suppose that their thinking will go something like
this:
Trump looks set to win 2020. We don't want that. However, we have been doing everything in
our power to trigger a US attack on Iran since pretty much 1979. Let's have Trump do that. If
he "wins" (by whatever definition – more about that further below), we win. If he
loses, the Iranians will still be in a world of pain and we can always jettison him like a
used condom (used to supposedly safely screw somebody with no risks to yourself).
Furthermore, if the region explodes, this will help our beloved Bibi and unite US Jewry
behind Israel. Finally, if Israel gets attacked, we will immediately demand (and, of course,
obtain) a massive US attack on Iran, supported by the entire US political establishment and
media. And, lastly, should Israel be hit hard, then we can always use our nukes and tell the
goyim that "Iran wants to gas 6 million Jews and wipe the only democracy in the
Middle-East off the face of the earth" or something equally insipid.
Ever since Trump made it into the White House, we saw him brown-nose the Israel Lobby with a
delectation which is extreme even by US standards. I suppose that this calculation goes
something along the lines of "with the Israel Lobby behind me, I am safe in the White House".
He is obviously too stupidly narcissistic to realize that he has been used all along. To his
(or one of his key advisor's) credit, he did NOT allow the Neocons to start a major war against
Russia, China, the DPRK, Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, etc. However, Iran is a totally different
case as it is the "number one" target the Neocons and Israel wanted strike and destroy. The
Neocons even had this
motto " boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran ". Now that Uncle Shmuel has lost
all this wars of choice, now that the US armed forces have no credibility left, now is the time
to restore the "macho" self-image of Uncle Shmuel and, indeed, "go to Tehran" so to speak.
Biden immediately capitalizes on these events
The
Dems (Biden) are already saying that Trump just " tossed a stick of dynamite into a
tinderbox ", as if they cared about anything except their own, petty, political goals and
power. Still, I have to admit that Biden's metaphor is correct – that is exactly what
Trump (and his real bosses) have done.
If we assume that I am correct in my evaluation that Trump is the Neocon's/Israeli's
"disposable President", then we also have to accept the fact that the US armed forces the
Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable armed forces" and that the US as a nation is also the
Neocon's/Israeli's "disposable nation". This is very bad news indeed, as this means that from
the Neocon/Israeli point of view, there are no real risks into throwing the US into a war with
Iran .
In truth, the position of the Dems is a masterpiece of hypocrisy which can be summed up as
follows: the assassination of Soleimani is a wonderful event, but Trump is a monster for
making it happen .
A winner, no?
What would the likely outcome of a US war on Iran be?
I have written so often about this topic that I won't go into all the possible scenarios
here. All I will say is the following:
For the USA, "winning" means achieving regime change
or, failing that, destroying the Iranian economy. For Iran, "winning" simply means to survive
the US onslaught.
This is a HUGE asymmetry which basically means that the US cannot win and Iran can only
win.
And, not, the Iranians don't have to defeat CENTCOM/NATO! They don't need to engage in large
scale military operations. All they need to do is: remain "standing" once the dust settles
down.
Ho Chi Minh once told the French " You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of
yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win ". This is exactly why Iran
will eventually prevail, maybe at a huge cost (Amalek must be destroyed, right?), but that will
still be a victory.
Now let's look at the two most basic types of war scenarios: outside
Iran and inside Iran.
The Iranians, including General Soleimani himself, have publicly declared many times that by
trying to surround Iran and the Middle-East with numerous forces and facilities the USA have
given Iran a long list of lucrative targets. The most obvious battlefield for a proxy war is
clearly Iraq where there are plenty of pro and anti Iranian forces to provide the conditions
for a long, bloody and protracted conflict (Moqtada al-Sadr has just declared that the Mahdi
Army will be remobilized). But Iraq is far from being the only place where an explosion of
violence can take place: the ENTIRE MIDDLE-EAST is well within Iranian "reach", be it by direct
attack or by attack by sympathetic/allied forces. Next to Iraq, there is also Afghanistan and,
potentially, Pakistan. In terms of a choice of instruments, the Iranian options range from
missile attacks, to special forces direct action strikes, to sabotage and many, many more
options. The only limitation here is the imagination of the Iranians and, believe me, they have
plenty of that!
If such a retaliation happens, the US will have two basic options: strike at Iranian friends
and allies outside Iran or, as Esper has now suggested, strike inside Iran. In the latter case,
we can safely assume that any such attack will result in a massive Iranian retaliation on US
forces and facilities all over the region and a closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Keep in mind that the Neocon motto " boys go to Baghdad, real men go to Tehran "
implicitly recognizes the fact that a war against Iran would be qualitatively (and even
quantitatively) different war than a war against Iraq. And, this is true, if the US seriously
plans to strike inside Iran they would be faced with an explosion which would make all the wars
since WWII look minor in comparison. But the temptation to prove to the world that Trump and
his minions are "real men" as opposed to "boys" might be too strong, especially for a president
who does not understand that he is a disposable tool in the hands of the Neocons.
Now,
let's quickly look at what will NOT happen
Russia and/or China will not get militarily involved in this one. Neither will the USA use
this crisis as a pretext to attack Russia and/or China. The Pentagon clearly has no stomach for
a war (conventional or nuclear) against Russia and neither does Russia have any desire for a
war against the USA. The same goes for China. However, it is important to remember that Russia
and China have other options, political and covert ones, to really hurt the US and help Iran.
There is the UNSC where Russia and China will block any US resolution condemning Iran. Yes, I
know, Uncle Shmuel does not give a damn about the UN or international law, but most of the rest
of the world very much does. This asymmetry is further exacerbated by Uncle Shmuel's attention
span (weeks at most) with the one of Russia and China (decades). Does that matter?
Absolutely!
If the Iraqis officially declare that the US is an occupation force (which it is), an
occupation force which engages in acts of war against Iraq (which it does) and that the Iraqi
people want Uncle Shmuel and his hypocritical talking points about "democracy" to pack and
leave, what can our Uncle Shmuel do? He will try to resist it, of course, but once the tiny
figleaf of "nation building" is gone, replaced by yet another ugly and brutal US occupation,
the political pressure on the US to get the hell out will become extremely hard to manage, both
outside and even inside the USA.
In fact,
Iranian state television called Trump's order to kill Soleimani " the biggest
miscalculation by the U.S." since World War II. "The people of the region will no longer allow
Americans to stay," it said.
Next, both Russia and China can help Iran militarily with intelligence, weapons systems,
advisors and economically, in overt and covert ways.
Finally, both Russia and China have the means to, shall we say, "strongly suggest" to other
targets on the US "country hit list" that now is the perfect time to strike at US interests
(say, in Far East Asia).
So Russia and China can and will help, but they will do so with what the CIA likes to call
"plausible deniability".
Back The Big Question: what can/will Iran do next?
The Iranians are far most sophisticated players than the mostly clueless US Americans. So
the first thing I would suggest is that the Iranians are unlikely to do something the US is
expecting them to do. Either they will do something totally different, or they will act much
later, once the US lowers its guard (as it always does after declaring "victory").
I asked a well-informed Iranian friend whether it was still possible to avoid war. Here is
what he replied:
Yes I do believe fullscale war can be avoided. I believe that Iran can try to use its
political influence to unite Iraqi political forces to officially ask for the removal of US
troops in Iraq. Kicking the US out of Iraq will mean that they can no longer occupy eastern
Syria either as their troops will be in danger between two hostile states. If the Americans
leave Syria and Iraq, that will be the ultimate revenge for Iran without having fired a
single shot.
I have to say that I concur with this idea: one of the most painful things Iran could do
next would be to use this truly fantastically reckless event to kick the US out of Iraq first,
and Syria next. That option, if it can be exercised, might also protect Iranian lives and the
Iranian society from a direct US attack. Finally, such an outcome would give the murder of
General Soleimani a very different and beautiful meaning: this martyr's blood liberated the
Middle-East!
Finally, if that is indeed the strategy chosen by Iran, this does not at all mean that on a
tactical level the Iranians will not extract a price from US forces in the region or even
elsewhere on the planet. For example, there are some rather credible rumors that the
destruction of PanAm 103 over Scotland was not a Libyan action, but an Iranian one in direct
retaliation for the deliberate shooting down by the USN of IranAir 655 Airbus over the Persian
Gulf. I am not saying that I know for a fact that this is what really happened, only
that Iran does have retaliatory options not limited to the Middle-East.
Conclusion: we
wait for Iran's next move
The Iraqi Parliament is scheduled to debate a resolution demanding the withdrawal of US
forces from Iraq. I will just say that while I do not believe that the US will gentlemanly
agree to any such demands, it will place the conflict in the political realm. That is –
by definition – much more desirable than any form of violence, however justified it might
seem. So I strongly suggest to those who want peace that they pray that the Iraqi MPs show some
honor and spine and tell Uncle Shmuel what every country out there always wanted from the US:
Yankees, go home!
If that happens this will be a total victory for Iran and yet another abject defeat
(self-defeat, really) by Uncle Shmuel. This is the best of all possible scenarios.
But if that does not happen, then all bets are off and the momentum triggered by this latest
act of US terrorism will result in many more deaths.
As of right now (19:24 UTC) I still think that there is a roughly 80% chance of full scale
war in the Middle-East and, again, will leave 20% of "unexpected events" (hopefully good
ones).
The Saker
PS: this is a text I wrote under great time pressure and it has not be edited for typos or
other mistakes. I ask the self-appointed Grammar Gestapo to take a break and not protest again.
Thank you
Saker, je partage votre point de vue, la pire sanction qui pourrait être
infligée aux USA, serait de leur faire quitter l'Irak (et la Syrie par ricochet)
Espérons que le parlement Irakien aura le courage de prendre cette décision
historique, toutes les factions irakiennes sont révoltées par les actions
américaines, le temps est venu pour eux d'en finir avec cette occupation
mortifère.
yandex translate mod
Saker, I share your point of view, the worst sanction that could be imposed on the USA would
be to make them leave Iraq (and Syria by ricochet) let's hope that the Iraqi parliament will
have the courage to take this historic decision, all the Iraqi factions are outraged by the
American actions, the time has come for them to put an end to this deadly occupation.
Seriously how can this happen? The USA leave? The ANZ mercenary army walk away from its
spoils?
USA formally just took control of the Oil Fields in Syria.
USA just asked all non-military to leave Iraq, USA just sent in 3500 new soldiers to
'secure' all Oil Fields in Iraq.
Seriously, there is only "One Outcome" and that is "Greater Israel", and its on track.
We know that in the past almost all the stolen oil from Iraq-Syria was shipped to Israel
via Turkey, where it was re-sold and Israel made an enormous profit.
The neocons can never lose, they're siamese twins with the neo-libs, and all NEO is ANZ;
All MSM, all country's on earth are administered by ANZ agents. Much of the 'war' between
Soros&Adelson left-vs-right NEO is just fighting over scraps that haven't yet been stolen
from the goy. NEOCON & NEOLIB are siamese twins that share a common asshole, they own the
world as the ANZ, the siamese twin is the International-Kleptocrat Elite. They have their
fingers in every nation on earth, including Iran & North-Korea. They have been
controlling China-Russia for 100+ years, all has been planned for year the 'controlled
demolition' of the USA. Most like a an engineered civil-war, followed by an ANZ re-population
of a de-populated USA with a 'beautiful wall' to protects Trumps chosen people.
The soldiers like Gabbi sent to Iraq are just mercenarys. Like Saker say's "Israel owns
the USA", Israel also owns the USA-MIL, the US-GOV, and that includes Gabbi & Trump. The
soliders in Syria&Iraq could very well die there, as the USA that they knew may not be
around in the future, but who cares? Israel controls the oil, and most likely an AIIB-SCO
deal with CHINA-ISRAEL has already been signed, with Israel as the 'Seller of Choice', China
doesn't care, and it respects Israel for its ability to lead the Goy by the nose.
The General is just one man, human life in the eye of the ANZ is worthless, the leaders of
Iran all called themselves "Living Martyrs", now their real power has begun, just like in
Lord of the Rings, when Gandolf was killed, he came back stronger.
IMHO this is all much like a 'magic show', where people talk about what Gabbi says, or
insinuate that USA will leave the mideast, all the while the USA-Israel secures the
middle-east oil fields with USA soldiers.
We know the USD is kaput, we know that Saudi oil is kaput, and the USA knows that in the
future being the worlds largest user of 'portable energy' (oil) that they need infinite free
oil.
Killing the "General", just provides the context to re-occupy Iraq, which now means just
occupying the oil-fields.
"The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the
opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself."
The brain dead 'thankyou for your service' spouting American morons and deluded American
'Christian Zionists' who put another religion before their own (whilst also forgetting about
King Solomans breaking of the Covenenent made with King David they wave in everyones faces)
will be expecting action by Iran before the weekend.
If it does not come they will ignorantly and arrogantly assume 'Victory' and make threats
of further death and murder (and gross hypocracy).
The Iranians (and Russians and Chinese) do not need to act impulsively or recklessly.
Thier time (and ample opportunities to humiliate the arrogant) will come in the months and
years ahead.
Once the world fully wakes up to the fact that the Dollar is the source of all US power
and influence globally, and then turns against it – rejecting it as the evil toilet
paper (and imaginary digits on a screen) that it is, the Satanic empire of the US will
collapse under its own weight and will not be able to support (pay for and bribe) a global
empire. No massive war, no nukes exploding, just the repudiation of worthless pieces of paper
and digits on a screen called the US Dollar.
Thank you, Saker; another brilliant analysis. There are no winners here; but this event was
not unexpected, i.e. U.S. aggression but I am surprised Soleimani was in Iraq and unaware
that something like this wouldn't happen.
Saker, a wise article on the consequences of Soleimani's murder. However, I believe you may
have the wrong 'take' on Trump only being a "disposable President." Miles Mathis wrote an
article on Trump, pre-election, that is pertinent. (Since then, Mathis has been silent on
this matter; he may have been 'warned off'.)
" both Trump's parents died at Long Island Jewish Medical Center."
"So let's return to Friedrich Drumpf, Donald's great-grandfather. Two of his sisters are
listed as Elisabetha Freund and Syblia Schuster. Those are both Jewish surnames So at least
two of Trump's great-aunts married Jewish men. This reminds us that his daughter Ivanka
married a Jewish man, Jared Kushner. We are told this is an anomaly, but it isn't."
"Trump was brought up in Jamaica Estates, Queens, which has a large Jewish population. He
went to Kew-Forest School, ditto. Trump's father was on the Board of Trustees at
Kew-Forest."
"Trump allegedly went to the Wharton School of Business, a famous spook academy."
"Ivana [Trump's former wife] is also Jewish. An early boyfriend was George Syrovatka. That
is a Jewish name. Her first husband was Alfred Winklemeier. Winklemeier is a Jewish name.
Ivana went to McGill University in Montreal, a spook academy we have run across many times.
Geni.com lists her father's name as both Knavs and Zelnícek. I'll give you a hint:
drop the second 'e'. You get Zelnick. It is Yiddish for haberdasher. Clothier. It's Jewish,
too."
"Both Trump and his father ran with top Jews in New York, including Samuel Lindenbaum and
his father Abraham (Bunny), and Roy Cohn. These guys weren't just their attorneys; they were
their enablers."
If we throw-in his moving of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, his recognizing of Israel's
annexation of the Golan Heights, his non-censure of Israeli settlement in occupied Palestine,
and his appointment of pro-Israel & anti-Iran 'advisors', a 'pattern' emerges which is
consistent with Trump being both a crypto-Jew and a Zionist. This state-of-affairs
dramatically changes the odds of escalation to a "US" strike on Iran. If Mathis' assertion is
indeed the case, Soleimani's murder is the deliberate 'kickoff' of a series of events
pre-planned to satisfy Israeli goals
A fine analysis.Trump and Co. are so busy brown nosing the Israelis they don't seem to care
what anyone else thinks. I think every Iraqi not on US payroll will demand Yankee go home,.
The us and its corporate media and the "interagency consensus" makes it unlikely ant rational
decision making will come out of babylon on the Potomac.
This 'could' be contained and may yet well be. Or it could not.
Both Iran and Iraq have been attacked. This was NOT a defensive move. Soleimani had been
declared a terrorist by the US and also declared Iran a state sponsor of terrorism.
That is the figleaf of justification the US is providing. What must be considered is that
there is a bill in the US Senate that had passed committee declaring Russia to be a state
sponsor of terrorism. If that comes to pass, could Russia be given the same treatment as just
witnessed. Not to mention that China could also fall into that category at some point soon
using the same .. errr logic.
The point here is that should this be seen as an incident that doesn't directly affect
those countries within the Resistance that weren't directly attacked, or should this be seen
as the beginning of the US campaign to establish a Global Reich while there is still
time?
If the latter is true, then it would be foolish to let this play out as purely a regional
event.
Remember Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.
The Anglo Saxons really believe there short presence will prevail against the ancient
dominance the Aryans(the real ones that is the Indo-Iranians) have exercised, physically and
mentally, in the region. They have no idea what they are going up against, technical
knowledge will not win a war.
Dear Saker,
I agree with you that hot war is very likely now and also on the possible USAn goals in such
a war. They had to learn at least a decade ago that a full-scale invasion of Iran would be so
impractical that it is essentially impossible for the Empire to do.
But they do not need that. I said I agreed with you that the USA need not invade: for them
(and the true instigator of this incoming conflict: Israel) it is more than enough if Iran is
devastated by naval and airstrikes.
So, in fact this war can and will be won by both sides: Iran may survive a full-scale war but
with her economy and infrastructure destroyed. That is what you called a win-win.
However, you also say that "Russia and/or China will not get militarily involved in this
one". And therein lies my problem.
Now please enlighten me why on Earth would the USA not deploy a couple of dozens of tactical
nukes in a disarming, debilitating first strike, thus decapitating both the political and the
military leadership of Iran, destroying all nuclear sites and also the bulk of the Iranian
infrastructure and economy (the latter one with mainly sustained conventional strikes for a
couple of weeks).
Why would they hesitate? Knowing that they need not afraid of another nuclear-armed country's
interference it would be quite rational to do so. If this happens, Iran will be in no
position for the coming decades to assist anyone else: no more aid for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq,
Palestine and Yemen. In this case it really does not matter anymore if the current theocratic
democracy of Iran survives or goes away, at least from the Empire's point of view. As a
matter of fact, the USA may even claim "humanitarian reasons" to employ nuclear weapons: it
would be claimed as a painful but necessary surgical operation, far better than a
long-standing conventional war with years of bombing campaigns, siege of large cities and
full-scale assault on the ground. 'Sparing both American and Iranian lives.'
All in all: Iran may protect herself and exact a very high price for a conventional attack
but is defenseless against a nuclear one. So without Russian / Chinese guarantees against an
American nuclear strike I think Iranian resistance would prove futile. In case they lack such
guarantees they would rather capitulate than suffer complete destruction. Iran may only
manage this situation when shielded against USAn / Israeli nuclear strikes – otherwise
they better give up before it begins.
The Samson Option say's Israel will not be attacked.
Given that Israel owns the world, why would they allow themselves to be attacked, they
(NSA) didn't just create TIA for nothing ( poindexer-raygun Total Information Awareness )
They know all, they control all. They own all.
Back to Real Politics, Israel owns the USA, and the USA is going down. Israel needs a new
cow to bleed, and that be China. China needs oil, so "Greater Israel", via US-MIL seizes all
middle-east oil fields, and then Israel becomes custodian, of course this will be sold as a
'peace plan'.
Doesn't really matter, as USA is kaput. Broke. USA soliders will do best to remain at
oil-fields and sell black-market oil for Israel, to make money to send home.
Russia will stand down, as in Reality Israel is doing the business of Russia. China needs
oil, Israel needs hard-cash to control the Goy, so they can control their world-wide cattle
ranch ( chattel – prostitution )
Lives whether they be Iranian, or American, or Palestinian have no value, the only life on
earth that has value is the Jewish life.
A large percentage of China are Jewish, like Xian, at least +10M Jews exist in China, and
they're in total support of the castration of the West.
The best selling book in China is called "How Israel Controls the USA", a true story of
how AIPAC took control of USA gov, and killed JFK. The Chinese don't see this book a 'shock
book' they see it as a cook-book, of how to control, farm, and tax the western goy.
I would be interested in hearing an answer to this. It seems logical to me. I don't see any
US wars as being a defeat, since they succeeding in destroying countries. Israel's border's
have not grown yet, but I am sure that is still the goal.
In my view, Russia got involved in Syria because they knew if Syria fell to the US, Iran
would be next, followed by Russia. Russia forced a momentary setback by stopping the fall of
Syria, but Usrael is proceeding on with Iran anyway. Russia, of course, then follows. Why
would Russia get involved in Syria and let Iran fall, possibly by a preemptive "humanitarian"
nuclear strike like you mention? All of Russia's work over the past decades will be destroyed
if they watch Iran get destroyed.
Bc if the terror regime in washington uses nuclear weapons that is a known redline for Russia
and Putin have made this VERY clear. I suggest you use duckduckgo and start typing in
relevant search frases, it might enlighten you.
I am sorry I am so stupid, but I still don't understand. Please explain it to me. Russia has
made it clear that if nukes are used against them, they will respond with nukes. I have not
seen the same message sent regarding third parties. And I tried Googling it.
The zionazis had to act before the US empire crumbles with the overstreched dollar, dollar
that no globalist Rothschild in the world will be able to save for much more time.
The globalists in the City want to get rid of the dollar, but they also want to hurt Iran in
order to weaken Russia (and China), and they need a still powerful USA to perform that.
The war might therefore be a powerful transition (as were the previous ones) toward a new
economical global order, while also weakening the axis of resistance .
As for Trump, one has to wonder if he is really the one who ordered those strikes, and if he
really still has any power over the Pentagon.
It's not just the US and Iran painted into a corner, Iraq, but humanity even.
This United States claimed terrorist act of this import must only mean one thing: their
own recognition the time is up, namely, dollar-as-a-reserve-currency is done for.
Every party, not just Iran, will have to figure a way forward from this shortened horizon
(a single quarter? less?) imposed by the USofA. Of course Europe doubts itself and there's no
worse time for that. I do trust the Iranians, their artfulness and rationality, I am sure
though, by themselves the effort won't suffice. They won't be alone.
The answer is surely asymmetrical, but any "symmetrical" false flag must be
prevented/minimized likewise.
The content of Iran's painful message to America
✴️محتوای پیام
دردناک ایران به
آمریکا
🔸محتوای پیام
ایران به طرف
آمریکایی داده
به گونهای بوده
که مقامات
آمریکایی را
دچار وحشت شدیدی
کرده است. هر چند
هنوز از ابعاد
این پیام اطلاعی
ندارم اما به
نظر میرسد
آمریکاییها به
شکل کامل اعتماد
بنفس خود را از
دست دادهاند،
خبرهایی که به
وسیله واسطهها
به سمت تهران در
طول ساعتهای
گذشته به گوش
رسیده بیانگر آن
است که مقامات
کاخ سفید پس از
این اشتباه
راهبردی، هر کسی
که فکر میکنند
با ایران
کوچکترین
ارتباطی داشته و
دارد و می تواند
به مقامات
ایرانی دسترسی
داشته باشد
متوسل شدند تا
پاسخی که قرار
است دریافت کنند
در همان ابعاد و
نه بیشتر باشد!!
🔸اما اگر قرار
است ابعاد این
پاسخ مشخص گردد
باید رئیس ستاد
مشترک، فرمانده
نیروی دریایی و
هوایی و بالاتر
از آن شخص ترامپ
که دستور این
ترور را صادر
کرده است کشته
شوند تا با هم
برابر شویم
(البته که باز هم
نخواهیم شد) و
این چیزی است که
آمریکاییها
خودشان بهتر می
دانند. وزیر
امور خارجه
آمریکا در طول
ساعتهای گذشته
به همراه سایر
مقامات این کشور
یک نبرد
رسانهای را
شروع کردند تا
به زعم خود
تصمیم مقامات
ایران را تحت
تاثیر قرار
دهند!! ولی آنچه
به عنوان پیام
سفارت سوئیس از
طرف ایرانیها
برای آنها
فرستاد تمام
برآوردهای آنها
را نقش بر آب کرد.
🔸دونالد ترامپ
که در سیاست
خارجی خودش به
بنبست خورده
بود و کنگره او
را به جرم خیانت
فراخوانده بود
تا محاکمه اش
کند، از سوی
دیگر در آستانه
انتخابات نمی
دانست باید
چگونه صحنه بازی
را عوض کند دست
یک قمار خطرناک
زد، این قمار آن
اندازه خطرناک
بوده که در
آمریکا هیچکس
حاضر به پذیرش
مسئولیت آن نیست
و ترامپ تحت
فشار سیاسیون
مخالف خود ناچار
شده شخصاً
مسئولیت این
اقدام جنون آمیز
را برعهده
بگیرد. ترامپ یک
قمار را شروع
کرده که سعی می
کند با تهدید و
فشار و همچنین
التماس و رایزنی
و حتا با دادن
امتیازهای
مختلف از آن
فرار کند. خودش
بهتر میداند که
آنچه درباره
مذاکره و
گفتوگو با
ایران میگوید
جز تحقیر بیش از
پیش خودش نیست.
🔸هنوز از متن
مذاکرات وزیر
خارجه آمریکا با
همتای روسی خبری
منتشر نشده اما
او در گفتگویی
با رئیس جمهور
مفلوک عراق گفته
که خواستار
افزایش تنش
نیست! و عراق
نباید محلی برای
تنش آفرینی
باشد!! این
اقدامات مقامات
مختلف آمریکایی
که شامل پمپئو،
برایان هوک مارک
اسپ و حتی
سناتورهای
نفتخواری مانند
لیندزی گراهام
می شود، در واقع
تهدید ناشی از
ترس را نشان می
دهد. لیندزی
گراهام وقتی
سهمیه اش از نفت
سوریه را گرفت،
اینگونه طرفدار
ترامپ شده است.
منافعی او در
چاههای نفت
سوریه و عراق
دارد که بعدها
مشخص خواهد شد
که چه
پیمانکارانی
وابسته به این
جانور بی شاخ و
دم هستند.
🔸در کاخ سفید
همه از وحشت
احتمالی هدف
قرار گرفتن یکی
از پایگاه های
این کشور در
عراق که صدها
نظامی در آن به
سر میبرند توسط
موشکهای زمین
به زمین ایران
خواب راحت
ندارند. آنها به
خوبی می دانند
که اگر همزمان
یکصد فروند موشک
به این
پایگاهها
اصابت کند هیچ
چیزی از آن باقی
نخواهد ماند و
تلفاتی که به
نظامیان
آمریکایی وارد
خواهد شد همه به
پای حماقت ترامپ
نوشته می شود.
بنابراین بادام
با گفتن این
واژه که دنبال
جنگ نیست و می
خواسته با این
اقدام جلوی جنگ
را بگیرد در
حقیقت دارد کلاه
سر خودش می
گذارد.
The content of Iran's message to the US has been so intense that it has frightened
American officials. Although I am not aware of the magnitude of the message yet, Americans
seem to have completely lost their confidence in themselves, the news that has been heard by
the intermediaries in Tehran over the past few hours indicates that White House officials
have since this strategically mistake, asking anyone who has the slightest connection to Iran
and can reach out to Iranian officials to ask Iran to respond their aggression in the same
dimension and no more !!
But if the magnitude of this response is to be determined, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
Navy and Air Commander and even Trump who ordered the assassination must be killed in order
to equalize the crime(of course it won't) and This is what Americans know better. During the
past few hours, the US Secretary of State, along with other officials in the country, has
launched an infowar to influence the decision of the Iranian authorities! But the message
that Iran sent back via the Swiss embassy to the American government undermined all Trump
gang's plot.
Donald Trump, who had been stalled in his foreign policy and had been convicted of treason
by Congress, that the Congress is trying to prosecute him, did not know how to change the
game on the eve of the election and risked playing a dangerous gamble. It is so dangerous
that no one in America is willing to accept responsibility, and Trump, under the pressure of
his opposition, has been forced to personally take responsibility for this heinous act. Trump
has started a gamble that tries to escape with threats and pressure, as well as begging and
consulting, even by offering concessions. He knows that what he says about negotiating with
Iran is nothing more than humiliating himself.
The US Secretary of State's talks with his Russian counterpart have not yet been released,
but he has said in an interview with the beleaguered Iraqi president that he does not want
tensions to rise! And Iraq should not be a place for tension! The actions of various US
officials, including Pompeo, Brian Hook Mark Spar, and even oil senators such as Lindsay
Graham, actually show the extent of fear. Lindsey Graham has become a pro-Trump when he took
his quota of Syrian oil. His interests in the oil fields of Syria and Iraq will later
determine which contractors are connected to this hornless and tailless beast(Graham).
In the White House, everyone is scared of the potential target bases in Iraq, where
hundreds of troops are stationed. They know very well that if one hundred missiles hit these
bases at the same time, nothing will be left behind, and the casualties that will be
inflicted on American troops will all be attributed to Trump's stupidity. So, by saying the
word that he was not seeking war and wanted to stop the war by doing so, he was actually
fooling himself
پیام
قدرتمندانه
ایران اینگونه
صدای
رئیسجمهور
آمریکا را لرزش
واداشت ترامپ
چهار دقیقه و ۱۱
ثانیه در مورد
دستور ترور
سپهبد سلیمانی و
سایر همراهانش
صحبت کرد و در
تمام طول این ۴
دقیقه نتوانست
بر اعصابش مسلط
باشد و صدایش
نلرزد. خوب گوش
کنید که چگونه
پیام ایران
زنگها را در کاخ
سفید به صدا
درآورده است. به
زودی برای شما
خواهم نوشت
ایران چه پیامی
به آمریکاییها
داده که اینگونه
به هم ریخته اند.
نه خبری از سر
تکان دادن ترامپ
است و نه خبری از
شانه تکان دادن
و نه خبری از
بستن چشمان و سر
بالا گرفتن
هنگام سخنرانی.
ترامپ تازه
فهمیده بلانسبت
چه . خورده است.
@syriankhabar@syriankhabar
A machine translation:
Fear and fury in Trump's speech
Iran's powerful message shook the voice of the American president in such a way Trump
spoke for four minutes and 2 seconds about the assassination of Lieutenant General Soleimani
and his companions, and he could not control his nerves all this time. Listen well to how
Iran's message has sounded the bells at the White House. Soon, I will write to you what kind
of message Iran has given to the Americans who have messed up like this.
There is no shaking of Trump's head, no shaking of his shoulder, no closing eyes and a
high-pitched speech. Trump has just figured out what he ate.
'Secretary Esper has basically painted the US into what I would call an "over-reaction
corner" by declaring that "the game has changed" and that the US will take "preemptive
action" whenever it feels threatened'.
As I mentioned in another article, the Strait of Hormuz comes to mind. What would be the
consequences of it being blocked by the Iranians is something that no one seems to consider.
Any thoughts on this?
I tend to think that odd are opposite to what you've said about hot war. With regard to
leaving ME it was presidential candidate Trump's promise. As well as declared desire of Tulsi
Gabbard. So he can easily spin it as doing it on his own volition. And than (my speculation)
redirect freed money into infrastructure repair and preparation for real economic competition
with China and Russia. Particularly in space where (for now) we have advantage due to private
enterprise..
1. To put this into an historical context. After the failure of the Douma attacks in
April, 2018, the Neocons (Globalists) were basically out of options to win the war in Syria.
But this did not mean that they would give up on their quest to control the entire
Middle-East, of which Syria was the stepping stone to Iran. They just needed a new plan (Plan
D?, E?, F??). We now see that the new plan, painstakingly put in place since April, 2018, is
to attack Iran directly.
2. The attack on Soleimani suggests to me that the U.S. strategy is to decapitate the
Iranian leadership, and then to take advantage of the anarchy that follows to install a
pro-Western puppet in Tehran.
3. I think that the Neocons (Globalists) are extremely impatient to get this done. They
need to control the M-E in order to block Eurasian integration into the Russia/China sphere,
via the Belt and Road initiative. And the window to launch a war, before the U.S. elections,
is very narrow.
4. Based on the above, I expect the U.S., or her 'allies' to rachet up the provocations,
over the next 3 or 4 months, until they get a plausible excuse to launch a full fledged
attack on Iran. I expect that such an attack would be a short, but massive, aerial campaign
with the objective of taking out the Iranian government and its institutions, with the hope
that in the anarchy that follows, a pro-Western puppet, that is already prepared and sitting
in the wings, will be able to claim power.
Trump is not a Neocon, but, about Iran, he shares a common interest with them. And he is
likely foolish enough to go along with such a scenario. As other commenters have pointed out,
the Neocons think that this is basically a win-win for the Neocons. If all goes well, they
get Iran, if not, they get rid of Trump.
Yes, a coordinated and united front in the ME against the Zionazis would be an appropriate
and proportional response a palace coup, the demise of MBS/MBZ, geopolitical realingment,
grassroots protests, rapproachment those sorts of things might shake things up enough to see
the warmongering US finally get kicked out of the ME.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the United States and the European
Union should either comply with the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran, or
recognize it as nonexistent.
Lavrov made the comments on December 30 after meeting in Moscow with Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who said that the European signatories to the deal were "not
taking any practical steps" to support it.
The military budget of USA speaks loud. This means they are planning.
Iran will not do any foolish movements and calculate any tactic extremely careful.
China and Russia cannot allow that USA will "swallow" Iran. That's the point.
If USA is doing something foolish in order to "secure" its hegemonic aspirations the
outcome could be completely detrimental to what they had wished for.
I also can't help but notice the amount of meetings between US officials and Israeli
officials, particularly where Iran appears to be the major theme. At the time of Netanyahu's
most recent warning, US General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had
visited Israel to meet his Israeli counterpart, Aviv Kohavi, to discuss "operational
questions and regional developments." A week prior, the US Air Force chief of staff also
visited Israel to participate in the Blue Flag joint military exercise. Not long before that,
the commander of the American military forces in the Middle East arrived in Israel for
meetings with top IDF officials.
US government is throwing everything into the propaganda fire to justify its murder of Qassem
Solemani. In his desperation to connect Iran to 9/11 attacks, Mike Pence says there were 12
hijackers (forgetting they were 19 hijackers of which 15 were Saudis)
Over 16 years ago, the Bush Regime was trying to pin some of the blame for 9-11 on Iraq to
justify America's war of aggression on that nation.
Now, years later, the Trump Regime is trying to pin the blame on Iran to justify the
escalation of yet another American war.
And Pence can't even get the number of 9-11 hijackers correct, or that the majority of
these hijackers were from America's head-chopping ally of Saudi Arabia!
Very good recap. The table is set for a lot more death. Iran is damned if they do and damned
if they don't and someone else does because they will simply be blamed. It fits the agenda of
the beast.
All the flag-wavers will be out shouting U.S.A., U.S.A. because this murder has left them
more secure and safe. I don't know whether to vomit or weep.
I don't believe war can be avoided because the agenda is to topple Iran as part of their new
world order. If they won't surrender, war it will be.
This has nothing to do with anything other than the price of oil. The U$ absolutely must
force the price of oil over 100 U$D per bbl. in order to profit from U$ oil reserves, and
save the petro-dollar. If Iran does nothing overt, and Russia continues to pump oil, thus
keeping the price of crude around $60, the U$ economy will wither. I think Iran will peck at
the U$, and Iraq will most likely finally order American forces to leave, but I think
Iran/Russia/China are just going to wait on the U$ economy to collapse, and then allow the
global predator to eat itself. Of course the wild card is the U$ lashing out in its death
throes, and just flat starting a major regional conflict or worse.
Saker,
Many thanks for the clear and succinct analysis.
I for one wonder if Iran decides to go asymmetrically rather than a direct confrontation as
the Iran people have shown to be strategic in their approach. In my humble opinion, I
consider Iran has much (more) to lose if the confrontation path is chosen.
Iran and its allies have reserves of oil and are located in a strategic position vis a vis
shipping routes. Additionally, a part of the conversation that has cropped up is the falling
value (and use of) the U$D. I think that is the weakest part of the US armour.
I hope Iran resists direct retaliation and works along the lines of accelerated debasement
and usage of the U$D.
That is a longer term goal but may be shorter than others. By the way, any resulting damage
may well be permanent.
Regarding the talk of a hypothetical "Iran War", I do not think Washington will actually try
invading Iran, for a couple of reasons.
1. The US does not currently have enough troops to occupy Iran. It would require a
military draft. This would cause massive opposition inside the USA (easily the biggest
internal US political turmoil since the Vietnam War). And the youngest American adults that
would get drafted are the least religious US generation ever (i.e. they are not Evangelical
fundamentalists who want to throw their lives away for "Israel" and the "End Times").
2. Where would Washington launch the invasion from? Iraq? The US will soon be asked to
leave Iraq, and if Washington does not comply it will very quickly turn into another quagmire
for the US just like it was in the 2000s. And if they tried invading from Afghanistan, Iran
could always arm the Taliban. And besides, would Pakistan really allow the US military to
pass through its territory to Afghanistan to invade Iran? I think not.
3. Russia would obviously provide Iran with military supplies, intelligence, and
diplomatic support, making any invasion attempt very costly for the US.
Therefore, Washington's options are rather limited to missile strikes, CIA funded
terrorist attacks, and other lesser forms of meddling.
"... The Pentagon stated that Trump's move was aimed at "deterring" Iran. Senator Lindsey Graham knows better. It's time, he announced on Twitter, to prepare for a "big counterpunch," including targeting Iran's oil refineries. ..."
Middle East. But why use a blowtorch to eradicate those malignant cells?
Containment would have done the trick -- and Iran was, as it happens, contained when Trump
became president in 2016. North Korea, Barack Obama warned him, would pose his most pressing
threat. It still does. Yet Trump, intent in ripping up the Iran nuclear deal, ended up
confecting a fresh crisis, a new road to war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-un can
resume testing and expanding his nuclear arsenal. Nor is this all. China and Russia can only
marvel at Washington's continued capacity for self-destruction as it indulges in a fresh
demonstration of the arrogance of power.
Former national security adviser John Bolton, who was ousted over his hawkishness toward
Iran and North Korea, must be rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Trump has performed a volte-face
though he may not be capable of realizing it. It was Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who
engineered what could be a new Sarajevo moment, cancelling his impending trip to Ukraine and
helping to ensure the retaliatory strike in Iraq against Iran.
The problem, of course, is that this sets up a fresh round of hostilities that America is
ill-equipped to manage. Like Kaiser Wilhelm in World War I, Trump is likely to find that by
acceding to a conflict that he is unable to conduct, he will have ceded control to a hawkish
camarilla that sets his presidency on the path toward an unmitigated disaster. Make no mistake:
a war with Iran can be won. But the price would make Iraq look like a cakewalk.
On This Day
0 seconds Do You Know What Happened Today In History? Jan 3 2000
The last original weekday Peanuts comic strip is published.
The Pentagon stated that Trump's move was aimed at "deterring" Iran. Senator Lindsey Graham
knows better. It's time, he announced on Twitter, to prepare for a "big counterpunch,"
including targeting Iran's oil refineries.
Like not a few presidents, Trump will almost certainly revel in being a wartime president,
at least initially. But there is no constituency for more war in America. Rather the reverse.
Trump has given the Democrats a lift, perhaps most of all Senator Bernie Sanders, who has
opposed America's serial confkucts abroad, though former vice president Joe Biden has also now
attacked Trump for tossing "a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox." Essentially Trump has wiped
the slate clean for Democrats like Biden who supported the 2003 Iraq War.
Goodbye, Donald Trump restrainer. Hello Donald Trump, neocon.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest .
"... Soleimani is a senior Iranian military commander, and he also happens to be one of the more popular public figures inside Iran. Killing him isn't just a major escalation that guarantees reprisals and further destabilizes the region, but it also strengthens hard-liners in Iran enormously. Trump claimed not to want war with Iran, but his actions have proven that he does. No one who wants to avoid war with Iran would order the assassination of a high-ranking Iranian officer. Trump has signaled his willingness to plunge the U.S. into a new war that will be disastrous for our country, Iran, and the entire region. American soldiers, diplomats, and citizens throughout the region are all in much greater danger tonight than they were this morning, and the president is responsible for that. ..."
ran hawks have been agitating for open conflict with Iran for years. Tonight, the Trump
administration obliged them by assassinating the top IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani
and the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah in a drone strike in Baghdad:
Hard to understate how big this is
• Qassem Suleimani is Iran's most powerful mil figure in Region
• He runs Iran's proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
• Both men designated by US as Terrorist
• Muhandis was at US embassy attack protest, calls himself "Suleimani soldier"
Reuters reports
that a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq also confirmed the deaths:
Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia
commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed late on Thursday in an air strike on their convoy
in Baghdad airport, an Iraqi militia spokesman told Reuters.
Soleimani is a senior Iranian military commander, and he also happens to be one of the
more popular public figures inside Iran. Killing him isn't just a major escalation that
guarantees reprisals and further destabilizes the region, but it also strengthens hard-liners
in Iran enormously. Trump claimed not to want war with Iran, but his actions have proven that
he does. No one who wants to avoid war with Iran would order the assassination of a
high-ranking Iranian officer. Trump has signaled his willingness to plunge the U.S. into a new
war that will be disastrous for our country, Iran, and the entire region. American soldiers,
diplomats, and citizens throughout the region are all in much greater danger tonight than they
were this morning, and the president is responsible for that.
It is hard to convey how irrational and destructive this latest action is. The U.S. and Iran
have been dangerously close to war for months, but the Trump administration has made no effort
to deescalate tensions. All that it would take to push the two governments over the brink into
open conflict is a reckless attack that the other side cannot ignore. Now the U.S. has launched
just such an attack and dared Iran to respond. The response may not come immediately, but we
have to assume that it is coming. Killing Soleimani means that the IRGC will presumably
consider it open season on U.S. forces all across the region. The Iran obsession has led the
U.S. into a senseless new war that it could have easily avoided, and Trump and the Iran hawks
own the results.
Trump supporters have often tried to defend the president's poor foreign policy record by
saying that he hadn't started any new wars. Well, now he has, and he will be responsible for
the consequences to follow.
When US politicians comment about the country's adversaries, a an official narrative
harangue of disinformation and Big Lies follows so often these figures likely no longer can
distinguish between truth and fiction.
Washington's hostility toward Iran has gone on with nary a letup since its 1979 revolution
ended a generation of US-installed tyranny, the country regaining its sovereignty, free from
vassal state status.
On Monday, White House envoy for regime change in Iran Brian Hook stuck to the fabricated
official narrative in discussing Iran at the State Department.
He falsely called Sunday's Pentagon terror-bombing strikes on Iraqi and Syrian sites
"defensive."
They had nothing to do with "protect(ing) American forces and American citizens in Iraq" or
Syria, nothing to do with "deterr(ing) Iranian aggression" that doesn't exist and never did
throughout Islamic State history -- how the US and its imperial allies operate, not Iran, the
region's leading proponent of peace and stability.
Hook lied saying Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitaries (connected to the country's Popular
Mobilization Forces) don't serve "the interests of the Iraqi people."
That's precisely what they do, including their earlier involvement in combatting
US-supported ISIS.
Hook turned truth on its head, accusing Iran of "run(ning) an expansionist foreign policy"
-- what US aggression is all about, not how Tehran operates.
Like other Trump regime officials, he threatened Iran, a nation able to hit back hard
against the US and its regional imperial partners if attacked -- why cool-headed Pentagon
commanders want no part of war with the country.
Kata'ib Hezbollah, other Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, and the vast majority of Iraqi
civilians want US occupation of their country ended.
For decades, US direct and proxy aggression, including sanctions war, ravaged the country,
killing millions of its people, causing appalling human suffering.
Hook: "(T)he last thing the (US) is looking for is (war) in the Middle East "
Fact: It's raging in multiple theaters, notably Syria and Yemen, once again in Iraq after
last Sunday's US aggression, more of the same virtually certain ahead.
State Department official David Schenker participated in Monday's anti-Iran propaganda
exercise with Hook.
Claiming the US wants regional de-escalation, not escalation, is polar opposite reality on
the ground in all its war theaters and in other countries where it conducts subversion against
their governments and people.
The best way the US could protect its citizens worldwide is by ending aggressive wars,
bringing home its troops, closing its empire of bases used as platforms for hostilities against
other nations, and declaring a new era of peace and cooperative relations with other
countries.
Based on its belligerent history throughout the 19th and 20th centuries to the present day,
this change of policy, if adopted, would be un-American.
Hook: "Iran has been threatening the region for the last 40 years" -- what's true about US
aggression, not how Tehran operates anywhere.
Hook: Iran "is facing its worst financial crisis and its worst political crisis in its
40-year history."
Fact: US war on the country by other means, economic terrorism, bears full responsibility
for its economic hardships, intended to harm its people, including Trump regime efforts to
block exports of food, drugs and medical equipment to Iran.
Fact: Hostile US actions toward Iran and countless other nations are flagrant international
law breaches -- the world community doing nothing to counter its hot wars and by other
means.
Fact: The Iranian "model" prioritizes peace and stability. Endless war on humanity is how
the US operates globally -- at home and abroad.
Fact: Iran isn't an "outlaw regime," the description applying to the US, its key NATO
allies, Israel, the Saudis, and their rogue partners in high crimes.
Hostile US actions are all about offense, unrelated to defense at a time when Washington's
only enemies are invented as a pretext for endless wars of aggression.
The US under both right wings of its war party poses an unparalleled threat to everyone
everywhere.
As long as its aggression goes unchallenged, the threat of humanity-destroying nuclear war
exists.
It could start anywhere -- in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, or against Russia by
accident or design.
On New Year's day 2020, I'd love to be optimistic about what lies ahead.
As long as Republican and Dem hardliners pursue dominance over other nations by brute force
and other hostile means, hugely dangerous tinderbox conditions could ignite an uncontrollable
firestorm anywhere.
Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard
University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research
analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until
retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005.
In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on
the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen
live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project
Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.
"Pentagon officials said on Friday that the United States would deploy several hundred
troops to guard oil fields in eastern Syria, despite Mr. Trump's repeated boasts that he is
bringing American soldiers home from Syria. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said that the
United States would "maintain a reduced presence in Syria to deny ISIS access to oil
revenue," leaving what military officials said would be about 500 troops in the country, down
from about 2,000 a year ago.....
Senator Graham (R), too, contends that American control of the oil fields would "deny Iran
and Assad a monetary windfall," as he put it in a statement last week. But Mr. Graham has
taken the argument a step further, to suggest that Syrian oil could go into American coffers,
as Mr. Trump once implied for Iraq. "We can also use some of the revenue from oil sales to
pay for our military commitment in Syria," Mr. Graham added.
Last week, Mr. Trump offered a variation on that idea "we'll work something out with the
Kurds so that they have some money, they have some cash flow." He added that he might "get
one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly."
And look back to his comments on Iraqs oil before taking office
"He has a short notebook of old pledges, and this was one of the most frequently repeated
pledges during the campaign: that we were going to take the oil," said Bruce Riedel, a former
C.I.A. official who served as a Middle East adviser to several presidents. "And now he
actually is in a position where he can quote, take some oil."
Mr. Trump first spoke approvingly about the United States seizing foreign oil in April
2011, when he complained about President Barack Obama's troop withdrawal from Iraq. "I would
take the oil," Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal. "I would not leave Iraq and let Iran
take the oil."
He elaborated in an interview with ABC News a few days later. "In the old days, you know,
when you had a war, to the victor belong the spoils." he said. "You go in. You win the war
and you take it."
That year, Mr. Trump endorsed the United States seizing oil reserves not only in Iraq, but
also in Libya, where Mr. Obama had recently intervened in the country's civil war. "I would
just go in and take the oil," he told Fox News. "We're a bunch of babies. We have wars and we
leave. We go in, we have wars, we lose lives, we lose money, and we leave."
Trump does not like endless wars but that does not mean he is adverse to war. Far from
pulling the US out of the middle east, Trump is engaging in a constant creeping build up of
forces. Every incident, more US forces are moved in.
I had hoped to welcome 2020 with a optimistic post.
Alas, the current news cycle has thrown up little cause for optimism.
Instead, what has caught my eye today: 2019 closes with release of a new study showing the FDA's failure to police opioids manufacturers
fueled the opioids crisis.
This is yet another example of a familiar theme: inadequate regulation kills people: e.g. think Boeing. Or, on a longer term,
less immediate scale, consider the failure of the Environmental Protection Agency, in so many realms, including the failure to curb
emissions so as to slow the pace of climate change.
In the opioids case, we're talking about thousands and thousands of people.
On Monday, Jama
Internal Medicine published research concerning the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) program to reduce opioids abuse.
The FDA launched its risk evaluation and mitigation strategy – REMS – in 2012. Researchers examined nearly 10,000 documents, released
in response to a Freedom of Information ACT (FOA) request, to generate the conclusions published by JAMA.
In 2011, the F.D.A. began asking the makers of OxyContin and other addictive long-acting opioids to pay for safety training
for more than half the physicians prescribing the drugs, and to track the effectiveness of the training and other measures in
reducing addiction, overdoses and deaths.
But the F.D.A. was never able to determine whether the program worked, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health found in a new review, because the manufacturers did not gather the right kind of data. Although the agency's approval
of OxyContin in 1995 has long come under fire, its efforts to ensure the safe use of opioids since then have not been scrutinized
nearly as much.
The documents show that even when deficiencies in these efforts became obvious through the F.D.A.'s own review process, the
agency never insisted on improvements to the program, [called a REMS]. . .
The FDA's regulatory failure had serious public health consequences, according to critics of US opioids policy, as reported by
the NYT:
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of opioid policy research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis,
said the safety program was a missed opportunity. He is a leader of
a group of physicians who had encouraged the F.D.A.
to adopt stronger controls, and a frequent critic of the government's response to the epidemic.
Dr. Kolodny, who was not involved in the study, called the program "a really good example of the way F.D.A. has failed to regulate
opioid manufacturers. If F.D.A. had really been doing its job properly, I don't believe we'd have an opioid crisis today."
Now, as readers frequently emphasize in comments: pain management is a considerable problem – one I am all too well aware of,
as I watched my father succumb to cancer. He ultimately passed away at my parents' home.
Although these drugs "can be clinically useful among appropriately selected patients, they have also been widely oversupplied,
are commonly used nonmedically, and account for a disproportionate number of fatal overdoses," the authors write.
The FDA was unable, more than 5 years after it had instituted its study of the opioids program's effectiveness, to determine whether
it had met its objectives, and this may have been because prior assessments were not objective, according to CNN:
Prior analyses had largely been funded by drug companies, and a 2016 FDA advisory committee "noted methodological concerns
regarding these studies," according to the authors. An inspector general report also concluded in 2013 that the agency "lacks
comprehensive data to determine whether risk evaluation and mitigation strategies improve drug safety."
In addition to failing to evaluate the effective of the limited steps it had taken, the FDA neglected to take more aggressive
steps that were within the ambit of its regulatory authority. According to CNN:
"FDA has tools that could mitigate opioid risks more effectively if the agency would be more assertive in using its power to
control opioid prescribing, manufacturing, and distribution," said retired FDA senior executive William K. Hubbard in an
editorial that accompanied the study. "Instead of bold, effective action, the FDA has implemented the Risk Evaluation and
Mitigation Strategy programs that do not even meet the limited criteria set out by the FDA."
One measure the FDA could have taken, according to Hubbard: putting restrictions on opioid distribution.
"Restricting opioid distribution would be a major decision for the FDA, but it is also likely to be the most effective policy
for reducing the harm of opioids," said Hubbard, who spent more than three decades at the agency and oversaw initiatives in areas
such as regulation, policy and economic evaluation.
Perhaps the Johns Hopkins study will spark moves to reform the broken FDA, so that it can once again serve as an effective regulator.
This could perhaps be something we can look forward to achieving in 2020 (although I won't hold my breath).
Or, perhaps if enacting comprehensive reform is too overwhelming, especially with a divided government, as a starting point: can
we agree to stop allowing self-interested industries to finance studies meant to assess the effectiveness of programs to regulate
that very same industry? Please?
fersur 26 minutes ago remove Share link Copy Article is at best close, Clapper was in the triad as a go-a-long,
Not as smart but just as Treasonus, their ( all Three ) play was the same play as my post
below, just maybe differenty colluded !
BOOM !
Militia Leader Who Led Raid on U.S. Embassy was at White House 2011.
Iranian militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, one of several identified as leading an attack on the
U.S. embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, reportedly visited the White House in 2011 during the
presidency of Barack Obama.
On Tuesday, a mob in Baghdad
attacked the U.S. embassy in retaliation against last weekend's
U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), responsible
for killing an American civilian contractor. KH is one of a number of pro-Iran militias that
make up the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF/PMU), which legally became a wing of the Iraqi
military after fighting the Sunni Islamic State terrorist group.
President Donald Trump has since accused Iran of having "orchestrated" the embassy attack
and stated that the government would be "held fully responsible."
Breitbart News reporter John Hayward described the attack on the embassy, writing:
The mob grew into thousands of people, led by openly identified KH supporters, some of
them wearing uniforms and waving militia flags. The attack
began after a funeral service for the 25 KH fighters killed by the U.S. airstrikes.
Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad carrying photos of the slain KH members
and Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who condemned the American
airstrikes.
KH vowed to
seek revenge for the airstrikes on Monday. Both KH and the Iranian military unit that
supports it, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been designated as terrorist
organizations by the U.S. government. The government of Saudi Arabia also described KH as one
of several "terrorist militias supported by the Iranian establishment" in
remarks on Tuesday condemning the assault on the U.S. embassy.
The attackers were able to smash open a gate and push into the embassy compound, lighting
fires, smashing cameras, and painting messages such as "Closed in the name of resistance" on
the walls. Gunshots were reportedly heard near the embassy, while tear gas and stun grenades
were deployed by its defenders.
A uniformed militia fighter on the scene in Baghdad told Kurdish news service Rudaw
that attacks were also planned against the U.S. consulates in Erbil and Basra, with the goal
of destroying the consulates and killing everyone inside.
The Washington Post
reported Tuesday that among those agitating protesters in Baghdad on Tuesday was Hadi
al-Amiri, a former transportation minister with close ties to Iran who leads the Badr Corps,
another PMF militia.
In 2011, both
Fox News and the Washington Times noted that then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought his
transportation minister, al-Amiri, to a meeting at the White House. The Times noted that
the White House did not confirm his attendance, but the official was on Iraq's listed members
of its delegation.
The al-Amiri accompanying al-Maliki, besides also being transportation minister, was
identified at the time as a commander of the Badr organization, further indicating it was the
same person. At the time, the outlets expressed concern that al-Amiri had ties to the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which the FBI has stated played a role in a 1996 terrorist
attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen. President Donald Trump designated the IRGC a foreign
terrorist organization, the first time an official arm of a foreign state received the
designation.
Fox News' Ed Henry questioned White House Press Secretary Jay Carney following the visit
about the attendance of al-Amiri at the White House. Carney refused to answer and stating that
he would need to investigate the issue. The
full transcript from RealClearPolitics reads:
Ed Henry, FOX News: When Prime Minister Maliki was here this week there have been reports
that a former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which U.S. officials say played a
role in a 1996 terrorist attack that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
He was here at the White House with Prime Minister Maliki because he's a transportation
minister, yeah, transportation minister --
Jay Carney, WH: Who's [sic] report is that?
Henry: I believe the Washington Times has reported it. I think others have as well, but I
think this is a Washington Times --
Carney: I have to take that question then, I'm not aware of it.
Henry: Can you just answer it later though, whether he was here and whether a background
check had been done?
Carney: I'll check on it for you.
Henry: Okay, thanks.
In 2016, Obama secured a deal with Iran which included a payment of $1.7 billion in cash.
Breitbart News reporter John Hayward
reported in September of 2016:
On Tuesday, the Obama administration finally admitted something its critics had long
suspected: The entire $1.7 billion tribute paid to Iran was tendered in cash -- not just the
initial $400 million infamously shipped to the Iranians in a cargo plane -- at the same
moment four American hostages were released.
"Treasury Department spokeswoman Dawn Selak said in a statement the cash payments were
necessary because of the 'effectiveness of U.S. and international sanctions,' which isolated
Iran from the international finance system,"
said ABC News, relating what might be one of history's strangest humblebrags. The
sanctions Obama threw away were working so well that he had to satisfy Iran's demands with
cold, hard cash!
By the way, those sanctions were not entirely related to Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons. As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy
pointed out at National Review last month, they date back to Iran's seizure of
hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, its support for "Hezbollah's killing sprees," and,
most pertinently, Bill Clinton's 1995 invocation of "federal laws that deal with national
emergencies caused by foreign aggression," by which he meant Iran's support for international
terrorism.
Former white house staffer during the Obama administration, Ben Rhodes, blamed President
Trump's policies for the Tuesday attack on the U.S. embassy.
Many have hit back at Rhodes for the accusations, including former CIA ops officer Bryan
Dean Wright.
No further information has been given about al-Amiri's presence at the U.S. embassy raid on
Tuesday. Read more about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad at Breitbart News
here .
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online
censorship.
EB's second paragraph @18 is very clear, I think, about the stakes for one of the more
important issues facing liberals / Democrats in the US. Is the party organized around
protecting women, LBGT individuals, and religious and ethnic minorities from theocrats who
want to tear down Constitutional and statutory civil rights, or is it organized around
working people who may have a stake in a less secular, less socially progressive future, but
will support a strong government if it supports ordinary working families who belong to the
dominant culture?
The "liberalism is fascism; only anarchism is properly socialist" faction seems as strong
as ever, though these days, it seems possible to add a third clause, "big government is
good," to the list, to listen to some people.
It's almost as if what they really mean is "all governments are the same, but don't boss
*me* around."
JQ is right to emphasize the similarities and continuities
between the identity politics of the liberal and rightist varieties. They exist along a
continuum and easily located within the ideological cultural and civilizational symbolic of
Western capitalist polities. Understood as a power-elite *ruling ideology*, this is what is
properly described as "Liberalism". (In contrast, superficial electoral politics and journalism
are merely epiphenomenal when they seek to pigeon-hole parties, politicians and policies into
granular categories of "left", "center", "right".)
For reasons similar to those outlined above, Corey Robin and Slavoj Zizek have rejected
labelling Trump a "fascist", especially when this label comes from political centrists –
DNC Democrats; "bourgeois liberals" etc. Robin and Zizek emphasize the manner in which Trump is
simply capitalist business as usual. And since the start of the Trump admin., Robin also has
noted the many political weaknesses of Trump and the GOP, over and above Trump's neophyte
incompetence and vainglorious stupidity.
See here, for example
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/02/american-institutions-wont-keep-you-safe-trumps-excesses
The problem with Robin's and Zizek's positions though, Fascism is just as much capitalist
business as usual. Capitalist economic activity can operate effectively under both centrist and
hard-right ideologies, the relation of Liberalism (including "conservatism") and Fascism is
along a continuum and the first can readily morph into the second.
Two recent books describe the inter-relationship between Liberalism and Fascism as capitalist
ruling ideologies.
Domenico Losurdo – Liberalism: A Counter-History.
Ishay Landa – The Apprentice's Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism
A review of Losurdo's book on Amazon provides a good summary of its thesis.
"1. Liberalism does not expand the boundaries of freedom in an organic dialectical
process. Liberalism has undergone profound changes in its history, but not because of any
sort of internal tendency towards progress. The expanders of liberty have been rebellious
slaves, socialists, organized workers, anti-colonial nationalists, and other forces outside
of the Community of the Free. Generally, the Community of the Free only grants accessions
when faced with powerful opposition from outside its walls.
2. Ideologies such as white supremacy, social Darwinism, and colonialism were created by
liberals as a means of defending the liberty of the Community of the Free. When the American
Founding Fathers rebelled against Britain, one of their most commonly stated reasons for
doing so was that the British government didn't respect the freedom Americans had imbibed
through their Northern European blood. The Framers saw themselves as the preservers of the
freedoms of the Glorious Revolution, a revolution based on the right of freedom-worthy
peoples to dominate the supposedly insipid masses. They were explicit in this respect, and
the later history of liberalism continued to attest to this tendency.
3. Liberalism contains within itself the semi-hidden corollary that human behavior must be
strictly regulated in order for freedom to be maintained. In liberalism, individuals have the
freedom to compete with one another and rise to the top based on merit. Liberal elites have
often interpreted this as proof that those at the top of the social ladder deserve their
place. The other conclusion that stems from this is that criminals, the uneducated, the poor,
and non-Western cultures fully deserve their servile status. If nature wanted them to be part
of the Community of the Free, so goes the logic, then it would allow them to participate in
liberty. Therefore, the dominated peoples of the world must hold their position due to their
own internal defects. For Losurdo, this belief is what defines liberalism and separates it
from radicalism.
4. In liberalism, liberty has historically been seen as a trait that people possess, one
granted by nature. Thus, liberalism easily justifies its tendencies towards inequality by
devising various ways of explaining why nature simply doesn't grant some people the liberty
it grants others. Meanwhile, radicalism sees the establishment of liberty as an active
process. Interestingly, this indicates that negative liberty possesses a magnetism towards
authoritarianism. Losrudo points out that during the early days of Fascism, many liberals in
the U.S. and Western Europe such as von Mises, Croce, and the Italian liberal establishment
saw Mussolini's regime as a possible defender of classical liberalism and liberty as it was
understood by the Anglo-Saxon theorists of liberalism.
This book is as disturbing as it is insightful. I personally see it as self-evident that
many of the authoritarian tendencies that Losurdo identifies have made a comeback with a
vengeance in the neo-liberal era, and have strengthened since the start of the Great
Financial Crisis. Modern liberals, especially in American academia, often assure themselves
that liberalism will not tolerate any serious regresses into authoritarianism, because of the
myth of the dialectical process I described at the beginning of this review. I even believed
in this to some extent, and if I remember correctly, I recall Slavoj Zizek of all people
praising liberalism for this reason. Fortunately, Losurdo has seriously damaged my faith in
this tendency in liberalism. Again, I don't even consider myself to be a liberal, I identify
as a Leftist (one of the radicals Losurdo describes). Perhaps it speaks to the pervasiveness
of the comforting nature of liberalism's self image that even its critics unknowingly take
refuge in it."
This is an excerpt of a review of Landa's book from Goodreads:
"The last 2 chapters are dedicated to attacking 4 liberal myths about fascism. 1) that it
was "the tyranny of the majority" 2) that it was "collectivist" as compared to
"individualist" liberalism 3) that the "big lie", the use of propaganda etc to cover the
"truth", was unique to fascism/"totalitarianism" or started there 4) that fascism was an
ultra-nationalist attack on liberal cosmopolitanism.
For 1, he focuses not so much on attacking the idea that fascists were a majority (he does
do this, but the book isn't focused on this sort of thing which has been gone over before
many times) but instead how many liberals believed in the tyranny of the majority *against
property owners* and were perfectly willing to accept dictatorship to protect the elite
minority from the dangers of a majority attacking their elite position – and that
liberals were in fact key ideological supporters of the fascist dictatorship to protect the
market against the attacks of socialism.
For 2, he points out first "it should be realized that terms such as "individualism" or
"collectivism" are, in and of themselves, devoid of political meaning, whether radical or
conservative, left or right, socialist or capitalist. It is only the historical content
poured into such signifiers, that lends them their concrete ideological import." These terms
aren't helpful or meaningful as ideals. Nevertheless, he points out how liberal defences of
the individual actually often took place from the standpoint of a greater community or goal
– he points out how Edmund Burke called society a "family" simply to defend that the
elite patriarchs should be able to do whatever they want yet without any responsibility in
return. The collective standpoint acts as a justification for inequalities – that
allowing the elite to do what they want advances greater goals, like culture, the health of
the race, the nation etc. Individualism was actually often a way of advancing socialist goals
by pointing out that every human being deserves a certain quality of life and the elite don't
deserve more.
For 3, he quotes liberal philosophers who believed in the dangers of democracy so talked
about the need for elites to work behind the scenes so the masses believe they're in charge
while really a small elite do everything. He quotes Leo Strauss extensively, which is kind of
weird as he's "post-fascism", but it's valuable as a more developed example of exactly what
other liberal philosophers wanted. It shows that "totalitarianism" isn't so obviously
confined to non-liberal ideologies.
For 4, he points out how common ideas of the nation were for liberals – similar to 2
– as a justification for inequality, as a basis for wealth (Wealth of Nations for
example), as a myth to rally the masses. Again, he's clear that nationalism isn't inherently
"good" or "bad" – pointing to the way nowadays third world nationalism is a valuable
force for liberation while liberal countries at capitalism's centre are stressing the
opposite. He's saying that nationalism isn't a unique quality of fascism at all. He also
quotes Hitler suggesting that if Germany isn't good enough to win its place at the forefront
of countries, he doesn't care for it. He doesn't present it as if it counters the idea of
nationalism in fascism but he points out that it suggests alternative priorities.
The epilogue focuses on one specific historian's (Michael Mann) ideas about how fascism
wasn't able to take hold in north-west Europe because of their "strong liberal traditions".
He points out first that there were serious differences in material conditions but also that
British politicians, for example, were closely tied to fascism, regularly expressing
admiration for it and supporting fascists abroad, while implementing "crypto-fascist" ideas
at home. Fascism was also impossible without ideas from the UK and the US – eugenics
ideas from there especially were very popular among fascists. The idea that it was "liberal
traditions" that stopped it spreading is shown as, at best, incredibly naive."
I agree with '3': I also think that thinking about dictatorship makes us think that the
threat is coming from a certain direction, which makes us unprepared if the threat comes from
a completely different direction (think of this as being like an intellectual Maginot Line if
you want). Things may change in 100 years time (they normally do!).
But it's clear that for the immediate future (by which I mean, roughly up until about 2050
or thereabouts) 'Old Skool' fascist dictatorships are simply a busted flush. Modi might
praise Hitler and Bolsanaro might speak approvingly of the previous military dictatorships
but even they (more or less) stick to democratic norms (elections etc.) although of course
they try and undermine what one might term the 'true' spirit of democracy at every turn (the
only place on Planet Earth which still habitually uses the 'dictatorship' mode of governance
is the area round the Gulf, for very specific socio-cultural reasons).
If you are looking for previous analogues for what we are looking at in the future you
might look at South Africa (which had elections but only for 'whites'), Mexico under the PRI,
Japan under the LDP, etc. Even in the UK, which is nominally a 'real' democracy you have a
situation (and have had since about 1950) in which, while elections are 'real' the Tories
almost always win them, and after 1979, even when the opposition does win the election, it
does not engage in any serious ideological opposition to the political philosophy of the
Tories (the US is like this too, since roughly 1981).
At the moment at least, the Republicans in the US and the Tories in the UK are simply
doubling down on gerrymandering, voter suppression, 'let them eat racism' type crackdowns on
'immigrants' to disguise (and create a 'reason' for) rising inequality, the blizzard of
propaganda we call 'fake news' (which mainly, contrary to popular belief, comes from
'mainstream' media sources): and so far these techniques seem to be working. Outright
dictatorship would create foreign policy problems (e.g. with the UN, the EU etc.) and there
is little sign at the moment that the Right wants to go down that route, at least in the
short term.
"Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States.
I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of
the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits
amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the
deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be
true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand
families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to
rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you
out!"
Islam stands in their way of usury-ripping of mankind of their
resources and defrauding mankind via bank thefts.
Bring on the Shariah Law. I would much rather live under Shariah, God's Constitution than
under Euoropean/Western diabolic, satanic, fraudulent monies, homosexual, thievery, false flag
hoaxes, WMD's, bogus wars, Unprovoked oppression, tel-LIE-vision, Santa Claus lies, Disney
hocus pocus , hollywood, illuminati, free mason, monarchy, oligarchy, millitary industrial
complex, life time congressman/senators, upto the eye balls taxation, IRS thievery, Fraudulent
federal reserve, Rothchild/Rockerfeller/Queens and Kings city of London satanic cabal, opec
petro$$$ thievery, ISISraHELL's, al-CIA-da hoaxes, Communist, Atheist, Idol worshippers, Fear
Monger's, Drugged and Drunken's oxy crystal coccaine meth psychopath, child pedeophilia,
gambler's, Pathological and diabolical liars, Hypocrites, sodomites ..I can't think of any
right now, because my mind is exploding with rage because of these troubling central banker's
satanic hegemony!
Quran Chapter 30
39. The usury you practice, seeking thereby to multiply people's wealth, will not multiply
with God. But what you give in charity, desiring God's approval -- these are the
multipliers.
40. God is He who created you, then provides for you, then makes you die, then brings you back
to life. Can any of your idols do any of that? Glorified is He, and Exalted above what they
associate.
41. Corruption has appeared on land and sea, because of what people's hands have earned, in
order to make them taste some of what they have done, so that they might return.
I think some my still hold out the hope or expectation that the DOJ will get to the bottom
of national-security state malfeasance, beginning with FBI.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ quite pointedly asks why there was so little interest at the FIS
court in the Nunez memo, which the IG report now bears out. Covering for malfeasance might
just be the FISC's job one.
Now, a similarly gimlet-eyed view of the FBI, as arguably beyond saving ...
The new US defense bill, agreed on by both parties, includes sanctions on executives of companies involved in the completion
of Nordstream 2. This is companies involved in laying the remaining pipe, and also companies involved in the infrastructure around
the arrival point.
This could include arrest of the executives of those companies, who might travel to the United States. One of the companies
is Royal Dutch Shell, who have 80,000 employees in the United States.
Some people believe 'the market' for crude oil is a fair and effective arbiter of the industry supply and demand.
But if we step back an inch or two, we all can see it has been a severely broken mechanism during this up phase in oil.
For example, there has been long lags between market signals of shortage or surplus.
Disruptive policies and mechanisms such as tariffs, embargo's, and sanctions, trade bloc quotas, military coups and popular revolutions,
socialist agendas, industry lobbying, multinational corporate McCarthyism, and massively obese debt financing, are all examples
of forces that have trumped an efficient and transparent oil market.
And yet, the problems with the oil market during this time of upslope will look placid in retrospect, as we enter the time beyond
peak.
I see no reason why it won't turn into a mad chaotic scramble.
We had a small hint of what this can look like in the last mid-century. The USA responded to military expansionism of Japan by
enacting an oil embargo against them. The response was Pearl Harbor. This is just one example of many.
How long before Iran lashes out in response to their restricted access to the market?
People generally don't respond very calmly to involuntary restriction on food, or energy, or access to the markets for these things.
"... Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal' mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore. ..."
"... Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning, the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a series of impossible demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with Qatar not long ago ..."
"... Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. ..."
"... Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia. ..."
"... Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way. ..."
"... False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army. On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media ..."
As a history student years ago I remember our teacher explaining how past events are linked to what happens in the future. He
told us human behaviour always dictates that events will repeat in a similar way as before. I remember we studied 20th century history
and discussed World War I and the links to World War II. At this time, we were in the middle of the Cold War and in unchartered waters
and I couldn't really link past events to what was likely to happen next. Back then I guess like many I considered US presidents
more as statesman. They talked tough on the Soviet Union but they talked peace too. So, the threat to humanity was very different
then to now. Dangerous but perhaps a stable kind of dangerous. After the break up of the Soviet Union we then went through a phase
of disorderly change in the world. In the early 1990s the war in the Former Yugoslavia erupted and spread from republic to republic.
Up until the mid-to-late nineties I didn't necessarily sense that NATO and the West were the new threat to humanity. While there
was a clear bias to events in Yugoslavia there was still some even-handedness or fairness. Or so I thought. This all changed in 1999
with the war in Kosovo. For the first time I witnessed shocking images of civilian targets being bombed, TV stations, trains, bridges
and so on. But my wake-up call was the daily NATO briefings on the war. The NATO spokesman boasted of hundreds of Serbian tanks being
destroyed. There was something new and disturbing about his manner, language and tone, something I'd not encountered from coverage
of previous conflicts. For the first time I found myself not believing one word of the narrative.
When the peace agreement was reached, out of 300 Serbian tanks which had entered Kosovo at the start of the conflict, over 285
were counted going back into Serbia proper which was
confirmation he had been
lying .
From this conflict onwards I started to see clear parallels with events of the past and some striking similarities with the lead
up to previous world wars. This all hit home when observing events in Syria and more recently Venezuala. But looking around seeing
people absorbed in their phones you wouldn't think the world is on the brink of war. For most of us with little time to watch world
events there are distractions which have obscured the picture historians and geopolitical experts see more clearly.
Recent and current
western leaders haven't been short people in military uniform shouting. That would be far too obvious. It's still military conflict
and mass murder but in smart suits with liberal sound-bites and high-fives. Then the uncool, uncouth conservative Trump came along
and muddied the waters.
Briefly it seemed there might be hope that these wars would stop. But there can be little doubt he's been
put under pressure to comply with the regime change culture embedded in the Deep State. Today, through their incendiary language
we see US leaders morphing into the open style dictators of the past. The only thing missing are the military uniforms and hats.
Every US military action and ultimatum to a foreign state has been aggressively pushed by the losing Democrats and particularly 'liberal'
mainstream media, any dissent met with smears, censorship or worse. I would argue that today similarities with events leading up
to previous global conflicts are too striking and numerous to ignore.
Let's look at some of these:
1) Military build up, alliances and proxy wars – for all the chaos and mass murder pursued by the Obama Administration he did
achieve limited successes in signing agreements with Iran and Cuba. But rather than reverse the endless wars as promised Trump cancels
the agreements leaving the grand sum of zilch foreign policy achievements. NATO has been around for 70 years, but in the last 20
or so has become obsessed with military build up. Nowadays it has hundreds of bases around the world but keeps destablising non-aligned
states, partly to isolate Russia and China. And Syria sums up the dangers of the regime change model used today. With over a dozen
states involved in the proxy war there is a still high risk of conflict breaking out between US and Russia. The motives for military
build up are many. First there are powerful people in the arms industry and media who benefit financially from perpetual war. The
US while powerful in military terms are a declining power which will continue, new powers emerging. The only return on their money
they can see is through military build up. Also there are many in government, intelligence services and media who can see that if
the current order continues to crumble they are likely to be prosecuted for various crimes. All this explains the threatening language
and the doubling-down on those who challenge them. In 1914, Europe had two backward thinking military alliance blocks and Sarajevo
showed how one event could trigger an unstoppable escalation dragging in many states. And empires such as Austro-Hungary were crumbling
from within as they are now. So a similar mentality prevails today where the powerful in these empires under threat favour conflict
to peace. For these individuals it's a last throw of the dice and a gamble with all our lives.
2) Israel and its US relationship – I think Syria is where global conflict is still likely to start. As Syria has been winning,
the involvement of Turkey and Saudi Arabia appears to receding. More recently Israel have taken their place and is relentless and
unyielding and has its own wider, destructive plans for the Middle East. Israeli influence in the US is now so great that the US
has more or less ceded its foreign policy in the Middle East to Israel. In 1914 Austro-Hungary pursued a
series of impossible
demands against Serbia managing to drag its close and more powerful ally Germany (led by someone equally as obstinate and militaristic
as the US leadership) into World War I. Incidentally, some readers may have noticed the similarity between the 1914 diktats and modern-day
US bullying towards Venezuala and other states – and perhaps most striking, by Saudi Arabia in its dispute with
Qatar not long ago.
3) Ideology, paranoia and unstable leaders – history tells us that ideology, paranoia and power are not a good mix and this is
in abundance in western elites and media. These establishments are rabidly hostile to Iran and Russia. In addition we face a situation
of highly unpredictable, ideological regional leaders in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Most worrying of all, the language, threats
and actions of Trump, Pompeo and Bolton suggests there are psychopathic tendencies in play. Behind this is a Deep State and Democrat
Party pushing even harder for conflict. The level of paranoia is discouraging any notion of peace. 30 years ago Russia and US would
sit down at a summit and reach a consensus. Today a US leader or diplomat seen talking to a Russian official is accused of collusion.
When there are limited channels to talk in a crisis, you know we are in trouble. In Germany in the 1930s, ideology, propaganda and
creating enemies were key in getting the population on side for war. The leaders within the Nazi clique, Hitler, Goring and Himmler
look disturbingly similar to the Trump, Pompeo, Bolton line up.
4) Media deception and propaganda – The media have been responsible for getting us to where we are today. Without them, the public
would have woken up long ago. Much of the deception has been about the presentation of the narrative and the leaders. And it's been
a campaign of distraction on our news where the daily genocide in Yemen gives way to sensationalised non-events and celebrity trivia.
The terms and words; regime change, mass murder and terrorist have all been substituted by the media with 'humanitarian intervention',
'limited airstrikes' and 'moderate rebels' to fool a distracted public that the victims of the aggression are the bad guys. Western
funded 'fact checking' sites such as Bellingcat have appeared pushing the misdirections to a surreal new level. Obama was portayed
in the media as a cool guy and a little 'soft' on foreign policy. This despite the carnage in Libya, Syria and his drones. Sentiments
of equal rights and diversity fill the home affairs sections in the liberal press, while callous indifference and ethno-centrism
towards the Middle East and Russia dominate foreign affairs pages. In the press generally, BREXIT, non-existent anti-Semitism and
nonsense about the 'ISIS bride' continues unabated. This media circus seeks to distract from important matters, using these topics
to create pointless divisions, causing hostility towards Muslims and Jews in the process. The majority of a distracted public have
still not twigged largely because the propaganda is more subtle nowadays and presented under a false humanitarian cloak. A small
but vocal group of experts and journalists challenging these narratives are regularly smeared as
Putin
or Assad "apologists" . UK journalists are regularly caught out lying and some long standing hoaxes such as Russiagate exposed.
Following this and Iraq WMDs more people are starting to see a pattern here. Yet each time the media in the belief they've bamboozled
enough move on to the next big lie. This a sign of a controlled media which has reached the point of being unaccountable and untouchable,
deeply embedded within the establishment apparatus. In the lead up to World War II the Nazis ran an effective media propaganda campaign
which indoctrinated the population. The media in Germany also reached the point their blindingly obvious lies were rarely questioned.
The classic tactic was to blame others for the problems in Germany and the world and project their crimes on to their victims. There
are some differences as things have evolved. The Nazis created the media and state apparatus to pursue war. Nowadays this is the
opposite way around. Instead the state apparatus is already in place so whoever is leader whether they describe themself as liberal
or conservative, is merely a figurehead required to continue the same pro-war policies. Put a fresh-looking president in a shiny
suit and intoduce him to the Queen and you wouldn't think he's the biggest mass murderer since Hitler. Although there are some differences
in the propaganda techniques, all the signs are that today's media are on a similar war-footing as Germany's was just prior to the
outbreak of World War II.
5) Appeasement – because of its relative weakness and not wanting a war, Russia has to some extent appeased Western and Israeli
aggression in Syria and beyond. To be fair, given the aggression it faces I don't think Russia has had much choice than playing for
time. However at some point soon, with the West pushing more and more, something will have to give. Likewise, in the 1930s a militarily
unprepared UK and France appeased Germany's expansion. The more they backed off the more Germany pushed until war was the only way.
6) False flags – for those watching events in Syria know that the majority of the 'chemical attacks' have been carried out by
Western supported opposition. The timing and nature of these suggest co-ordination at the highest levels. Intelligence Services of
the UK and other agencies are believed to co-ordinate these fabrications to provoke a western response aimed at the Syrian Army.
On more than one occasion these incidents have nearly escalated to a direct conflict with Russia showing the dangerous game being
played by those involved and those pushing the false narrative in the media. The next flashpoint in Syria is Idlib, where it's highly
likely a new chemical fabrication will be attempted this Spring. In the 1930s the Nazis were believed to use false flags with increasing
frequency to discredit and close down internal opposition. Summary – We now live in a society where exposing warmongering is a more
serious crime than committing it. Prisons hold many people who have bravely exposed war crimes – yet most criminals continue to walk
free and hold positions of power. And when the media is pushing for Julian Assange to be extradicted you know this is beyond simple
envy of a man who has almost single-handedly done the job they've collectively failed to do. They are equally complicit in warmongering
hence why they see Assange and others as a threat. For those not fooled by the smart suits, liberal platitudes and media distraction
techniques, the parallels with Germany in the 1930s in particular are now fairly obvious. The blundering military alliances of 1914
and the pure evil of 1939 – with the ignorance, indifference and narcissism described above make for a destructive mix. Unless something
changes soon our days on this planet are likely be numbered. Depressing but one encouraging thing is that the indisputable truth
is now in plain sight for anyone with internet access to see and false narratives have collapsed before. It's still conceivable that
something may create a whole chain of events which sweep these dangerous parasites from power. So anything can happen. In the meantime
we should keep positive and continue to spread the message.
Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars
promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he's keen on exploring
ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.
2- 'Israel and its US relationship'. The 'hands off' policy of the Western powers, guarantees that Syria cannot even be a trigger
to any 'global conflict', supposing that a 'global conflict' was on the cards, especially when Russia is just a crumbling shadow
of the USSR and China a giant with feet of clay, heavily dependent on Western oligarchic goodwill, to maintain its economy and
its technological progress.
In 1914, the Serbian crisis was just trigger of WWI and not a true cause. It is not even clear if it was Germany that dragged
Austria-Hungary into the war or Russia. Although there was a possibility (only a possibility), that a swift and 'illegal' attack
by Austria-Hungary (without an ultimatum), would have localised and contained the conflict.
There is no similarity whatsoever between the 1914 'diktats' and modern US policy, as the US is the sole Superpower and its
acts are not opposed by a balancing and corresponding alliance. Save in the Chinese colony of North Korea, where the US is restrained
by a tacit alliance of the North Eastern Asiatic powers: China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, that oppose any military action
and so promote and protect North Korean bullying. Qatar, on the other hand, is one of the most radical supporters of the Syrian
opposition and terrorist groups around the muslim world, even more than Saudi Arabia and there are powerful reasons for the confrontation
of the Gulf rivals.
You should go back in Time and STUDY what really happened .. that means going back to the Creation of the socalled British Empire
..the Bank of England , the British East Indian Company , the Opium Wars and the Opium Trafficing , the Boer Wars for Gold and
Diamonds , the US Civil War and its aftermath , the manipulations of Gold and Silver by socalled british Financial Interests ,
The US Spanish Wars , the Japanese Russian War , the failed Coup against Czar Russia 1905 , the Young Turk Coup against the Ottoman
Empire 1908, the Armenian Genocide , the Creation of the Federal Reserve 1913 , the Multitude of Assinations and other Terror
Attacks in the period from 1900 and upwards , WHO were the perpetraders ? , , WW 1 and its originators , the Bolshevik Coup 1917
, the Treaty of Versailles and the Actors in that Treaty ,the Plunder of Germany , the dissolution of Austria Hungary , the Bolshevik
Coup attempts all over Europe , and then the run up to WW 2 , the Actions of Poland agianst Germans and Czechs .. Hitler , Musolini
and finally WW 2 .the post war period , the Nuernberg Trials , the Holocaust Mythology , the Creation of Israel , Gladio , the
Fall of the Sovjet Empire and the Warshav Pact , the Wars in the Middle East , the endless Terror Actions , the murder of Kennedy
and a mass of False Flag Terrorist Attacks since then , the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle east THERE IS PLENTY of
EXCELLENT LITERATURE and ANALYSIS on all subjects .
It was your Obama that 'persecuted' Mr Assange !!!
Syria demonstrates that there has NOT been a Western strategy for regime change (specially after the 'defeats' in Iraq and
Afghanistan), let alone a proxy war, but, on the contrary, an effort to keep the tyranny of Assad in power, in a weaker state,
to avoid any strong, 'revolutionary' rival near Israel. Russia has been given a free hand in Syria, otherwise, if the West had
properly armed the resistance groups, it would have been a catastrophe for the Russian forces, like it was in Afghanistan during
the Soviet intervention.
Trump's policy of 'equal' (proportional) contributions for all members of NATO and other allies, gives the lie to the US military
return 'argument' and should be understood as part of his war on unfair competition by other powers.
The 'military' and diplomatic alliances of 1914 were FORWARD thinking, so much so that they 'repeated' themselves during WWII,
with slight changes. But it is very doubtful that the Empires, like the Austro-Hungarian o the Russian ones, would have 'crumbled'
without the outbreak of WWI. They were never under threat, as their military power during the war showed. Only a World War of
cataclysmic character could destroy them. A war, triggered, but not created, by the 'conflict seeking mentality' of the powerful
in the small countries of the Balkans.
Generally attributed to Senator Hiram Warren Johnson in 1918 that 'when war comes the first casualty is truth' is as much a truism
now as it was then.
I'm more inclined to support hauptmanngurski's proposition that the members of the armed forces, from both sides, who return
from conflicts with life-changing injuries or even in flag-draped caskets defended only the freedom of multinational enterprises
and conglomerates to make and continue to make vast profits for the privileged few at the population's expense.
As Kevin Smith makes abundantly clear we are all subject to the downright lies and truth-stretching from our government aided
and abetted by a compliant main stream media as exemplified in the Skripal poisoning affair, which goes far beyond the counting
of Serbian tanks supposedly destroyed during the Balkans conflict. The Skripals' are now God knows where either as willing participants
or as detainees and our government shows no signs of clarifying the matter, so who would believe what it put out anyway in view
of its track record of misinformation ? The nation doesn't know what to believe.
Sadly, I believe this has always been the way of things and I cannot even speculate on how long it will be before this nation
will realise it is being deliberately mis-led.
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation". ..."
"... Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ? ..."
"... Sphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place. ..."
While I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and
liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the
thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate
his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow
Koreans.
Very good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and
Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Was it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia?
Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life
isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say
farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining
ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar.
Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state
of Israel.
"... Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor and messianic in its language. ..."
"... At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem," yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways. ..."
"... Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory is built. ..."
"... Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet. ..."
"... I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department. ..."
"... I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization, which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely. Neither is guaranteed. ..."
"... "Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened. ..."
"... Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire, ..."
"... We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem, or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or .... ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'. ..."
"... "If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but a Global Empire only posing as your former country." ..."
Barnett's main thesis in "The Pentagon's New Map" is that the world is composed of two types of states: those that are
part of an integrated and connected "Core," which embrace globalization; and states of the "Gap," which are disconnected from
the effects of globalization. Barnett proclaims that globalization will move the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but
can only do so with the help of an indispensable United States. He writes that America is the lynchpin to the entire process and
he believes that the United States should be midwife to a new world that will one day consist of peaceful democratic states and
integrated economies. Barnett is proposing no less than a new grand strategy - the historical successor to the Cold War's strategy
of containment. His approach to a future world defined by America's "exportation of security" is almost religious in its fervor
and messianic in its language.
The foundation upon which Barnett builds his binary view of the world is heavily dependant upon the continued advancement of
globalization - almost exclusively so. However, advancing globalization is not pre-ordained. Barnett himself makes the case that
globalization is a fragile undertaking similar to an interconnected chain in which any broken link destroys the whole. Globalization
could indeed be like the biblical statue whose feet are made of clay. Globalization, and therefore the integration of the Gap,
may even stop or recede - just as the globalization of the early 20th century ended abruptly with the onset of WW I and a global
depression. Moreover, Barnett's contention that the United States has an exceptional duty and moral responsibility for "remaking
the world in America's image" might be seen by many as misguided and perhaps even dangerous.
The divide between the `Functioning Core' and the `Non-Integrating Gap' differs from the gulf between rich and poor in a subtle
yet direct way. State governments make a conscious decision to become connected vs. disconnected to advancing globalization. States
and their leaders can provide the infrastructure and the opening of large global markets to their citizens in ways that individuals
cannot. An example can serve to illustrate the point: You can be rich and disconnected in Nigeria or poor and disconnected in
North Korea. In each case the country you live in has decided to be disconnected. Citizens in this case have a limited likelihood
of staying rich and unlimited prospects of staying poor. But by becoming part of the functioning Core, the enlightened state allows
all citizens a running start at becoming part of a worldwide economic system and thus provide prospects for a better future because
global jobs and markets are opened up to them. A connected economy such as India's, for example, enables citizens who once had
no prospects for a better life to find well-paying jobs, such as computer-related employment. Prospects for a better Indian life
are directly the result of the Indian government's conscious decision to become connected to the world economy, a.k.a. embracing
globalization.
After placing his theory of the Core/Gap and preemptive war strategy firmly into the church of globalization, Barnett next
places his theory squarely upon the alter of rule sets. Few would argue that the world is an anarchic place and Barnett tells
us that rule sets are needed to define `good' and `evil' behavior of actors in this chaotic international system. An example of
such a rule set is the desire of the Core to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Other examples are the promulgation
of human rights and the need to stop genocide. Barnett also uses rule sets to define `system' rules that govern and shape the
actions, and even the psychology, of international actors. An example that Barnett gives of a system-wide rule set is the creation
of the `rule' defined by the United States during the Cold War called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Barnett claims that this
rule set effectively ended the possibility of war for all time amongst nuclear-capable great powers. Barnett states that the U.S.
now should export a brand new rule set called `preemptive war,' which aims to fight actors in the lawless Gap in order to end
international terrorism for all time. Barnett makes it clear that the Core's enemy is neither a religion (Islam) nor a place (Middle
East), but a condition (disconnectedness).
Next, Barnett points out that system-wide competition has moved into the economic arena and that military conflict, when it
occurs, has moved away from the system-wide (Cold War), to inter-state war, ending up today with primarily state conflict vs.
individuals (Core vs. bin Laden, Core vs. Kim, etc.). In other words, "we are moving progressively away from warfare against states
or even blocs of states and toward a new era of warfare against individuals." Rephrased, we've moved from confrontations with
evil empires, to evil states, to evil leaders. An example of this phenomenon is the fact that China dropped off the radar of many
government hawks after 9/11 only to be replaced by terrorist groups and other dangerous NGOs "with global reach."
Barnett also points out that the idea of `connectivity' is central to the success of globalization. Without it, everything
else fails. Connectivity is the glue that holds states together and helps prevent war between states. For example, the US is not
likely to start a war with `connected' France, but America could more likely instigate a war with `disconnected' North Korea,
Syria or Iran.
Barnett then examines the dangers associated with his definition of `disconnectedness.' He cleverly describes globalization
as a condition defined by mutually assured dependence (MAD) and advises us that `Big Men', royal families, raw materials, theocracies
and just bad luck can conspire to impede connectedness in the world. This is one of few places in his book that Barnett briefly
discusses impediments to globalization - however, this short list looks at existing roadblocks to connectedness but not to future,
system-wide dangers to globalization.
At this point in his book, Barnett also makes bold statements that America is never leaving the Gap and that we are therefore
never "bringing our boys home." He believes that there is no exiting the Gap, only shrinking it. These statements have incited
some of Barnett's critics to accuse him of fostering and advocating a state of perpetual war. Barnett rebuts these attacks by
claiming that, "America's task is not perpetual war, nor the extension of empire. It is merely to serve as globalization's bodyguard
wherever and whenever needed throughout the Gap." Barnett claims that the strategy of preemptive war is a "boundable problem,"
yet his earlier claim that we are never leaving the Gap and that our boys are never coming home does not square with his assertion
that there will not be perpetual war. He cannot have it both ways.
Barnett then takes us on a pilgrimage to the Ten Commandments of globalization. Tellingly, this list is set up to be more like
links in a chain than commandments. Each item in the list is connected to the next - meaning that each step is dependent upon
its predecessor. If any of the links are broken or incomplete, the whole is destroyed. For example, Barnett warns us that if there
is no security in the Gap, there can be no rules in the Gap. Barnett therefore undermines his own globalization-based grand
strategy by pointing out in detail at least ten things that can go wrong with globalization - the foundation upon which his theory
is built.
What else could kill globalization? Barnett himself tells us: "Labor, energy, money and security all need to flow as freely
as possible from those places in the world where they are plentiful to those regions where they are scarce." Here he is implying
that an interruption of any or all of these basic necessities can doom globalization. Barnett states clearly: "...(these are)
the four massive flows I believe are essential to protect if Globalization III is going to advance." Simply put, any combination
of American isolationism or closing of borders to immigration, a global energy crisis, a global financial crisis or rampant global
insecurity could adversely affect "connectedness," a.k.a. globalization. These plausible future events, unnerving as they are,
leave the inexorable advancement of globalization in doubt and we haven't yet explored other problems with Barnett's reliance
on globalization to make the world peaceful, free and safe for democracy.
Barnett goes on to tell us that Operation Iraqi Freedom was an "overt attempt to create a "System Perturbation" centered in
the Persian Gulf to trigger a Big Bang." His definition of a Big Bang in the Middle East is the democratization of the many totalitarian
states in the region. He also claims that the Big Bang has targeted Iran's "sullen majority."
Barnett claims that our problem with shrinking the Gap is not our "motive or our means, but our inability to describe the enemies
worth killing, the battles worth winning, and the future worth creating." Managing the global campaign to democratize the world
is no easy task. Barnett admits that in a worst-case scenario we may be stuck in the "mother of all intifadas" in Iraq. Critics
claim this is something that we should have planned for - that the insurgency should not have been a surprise, and that it should
have been part of the "peacemaking" planning. Barnett blithely states that things will get better "...when America internationalizes
the occupation." Barnett should not engage in wishful thinking here, as he also does when he predicted that Iraqis would be put
in charge of their own country 18 months after the fall of Baghdad. It would be more accurate if he claimed this would happen
18 months after the cessation of hostilities. Some critics claim that Iraq is an example that we are an "empire in a hurry" (Michael
Ignatieff), which then results in: 1) allocating insufficient resources to non-military aspects of the project and 2) attempting
economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame.
The final basic premise of Barnett's theory of the Core and the Gap is the concept of what he calls the "global transaction
strategy." Barnett explains it best: "America's essential transaction with the outside world is one of our exporting security
in return for the world's financing a lifestyle we could far more readily afford without all that defense spending." Barnett claims
that America pays the most for global stability because we enjoy it the most. But what about the other 80 countries in the Core?
Why is America, like Atlas, bearing the weight of the world's security and stabilization on its shoulders?
Barnett claims that historical analogies are useless today and point us in the wrong direction. I disagree. James Madison cautioned
us not to go abroad to seek monsters to destroy. We can learn from his simple and profound statement that there are simply too
many state (and individual) monsters in today's world for the U.S. to destroy unilaterally or preemptively. We must also avoid
overstretching our resources and power. Thucydides reminds us that the great democracy of Athens was brought to its knees by the
ill-advised Sicilian expedition - which resulted in the destruction of everything the Athenians held dear. Do not ignore history
as Barnett councils; heed it.
Globalization is likely here to stay, though it may be slowed down or even stopped in some regions of the planet.
Therefore, America needs to stay engaged in the affairs of the world, but Barnett has not offered conclusive evidence that the
U.S. needs to become the world's single Leviathan that must extinguish all global hot wars. Barnett also has not proved that America
needs to be, as he writes, "the one willing to rush in when everyone else is running away." People like Barnett in academia and
leaders in government may proclaim and ordain the U.S. to be a global Leviathan, but it is a conscious choice that should be thoroughly
debated by the American people. After all, it is upon the backs of the American people that such a global Leviathan must ride.
Where is the debate? The American people, upon reflection, may decide upon other courses of action.
I would strongly recommend "The Pentagon's New Map" to students who are studying U.S. foreign policy. I would also recommend
it to those who are studying the Bush administration as well as the Pentagon. The ideas in the book seem to be popular with the
military and many of its ideas can be seen in the current thinking and policy of the Pentagon and State Department.
It seems to be well researched - having 35 pages of notes. Many of Barnett's citations come from the Washington Post and the
New York Times, which some may see as a liberal bias, but I see the sources as simply newspapers of record.
I would only caution the reader that Barnett's theories are heavily dependent upon the continued advancement of globalization,
which in turn is dependent upon the continued economic ability of the U.S. to sustain military operations around the world indefinitely.
Neither is guaranteed.
I don't think poorly of Thomas Barnett himself. He's very bright and, I think, good hearted, BUT his well thought-out, well
argued pride and joy (and positive intellectual pursuit) is being badly distorted ---- which happens to all 'tools' that Empire
gets its hands on.
For those who like predictions, I would predict that Barnett will wind up going through an epiphany much like Francis Fukuyama
(but a decade later) and for much the same reason, that his life's work gets misused and abused so greatly that he works to reverse
and correct its misuse. Fukuyama, also brilliant, wrote "The End of History" in 1992 (which was misused by the neocons to engender
war), and now he's working just as hard to reverse a misuse that he may feel some guilt of his work supporting, and is writing
"The Future of History" as a force for good --- and I suspect (and hope) that Barnett will, in even less time, be counter-thinking
and developing the strategy and book to reverse the misuse of his 2004 book before the Global Empire pulls down the curtain.
"Globalization" has turned out to be nothing but the polite PR term to disguise and avoid the truth of using the more accurate
name, "Global Empire" --- and there is no doubt that Barnett is more than smart enough to see that this has inexorably happened.
Best luck and love to the fast expanding 'Occupy the Empire' educational and revolutionary movement against this deceitful,
guileful, disguised EMPIRE, which can't so easily be identified as wearing Red Coats, Red Stars, nor funny looking Nazi helmets
---- quite yet!
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality Over Violent/'Vichy' Rel 2.0 Empire,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
We don't MERELY have; a gun/fear problem, or a 'Fiscal Cliff', 'Sequestration', and 'Debt Limit' problem, or an expanding
wars problem, or a 'drone assassinations' problem, or a vast income & wealth inequality problem, or a Wall Street 'looting' problem,
or a Global Warming and environmental death-spiral problem, or a domestic tyranny NDAA FISA spying problem, or, or, or, or ....
ad nauseam --- we have a hidden EMPIRE cancerous tumor which is the prime CAUSE of all these 'symptom problems'.
"If your country is treating you like ****, and bombing abroad, look carefully --- because it may not be your country, but
a Global Empire only posing as your former country."
"... Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003. ..."
"... If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents. ..."
People who seem to think that Trump's generals will somehow go along and support his original vision are sadly mistaken.
Since 2003, Israel has had an increasingly strong hand in the vetting who gets promoted to upper positions in the American
armed forces. All of the generals Trump has at his side went through a vetting procedure which definitely involved a very close
look at their opinions about Israel.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski has written extensively about the purges of the patriots in the Defense Department that happened
in Washington during the lead up and after the commencement of the Iraq war in 2003.
Officers who openly oppose the dictates of the Israel Lobby will see their prospects for advancement simply vanish like a whiff
of smoke.. Those who support Israel's machinations are rewarded with promotions, the more fervent the support the more rapid the
promotion especially if this knowledge is made known to their congressman or senator..
Generals who support Israel already know that this support will be heavily rewarded after their retirements by being given
lucrative six figure positions on company boards of directors or positions in equally lucrative think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institution or the Hoover Institute. They will receive hefty speaking fees. as well. They learned early that their
retirements could be truly glorious if they only "went" along with The Lobby. They will be able to then live the good life in
expensive places like Washington, New York or San Francisco, often invited to glitzy parties with unlimited amount of free prawns
"the size of your hand".
On the other hand, upper officers who somehow get then get "bad" reputations for their negative views about Israel ( like Karen
U. Kwiatkowski for instance) will end up, once retired, having to depend on just their often scanty pensions This requires getting
an often demeaning second jobs to get by in some place where "their dollar goes further". No bright lights in big cities for them.
No speaking fees, no college jobs. Once their fate becomes known, their still active duty contemporaries suddenly decide to "go
along".
If anybody thinks what I have written is an exaggeration, research what the late Admiral Thomas Moorer had to say years
ago about the total infiltration of the Defense Department by Israeli agents.
Face it, we live in a country under occupation by a hostile power that we willingly pay large amounts monetary tribute to.
Our government does whatever benefits Israel regardless of how negatively this effects the USA. We are increasing troop strength
in Afghanistan because, somehow, this benefits Israel. If our presence in Afghanistan (or the Mideast in general) didn't benefit
Israel, our troops would simply not be there.
"... The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya. ..."
"... Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed. ..."
"... Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. ..."
"... We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact. ..."
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin
America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts
to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct
wars. They use today other, various methods like
brutal proxy
wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly
complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces
unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless
interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American
people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US
had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead
of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies
failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.
In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably
the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without
the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have
proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have
witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from
WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources.
The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't
care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources
for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that
the Western
hypocrites were using him according to their interests .
Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they
had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order
to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course,
his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which
belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe
at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster
in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy.
The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also
the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the
Treuhand Operation
after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank
to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in
Ireland ,
Italy and
Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed
in an open financial coup against
Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF
and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside
and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece
into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF
economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the
second eurozone economy, France,
rushed to
impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under
the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power
with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical
with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between
the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the
NSA interceptions
scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a
transatlantic
economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies
its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree
of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres
of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally,
the constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the
global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away
from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the
new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with
other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership,
through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information
has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A
video , for
example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is
connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.
This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise
some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments
in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can
also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination
(like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans
to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic
expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine
in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite
his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation
in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that
they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian
borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
The USA state of continuous war has been a bipartisan phenomenon starting with Truman in Korea and proceeding with Vietnam, Lebanon,Somalia,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and now Syria. It doesn't take a genius to realize that these limited, never ending wars are expensive
was to enrich MIC and Wall Street banksters
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street
masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives,
create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class
in US politics and culture.
Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking
about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George Orwell
Also we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Jewish financists are no longer Jewish, much like a socialist who became minister is no
longer a socialist minister. Unregulated finance promotes a set of destructive behaviors which
has nothing to do with nationality or ethnicity.
Of course that Joyce is peddling his own obsessions, but I have to admit that Singer &
comp. are detestable. I know that what they're doing is not illegal, but it should be (in my
opinion), and those who are involved in such affairs are somehow odious. The same goes for Icahn,
Soros etc. Still Ethnic angle is evident, too: how come Singer works exclusively with his
co-ethnics in this multi-ethnic USA? Non-Jewish & most Jewish entrepreneurs don't behave that
way.
It was very gratifying to see Tucker Carlson's
recent attack on the activities of Paul Singer's vulture fund, Elliot Associates, a group I
first
profiled four years ago. In many respects, it is truly remarkable that vulture funds like
Singer's escaped major media attention prior to this, especially when one considers how
extraordinarily harmful and exploitative they are. Many countries are now in very significant
debt to groups like Elliot Associates and, as Tucker's segment very starkly illustrated, their
reach has now extended into the very heart of small-town America. Shining a spotlight on the
spread of this virus is definitely welcome. I strongly believe, however, that the problem
presented by these cabals of exploitative financiers will only be solved if their true nature
is fully discerned. Thus far, the descriptive terminology employed in discussing their
activities has revolved only around the scavenging and parasitic nature of their activities.
Elliot Associates have therefore been described as a quintessential example of a "vulture fund"
practicing "vulture capitalism." But these funds aren't run by carrion birds. They are operated
almost exclusively by Jews. In the following essay, I want us to examine the largest and most
influential "vulture funds," to assess their leadership, ethos, financial practices, and how
they disseminate their dubiously acquired wealth. I want us to set aside colorful metaphors. I
want us to strike through the mask.
It is commonly agreed that the most significant global vulture funds are Elliot Management,
Cerberus, FG Hemisphere, Autonomy Capital, Baupost Group, Canyon Capital Advisors, Monarch
Alternative Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management, Aurelius Capital Management, OakTree Capital,
Fundamental Advisors, and Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP. The names of these groups are
very interesting, being either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or
rural/pastoral origins (note the prevalence of oak, trees, parks, canyons, monarchs, or the use
of names like Aurelius and Elliot). This is the same tactic employed by the Jew Jordan Belfort,
the "Wolf of Wall Street," who operated multiple major frauds under the business name Stratton
Oakmont.
These names are masks. They are designed to cultivate trust and obscure the real background
of the various groupings of financiers. None of these groups have Anglo-Saxon or venerable
origins. None are based in rural idylls. All of the vulture funds named above were founded by,
and continue to be operated by, ethnocentric, globalist, urban-dwelling Jews. A quick review of
each of their websites reveals their founders and central figures to be:
Elliot Management
-- Paul Singer, Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn, Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel
Cerberus -- Stephen Feinberg, Lee Millstein, Jeffrey Lomasky, Seth Plattus, Joshua Weintraub,
Daniel Wolf, David Teitelbaum FG Hemisphere -- Peter Grossman Autonomy Capital -- Derek Goodman
Baupost Group -- Seth Klarman, Jordan Baruch, Isaac Auerbach Canyon Capital Advisors -- Joshua
Friedman, Mitchell Julis Monarch Alternative Capital -- Andrew Herenstein, Michael Weinstock
GoldenTree Asset Management -- Steven Tananbaum, Steven Shapiro Aurelius Capital Management --
Mark Brodsky, Samuel Rubin, Eleazer Klein, Jason Kaplan OakTree Capital -- Howard Marks, Bruce
Karsh, Jay Wintrob, John Frank, Sheldon Stone Fundamental Advisors -- Laurence Gottlieb,
Jonathan Stern Tilden Park Investment Master Fund LP -- Josh Birnbaum, Sam Alcoff
The fact that all of these vulture funds, widely acknowledged as the most influential and
predatory, are owned and operated by Jews is remarkable in itself, especially in a contemporary
context in which we are constantly bombarded with the suggestion that Jews don't have a special
relationship with money or usury, and that any such idea is an example of ignorant prejudice.
Equally remarkable, however, is the fact that Jewish representation saturates the board level
of these companies also, suggesting that their beginnings and methods of internal promotion and
operation rely heavily on ethnic-communal origins, and religious and social cohesion more
generally. As such, these Jewish funds provide an excellent opportunity to examine their
financial and political activities as expressions of Jewishness, and can thus be placed in the
broader framework of the Jewish group evolutionary strategy and the long historical trajectory
of Jewish-European relations.
How They Feed
In May 2018, Puerto Rico declared a form of municipal bankruptcy after falling into more
than
$74.8 billion in debt, of which more than $34 billion is interest and fees. The debt was
owed to
all of the Jewish capitalists named above, with the exception of Stephen Feinberg's
Cerberus group. In order to commence payments, the government had instituted a policy of fiscal
austerity, closing schools and raising utility bills, but when Hurricane Maria hit the island
in September 2017, Puerto Rico was forced to stop transfers to their Jewish creditors. This
provoked an aggressive attempt by the Jewish funds to seize assets from an island suffering
from an 80% power outage, with the addition of further interest and fees. Protests broke out in
several US cities calling for the debt to be forgiven. After a quick stop in Puerto Rico in
late 2018, Donald Trump pandered to this sentiment when he told Fox News, "They owe a lot of
money to your friends on Wall Street, and we're going to have to wipe that out." But Trump's
statement, like all of Trump's statements, had no substance. The following day, the director of
the White House budget office, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters: "I think what you heard the
president say is that Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to solve its debt
problem." In other words, Puerto Rico is going to have to figure out a way to pay its Jews.
Trump's reversal is hardly surprising, given that the President is considered extremely
friendly to Jewish financial power. When he referred to "your friends on Wall Street" he really
meant his friends on Wall Street. One of his closest allies is Stephen Feinberg, founder
and CEO of Cerberus, a war-profiteering vulture fund that has now accumulated
more than $1.5 billion in Irish debt , leaving the country prone to a "
wave of home repossessions " on a scale not seen since the Jewish mortgage traders behind
Quicken Loans (Daniel Gilbert) and Ameriquest (Roland Arnall)
made thousands of Americans homeless . Feinberg has also been associated with mass
evictions in Spain, causing a collective of Barcelona anarchists to
label him a "Jewish mega parasite" in charge of the "world's vilest vulture fund." In May
2018, Trump made Feinberg
chair of his Intelligence Advisory Board , and one of the reasons for Trump's sluggish
retreat from Afghanistan has been the fact Feinberg's DynCorp has enjoyed years of lucrative government
defense contracts training Afghan police and providing ancillary services to the military.
But Trump's association with Jewish vultures goes far beyond Feinberg. A recent piece
in the New York Post declared "Orthodox Jews are opening up their wallets for Trump in
2020." This is a predictable outcome of the period 2016 to 2020, an era that could be neatly
characterised as How Jews learned to stop worrying and love the Don. Jewish financiers
are opening their wallets for Trump because it is now clear he utterly failed to fulfil
promises on mass immigration to White America, while pledging his commitment to Zionism and to
socially destructive Jewish side projects like the promotion of homosexuality. These actions,
coupled with his commuting
of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin 's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money
laundering in 2017, have sent a message to Jewish finance that Trump is someone they can do
business with. Since these globalist exploiters are essentially politically amorphous, knowing
no loyalty but that to their own tribe and its interests, there is significant drift of Jewish
mega-money between the Democratic and Republican parties. The New York Post reports, for
example, that when Trump attended a $25,000-per-couple luncheon in November at a Midtown hotel,
where 400 moneyed Jews raised at least $4 million for the America First [!] SuperPAC, the
luncheon organiser Kelly Sadler, told reporters, "We screened all of the people in attendance,
and we were surprised to see how many have given before to Democrats, but never a Republican.
People were standing up on their chairs chanting eight more years." The reality, of course, is
that these people are not Democrats or Republicans, but Jews, willing to push their money in
whatever direction the wind of Jewish interests is blowing.
The collapse of Puerto Rico under Jewish debt and elite courting of Jewish financial
predators is certainly nothing new. Congo , Zambia , Liberia ,
Argentina , Peru ,
Panama , Ecuador ,
Vietnam , Poland , and
Ireland are just some of the countries that have slipped fatefully into the hands of the
Jews listed above, and these same people are now closely watching
Greece and
India . The methodology used to acquire such leverage is as simple as it is ruthless. On
its most basic level, "vulture capitalism" is really just a combination of the
continued intense relationship between Jews and usury and Jewish involvement in medieval
tax farming. On the older practice, Salo Baron writes in Economic History of the Jews
that Jewish speculators would pay a lump sum to the treasury before mercilessly turning on the
peasantry to obtain "considerable surpluses if need be, by ruthless methods." [1] S. Baron
(ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7. The activities of the
Jewish vulture funds are essentially the same speculation in debt, except here the trade in
usury is carried out on a global scale with the feudal peasants of old now replaced with entire
nations. Wealthy Jews pool resources, purchase debts, add astronomical fees and interests, and
when the inevitable default occurs they engage in aggressive legal activity to seize assets,
bringing waves of jobs losses and home repossessions.
This type of predation is so pernicious and morally perverse that both the
Belgian and
UK governments have taken steps to ban these Jewish firms from using their court systems to
sue for distressed debt owed by poor nations. Tucker Carlson, commenting on Paul Singer's
predation and the ruin of the town of Sidney, Nebraska, has said:
It couldn't be uglier or more destructive. So why is it still allowed in the United
States? The short answer: Because people like Paul Singer have tremendous influence over our
political process. Singer himself was the second largest donor to the Republican Party in
2016. He's given millions to a super-PAC that supports Republican senators. You may never
have heard of Paul Singer -- which tells you a lot in itself -- but in Washington, he's
rock-star famous. And that is why he is almost certainly paying a lower effective tax rate
than your average fireman, just in case you were still wondering if our system is rigged. Oh
yeah, it is.
Aside from direct political donations, these Jewish financiers also escape scrutiny by
hiding behind a mask of simplistic anti-socialist rhetoric that is common in the American
Right, especially the older, Christian, and pro-Zionist demographic. Rod Dreher, in a
commentary on Carlson's
piece at the American Conservative , points out that Singer gave a speech in May
2019 attacking the "rising threat of socialism within the Democratic Party." Singer continued,
"They call it socialism, but it is more accurately described as left-wing statism lubricated by
showers of free stuff promised by politicians who believe that money comes from a printing
press rather than the productive efforts of businesspeople and workers." Dreher comments: "The
productive efforts of businesspeople and workers"? The gall of that man, after what he did to
the people of Sidney."
What Singer and the other Jewish vultures engage in is not productive, and isn't even any
recognisable form of work or business. It is greed-motivated parasitism carried out on a
perversely extravagant and highly nepotistic scale. In truth, it is Singer and his co-ethnics
who believe that money can be printed on the backs of productive workers, and who ultimately
believe they have a right to be "showered by free stuff promised by politicians." Singer places
himself in an infantile paradigm meant to entertain the goyim, that of Free Enterprise vs
Socialism, but, as Carlson points out, "this is not the free enterprise that we all learned
about." That's because it's Jewish enterprise -- exploitative, inorganic, and attached to
socio-political goals that have nothing to do with individual freedom and private property.
This might not be the free enterprise Carlson learned about, but it's clearly the free
enterprise Jews learn about -- as illustrated in their extraordinary
over-representation in all forms of financial exploitation and white collar crime. The
Talmud, whether actively studied or culturally absorbed, is their code of ethics and their
curriculum in regards to fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy, embezzlement, usury, and financial
exploitation. Vulture capitalism is Jewish capitalism.
Whom They Feed
Singer's duplicity is a perfect example of the way in which Jewish finance postures as
conservative while conserving nothing. Indeed, Jewish capitalism may be regarded as the root
cause of the rise of Conservative Inc., a form or shadow of right wing politics reduced solely
to fiscal concerns that are ultimately, in themselves, harmful to the interests of the majority
of those who stupidly support them. The spirit of Jewish capitalism, ultimately, can be
discerned not in insincere bleating about socialism and business, intended merely to entertain
semi-educated Zio-patriots, but in the manner in which the Jewish vulture funds disseminate the
proceeds of their parasitism. Real vultures are weak, so will gorge at a carcass and
regurgitate food to feed their young. So then, who sits in the nests of the vulture funds,
awaiting the regurgitated remains of troubled nations?
Boston-based Seth Klarman (net worth $1.5 billion), who like Paul Singer has
declared "free enterprise has been good for me," is a rapacious debt exploiter who was
integral to the financial collapse of Puerto Rico, where he hid much of activities behind a
series of shell companies. Investigative journalists eventually discovered that Klarman's
Baupost group was behind much of the aggressive legal action intended to squeeze the decimated
island for bond payments. It's clear that the Jews involved in these companies are very much
aware that what they are doing is wrong, and they are careful to avoid too much reputational
damage, whether to themselves individually or to their ethnic group. Puerto Rican journalists,
investigating the debt trail to Klarman, recall trying to follow one of the shell companies
(Decagon) to Baupost via a shell company lawyer (and yet another Jew) named Jeffrey Katz:
Returning to the Ropes & Gray thread, we identified several attorneys who had worked
with the Baupost Group, and one, Jeffrey Katz, who -- in addition to having worked directly
with Baupost -- seemed to describe a particularly close and longstanding relationship with a
firm fitting Baupost's profile on his experience page. I called
Katz and he picked up, to my surprise. I identified myself, as well as my affiliation with
the Public Accountability Initiative, and asked if he was the right person to talk to about
Decagon Holdings and Baupost. He paused, started to respond, and then evidently thought
better of it and said that he was actually in a meeting, and that I would need to call back
(apparently, this high-powered lawyer picks up calls from strange numbers when he is in
important meetings). As he was telling me to call back, I asked him again if he was the right
person to talk to about Decagon, and that I wouldn't call back if he wasn't, and he seemed to
get even more flustered. At that point he started talking too much, about how he was a lawyer
and has clients, how I must think I'm onto some kind of big scoop, and how there was a person
standing right in front of him -- literally, standing right in front of him -- while I rudely
insisted on keeping him on the line.
One of the reasons for such secrecy is the intensive Jewish philanthropy engaged in by
Klarman under his Klarman Family
Foundation . While Puerto Rican schools are being closed, and pensions and health
provisions slashed, Klarman is regurgitating the proceeds of massive debt speculation to his "
areas of
focus " which prominently includes " Supporting the global Jewish community
and Israel ." While plundering the treasuries of the crippled nations of the goyim, Klarman
and his co-ethnic associates have committed themselves to "improving the quality of life and
access to opportunities for all Israeli citizens so that they may benefit from the country's
prosperity." Among those in Klarman's nest, their beaks agape for Puerto Rican debt interest,
are the American Jewish Committee, Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Holocaust
Memorial Museum, the Honeymoon Israel Foundation, Israel-America Academic Exchange, and the
Israel Project. Klarman, like Singer, has also been an enthusiastic proponent of liberalising
attitudes to homosexuality, donating $1 million to a Republican super PAC aimed at supporting
pro-gay marriage GOP candidates in 2014 (Singer donated $1.75 million). Klarman, who also
contributes to candidates
who support immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,
has said "The right to gay marriage is the largest remaining civil rights issue of our time. I
work one-on-one with individual Republicans to try to get them to realize they are being
Neanderthals on this issue."
Steven Tananbaum's GoldenTree Asset Management has also fed well on Puerto Rico, owning $2.5
billion of the island's debt. The Centre for Economic and Policy Research has
commented :
Steven Tananbaum, GoldenTree's chief investment officer, told a business conference in
September (after Hurricane Irma, but before Hurricane Maria) that he continued to view Puerto
Rican bonds as an attractive investment. GoldenTree is spearheading a group of COFINA
bondholders that collectively holds about $3.3 billion in bonds. But with Puerto Rico facing
an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, and lacking enough funds to even begin to pay back its
massive debt load, these vulture funds are relying on their ability to convince politicians
and the courts to make them whole. The COFINA bondholder group has spent
$610,000 to lobby Congress over the last two years, while GoldenTree itself
made $64,000 in political contributions to federal candidates in the 2016 cycle. For
vulture funds like GoldenTree, the destruction of Puerto Rico is yet another opportunity for
exorbitant profits.
Whom does Tananbaum feed with these profits? A brief glance at the spending of the
Lisa and Steven Tananbaum Charitable Trust reveals a relatively short list of beneficiaries
including United Jewish Appeal Foundation, American Friends of Israel Museum, Jewish Community
Center, to be among the most generously funded, with sizeable donations also going to museums
specialising in the display of degenerate and demoralising art.
Following the collapse in Irish asset values in 2008, Jewish vulture funds including OakTree
Capital swooped on mortgagee debt to seize tens of thousands of Irish homes, shopping malls,
and utilities (Steve Feinberg's Cerberus took control of public waste disposal). In 2011,
Ireland emerged as a hotspot for distressed property assets, after its bad banks began selling
loans that had once been held by struggling financial institutions. These loans were quickly
purchased at knockdown prices by Jewish fund managers, who then aggressively sought the
eviction of residents in order to sell them for a fast profit. Michael Byrne, a researcher at
the School of Social Policy at University College Dublin, Ireland's largest university,
comments : "The
aggressive strategies used by vulture funds lead to human tragedies." One homeowner, Anna Flynn
recalls how her mortgage fell into the hands of Mars Capital, an affiliate of Oaktree Capital,
owned and operated by the Los Angeles-based Jews Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh. They were "very,
very difficult to deal with," said Flynn, a mother of four. "All [Mars] wanted was for me to
leave the house; they didn't want a solution [to ensure I could retain my home]."
When Bruce Karsh isn't making Irish people homeless, whom does he feed with his profits? A
brief glance at the spending of the
Karsh Family Foundation reveals millions of dollars of donations to the Jewish Federation,
Jewish Community Center, and the United Jewish Fund.
Paul Singer, his son Gordin, and their Elliot Associates colleagues Zion Shohet, Jesse Cohn,
Stephen Taub, Elliot Greenberg and Richard Zabel, have a foothold in almost every country, and
have a stake in every company you're likely to be familiar with, from book stores to dollar
stores. With the profits of exploitation, they
fund campaigns for homosexuality and mass migration , boost Zionist politics,
invest millions in security for Jews , and promote wars for Israel. Singer is a Republican,
and is on the Board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. He is a former board member of the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, has funded neoconservative research groups like
the Middle East Media Research Institute and the Center for Security Policy, and is among the
largest funders of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was also
connected to the pro-Iraq War advocacy group Freedom's Watch. Another key Singer project was
the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group that was founded in
2009 by several high-profile Jewish neoconservative figures to promote militaristic U.S.
policies in the Middle East on behalf of Israel and which received its seed money from
Singer.
Although Singer was initially anti-Trump, and although Trump once
attacked Singer for his pro-immigration politics ("Paul Singer represents amnesty and he
represents illegal immigration pouring into the country"), Trump is now essentially funded by
three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250
million in pro-Trump political money . In return, they want war with Iran. Employees of
Elliott Management were one of the main sources of funding for the 2014 candidacy of the
Senate's most outspoken Iran hawk, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who urged Trump to conduct a
"retaliatory strike" against Iran for purportedly attacking two commercial tankers. These
exploitative Jewish financiers have been clear that they expect a war with Iran, and they are
lobbying hard and preparing to call in their pound of flesh. As one political commentator put
it, "These donors have made their policy preferences on Iran plainly known. They surely expect
a return on their investment in Trump's GOP."
The same pattern is witnessed again and again, illustrating the stark reality that the
prosperity and influence of Zionist globalism rests to an overwhelming degree on the predations
of the most successful and ruthless Jewish financial parasites. This is not conjecture,
exaggeration, or hyperbole. This is simply a matter of striking through the mask, looking at
the heads of the world's most predatory financial funds, and following the direction of
regurgitated profits.
Make no mistake, these cabals are everywhere and growing. They could be ignored when they
preyed on distant small nations, but their intention was always to come for you too. They are
now on your doorstep. The working people of Sidney, Nebraska probably had no idea what a
vulture fund was until their factories closed and their homes were taken. These funds will move
onto the next town. And the next. And another after that. They won't be stopped through blunt
support of "free enterprise," and they won't be stopped by simply calling them "vulture
capitalists."
Strike through the mask!
Notes
[1] S.
Baron (ed) Economic History of the Jews (New York, 1976), 46-7.
To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being a
result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit?
An application of "chutzpah" to business, if you will -- the gall to break social
conventions to get what you want, while making other people feel uncomfortable; to wheedle
your way in at the joints of social norms and conventions -- not illegal, but selfish and
rude.
Krav Maga applies the same concept to the martial arts: You're taught to go after the
things that every other martial art forbids you to target: the eyes, the testicles, etc. In
other sports this is considered "low" and "cheap." In Krav Maga, as perhaps a metaphor for
Jewish behavior in general, nothing is too low because it's all about winning .
There's a rather good article on the New Yorker discussing the Sacklers and the
Oxycontin epidemic. It focusses on the dichotomy between the family's ruthless promotion of
the drug and their lavish philanthropy. 'Leave the world a better place for your presence'
and similar pieties and Oxycontin.
The article lightly touches on the extent of their giving to Hebrew University of
Jerusalem -- but in general, treads lightly when it comes to their Judaism.
understandably. The New Yorker isn't exactly alt-right country, after all. But can
Joyce or anyone else provide a more exact breakdown on the Sacklers' giving? Are they genuine
philanthropists, or is it mostly for the Cause?
@anon'To what extent is Jewish success a product of Jewish intellect and industry versus being
a result of a willingness to use low, dirty, honorless and anti-social tactics which, while
maybe not in violation of the word of the law, certainly violate its spirit? '
It's important not to get carried away with this. Figures such as Andrew Carnegie, while
impeccably gentile, were hardly paragons of scrupulous ethics and disinterested virtue.
I won't defend high finance because I don't like it either. But this is a retarded and highly
uninformed attack on it.
1. The article bounces back and forth between two completely different fields: private
equity and distressed debt funds. The latter is completely defensible. A lot of bondholders,
probably the majority, cannot hold distressed or defaulted debt. Insurance companies often
can't by law. Bond mutual funds set out in their prospectuses they don't invest in anything
rated lower than A, AA, or whatever. Even those allowed to hold distressed debt don't want
the extra costs involved with doing so, such as carefully following bankruptcy proceedings
and dealing with delayed and irregular payments.
As a result, it is natural that normal investors sell off such debt at a discount to funds
that specialize in it.
2. Joyce defends large borrowers that default on their debt. Maybe the laws protecting
bankrupts and insolvents should be stronger. But you do that, and lenders become more
conservative, investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments. I think
myself the laws in the US are too favorable to lenders, but there's definitely a tradeoff,
and the question is where the happy middle ground is. In Florida a creditor can't force the
sale of a primary residence, even if it is worth $20 million. That's going too far in the
other direction.
3. " either blankly nondescript or evoking vague inklings of Anglo-Saxon or rural/pastoral
origins "
More retardation. Cerberus is a greek dog monster guarding the gates of hell. Aurelius is
from the Latin word for gold. "Hemisphere" isn't an Anglosaxon word nor does in invoke rural
origins.
Besides being retardedly wrong, the broader point is likewise retarded: when
English-speaking Jews name their businesses they shouldn't use English words. Naming a
company "Oaktree" should be limited to those of purely English blood! Jews must name their
companies "Cosmopolitan Capital" or RosenMoses Chutzpah Advisors."
4. The final and most general point: it's trivially easy to attack particular excesses of
capitalism. Fixing the excesses without creating bigger problem is the hard part. Two ideas I
favor are usury laws and Tobin taxes.
Jewishness aside, maximizing shareholder is the holy grail of all capitalist enterprises. The
capitalist rush to abandon the American working class when tariff barriers evaporated is just
another case of vulturism. Tax corporations based on the domestic content of their products
and ban usury and vulturism will evaporate.
Someone with the username kikz posted a link to this article in the occidental observer. I
read it and thought it was a great article. I'm glad it's featured here.
The article goes straight for the jugular and pulls no punches. It hits hard. I like
that:
1. It shines a light on the some of the scummiest of the scummiest Wall Street
players.
2. It names names. From the actual vulture funds to the rollcall of Jewish actors running
each. It's astounding how ethnically uniform it is.
3. It proves Trump's ties with the most successful Vulture kingpin, Singer.
4. It shows how money flows from the fund owners to Zionist and Jewish causes.
This thing reads like a court indictment. It puts real world examples to many of the
theories that are represents on this site. Excellent article.
Elliott Management is perhaps most notorious for its 15-year battle with the government
of Argentina, whose bonds were owned by the hedge fund. When Argentine president Cristina
Kirchner attempted to restructure the debt, Elliott -- unlike most of the bonds' owners --
refused to accept a large loss on its investment. It successfully sued in US courts, and in
pursuit of Argentine assets, convinced a court in Ghana to detain an Argentine naval
training vessel, then docked outside Accra with a crew of 22o. After a change of its
government, Argentina eventually settled and Singer's fund received $2.4 billion, almost
four times its initial investment. Kirchner, meanwhile, has been indicted for
corruption.
@Lot
You give partial information which seem misleading and use arguments which are also weak and
not enlightening.
1- Even if its natural that unsafe bonds are sold, this doesn't justify the practices and
methods of those vulture fonds which buy those fonds which are socially damaging. I'm not
certain of the details because it's an old case and people should seek more information. Very
broadly, in the case of Argentina most funds accepted to make an agreement with the country
and reduce their demands. Investors have to accept risks and losses. Paul Singer bought some
financial papers for nothing at that time and forced Argentina to pay the whole price. For
years Argentina refused to pay, but with the help of New York courts and the new Argentinian
president they were forced to pay Singer. This was not conservative capitalism but
imperialism. You can only act like Singer if you have the backing of courts, of a government
which you control and of an army like the US army. A fast internet search for titles of
articles: "Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer's ruthless strategies include bullying CEOs,
suing governments and seizing their navy's ships". "How one hedge fund made $2 billion from
Argentina's economic colapse".
Andrew Sayer, professor in an English university, says in his book "Why we can't afford
the rich" that finances as they are practiced now may cost more than bring any value to a
society. It's a problem if some sectors of finances make outsized profits and use methods
which are more than questionable.
2- You say that if borrowers become more protected "lenders become more conservative,
investment declines, and worthy businesses can't get investments." I doubt this is true. In
the first place, risk investments by vulture fonds probably don't create any social value.
The original lenders who sold their bonds to such vulture fonds have anyway big or near total
losses in some cases and in spite of that they keep doing business. Why should we support
vulture fonds, what for? What positive function they play in society? In Germany, capitalism
was much more social in old days before a neoliberal wave forced Germany to change Rhine
capitalism. Local banks lended money to local business which they knew and which they had an
interest that they prosper. Larger banks lended money to big firms. Speculation like in
neoliberal capitalism wasn't needed.
3- The point which you didn't grasp is that there is a component of those business which
isn't publicly clear, the fact that they funcion along ethnic lines.
4- It would be easy to fix excesses of capitalism. The problem is that the people who
profit the most from the system also have the power to prevent any change.
@Robjil
This is an example of what I was saying. Less Euro whites in the world is not going to be a
good world for Big Js. Non-Euros believe in freedom of speech.
Jewish Bigwigs can't get control of businesses in East Asia. They have been trying. Paul
Singer tried and failed. In Argentina he got lots of "success". Why? Lots of descendants of
Europeans there went along with "decisions" laid out by New York Jews.
Little Paulie tried to get control of Samsung. No such luck for him in Korea. In Korea
there are many family monopolies, chaebols. A Korean chaebol stopped him. Jewish Daniel Loeb
tried to get a board seat on Sony. He was rebuffed.
I was moved to reflect on the universality of this theme recently when surveying media
coverage on Korean and Argentinian responses to the activities of Paul Singer and his
co-ethnic shareholders at Elliott Associates, an arm of Singer's Elliott Management hedge
fund. The Korean story has its origins in the efforts of Samsung's holding company, Cheil
Industries, to buy Samsung C&T, the engineering and construction arm of the wider
Samsung family of businesses. The move can be seen as part of an effort to reinforce
control of the conglomerate by the founding Lee family and its heir apparent, Lee Jae-yong.
Trouble emerged when Singer's company, which holds a 7.12% stake in Samsung C&T and is
itself attempting to expand its influence and control over Far East tech companies,
objected to the move. The story is fairly typical of Jewish difficulties in penetrating
business cultures in the Far East, where impenetrable family monopolies, known in Korea as
chaebols, are common. This new story reminded me very strongly of last year's efforts by
Jewish financier Daniel Loeb to obtain a board seat at Sony. Loeb was repeatedly rebuffed
by COO Kazuo Hirai, eventually selling his stake in Sony Corp. in frustration.
Here is how the Koreans fought off Paul Singer.
The predominantly Jewish-owned and operated Elliott Associates has a wealth of
self-interest in preventing the Lee family from consolidating its control over the Samsung
conglomerate. As racial outsiders, however, Singer's firm were forced into several tactical
measures in their 52-day attempt to thwart the merger. First came lawsuits. When those
failed, Singer and his associates then postured themselves as defending Korean interests,
starting a Korean-language website and arguing that their position was really just in aid
of helping domestic Korean shareholders. This variation on the familiar theme of Jewish
crypsis was quite unsuccessful. The Lee family went on the offensive immediately and,
unlike many Westerners, were not shy in drawing attention to the Jewish nature of Singer's
interference and the sordid and intensely parasitic nature of his fund's other
ventures.
Cartoons were drawn of Singer being a vulture.
Other cartoons appearing at the same time represented Elliott, literally, as humanoid
vultures, with captions referring to the well-known history of the fund. In the above
cartoon, the vulture offers assistance to a needy and destitute figure, but conceals an axe
with which to later bludgeon the unsuspecting pauper.
ADL got all worked about this. The Koreans did not care. It is reality. Freedom of speech
works on these vultures. The west should try some real freedom of speech.
After the cartoons appeared, Singer and other influential Jews, including Abraham
Foxman, cried anti-Semitism. This was despite the fact the cartoons contain no reference
whatsoever to Judaism – unless of course one defines savage economic predation as a
Jewish trait. Samsung denied the cartoons were anti-Semitic and took them off the website,
but the uproar over the cartoons only seemed to spur on even more discussion about Jewish
influence in South Korea than was previously the case. In a piece published a fortnight
ago, Media Pen columnist Kim Ji-ho claimed "Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless
and merciless." Last week, the former South Korean ambassador to Morocco, Park Jae-seon,
expressed his concern about the influence of Jews in finance when he said, "The scary thing
about Jews is they are grabbing the currency markets and financial investment companies.
Their network is tight-knit beyond one's imagination." The next day, cable news channel YTN
aired similar comments by local journalist Park Seong-ho, who stated on air that "it is a
fact that Jews use financial networks and have influence wherever they are born." It goes
without saying that comments like these are unambiguously similar to complaints about
Jewish economic practices in Europe over the course of centuries. The only common
denominator between the context of fourteenth-century France and the context of
twenty-first-century South Korea is, you guessed it, Jewish economic practices.
The Koreans won. Paulie lost. Good win for humanity. The Argentines were not so lucky.
They don't have freedom speech like the Koreans and East Asians have.
In the end, the Lee strategy, based on drawing attention to the alien and exploitative
nature of Elliott Associates, was overwhelmingly effective. Before a crucial shareholder
vote on the Lee's planned merger, Samsung Securities CEO Yoon Yong-am said: "We should
score a victory by a big margin in the first battle, in order to take the upper hand in a
looming war against Elliott, and keep other speculative hedge funds from taking short-term
gains in the domestic market." When the vote finally took place a few days ago, a
conclusive 69.5% of Samsung shareholders voted in favor of the Lee proposal, leaving
Elliott licking its wounds and complaining about the "patriotic marketing" of those behind
the merger.
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections, killing
dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to see with
their own eyes.
Zion had the opportunity to go to Uganda and Ugandans were willing, but NO Zion had to
have Palestine, and they got it through war, deception, and murder. It was funded by usury,
as stolen purchasing power from the Goyim.
The fake country of Israel, is not the biblical Israel, and it came into being by
maneuverings of satanic men determined to get their way no matter what, and is supported by
continuous deception. Even today's Hebrew is resurrected from a dead language, and is fake.
Many fake Jews (who have no blood lineage to Abraham), a fake country, and fake language.
These fakers, usurers, and thieves do indeed have their eyes set on Patagonia, what they call
the practical country.
@Anon
"If debts can simply be repudiated at will, capitalism cannot function."
Is this children's capitalist theory class time? throwing around some simple slogans for a
susceptible congregation of future believers?
Should be quite obvious that people, groups of people, if not whole nations , can be
forced and or seduced into depths by means of certain practices. There are a thousand ways of
such trickery and thievery, these are not in the theory books though. In these books things
all match and work out wonderfully rationally
Then capitalism cannot function? Unfortunately it has become already dysfunctional, if not
a big rotten cancer.
Lobelog ran some articles in Singer, Argentina, Iran Israel and the attorney from Argentina
who died mysteriously . Singer is a loan shark. Argentinian paid dearly .
Google search –
NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors – LobeLog
https://lobelog.com/tag/paul-singer/
Paul Singer NYT's Argentina Op-Ed Fails to Disclose Authors' Financial Conflict of Interest
by Eli Clifton On Tuesday, Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz, two executives at the hawkish
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), took
The Right-Wing Americans Who Made a Doc About Argentina
https://lobelog.com/the-right-wing-americans-who-made-a-doc-about-argentina/
Oct 7, 2015 One might wonder why a movie about Argentina, in Spanish and . of Nisman's and
thought highly of the prosecutor's work, told LobeLog, FDD, for its part, has been an
outspoken critic of Kirchner but has From 2008 to 2011, Paul Singer was the group's
second-largest donor, contributing $3.6 million.
NYT Failed to Note Op-Ed Authors' Funder Has $2 Billion
What our Jewish friends have done to Argentina, through maneuvering the elections,
killing dissidents, and marking territory, is a cautionary tale to anybody woke enough to
see with their own eyes.
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't
stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation
and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the
MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors
in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party
system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much
for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying
jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out
like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept.
of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered
his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded
on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship;
3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially
instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984.
Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced
by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will
be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA
foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are
bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar
think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's
famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last
refuge of scoundrels."
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era
corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign,
Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine
issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely
against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited
prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia
and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination
for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy
against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy
through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
My apologies if this has been posted before, but here is a news conference broadcast by
Interfax a few days ago detailing a joint French-Ukrainian journalistic investigation into a
huge money laundering scheme using various shadow banking organizations in Austria and
Switzerland, benefiting Clinton friendly Ukrainian oligarchs and of course the Clinton
Foundation.
The link is short enough to not require re-formatting:
Forgive me for the somewhat redundant post, and again I hope this is not a waste of anyone's
time, but this is the source of the Interfax report I posted just above currently at #56. It
is relevant to the Ukrainegate impeachment fiasco.
The U.S. and lapdog EU/UK media will not touch this with a 10 foot pole.
KYIV. Dec 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine and the United States should investigate
the transfer of $29 million by businessman Victor Pinchuk from Ukraine to the Clinton
Foundation, Ukrainian Member of Parliament (independent) Andriy Derkach has said. According
to him, the investigation should check and establish how the Pinchuk Foundation's
activities were funded; it, among other projects, made a contribution of $29 million to the
Clinton Foundation. "Yesterday, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies registered criminal
proceeding number 12019000000001138. As part of this proceeding, I provided facts that
should be verified and established by the investigation. Establishing these facts will also
help the American side to conduct its own investigation and establish the origin of the
money received by [Hillary] Clinton," Derkach said at a press conferences at
Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Tuesday, December 17.
According to him, it was the independent French online publication Mediapart that first
drew attention to the money withdrawal scheme from Ukraine and Pinchuk's financing of the
Clinton Foundation.
"The general scheme is as follows. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lent money to
Ukraine in 2015. The same year, Victor Pinchuk's Credit Dnepr [Bank] received UAH 357
million in a National Bank stabilization loan from the IMF's disbursement. Delta Bank was
given a total of UAH 5.110 billion in loans. The banks siphoned the money through Austria's
Meinl Bank into offshore accounts, and further into [the accounts of] the Pinchuk
Foundation. The money siphoning scam was confirmed by a May 2016 ruling by [Kyiv's]
Pechersky court. The total damage from this scam involving other banks is estimated at $800
million. The Pinchuk Foundation transferred $29 million to the Foundation of Clinton, a
future U.S. presidential candidate from the Democratic Party," Derkach said.
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
"... Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world. ..."
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep
State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials,
often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and
incipient tyranny.
Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of
European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring
their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and
corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM)
taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be
running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be
just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly
technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which
push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of
globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole
Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is
globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never
win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides
its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the
culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees
with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too
damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think
they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest
of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change
it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...
Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave
the impulse for impeachment.
is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...
good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be
mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC,
and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying
the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select
future generations who will eventually take their place.
They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This
necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from
there.
"Trump was simply asking new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in a July phone
call -- to investigate crimes at the "highest levels" of both Kiev and Washington," Rudy
Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump, told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham
Angle."
"So, he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States,"
he said.
Giuliani told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" that he helped forced out Yovanovitch
because she was corrupt and obstructing the investigation into Ukraine and the Bidens.
Dem's impeachment for innocent conduct is intended to obstruct the below investigations of
Obama-era corruption:
- Billions of laundered $
- Billions, mostly US $, widely misused
- Extortion
- Bribery
- DNC collusion w/ Ukraine to destroy candidate Trump
He told Ingraham that he needed her out of the way because she was corrupt. Giuliani said he
was not the first person to go to the president with concerns about the diplomat.
In more tweets Tuesday, Giuliani elaborated:
Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to
Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine. She was
OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that's not the only thing she was doing. She at minimum enabled
Ukrainian collusion.
" Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to
Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine.
She was OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that's not the only thing she was doing. She at
minimum enabled Ukrainian collusion."
Marie Yovanovitch was dismissed in March after Trump's allies said she was blocking the
probe of Joe Biden and bad-mouthing the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko said that she
gave him a "do not prosecute list", that included Ukraine MPs and the exact same Sorosfunded
NGO president.
Nov 19, 2019Several sources claim former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,
instructed Ukraine officials to keep their hands off investigating the NGO in Ukraine founded
by George Soros. Why?"
Any questions? As Putin warned the US: "ask about the 5th floor of the State Department."
(where Soros held court!). No wonder the US Commies hate Putin.
What the Shiffhead Impeachment hearings demonstrated with the appearances of Ms.
Yankonitbitch, Bowtie George, and the other "Dindunuffin/Donnonuffin Clowns" is just how much
American Taxpayers' money is being wasted employing a bunch of sanctimonious drones who do
nothing but get in the way of progress. Successful Corporations remove dead wood like that
with downsizing and shakeups. But the Federal Government seems immune to efficiency because
our elected officials NEVER DO THEIR JOBS BY USING ZERO BASE BUDGETING TO JUSTIFY EVERY
******* DOLLAR. And so, we now hear of yet another Omnibus Budget being foisted onto American
Taxpayers and more wasteful spending that never, never, never, gets reduced. We need a
Taxpayer's Revolution in this Country to stop the corrupt theft.
And one more thing: What the Ukrainian Matter reveals is how Foreign Aid is dispensed,
handed out by the foreign recipient, and the funds are laundered and kicked back to the
corrupt politicians and Deep State Operatives like the Bidens. If $400 Million in palletized
untraceable cash can be delivered via a clandestine unmarked airplane at night to Iran
supposedly for ransom as the Socialist Media Complex would have us believe in a way that is
not consistent with long practiced methods for funds transfer, can we imagine all the
billions that have quietly been stolen from us to enrich scum like Barack Obola, Quid Pro
Joe, The Clintons, and so many others? IN THE MEANTIME, PRESIDENT TRUMP CAN'T GET A DIME TO
SPEND ON BUILDING A WALL TO STOP THE ILLEGAL ALIEN COCKROACH INVASION.
Yovanovitch pulled the "poor me federal" employee act. I worked for the Feds for 31 years
most as a manger and Yovanovitch victim act is what all federal employees pull when they get
in trouble. Blah Blah my 30 years of service, my awards, my appraisals blah blah. She said
that she had no concern about Hunter Biden while being hailed as a corruption fighter. Blah
blah.
It's a crime that State Department people and ambassadors can have the same ethnic origin
as the countries they serve in. It's a recipe for personal/family agendas, corruption and not
representing the best interests of the United States. Of course if you're a DemoRat, you're
always corrupt, as they have proven it is a given.
Rudy Giuliani: Yovanovitch Was Part Of The Cover-Up, She Had To Be Ousted.
"Ousted"? I thought the penalty for high treason was hanging. What are they waiting for?
Hang the lot and in a public square near Congress so that all the traitors who reside in
Congress and the highest levels of government and banking get a sense of what awaits
them.
"At the end of the month, almost all criminals arrested for state crimes in New York,
including sex crimes , will be released without posting bail. It is a suicidal policy,
but it is nonetheless the state’s prerogative to engage in such suicide. What is
not its prerogative is the New York law that took effect this week granting
driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and blocking ICE access to criminal enforcement
information. We have a national union with a federal government controlling immigration for a
reason, and it’s time for the Trump administration to show state officials who has the
final say over this issue.
Beginning this week, the NY state government
is inviting any and all illegal aliens , with or without criminal records, to apply for
driver’s licenses. As documentation
, they can offer consular ID cards, which are fraught with fraud, expired work permits, or
foreign birth certificates. They can even offer Border Crossing Cards, which are only valid
for 72 hours and for a stay in the country near the border area! The state law further
prohibits state and county officials from disclosing any information to ICE and bars ICE and
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from accessing N.Y. Department of Motor Vehicles (NYDMV)
records and information.
It’s truly hard to overstate the enormity of the public safety crisis this law,
dubbed “the green light law,” will spawn. There are
currently 3.3 million aliens in the ICE non-detained docket who remain at large in this
country. Just in one year, ICE put detainers on aliens criminally charged with 2,500
homicides. Given
that New York has the fourth largest illegal alien population in the country, it is
virtually certain that a large number of criminal aliens reside in the state and will now be
offered legal resident documents to shield them from removal.
Some might suggest that this is the problem of New York’s residents and that it is
their job and their responsibility alone to overturn these laws. But the difference between
this law and their general pro-criminal laws is that when it comes to immigration, they
simply lack the power to enact such a policy. Rather than the DHS and DOJ bemoaning these
laws, it’s time for the Trump administration to actually stop them in their tracks.
Otherwise the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is nothing but ink on parchment.
A violation of federal law and the Constitution
8 U.S.C. § 1324 makes a felon of anyone who “knowing or in reckless disregard
of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation
of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or
shield from detection, such alien in any place.” That statute also makes a criminal of
anyone who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United
States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence
is or will be in violation of law” or anyone who “engages in any conspiracy to
commit any of the preceding acts, or aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding
acts.” Some form of this law has been on the books since 1891.
NY’s new law not only harbors illegal aliens but actually calls on the DMV to notify
illegal aliens of any ICE interest in their files. There is only one purpose of this law: to
tip off criminal alien fugitives that ICE is looking for them, the most literal violation of
the law against shielding them from detection. Would we allow state officials to block
information to the FBI, ATF, or DEA?
Moreover, New York’s Green Light law violates the entire purpose of the infamous
1986 amnesty bill, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which was “to combat
the employment of illegal aliens.” The law specifically makes it “illegal for
employers to knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or continue to employ unauthorized
workers.” Yet the rationale for the Green Light Law, according to supporters , was
“getting to work” and “ensure that our industries have the labor they need
to keep our economy moving.” That directly conflicts with federal law.
Finally, 8 U.S.C. 1373 prohibits state and local government from “in any way
restrict[ing]
, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status,
lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” The entire purpose of this bill is to restrict
all New York government entities from sending information on citizenship status to ICE.
Whether one disagrees with immigration laws or not, nobody can argue that the federal
government lacks the power to enforce them. Immigration law is one of the core jobs of the
federal government. People are free to go to any state once they are in the country, which is
why the Founders transferred
immigration policy from the states under the Articles of Confederation to the federal
government under the Constitution.
This is why James Madison in Federalist #42 bemoaned that, under
the Articles of Confederation, there was a “very serious embarrassment” whereby
“an alien therefore legally incapacitated for certain rights in the [one state], may by
previous residence only in [another state], elude his incapacity; and thus the law of one
State, be preposterously rendered paramount to the law of another, within the jurisdiction of
the other.” He feared that without the Constitution’s new idea of giving the
federal Congress power “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,”
“certain descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious” would
choose states with weak immigration laws as entry points into the union and then move to any
other state as legal residents or citizens.
As for immigration without naturalization, because of the issue of the slave trade, the
first clause of Article I, Section 9 bars Congress from prohibiting “the Migration or
Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit” until the year 1808. Well, Congress has long exercised that power to exclude
over the past 200 years. New York has lacked the ability to maintain its own separate
immigration scheme for quite some time.
When did the federal government become weak in the face of state rebellion?"
The diplomatic service made a big mistake when they abandoned the practice of preventing
people from serving in countries where they have an ethnic connection
jovanivic is part of a rabid Ukrainian diaspora, chased out of the country by the Red Army
for collaboration with the Nazis.
these people have a vicious, insatiable desire for revenge ...and the US does not need
these kind of biases mucking things up
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical
point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since
linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the
epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to
regain their credibility.
The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking
credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much
better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's
genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is
credibility.
The infinity war We say we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? The infinity war We say
we're a peaceful nation. Why do our leaders always keep us at war? Sam Ward (For The Washington Post) By Samuel Moyn
and Stephen Wertheim December 13, 2019
Add to list On my list
Now we know, thanks to
The
Afghanistan Papers published in The Washington Post this past week, that U.S. policymakers doubted almost from the start that
the two-decade-long Afghanistan war could ever succeed. Officials didn't know who the enemy was and had little sense of what an achievable
"victory" might look like. "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking," said Douglas Lute, the Army three-star
general who oversaw the conflict from the White House during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
And yet the war ground on, as if on autopilot. Obama inherited a conflict of which Bush had grown weary, and victory drew no closer
after Obama's troop "surge" than when Bush pursued a small-footprint conflict. But while the Pentagon Papers, published in 1971 during
the Vietnam War, led a generation to appreciate the perils of warmaking, a new generation may
squander this opportunity
to set things right. There is a reason the quagmire in Afghanistan, despite costing thousands of lives and
$2 trillion
, has failed to shock Americans into action: The United States for decades has made peace look unimaginable or unobtainable.
We have normalized war.
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by
vowing to end America's "endless
wars." But he has
extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative rationales. In September, on the cusp of
a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an agreement negotiated by his administration and
pummeled
Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his promised military withdrawal has morphed into
a grotesque redeployment to
"secure" the country's
oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond the proclivities of the current president,
or the previous one, or the next. The United States has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world.
The ideal of peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of the Cold War offered
an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes
and Special Operations raids to protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in practice
and even in aspiration.
Given World War II, Korea, Vietnam and many smaller conflicts throughout the Western Hemisphere, no one has ever mistaken the
United States for Switzerland. Still, the pursuit of peace is an authentic American tradition that has shaped U.S. conduct and the
international order. At its founding, the United States resolved to steer clear of the system of war in Europe and build a "new world"
free of violent rivalry, as Alexander Hamilton put it
.
Indeed, Americans shrank from playing a fully global role until 1941 in part because they saw themselves as emissaries of peace
(even as the United States conquered Native American land, policed its hemisphere and took Pacific colonies). U.S. leaders sought
either to remake international politics along peaceful lines -- as Woodrow Wilson proposed after World War I -- or to avoid getting
entangled in the squabbles of a fallen world. And when America embraced global leadership after World War II, it felt compelled to
establish the United Nations to halt the "scourge of war," as
the U.N. Charter says right at the
start. At America's urging, the organization outlawed the use of force, except where authorized by its Security Council or used in
self-defense.
Even when the United States dishonored that ideal in the years that followed, peace remained potent as a guiding principle. Vietnam
provoked a broad-based antiwar movement. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution (WPR) to tame the imperial presidency. Such opposition
to war is scarcely to be found today. (The Iraq War inspired massive protests, but they are a distant memory.) Consider that the
United States has undertaken more armed interventions since the end of the Cold War than during it. According to the Congressional
Research Service, more than 80 percent of all of the country's
adventures abroad since 1946 came after 1989. Congress, whether under Democratic or Republican control, has allowed commanders in
chief to claim the right to begin wars and continue them in perpetuity.
Legal constraints on U.S. warmaking -- including international obligations, domestic statutes and constitutional duties -- ought
to have returned to the fore after the Cold War, the rationale for America's vast mobilization in the second half of the 20th century.
Instead, they have eroded to dust. At the outset of the 1990s, as President George H.W. Bush promised a
"peace dividend" for Americans and a "peaceful international
order" for all, the United States did rely more faithfully than before on Security Council approval for military operations.
The Persian Gulf War, blessed by the United Nations to repel Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was legal under international law. But
enthralled by its exorbitant primacy in world affairs, the United States turned away from international prohibitions on war, finding
the rules too restricting.
The next two presidents, attracted to liberal internationalist and neoconservative creeds that embraced armed force, treated international
law cavalierly. Bill Clinton abused U.N. resolutions meant to control Saddam Hussein's weaponry to justify new attacks, including
the bombing of Iraq in December 1998. The next year, the U.S.-led NATO operations in Kosovo suggested that America would unleash
its military for ostensibly noble causes -- in this case to prevent heart-rending atrocity -- even without the pretense of legality.
Despite failing to obtain U.N. approval, the Clinton administration said the intervention should not be treated as a precedent (though
it became one). Others excused it as "illegal but legitimate," with self-professed moral intentions permissibly trumping law. "For
the purpose of stopping genocide," commented
the New Republic's Leon Wieseltier, "the use of force is not a last resort; it is a first resort."
Once such arguments gained currency, their authors lost control of them. Conservative hawks found that a law-optional approach
suited their agenda as well, and their liberal counterparts, if they disagreed at all, did so mostly as a matter of tactics, not
principle. George W. Bush benefited from this permissive context when he launched the Iraq War, whose
illegality was
flagrant and catalytic, since it was unauthorized by the United Nations and
relied on the administration's dangerous claim that "anticipatory
self-defense" justifies invasion. The world took notice. Russia, in particular, seized on the new U.S. position as a
spectacular excuse to make incursions of its own in
Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014.
Obama won election in part because he ran against the Iraq War. In office, however, he cemented more than reversed America's disregard
of international constraints on warmaking. While failing to end the war in Afghanistan, his administration
exceeded the Security Council's authorization
by working to overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, converting a permission slip to avert atrocity into a blank check for regime
change. Then, to punish the Islamic State, Obama bombed Syria on a contrived
rationale
-- one that allowed attacks against nations unwilling or unable to control terrorists on their territory. When he nearly struck
again in response to Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons, Obama
laid the legal
foundation for Trump to strike the Syrian government, again without a U.N. sign-off. Once highly valued, then defied only with
controversy, international law now scarcely figures in U.S. decisions of war and peace.
Like international law, U.S. domestic law enshrines an expectation of peace, setting a high bar for the resort to war. If war
is to be waged, the Constitution requires Congress to declare it -- a purposeful grant of authority to the branch of government that
best reflects the diverse interests of the people and therefore should be harder to rouse to conflict than one commander in chief.
Yet the nation has drifted from that tradition, too. After defaulting on its constitutional obligation during the Cold War (partly
on the grounds that the speed of a potential nuclear strike required a president who could respond quickly), Congress declined to
reassert its authority after the Soviet threat passed.
In the 1990s, Congress might at least have kept faith with the WPR, which it passed in 1973 to rein in future presidents. The
resolution calls for Congress to authorize "hostilities" within 60 days of their start; otherwise U.S. forces must withdraw. Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s, members of the House of Representatives
brought presidents to
court for taking military action in violation
of the statute -- in El Salvador
, the Persian Gulf War and
Kosovo , for example. But advocates of the strategy
all but gave up, and Congress itself increasingly deferred to presidential wars in the age of terrorism. By the time Obama intervened
in Libya, the WPR lay in tatters. In a final indignity during the Libya operation, one administration lawyer
explained that "hostilities" was an "
ambiguous term of art
" that might exclude aerial bombardment, so Congress did not need to approve a war that toppled a regime.
This deference has proved costly, allowing Trump to pose as an antiwar candidate against the mainstream of two political parties,
a somnolent Congress and inactive courts. Once in power, this wildly unpredictable chief executive finally clarified the danger of
entrusting the world's mightiest military to one man's whims. Congress has begun to stir. In voting this year to end U.S. involvement
in Yemen's civil war, it invoked the WPR for the first time while forces were active in battle.
President Trump speaks to U.S. troops at Bagram air base in Afghanistan last month.
though he has pledged to end America's "endless wars,"
Trump, like past presidents, has instead extended them. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)
Ultimately, elevating peace as a priority will require not merely changing legal norms but overturning the militarized concept
of America's world role that permeates Washington. Somehow, despite waging near-perpetual war, the leaders of the most powerful country
on Earth have convinced themselves that America is always on the brink of turning "isolationist," a peril against which
every president since Ronald
Reagan has warned as their terms wound down. Trump is likely to deviate from that rhetorical tradition, but the rest of the establishment
carries on and doubles down. Today, it is military withdrawals, not destructive deployments, that freak out pundits and spur Cabinet
members to resign, as Jim Mattis
did last year over Trump's vow to pull troops from Syria. Abandoning the Kurds there this fall was Trump's "
great betrayal ," lamented Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, who did not appear to lose sleep over our past
military incursions.
Under Trump, who applies "maximum pressure" to all foes foreign and domestic,
American militarism is more perilous than ever. It is also more undeniable. That is one reason the current moment is surprisingly
hopeful. The call to
end
"endless war" continues to rise on the flanks of both parties, even as it is flouted by leaders of each. More and more Americans
insist that, whatever interests are served by endless war, their own are not. More than
twice as many Americans prefer
to lower than raise military spending, according to a 2019 Eurasia Group Foundation survey.
Veterans support
Trump's pledge to bring Middle East wars to a close: A
majority of vets deem the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria not to have been worth fighting. The Afghanistan Papers ought to
strengthen the consensus. Americans deserve a president who will act accordingly.
The United States would find partners far and wide, in nations great and small, if it put peace first. It could make clear that
while spreading democracy or human rights remains worthwhile, values cannot come at the point of a gun or serve as a pretext for
war -- and that international peace is, in fact, a condition for human flourishing. Every time Washington searches for a monster
to destroy, it shows the world's despots how to abuse the rules and hands demagogues a phantom to inflate. The alternative is not
"isolationism" but something closer to the opposite: peaceful, lawful international cooperation against the major threats to humanity,
including climate change, pandemic disease and widespread deprivation. Those are the enemies worth fighting, and bombs and bullets
will not defeat them.
Samuel Moyn is Henry R. Luce professor of jurisprudence and professor of history at Yale University and a fellow of the
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Stephen Wertheim is deputy director of research and policy at the Quincy Institute
for Responsible Statecraft. He is also a research scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University
Follow @samuelmoyn and @stephenwertheim
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there
been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a
handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they
will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will
not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John
Turner, 1922
"... Wellsir, I'm old enough to remember 2002, when the Bush administration and its allies built a case for the Iraq War, using the often-heard line, "We fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here." Seriously, young folks, look it up online. ..."
"... And now comes Prof. Karlan, using the same rhetoric to characterize the conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. She was there to talk about the legal aspects of impeachment, but she bizarrely tipped her hand by trashing Trump because he failed to play his part as a warmonger ..."
"... The American elites didn't learn a damn thing from Iraq ..."
"... On the contrary. They learned that, via deceptive rhetoric and on false pretenses, they could easily manoeuver the U.S. into fighting a war on behalf of another nation's interests rather than its own, and face no repercussions for committing such treason, no matter how many lives it costs and how much it impoverishes the U.S. (to say nothing of what bloodshed and chaos it will cause in the targeted nation -- because after all, destabilization is the point). ..."
"... Trump will never beat an actually decent candidate, he occupies the White House because Clinton was the worst candidate in American history. He's (probably) going to win again because his opponents are even more unpopular and incompetent than he is. ..."
"... No, they are only using the mendacious phrase "spreading democracy" as a cover for what they really want to spread: globalist neoliberalism. ..."
"... The left is shameless, duplicitous and disingenous in the extreme when it comes to Russia (and frankly anything else). To be honest it was my collegiate experiences in the 1980s, comparing the handwaving garbage with what my own eyes saw in the East Bloc, that made me a lifetime, permanent rightist. The left is bankrupt, full of liars and dissemblers and needs to be stopped at any cost. ..."
"... I'd highly recommend the films "Ukraine on Fire" and "Revealing Ukraine" (available on Amazon Prime w/o extra rental $) for a good basic primer on the Ukraine over the last 15 years, particularly of US interference and malfeasance in promoting the coup in 2014. And if anyone "interfered" in the 2016 election it wasn't Russia, but the Ukraine, particularly its very pro-Hilary President Poroshenko (illegitimate though he was and remains after the unconstitutional US-backed coup in against Yanukovich in 2014). ..."
"... NATO should have been moth-balled c. 1992. Instead it is hell-bent on aggressive expansion and antagonizing Russia, for no reason (other than to line the pockets of corrupt US and other officials, "business-men" i.e. oligarchs, etc.). ..."
"... The whole conflict was completely avoidable and is 100% due to America's and Western Europe's dumb actions since the fall of the USSR. ..."
In the Year of Our Lord 2019, sixteen years after this nation launched the catastrophic Iraq War, the following words were spoken
on Capitol Hill this week:
We have become the shining city on a hill. We have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is.
And one of the things we understand most profoundly is it's not a real democracy, it's not a mature democracy, if the party in
power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies. And I think you heard testimony - the Intelligence Committee heard testimony
about how it isn't just our national interest in protecting our own elections. It's not just our national interest in making sure
that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front line so they fight the Russians there and we don't have to fight them here, but
it's also our national interest in promoting democracy worldwide.
This was not the second coming of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Bolton brigade. This was Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor and Democrat
called by her party to testify in this week's House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing.
Wellsir, I'm old enough to remember 2002, when the Bush administration and its allies built a case for the Iraq War, using the
often-heard line, "We fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here." Seriously, young folks, look it up online.
And I'm old enough to remember these lines from President Bush's second inaugural address, in 2005:
There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants,
and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the
success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every
man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and
earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and
no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement
of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation
and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
That didn't work out too well for us, for Iraq, or for the Middle East.
And now comes Prof. Karlan, using the same rhetoric to characterize the conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. She was
there to talk about the legal aspects of impeachment, but she bizarrely tipped her hand by trashing Trump because he failed to play
his part as a warmonger.
The American elites didn't learn a damn thing from Iraq
On the contrary. They learned that, via deceptive rhetoric and on false pretenses, they could easily manoeuver the U.S.
into fighting a war on behalf of another nation's interests rather than its own, and face no repercussions for committing such
treason, no matter how many lives it costs and how much it impoverishes the U.S. (to say nothing of what bloodshed and chaos it
will cause in the targeted nation -- because after all, destabilization is the point).
There are, as Victoria Nuland put it, 5 billion reasons for backing the CIA-led coup that overthrew an elected government and
replaced it with leaders that the she and the rest of the Obama/Clinton State Department chose. It was the Democrats, since the
nineties under another Clinton, that decided to move the American military right up to Russia's borders, interfere in the 1996
election to keep the puppet Yeltsin in power, and with Wall Street leaders to pillage the Russian economy with the stated end
to break up Russia into smaller satrapies with governments appointed by the IMF.
Did Joe Biden brag about a quid proof not releasing funds to the Ukraine until it ended the probe into Burisma, which was paying
son Hunter millions, and dismiss the investigators altogether? Does it turn out Ukrainian power brokers favored under Obama then
sought to influence the American elections against Trump, viewed as wanting to make peace with Russia? Yes, and yes.
The US are not a democracy, since the people do not rule. Rather, it's an oligarchy, since a few influential groups do get
their way all the time. Pamela is just shilling for one of these groups, the war party.
It does not matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.
Agreed, I hope the Republicans agree to impeach him immediately after Election Day if he does win (which I think he will due
to the opposition candidates). I'd much prefer Mike Pence to represent us than freaking Trump. I voted third party last time,
but even as bad as Trump is, he's not nearly as bad as every democratic front runner.
Why the Democratic Party doesn't back Tulsi Gabard is insane, she's the only candidate who everyone could be somewhat happy
with.
Taking a "Unity-Party" angle this election and nominating an anti-war military Veteran who's also a super patriotic minority
women would absolutely destroy Trump. She's also a religious conservative while simultaneously being a sane social liberal, she
satisfies some of the concerns of literally every part of the electorate. A Tulsi Gabard/ Joe Manchin ticket would be an 84 level
blowout. A Joe Biden/ Kamala Harris ticket is literally the best thing that has ever happened to Trump. Trump will never beat
an actually decent candidate, he occupies the White House because Clinton was the worst candidate in American history. He's (probably)
going to win again because his opponents are even more unpopular and incompetent than he is.
An article from someone I trust on that evidence which is not hearsay would be useful, any chance you would write one? I ask
because impeachment is either political or legal. If it's political then it's just the normal noise from D.C., if it's legal then
I want legal standards of evidence. The times I've paid attention the "evidence" has been at the level of someone told me they
overhead a phone conversation or we all believed this, but Trump directly told me the opposite of what we all believed.
I'm looking for something like saying "I did not have sex with that woman" under oath as evidence of committing perjury.
...OTOH, Trump's move against Hunter Biden could possibly be a "high crime and misdemeanor" worthy of impeachment, but given
the existence of Acts of Congress against foreign corrupt practices and the New York Times investigation of Hunter Biden, it becomes
hard to untangle Trump's motives. It would seem to be difficult to prove that an impeachable "high crime and misdemeanor" occurred
if probable cause for a Hunter Biden investigation existed. If we prove (NOT assume, as the Dems currently are doing) that probable
cause did not exist then impeachment would be a slam dunk. If we don't prove that then Trump's impeachment will not be seen as
legitimate by large segments of the public. We really are teetering on the edge of something deep here.
You think that finding out what the son of a sitting vice President, a VP who was also 'point man' for Ukraine, was doing getting
millions from a corrupt Ukrainian entity is strictly 'personal gain'? You think that looking into Ukrainian influence into our
election is 'personal gain'?
Oh the spreading of democracy worldwide nonsense again! Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and
in blood! This sycophant also brought up Pres. Trumps son Baron into the proceedings for no good reason but to score points at
tea time back at Stanford. What a demagogue.
It's always such a lie too, because it's never really about spreading "democracy" -- that is, they don't at all like
the spread of true democracy when the people genuinely prefer and vote for Putin, Assad, Orban, etc., to say nothing of when democracy
demonstrates the true will of the people in cases such as Brexit.
No, they are only using the mendacious phrase "spreading democracy" as a cover for what they really want to spread: globalist
neoliberalism.
Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and in blood!
Yes please give us more democracy, so the uniparty can sell our jobs to global capital and our children's future to foreigners.
Nations have survived tyranny, despots, and brutal civil wars. It is not at all clear whether the nations of the West will survive
your beloved democracy.
...Of course, anyone with a brain knows it's not about Ukraine, a country having no bearing at all on the vital interests of
the United States. Rather, Ukraine is a handy pretext serving the interests of America's military-industrial complex and the enrichment
of our Ruling Class.
If Trump wanted to prove a really great president, he could forge a peace with Russia (which would entail getting a settlement
with Ukraine). It is insane, and only to the benefit of woke liberal capitalists to frame Russia as a permanent enemy. Carving
developed nations into 'us vs them', so the liberal elite can divide and rule us. They use this strategy on multiple fronts, to
ensure success:
US vs Russia
US/UK vs EU
'pseudo-Christian' west vs islam
1st world vs multicutural diversity migration
Pragmatically, we will need an alliance with Russia (and possibly with a post-communist China) to stave off the invading colonisers
looking to grift a free lunch in the 'rich' west (its only the 1% wealthy in the west who are really rich, not the >90% peasant
class), not to mention the ideologically/religiously motivated muslims planning to implement the global sharia subjugation of
the pseudo-Christian west demanded in the Koran.
Sadly, Trump does seem to be proving he lacks the organisational skills to drain the swamp - a virtually impossible task for
any one person. A 'friendship pact' with Russia (perhaps swapping trade access to US for human rights, democratic and media freedoms
in Russia) would be a big step forward to building a united free west. Perhaps bring Poland and Hungary in to to reassure Russia,
and strengthen the protections for Christians and traditional family life. But for this to happen Trump needs to have a Secretary
of State he trusts heavily.
... Signify... whatever, anything, but please not too much thinking. Same with Washington's foreign policy blob. What matters
is that the world's is forced to take America's opinions into account, no matter how bone-headed they are. If they put the world
on fire that's called collateral damage (Ledeen Doctrine).
What I find funniest about this whole "impeachment" shenanigan is how the Democrats honestly think anyone doesn't believe they're
guilty of exactly what they're accusing Trump of. All Trump has to do is reveal seven such cases to the American people after
this whole shenanigan is over and turn their own words against them and they are THROUGH! This might honestly be the biggest political
mistake in the history of our Republic.
The whole thing is nonsense. Democracy is particular to the West, and is frankly innately fragile and dying a proper death
-- slowly, mind you, but dying it is, and thankfully so.
The whole Russia situation is hilarious and a thousand percent ideological. I sat next to these same assholes in college in
the 1980s as they blithely handwaved "no true Scotsman" type arguments about the Soviet Union, and moral equivalency and so on,
and then of course without their precious hearts skipping one single beat, they switched immediately to "Russia is evil and must
be stopped at all costs" when Russia emerged with a nationalist/rightist government.
The left is shameless, duplicitous and disingenous in the extreme when it comes to Russia (and frankly anything else).
To be honest it was my collegiate experiences in the 1980s, comparing the handwaving garbage with what my own eyes saw in the
East Bloc, that made me a lifetime, permanent rightist. The left is bankrupt, full of liars and dissemblers and needs to be stopped
at any cost.
My guess is that Russia has enough nuclear weapons and the capability to launch them at every major city in the US. Vladimir
is no drunkard like Boris Yeltsin was. We should not provoke the Russian bear into lashing out at the US. The old Soviet Union
lost some 20 million of its citizens in WWII and did the heavy lifting in defeating the Nazis. Hands up if you want to send your
19 year old son to fight the Russians in Sevastopol. Does the average American even know where Sevastopol is? More than likely,
a war with Russia would result in the nuclear bombing of New York, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Houston for
starters.
I'd highly recommend the films "Ukraine on Fire" and "Revealing Ukraine" (available on Amazon Prime w/o extra rental $)
for a good basic primer on the Ukraine over the last 15 years, particularly of US interference and malfeasance in promoting the
coup in 2014. And if anyone "interfered" in the 2016 election it wasn't Russia, but the Ukraine, particularly its very pro-Hilary
President Poroshenko (illegitimate though he was and remains after the unconstitutional US-backed coup in against Yanukovich in
2014).
NATO should have been moth-balled c. 1992. Instead it is hell-bent on aggressive expansion and antagonizing Russia, for
no reason (other than to line the pockets of corrupt US and other officials, "business-men" i.e. oligarchs, etc.).
I'm halfway cheering for Russia in their conflict with Ukraine. That's Russia's sphere of influence, Ukraine has no business
in the EU or in NATO. Any sane American government would be courting Russia in the new Cold War that's obviously coming with The
Chinese Communist Party. Instead we pulled all of the former European countries in the USSR into our sphere of influence.
The whole conflict was completely avoidable and is 100% due to America's and Western Europe's dumb actions since the fall of the
USSR.
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings.
The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or
Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that
"I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding
the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks
have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.
Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to
the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that
I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.
On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying
files on a USB stick.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up
strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible
calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious
questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear
contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the
remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of
a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against
the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short,
and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining
the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/
.)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced
as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original
form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the
level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance
is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See
http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to
have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with
Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions,
and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that
Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not
justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh
talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes
were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in
this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation.
(If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but
it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise
the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak
before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What
was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to
help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian
conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how
exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian
link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are
any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question
when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted
to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd,
2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small,
Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the
public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order
to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would
go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted
communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a
false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services,
is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After
all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories
on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the
so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside
firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers
since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million
funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of
CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of
Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor
to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign,
reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial
Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the
Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward
Russia. The Council in turn is financed
by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council
funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with
Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's
role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when
Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist
George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and
the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State
Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization
repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint
alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign
country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released
by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's
own claims, as Breitbart News
documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S.
officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of
other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the
Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the
"cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The
complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden
corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials
told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on
22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met
with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three
more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko
"also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former
Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called
whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of
Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced
above."
The OCCRP
report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and
business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt
outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed
publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use
connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP
and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia
collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal
billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also
funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International
Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are
"disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly
funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National
Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what
happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of
your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive
report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not
"obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked
by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation
that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC
reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server
and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director
James Comey
confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the
DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly
respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the
servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access
to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to
servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been
mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions
caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the
official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "
Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker
and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has
turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the
attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems
to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on
many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag,
Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White
House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary
problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy.
Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded
CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's
president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief
threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During
that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and
organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the
International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in
history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible
cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called
Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch,
Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his
"proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian
hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately
involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to
begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply
"agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND"
assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence
that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the
system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD).
It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0
had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked –
before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers
were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents
to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated
statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike
naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the
DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic
National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website
posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC
leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had
been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no
harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least,
Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military
(GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also
had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on
Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged"
attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking
for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by
the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that
"Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian
spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct
– even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's
company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the
systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag
report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made
CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had
reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence
operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no
evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a
massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found
emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race
against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three
other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately
"believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to
confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the
DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about
Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois,
and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included
the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of
Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect
about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered
members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that
failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S.
Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so
Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian
nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for
scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the
family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an
encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to
work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was
more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his
illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to
Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover
operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with
Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six
arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail
accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the
Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected
more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his
supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a
paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed
just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch
to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before
it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had
identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and
Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is
plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even
speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no
references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to
see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America.
Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect
the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major
player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it
possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a
top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and
protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an
American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically
top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on
a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the
top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one
were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in
America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system
like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system
from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so
that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the
Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly
any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do
American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about
Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in
retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and
intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their
systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's
cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were
reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that
said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption
codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top
scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip
to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best
cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design
his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working
for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of
which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence
corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are
not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri,
which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are
responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or
arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits"
when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's
"suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the
CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who
works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and
distribution of digital certificates which are used to
verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital
certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central
repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a
cryptographic
technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure
public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures .
Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key
bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user
key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is
considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the
market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear
physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between
America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he
has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its
name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does
Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with
a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's
Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear
physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that
paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and
cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world
to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S.
military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control)
Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher
Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go
figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
VT
IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications
including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA
-Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014
– Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve
Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S.
Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service
architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile
Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security
practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging
platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002
– Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content
distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management
solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital
Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated
programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions
for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.
Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and
departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to
write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up
the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama
administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his
father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American
networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful
cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence
agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems
like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and
Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a
"frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence
to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama
administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find
real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very
issues: "If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the
algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic
Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added
to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless,
here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the
DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and
currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group
RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence.
And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our
intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on
the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear
(RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a
hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails,
which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say
about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also
interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is
second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions.
level 1
Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian
intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal.
level 1
and have to cringe.
Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but
that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together
pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously
valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc.,
it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit
untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not
one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia
not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also,
government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do
wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's
what the DNC is lying about.
Not that hacks
happened
(they undoubtedly did), but about
who
did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered
(they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing
the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth,
like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The
spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got
hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups
did
hack the
DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with
the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who
supposedly harmed them.
level 2
What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from
pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking.
level 1
DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the
server.
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about
from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done
with all this Russia shit.
level 2
Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this
has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for
the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed.
Continue this thread
level 1
George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing
relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing
Information War material as evidence for MH17:
Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital
Forensics Lab
Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is
Ukrainian Intelligence
How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently
fraudulent data
Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy
Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as
foreign spies.*
level 1
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said
with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence
agency GRU . CrowdStrike
founder,
Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist
George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers.
The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years
ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until
October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and
possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up
Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT,
the BBC , and Press-TV. His
articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews,
the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been
cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson,
SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Fancy Bear is Ukrainian IntelligenceShaltai Boltai
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the
DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their
job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing
ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely
presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev
and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private
intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began
focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well."
[1]
The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence
operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine
Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea
Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena
Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian
government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels
officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American
colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against
Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe
from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated
by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the
threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for
making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based
on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are
written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in
nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution.
The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to
the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they
have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and
of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for
Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information
Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they
were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai
Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance
which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian
Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know
their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work
directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to
very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged
data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta
went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The
First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers
The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and
Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers
happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin
sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010,
Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't
we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a
billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence
agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's
associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo
hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts
continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai
Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking
at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Alexandra
Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and
Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for
the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the
state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your
Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime.
It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured
servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid
Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife
Huma Abedin using
Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed
herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to
do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email
server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and
afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most
likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate
passwords.
Dobrovolska
Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former
staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2][3] Alexandra Chalupa was
running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives,
hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in
2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington
to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to
please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the
Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US
secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over
sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy
in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time
she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y.
Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN ,
[5] DNC sources said Chalupa
told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information
against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect
Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison
and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and
Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers.
[6] She took the Rada
[parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information
Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the
Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the
infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top
Secret Passwords From Team Clinton
One very successful method of hacking is called
social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and
physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This
includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in
passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research.
On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the
Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State
personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the
hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called
X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta,
Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC
hack
There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB
stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password
privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now
because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It
is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to
State Department
servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian
Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw
foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential
election . The leaker may
have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might
have.
Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell
Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing
the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing
substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security
firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on
par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is"
statement showing this.
The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of
specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors
that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an
out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the
Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when
it is their business to know?
The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words
like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri
Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking
America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of
Russian involvement?
information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or
unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be
free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's
that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with
McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John
McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that
Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's
emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like
the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is
probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have
specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes
beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike
insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant
for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired
by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian
intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI
official who consults for NBC News.
In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian
intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers
call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other,
known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called
the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to
be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post
adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in
the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks."
The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that
Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former
Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine
would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this
wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary
Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in
Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing
intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If
it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be
investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side
isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia
influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose
conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a
hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason
are exposed.
According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After
Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a
meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns
within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the
Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal
probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her
to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her
sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news.
The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by
Russian actors based on the work done byAlexandra Chalupa? That is the
conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the
Russian government connection.
How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he
should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a
presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has
vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of
his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the
measures taken were directly because of his work.
Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian
propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When
it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to
influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard
to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the
Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other
statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in
Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is
OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed
in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these
people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating
both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed.[8] There is no
getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an
authoritarian
fascism .
Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms.
Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko
and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the
Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi,
Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan
and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the
Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed
evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the
"heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas
is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached
to it because it ended in a coup.
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa
described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young
activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say
is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after
Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy
Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He
became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni
Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet
Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found
out.
At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense
of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen
either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to
reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an
appointment with Yurash.
Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with
Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice
is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the
Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent
at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than
twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council,
where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor
for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront
of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and
especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main
goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central
and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia.
Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you
willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support
throughout the campaign.
What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the
Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship
status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite
conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground
and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or
Homeland Security?
When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that
could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked
heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it
opens up criminal conspiracy.
If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants
a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic
Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of
his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri
Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a
crime.
Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence
groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and
Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the
CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and
its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for
the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be
investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is
also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely
resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon
Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service
Crowdstrike offers?
In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.
[11] They consider the
CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance
is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity,
Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the
Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he
writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This
image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker
network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The
network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for
Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence.
The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates
journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could
be on the list.
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of
Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his
"Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the
past.
Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA
Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the
Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single
tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information
Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and
Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or
shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be
shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it
to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through
the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded
and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and
with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article,
one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor
members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor
admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's
understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very
powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of
the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means
for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp
movements in international politics."
What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it
out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored,
Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack
they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are
also laughing at US intel efforts.
The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting
a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt
Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by
Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought
the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of
the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate
the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any
other way," he told me. "I have."
While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism
is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering
a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't
serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to
Ukraine.
The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for
conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these
hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in
international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment
of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of
rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
According to Obama the
hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop
until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into
November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying
to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election --
contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned
Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and
still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to
Bill
Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off
the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does
not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking
ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have
taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever
did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating.
That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law
enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a
purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was
prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in
federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the
spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the
CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to
Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate
to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was
sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door
for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named
Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking
scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry
platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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the English king beheaded in public, railed against England's enemies. There was, he told
Parliament that day, an axis of evil abroad in the world. And this axis – led by Catholic
Spain – was, at root, the problem of a people that had placed themselves at the service
of 'evil'. This 'evil', and the servitude that it beget, was the evil of a religion
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When
the United States, the United Kingdom, and the "coalition of the willing" attacked Iraq in
March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of "shock and awe" was just the
beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority
bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.
![Iraqi security forces are seen at Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province [File: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/1/8/691173f4ac6b42f6b95df126ad4421bd_18.jpg "Iraq army says no Iraqi casualties as 22 missiles strike bases")
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Ben Norton Ben Norton
is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the
producer of the Moderate Rebels
podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton . bennorton.com
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